1. The negotiations over the banning of landmines are a case in point. According to United Nations statistics, landmines currently kill or maim approximately 26,000 civilians a year and cause an accident every 22 minutes. In countries in the throes of civil war (Cambodia, Afghanistan, Angola, Somalia, to name just a few), landmines indiscriminately strike combatants and civilians, adults and children. The main exporters of landmines are the United States, China, Italy and Russia. Fifty countries manufacture at least 350 different models of a total of at least 200 millions landmines.

President Clinton mourns this situation and states his support for the "eventual" abolition of this weapon. The United States however is not ready for an unconditional ban because its military intends to use landmines for the protection of South Korea from North Korea. At stake here are not the mines already in the ground (according to the new treaty, Washington has ten years to remove those) but the more than one million new ones it wants to plant in the event of a North Korean invasion. The United States also objects to the ban of a number of self-destruct landmines used in combination with anti-tank mines.

122 governments, including the United States' NATO allies, signed the treaty to ban landmines. The treaty was the culmination of a long campaign which started in October 1992, when 16 private organizations in 75 countries came together to form the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). The ICBL's objectives were to bring about a total ban on landmines and the destruction of those already in the ground, to teach civilians to avoid them and to help victims of explosions. The movement gained the enthusiastic support of over 1,100 human rights groups. At a Conference on Disarmament chaired by then UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali in Geneva in 1995, a proposal to ban landmines was put forward without success. In December 1997, the treaty banning the use, production, stocking and sale of landmines was signed. The United States, China, Russia and India did not sign. The treaty will be enforced when ratified by 40 countries. The ICBL (which shares the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize with its US-based coordinator Jody Williams) is actively seeking ratification. To date, 113 of the signatories have not ratified. Among the 191 members of the United Nations, five nations are opposed to the ban and 60 are undecided*.

2. Washington's opposition to the ban on children under age 18 serving as soldiers is another bone of contention. In many countries (Liberia, Sudan, Uganda, Burundi, Zaire, Afghanistan, Burma, Sri Lanka...) an estimated quarter of a million children, some as young as ten, have been armed by their governments as well as by rebel groups. This practice harms them both physically and mentally and puts others they encounter at risk.

* The ICBL's website is http://www.icbl.org

Three treaties already prohibit the use of soldiers under the age of 15: the 1989 Convention on the rights of the Child and two Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Convention. Although a signatory of these treaties, the United States has ratified none. A new protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child is being proposed to raise the age requirement to 18. It would be optional, which means that governments who ratify the Convention would not be required to adopt it. Even so, the US administration is opposed to it because the US military recruits 17 year olds upon graduation. Less than 1% of the military is composed of 17 year olds and most of these usually reach the age of 18 by the time they have completed their training, yet the US rejects a proposal that would keep these soldiers out of combat and has blocked other governments from adopting a ban for themselves, taking advantage of the consensus rules that govern such negotiations.

3. The United States' position over the establishment of an international criminal court is another matter of great controversy. A conference is under way in Rome to establish such a tribunal, after years of negotiations. This court will replace the ad-hoc tribunals set up to deal with the carnage in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Its mandate will cover genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity wherever they take place. The main issue is to endow it with the independence and power it needs to be effective.

President Clinton has already said that he supports such a tribunal "in principle" and American negotiators have made a positive contribution to the drafting of trial procedures and of the rights of the defendants. However, it has joined China, Russia and France in trying to limit the Court's powers. The controversy centers on who has the power to initiate an investigation (the government, the UN Security Council or the prosecutor?); whether the consent of states with an interest in the prosecution should be sought; whether the court should defer to the national authorities' attempts to bring an accused to justice. The central issue is the United State's contention that the court should not be allowed to have jurisdiction without the permission of the Security Council when the Council is dealing with matters of peace and security under what is known as its chapter VII powers. Because genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity generally arise in these chapter VII cases, this restriction would virtually paralyzes the court. Morever, anyone of the five members of the Security Council could withhold permission by exercising its power of veto. Washington's argument that an independent court might interfere with the Council's efforts to contain threats to peace overlooks the fact that it is precisely human rights abuses that are a threat to peace.

The Dayton accord proves the falseness of the argument that peace talks cannot succeed if the leaders of the various factions face the threat of prosecution. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had already indicted Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic when the accord took place. It is moreover essential that indicted war criminals be arrested if lasting peace is going to have a chance.

Seeking a way out of this impasse, Singapore has put forward a proposal, backed by Great Britain and others, to give the Council the power to vote to stop the court's proceedings if it threatens peace efforts. The United States maintains its position that the Council must vote to authorize rather than stop a prosecution, thus preserving its power to block any prosecution.

The United States argues that its troops' unique peace-keeping role throughout the world is behind its wish to exercise control over the Court. The Clinton administration also seems to believe that the Republican-controlled Senate would not agree to the ratification of a treaty that gives such wide powers to an international court. And it warns against the creation of an unaccountable court, ignoring the fact that the prosecutor would be subject to impeachment and a string of other constraints.

Ratification of international human rights legislation has traditionally been very slow in the United States. It took it 40 years to ratify the Genocide Convention and 25 years to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women has not been ratified. Washington's financial and political backing for the Court is sorely needed, but it will not be forthcoming any time soon. Will it take the prosecution of a Saddam Hussein by the court to bring about a change in policy?

The trend is for the international community to leave the United States on the sidelines in matters of international human rights legislation. The negotiations over the ban of landmines are an example. At the beginning, consensus rules, according to which any government could block negotiations by veto, prevailed. With the support of a large coalition, Canada set up parallel talks that were open only to those who advocated an unconditional ban. The United States was neatly bypassed and its negotiators' last minute attempts to gain certain loopholes failed. Again, during the negotiations over the protocol on child soldiers, there has been pressure to limit participation to those who support a ban on using children under 18 years of age. Even if participation was opened to the 191 governments who have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United States would be prevented from blocking the proposal as it would be one of just two hold-outs.

Another issue which has made Washington the target of great disapproval by its allies and even by the Vatican, is that of sanctions imposed on its enemies. Whenever a foreign policy matter arises, the knee jerk reaction from Democrat and Republican politicians alike is to call for economic and financial sanctions. Clinton recently brought sanctions against India and Pakistan for resuming nuclear tests. The House of Representatives passed a proposal to sanction countries guilty of religious persecutions. In the past, the United States has leveled sanctions at the USSR, Nicaragua, South Africa, Cuba, Libya and Iran, among others. Last June, in a talk to the World Affairs Council, Frank Kittredge, President of the National Foreign Trade Council, counted unilateral sanctions imposed by the US against 75 different countries or 52% of the world population.

The problem is that these sanctions rarely hit the intended target. Their symbolic effect is more important it seems than any real harm they may cause, which is little. The United States does not really have the power or authority to make the governments of Cuba, Iraq or Iran treat their people decently. What the sanctions do is to prohibit American companies from trading with those countries. It is not the government of the country under sanction who suffers, but the people.

The embargoes against Viet Nam, Cambodia and South Africa did succeed because there was world support. Unilateral sanctions by the United States hurt just the United States*. The Pope's visit to Cuba did more in a few days for the Cuban people than three decades of American embargo. Diplomacy, persuasion and compromise are today the world's favored strategies.

Aware of international reaction, two Congressmen, Phil Crane (R, Illinois) and Lee Hamilton (D, Indiana) recently introduced a proposal requiring the Congress and the Executive to present a detailed report on the following points, before bringing sanctions against a country: Are the sanctions in line with well-defined policy? Do they contradict other national policy objectives? What is their impact on Americans? Have all other avenues been explored? The so-called Crane-Hamilton proposal is currently under study by various committees.

** See "The effect of sanctions" by John H. Fund and "Sanctions don't always get desired results" by Walter R. Mears in The Register, May 19 and June 3, 1998. Representative Lee Hamilton reports that economic sanctions have caused an annual deficit of US $ 15 to 19 billions in the US trade balance.

During his first presidential campaign in 1992, Clinton ridiculed Bush's policy of concessions towards Beijing. Yet, Clinton the president has caused a storm of protests because of his appeasement of Beijing: the granting of most favored nation status, the sale of technology, the acknowledgment of Taiwan as a part of China, the cessation of official UN condemnation of Chinese human rights violations, the development of trade with China, silence over Tibet's autonomy... Chinese contributions to the Democratic Party's election funds are under investigation by Congress. Washington also says little about the human rights situation in Viet Nam and Indonesia, for strategic and economic reasons but roundly criticizes Iraq and African nations for their human rights records.

This is a regrettable situation. International human rights legislation would be furthered considerably if the United States were more supportive. The picture however is not all bleak. Many US companies (Reebok, Levi Strauss, Macy's, Liz Clairborne to name but a few) investing enormous capital in developing countries such as Viet Nam, Pakistan, Honduras and Myanmar, have become more human rights conscious under the pressure of their consumers here in the US. Congress has been persuaded by industry to pass laws such as the Apparel Industry Partnership Act (1996). The Social Accountability 8000 has established a set of labor and human rights standards for the protection of local workers. Foreign governments who want US companies to work with them have to adhere to these standards. In 1996, the media condemned TV personality Kathy Lee Gifford for lending her name to a line of women's clothing manufactured by under-age workers in Central American sweat shops. Labor Secretary Robert Reich launched a "No Sweat" campaign to make foreign manufacturers comply with US labor laws and to identify retailers selling clothing made under sweat shop conditions*.

The United States is losing its allies in the field of human rights. Its military and economic power is not enough to win it international respect. The numerous scandals that rock Washington are also closely followed abroad. Human rights are based on morality.

The United States needs to recognize the global intrinsic value of human rights, to review its foreign policy in this light, to revise the methods it uses to promote these rights throughout the world, and to abstain from making exceptions and exemptions**.

References:

* (See "The spotlight and the bottom line. How multinationals export human rights" by Debora L. Spar in Foreign Affairs, March/April 1998.)

** See "Human rights, an edifice under completion" by Lam Le Trinh in Droits de l'homme/Human rights, #45, Summer 1998, Paris.

LAM LE TRINH

Huntington Beach, California

July 4, 1998