WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Monday laid out a human rights agenda that recognized the limits of American authority: emphasizing the need for change within countries, defending engagement with adversaries like Myanmar and Iran and asserting that differences with big countries like China and Russia are best hashed out behind closed doors.

“We must be pragmatic and agile in pursuit of our human rights agenda, not compromising on our principles, but doing what is most likely to make them real,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a wide-ranging address at Georgetown University.

Mrs. Clinton’s remarks came a week after President Obama, in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, warned that there would be consequences for countries that brutalize their own people. Together, the speeches appeared to be an attempt to answer critics who say the Obama administration has not staked out a forceful position on human rights.

But while Mr. Obama’s tone was soaring, Mrs. Clinton’s was more earthbound. She offered a list of examples of how the United States could affect change in countries by working with democracy groups, multilateral organizations and socially responsible corporations.

Mrs. Clinton also defended the administration’s reluctance to publicly chide China and Russia for human rights abuses, given the range of other strategic interests the United States has with both countries. Public opprobrium, she implied, was better left for small countries.

“Sometimes, we will have the most impact by publicly denouncing a government action, like the coup in Honduras or the violence in Guinea,” she told a group of students. “Other times, we will be more likely to help the oppressed by engaging in tough negotiations behind closed doors, like pressing China and Russia as part of our broader agenda.”

“In every instance,” Mrs. Clinton said, “our aim will be to make a difference, not prove a point.”

Human-rights groups harshly criticized Mrs. Clinton for sidelining human rights issues on her first visit to China last February. Other critics have voiced frustration with the administration’s policy toward Sudan, an approach that they say offers more incentives than prods to a government whose leader has been charged with crimes against humanity because of the genocide in Darfur.

Last Thursday, a group of human rights advocates met with Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, to express their concerns.

On Monday, Mrs. Clinton said, “We must continue to press for solutions in Sudan where ongoing tensions threaten to add to the devastation wrought by genocide in Darfur.” She insisted that the administration would seek to protect ethnic minorities in Tibet and the Xinjiang region in China, as well as people who signed Charter 08, a manifesto that calls for democratic reform in China.

Mrs. Clinton’s specific reference to the signatories of Charter 08 was worthy of praise, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.

But he argued the administration was still wrong to believe that publicly airing concerns about human rights would somehow undermine the relationship between Washington and Beijing.

“The perception in China is that the United States is confronting the government less on human rights because we owe them money,” Mr. Malinowski said in a telephone interview. “Every sign of reticence on human rights becomes a metaphor for American weakness.”

Over all, however, he said he had detected promising signs in the administration’s approach to human rights. After early wavering, for example, Mr. Obama struck a balance between supporting the human-rights goals of Iranian opposition figures while not appearing to side with any faction, he said.

There has been an evolution, Mr. Malinowski said, from seeking engagement to seeking engagement with the threat of pressure to back it up.

Critics point out that the State Department has cut funding for several nonprofit groups that track human-rights abuses in Iran, though others say these groups had little to do with advancing democracy there.

While Mrs. Clinton said the United States would press for democracy around the world, she linked it to development — avoiding the sometimes single-minded emphasis of the Bush administration on freedom.

In describing a policy of “principled pragmatism,” Mrs. Clinton said the United States would approach situations flexibly, depending on the circumstances. She grouped countries into three categories: those that would like to protect human rights, but are unable to (young African democracies); those that could do better, but choose not to (Cuba and Nigeria); and those that are neither willing nor able to protect their citizens (Congo).

Mrs. Clinton showed a rare flash of passion in discussing the systematic rape of girls and young women in Congo, which she visited in August. She also singled out for criticism Uganda, which is considering a law that would make homosexual conduct a criminal offense.

In its low-key tone, Mrs. Clinton’s speech was a stark contrast to the impassioned speech she gave as first lady at a United Nations women’s conference in Beijing in 1995. But administration officials said Mrs. Clinton’s goal was not rhetoric but a road map to follow Mr. Obama’s big themes.

“The world still looks to the United States to be a force in human rights,” said Michael H. Posner, an assistant secretary of state who oversees human rights. “But we are in a world where governments, as a whole, have less power than they once did. Let’s take the world as we now see it.”

www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/world/15clinton.html