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	Climate Change and the Law by Jeffrey D. Sachs Scientific American Magazine   Oct 2007   Global negotiations on stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions in the period after 2012 will commence in Bali in December 2007. The main emitting nations—including Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Mexico, South Africa and the U.S.—have recently affirmed their commitment to reach a “comprehensive agreement” in these negotiations. They also promised to contribute their “fair share” to stabilize greenhouse gases to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”   Of course, one of the biggest obstacles, if not the very biggest, to such an international agreement has been the U.S. itself. The U.S. not only failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol—the international framework to limit emissions up to the year 2012—but has also failed to put forward any meaningful stabilization strategy in its place. One of the most shocking aspects of the U.S. failure has been the country’s disregard for both international and domestic law. Yet this lawlessness looks set to change.   In recent years, the unilateralist foreign policy of the U.S. government has brazenly ignored or contravened countless aspects of international law, ranging from the Geneva Conventions to multilateral environmental treaties to which the U.S. is a signatory. This brazenness has infected the very core of policy discussions in our country. Consider an opinion piece by two distinguished professors of law at the University of Chicago, who argued in the Financial Times on August 5 that the U.S. has no obligations to control greenhouse gases, and that if other countries don’t like how the U.S. behaves and how that behavior affects them, they might think about paying the U.S. to cut its emissions. In other words, the U.S. should behave as it likes. It is up to the others to induce the U.S. to change course.   Stunningly, the law professors completely neglected that the U.S. is already bound by international law to take steps to stabilize greenhouse gases in the atmosphere under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed by President George H. W. Bush and ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1992, and which entered into force in 1994. The treaty holds specifically that the developed countries should take the lead in combating climate change, and should “adopt national policies . . . consistent with the objective of the Convention,” which is the stabilization of greenhouse gases at a level that prevents dangerous interferences in the climate system.   The claim of these law professors that the U.S. has no duty to avoid damaging the climate of others is flatly contradicted by the Convention and by international law. The parties to the Convention, including of course the U.S., recall in its preamble that “in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law…. [States have] the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.”   Ironically, those law professors are running away from international law even faster than the Bush administration. John B. Bellinger III, a legal advisor to the State department, recently emphasized the administration’s commitment to international law and referred to its allegiance to a post-2012 climate change framework in that context. He quoted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s statement that “America’s moral authority in international politics also rests on our ability to defend international laws and treaties.”   The Supreme Court also weighed in recently to emphasize that U.S. domestic law also compels stronger federal action to mitigate climate change. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, among a number of plaintiffs, sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its failure to regulate the emission of carbon dioxide by automobiles. The EPA had argued that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, that Massachusetts could not sue the EPA because it lacked legal standing to do so, and that any action by the EPA would have minimal effect on climate change.   The court firmly struck down all the EPA’s defenses for inaction: it noted that the EPA is obliged to regulate any deleterious pollutant emitted by motor vehicles; that carbon dioxide clearly falls within that category; that Massachusetts had standing to sue because climate change was already claiming part of the state’s coastline, and that the state was vulnerable to considerably greater coastal losses this century if climate change is not mitigated. Moreover, it emphasized that mitigating U.S. auto emissions would have a meaningful effect on the pace of climate change. For all of these reasons, the Court ruled that the EPA was obligated to act.   The obligation to limit greenhouse gas emissions is therefore already the law of the land, vis-à-vis both international and domestic law, and it’s high time we begin respecting those laws. We should do so not only because it is important that we recognize and honor our legal commitments, but also because we made those commitments for powerful reasons of our own survival and wellbeing. Even an administration that has dragged its feet for seven years is finally beginning to face that reality.
	UN Envoy says Myanmar must Halt Arrests by Seth Mydans New York Times   16 October 2007   Bangkok - A United Nations envoy said here today that arrests in Myanmar "must stop at once" and that the international community must do more to curb repression by the ruling junta.   The envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, had arrived in Bangkok Sunday to begin a six-country consultation tour of Asia before heading to Myanmar to resume talks with the government that began early this month.   "We could do more, not just Thailand," he said. "India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and the United Nations, we could do more." But it was not clear what more he - or the international community - could do to influence the behavior of a junta that appears not to care what the world thinks. It has isolated itself by choice for the past half century and has managed quite well with the help of a few self-interested friends.   After the junta suppressed huge pro-democracy demonstrations by force at the end of last month, the United States announced new sanctions against it, but that action seemed only to underscore the limits of outside influence.   For the past decade, pressure on Myanmar, formerly Burma, has been applied on two contradictory tracks: confrontation through sanctions and a diplomatic cold shoulder by the West; friendly persuasion and engagement by its neighbors in Southeast Asia. Nothing has worked.   The junta that rules Myanmar, in power for two decades, has to oppress its people and remains immobile, making only small tactical sidesteps when pressured by its critics.   After Mr. Gambari"s recent visit, the junta announced that its leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, would meet with the detained pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, but only if she renounced some of her stated positions. It named a high-level official to act as go-between with her, but no further announcement has emerged.   At the same time, the junta has waged a campaign of arrests and terror that Mr. Gambari said was "extremely disturbing" and "runs counter to the spirit of mutual engagement" with the United Nations.   After Thailand, he is to visit Malaysia, Indonesia, India, China and Japan. He said he hoped to travel to Myanmar sooner than his scheduled mid-November date.   The sanctions announced by President Bush at the United Nations last month were only incremental, elaborating on economic restrictions first imposed in 1997 and strengthened in 2003 when Washington banned new American investments in Myanmar.   The new steps bar visas for the junta"s leaders - most of whom are already covered by a visa ban - and freeze any assets they may have in the United States.   "A little bit of window dressing," said Sean Turnell, an expert on the Burmese economy with Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, reflecting the view of a number of analysts.   Although sanctions have failed so far, Mr. Turnell and several other analysts said they could still be effective if combined with a coordinated international campaign of engagement and diplomatic pressure.   But the analysts said such a campaign would require more than routine diplomacy to gain the cooperation of Myanmar"s trading partners, none of whom has shown any interest in joining an economic embargo.   "The lesson so far is that sanctions alone are not enough," said Michael Green, an expert on Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "They must be part of a larger strategy, and it"s not clear yet that the United States or the international community is prepared to put that effort into the diplomatic side."   He added: "There is always the danger that the indignation you see could fade. The junta may have calculated that this is like pulling a scab off. A brief pain, but the world would soon forget."   This is the moment for the world to show how seriously it does care about what happens to Myanmar, said Zarni, founder of the Free Burma Coalition, a lobbying group that has shifted from supporting sanctions to supporting engagement.   "I don"t support sanctions if it"s going to turn out to be a lot of hot air," he said. "The question really is, is Burma a value issue or a public relations issue? If it is a value issue, the only condition under which you can claim you believe in it is to prove it by actions."   A major problem with sanctions is that Myanmar is a sieve. Investment is flowing in from around its borders, particularly from China, for which Myanmar is a source of energy and raw materials and a strategic route to the Indian Ocean.   "As long as there is an open porthole and the goods could come and the money could go with no restrictions, there just was no value to the sanctions," said Josef Silverstein, an expert on Myanmar at Rutgers University in New Jersey.   Already China has said it considers the protests in Myanmar an internal affair, and it insisted on muting the language of a United Nations Security Council resolution last week that "strongly deplores" the crackdown.   Although China has joined international criticism of the violence, a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Beijing told reporters last week, "Sanctions or pressure will not help to solve the issue in Myanmar."   India, which has dropped its condemnation of Myanmar in favor of economic competition there with China, sent its strongest signal not through words but through actions. At the height of the protests, India"s oil minister traveled to Myanmar to sign a deal to explore for offshore gas.   Myanmar"s neighbors in Southeast Asia, who have been abandoning their policy of "non-interference" in favor of strong words, issued a statement saying they were repulsed and appalled by the use of violence against demonstrators. But none has made a move to cut back on extensive economic ties with Myanmar.   Even if all these nations could be persuaded to make economic sacrifices to squeeze the junta, it is not clear how much pain the generals would feel.   This is a regime that fears and mistrusts the outside world and is comfortable living in isolation. It is less likely than most nations to be moved by the enticements of aid and investment, analysts said.   "We are dealing with a regime that essentially wants to be left alone," Mr. Zarni said. "The Burmese regime does not need the West for its survival. If today half the world stops interacting with the Burmese, they will happily go home, closing their embassies behind them."
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