Submitted by Eleni Delimpaltadaki on Wed, 12/10/2008 - 7:08pm
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Study released by WorldPublicOpinion.org on December 9, 2008. 

The WorldPublicOpinion.org study shows a high degree of consensus among Americans in support of the principles enunciated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Vast majorities of Americans favor most areas of human rights issues, including equality, women's rights, racial justice, food, education and health care, and believe strongly that their government has their responsibility to secure. Yet only a modest majority endorses an unequivocal rule against torture, which has declined since 2006. Many Americans see human rights as crucial to American values and they worry that our national policies and practices are not living up to those principles, as indicated in  The Opportunity Agenda national poll, released last year on the International Human Rights Day. The poll, along with a series of focus groups and interviews that were also conducted, represents the most extensive body of opinion research ever assembled on this subject. 

Women’s rights: Four out of five (82%) believe that their government should make an effort to prevent discrimination against women. About half (48%) think the government should do more in this regard. A slight majority (52%) says that it is already doing enough (35%) or that it should not be involved in this kind of thing (17%).

Racial and Ethnic Discrimination: Americans widely believe that the government should make an effort to prevent racial and ethnic discrimination (83%); a slight  majority says that the government is already doing enough in that regard (55%) or should not be involved in such efforts (17%). 86% believe that employers should not be allowed to turn away qualified applicants on the basis of race or ethnicity and 69% think the government has the responsibility to prevent this form of discrimination. More than four in five (82%) say they have seen treatment of minorities improve over their lifetime. 

Social and economic rights: Americans broadly agree their government has the responsibility to meet the basic needs of their citizens education (83%), healthcare (77%), and food (74%), but these majorities, while large, are lower than in other countries. Americans evaluate their government the most negatively on healthcare out of any developed country polled, although they are more positive in their evaluations of government efforts on education and food.

Prohibition against torture: While Americans oppose the use of torture on the whole, only a modest majority endorses an unequivocal rule against torture (53%), which has declined since 2006, and 44% favor an exception for terrorists. Support for making exceptions for torture in the case of terrorists has grown among Americans since 2006 (44%, up from 36%), while the majority opposing the use of torture in all cases has fallen slightly (53%, down from 58%)

Methodology:The poll of the United States and other 24 nations was conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org in two waves, from December 2007 to April 2008 and from July to October 2008. Funding for this study was provided by the Oak Foundation and the Calvert Foundation. For more information, please visit http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_page/576.php?nid=&id=&pnt=576&lb.