Why Internationalism Is Not Enough
Today's Los Angeles Times contains a predictable op-ed condemning the U.S. for failing to join the Kyoto treaty to reduce global warming, which will go into effect next Wednesday. In addition to attacking Bush, the Republicans, and Michael Crichton for being the stooges of the energy industry, the writer throws in this line, which is fast congealing into elite consensus:
The rules that apply to the rest of the world, the administration in effect is saying, need not apply to us. International agreements — whether they involve the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto Protocol or the Geneva Convention — should not be allowed to bind the hands of the most powerful nation on Earth. On that point, at least, the U.S. is consistent.
This argument suggests that the U.S. has a responsibility to join international organizations and submit to international law irrespective of (1) what it believes its national interests to be; and (2) what its democratically elected political institutions want it to do.
Maybe I am unfairly inferring too much from this line (as Chris suggested I did yesterday with respect to Samantha Power's piece), but I do think that this view of how the U.S. should conduct its foreign policy is endemic to many influential advocates, academics, and policymakers. Perhaps the better gloss is that U.S. interests are generally served by joining international organizations and legal systems.
Even in this new and improved form, I think this approach is either naive or unproven (or both). Even though I might agree with the author about joining a particular treaty system (say, the Geneva Convention and maybe Kyoto), I don't believe that it is always or even usually the case that the U.S (or any country) must do so. Is it always a good idea to create more domestic law and regulation on any subject regardless of the policy consequences? Why shouldn't such decisions be made on a case-by-case basis (through our normal democratic and constitutional processes)?
All of this suggests that lines about the U.S. "standing alone" and refusing to join the "rules that apply to the rest of the world" are a waste of time. If you want the U.S. to join the Kyoto Treaty, then stick to the policy arguments for doing so. But it is simply unpersuasive to me (and I think to many other people) to argue for that we should join because other countries have joined, an "Internationalism for Internationalism's Sake."
The rules that apply to the rest of the world, the administration in effect is saying, need not apply to us. International agreements — whether they involve the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto Protocol or the Geneva Convention — should not be allowed to bind the hands of the most powerful nation on Earth. On that point, at least, the U.S. is consistent.
This argument suggests that the U.S. has a responsibility to join international organizations and submit to international law irrespective of (1) what it believes its national interests to be; and (2) what its democratically elected political institutions want it to do.
Maybe I am unfairly inferring too much from this line (as Chris suggested I did yesterday with respect to Samantha Power's piece), but I do think that this view of how the U.S. should conduct its foreign policy is endemic to many influential advocates, academics, and policymakers. Perhaps the better gloss is that U.S. interests are generally served by joining international organizations and legal systems.
Even in this new and improved form, I think this approach is either naive or unproven (or both). Even though I might agree with the author about joining a particular treaty system (say, the Geneva Convention and maybe Kyoto), I don't believe that it is always or even usually the case that the U.S (or any country) must do so. Is it always a good idea to create more domestic law and regulation on any subject regardless of the policy consequences? Why shouldn't such decisions be made on a case-by-case basis (through our normal democratic and constitutional processes)?
All of this suggests that lines about the U.S. "standing alone" and refusing to join the "rules that apply to the rest of the world" are a waste of time. If you want the U.S. to join the Kyoto Treaty, then stick to the policy arguments for doing so. But it is simply unpersuasive to me (and I think to many other people) to argue for that we should join because other countries have joined, an "Internationalism for Internationalism's Sake."
posted by Julian Ku at 2/11/2005 08:12:00 AM
2 Comments:
Perhaps I'm missing something, but isn't Professor Ku simply agreeing with the idea the LAT editorial is criticizing -- that the U.S. is under no obligation to join international agreements? That's certainly a defensible position, but it in no way calls into question the point the editorial is trying to make; in fact, it supports it. Is it not empirically true that the U.S. refuses to join many, if not most, international agreements, no matter how widely accepted? Recall the excellent company the US kept with its vote against the ICC: Libya, Israel, Iraq (the old one), China, Syria, and the Sudan.
Additionally, I think Professor Ku's statement that "[p]erhaps the better gloss is that U.S. interests are generally served by joining international organizations" at least partially misses the point. Some "advocates, academics, and policymakers" may think the calculus underlying the decision to join things like the ICC and Kyoto can (and should) be reduced to: "do whatever is in the economic and political interest of the U.S." Many others, though, expand that calculus to take into account the economic and political interests of the international community as a whole -- regardless of whether serving those larger interests means limiting the U.S.'s sovereignty or "harming" its narrowly-defined interests.
Thus understood, it is easy to see the problem with a statement like "[i]f you want the U.S. to join the Kyoto Treaty, then stick to the policy arguments for doing so" -- it wrongly assumes that the U.S. is or should be the primary object of activism and scholarly critique. That's simply not the case: when faced with an intransigent and hyper-nationalistic Administration like the current one, it is a far more rational and efficient for scholars and activists to focus their attention on persuading the international community to not give in to the U.S., which has proven regrettably willing to use economic and political blackmail as a tool of foreign policy.
Again, the ICC is a case in point. As Bassiouni has pointed out, the Rome Conference only managed to adopt Kirsch's compromise package -- saving the Conference -- because, having finally realized that "the United States would never be satisfied with the concessions it got and ultimately would never sign the Treaty for completely unrelated domestic political reasons," the other delegations "decided to go ahead with Kirsch's proposed compromise package rather than to have it unravel due to last minute U.S. demands."
In short, Professor Ku has every right to believe that the U.S. is under no obligation to ratify widely-accepted treaties or join internationally-popular organizations. But that doesn't mean newspapers like the LAT don't have an equal right to criticize the U.S. for not doing so. Such criticism may well fall on deaf ears in the Bush Administration, but there are many others in the world who are listening.
Kevin Jon Heller's one-world blather is typical of many on the left and the NRDC, who seem to often believe that it's the act of "signing on" that's important and not any potential for what one is signing to have a desired effect.
The Kyoto hysteric-fest is a prime example. In all the study I've done on this issue I have seen absolutely no concrete "this is it!" evidence that demonstrates the goals of Kyote can or will be accomplished within its timeframes, and similarly no concrete evidence that Kyoto's goals wil have a significant effect on amerliorating global warming. Prove me wrong on this if you can.
Further, Heller's laughably partisan calls of the Bush administration as "intransigent hyper-nationalistic" and enganging in "economic and political blackmail" are both ridiculous, naive and dare-I-say-it, academic. The American people do not elect representatives in Washington to consider the plus or minues of U.S. policy on the people of the Congo; they didn't, through the ratification of the Constitution and subsequent amendments, open the doors to the Supreme Court factoring in foreign decisions, and Heller's views at the U.S. ballot box have proven to be a stunning failure. Game-set-and-match, if you were.
If the people of France, Sweden, Russia or Brazil are unhappy about this, well, that's frankly tough nuts. Call us back when your economy and military can go toe-to-toe with ours. Until then, we'll listen - WHEN it's in OUR best interest to do so.
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