The Human Rights First Scorecard--And Mine

Human Rights First has published a report card, entitled "Assessing the Obama Administration’s Record of Compliance with the Rule of Law and Human Rights in National Security Policy." In reading it over, I find myself disagreeing with so many of the premises of the grading criteria that I can't decide whether I agree with the grades the group has assigned. For example, Human Rights First gives the president an F on "Closing the Guantanamo Bay Prison"--which I've always thought was a real misfire as a presidential policy goal to begin with. It gives him an F as well on "Ending Military Commissions that Fail to Comply with the Rule of Law"--though I don't believe that military commissions do fail to comply with the rule of law. And it gives him a D for his failure in "Ending Indefinite Detention"--something I very much do not want to see him do. I think I'm just the wrong person to evaluate this report card. I don't have enough policy objectives--or maybe values or first principles--in common with Human Rights First to find the group's grades probative. That said, I'm intrigued by the project. Maybe I'll write a report card of my own, identifying the axes along which I would evaluate the administration's performance in the same areas Human Rights First has identified. The difference in the grades may be interesting. The difference in the questions will certainly be so.