Trump administration's 'natural law' plan could prompt assault on women's rights and pave way for torture and death penalty expansion, experts warn

The Trump administration plans to launch a new human rights panel with a focus on “natural law”, sparking fear among experts it could be an attempt to upend a host of protections, including for women and LGBTQ+ people.

Titled the Commission on Unalienable Rights, the new body will provide Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, with advice and recommendations concerning international human rights issues.

“The Commission will provide fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation's founding principles of natural law and natural rights,” the State Department announced on Thursday.

The terms “natural law” and “natural rights” are sometimes invoked by conservatives espousing Christian values, and, according to director of the ACLU human rights programme Jamil Dakwar, have a history of association with racism and discrimination.

The panel, described as “necessary and in the public interest” by the department, is expected to meet at least once a month.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Politico quoted Mr Pompeo as saying the panel would help “connect up what it is we’re trying to achieve throughout the world, and how do we make sure that we have a solid definition of human rights upon which to tell all our diplomats around the world”.

“It was a project that I wanted to proceed on, and it’s an important review of how we think about human rights inside of our efforts in diplomacy,” he said.

He added the panel would be “deeply connected” to the department’s existing bureau dedicated to human rights, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

Mr Dakwar told The Independent the commission’s mandate was “vague and even suspicious”, particularly its invocation of “fresh thinking” and natural law.

“It invokes questions about whether this administration is interested … to make maybe torture permissible, or expand the use of the death penalty, redefine what human rights are to limit the use of them in the context of women’s rights and the access to their bodies, and in the context of reproductive rights.”

He added the idea of Christian values has been used in the past to discriminate against minorities including women and people in the LGBTQ+ community.

Mr Pompeo would likely use it as an attempt to “circumvent” the development of human rights and, like the White House’s use of “alternative facts”, attempt to introduce “alternative human rights”.

The commission comes after two years in which Donald Trump and his aides have demoted human rights as a core issue when conducting foreign policy.

It has largely ignored human rights abuses by allies such as Saudi Arabia, and has generally only invoked them to put pressure on adversaries such as Iran.

As well as rolling back funding for groups abroad which focus on female reproductive rights, the administration has also curtailed rights domestically, including for immigrants and LGBTQ+ people.

Washington DC director at Human Rights Watch, Sarah Margon, said the commission was “concerning” and that the White House’s recent history “doesn’t lend itself to a productive conversation that expands human rights”.

“If you look at the way this administration has engaged in human rights over the past 18 months to two years there is no real reason to be hopeful," she said.

The State Department failed to respond to The Independent at the time of publication.