Abstract
International agreements the United States might once have supported have fallen like leaves in the breeze, rejected for one reason or another by the Bush or Clinton administration, and/or by the U.S. Senate. Here's a recap:
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
After decades of widespread public support for a comprehensive test ban, the actual treaty was rejected by the Senate in the fall of 1999. More recently, the United States skipped a November U.N. conference on the subject, with this explanation from State Department spokesperson Eliza Koch: “The purpose of this conference is to promote ratification of the treaty, and the administration has made clear that it has no plans to ask the Senate to reconsider its 1999 vote on this issue.”
The Mine Ban Treaty
In September 1997, more than 100 countries signed the “Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production, and Transfer of AntiPersonnel Mines, and on their Destruction.” The United States refused to sign, arguing that landmines are an important part of its military operations, especially in Korea. Then President Bill Clinton said: “There is a line that I can simply not cross, and that line is the safety and security of our men and women in uniform.” But Clinton promised a U.S. signature in 2006, when alternative mine systems were expected to be ready. According to a November 2001 Human Rights Watch report, Pentagon officials are now urging President Bush to ignore that promise.
The Chemical Weapons Convention
When the Senate ratified this treaty in 1997, it exempted the United States from critical inspection requirements. Currently, the United States seems to be starving the treaty's directorate, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), of the funds it needs to operate. In April, it forced the director, Jose Bustani, out of office. (His sin: He had nearly convinced Saddam Hussein to join the treaty, which would have eliminated one of the Bush administration's rationales for attacking Iraq.) The U.S. ambassador to the OPCW told the staff it would be difficult to find a replacement for Bustani, because no one wants “to be associated with a dying organization.” After remarking that the United States also wanted no more Latin American directors because of their “sheer incompetence,” the ambassador then added, “If any of this gets out of this room, I'll kill the person responsible.” ∗
The Bioweapons Protocol
For six years the Biological Weapons Conventions' Ad Hoc Group worked to devise a verification protocol that would strengthen the treaty. Then, last December, in the final hours of the review conference expected to approve the document, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton threw a deal-breaking firecracker, suggesting that the group's final statement should read: “The Conference takes note of the work of the Ad Hoc Group and decides that the Ad Hoc Group and its mandate are hereby terminated.” Bolton said the treaty was flawed, and that “the United States will simply not enter into agreements that allow rogue states or others to develop and deploy biological weapons.” (Some suspect the United States was actually trying to hide its own activities like the three secret U.S. bioweapons programs that were revealed last September in the New York Times.)
The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
During a March 29, 2001, Senate confirmation hearing on his appointment to the State Department, Bolton was given a charge by Republican Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina: “John, I want you to take that ABM Treaty and dump it in the same place we dumped our ABM Treaty co-signer, the Soviet Union, and that is to say, on the ash heap of history.” Bolton was “on message” a few months later, telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “The [ABM] Treaty is fundamentally in conflict with the administration's approach to the development of missile defenses.” At that June 24, 2001, hearing, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith added: “Thanks in no small part to the constraints of the antiquated ABM Treaty, we have wasted the better part of a decade. We cannot afford to waste another.”
The Child Soldiers Protocol
In May 2000, the U.N. General Assembly adopted the “Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict” to the “Convention of the Rights of the Child.” The treaty (ratified by every U.N. member except the United States and Somalia) defined “child” as anyone under the age of 18, and established 15 as the minimum age for recruitment and participation in armed conflict. The protocol would up the recruitment age to 18. Good news here: It's at least still possible the United States may ratify the protocol, if not the treaty: Several members of the Bush administration support it, including Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Marshall S. Billingslea, who told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in March that the protocol would “foster the kind of diplomatic dialogue, attention, and pressure that is needed to truly bring an end to the practice of recruiting and using underage soldiers.”
The International Criminal Court
The International Criminal Court was created in 1998 to establish an international body to prosecute genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. With the treaty ratified by 66 countries, the court is expected to come into being on July 1. Signed by President Clinton on December 31, 2000, the treaty had yet to be presented to the Senate for ratification when, on Monday, May 6, the United States announced that it would “unsign” the treaty. The reason? According to Secretary of State Colin Powell, the court was “inappropriate,” and might “second-guess the United States after we have tried somebody.” ∗∗ Wags say the U.S. refusal to play ball is a ploy to safeguard former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
The Small Arms Action Plan
At the first-ever global U.N. conference on small arms and light weapons held last July, delegates produced a “Program of Action” outlining various measures aimed at eradicating the international black market in small arms. But because of U.S. opposition, delegates backed down on language that would have banned weapons sales to nonstate actors and tightened control over civilian ownership. The busy Mr. Bolton explained that the United States is not only opposed to any agreement restricting civilian possession of small arms, it also didn't appreciate “the promotion of international advocacy activity by international or nongovernmental organizations.” The U.S. delegation was accompanied, however, by a good old American NGO, the National Rifle Association.
The Kyoto Protocol
Don't even ask. As President George W. Bush told Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in June 2001, “I believe the Kyoto Treaty is a flawed treaty. I think that it set unscientific goals. It didn't include developing countries.”
Oh, and by the way, on the
