Duplicity in International Affairs and Eclipsed Democracy: The Case of Afghanistan

Abdullah Abdullah withdrew on November 1, 2009 from the runoff election in Afghanistan.   Interestingly, Hilary Clinton and a spokesman for President Karzai characterized Abdullah’s withdraw in virtually identical terms—namely, as “his personal decision.”  Such a stance makes sense because both the American Government and Karzai had an interest in the Afghan electoral process being perceived as legitimate.   It is interesting, however, that the identical interpretation was instantly available to the press.   Perhaps U.S. Senator John Kerry had urged Karzai to agree to the runoff by telling him of a secret deal between the American Government and Abdullah that would have Abdullah pull out with a statement affirming the legitimacy of the electoral system.   That is, I wonder if the U.S. senator promised Abdullah something that essentially short-circuited the electoral process.  Karzai would look like a statesman without having to risk losing power, and Abdullah would get something rather than a probable election defeat.  The US would get stability in a Karzai government without having to worry about another controversial election.

As it turned out, Abdullah did not keep to the script; he denounced the continued corruption in the continued occupants of the Karzai-hired electoral commission (a blatant conflict of interest for any electoral body, to be sure).   Also, the runoff itself was cancelled. Was this part of the deal?  If so, the deal I suspect took place was very well hidden, or subterranean in nature and intention.

What concerns me overall from this case is the extent to which such a deal would deviate from the story that we, the public, were told.  If there was such a deal, it would have been at odds with the democratic process, which really needed a fair runoff election rather than a collapse (or fait accompli).  A runoff could have served as an opportunity to fix or strengthen the democratic process while demonstrating that electoral fraud can be extinguished without resort to revolution.  Not only was the world left with no such hope; we saw the democratic process truncated ,and thus as still deeply flawed. 

This might be naive, but for many years American presidents have been giving lip service to supporting representative democracy around the world.  It would be sad were the same presidents actually thwarting it on account of political expediency (such as clearing the way for a decision on a new troop surge).   I refuse to accept that integrity in place duplicity is too much to realistically ask for.  Ironically, had the US and UN invested people and energy into building fire-walls in Afganistan’s electoral process such that the runoff would have truly been free and fair (including from threats of violence), the American goal with respect to the country would have been much closer to being realized than by sending in a surge of miltary force.   In going for the expedient route, the American elected representatives and their appointees looked corrupt or compromised themselves.  In the end, it is up to us, the citizens—of whatever republic—to say enough is enough and to resist the temptation to pull the lever in the voting booth as we did last time.  Otherwise, we are to blame—as enablers rather than as game changers.

See: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/11/01/afghanistan.election/index.html

Afghani Electoral Fraud in 2010: A Precursor to the Protests in the Middle East?

The UN’s Electoral Complaints Commission recommended in 2009 that Afganistan’s Independent Election Commission invalidate 210 polling stations where the ECC found “clear and convincing evidence of fraud.”  The IEC in turn announced a run-off election because Karzai no longer had over 50% of the vote.  MSNBC reported that “the Karzai-influenced election commission may refuse to call for a runoff.” CNN reported that Karzai and Abdullah were trying to “cut some sort of deal” on a coaliation government that would have obviated, or skirted, a run-off.  Such a compromise would have been woefully inadequate from the standpoint of democratic process.

Even Karzai’s announcement that he would go along with a run-off can be read as presumptuous.  If he didn’t want to go along with it, he need not have taken part.  That one candidate’s feels his refusal to participate would or should cancel an election suggests a rather squalid presumptuousness that ought to be made transparent to the voters.  It is a sad commentary on representative democracy that the Afghan IEC’s decision was probably dependent on Karzai having been under international pressure to agree to the run-off.   Is it too idealist to insist that the candidate should have been informed by the IEC of its decision rather than permitting it?   For one of the candidates to have had a de facto veto on the election commission evinces a lack of democratic infrastructure.  It is like a cart pulling the horse.

In retrospect, we know that Karzai’s victory was fraudulent, even though he continued on in the campaign as a viable candidate.  What does it say when fraud is not punished?  Is having a run-off sufficient punishment?  Were all of the candidates benefitting from the fraud tossed out and a new open election held, would this be so catastrophic? I contend that the protests that occurred in the Middle East in 2011 for greater democracy can be interpreted as having been occassioned by years of frustration stemming from the sort of electoral facade perpetuated by dictators such as Karzai.  If so, the costs of not nipping electoral fraud in the bud far outweight any trouble involved in insisting on electoral accountability.  In the case of the U.S., foreign aid to Afghanistan could have been cut off in 2009 unless or until an open and fair election could be verified. With such a substantive signal given and repeated with regard to other dictators in the Middle East who were using the facade of democracy for legitimacy, some of the mass protests taking place two years later might have been obviated and lives saved that were otherwise lost.

Sources:
http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/23/karzai-challenger-prefers-opposition-to-coalition/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33394277/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

A Nobel Peace Prize Awarded in spite of a Troop Surge

In December of 2009, Barak Obama was the first sitting U.S. president in 90 years and the third ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet he did so under the long shadow of the war in Afghanistan, where he was ordering 30,000 more troops into battle.  Could Truman’s decision to drop the A-bomb on Japan be along the same logic because it was meant to preempt the loss of life that would have come had the US invaded Japan?  President Reagan’s peace through strength logic was that a military build-up would forestall or prevent war from breaking out (hence no loss of life would be involved even in the forestalling).   The logic of awarding a surge President with a peace prize seems more dubious.  However, few today would compliment Chamberlain for having appeased Hitler (even though the prime minister was secretly stalling for time to build up the British forces). Perhaps with the dangerous plans presumably being hatched in Afganistan in 2009 against American cities, it could be argued that a surge is preventative of future conflict.  However, such a logic introduces a slippery slope.   In other words, if the ends justify the means, then virtually anything can be justified as means as long as it is tied to the end.  Human beings have a rather creative ability to rationalize their expedient and self-serving actions.  It would be far simpler were the peace prize awarded to someone who clearly opposed war and did something about it without engaging in it himself; even so, there are few like Gandhi in any given generation, and far more leaders wage war in the supposed (or real) interests of peace.  I contend that there are in any year enough people who stand up for peace without engaging in war that the peace prize could be awarded to them. Such a policy would clearly distinguish such role models from the ends justify the means rationalizers rather than enable the latter under a subterfuge of peace.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34358659/ns/politics-white_house/

Human Rights Violations by Rulers in Syria and Bahrain: On the American Reaction

The New York Times reported on March 25, 2011 that Syrian military troops opened fire on protesters in the southern part of Syria. Tens of thousands of demonstrators in the southern city of Dara’a, a well as protesters in some other cities and towns around the state, were defying a ruler who once again demonstrated his willingness to use lethal force against his own citizens. The paper reported on March 27th that "(w)ith 61 people confirmed killed by security forces, the country’s status as an island of stability amid the Middle East storm seemed irretrievably lost." Weeks earlier, the Arab League had declared that Qaddafi had lost his sovereignty—meaning his right to rule without intervention from other countries—because he had been engaged in having Libyan civilians killed. Since the League’s declaration on the Libyan dictator, the “president” of Yemen had use force against protesters—even gaining power from the legislature to lock up his detractors. As if these cases would not be enough of a bad precedent, Bahrain’s ruler had also been using lethal force against protests—just days after sitting down with U.S. Secretary of Defense William Gates, who was urging restraint.

In the midst of the Syrian government's violence, MSNBC reported on March 25th that the United States called on the Syrian government to stop the violence against marchers, White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "We strongly condemn the Syrian government's attempts to repress and intimidate demonstrators,'' he told reporters. Meanwhile, according to the New York Times, the new American ambassador in Damascus, Robert Ford, was "quietly reaching out to . . . Assad to urge him to stop firing on his people." Quietly? Meanwhile, American fighters had been bombing what was left of Qaddafi's airforce in Libya. The inconsistency was not lost on some American officials, according to the New York Times. "Having intervened in Libya to prevent a wholesale slaughter in Benghazi, some analysts asked, how could the administration not do the same in Syria? Though no one is yet talking about a no-fly zone over Syria, Obama administration officials acknowledge the parallels to [Qadaffi]. Some analysts predicted the administration will be cautious in pressing Mr. Assad, not because of any allegiance to him but out of a fear of what could follow him — a Sunni-led government potentially more radical and Islamist than his Alawite minority government." So strategic interests, even if running at cross-purposes with itself, are thought by some as a legitimate basis for a rather blatant inconsistency from the standpoint of human rights and the long term goal of democracy in the Middle East.

I contend that the continued support of rulers in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen while turning on Qaddafi, as if diplomacy were sufficient in dealing with the former three but not with the latter, is not at all in the interest of the United States beyond short-term political expediency in the theatre of international relations. Moreover, the double-standard concerning the rulers who have turned on their own people undercuts the credibility of the American government. “Syria’s security forces are showing the same cruel disregard for protesters’ lives as their counterparts in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Bahrain,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. Whitson evinces a consistency seems so easy, yet is for some reason so difficult for government officials around the world, and particularly in the United States. Lest I be misread as bashing my own country, my aim is to call us to a higher ideal and a better international relations. It would be nice to see the Obama administration take the moral high ground on a consistent basis, rather than simply according to vested interests, such as oil but also a desire to maximize influence among sitting heads of state.

Beyond breaking off relations with rulers who violently turn on their own citizens, the self-declared republics of the world have a moral obligation to step in to protect the civilians from their own respective governments. To be sure, there is an opinion in the United States that opposes such intervention unless there is an important U.S. interest at stake. A Middle East populated by republics is in Americans’ interest even apart from the moral imperative to protect the defenseless against their own governments. Even so, as reported in the New York Times on March 27th, narrower strategic concerns were being raised by senior American officials. Specifically, they worried that the widespread nature of the Syrian uprising, for instance, "could dash any remaining hopes for a Middle East peace agreement . . .  It could also alter the American rivalry with Iran for influence in the region and pose challenges to the United States’ greatest ally in the region, Israel." A Syrian republic could pull away from Iran, though it could also undo any deals that the Americans have made for Assad's assistance with a peace agreement involving Israel. In other words, the officials were "pulled between fears that [Syria's] problems could destabilize neighbors like Lebanon and Israel, and the hope that [the fall of Assad] could weaken one of Iran’s key allies." Such a pretzel is only natural for short-term strategic thinking that is obsessed with immediate self-interest from all angles. In other words, an obsession to maximize such self-interest is actually self-defeating not only because it is short-sighted, but also because no one scenario is completely in one's self-interest and this is apt to be paralyzing to such a mentality. One might even say that such a mentality deserves itself. It definitely does not deserve to be "leader of the free world."

In the end, and even for today, the world stopping any ruler's violent betrayal of masses of his people such that sovereignty can no longer be construed as absolute is in the American (and the world’s) short and long term interest. This is the new idea that burst through in the world’s consciousness as the Middle East erupted in protest in early 2011. Sadly, the implementation of even such an idea can be compromised by the routine or status quo that naturally goes with a narrower self-interest that assumes that tomorrow will be just like today. Even if merely the idea itself of sovereignty being conditional on a ruler’s non-abusive conduct evinces a significant advance in human political understanding long overdue, consistent implementation is implied. Otherwise, Qaddafi can be viewed as a victim of the unfairness that is implicit in the inconsistency of a lapsed implementation. Such irony undercuts the principle as it manifests on the world stage. American officials who merely urged restraint in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain even as American aid continued were by 2011 woefully antiquarian--as if fossilized incarnations of habits long since expired from the old world.

Beyond the particular cases discussed here, it is important to take note of the phenomenon of human beings whose staid mentality and conduct continue much like the continued instinctual motions of a recently killed insect. Even though the world has gone on to demand more, if only from its new awareness, diplomatic analysts still move their mental limbs in the same awkward movements. How can people in government be so regimented in their cognitive apparatus that they allow themselves to think and behave so out of context (even possibly without realizing it)? This phenomenon is like the nerd who continues dancing on the dance floor (by himself) after the music has stopped or is on to a new song having a different beat. 

For example, on March 12th, the New York Times reported that “in the wake of a violent clash between protesters and Bahrain’s security forces and pro-government vigilantes, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates [Bahrain’s] ruling family on Saturday that “baby steps” toward reform would not be enough to meet the political and economic grievances sweeping the region. Mr. Gates also cautioned Bahrain’s king and crown prince during two hours of meetings in Manama, Bahrain’s capital, that if the reform process was prolonged, the United States feared that Iran would become involved and create more chaos. Gates said he was convinced that the king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, and the crown prince, Sheik Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, were serious about reform and starting a dialogue with protesters demanding more democracy.”

While perhaps being in line with the narrow American strategic interest in Iran’s influence being contained in the region, urging more than baby steps and being assured were clearly inadequate positions from the standpoint of stopping the king from continuing to violate his subject’s human rights. Moreover, Gates’ comments seem so woefully timid or pallid given the facts on the ground in Bahrain at the time that one could be excused for asking if the secretary was suffering from dementia. The New York Times reported that even “as Mr. Gates arrived, security forces firing what protesters said were rubber bullets and pro-government Sunni vigilantes wielding sticks and swords beat back a group of several hundred protesters near the royal palace in Riffa, a residential neighborhood for the ruling family and the Sunni Muslim elite. The protesters said they had been met with stones and clouds of tear gas.” Even so, Gates told the king, “Obviously, leading reform and being responsive is the way we’d like to see this move forward.” Alternatively, the secretary could have said, “Obviously, if your forces continue to fire on unarmed protesters, the U.S. military would have to step in on humanitarian grounds to project your subjects from you—and of course the flow of American aid to you would have to stop.” On the plane, Gates had remarked concerning Libya, “If we are directed to impose a no-fly zone, we have the resources to do it.” The inconsistency is striking, if not indicative of differential motives based on the geo-political strategic interest of the United States.

According to The New York Times, two days later, “about 2000 troops — 1,200 from Saudi Arabia and 800 from the United Arab Ehmirates — entered Bahrain as part of a force operating under the aegis of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a six-nation regional coalition of Sunni rulers that has grown increasingly anxious over the sustained challenge to Bahrain’s king.” Violence against protesters (rather than restraint) ensued while the Obama administration continued to work at the U.N. for a resolution calling for a no fly zone in Libya. Meanwhile, “A senior American diplomat arrived [in Bahrain] on an unplanned visit and sought ways to calm the chaos while pressing the government to exercise restraint.” Additionally, a White House spokesman called for “calm and restraint on all sides.” Calm? Either the American administration is woefully ignorant of an appropriate response or the officials want to protect deals that have been made between the United States and the rulers in Yemen and Syria. Fortunately, there is a third alternative. Sadly, however, the "analysts" have it all figured out, even if their song has ended.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/world/middleeast/26syria.html?_r=1&hp

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42268707/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/world/middleeast/13military.html?scp=1&sq=gates%20bahrain%20king&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/world/middleeast/15bahrain.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/middleeast/16bahrain.html?scp=7&sq=gates%20bahrain%20king&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/world/middleeast/27diplomacy.html?_r=1&hp

President Trump as a “Neutral Guy” in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: On the Conflict of Interest

In the absence of an international arbitrator with teeth, the nations of the world must at times have recourse to others in service to the resolution of disputes—even longstanding ones. This, I submit, is a major drawback to a world of sovereign nation-states, for rare is one that can genuinely serve as an honest broker, hence with credibility to the disputants rather than just one side.  Conflicts of interest all thus allowed, and even ignored as if they had no bearing. In the context of the longstanding Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the United States has been plagued with having to surmount the conflict between the interest of being an ally of Israel and a neutral peacemaking with credible standing as such to both sides. 

In recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel by announcing that the American embassy would be moved to that historic city, U.S. President Trump explicitly took sides in the broader dispute, such that the Palestinians in reaction were “no longer on speaking terms with the president.”[1] Two years earlier, in the midst of his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump had said, “Let me be sort of a neutral guy [in that conflict].”[2] Sitting with the Israeli prime minister in the Oval Office in early March, 2018, the American president insisted that he would still be an active participant in proffering a peace proposal. Yet without credibility as a neutral guy to the Palestinians, President Trump risked having his eventual proposal being viewed as merely an extension of the Israeli interests.

President Trump found himself in a conflict of interest—that of being Israel’s strongest ally and a neutral peacemaker with credibility on both sides. Taking a stand firmly in favor of Israel could not simply be dismissed as if taking such a decision could have no bearing on the assumption of neutrality ignores the conflict of interest itself. Such conflicts are never missed by the party on the losing end. An ally of one disputant simply cannot also be a “neutral guy.” In such a case, another nation-state must be found to inhabit the neutral role, yet such a nation-state may be difficult to find, given the networks of alliances that proliferate in a nation-state system of international relations. That a neutral party would have to be powerful enough in the world for the neutrality to be effectively leveraged—i.e., garnering the attention of both disputants rather than dismissed—decreases the likelihood that such a neutral party could be found. The E.U., for instance, typically sided with the Palestinians over Israel—perhaps with a motive to counterbalance the influence of the U.S.

Perhaps absent a global neutral arbitrator powerful enough to implement a peace settlement, an ally of one disputant could together with an ally of the other disputant act as a neutral pivot around which negotiations could proceed. The U.S. would not be able to make a proposal that is objectionable to the E.U. on peace in Israel. Yet this presumes that the Americans and Europeans could work together as a united mediator credible to both the Palestinians and Israelis. The basic problem, I submit, is that the world puts too much on nation-states as the sole or at least hegemonic actors on the global stage.

For more on conflicts of interest, see Institutional Conflicts of Interest.

---

[1] Peter Baker and David Halbfinger, “Trump’s Hopes ofBeing the ‘Neutral Guy’ in the Mideast Seem Long Gone,” The New York Times, March 5, 2018.

[2] Ibid.

A Critique of Corporate Political Risk Analysis and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Case of Libya

Even though people the world over instinctively recoiled as reports came in of Gadhafi's violent retaliation against Libyan protests on February 21, 2011, the official reaction from the US Government was muted at best. The refusal to act on an intuitive response to immediately remove the Libyan dictator's ability to wantonly kill people resisting his right to rule may have come from concerns that the mounting tumult of a change of government in a major oil-producing region of North Africa could cause even just a disruption in the supply of crude. Indeed, even the mere possibility was prompting a spike in the price of oil (and gas)--what one might call a risk premium. Even the prospect of an ensuing nasty electoral backlash from consumers having to face a possible increase in their largely non-discretionary gas expense was not lost on their elected representative in chief at the White House. 

Even five days later, after some serious press on the rising price of gasoline hitting American consumers, the most the president would do is proffer a verbal "demand" from afar that Gadhafi leave Libya.  "When a leader's only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now," the White House said in a statement. The dictator must have been shaking in his boots.  In actuality, Gadhafi had lost his legitmacy to rule five days earlier, and by the day of the statement the American administration could have been actively involved with willing EU states in stopping him inside Libya. Given the progress of the protesters-turned rebels and the behavior of Brent crude that week, the interests of the American consumer (and Western oil companies, as well as the business sector over all) were by then firmly in line with an enforced regime change in Libya.  Oddly, the old dogma of an absolute governmental sovereignty was colluding with an inherently excessive risk-averse corporate political risk methodology to hold America back from acting as midwife to a new political awareness breaking out in the Middle East.

On the day of Gadhafi's self-vaunted shooting spree, Brent crude benchmark vaulted past $108 a barrel (settling at $105.74, a two-year high).  On the following day, it rose to $111.25. On the first day of March, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 168.32 points, or 1.38%, to finish at 12058.02, its third triple-digit decline in the past week. Oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange, already up 6% this year, jumped 2.7% to settle at $99.63 a barrel.  Brent Crude in London hit $115.42 a barrel, the highest settlement since Aug. 27, 2008.The graph below shows the change in oil, though the change looks astounding in part simply because the graph only goes to 15%; were it to go to 100 percent, the picture might seem less dramatic.

The Wall Street Journal had reported already on February 21st that the rise was "driven by increasing unrest in the Middle East." Specifically, worries that the turmoil in Libya was curtailing output of that country's oil were said to be driving the price climb. However, USA Today cites Darin Newsome, an energy analyst at DTN, as pointing to the role of speculators around the world as propelling the price of oil. "The flow of money plays an enormous role in the direction, speed and volatility of these markets." In fact, the market mechanism itself may be flawed because speculators could push commodity prices out of sync with the underlying supply of the respective commodities. Turmoil in Libya cannot be blamed for the ensuing “creation” of artificial value (such an increase, by the way, had fueled the housing bubble in the US that came in for a hard landing in 2008). In fact, the rise in world oil prices began before the final third of 2010—before the prospect of widespread popular protest in the Middle East was realized. Indeed, the climb during the last third of 2010 looks a lot like that which took place in the first third of 2009 (during a recession). It was not until well into February, 2011, that the turmoil in the Middle East appeared, according to MSNBC, “to pose limited risk to global oil supplies. Neither Tunisia nor Egypt produce oil or gas.” Such “limited risk,” besides being mitigated, cannot very well be projected back well into 2010 to explain the rise in the price of gas.

Incidentally, another interesting feature of this graph is the sustained drop in 2008, before the financial crisis in September (and the U.S. Presidential election in November!).  The “V” pattern at the end of 2008 is classic “electoral.” It suggests that the price of gas may be very attuned to the electoral interests of those in power, and therefore to government policy. My contention in this essay is that this dynamic was alive and well in Washington when Gadhafi was turning on his own people.

Sources:

Jerry DiColo and Brian Baskin, "A Stealth Comeback for $100 Crude Oil," The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2011, pp. C1, C3.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704506004576173961240139414.html?mod=ITP_moneyandinvesting_0

Gary Strauss, "If Unrest Spreads, Gas May hit $5", USA Today, February 22, 2011, p. AI.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41739499/ns/business-personal_finance/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/business/energy-environment/24oil.html?_r=1&hp

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/business/global/23oil.html?ref=todayspaper

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41785849/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/africa/18nations.html?hp

The UN Court Obviating War: The Ruling on Kosovo's Independence

The UN’s highest court ruled in 2010 that Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia did not break international law. President Hisashi Owada of the International Court of Justice said international law contains no ”prohibition on declarations of independence” and therefore Kosovo’s declaration ”did not violate general international law.” Kosovo’s statehood had been recognized by all of the United States and most of the States of the EU.

Critically, the court’s ruling is nonbinding.  Hence China and Russia are under no obligation to recognize it, though as both states are members of the UN one might suppose that the UN’s ruling is binding on them as members of the UN. What sanctions, one might surmise, could the UN issue against its members that do not recognize the rulings of its court? Short of cancelling their memberships, what could the UN assess that it could enforce?  Perhaps the UN could effectively withhold their voting privilege in the UN while maintaining their membership (and fees).  I contend that such “teeth” is necessary if the UN is to be an honest broker concerning questions of declarations of independence such that war is obviated. In The Least Dangerous Branch, Alexander Bickel argues that the judiciary is the least dangerous branch because it does not have control of the purse or an army.  A court whose rulings are nonbinding is to render it nearly impotent—nearly because just being a court carries with it some legitimacy and thus influence. Even so, as an improvement on the alternative (i.e., war), the UN’s court needs something more binding. To tout an absolutist theory of sovereignty of the nation-state as an obstacle to recognizing the UN court as binding would be enervate a possible improvement of mankind with respect to conflict in international relations.  Particularly in an age in which mass  human destructiveness is possible, we can ill-afford a Bodinean theory of sovereignty. In spite of the dangers in continuing the status quo in international conflict resolution, we advance at a snail’s pace—particularly as compared to technological development. I contend that it is high time for political development in international relations. Yet for this to occur it seems that human nature itself—particularly, its intractability—would have to be overcome, which might render the original problem moot.  Even so, it is worth a try. We may be closer than we think to being able to give the UN’s highest court a bindingness sufficient to reduce the likelihood of war appreciably.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/07/22/world/europe/AP-EU-World-Court-Kosovo.html?_r=1