Human Rights

This paper will examine the implications of the end of European empire in the mid-1970s for American thinking about the nature of decolonization, self-determination and human rights, both domestically and globally. It will suggest that US diplomacy towards decolonizing territories in the mid-1970s was partially constituted by 'domestic' self-determination claims deployed by African Americans, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans of others, claims couched in the language of human rights and self-determination.