Frequent contributor Patrick O’Donnell has given me a heads-up that Brian Urquhart, the former Under-Secretary General of the U.N., has a review essay in the current New York Review of Books on recent books related to international law. He discusses two different editions of Philippe Sands’ Lawless World, Michael Byers’ new book on the law of the use of force and the Geneva Conventions, War Law, and Stephen Kinzer’s history of regime change as American foreign policy, Overthrow.
The discussion of Sands, in particular, relates to the discussion that Seth Weinberger, Patrick, and I have been having regarding my post on responsible stakeholders and revisionist states. I quote the following from the conclusion:
Brushing aside fifty years of international law in the name of the “global war on terrorism” is a bad idea for everyone, including the United States. Violating global rules undermines both America’s authority and standing and its long-term strategic interests. An already globalized and interdependent world cannot permit a return to a situation where each nation is entirely free to act as it wishes.
To use Sands’s words, the United States, like other countries, badly needs international agreements and international cooperation to promote and protect its own interests, and cooperation requires rules. The conclusion seems plain: the United States should reengage in respecting and developing the rule-based system that it largely initiated after World War II and which has for many years served it well.
Such an approach could certainly not have worse consequences than the recent attempt to abandon the idea of international restraint and go it alone. Some US administrations have vigorously supported international regulation in the past. On April 1, 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the annual meeting of the American Society of International Law that the US “has been and will continue to be the world’s strongest voice for the development and defense of international legal norms.” She added that America “has historically been the key player in negotiating treaties and setting up international mechanisms for the peaceful resolution of disputes.” As Sands comments, “These are important words, but they remain just that.”
A more down-to-earth perception of the situation was expressed in May 2004 by US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, who was speaking of the US Senate’s delay of some ten years in acceding to the Law of the Sea Treaty, a delay largely caused by those Americans who have argued that the treaty restricts the exploration and exploitation of the seabed. Lugar posed the question that the US has still to face:
If we cannot get beyond political paralysis in a case where the coalition of American supporters is so comprehensive, there is little reason to think that any multi-lateral solution to any international problem is likely to be accepted within the US policy-making structure
The whole essay is informative about both the legal issues and the specific books being reviewed.
Thanks for the heads up, Patrick!
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