Norms v. National Security

Obama Says No to Landmines, with Steve Groves, National Review Online, September 29, 2014. "On March 6, 2014, America’s highest-ranking military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, called anti-personnel landmines (APLs) “an important tool in the arsenal of the armed forces of the United States.” Yesterday, President Obama banned the armed forces from using them. Why? To comply with a treaty — the Ottawa Convention — that the United States hasn’t even ratified. The U.S. Senate has not given its advice and consent to the treaty, but the Obama administration still feels compelled, in the words of a State Department spokesman, to “underscore its commitment to the spirit and humanitarian aims of the Ottawa Convention.”

At the UN, No Room for Skeptics

Want to Know What U.N. Thinks of ‘Democracy’? Just Look at its Arms Trade Treaty, Foxnews.com, September 10, 2014. "While the ATT was negotiated at the U.N., it was pushed along by anti-gun groups. But the negotiations were also watched by U.S. and international organizations that were critical of the treaty, including the World Forum on Shooting Activities (WFSA) and my own employer, The Heritage Foundation. The U.N. generically calls these and other groups, regardless of their views on the treaty, “civil society.” But that is not how the U.N. wants to work. It pretends to support open and transparent processes, and to value input from everyone. But what it really wants is to pick groups who agree with it and define them alone as“civil society.”

Concluding Reflections on the U.N. PoA

Concluding Reflections on a Pointless U.N. Gathering on Guns, National Review Online, June 25, 2014. "As I noted Monday on the Corner, the biennial meeting of the U.N.’s Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons (PoA) that concluded on Friday went about as well from the U.S. perspective as it could have done. But that doesn’t mean it’s harmless: The broader context of the PoA is completely wedded to the promotion of gun control, and to the promotion in the U.S. of supposedly binding transnational norms that would reinterpret and hence change the Constitution."

Summing Up the U.N. PoA

At the Close of the U.N.’s Programme of Action, Wins – and A Few Losses – for the U.S., National Review Online, June 23, 2014. "The U.N. Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons (PoA), which I’ve been covered for the Corner over the past week, wrapped up on Friday afternoon with a consensus outcome — i.e., one that’s unanimously tolerated, if not unanimously liked. In the field of firearms, nothing that the U.N. does can be genuinely good for the U.S., but as these things go, the PoA wasn’t too bad."

NGO Statements from Myself and Canadian NFA to the U.N. PoA

At NGO Day at the U.N. Programme of Action, Forthright Talk from Canada, National Review Online, June 19, 2014. "Today’s meeting of the U.N.’s Programme of Action on Small Arms (PoA) focused on statements by non-governmental organizations. As far as the conservative organizations go, the direct impact of these is minimal: most everyone else in the room is on the other team."

U.S. Allies at the U.N. PoA: More Needed

On Firearms, the U.S. Needs Allies at the U.N., National Review Online, June 19, 2014. "The topic has shifted at this week’s meeting of the U.N.’s Programme of Action on Small Arms (PoA). The focus on Wednesday was on the provision of foreign aid — undoubtedly a major reason why many nations are in the room. As the discussion unfolds, it’s hard to ignore just how isolated the U.S. is at the U.N. on firearms issues, and, on a related issue, just how little most of the other national delegations know about the subject."

The Brexit Prize and the IEA

And the Prize for Britain’s Exit to the EU Goes To . . ., Heritage Foundation Foundry, April 11, 2014. "The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in London awarded its prestigious “Brexit Prize,” a 100,000 euro award for the best plan for a British exit from the European Union (EU), earlier this week. The winner, Iain Mansfield, is the director of trade and investment at the British embassy in the Philippines. Thankfully, there are evidently still a few civil servants who have not succumbed to the British establishment’s decades-long bias in favor of the EU."

Here's a New Idea: Blame the U.S.!

Hypocritical NGOs Like to Blame US While Turning Blind Eye to Terror, Fox News, February 19, 2014. "Supposedly, the treaty is about cutting off the supply of arms to terrorists and dictators. But the evidence shows that the NGOs are, in practice, more interested in the supposed misdeeds of the United States and other democracies than they are in stopping terror and dictators."

Non-Profts Aren't A Sector, They're Life

Nonprofit Model Entirely Misleading, Newsday, February 16, 2014. "One of the many virtues of the United States is it has an exceptionally lively nonprofit sector. There is an organization for everyone, and every organization speaks for itself. Europe is less fortunate: there, government funding of nonprofits is the norm. But at least Europe is waking up to the dangers of subsidies. We seem to be going to sleep."

Analyzing A Leaked NGO EMail on the UN ATT

How Liberal Anti-Gun Activists View the American Constitution, Foxnews.com, July 8, 2013. "Last month, the House of Representatives unanimously adopted an amendment to the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act to prohibit funding for the implementation of the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) for one year. The Obama administration says it will sign the ATT soon. The House amendment was vigorously opposed by a group of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) led by Oxfam America, and including Amnesty International, the Arms Control Association, and the National Association of Evangelicals."

UN Programme of Action Lives On

U.N. ‘Programme of Action’ Does Little Damage, So Far, Heritage Foundation Foundry, September 11, 2012. "The 2012 Review Conference for the U.N.’s “Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects” (PoA), concluded with a consensus agreement on Friday. The agreement continued the PoA’s track record of over-promising and under-delivering, but, in the context of the PoA, that is about the best outcome the U.S. could realistically have achieved."

How to Solve the Crime Problem: Ban It!

The United Nations Drafts a Law Banning Crime, National Review Online, July 25, 2012. "If the nations of the world wanted higher standards on their arms imports and exports, they could have them today. If they wanted to respect U.N. Security Council sanctions and embargos, they could do so today. But they don’t, and they don’t. In spite of the complexities of drafting a text that satisfies everyone’s hypocrisy, the July conference may end up producing a treaty. But it won’t matter to the people of Syria or Somalia — never mind Iran or North Korea. And it won’t stop the NGOs from blaming the U.S. and, sooner or later, demanding yet another treaty. The only thing it will do is give Harold Koh a bit more to chew on, and add another layer of legal complexity to U.S. commercial interests and foreign and security policy. At the U.N., they call that a good day’s work."

The Coming Anti-American Campaign

When the UN Arms Trade Treaty Fails, What Next?, The Commentator, May 31, 2012. "So what happens when the Treaty doesn’t work? You can bet that the ATT’s proponents aren’t going to accept that they were wrong. They’ll do three things. First, they’ll blame the U.S. (and Britain, but mostly the U.S.) for the Treaty’s failure. Second, they’ll argue – no matter who is actually doing the arms supplying, and to what conflict – that the U.S. and Britain are ‘setting a bad example’ by engaging in even the well-regulated sale of arms to fellow democracies. Third, they’ll assert that the treaty needs to be tightened up, and its review conferences will be an occasion for running battles between countries that are easily swayed by left-wing NGOs and British and American diplomats who don’t want to double down on failure."

The Convention on Cluster Munitions

The United States Should Not Join the Convention on Cluster Munitions, with Steve Groves, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2550, April 28, 2011. "The Convention on Cluster Munitions is a misbegotten treaty that neither advances the laws of war nor enhances security. It is an unverifiable, unenforceable, all-or-nothing exercise in moral suasion, not a serious diplomatic instrument. It creates perverse incentives for insurgents to use civilian populations as human shields, undermines effective arms control efforts, inhibits nation-states’ ability to defend themselves, and denigrates the sovereignty of the United States and other democratic states. The U.S. should emphatically reject both the convention and the undemocratic Oslo Process that produced it and should instead continue to negotiate a realistic and enforceable protocol on cluster munitions that balances U.S. military requirements with the humanitarian concerns posed by unexploded ordnance."

NGOs and Neutralism

Why There Is No Neutral, Contentions, March 28, 2011. "Nadia Schadlow has a fine essay at Foreign Policy which points out that many of the NGOs on which the U.S. and its allies are relying to contribute to the “Build” phase of the counterinsurgency strategy proclaim that they refuse to take sides in the conflict. It’s not just the Red Cross that believes it is “essential to provide neutral and impartial assistance to all populations.” Most of the others follow suit. Many NGOs go beyond simply providing aid to all civilians, and – in the words of the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office – argue that NGOs have “nothing to gain and much to lose” by interacting with ISAF, which in their view only wants to “[leverage] advantage from [NGO] activities.” This is not the neutralism of helping the poor, no matter who they be: it is political neutrality."

The Flawed Ottawa Convention

The Ottawa Mine Ban Convention: Unacceptable on Substance and Process, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2496, December 13, 2010. "By announcing a review of U.S. landmine policy, the Obama Administration has reopened the possibility that the U.S. could become a party to the fatally flawed Ottawa Convention, which bans the use of all anti-personnel landmines. Such a ban applied to the U.S. would seriously degrade the ability of the U.S. to defend itself and its allies, particularly in Korea. Furthermore, the very process by which the convention was created is objectionable because it undermines responsible diplomacy and the sovereignty of the United States and other nation-states. The U.S. should shun the Ottawa Convention and the associated process, and instead pursue reasonable arms control through serious diplomacy."

Yet More Unreality on Arms Trade Treaty

In Unreal Session. U.N. Promises to Press Ahead with Arms Trade Treaty, Heritage Foundation Foundry, October 29, 2010. "The Obama Administration believes that its demand for consensus-based negotiations will protect it against such an outcome. But in the end, its demand for consensus will be used against it, as the U.S. is the state that is most likely to object to any consensus that results from the negotiations. The crunch will come when the negotiations cross a U.S. red line. Given the pace at which the U.N. and its supporters are driving the ATT along, that will happen soon enough."

Follow the Money

Who Funds European NGOs?, Heritage Foundation Foundry, September 8, 2009. "The answer is simple: the EU does. The TaxPayers’ Alliance, a British group that is genuinely independent of government, points to two recent EU missives that by coincidence arrived in the same package. The first, from the European Economic and Social Committee, was a report on “The external dimension of the EU’s energy policy.” Among much else – such as, no surprise, a greater role for the EU – it recommends “that the social partners as well as environmental organizations and other civil society representatives should be heard and actively involved in defining the external energy strategy. Their capacities to support international dialogue and negotiations should be fully exploited.” All of that is a long-winded way of saying that the EU should use like-minded European NGOs to advance its energy aims at home and abroad, including hectoring the U.S. to sign on to climate change treaties."