Superpower and the rest

[unhappycamper]

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/kt-article-display-1.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2014/May/opinion_May38.xml&section=opinion

The US has lived with its moral and diplomatic ambiguities

Superpower and the rest
Jonathan Power (Power’s World) / 22 May 2014

Who makes the law of the sea as China and Vietnam clash over China moving an oil rig close to an island only 25 miles from the mainland of Vietnam? One would hope that China which has ratified the Law of the Sea Treaty has, among its other virtues, an arbitrating court for such disputes, would seek international, but disinterested arbitration. It refuses to.

Has this got something to do with the fact that the US has not ratified the treaty? The Chinese don’t say so explicitly, but if the world’s one and only superpower refuses to sign up why should China pay the treaty due regard? Is that what China is thinking? It is not a very good reason, but conceivably an understandable one.

As for the US itself it has an awful track record in ratifying international treaties, usually thanks to the Senate’s habitual blocking behaviour. It takes only one-third of the Senate to stymie a treaty. Even though, to give one example, the US played an important, and usually constructive, role in bringing into the world the International Criminal Court for prosecuting war crimes and crimes against humanity and the US president, Bill Clinton, wanted the US to sign up, the threat of the Senate, that “it would be dead on arrival”, in the words of Senator Jesse Helms, meant that it was never submitted for ratification.

Nevertheless, as is often the case with the US, it supports the ICC’s work in day-to-day practice. It does the same with the Law of the Sea. Still, failing to ratify makes the US position rather weak when it tries to lean on China to get off Vietnam’s back.