Speech
Published on December 11, 2025
by Uzra Zeya
Thank you, Scott, for your human rights leadership over decades and your all too kind words. It’s an incredible honor to follow in your footsteps and those of the other remarkable Tex Harris Awardees. Meeting Tex Harris soon after I joined the State Department was a formative experience that shaped the trajectory of my diplomatic career, from being a third-tour human rights officer in Hafez al-Asad’s Syria to my most recent role in the Biden Administration. Inspired by Tex’s example, let me be forthright about the state of human rights diplomacy today.
We are at an existential crossroads for the defense of freedom and democracy around the world, including in the United States, and how we respond now will have a direct impact on American security, prosperity and well-being for years to come. This is not a question of red vs blue, the heartland vs the coastal cities, or MSNow vs FoxNews, It’s also not the exclusive purview of Washingtonians like myself. In fact, the trajectory of democracy and human rights globally matters to every American, regardless of one’s politics, faith, background, zipcode, or Spotify Wrapped playlist. And the warning signs are too abundant to ignore, such as the recently released U.S. National Security Strategy that deprioritizes human rights in U.S. diplomacy – except when it comes to our European allies – and embraces fringe Great Replacement white nationalist narratives on migration. We’ve seen longtime Allies questioning U.S. staying power that underpinned transatlantic security for the last 75 years; the spectacles earlier this year of the United States exiting the UN Human Rights Council and boycotting its own Universal Periodic Review; and the dismantlement of the U.S. Agency for International Development and decimation of the State Department bureaus responsible for human rights, refugee policy, and multilateral affairs, alongside elimination of the global women’s issues and global criminal justice offices and conflict stabilization bureau– all moves that dealt a debilitating blow to peace and security worldwide.
All this is happening as we approach the two-decade mark in a global democratic recession, per the dedicated experts at Freedom House, a storied, non-partisan organization whose life-saving support for human rights defenders under siege globally has been eviscerated by U.S. funding cuts. And make no mistake, the United States has joined the ranks of nations in democratic decline, according to respected, independent international observers like CIVICUS, as the rule of law, freedoms of expression and association, and separation of powers enshrined in our Constitution have been under near-daily assault since January 20.
So my question for all of us is, do we stand by, admire the problem, look the other way, or try and build a better, bipartisan alternative? As someone who devoted much of her adult life working to advance U.S. national security abroad – under 6 Presidents, Democrat and Republican – allow me to make the case for the latter. And at a moment when some question the cost-benefit or legitimacy of standing up for freedom abroad, I’d like to focus on three dimensions of U.S. human rights leadership where a renewed, bipartisan approach is crucial to anchoring American security, prosperity and well-being for years to come.
Number One: U.S. human rights leadership makes Americans safer by keeping authoritarians in check and rallying Allies and partners in common cause to push back. Ronald Reagan recognized this in his famous speech at Westminster in 1983 when he made the case for promoting an “infrastructure for democracy” overseas resulting in the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy, which has provided critical support to thousands of human rights champions around the world and earned strong bipartisan support since then.
In my most recent diplomatic role, traveling to over 60 countries, I saw first-hand the heavy toll of authoritarian overreach in every region of the world, alongside the promise of collective pushback. Take the devastating impact of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which generated Europe’s worst humanitarian and refugee crisis since World War II, upended global food and energy security from Africa to the Americas, and involved Russian abduction of tens of thousands of Ukrainian children to fates unknown. But the Kremlin’s aim of erasing Ukraine’s democracy overnight in 2022 was thwarted, thanks to the courage of the Ukrainian people and government and the determination of the U.S. and other partner nations to support them. Much of that crucial U.S. support for Ukrainian refugees, civil society, anti-corruption champions, and prosecutors of Russian war crimes was jeopardized by U.S. funding cuts this year, contravening bipartisan Congressional appropriations.
Adding insult to injury, the Trump Administration incorporated Russian positions on territorial concessions and NATO into its 28-point peace plan for Ukraine and won Kremlin plaudits for its just released National Security Strategy. Putin could not have asked for a better gift as he approaches the four-year mark of his further invasion, as the White House endorses Russian land grabs that he couldn’t secure by force, despite the steadfast help of his fellow autocrats in Tehran, Pyongyang, and Beijing.
Keeping autocrats in check is also a vital strategic aim of U.S. China policy, where bipartisan convergence made possible legislative breakthroughs like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and the Tibet Resolve Act, both aimed at holding the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to account for its brutal suppression of religious and ethnic minorities. I saw this bipartisan dynamic play out as a Commissioner of the Congressional Executive Commission for China (CECC) — a longtime platform for courageous human rights activists, scholars and journalists to call out CCP abuses inside and beyond China. But rather than bolster their efforts, the United States terminated USAID support that helped democratic Tibetan institutions grow and flourish in exile, eliminated the prospects of Chinese nationals fleeing religious or political persecution to obtain refugee protections here, and silenced the broadcasts of Voice of America and Radio Free Asia that delivered uncensored truth to hundreds of millions listeners in China and other closed societies for decades. It is striking that human rights are not mentioned once in the National Security Strategy’s section on China. Again, President Xi could not have asked for a better gift, particularly at a moment when the PRC is flexing its muscle to menace Taiwan – an issue that that same Strategy reduces to supply chains, ignoring the strategic import of Taiwan’s tremendous democratic trajectory.
This brings me to the second strategic dimension: U.S. human rights leadership makes Americans more prosperous by leveling the playing field for American workers, promoting rule of law which helps businesses protect innovation and resolve disputes peacefully, keeping kleptocrats and transnational criminals from stealing public resources or extorting American companies, and welcoming newcomers fleeing persecution who quite literally enrich our society. In other words, by prioritizing workers’ rights, rule of law, anti-corruption and transparency as core elements of U.S. foreign policy, bipartisan champions can help create greater opportunity for Americans at home, in addition to doing the right thing.
I’ve seen this win-win dynamic play out all over the world, from concerted U.S. government, NGO and private sector engagement that helped eliminate forced labor from the cotton sector in Uzbekistan, create new frameworks for garment worker safety in Bangladesh, and recover over $1billion in stolen assets in Malaysia. All of these anti-trafficking and anti-corruption efforts have been upended by the evisceration of U.S. foreign assistance in these areas and the decision to discontinue enforcement of laws such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, despite a strong body of bipartisan legislative backing, from the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act of 2000 to the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act of 2024.
The prosperity dividend also applies to U.S. efforts to welcome refugees, a multi-generational endeavor with a proud bipartisan and community-based tradition. My organization, Human Rights First, helped secure unanimous Senate adoption of U.S. Refugee Act of 1980— affirming the act of welcoming the oppressed as a quintessentially American value. Since then, we’ve learned of the immense contributions that millions of U.S.-based refugees have made to the communities that welcomed them. A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study showed that from 2005 to 2019, refugees delivered net gains of over $123 billion to the U.S. economy, in the form of jobs created, businesses launched, and taxes paid. This is one more reason why — in addition to saving lives and upholding U.S. and international law — it’s critically important that the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and access to asylum protections, legal immigration pathways that have been virtually eliminated, be restarted without delay.
The third and final strategic dimension I’d like to highlight is how U.S. respect for human rights and their universality upholds American well-being, especially when it comes to leading by example and protecting the integrity of our democracy for future generations. I know successive U.S. administrations – including President Biden’s– have fallen short in upholding human rights abroad, especially when it comes to applying human rights universally with U.S. partners, from Israel to El Salvador to Saudi Arabia. But our current trajectory not only deprioritizes human rights in our diplomacy but externalizes escalating domestic human rights abuses – from unlawful transfers of migrants to arbitrary detention in third countries to extrajudicial killings in Pacific and Caribbean boat strikes. This is why our active civil society, our free and independent media, and our separate and empowered judicial and legislative branches are indispensable to hold policymakers accountable to uphold the law and do the right thing. It’s also why we must robustly push back on efforts to restrict civil society or dissent, under the false mantle of fighting domestic terrorism.
So faced with this existential crossroads for democracy and human rights, let’s reject the path of least resistance, fear, or apathy. Instead let’s work together to rebuild bipartisan consensus for keeping authoritarians in check, for smart foreign assistance investments that help hold autocrats, U.S. partners, and kleptocrats to account and keep human rights defenders and independent journalism afloat. Together, we should welcome refugees and other immigrants who enrich our communities and national prosperity. And together, we must defend the freedoms and rights enshrined in our Constitution – and reflected in the Universal Human Rights Declaration adopted 77 years ago today – that are the ultimate source of our national strength.
Thank you.
