To whom would the US be accountable and for what?

Aurelie V.

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To whom would the US be accountable and for what?

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Lecture
Résumé
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Résumé du document

On 20th December 1999, demonstrators in front of the American embassy in Panama demanded that the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights of the OAS should take a decision in the Salas vs. USA case. For the first time in history, a huge group of people lodged a complaint against the United States government at an international jurisdiction for its breach of the state personality and the integrity of the Panama territory. This relatively unknown event illustrates the complex issue of American impunity. There is a great demand for responsibility of US actions in the international arena. However, the term accountability, which originally refers to the economic sphere, is not usually associated to a state or a government.

Sommaire

Introduction
The question of accountability
The complexity of the term 'accountability' applied to the US
1. US's responsibility towards the rest of the world
2. Global responsibilities of the US
3. The intergovernmental or judiciary authorities
4. American Transnational corporations
5. Bertrand Badie's view
6. Propagating the image of America by the Americans
The US between impunity and accountability: An impossible stand
1. The diverging perceptions of American power
2. Acting lawfully
3. Creating an international institutional framework
4. USA's accountability towards the rest of the world
5. Pat Choate's perception
6. The institutional bargain
Conclusion
Bibliography

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Extraits

[...] It is impossible to force the US into a more accountable position. However, there are other means to ensure that the US' foreign policy doesn't reflect total impunity. One of these means is to safeguard and guarantee a transparent and democratic decision-making process within the United States. The principle of checks and balances and the important role of the Congress are the only ways to keep the American foreign policy from going astray. Conscious of this role, the Congress has been at the centre of reform attempts or alternative political practices. [...]

[...] The problem lies not so much in the absence of action than in American interventionism. There is a wide spread idea among the American public opinion that the US has a right to interfere wherever American interests are endangered. American law texts refer to the national laws and the Constitution as being superior to any international convenant, even when ratified by the Congress. The d'Amato-Kennedy and Helms-Burton laws of 1996, albeit being submitted to a moratorium, legally authorize US intervention abroad to ensure that American economic, financial or political interests are secured. [...]

[...] This “institutional bargain” could be the background for a more exacting operation. Instead of accusing the US of being responsible for 13% of the world's pollution and expecting it to respect the Rio and Tokyo Protocols on World Environment, or the Montego Bay Protocol on the law of the Sea signed in 1982, one could imagine a wholesome responsibility for an organ which would be in charge of one aspect of global governance (environment, human rights, trade, etc) and not anymore for the individual states present in this organ. [...]

[...] Otherwise, it isn't power but mere force. And the risks of confusing the United States with those countries that it flays for their authoritarian methods would then be higher. Bibliography: Dossier spécial "Les Etats-Unis, hyperpuissance" in Problèmes sociaux et politiques, octobre 2000, n°846. Dossiers spéciaux du Courrier international n°540 consacré à politique étrangère de la nouvelle administration Bush" et du Courrier international n°597 consacré à "La vision du monde selon Bush" BADIE, Bertrand, La fin des territoires. Les Etats entre ruse et responsabilité. [...]

[...] To what extent is the American government really accountable in these areas? As Bertrand Badie points out in his essay on the end of sovereignty and the possible reign of responsibility on a global scale[5], the decline of the role of the state is the direct effect of economic and cultural globalization. Because the US' actions inside affect the whole world, it should be held partly responsible for the damaging of the environment or for the privatisation of genes for example. [...]

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