Support for International Law

Support for International Law

In Bob Woodward's book, Bush At War, we learned that the only response considered by the Bush Administration after September 11, 2001 was military—the use of force and bombs. The United States focused on the name “terrorists” meaning “people creating extreme fear” and operated in instinctive, rather than thoughtful, reaction to that fear.

A more effective choice would have been to treat as criminals the men who piloted the planes into the Trade Towers in New York and into the Pentagon. When Timothy McVeigh destroyed the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the F.B.I. didn't go to his hometown and bomb it. Probably no one thought they should, because most people have enough confidence in the legal system of the United States to know that the bomber would be found and tried in court. International law needs to function in a similar way, so that it encompasses criminal acts like those committed on September 11th.

The United States, a leader in the world today, has a recent pattern of refusing to sign, and backing out of having signed, important international treaties that would increase the safety of everyone on the planet. For example:

• The 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. In December 2001, the United States officially withdrew from the Treaty, gutting the landmark agreement. This was the first time in the nuclear era that the U.S. renounced a major arms control accord.
• Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. Ratified in 1972 by 144 nations including the United States. In July 2001 the U.S. walked out of a London conference to discuss a 1994 protocol designed to strengthen the Convention by providing for on-site inspections.
• Treaty banning Land Mines. Signed in Ottawa in December 1997 by 122 nations. The United States refused to sign, along with Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and Turkey.
• Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Signed by 164 nations, ratified by 89 including France, Great Britain, and Russia; signed by President Clinton in 1996, but rejected by the Senate in 1999.
• Kyoto Protocol of 1997, for controlling global warming, declared 'dead' by President Bush in March, 2001.

U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. Signed but not ratified by the U.S. in 1989. The only other country not to ratify is Somalia, which has no functioning government.

At the same time that the U.S. is over-cautious about signing international treaties perceived as weakening its sovereignty, it is considerably more casual about violating the sovereignty of other countries.  This hypocrisy does not go unnoticed by the rest of the world.

Citizens from all nations need to support, develop, and adhere to international law. In a March 2003 Christian Science Monitor Opinion Editorial, Desmond Tutu writes that the most compelling international need today is the uniform application of international law. In 1998, one hundred and twenty countries signed on to the International Criminal Court. The United States has refused to sign and has undermined the court by signing twenty treaties with other countries who have agreed not to take United States citizens to court there.

People need to expand the understanding that they already have about how compliance to law makes everyone safer to include relationships with people in and from other countries.