This will be a brief diary entry (still at work), but Susan’s current FP-story prompted me.
It is all based on one article that came my way on the US-UN Foundation’s daily press sampling.
The premise of the article is the US reluctance, or even outright hostility to international treaties.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 8 (IPS) – In 1989, the United Nations put forth the Convention on the Rights of the Child — a treaty that protects the civil and economic rights of children around the world.
To date, 192 nations have ratified the treaty. Only two have not.
A decade later, just seven countries voted against the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), an independent body created to prosecute genocide and crimes against humanity.
And in October of this year, members of the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) voted overwhelmingly to pass a new treaty aimed at protecting cultural diversity worldwide. Only two states voted against it.
The United States is the only nation to oppose all three. And the list of U.N. treaties and conventions that Washington has not signed or has actively opposed goes on and on.
While the vast majority of the world’s governments support these treaties, as well as other U.N. diplomatic efforts and conventions, the U.S. government can almost be expected to stand in opposition each time such treaty proceedings arise.
Indeed, the United States, especially in recent years, is increasingly being seen in the world as a lone state, thumbing its diplomatic nose at international pacts on everything from banning the use and production of landmines to curbing global warming.
This staunch refusal to join with other nations on such a wide range of treaties, experts say, is hurting the already tarnished image of the world’s sole superpower in the eyes of the international community.
“It sends the message that the United States has been the biggest violator and thrasher of international law in the post-war period,” Richard Du Boff, a professor emeritus of economic history at Bryn Mawr College in the state of Pennsylvania, told IPS.
Du Boff added that while the U.S. has often opposed U.N. conventions since the end of the Second World War, its isolationist posture “has escalated dramatically and reached a level never before challenged” during the presidency of George W. Bush.
This, Du Boff said, makes the U.S. a “rogue” in the realm of international law.
Please read it. It’s not too long.
I have previously made an entry related to the the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Does the US’ continued refusal to participate in important conventions make it a rogue state?
Bolton is busy making sure not to make friends:
NYT – Annan Defends U.N. Official Who Chided U.S.:
More on Bolton:
While this was also certainly the case with the Reagan administration, BushCo is doing everything it possibly can to foster the “us v them” mentality of Othering and fear upon which all fascism and imperialism feed. They need it because without it, their power and domestic support would evaporate. They want the US to be a lone rogue state — a lone rogue state which has dominion over all the rest.
An arrogant nation, at the very least.
That is certainly a minimum.
The lack of will for international cooperation already has dire consequences:
Seems to me that Harold Pinter, in his Nobel Prize Speech, laid it all very clearly on the line: the US has been a rogue nation since at least the end of WWII.
It is my sincere hope that the rest of the international community will begin taking these charges very seriously –especially since my predictions about the inability of the American people to look into the mirror that was just held up to them in Stockholm seem to be coming true.
If “we, the people” cannot get a grip on ourselves, if we cannot fess up to the crimes that our nation has been committing on our behalf over the past 50 (to 500) years, I hope there will be enough people in the international community to take us to task for these crimes, to hold us accountable for them and to treat us just the same way they treated Germany for the crimes against humanity committed by that nation over a period of 12 years.
If this does not occur, BushCo will be replaced by some other regime, but the crimes being committed worldwide on “behalf” of the American people will continue unabated, just as they have for the past 50 years–nonstop.
It is at least encouraging to see that telling it like it is, i.e. calling the US a “rogue nation” is no longer as rare as it used to be.
Personally, I don’t think this country can be “helped” without some outside assistance. Let us hope and pray that the UN comes to our aid.
Thanks for reminding me of Pinter’s fantastic speech.
as we are the only country in the world to deport non- native parents of children born in this country. Which is a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The US is absolutely a rogue nation. We need to be pouring coffee for the rest of our countrymen so they can wake up before it’s too late. Sometimes coffee can be bitter, but it does a necessary job.
I cannot say it better than in this rant the other day on global warming. We are international scofflaws on so many issues it makes one’s head spin. 😛