Obama pledge on treaties a complex undertaking
President-elect Barack Obamas pledge to restore the United States international standing extends far beyond front-page topics such as closing Guantanamo and banning torture, into areas as diverse as nuclear testing, the rights of women and people with disabilities, and military and commercial activities in the worlds oceans.
As a candidate, Obama promised to seek Senate ratification of long-stalled treaties on a nuclear test ban, womens equality and the law of the sea, and to sign a UN convention on disability rights.
He also vowed to reverse President Bushs policies on global warming and to join negotiations toward a long-term treaty on greenhouse-gas emissions.
The global warming talks, which face a deadline of December 2009, are a rare example of an international accord that has captured public attention, largely because of Bushs opposition to mandatory emissions limits.
Most treaties stay below the political radar, with often-complex subject matter, nebulous (uklare) constituencies and a two-thirds majority requirement that can leave them languishing in the Senate in Washington D.C. for years.
The American Society of International Law, an association of academics, officials and business leaders, sent questions on treaties to Obama and other presidential candidates during the primaries.
Scholars from the organization differed about Obamas prospects for getting treaties ratified, but said they liked his attitude.
Contrast with Bush
– The Obama campaign talked about the international rule of law and human rights, working with our allies, suggesting it will take the treaty process quite a bit more seriously than the Bush administration did, said David Kaye, who heads a human rights program and was a State Department attorney for a decade.
Bush has actually won Senate approval of scores of treaties, mostly small-scale agreements on subjects like extradition. He has been more prominent, however, in opposing pacts he sees as overly restrictive of US prerogatives.
Bush opposed the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which former President Bill Clinton signed but never submitted to the Senate.
And Bush took the unprecedented step of withdrawing Clintons presidential signature from the treaty forming the International Criminal Court for war crimes and human rights prosecutions.
Kilde: The Push Journal
