[opiniojuris] Peter Spiro: Has John Bolton Gone Soft on International Law?

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Posted by Peter Spiro:
Has John Bolton Gone Soft on International Law?
http://www.opiniojuris.org/posts/1208226785.shtml


   Okay, that's a joke. But I'm not sure quite what to make of [1]Global
   Governance Watch, a new joint project of the American Enterprise
   Institute and the Federalist Society. (Bolton keynoted today's
   [2]launch.)
   On the one hand, you just know there has to be an
   anti-internationalist strategem at work here, and there is some
   evidence to back it up (such as [3]this item calling out the Europeans
   as hypocrites on the UNSC role on Iraq and Kosovo). On the other hand,
   the project's website seems to play most of its material straight, in
   a just-the-facts mode. See for instance [4]this description of the
   Convention on the Rights of the Child -- as far as I can tell, there
   isn't a hidden "[5]ratifying this treaty would mean the end of the
   world as we know it" kind of message (unless of course there's some
   sort of low-wattage subliminal banner saying exactly that!). The site
   even links to UN fact sheets in a non-ironic way!
   So what gives? Have the sovereigntists finally gotten wise to the fact
   that international law and regulation are now too real to wish away,
   and that they had better bone up on IL rather than keeping on the
   blinders? If so, it is a retreat to a more defensible perimeter, but a
   retreat nonetheless, and a significant one at that.

References

   1. http://www.globalgovernancewatch.org/
   2. http://www.globalgovernancewatch.org/events/
   3. http://www.globalgovernancewatch.org/recent_developments/old-world-and-new-world-disregard-security-council
   4. http://www.globalgovernancewatch.org/human_security/the-united-nations-convention-on-the-rights-of-the-child
   5. http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/1993/mar93/psrmar93.html