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MAX HILAIRE
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ICJ Interim Measures in the
Breard
and
LaGrand
cases.
83
In 1995 Clinton made an
about turn in his Balkans policy following the bombing of a market in Sarajevo in
which scores of civilian died. He authorized NATO to bomb Serbian artillery bases
around Sarajevo, which ultimately forced the Serbs to accept a cease fire.
84
President
Clinton’s envoy, Richard Holbrooke, later convinced all parties to attend the Dayton
Conference in Ohio, which led to a peace accord that ended the war.
85
The Presidency of George W. Bush (43
rd
president) was one of the most hostile
toward international law since the Reagan administration. During his presidential
campaign Bush vowed to reverse many of Clinton’s major foreign policy initiatives
if elected. Immediately upon taking office, Bush unsigned the Rome Statute; he
opposed the Kyoto Protocol; he withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with
Russia; and he took a hostile stance toward the United Nations.
86
Bush antagonized
Russia by vowing to build an anti-missile defense system in Poland and the Czech
Republic. Bush withdrew from the Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular
Relations after the ICJ ruled against the United States in the
Avena and Other Mexican
Nationals (Mexico v. United States of America)
case.
87
Many in his administration
espoused a negative view of international law. John Bolton went as far as to deny
international law had any legitimacy.
88
Following the September 11
th
terrorist attacks, Bush declared a war on terrorism.
He expanded the scope of the right to self-defense under his new national security
doctrine to include preventive military force against the threat posed by
rogue states
with weapons of mass destruction.
89
He called on the Security Council to condemn
the attacks as a “threat to international peace and security,” and to recognize the
United States’ right to self-defense.
90
Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001)
also reaffirmed the United States’ inherent right to self-defense, and further imposed
a series of requirements on all states with respect to anti-terrorism measures they
were to implement in domestic law.
91
This provision basically fast tracked existing
anti-terrorism conventions that had not been ratified by national parliaments of
most member states, including the United States.
92
In October 2001 Bush invaded
83
Curtis A. Bradley, International Law in the U.S. Legal System, (2013), p. 118.
84
Dan Sarooshi,
The Security Council’s Authorization of Regional Arrangements to Use Force: The Case of
NATO,
p. 241, in Lowe,
et al.
, eds
.
The United Nations Security Council and War (2010).
85
Summary of the Dayton Peace Agreement, Department of State, (Dec. 11, 1995).
86
Michael Ignatieff,
American Exceptionalism and Human Rights,
p. 4.
87
See
Letter from Condoleezza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State, to Kofi Annan, U.N. Secretary General
(Mar. 7, 2005),
available at
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/87288.pdf.
88
John R. Bolton,
Is There Really “Law” in International Affairs?
10 Transnational L. & Contemp. Probs.
P. 1, (2000).
89
White House, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America 25-29 (Sept. 17, 2002),
at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf.
90
S.C. Res. 1368 (2001).
91
Jane Boulden,
The Security Council and Terrorism,
p. 615, in Lowe,
et al
., eds. The United Nations
Security Council and War (2010).
92
Paul Szasz,
The Security Council Starts to Legislate,
96 AJIL, 901 (2002).