Canadian international human rights policy: The cases of Cuba and China

The purpose of this study is to examine the international human rights policy of Canada with respect to that of the United States. The assumption is made that given the fact that Canada and the United States share many similarities with respect to culture and ideology, the human rights policies which they adopt should also be very similar. Furthermore, given the importance of the United States for Canada in terms of economics and security, it is assumed that Canada will tend to follow the lead of the United States. This paper, therefore, seeks to test these assumptions by using a case study method.; Chapter One provides a general outline of the concept of human rights by examining existing literature on the subject. The second part of Chapter One outlines the major considerations involved in the Canadian foreign policy decision making process.; Chapter Two examines the variables which affected the policies Canada adopted with respect to Cuba in 1961 and China in 1961.; Chapter Three examines the variables which affected the policies Canada adopted with respect to Cuba in 1996 and China in 1989.; Chapter Four attempts to identify a dominant variable which led Canadian governments to adopt policies contrary to those of the United States in spite of the numerous commonalities between them. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...