Democracy & Governance Archives - Page 195 of 362

Obama’s First 100 Days: Foreign Policy

by John Feffer, Erik Leaver | Apr 24, 2009

Editor’s note: This article appears in Thirsting for Change: Obama’s First 100 Days, a report published by the Institute for Policy Studies. The Bush administration transformed the way the United States dealt with the world. It invaded two countries, began a war on terror that had no geographic or time limits, boosted military spending, acted unilaterally, and ignored international law. Although his second term was more pragmatic than his first — with an important reversal on North Korea policy and rapprochement with Libya — George W. Bush generally emphasized military force over diplomatic negotiations, acting more like a cowboy than a statesman.

Missing an Anti-Racism Moment

by John Feffer, Stephen Zunes | Apr 22, 2009

In boycotting the United Nations conference on racism, the Obama administration demonstrated that just because an African American can be elected president doesn’t mean the United States will be any more committed than the Bush administration in fighting global racism. Rejecting calls by liberal Democratic members of Congress, leading human rights groups, Pope Benedict XVI, and most of the international community to participate, the Obama administration instead gave into pressure by Congressional hawks and other anti-UN forces by joining a handful of other nations refusing to participate in the historic gathering.

U-20: Will the Global Economy Resurface?

by Walden Bello, John Feffer | Mar 30, 2009

The Group of 20 (G20) is making a big show of getting together to come to grips with the global economic crisis. But here’s the problem with the upcoming summit in London on April 2: It’s all show. What the show masks is a very deep worry and fear among the global elite that it really doesn’t know the direction in which the world economy is heading and the measures needed to stabilize it.

Strategic Dialogue: Responsibility to Protect

by Steve Fake, John Feffer, Kevin Funk, Trevor Keck, Bridget Moix, Shaun Randol | Mar 23, 2009

As part of our Empire Strategic Focus, Foreign Policy In Focus asked several experts to weigh in on whether Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is an important step forward for the international system or a step backward to great power intervention, and how should the Obama administration approach this doctrine. Shaun Randol strongly embraced the new principle, Trevor Keck and Bridget Moix emphasized the preventative aspects of R2P, and Kevin Fake and Steven Funk offered a skeptical appraisal. In this dialogue, they take the conversation one step further.

R2P: Disciplining the Mice, Freeing the Lions

by Steve Fake, John Feffer, Kevin Funk | Mar 23, 2009

“The mice would be disciplined and the lions would be free,” said a Mexican delegate to the proceedings that created the UN charter in 1945. He astutely predicted the double standards that would govern the application of international law.

R2P: No Love in a Time of Cholera

by John Feffer, Shaun Randol | Mar 23, 2009

Because it provides a framework for the prevention of impending humanitarian disaster or for the arrest of a crisis underway, the United Nation’s doctrine on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is a notable step forward for the international system. Passing R2P is a move in a right and cooperative direction, one that seeks to further elevate international law and justice. But what’s next? Despite UN Security Council approval in 2006, R2P has yet to be invoked to improve areas currently inundated by natural and manmade suffering. The bottleneck lies in translating concepts into deeds. R2P, it seems, passed on a faulty premise — that there are and will be individual and groups of states with the physical means and political will to invoke and act on their responsibilities to protect.

R2P: Focus on Prevention

by John Feffer, Trevor Keck, Bridget Moix | Mar 23, 2009

Time and again, the world has failed to prevent or halt the worst forms of human rights abuses — genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes. The Holocaust, the killing fields of Kampuchea, and the genocide in Rwanda are just a few examples where a host government has failed to protect its citizens or been complicit in committing massacres. In most cases, these massacres occurred in the context of ongoing war or conflict, often behind the curtain of state sovereignty, with the international community turning a blind eye or intervening only to witness the evidence of mass killing.

Prosecuting the Bush Team?

by John Feffer, Robert Pallitto | Mar 2, 2009

In the months following September 11, 2001, lawyers in the White House and the Justice Department interpreted U.S. and international law to provide legal support for the administration in its “war on terror.” With regard to interrogation of terror suspects, John Yoo, David Addington, Jay Bybee, and others justified the use of such harsh and dangerous tactics as waterboarding and stress positions. In a 2002 memo, they advised that only actions causing severe pain equivalent to “organ failure” would violate theU.S. torture law. Moreover, the memo stated that only if they acted with the specific intention to cause such pain — rather than acting with the primary goal of obtaining information — would the interrogators violate the law. Finally, the memo argued that these interrogations were rooted in an inherent executive power to protect the nation. As such, other branches of government could not review or limit such policies.

Postcard from…the UN

by John Feffer, Nora McKeon | Oct 14, 2008

For the first time in history, African farmers have directly addressed the UN General Assembly. Ndiogou Fall, the president of the Network of West African Peasant and Agricultural Producers’ Organizations (ROPPA), and Elisabeth Atangana, who heads the Federation of Peasant Organizations of Central Africa, spoke on behalf of the people most directly and disastrously affected by the current food crisis.

What do Governments Want from Sport and What do they Get?

by Lincoln Allison, Erik Leaver | Jul 30, 2008

Sir John Wolfenden is chiefly famous for chairing the British committee which produced the Report on Homosexual Offenses and Prostitution in 1957. The report developed the principle that sexual activity conducted in private was “not the law’s business,” a principle which was implemented as a series of legislative changes over the next dozen years which became the basis of Britain’s “permissive society.” Relatively few people remember that no sooner was the ink dry on that document than Sir John set about another influential report, Sport and the Community, published in 1960. This recommended a much greater state involvement in sport and the establishment of public “councils for sport.” In short, Sir John was the man instrumental in reversing the Victorian orthodoxy: he got the British state out of sex and into sport.