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When a scientist gets all political

June 24, 2009 by John Boonstra

Elizabeth Kolbert has a pretty good profile of renowned (and now temporarily arrested) climate scientist James Hansen, unfortunately tucked away behind The New Yorker‘s digital subscriber wall. One major angle that comes out of the article is a sense that Hansen has drifted too far out of science and into politics, as captured by this graf, which I have assiduously and insidiously copied, word for word.

Hansen is also increasingly isolated among climate activists. “I view Jim Hansen as heroic as a scientist,” Eileen Claussen, the president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said. “He was there at the beginning, he’s faced all kinds of pressures politically, and he’s done a terrific job, I think, of keeping focussed. But I wish he would stick to what he really knows. Because I don’t think he has a realistic view of what is politically possible, or what the best policies would be to deal with this problem.”

All this because, the following paragraph (which is too long for me to copy down) implies, Hansen favors a direct and stringent carbon tax over the more politically feasible “cap and trade” system. For one, favoring a carbon tax and a complete ban on coal-fired power plants, as Hansen does, does not strike me as an out-of-touch radical position. You can disagree on the policy merits of each, or on their political viability, but you can’t begrudge the man for advocating for his solution.

More significantly, though, isn’t the obstacle to getting tougher policies through, say, the U.S. Congress the fact that science has not been able to infuse itself in the politics of the thing? It seems to me that we need more James Hansen-esque super-scientists filling the political arena with ambitious arguments, not urging that they back down in favor of what is “politically possible.” The future is going to be laughing at our “politics,” I am sure.

(image from flickr user World Development Movement under a Creative Commons license)

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Is the Koh vote a proxy for future treaty battles in the Senate?

by Mark Leon Goldberg

Earlier today Harold Koh overcame an effective filibuster of his nomination to be the State Department’s top legal advisor.  Koh required 60 votes to overcome cloture.  He received 65 votes with 31 senators against and 3 not voting.  

Groups affiliated with treaty-slayer Frank Gaffney sought to undermine senatorial support of Koh by portraying him as outside the mainstream. Well, that obviously did not work. but it did turn the Koh vote into a proxy for future Senate battles over international legal issues like the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Convention on the Law of the Sea. 

Looking at the roll call, I think it’s fair to say that this vote shows there is a core of about 30 “sovereigntists” who will likely never vote for senate ratification of these treaties.  Of the three not voting, it’s safe to say that two (Robert Byrd and Ted Kennedy) are supportive of the CTBT and UNCLOS and one (Thad Cochran) is probably not.

Unlike the Koh nomination, these treaties require 2/3rds of senators present to become ratified.   Under normal circumstances this means 67 votes.  Byrd and Kennedy, however, are infirmed.  This means that if votes on UNCLOS and CTBT were to come up in the near future, 66 senators would be required for ratification–one more than what Koh was able to secure.   To be sure, it’s not inconceivable that some of the Koh’s “nays” support one of these treaties. (Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, for example, is a strong supporter of UNCLOS).  But the Koh vote does show that these votes will  likely be very, very close. 

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UN drug report encourages treatment over incarceration

by Mark Leon Goldberg

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime just released its 2009 World Drug Report to much fanfare.  Why? Well, it seems the report endorses the government of Portugal’s policy of decriminalizing drugs and preferencing treatment over incarceration.  The Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim explains:

In its 2009 World Drug Report, the UN had little but kind words for Portugal’s radical (by U.S. standards) approach. “These conditions keep drugs out of the hands of those who would avoid them under a system of full prohibition, while encouraging treatment, rather than incarceration, for users. Among those who would not welcome a summons from a police officer are tourists, and, as a result, Portugal’s policy has reportedly not led to an increase in drug tourism,” reads the report. “It also appears that a number of drug-related problems have decreased.”

This should come as welcome news to Glenn Greenwald, who is an outspoken proponant of the Portuguese approach.  You can watch a repeat of the webcast of the report’s release in Washington, D.C. here.   Foreign Policy’s James Downie catches the money quote (via the Guardian)

“People who take drugs need medical help, not criminal retribution,” said Antonio Maria Costa, director of UNODC, calling for universal access to drug treatment. Since people with serious drug problems provided the bulk of drug demand, treating this problem was one of the best ways of shrinking the market.”

Incidentally, this jives with something that the Migration Policy Institute’s Susan Ginsberg told me in a bloggingheads interview  about Mexico border violence: that one sure way to reduce drug related violence in Mexico is to reduce demand here in the United States though a more robust focus on drug treatment. 

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Another reason to worry about the Swat Valley refugee crisis

by John Boonstra

This Guardian editorial makes a smart point about the war in Afghanistan “AfPak”:

It is true that the Pakistanis have finally woken up to the dangers of their equivocal relationship with fundamentalist groups, and have taken serious military action against the Taliban. But they have done this in a way that has caused both civilian casualties and dislocation on a scale that may eventually rebound against them.

Great. So not only is there a gargantuan humanitarian emergency in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, but the after-effects of this mass human displacement could, quite naturally, eventually blow back in the faces of both Pakistan and the United States. I’m sure most, if not all, of the displaced Pakistanis are glad to see the Taliban finally booted out, but they also can’t be too happy about being forced to leave their homes because of the government’s rather heavy-handed military operation. And this is something to be very careful about.

The other point of not here is that, while critics are busy chastising the Obama Administration for not showing strong enough “solidarity” with Iranian protesters, this is a case in which some choice words about protecting civilians, given to an ostensible U.S. ally, could actually make a difference. I’m not saying that a wave of Barack Obama’s magic wand could ameliorate the displacement crisis caused by the Pakistani military operation (the U.S.’s own hasn’t done so great in the civilian protection department next door in Afghanistan), but this is certainly an example where the U.S. has some amount of real influence on the lives of human beings, as opposed to in Iran, where political posturing is the only thing that’s really at issue.

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“The World’s Most Dangerous Korean?” Please.

by Mark Leon Goldberg

Ban Ki Moon is certainly not above criticism. In contrast to his predecessor, he is much more “secretary” than “general.” No one looks to him as a “secular pope” as many looked to Kofi Annan for moral leadership.  Rather, in his 2 1/2 years in office, it’s become clear that Ban’s diplomatic style is one that favors quiet, direct diplomacy over grandstanding.  

There are benefits and drawbacks to this leadership style.  But he is far from, as Jacob Heilbrunn asserts in Foreign Policy, “the world’s most dangerous Korean” that has “set the standard for failure” among Secretary Generals. 

Heilbrunn is a gifted writer, but his analysis of Ban’s first two and a half years shows only a passing familiarity with what the United Nations has been up to since January 2007.  For example, Heilbrunn suggests that Ban has been passive when it comes to climate change.  This is just plain wrong. Ban has made climate change his signature issue.  In September 2007, Ban invited world leaders, ranging from Nicolas Sarkozy to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to Al Gore to the United Nations headquarters for a climate change summit. (Foreign Policy even covered the event!)  And there will be a repeat of this summit in September, which is intended to build some momentum for the climate talks in Copenhagen in December. 

At the center of Heilbrunn’s assertion that Ban is somehow “dangerous” is that in his 2 1/2 years, Ban has no successes of which to speak and that his quiet diplomatic style is making the UN irrelevant.  There are two points to make here.  First, 2 1/2 years is not a very long time with which to pass such sweeping judgments on a Secretary General. Most serve for five or ten years.  Second, Heilbrunn seems to think that the Secretary General is a position with all means of authority over global affairs.  Sure, it’s a big title, but the Sec Gen has no real power other than the moral authority that comes with the title.  Kofi Annan was skilled at wielding moral authority to press for human rights.  For his part, Ban’s been spending his moral capital on climate change. 

The Sec Gen does have some (but not much) authority over how the General Secretariat runs itself.  For example, he can’t open or close new offices or bureaus with out the General Assembly’s approval — but he can make a few suggestions and prod the General Assembly to take them up. One important institutional reform he saw through was dividing the overburdened Department of Peacekeeping Operations into two directorates.  That may not sound like much to outsiders, but it was a huge change in how the UN manages its over 100,000 peacekeepers in the field. 

The bottom line is that Heilbrunn passes some sweeping judgements on the current Secretary General without showing that he knows very much about the position itself. A more useful way of judging the success or failure of a Secretary General is to analyze the extent to which he is able to achieve certain goals within the institutional and legal constraints that he faces.  Simply picking a problem in the world and blaming the Secretary General for not fixing it is an easy way to beat up a Secretary General, but it is pretty unhelpful as a heuristic device. 

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The UN prevents the apocalypse

by John Boonstra

Well, not exactly.  But preventing a massive outbreak of locusts does take down one of the Ten Biblical Plagues (at least in Tanzania), right?

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