...IRFA mandates the use of sticks by requiring the State Department to annually identify the worst offenders of religious freedom — “countries of particular concern” — and sanctions on those countries to encourage change. Yet new countries of particular concern have only been identified sporadically over the past 16 years and only rarely have unique sanctions been imposed. Such a limited use of sticks suggests that, aside from calling out religious freedom abuses in its annual reports, there are few practical consequences to limiting religious freedom. In response, many have called for a renewed, consistent use of sanctions to impose real costs on the most egregious perpetrators of religious intolerance. But even if sticks are more consistently imposed, they are meant primarily for the nine countries currently designated as countries of particular concern. That still leaves nearly 190 countries unaffected. To make a meaningful difference in the 95 percent of countries that are not the worst offenders, we must also use carrots. We must focus on “countries of particular opportunity” and incentivize them to take the sometimes difficult steps necessary to improve religious freedom. Fortunately, this positive approach is already envisioned by IRFA. IRFA already requires the government to identify foreign countries making “significant improvement in the protection and promotion of religious freedom” and it already allows positive incentives. These incentives include public commendation, cultural and scientific exchanges, diplomatic invitations for cooperation and the incentivizing use of assistance funds. The U.S. already gives away nearly $50 billion annually in assistance funds as humanitarian, developmental and military aid. If we linked that aid to improvements or good records in religious freedom, we could greatly incentivize religious freedom with little or no additional costs. By resetting our own resolve to positively encourage countries to protect international religious freedom ideals, a more nuanced national and foreign policy could advance our economies, improve our national security and promote a range of important social goods while reaffirming the intrinsic value of religious freedom itself. Brian J. Grim is founder and president of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, and is an affiliated scholar at Georgetown and Boston Universities. Robert T. Smith is managing director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies at Brigham Young Universtiy. Read more at national.deseretnews/article/3019/Time-to-reset-US-policy-on-international-religious-freedom.html#FyRZ4PKQARfreQE8.99
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 21:07:43 +0000
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