UN/Treaties

The Obama administration on Monday called Iran's scheduled ceremonial leadership of disarmament talks at the United Nations “unfortunate and highly inappropriate” and announced the United States will respond by pulling its ambassador from the talks.

The U.S. mission to the UN however will still be sending lower-level negotiators to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. The conference is seeking to begin talks on a treaty banning the further production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, a priority for the Obama administration that has long been held up by Pakistan.

“Boycotting would impede our ability to fully engage in the CD’s work,” a U.S. official told The Hill, “especially as we seek to break the long-standing deadlock on a verifiable fissile material cutoff treaty.”

The White House released a national strategy Friday for balancing energy- and minerals-development and conservation in the Arctic.

The document contains three policy aims — advancing national security interests, responsibly managing the Arctic ecosystem and bolstering international relationships. The White House will develop an implementation plan for the interagency effort in the coming months, a senior administration official said during a media call.

The Arctic issue is politically sensitive for President Obama, who is juggling demands from green groups to address climate change while also encountering pressure from Republicans and the oil-and-gas industry to ramp up drilling.

The State Department on Thursday clashed with Congress over the best approach to dealing with the hundreds of children abducted from America by one of their parents every year.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs panel on Human Rights and International Organizations, said at a hearing that he was reintroducing legislation to sanction countries that have shown a “pattern of non-cooperation” in resolving disputes with the United States. Susan Jacobs, the State Department's special adviser for children's issues, vowed to work with Smith on his bill, but warned Congress against taking a heavy-handed approach that she said could strain U.S. relations.

“I think sanctions are a two-edged sword,” Jacobs said. “I think that threatening countries is often an unsuccessful way to get them to cooperate with us, because most of the relationships that we have are very complex and involve many issues.”

A United States-led plan that would allow countries to set their own climate targets is gaining traction at United Nations climate change talks.

The initiative amounts to scrapping the foundation of the Kyoto Protocol, which was struck in 1997 and set marks for reducing global emissions by 2012.

The 160 nations involved in the Bonn, Germany, negotiations are looking to hammer out a plan to prevent a temperature rise of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by 2020. The next chance to strike an agreement would be a ministerial conference in Paris scheduled for 2015.

The proposal is getting “grudging support,” Reuters reports. But the plan could still stumble on one major condition — all countries must participate.

America's top Catholic body on Thursday urged the Obama administration to sign the United Nations arms trade treaty.

“In light of the position of the Holy See, I urge the Administration to expedite a thorough review of the Treaty so that the President can sign it in early June,” Des Moines Bishop Richard Pates, the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops's Committee on International Justice and Peace, wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry. “As a world leader and a major arms exporter, our nation should set a positive example for other nations to follow in efforts to reduce the flow of weapons into situations that violate human rights and cause terrible suffering.”

The treaty cleared the General Assembly on a vote of 154-3 last week, with rogue states North Korea, Iran and Syria voting against. The treaty is opposed by the National Rifle Association and a majority of senators, who are concerned it could harm Americans' right to bear arms. 

A former U.N. official says the organization retaliated against him for raising allegations of corruption in Kosovo.

The White House said last month it is still committed to closing the prison during Obama’s second term.

The United States risks losing influence on the world stage as sequestration threatens to once again send the country into arrears at the United Nations, advocates warn.

The automatic cuts that began to take effect a month ago would cut the U.S. annual contribution by $225 million. That includes a $92 million cut to peace-keeping operations, which the United States is obligated by treaty to support.

The planned cuts risk diminishing U.S. clout in the world body just as Iran, Syria and North Korea are threatening American interests around the world, said Peter Yeo, executive director of the Better World Campaign, which aims to strengthen the U.S.-U.N. relationship. The U.S. supported the current 14 peace-keeping missions in 16 countries, Yeo said, and would surely pay a political price if it were to refuse to foot the bill for the 110,000 peacekeepers now deployed.

“If we don't pay our dues, why are other countries going to listen to us?” said Yeo, who led negotiations to repay arrears when he served as deputy assistant secretary of State under former President Clinton. If the U.S. goes into arrears again, it would join a tiny club of deadbeats: Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Sierra Leone, Vanuatu and Zimbabwe.

The Obama administration joined 153 other nations Tuesday in approving an arms-trade treaty opposed by the U.S. gun lobby.

The Obama administration formally cosponsored the treaty Monday and pressed for a General Assembly vote.