[Peace-discuss] US as a world citizen

[Al Kagan]

>
>User-Agent: Microsoft-Outlook-Express-Macintosh-Edition/5.02.2022
>Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2001 12:43:13 -0800
>Reply-To: psysrl <PSYSRL at LISTSERV.WHEATONMA.EDU>
>Sender: psysrl <PSYSRL at LISTSERV.WHEATONMA.EDU>
>From: Marc Pilisuk <mpilisuk at SAYBROOK.EDU>
>Subject: US as a world citizen
>
>
>The following facts regard the US record as a world citizen. They suggest
>reasons why we are sometimes viewed with hatred and looked upon as targets of
>terror. Can Congress do nothing to rectify this pattern?
>
>1. In December 2001, the United States officially withdrew from the 1972
>Antiballistic Missile Treaty, gutting the landmark agreement-the first time
>in the nuclear era that the US renounced a major arms control accord.
>
>2. 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention ratified by 144 nations
>including the United States. In July 2001 the US walked out of a London
>conference to discuss a 1994 protocol designed to strengthen the Convention
>by providing for on-site inspections. At Geneva in November 2001, US
>Undersecretary of State John Bolton stated that "the protocol is dead," at
>the same time accusing Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Sudan, and Syria of
>violating the Convention but offering no specific allegations or supporting
>evidence.
>
>3. UN Agreement to Curb the International Flow of Illicit Small Arms, July
>2001: the US was the only nation to oppose it.
>
>4. April 2001, the US was not reelected to the UN Human Rights Commission,
>after years of withholding dues to the UN (including current dues of $244
>million)-and after having forced the UN to lower its share of the UN budget
>from 25 to 22 percent. (In the Human Rights Commission, the US stood
>virtually alone in opposing resolutions supporting lower-cost access to
>HIV/AIDS drugs, acknowledging a basic human right to adequate food, and
>calling for a moratorium on the death penalty.)
>
>5. International Criminal Court (ICC) Treaty, to be set up in The Hague to
>try political leaders and military personnel charged with war crimes and
>crimes against humanity. Signed in Rome in July 1998, the Treaty was
>approved by 120 countries, with 7 opposed (including the US). In October 2001
>Great Britain became the 42nd nation to sign. In December 2001 the US Senate
>again added an amendment to a military appropriations bill that would keep US
>military personnel from obeying the jurisdiction of the proposed ICC.
>
>6. Land Mine 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, Vietnam, Egypt, and Turkey. President Clinton
>rejected the Treaty, claiming that mines were needed to protect South Korea
>against North Korea's "overwhelming military advantage." He stated that the
>US would "eventually" comply, in 2006; this was disavowed by President Bush
>in August 2001.
>
>7. Kyoto Protocol of 1997, for controlling global warming: declared "dead" by
>President Bush in March 2001. In November 2001, the Bush administration
>shunned negotiations in Marrakech (Morocco) to revise the accord, mainly by
>watering it down in a vain attempt to gain US approval.
>
>8. In May 2001, refused to meet with European Union nations to discuss, even
>at lower levels of government, economic espionage and electronic surveillance
>of phone calls, e-mail, and faxes (the US "Echelon" program).
>
>9. Refused to participate in Organization for Economic Co-operation and
>Development (OECD)-sponsored talks in Paris, May 2001, on ways to crack down
>on off-shore and other tax and money-laundering havens.
>
>10. Refused to join 123 nations pledged to ban the use and production of
>anti-personnel bombs and mines, February 2001
>
>11. September 2001: withdrew from International Conference on Racism,
>bringing together 163 countries in Durban, South Africa
>
>12. International Plan for Cleaner Energy: G-8 group of industrial nations
>(US, Canada, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, Italy, UK), July 2001: the US
>was the only one to oppose it.
>
>13. Enforcing an illegal boycott of Cuba, now being made tighter. In the UN
>in October 2001, the General Assembly passed a resolution, for the tenth
>consecutive year, calling for an end to the US embargo, by a vote of 167 to 3
>(the US, Israel, and the Marshall Islands in opposition).
>
>14. Comprehensive [Nuclear] Test Ban Treaty. Signed by 164 nations and
>ratified by 89 including France, Great Britain, and Russia; signed by
>President Clinton in 1996 but rejected by the Senate in 1999. The US is one
>of 13 non-ratifiers among countries that have nuclear weapons or nuclear
>power programs. In November 2001, the US forced a vote in the UN Committee on
>Disarmament and Security to demonstrate its opposition to the Test Ban
>Treaty.
>
>15. In 1986 the International Court of Justice (The Hague) ruled that the US
>was in violation of international law for "unlawful use of force" in
>Nicaragua, through its actions and those of its Contra proxy army. The US
>refused to recognize the Court's jurisdiction. A UN resolution calling for
>compliance with the Court's decision was approved 94-2 (US and Israel voting
>no).
>
>16. In 1984 the US quit UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural
>Organization) and ceased its payments for UNESCO's budget, over the New
>World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) project designed to lessen
>world media dependence on the "big four" wire agencies (AP, UPI, Agence
>France-Presse, Reuters).
>
>The US charged UNESCO with "curtailment of press freedom," as well as
>mismanagement and other faults, despite a 148-1 in vote in favor of NWICO in
>the UN. UNESCO terminated NWICO in 1989; the US nonetheless refused to
>rejoin. In 1995 the Clinton administration proposed rejoining; the move was
>blocked in Congress and Clinton did not press the issue. In February 2000 the
>  US finally paid some of its arrears to the UN but excluded UNESCO, which the
>US has not rejoined.
>
>17. Optional Protocol, 1989, to the UN's International Covenant on Civil and
>Political Rights, aimed at abolition of the death penalty and containing a
>provision banning the execution of those under 18. The US has neither signed
>nor ratified and specifically exempts itself from the latter provision,
>making it one of five countries that still execute juveniles (with Saudi
>Arabia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria). China abolished the
>practice in 1997, Pakistan in 2000.
>
>18. 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
>against Women. The only countries that have signed but not ratified are the
>US, Afghanistan, Sao Tome and Principe.
>
>19. The US has signed but not ratified the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights
>of the Child, which protects the economic and social rights of children. The
>only other country not to ratify is Somalia, which has no functioning
>government.
>
>20. UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966,
>covering a wide range of rights and monitored by the Committee on
>Economic,Social and Cultural Rights. The US signed in 1977 but has not
>ratified.
>
>21. UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
>Genocide,1948. The US finally ratified in 1988, adding several "reservations"
>to the effect that the US Constitution and the "advice and consent" of the
>Senate are required to judge whether any "acts in the course of armed
>conflict" constitute genocide. The reservations are rejected by Britain,
>Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Greece, Mexico, Estonia, and others.
>
>22. Is the status of "we're number one 1" Rogue, " overcome by generous
>foreign aid to given less fortunate countries? The three best aid providers,
>measured by the foreign aid percentage of their gross domestic products, are
>Denmark (1.01%), Norway (0.91%), and the Netherlands (0.79), The three
>worst: USA (0.10%), UK (0.23%), Australia, Portugal, and Austria (all 0.26).
>Source:
>http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2001-12/21duboff.cfm
>
>
>
>--
>Peace
>Marc Pilisuk
>494 Cragmont Ave
>Berkeley, CA 94708
>Phone & Fax: 510-526-0876
>___________________________
>Wlliam J. (Bill) Thomson, Ph.D.
>(wthomson at umich.edu)
>___________________________

-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.cu.groogroo.com/mailman/archive/peace-discuss/attachments/20011225/362e8c4b/attachment.htm