Last week, a U.N. committee adopted a resolution recommending the General Assembly adopt a declaration against human cloning. The resolution grew out of an earlier proposal by Italy (supported by the Bush Administration) for an international convention to ban human cloning. I don’t have anymore to say about the merits of banning human cloning by international treaty than I do...
Bolivia has indicted its ex-President Sanchez de Lozada for genocide, apparently due to his responsbility for the deaths of some 60 Bolivians protesting plans to develop and export natural gas. Lozoda is apparently living in the U.S. but there seems no basis for the U.S. to reject extradition under this 1996 extradition treaty with Bolivia. If these charges are for...
The U.S. announced Friday that it has concluded the Environmental Cooperation Agreement supplementing the environmental provisions of the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA). Unlike other environmental side agreements, this agreement establishes a permanent Environmental Cooperation Commission composed of permanent representatives from the environmental agencies of each country. Moreover, in a nod toward criticisms of lack of transparency, the...
Am I the only person startled by Iraq's apparent decision to adhere to the International Criminal Court? Apparently, I am because none of the U.S. papers or even the BBC are reporting this story. The only reports I have been able to find confirming this announcement by the outgoing provisional government in Iraq have been in French newspapers. My French...
As I explained here, Dean Anne Marie Slaughter of Princeton is widely known for her study of transnational networks of governmental agencies and institutions that complement and may even substitute for traditional, formal forms of international cooperation in the form of treaties and international organizations. Whether they know it or not, the Bush Administration often follows this approach in a...
According to reports, Japan has agreed to modify its U.S. security alliance to include Taiwan as a "common strategic objective." This may sound innocuous enough, but it means that for the first time, Japan will publicly commit itself to support the U.S. in the event of a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan. What kind of support it will provide is...
A new poll shows that the number of Americans who view the U.N. favorably has fallen from 44% to 37% since November, suggesting that the UN Oil-for-Food Scandal is having a negative effect (via Instapundit). Of course, only 54% of those polled were actually following the story but of those, 62% believe Kofi Annan should resign. These poll results are...
According to this report from Agence France Press, Iraq's interim government has accepted the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. There is no confirmation of this news from the ICC itself. This could be big news because depending on the nature of Iraq's acceptance, U.S. soldiers operating in Iraq could become subject to the ICC's jurisdiction (assuming that Iraq and...
A group of Rwandans has filed a suit in France accusing French soldiers of complicity with the 1994 genocide of Tutsis. The French government probably bears the greatest responsibility (other than the Hutus themselves, obviously) for what happened in Rwanda given France's longtime support for the Hutu government there and its relatively large military presence in the region. ...
The EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana may be conceding defeat on Europe's effort to win a Security Council referral for Darfur. Apparently, winning U.S. support for a referral is a lost cause, although there is still some hope that the U.S. will abstain from vetoing the referral. Still, the UK government has suggested its position on an ICC referral...
Professor Stephen Krasner, of Stanford's Poli-Sci Dept, has been appointed the new Director of Policy Planning for the State Department. Prof. Krasner is a well-respected scholar of international relations (his most recent book is Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy and an excerpt is published here) who will bring even more academic credibility to the post than usual, which has traditionally been held...
Today marks the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, one of the most ambitious international environmental treaties in world history. Whatever I might think of the merits of this project, the creation of a worldwide system of greenhouse gas emission regulation certainly is worthy of my interest as a scholar...
