Pompeo explained the need for the commission on Thursday, noting that an increase in the number of recognized human rights presents "risks of collision" between rights claims, as well as "risks of trivializing core American values." In his time at the State Department, he said, as cables from around the world came in he realized officials were discussing rights in ways that were "deeply inconsistent."
Last year, Pompeo charged the commission with studying the nature and historical foundations of human rights, with the hope that it would be part of "one of the most profound reexaminations of the unalienable rights in the world since the 1948 Declaration."
On Thursday, the commission released its report at an event in Philadelphia, with Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York offering the invocation.
God has "bestowed upon and ingrained into the very nature of his creatures certain inalienable rights enshrined by the founders," Dolan said, noting that they are "rights flowing from the innate dignity of the person," are "self-evident in reason and nature," and are "celebrated" in Divine Revelation.
Dolan asked God's blessing "upon this noble project" of the commission, "as we renew our sense of duty to share our country's wisdom on rights inherent to the very nature of the human person, never, ever to be trampled."
Glendon, introducing the report, noted various threats to human rights around the world, especially China "aggressively promoting a very different concept" of rights that puts "national priorities" over freedoms of speech and assembly, and free elections. She also pointed out recent technological advances that pose threats to human rights, such as artificial intelligence, data collection, and surveillance techniques.