The Connect U.S. Fund Top-Primary-Links * HOME * ABOUT US * CONTACT US * LOG IN * Issues * Advocacy * Events * Resources * Grants * Join the Network A Call to the New President for Responsible U.S. Global Engagement
Dear President-Elect Obama:
Your Administration will confront challenges and opportunities in an interconnected world, in which our security and prosperity are tied to the security and prosperity of others, problems cannot be managed in isolation, and addressing critical national security concerns will require that we advance shared global interests. To consider these challenges, over 215 foreign policy leaders, experts and practitioners, who work across the country and are affiliated with non-governmental organizations representing millions of Americans, have come together to identify principles and policy priorities that we believe are critical to re-establishing U.S. global leadership in the first six months of your term. Our unprecedented collaboration reflects our understanding of the unprecedented challenges that we face.
We recognize that in the first months of your administration, you will face urgent foreign policy challenges, which include ending the war in Iraq, promoting security and stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, addressing the global financial crisis, and dealing effectively with nuclear weapons development in Iran and North Korea. These urgent problems will impose formidable demands on your time and attention, but they must not prevent you from addressing broader and systemic challenges to U.S. leadership worldwide. In particular, the ability of the United States to achieve key national security objectives has eroded over the past eight years, as the war in Iraq has diverted attention and resources from other vital needs, the civilian instruments of U.S. power – both development and diplomacy – have been neglected, and our capacity to lead effectively has been undermined through unilateral actions in disregard of the views and interests of key friends and allies.
For these reasons, our capacity to address both urgent crises and long term challenges will require that your Administration articulate – and quickly signal to the American public and the world – a renewed commitment to international cooperation. This includes a willingness to practice at home the standards we encourage others to follow overseas, to recognize and respond to the concerns of our friends, allies and other major stakeholders on global issues that are critical to our common long term well-being, and to strengthen the capacity of international institutions to address key global challenges.
During the first six months of your Administration, action on the following measures will be critically important to signal this new commitment and new course for U.S. foreign policy. Moreover, it will lay the groundwork for progress on the full range of foreign policy priorities you have identified. We appreciate that progress on these measures will require close consultation with the Congress, and we are hopeful that both branches of government will proceed in a new spirit of bipartisan cooperation on these issues.
We urge that you take action in the following areas:
Repair U.S. credibility and influence on international human rights and humanitarian law:
* Issue an executive order that reaffirms an absolute prohibition on torture and ensures that all detainees within the custody of the United States are treated consistent with standards articulated in the U.S. Army Field Manual and international legal instruments; that halts the practice of secret detention; that ends rendition to torture and that directs a review of all legal opinions and policy guidance relating to treatment of detainees.
* Announce your intention to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center promptly and to treat all detainees in U.S. custody in a manner consistent with international obligations and domestic law.
* Re-engage in a positive way with international human rights institutions, such as by supporting the work of the ICC to investigate and prosecute individuals for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
[Read more detailed proposals from the Connect U.S. community on international human rights and humanitarian law]
Read More: http://www.connectusfund.org/node/1860?tr=y&auid=4416365
