Despite its chunky title, the government’s recently released “Framework Document on SA National ‘s Interest and its Advancement in a Global Environment” lays out a state-of-the-art consideration of the global, continental and regional context within which the country’s domestic objectives are to be pursued. It’s a far cry from the elegant simplicity of the Mandela era, when in a 1993 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, the former president wrote that “human rights will be the light that guides our foreign affairs”.