International Law
Who Speaks for the World? (4/5/2022)
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
...In the past, when humanity lived in more than one hundred countries, it was like living in more than 100 boats. All we needed were rules to ensure that the boats did not collide. Each boat had a captain or crew to take care of it. Today, with the shrinking of the world, 7 billion people live in 193 cabins on the same boat. We have captains and crews taking care of each cabin. But we have no captain or crew taking care of the boat as a whole. Kishore Mahbubani: the Great Convergence
"I know very well that a world government may have both good and bad qualities. Nonetheless, it is the only conceivable machinery which can prevent war. I do not believe that a world government would be just in all its decisions; but with technology at its present level, even a poor world government is preferable to none, since our first goal must be to avoid total destruction through war." (1948) Einstein on Politics, Rowe and Schulmann. Pg 455.
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International Policy Research and Evaluation
International Center for Not for Profit Law
International Rescue Committee
Center for Peace Studies Videos Lectures by Francis Boyle.
"The UN Charter is a treaty ratified by the United States and thus part of US law," Cohn, who is also a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and recently co-authored the book "Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent" said, "Under the charter, a country can use armed force against another country only in self-defense or when the Security Council approves. Neither of those conditions was met before the United States invaded Afghanistan. The Taliban did not attack us on 9/11. Nineteen men - 15 from Saudi Arabia - did, and there was no imminent threat that Afghanistan would attack the US or another UN member country. The council did not authorize the United States or any other country to use military force against Afghanistan. The US war in Afghanistan is illegal." Afghanistan: Where Empires Go to Die
When you seek to impose sanctions on the people trying to hold war criminals to account, rather than sanctions on the war criminals.
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) June 5, 2024
The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would impose sanctions on International Criminal Court judges, staff & their families. pic.twitter.com/gQu0aEBpk1
"In the United States, the Senate report on torture in the context of counter-terrorism operations is courageous and commendable, but profoundly disturbing. For a country that believes so strongly in human rights to have swiftly abandoned their fundamentals at a time of crisis is as astonishing as it is deplorable... Under international law, the report’s recommendations must be followed through with real accountability. There is no prescription for torture, and torture cannot be amnestied. It should also lead to examination of the institutional and political causes that led the US to violate the absolute prohibition on torture, and measures to ensure this can never recur." U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. (3/5/2015)
"The pursuit of unilateralism has not only done lasting damage to American credibility, but it has also split the West and undermined virtually every major global institution devoted to advancing the rule of law, beginning with the United Nations and reaching down to the latest creation, the International Criminal Court." (from Geoffrey Perret's book 'Commander in Chief')
"A large majority of the public believe that the United States should accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the World Court, sign the Kyoto protocols, allow the United Nations to take the lead in international crises, and rely on diplomatic and economic measures more than military ones in the "war on terror." Similar majorities believe the United States should resort to force only if there is "strong evidence that the country is in imminent danger of being attacked," thus rejecting the bipartisan consensus on "preemptive war" and adopting the rather conventional interpretation of the UN Charter reiterated by the U N's lead even if it in not the preference of US state managers."....Not only does the US government stand apart from the rest of the world on many crucial issues, but even from its own population." From Noam Chomsky's book Failed States. (pg 229)
"American policymakers disdain for multilateralism manifested itself when John Bolton, who notoriously stated that there was "no such thing" as the UN, was appointed the American ambassador to the UN in 2005."
Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. therefore [individual citizens] have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring." : Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1950
"The U.S, tried to use the UN Security Council to undermine the International Criminal Court but it came into force in 2011. 116 states were parties to the Statute of the Court, including all of South America, nearly all of Europe, and roughly half of Africa. The ICC came into force on July 1,2002, and has progressively gained legitimacy and acceptance all around the world." Kishore Mahbubani: the Great Convergence. pg 138
The only two countries that did not ratify the Convention on the rights of the child are the US and Somalia. A UN report documents the terrible violence against children that globally obtains today. "Every country in the world with the exception of two (Somalia and ... the United States) has ratified the International Convention on the Rights of the Child."
By not just refusing to endorse the new UN treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons but also to even participate in the negotiations that led up to its adoption, the Trump administration has undermined the United States’ moral standing in the world and jeopardized its national security by doing nothing to diminish the prospects of a nuclear war." Lawrence J. Korb (7/10/2017)
Biden lifts outrageous US Sanctions on Int’l Criminal Court; now it should Join Treaty of Rome on Human Rights (04/04/2021)
BREAKING: The Trump administration has put Fatou #Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) and one of her top aids, on the sanctions list historically reserved for war criminals and international terrorists.https://t.co/iUaeH4Hxmm pic.twitter.com/PXdguvRq5L
— Michel Paradis (@MDParadis) September 2, 2020
Justice for Ukraine and the U.S. Government’s Anomalous Int’l Criminal Court Policy (3/8/2022)
US rejects calls for regulating or banning ‘killer robots’ (12/2/2021)
The US should support the ICC and hold ourselves to international standards. (3/21/2019)
Bolton threatens sanctions against International Criminal Court (9/10/2018)
US 'threatens ICC judges with sanctions' (9/10/2018)
The Panama Papers: what's been revealed so far? (4/7/2016)
U.S. Standing Alone Against Children (3/7/2015)
Major Political Donors Have Access to TPP Documents. Everyone Else? Not So Much. (1/15/2014)
WikiLeaks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Environment Chapter: "Toothless Public Relations Exercise" (1/22/2014)
Stealth Multilateralism (9/2013)
The U.S. Government Does Not Want Americans to Travel Abroad (8/12/2013)
Viking Love: The Economist Gets It Wrong (2/8/2013)
American Public Vastly Overestimates Amount of U.S. Foreign Aid (11/29/2010)
World Court rules US execution of Mexican national defied international law (1/23/2009)
"Recently the United Nations led the world in condemning our conduct in the torture of prisoners and depriving them of simple due process at Guantanamo Bay. The United Nations demanded that Guantanamo Bay be closed. At the same time further acts of torture at Abu Ghraib prison were revealed by Australian television, pictures that show even worse abuses and degradation than those broadcast in America several years ago. We have squandered our standing as a leader in democracy. In its place we have become the epitome of hypocrisy across the earth, a nation that preaches to other nations concerning human rights and that secretly commits unconscionable acts of torture itself. I love my country. But I am ashamed of what my country does under the rubric of national security. We can never be secure by becoming the world's most blatant hypocrites." From Gary Spence's book Bloodthirsty Bitches and Pious Pimps of Power
Q: "David Krieger directs the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation in Santa Barbara. In a recent article, he asked the question, Why are there still nuclear weapons? And he proposes some answers. What would you say?
A: "Simply that the nuclear-armed states are criminal states. They have a legal obligation, confirmed by the World Court, to live up to Article 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which calls on them to carry out good-faith negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely. None of the nuclear states has lived up to it. The United States has violated the agreement much more than others. It's in the lead in violating the NPT”especially this administration, which has stated that it isn't subject to Article 6 and has developed new nuclear weapons systems. The Non-Proliferation Treaty is just one of a collection of treaties. The others have been dismantled and blocked by the Bush administration. in fact, the United States just entered into an agreement with India, ratified by Congress, that tears to shreds the central part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty." From Noam Chomsky's book What We Say Goes
(October 31,2008) 147 states at the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to move forward with work on an Arms Trade Treaty. Only the US and Zimbabwe voted against it. Code of Conduct For Arms Sales
Can the US reclaim the moral high ground ? Yale Law School Dean Koh's speech to Citizens for Global Solutions.
The Declaration of Independence reads "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.", but Republicans have shown only contempt for international law and the results are evident in the Pew Global Attitudes Project.
...the publics in many predominately Muslim countries, Latin America, and China see the United States as their greatest potential threat. For example, two-thirds of Chinese(66%) and nearly as many in Turkey and Pakistan (64% each), name the United States as the country that poses the greatest threat to their own country in the future. Majorities in Venezuela (54%) and Argentina (52%) also view the United States as a potential threat.
The Bush administration thumbed its nose at international law. Chertoff's vision spurned international law. Both Alito and Roberts dismissed international law as irrelevant to the United States. McCain's judicial plans are in lock step with Bush.
Bush made a number of disastrous decisions for the US. The results he promised: endless war, new arms race, torture, renditions, have cost the US the moral high ground and we have lost much of the prestige that we had painstakingly built over time. Programs to protect the environment and the people have been devastated so that military spending can proceed at ruinous levels. Congressional oversight has atrophied so that Constitutional checks have been all but destroyed.
The UN and its enforcement of constraints of international law could save us from the kind of failure brought upon us by the Bush administration, and it might have saved us from some of the Bush devastation.
Kofi Anan, when Secretary General of the UN, warned that the Iraq war is
illegal. Had his voice been heeded, the US might not have embarked
on the disastrous wars brought upon us by Bush. It is clear the
US standard of living declined as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The US has not ratified The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
The only two countries that did not ratify the Convention on the rights of the child are the US and Somalia. A UN report documents the terrible violence against children that globally obtains today. "Every country in the world with the exception of two (Somalia and ... the United States) has ratified the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)."