Normalization and Human Rights in Cuba

In December 2015, Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro announced a historic change: the United States and Cuba would begin to normalize their bilateral relationship, opening formal diplomatic channels between the two countries for the first time in decades. So much has happened in the intervening months. The two presidents met in person at the Summit of the Americas. The White House unilaterally eased travel to Cuba and removed the island from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. The U.S. embassy in Havana and the Cuban embassy in Washington reopened, and Cuban ambassador Cabañas recently became an officially credentialed representative of the Cuban government in the United States.

Carl Meacham