Bush vs. the rest of the world

The Bush administration has decided to pull out of an international agreement that opponents of the death penalty have used to fight the sentences of foreigners on death row in the United States, officials said yesterday. In a two-paragraph letter dated March 7, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice informed U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan that the United States "hereby withdraws" from the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. The United States proposed the protocol in 1963 and ratified it -- along with the rest of the Vienna Convention -- in 1969. The protocol requires signatories to let the International Court of Justice (ICJ) make the final decision when their citizens say they have been illegally denied the right to see a home-country diplomat when jailed abroad.

U.S. Quits Pact Used in Capital Cases
Foes of Death Penalty Cite Access to Envoys
By Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 10, 2005; Page A01


The nomination of John Bolton to be US ambassador to the United Nations is a resounding declaration of American contempt for the organization and the rest of the world.

Bush's Perverse UN Pick
by Ian Williams
The Nation


If you were sitting in the Oval Office and George W. Bush asked, "Hey, tell me, who could we appoint to the UN ambassador job that would most piss off the UN and the rest of the world," your job would be quite easy. You would simply say, "That's a no-brainer, Mr. President, John Bolton." And on Monday Bush took this no-brain advice and nominated Bolton to the post, which requires Senate confirmation. Bolton is the rightwing's leading declaimer of the United Nations. He once said, "If the UN Secretariat building in New York lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference." And when the Bush administration failed to persuade the UN to back its war in Iraq, Bolton observed that was "further evidence to many why nothing should be paid to the UN system."

Bush Gives the UN the Finger
by David Corn
The Nation


Beijing Plus 10, the follow-up on the momentous 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, is opening at the United Nations as I write, and like other UN gatherings since George W. Bush became President, it offers a great chance to spend time with our new best friends. Egypt! Qatar! the Holy See! You look wonderful! Actually, since I wrote that sentence, Egypt and Qatar have changed their minds and won't be backing our attempt to insert antiabortion language in the one-page reaffirmation of the platform document. So now it's just us and the Pope. As with global warming, the world is moving forward without us.

The Cheese Stands Alone
by Katha Pollitt
The Nation