Jimmy Carter's elevation of human rights in U.S. foreign policy offers many urgent lessons for today. Whatever challenges he faced consistently applying the principles he championed as the 39th president, he made a radical break with decades of foreign policy tradition, changed the world's understanding of America's aspirations, showed deep empathy for individuals who had suffered human rights abuse and in so doing, made a lasting impact on both the United States and the world.
Much of the celebration of Mr. Carter's legacy has centered on his groundbreaking postpresidential work. Understandably so: Beyond his tireless volunteering, working to build affordable homes with Habitat for Humanity well into his 90s, the Carter Center - his passion for the past 42 years - has worked with USAID and others to nearly eliminate river blindness in the Western Hemisphere and to decrease the number of reported Guinea worm cases from more than three million per year in the mid-1980s to just 14 in 2023. Mr. Carter also changed the global understanding of what a free and fair election requires by pioneering the dispatch of diverse teams of impartial observers, which have monitored 125 elections in 40 countries. And after leaving office in 1981, he lent his mediation services to successive administrations, defusing tensions in such places as Guyana, Liberia and Sudan.
