Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
Democracy & Governance

Bush Policy Undermines Progress on Korean Peninsula

by | Oct 4, 2005

President Bush’s inclusion of North Korea in an “axis of evil” with Iran and Iraq is only the latest indication of Washington’s new hard-line approach to Pyongyang. Since taking office, the Bush team has deliberately distanced itself from the Clinton administration’s policy of engaging the former “state of concern.” Even North Korea’s condemnation of the events of September 11 and its continued repudiation of terrorism have done little to repair the frayed ties. Relations between the U.S. and North Korea (DPRK) are deteriorating into a slow-motion catastrophe with unpredictable consequences for the region and the world. Until recently an oasis of increasing cooperation in a conflict-prone world, the Korean Peninsula has again become a dangerous place.

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Iraq’s New Patent Law

by , , | Oct 3, 2005

When Former Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) administrator L. Paul Bremer III left Baghdad after the highly publicized “transfer of sovereignty” in June 2004, he left his imprint through 100 orders that he enacted as chief of the occupation authority in Iraq. Among them is Order 81 regarding “Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety.”1 This order amends Iraq’s original patent law of 1970, and unless and until it is revised or repealed by a new Iraqi government, it wields the status and force of a binding law.2 With important implications for farmers and the future of agriculture in Iraq, this order is yet another important component in Washington’s attempts to radically transform Iraq’s economy.

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Strategies for Social Justice Movements from Southern Africa to the United States

by , | Oct 3, 2005

The community of several thousand South African activists from whom I learn most–a group quite consciously pro-globalization-of-people and anti-globalization-of-capital–takes pride in the give-and-take lessons of international protest, solidarity, and local self-reliance gleaned during these past five years. But a Seattle-type epiphany occurred in this region long before December 1999–and long before South African President Thabo Mbeki began confusing matters with his own rhetorical assault on “global apartheid” the same year.

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The Kyoto Protocol, and Beyond

by , | Oct 2, 2005

The first thing to say about Kyoto’s entry into force (Feb 16th) is that it is a significant victory, won particularly by the Europeans, over social and economic complacency, cash-amplified, flat-earth pseudo-science, the carbon cartel, and, of course, the Bush administration. The second is that, if it’s not soon followed by other victories, deeper and even more challenging ones, the Earth’s climate will soon—think 2050 or even sooner—be transformed into one that is far more inhospitable, and even hostile, than even most environmentalists imagine.

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