"The Rocky Shoals of International Law" by David B. Rivkin, Jr., and Lee A. Casey, in The National Interest (Winter 2000–01), 1112 16th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036; "The New Sovereigntists" by Peter J. Spiro, in Foreign Affairs (Nov.–Dec. 2000), 58 E. 68th St., New York, N.Y. 10021.

The 1989 United Nations Convention on for their protection. Only two member the Rights of the Child forbids the death nations have refused to ratify the agreement: penalty for children and sets other standards Somalia... and the United States. And that is not the only international agreement at which the world’s lone superpower has balked in recent years. On issue after issue— global warming, land mines, establishing the International Criminal Court, and others— the United States has stubbornly refused to go along. Spiro, a law professor at Hofstra University, finds this deplorable, but Rivkin and Casey, law partners who have practiced before the International Court of Justice, think it’s the trend in international law that’s the problem.

"International law is enjoying a tremendous renaissance," Spiro exults. "It is now an important and necessary force in the context of globalization, governing the increasingly transnational elements of virtually every area of legal regulation, including such domestic issues as family, criminal, commercial, and bankruptcy law. Respect for human rights has significantly advanced over the last 20 years." Yet the United States has given its full blessings only to free-trade agreements (provided they ignore environmental, labor, and human rights considerations). By otherwise making such a blanket rejection of international agreements, the United States is undermining its position of international leadership, he argues. Particular issues can be debated, but in a globalized world the United States cannot simply "pick and choose" among international conventions and laws, rejecting those it dislikes.

Rivkin and Casey are equally alarmed— but by the efforts of human rights activists, scholars, the UN and other international organizations, and some governments ("including, episodically at least, the Clinton administration") to transform "the traditional law of nations governing the relationship between states into something akin to an international regulatory code." Nongovernmental organizations, such as the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, have played the leading role in this drive— and they are "not elected, not accountable to any body politic, and... not inherently better or worse than other special interests," Rivkin and Casey maintain. For centuries, national sovereignty has been "the organizing principle of the international system," and sovereignty is "the necessary predicate of selfgovernment." If the legality of U.S. actions is to be determined by "supranational, or extranational, institutions," they believe, then the American people will have lost their "ultimate authority."

In the "new international law," they contend, are claims (some inconsistent with others) "that heretofore purely domestic public policy issues—such as the death penalty, abortion, gay rights, environmental protection, and the relationship between parents and children—must be resolved in accordance with ‘prevailing’ international standards; that, with the possible exception of repelling armed attack, only the United Nations Security Council can authorize the use of military force; that the ‘international community’ is entitled to intervene under a variety of circumstances in the internal affairs of states; and that the actions of individual civilian and military officials of states fall under the purview of international criminal jurisdiction."

Spiro anticipates that "economic globalization will inevitably bring the United States in line" with the new order. In the meantime, though, economic and other pressure on U.S. corporations and individual American states will be needed to help things along. Rivkin and Casey, in contrast, consider it urgent that the new U.S. president champion the traditional law of nations.