HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH WORLD REPORT 1994: Events...

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH WORLD REPORT 1994: Events of 1993 (Human Rights Watch: $20; 389 pp., paperback original). The organizations that issue this annual document--Africa Watch, Americas Watch, Asia Watch, Helsinki Watch, Middle East Watch--exist to monitor abuses around world. After analyzing conditions in 68 countries in 1993, the authors conclude that ongoing communal violence and the growing conceptual challenge to human rights necessitate the appointment of a United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The discussions include major developments within each country, any restrictions on monitoring, the work of regional organizations and U.S. policy toward the country. The inclusion of the latter suggests that the United States has somehow become the sole guarantor of human rights throughout the world--a role neither Congress nor the people ever voted to assume. No other industrialized country is subjected to comparable scrutiny of its foreign policy. The section on Japan ignores discrimination against people of Korean ancestry and the mistreatment of the aboriginal Ainu.