he past three weeks have been good ones for international law and global cooperation. In a series of landmark events, international courts and organizations have affirmed the emerging principles of international accountability and global responsibility. The trend toward internationalist reasoning and collective decision-making is particularly noteworthy because it stands in stark contrast to President Bush's apparent policy of prioritizing narrow "national" interests over pressing global issues.
Foremost among recent international legal events, the extradition of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic means that for the first time in history, a head of state will be tried by an international tribunal for alleged war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Milosevic's trial represents the climax of a decade-long multilateral effort to establish and execute clear principles of international accountability for government agents whose sovereign immunity has generally led to impunity. For the thousands of victims of the Balkan wars, Milosevic's transfer to The Hague offers an opportunity to bear witness to his actions and the possibility of catharsis. It may also serve as a deterrent to abusive leaders around the world. Like the case of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, what actually happens to Milosevic at trial is less significant than the fact that a head of state has been called to reckon for his actions.
The principle of international accountability was further upheld in a groundbreaking ruling of the International Court of Justice on June 27th. In the LaGrand case (Germany v. U.S.), the ICJ condemned the United States for the violation of international diplomatic protocols because it executed two German nationals without granting them prior access to diplomatic representatives. For the first time, the ICJ found that its injunctive orders create legally binding obligations for states concerned, and that the United States, by disregarding the court's order to halt Walter LaGrand's execution, had violated international law. In a substantively related event, on June 28, a French court in Rennes agreed to the extradition of James Charles Kopp, the alleged killer of a New York abortion doctor, only after receiving high-level assurances from the Bush Administration that Kopp would not face the death penalty - a form of punishment increasingly challenged by international law and eschewed by America's closest allies.
At the level of treaty-making, the United Nations took significant steps toward a more efficient implementation of international health principles. On June 27, the General Assembly approved the first ever global health action plan. Its ambitious Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS lays the groundwork for the elaboration of concrete legal obligations - international rules that will be formulated in order to fight infectious diseases more efficiently. The adoption of the Declaration underscores the widespread belief that global problems such as the spread of infectious diseases and environmental degradation are best tackled by multilateral action.
Domestically, the Supreme Court issued two significant pro-immigrant decisions that will curtail the power of the federal government to deport foreigners. The court's opinion in INS v. St. Cyr holds that non-citizens who pleaded guilty to crimes before 1996 should not be automatically deported as the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act purport to require. In Zadvydas v. Davis, the court found that the INS may not detain indefinitely immigrants whose home countries refuse to take them back even if they have committed deportable crimes. At a minimum, each decision reflects the Supreme Court's acknowledgement that the interests of the United States must be balanced against global realities.
What then are the cumulative effects of such internationalist decisions? First, the sometimes cumbersome process of international law-making and global cooperation appears to be enjoying a renaissance across a spectrum of activities, from multilateral treaty formation to the enforcement of indictments for previously untouchable war criminals. Second, in each of these instances, courts and executive branches alike have prioritized the rights of individuals and the interests of the community of nations as a whole over the concerns of individual states. Taken together, the events of the last three weeks suggest that aspirations for greater justice and fairness - be they held by victims of chilling human rights abuses in Kosovo, residents of countries where fundamental legal principles are ignored, or children in Africa awaiting AIDS treatment - need not be sacrificed indefinitely on the tired altar of national interests.
This is an important lesson for a President whose rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, the Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty, the Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and most recently, the idea of a legally binding agreement curbing the trade in small arms, has upset the international community. In today's globalized world where countries cherish and actively cultivate closer ties, the Bush administration's anachronistic opposition to emerging global norms and multilateral cooperation hurts America's image. Whether it helps America preserve its position of global power and leadership is questionable.
Noah Benjamin Novogrodsky is an associate at Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin in San Francisco. Urs Cipolat is a lecturer in international affairs at the University of California at Berkeley.
