"Global Good Samaritans, " the small but significant group of states that actively promote · human security in their foreign policies, are critical components of the international response to internal violence and role models for collective security. Global Good Samaritans "punch ab0ve their weight" in providing common goods of international norms of human rights, support for global institutions of the #international human rights regime, " peacekeeping and conflict resolution, humanitarian foreign aid, and reception of refugees. This study analyzes the determinants and maps the influence of an active human rights foreign policy, through a series of comparative case studies. The classic cases of Sweden, Canada, and Costa Rica show the evolution of promotion policies in widely differing societies. Long-standing patterns of similarity in ideology and decision making in these classic cases can then be tested by comparison to shifting human rights policies in Japan, South Africa, and the Netherlands . · Finally, the study will examine the cumulative impact and network of human security promotion in international institutions, as a key component of global governance and a source of solutions to urgent international problems . "Like-minded states" have tipped the balance in international negotiations like the International Criminal Court, fostered innovative transnational solutions to humanitarian crises such as the Kimberley Accords on conflict diamonds, and are beginning to form permanent institutional referents through the Human Security Network . In an era of shifting functions of U.S. hegemony, rising importance of regionalism, and political evolution in Asia, Japan's role in such human security networks is likely to have a growing influence on US-Japan relations.