It's a START

The same week as the release of a new U.S. nuclear strategy, a New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is to be signed in Prague Thursday by the Presidents of Russia and the United States.
Well known is the treaty's acronym, START. Or, to use the term preferred by the White House, New START. (Prior posts on nuclear policy are here, here, and here.)
"New START" marks a distinction from START I, a multilateral treaty due to expire toward the end of this year. START I had been negotiated before the fall of the Soviet Union; it entered into force thereafter, with Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States exchanging instruments of ratification in Budapest on December 5, 1994.
Another reason for preferring "New START": START II proved a bit of a false start. Signed in 1993 by U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin and fully ratified by 2000, the treaty never was implemented. As explained in a Moscow Times story yesterday,

Russia withdrew from START II in 2002, the day after the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

The aim of START I was to reduce levels of "strategic offensive arms" -- including nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles -- in 3 phases. At the end, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine were to "have no strategic nuclear forces," while U.S. and Russian "strategic arsenals" were to be "reduced by 30–40 percent."

New START, announced a week ago Monday, is the result of protracted negotiations that included the Presidents' side meeting during Copenhagen, the December climate change conference. As described by former State Department official Stephen Sestanovich, now a Columbia diplomacy professor and a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations the 2 countries have detailed in New START

cuts of hundreds of strategic nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles as the main lever of their so-called 'reset.'

(photo credit; and see here) Also key, according to the White House, is a "verification regime" that "will provide the ability to monitor all aspects of the Treaty."

Promising stuff, at least through signing. But then comes the ratification. Although Sestanovich is optimistic, some predict ratification difficulties Stateside:

[T]he Russian daily Kommersant reported that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev likely won't have difficulty getting the Russian Parliament to ratify the agreement, but U.S. President Barack Obama will have a harder time achieving the two-thirds majority needed for passage by the U.S. Senate [right].

Perhaps more than one new start is in order.

The work of the U.N. minority issues expert

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for this opportunity to contribute this guest post on my current work on behalf of the United Nations)

► This week I sent a letter, along with my colleagues who work on torture and arbitrary detention, to China. We challenged the Chinese government either to explain how its detention of two ethnic Uighurs complies with international law or to release the two urgently. China acknowledges having upwards of 40 different ethnic and religious minorities, in addition to the Tibetans, who face varying levels of oppression and repression.

► Next week I leave for a mission to Kazakhstan.

► Last year this time I was in Guyana, investigating the multi-layered relationships between the Indo-Guyanese (persons of East Indian descent), who currently control the government, and the Afro-Guyanese, who are almost the same percentage of the population but feel persecuted and grossly disadvantaged.

► In France, I saw a country that tourists never see. The lives of the “visible minorities” of France, persons who immigrate from North Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean to the shoddy, ghetto suburbs outside Paris, can’t been seen from the Eiffel Tower. They face discrimination at all levels. They are suspected and feared because of their religion. And even those who are second-generation citizens are never, ever considered “French.”

Since 2005, I have done this work in my capacity as U.N. Independent Expert on Minority Issues. I was appointed to the position by the High Commissioner for Human Rights with the consent of all governments that were members of the U.N. Human Rights Council (née Commission on Human Rights). There are over 40 individuals like myself, from all regions of the world, who are chosen to carry out this critical function for the chief human rights mechanism of the United Nations. Each has a mandate to focus on a specific human right. My mandate is to focus on the rights of minority populations. They are defined as groups that are distinct by ethnicity (race), religion or language and who have an inferior power relationship to other groups in the society. The relative numbers aren’t as meaningful as the subservient power status. So that:

► In South Africa during apartheid, my mandate would have been the protection of the African population, rather than the Afrikaners.

► In Brazil, I focus on the Afro-Brazilians even though the government now admits that they may be 55% or more of the population.

The international legal prescription against racial discrimination is at the core of my mandate, along with the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to Ethnic, Religious or Linguistic Minorities.

Furthermore, the U.N. resolution authorizing my work requires that I take “a gender perspective” in everything that I do. Each year I visit a number of countries where I am received at the level of a Cabinet Member or Minister of State. That gives me an unparalleled opportunity to engage the top officials in countries about their policies regarding minorities. And, of course, I am able to meet with minority communities, with academics who study these issues, and with civil societies more broadly. I present my findings, evaluations and detailed recommendations to the 47 governments that sit on the U.N. Human Rights Council. I also do thematic reports on issues that concern minorities across all regions of the world, like minorities and poverty or minorities and the right to education.

Of course, my mandate also includes minorities in the United States. Indeed, U.S. civil rights laws and my personal experiences as a minority in the United States have enriched my capacity to grapple with the complexities of discrimination as they present themselves in other cultures and countries. When I take on issues here in the United States, however, that home-grown expertise is rarely acknowledged.

An example: The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Housing and I intervened a while back when the City of New Orleans revealed a post-Hurricane Katrina plan to tear down much of the its remaining public housing. Our assessment was that to do that would violate the right to adequate housing that is guaranteed without discrimination by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The local response? New Orleans' daily newspaper, the Times-Picayune, accused me of being a meddling outsider “idiot from the U.N.”

Can Assistance “Save” Poor Countries?

Part I of a 2 Part Series

There is no question globalization has created significant riches for some countries; China and India are the two examples that come to mind. Yes, I recognize these successes are rather imperfect: China’s economic rise comes with frightening environmental costs we are just beginning to recognize, and the meteoric rise in India’s stock exchange cannot seem to eliminate the crushing poverty of millions of its citizens. But those consequences are at least in equal parts driven by a country’s own internal decision making as by globalization. In short, globalization produces wealth, and then we as fallible human beings do what we do best: We muck it up.
In this series, I want to move beyond the debate on globalization. Readers of my posts by now recognize I believe globalization comes with costs and benefits that must be adequately managed. Often they are not. The more complex and interesting question to me is whether we can use technical assistance to assist countries currently shut out of the world economy. Can transferring knowledge and providing aid and technology really lead to economic prosperity for poor countries? In other words, can technical assistance “save” developing countries?
Let me be upfront and say I may be somewhat biased; I have worked in technical assistance for almost half of the twelve years I’ve spent focused on international trade law. My interest has primarily been on Africa because I love a good challenge! Like everyone else, I want to believe my work makes a difference in the world. And I have had some measured and incremental successes to prove it. But have I ever seen a poor country rise to economic prominence because of the technical assistance work of another? Well, I’m an optimist so I’d have to say . . . not yet. In this post, I want to examine some of the problems in technical assistance delivery, and in the next explore some potential solutions.
Some claim trade-related technical assistance is a joke. Amy Chua in her book World on Fire recounts the story of the Americans in Mongolia who were sent out to advise the government on building free markets. The consultants were heartened when officials asked for several hardcopies of the voluminous U.S. securities laws—photocopied on only one side of the page. It turns out the Mongolians were not true converts to the U.S. system; they merely wanted to use the documents for scrap to alleviate the government’s chronic paper shortage. A few years back, Matt Bivens published Aboard the Gravy Train: In Kazakhstan, the Farce That Is U.S. Foreign Aid in Harper’s Magazine. Bivens claimed when a local Kazakhstani bureaucrat fancied a technical assistant provider’s red swim trunks, the advisor was forced to strip down and hand them over because angering the Kazahkstani bureaucrat might jeopardize his chance of returning to the bottomless well of USAID renewal contracts.
So, what can we learn from these and other stories of technical assistance failures? Three key points I’d like to make:

(1) Successful technical assistance requires “buy-in” from local officials and other key players
It sounds obvious, but it’s easier said than done. Remember, the money from these projects is coming from some rich country abroad, so for local officials it’s a “can’t lose” opportunity. That doesn’t necessarily mean the project is well-conceived, or that the recipient country is truly willing to implement it. For years I have thought recipient countries should “invest” in technical assistance. If it is something they really want—if they see a benefit in the project—then they should be willing to “pay” for it, either in cash or sweat equity. Few of us appreciate that which is given to us for free.

(2) Beware of the human emotions
Technical assistance providers arrive in the recipient country under a cloud of suspicion. Even as people are smiling and inviting you over to dinner, you can’t help but notice the question carefully hidden in their eyes: What does she want? It is not an illogical question; after all, technical assistance is not truly “free.” Rich countries provide it because they do want something—implementation of more favorable foreign investment laws, for example. And it isn’t as if the recipient country is blind to that reality: One African official characterized technical assistance provided by the World Trade Organization (and funded by rich countries) as “ideological.” In his view, providers came “to tell us what to think, what our positions should be.”
It is impossible to have a successful project unless these emotions are openly acknowledged and handled. The truth is, successful technical assistance is always “win-win.” Rich countries wouldn’t provide the funds if there was nothing in it for them, but recipient countries can work to ensure implementation also serves their interests.

(3) Don’t take your pants off for anyone

Enough said.

On this day

On February 23, ...
... 1898 (110 years ago today), following a 2-week trial, a court in Paris convicted renowned author Émile Zola of libel for J'Accuse (I Accuse) (right), the 4,000-word commentary, styled as an open letter to the President of France, in which he'd described as a "crime of high treason against humanity" the 1897 conviction by court-martial of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, a result linked to anti-Semitism.
... 1944, Soviets acting on orders of leader Joseph Stalin began a 2-day operation in which "nearly half a million Chechens and Ingush were systematically gathered together ... and transported in freight trains" east to Siberia and to 2 Soviet Socialist Republics that today are the independent states of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. As a result of the cold, hunger, and disease they suffered, an estimated 50% of these peoples, whose homelands had been in the Caucasus region of the Soviet Union, perished within a year of this forced deportation.

Sovereign Democracy?

In a couple of earlier posts (here and here), "Grace O'Malley" [IntLawGrrl Diane Marie Amann] and I discussed the fact that “democracy” has many meanings. Judy Dempsey writes in the Herald Tribune that Russia is now openly advocating a repressive political philosophy it calls “sovereign democracy”: subordinating democratic values to national interests. According to this “philosophy”, the foreign supervision Russia is subject to as a member of the Council of Europe (COE) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is nothing more than foreign meddling in Russia’s internal affairs. Thus, Russia is currently blocking reforms at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) (at right), the court established in Strasbourg, France to hear human rights claims from individuals living in the 47 COE member states. Judges at the Court are seeking reforms to help deal with the 89,000-case backlog (while 90% of ECHR claims are dismissed as inadmissible, they still must be examined individually). Russia joined the court in 1996 and implemented the European Human Rights Convention in 1998. Since then, over 48,790 complaints have been filed against Russia – more than against any other country. Of those, 10,569 were lodged in 2006 alone, when the ECHR found 96 violations. As COE chair last year, Russia suggested the Council shift priorities away from human rights to education, culture, illegal migration, human trafficking and combating terrorism. Russia is also trying to curb election-monitoring activities undertaken by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Vienna. A division of the OSCE founded in 1976, the Office monitored elections in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine in which Russian-backed regimes were toppled by pro-democracy revolutions (below). Despite its criticisms of these organizations, however, Russia is not renouncing membership. Instead, it created the Collective Security Treaty Organization in 2003, which includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Political cooperation and collective security are the main purposes; interference in member states' internal affairs is strictly forbidden. Russia is also supporting the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. which was founded in 2001 to fight terrorism and cross-border crime and, again, includes Russia and several Central Asian countries. This organization also directly competes with the Office for Democratic Institutions in observing elections. As Dempsey points out, this is a sad turn-around “for a rich and self-confident country that during the 1990s had fought hard to be accepted into Europe's human rights organizations”. While I cannot help but agree, I also cannot help but note that “Guantánamo”: from the camp itself to the Patriot Act, NSA wiretapping, CIA renditions and secret detention camps, abuse and disappearance of Muslim prisoners within the US, and withdrawing from the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations to avoid scrutiny of our application of the death penalty to foreign citizens are all signs of a return to sovereign democracy here at home.