American interest in human rights policy took place after the Second World War, when that conflict’s terrible toll prompted an international call for the promotion of the rights and liberties of all citizens.
Cold War security interests relegated human rights to a unenforceable symbol during the 1950s and 60s, but the foreign policy scandals of the Nixon and Ford administrations compelled Congress to act. Reports of CIA assassination programs in Vietnam, the use of torture by agents trained by U.S. police advisors in Latin America and Southeast Asia, and the American role in the overthrow of Chile’s President Allende fed a growing sense of outrage about the conduct of U.S. foreign policy in the early 1970s.
In the face of mounting evidence of dirty tricks and brutal policies, lawmakers rebelled against their President. Through a series of increasingly tough measures, Congress ordered the White House and the Department of State to slow or slash aid to countries responsible for human rights abuses. In 1976, Congress passed an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act requiring the Secretary of State to publish an annual human rights report.
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB83/press.htm