U.S. to Push Human Rights Globally, Christopher Says : Justice: Issue will guide policy in trade, foreign aid, he reports. U.N. chief links development and democracy.

Using some of the most forceful language on the issue by a senior U.S. official in recent years, Secretary of State Warren Christopher on Monday pledged a major new U.S. commitment to the cause of global human rights.

Addressing the opening session of the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights here, Christopher said the Clinton Administration will use the issue to define trade and foreign aid relationships with other nations and will press for speedy Senate ratification of four international human rights conventions that were signed during Jimmy Carter’s presidency but have languished since.

His remarks followed an hourlong opening address by U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali that was also viewed by observers as more forceful than expected.

In a reference meant for Third World nations, Boutros-Ghali warned that “there can be no sustainable development without promoting democracy” and later declared that nations failing to guarantee human rights should face the prospect of international action against them.

His statement was seen as a clear rejection of views formally put forward by several Asian nations that human rights violations could not be used as a pretext for outside intervention.

As required under conference rules, however, Boutros-Ghali stopped short of naming specific offenders.

Christopher, in his speech, also rejected the argument made by some developing nations that different cultures, traditions and social values call for different definitions of human rights. In a stern warning, he declared:

“Those who desecrate these rights must know that they will be ostracized. They will face sanctions. They will be brought before tribunals of international justice. They will not gain access to assistance or investment.”

He said the United States will also push for the establishment of a U.N. high commissioner for human rights and a new U.N. office to investigate violence against women.

“We must sharpen the tools of human rights diplomacy to address problems before they escalate into violence and create new pariah states,” he declared.

Two of the conventions signed during the Carter presidency that Christopher spoke of are aimed at eliminating racial discrimination and discrimination against women. The other two are the American Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Carter, who is attending the conference, said the treaties had been “basically ignored” by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Applauding the Clinton Administration’s decision to act on them, he said he hopes it signals that President Clinton will become a more forceful human rights advocate.

Aides to Christopher stressed that his speech was intended to underscore exactly that important shift in U.S. foreign policy: that the Administration will give greater emphasis to the promotion of democracy and human rights.

“In this post-Cold War era, we are at a new moment,” Christopher said.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas, whose nation currently holds chairmanship of the 108-nation Nonaligned Movement, argued the case for those nations that reject a Western view of human rights.

“In a world where domination of the strong over the weak and interference between states are still a painful reality, no country or group of countries should arrogate unto itself the role of judge, jury and executioner over other countries on this critical and sensitive issue,” Alatas said.

Although Boutros-Ghali’s speech Monday was unexpectedly forceful, the secretary general has come under heavy criticism for being too willing to compromise on human rights in order to avoid offending nations with dubious records on the issue.

Last month, he banned Chinese dissident Shen Tong from holding a news conference at the U.N. Secretariat building in New York after a complaint from China’s ambassador. Since arriving in Vienna, he has been at the center of several controversies, including the decision to ban the Dalai Lama from the conference center, again at China’s insistence.

More than 15 non-governmental human rights groups have also been prevented from attending the conference because of objections from individual countries.

The ban on the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, led 12 other Nobel peace laureates to boycott the conference’s opening ceremonies Monday.

Their absence was both highly embarrassing for the Austrian government, which had extended them personal invitations to attend, and damaging to the image of the conference itself, the first of its kind in 25 years.

It was also viewed as an ominous sign that, despite the commitments of many nations, the prospects of tough new enforcement and punitive measures coming out of the conference are increasingly remote.

“I think it is a very dangerous signal that governments are sending to the world,” said Pierre Sane, secretary general of Amnesty International, which won the peace prize in 1977. “ . . . It’s very symbolic. Someone like this is being excluded, while some of the worst offenders are going inside to discuss human rights.”

Human rights activists appeared to applaud Monday’s choice of Brazil to head the committee charged with drafting the conference’s final declaration, but they expressed concern that some of the worst rights abusers, such as China, Cuba, Syria and Yemen, were also awarded influential positions.