The Report of the Commission on Unalienable Rights
Why the Controversy?
Featuring
Dr. Peter Berkowitz
Director, Policy Planning Staff, U.S. Department of State
and Executive Secretary, Commission on Unalienable Rights
Dr. Aaron Rhodes
President, Forum for Religious Freedom-Europe and
former Executive Director, International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights
Hosted by
Brett D. Schaefer
Jay Kingham Senior Research Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs,
The Heritage Foundation
Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo announced the formation of a Commission on
Unalienable Rights in July 2019 and charged the members to meet with a broad group of
experts and write a report to advise the Secretary on how to pursue and champion “human
rights grounded in our nation’s founding principles and the principles of the 1948 Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.” The Commission published its draft report last month and it has
received both acclaim and criticism. Please join Commission member Peter Berkowitz and
human rights expert Aaron Rhodes to discuss the report and why it elicited such varied
reactions.