Discussion board 5 - international law - Essay Example

There is evidence, however, that the KP has done very little in solving the world’s climate problems. Even though the treaty was negotiated in 1997, energy-related emissions had grown 24%, and that only limited financial resources had been provided by developing countries to assist them in reducing their emissions. Another criticism of the KP is based upon what Liverman (2008) calls “climate justice” (n.p.). The emissions created by developing countries make up the bulk of the total number of emissions and are more vulnerable in these countries compared to the high emissions in the developed world, especially by the U.S. and by major multinational corporations.

Critics of the KP have stated that it unfairly puts the burden on the west to financially rectify global warming, when developing countries are often more to blame. Therefore, the argument that the KP would have been more effective if the U.S. and China would have signed it is weak because even if they had ratified it, there is no evidence that global emissions would have been significantly reduced. Perhaps other protocols should be used, ones that do not penalize the west so heavily and that are more effective in what they seek to accomplish. 2. Laws of war Regardless of one’s opinion regarding the Bush administration’s compliance (or lack of compliance) with the international provisions governing the use of force with respect to retaliation, the use of certain weapons, the treatment of POWs and civilians, and the use of torture, any state that has signed agreements and treaties prohibiting them should adhere to them.

If the United States or any other country that is a member of the UN that has signed these treaties violate them in any way, they should be held responsible. Of course, the controversy is if the Bush administration actually did that. Members of the U.S. government, especially in the Bush years, insist that they did not. That is beyond the purview of this assignment. It depends upon one’s perspective and political viewpoints, and it depends on who you ask. The U.S. Supreme Court, in its 2006 Hamdan vs.

Rumsfeld ruling, declared that military commissions for trying terrorist suspects violated both U.S. military law and the Geneva Convention (Brooks, 2006). The Bush administration held that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention did not apply to Al Qaeda combatants because its protections applied only to conflicts between states. They reasoned that since Al Qaeda was not a state, the Geneva Convention did not apply to them. The Supreme Court disagreed, which potentially made high-ranking Bush administration officials subject to prosecution under the federal War Crimes Act, something that did not materialize. 3. International Convention on the Prevention of the Sea by Oil This convention, also called OILPOL (http://www.

internationallawhelp.com/convention_prevention_pollution_sea_oil.htm) and ratified in 1954, was the first of its kind to prevent the pollution of the sea by oil by tankers. It prohibited the discharge of oil or oil mixture by tankers within prohibited zones. In 1969, amendments were made to OILPOL that created even more stringent requirements for operational discharges. This was done because the design of oil tankers had changed since 1954 to a “load-on-top system” (Global instruments, n.d.) OILPOL was further amended in 1971 that imposed new standards on the construction of oil tankers.

It was superseded by the 1973/78 MARPOL