Change Watch: "Obama Will Respect International Law More Than Bush Did." Not.

Writing in Foreign Policy, University of Chicago law professor Eric A. Posner observes that governments respect international law only when it suits their national interests.

During his presidential campaign, Obama expressed support for the International Criminal Court and humanitarian intervention. In office, he has done nothing for the ICC and has stood by while the killing continues in Sudan. He has promised to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay; the problem, however, was not that the facility itself violated international law but that the detention methods practiced there (arguably) did so. These very same detention practices have continued in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Obama has sought to give immunity to Bush-era interrogators -- another possible violation of international law, and certainly in tension with it. Bush's unlawful tariffs on steel are matched by the "buy American" provision in the stimulus bill signed by Obama and the tariffs that he has slapped on Chinese tires. Obama has provided some symbolic support for international law in a few ways, but where it counts -- obtaining Senate ratification of the Law of the Sea treaty (which Bush also supported) and numerous international human rights treaties -- he has expended no political capital. Don't expect this to change.

"[I]nternational law should be looked at as a worthy means," he concludes, "not an end in itself."

It remains, then, for the American people and their democratically elected representatives to decide whether the policies pursued in our name by the military-industrial/foreign policy elite are in our national interests.

Go. Read. Think Again: International Law by Eric A. Posner (Foreign Policy 2009-09-17)