Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Same as round 1
2ac
Cartels
A2: Diversification
Diversification is enabled by drug profits-the plan resolves it.
Bolton, Council on Hemispheric Affairs research associate, 2012
(Gene, Drug Legalization In Latin America: Could It Be The Answer?, 10-16, http://www.coha.org/drug-
legalization-in-latin-america-could-it-be-the-answer/, ldg)
If Latin American countries pass legislation to legalize drugs while Washington retains its current policies, it is likely
that the U.S. drug demand and the resulting incubation effect will persist. The incubation effect is the redirection
of criminal organizations into other forms of illegal activities as a result of residing inside a country for long periods of time.9 In other
words, the drug trade allows criminal organizations to expand as they nestle deep into social fabrics .
By all accounts, the incubation period will continue as long as U.S. drug demand finances profitable DTOs. Los Zetas, a
Mexican drug cartel, provides an interesting case study in illustrating this point. The Mexican DTO decided to venture into migrant smuggling in an effort to increase
its profits. Today such smuggling is Los Zetas second most lucrative activity; its influence has spread all the way to Petn in northern Guatemala. According to the
Guatemalan Human Rights Commission, human smuggling was not a part of organized criminal networks before Los Zetas began targeting the industry. Instead,
coyotes, independent human smugglers, would charge fees to smuggle groups of migrants through Mexico and into the United States. Because of their substantial
drug profits, Los Zetas completely transformed the human smuggling industry. While coyotes could only smuggle scarcely more than twenty migrants at a time, Los
Zetas could smuggle hundreds of migrants in armored vehicles across the border. Ultimately, Los Zetas gained control of the Guatemalan human smuggling market,
killing anyone attempting to travel beyond their control.10 The estimated industry value of migrant smuggling in Latin America today is $6.6 billion USD according to
the U.N. report on crime globalization, having grown in no small part from Los Zetas.11 Morris Panner, a former U.S. federal crime prosecutor, suggests that the
trend of DTOs exploring new business ventures is far more pervasive than their drug trade involvement. He goes on to imply that the entire
business model for Latin American organized crime is in a transitional period, in which these organizations are
diversifying ways to earn money, either as a growth or survival strategy.12 For example, PEMEX, the Mexican state-owned oil
company, has reported that the local committee has lost approximately 40 percent of its production, or $750 million USD, to oil theft in cartel-controlled
territory.13 While other figures are difficult to estimate, kidnap ransoming is valued between $200 million and $500 million USD annually.14 It appears
that these industries are growing as a result of continuing U.S. drug demand and DTO incubation.
While Panner does not adequately address the potential impact of widespread drug legalization, he does conclude
that criminal organizations are pursuing a larger, more extensive agenda.15 It appears DTOs are able to
expand into other illicit markets because of their substantial drug trade revenues.
AFF is sufficient
Robelo, Drug Policy Alliance research coordinator, 2013
(Daniel, Article: Demand Reduction or Redirection? Channeling Illicit Drug Demand towards a Regulated
Supply to Diminish Violence in Latin America, 91 Or. L. Rev. 1227, lexis, ldg)
It is also impossible to foresee how regulation would affect levels of violence. Some analysts believe a short-term increase in
violence is possible (as competition over a smaller market could intensify), but that violence in the
longer term will decline. n106 Some analysts point out that organized crime may further diversify into
other activities, such as extortion and kidnapping, though these have been shown to be considerably less
profitable than drug trafficking. As one scholar [*1249] notes, given the profitability of the drug
trade, " it would take roughly 50,000 kidnappings to equal 10% of cocaine revenues from the U.S. n107
While the American mafia certainly diversified into other criminal endeavors after the Repeal of
alcohol Prohibition, homicide rates nevertheless declined dramatically. n108 Combining marijuana
regulation with medical regulatory models for heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine could strike a major blow to the corrosive
economic power of violent trafficking organizations , diminishing their ability to perpetrate murder, hire recruits, purchase weapons,
corrupt officials, operate with impunity, and terrorize societies. Moreover, these approaches promise concrete results -
potentially significant reductions in DTO revenues - unlike all other strategies that Mexico or the
United States have tried to date. n109 Criminal organizations would still rely on other activities for their
income, but they would be left weaker and less of a threat to security. Furthermore, the United States and Latin
American governments would save resources currently wasted on prohibition enforcement and generate
new revenues in taxes - resources which could be applied more effectively towards confronting
violence and other crimes that directly threaten public safety. n1
2AC AT: Other Countries
Maintaining human capital in the US is key
Freeman, Harvard chair in economics, 2009
(Richard, What Does Global Expansion Of Higher Education Mean For The Us?, May,
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/communia2010/sites/communia2010/images/Freeman_2009_What_Doe
s_Global_Expansion_of_Higher_Education_Mean_For_the_US.pdf, ldg)
But can the same person do as good work in a developing country as in the US? There is diverse
evidence that the huge pay and productivity difference between workers in the US and in developing
countries cannot be explained by human capital or capital/labor ratios or any other observable measure, for that
matter. Analyzing research papers, Macgarvie and Khan (2008) show that the number of papers written is higher for nominally
similar international students in the US than for those whose fellowships make them return to their
native countries. The implication of these findings is that the same person working with the same
capital produces more in the US than in most other countries . Why? One possible reason is the US's
business and work culture, which is difficult to replicate, but whatever the reason, the greater
productivity in the US implies that immigration raises output more than off shoring and thus is to be
preferred on that criterion. Does the productivity of US workers benefit more from immigration or offshoring? Working in direct
contact with someone would appear to raise productivity more than buying their goods, because of
the greater likelihood of learning about work activity from them.
2AC Food Impact
Highest risk of extinction
Brown 11 Lester, President of the Earth Policy Institute,The New Geopolitics of Food, April 25,
2011, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/25/the_new_geopolitics_of_food
While temperatures are rising, water tables are falling as farmers overpump for irrigation. This
artificially inflates food production in the short run, creating a food bubble that bursts when aquifers
are depleted and pumping is necessarily reduced to the rate of recharge. In arid Saudi Arabia, irrigation had surprisingly enabled the
country to be self-sufficient in wheat for more than 20 years; now, wheat production is collapsing because the non-replenishable aquifer the
country uses for irrigation is largely depleted. The Saudis soon will be importing all their grain. Saudi Arabia is only one of some 18 countries
with water-based food bubbles. All together, more than half the world's people live in countries where water tables are falling. The politically
troubled Arab Middle East is the first geographic region where grain production has peaked and begun to decline because of water shortages,
even as populations continue to grow. Grain production is already going down in Syria and Iraq and may soon decline in Yemen. But the largest
food bubbles are in India and China. In India, where farmers have drilled some 20 million irrigation wells, water tables are falling and the wells
are starting to go dry. The World Bank reports that 175 million Indians are being fed with grain produced by overpumping. In China,
overpumping is concentrated in the North China Plain, which produces half of China's wheat and a third of its corn. An estimated 130 million
Chinese are currently fed by overpumping. How will these countries make up for the inevitable shortfalls when the aquifers are depleted? Even
as we are running our wells dry, we are also mismanaging our soils, creating new deserts. Soil erosion as a result of overplowing
and land mismanagement is undermining the productivity of one-third of the world's cropland. How
severe is it? Look at satellite images showing two huge new dust bowls: one stretching across northern and western China and western
Mongolia; the other across central Africa. Wang Tao, a leading Chinese desert scholar, reports that each year some 1,400 square miles of land
in northern China turn to desert. In Mongolia and Lesotho, grain harvests have shrunk by half or more over the
last few decades. North Korea and Haiti are also suffering from heavy soil losses; both countries face famine
if they lose international food aid. Civilization can survive the loss of its oil reserves, but it cannot survive the
loss of its soil reserves. Beyond the changes in the environment that make it ever harder to meet human demand, there's an
important intangible factor to consider: Over the last half-century or so, we have come to take agricultural progress for granted. Decade
after decade, advancing technology underpinned steady gains in raising land productivity. Indeed, world grain
yield per acre has tripled since 1950. But now that era is coming to an end in some of the more agriculturally
advanced countries, where farmers are already using all available technologies to raise yields. In
effect, the farmers have caught up with the scientists. After climbing for a century, rice yield per acre in Japan
has not risen at all for 16 years . In China, yields may level off soon. Just those two countries alone account for one-
third of the world's rice harvest. Meanwhile, wheat yields have plateaued in Britain, France, and Germany --
Western Europe's three largest wheat producers. IN THIS ERA OF TIGHTENING world food supplies,
the ability to grow food is fast becoming a new form of geopolitical leverage, and countries are scrambling to
secure their own parochial interests at the expense of the common good. The first signs of trouble came in 2007, when farmers began having
difficulty keeping up with the growth in global demand for grain. Grain and soybean prices started to climb, tripling by mid-2008. In response,
many exporting countries tried to control the rise of domestic food prices by restricting exports. Among
them were Russia and Argentina, two leading wheat exporters. Vietnam, the No. 2 rice exporter, banned exports entirely for several months in
early 2008. So did several other smaller exporters of grain. With exporting countries restricting exports in 2007 and 2008, importing countries
panicked. No longer able to rely on the market to supply the grain they needed, several countries took
the novel step of trying to negotiate long-term grain-supply agreements with exporting countries. The
Philippines, for instance, negotiated a three-year agreement with Vietnam for 1.5 million tons of rice per year. A delegation of Yemenis traveled
to Australia with a similar goal in mind, but had no luck. In a seller's market, exporters were reluctant to make long-term commitments.
Fearing they might not be able to buy needed grain from the market, some of the more affluent
countries, led by Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and China, took the unusual step in 2008 of buying or
leasing land in other countries on which to grow grain for themselves. Most of these land acquisitions are in Africa,
where some governments lease cropland for less than $1 per acre per year. Among the principal destinations were Ethiopia and Sudan,
countries where millions of people are being sustained with food from the U.N. World Food Program. That the governments of these two
countries are willing to sell land to foreign interests when their own people are hungry is a sad commentary on their leadership. By the end of
2009, hundreds of land acquisition deals had been negotiated, some of them exceeding a million acres. A 2010 World
Bank analysis of these "land grabs" reported that a total of nearly 140 million acres were involved -- an area that exceeds the cropland devoted
to corn and wheat combined in the United States. Such acquisitions also typically involve water rights, meaning that
land grabs potentially affect all downstream countries as well. Any water extracted from the upper Nile River basin to
irrigate crops in Ethiopia or Sudan, for instance, will now not reach Egypt, upending the delicate water politics of the Nile by adding new
countries with which Egypt must negotiate. The potential for conflict -- and not just over water -- is high. Many of the
land deals have been made in secret , and in most cases, the land involved was already in use by villagers when it was sold or
leased. Often those already farming the land were neither consulted about nor even informed of the
new arrangements. And because there typically are no formal land titles in many developing-country villages, the farmers who lost their
land have had little backing to bring their cases to court. Reporter John Vidal, writing in Britain's Observer, quotes Nyikaw Ochalla from
Ethiopia's Gambella region: "The foreign companies are arriving in large numbers, depriving people of land they have used for centuries. There
is no consultation with the indigenous population. The deals are done secretly. The only thing the local people see is people coming with lots of
tractors to invade their lands." Local hostility toward such land grabs is the rule, not the exception. In 2007, as food
prices were starting to rise, China signed an agreement with the Philippines to lease 2.5 million acres of land slated for food crops that would be
shipped home. Once word leaked, the public outcry -- much of it from Filipino farmers -- forced Manila to suspend the agreement. A similar
uproar rocked Madagascar, where a South Korean firm, Daewoo Logistics, had pursued rights to more than 3 million acres of land. Word of
the deal helped stoke a political furor that toppled the government and forced cancellation of the
agreement. Indeed, few things are more likely to fuel insurgencies than taking land from people. Agricultural equipment is
easily sabotaged. If ripe fields of grain are torched, they burn quickly. Not only are these deals risky, but foreign
investors producing food in a country full of hungry people face another political question of how to get the grain out. Will villagers permit
trucks laden with grain headed for port cities to proceed when they themselves may be on the verge of starvation? The potential for
political instability in countries where villagers have lost their land and their livelihoods is high.
Conflicts could easily develop between investor and host countries. These acquisitions represent a potential
investment in agriculture in developing countries of an estimated $50 billion. But it could take many years to realize any substantial production
gains. The public infrastructure for modern market-oriented agriculture does not yet exist in most of Africa. In some countries it will take years
just to build the roads and ports needed to bring in agricultural inputs such as fertilizer and to export farm products. Beyond that, modern
agriculture requires its own infrastructure: machine sheds, grain-drying equipment, silos, fertilizer storage sheds, fuel storage facilities,
equipment repair and maintenance services, well-drilling equipment, irrigation pumps, and energy to power the pumps. Overall, development
of the land acquired to date appears to be moving very slowly. So how much will all this expand world food output? We don't know, but the
World Bank analysis indicates that only 37 percent of the projects will be devoted to food crops. Most of the land bought up so far will be used
to produce biofuels and other industrial crops. Even if some of these projects do eventually boost land productivity, who will benefit? If virtually
all the inputs -- the farm equipment, the fertilizer, the pesticides, the seeds -- are brought in from abroad and if all the output is shipped out of
the country, it will contribute little to the host country's economy. At best, locals may find work as farm laborers, but in highly mechanized
operations, the jobs will be few. At worst, impoverished countries like Mozambique and Sudan will be left with
less land and water with which to feed their already hungry populations. Thus far the land grabs have
contributed more to stirring unrest than to expanding food production. And this rich country-poor country divide
could grow even more pronounced -- and soon. This January, a new stage in the scramble among importing countries to secure food began to
unfold when South Korea, which imports 70 percent of its grain, announced that it was creating a new public-private entity that will be
responsible for acquiring part of this grain. With an initial office in Chicago, the plan is to bypass the large international trading firms by buying
grain directly from U.S. farmers. As the Koreans acquire their own grain elevators, they may well sign multiyear delivery contracts with farmers,
agreeing to buy specified quantities of wheat, corn, or soybeans at a fixed price. Other importers will not stand idly by as South Korea tries to
tie up a portion of the U.S. grain harvest even before it gets to market. The enterprising Koreans may soon be joined by China, Japan, Saudi
Arabia, and other leading importers. Although South Korea's initial focus is the United States, far and away the world's largest grain exporter, it
may later consider brokering deals with Canada, Australia, Argentina, and other major exporters. This is happening just as China may be on the
verge of entering the U.S. market as a potentially massive importer of grain. With China's 1.4 billion increasingly affluent consumers starting to
compete with U.S. consumers for the U.S. grain harvest, cheap food, seen by many as an American birthright, may be coming to an end. No one
knows where this intensifying competition for food supplies will go, but the world seems to be moving away from the
international cooperation that evolved over several decades following World War II to an every-
country-for-itself philosophy. Food nationalism may help secure food supplies for individual affluent
countries, but it does little to enhance world food security. Indeed, the low-income countries that host
land grabs or import grain will likely see their food situation deteriorate. AFTER THE CARNAGE of two world wars
and the economic missteps that led to the Great Depression, countries joined together in 1945 to create the United Nations, finally realizing
that in the modern world we cannot live in isolation, tempting though that might be. The International Monetary Fund was created to help
manage the monetary system and promote economic stability and progress. Within the U.N. system, specialized agencies from the World
Health Organization to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) play major roles in the world today. All this has fostered international
cooperation. But while the FAO collects and analyzes global agricultural data and provides technical
assistance, there is no organized effort to ensure the adequacy of world food supplies . Indeed, most
international negotiations on agricultural trade until recently focused on access to markets, with the United States, Canada, Australia, and
Argentina persistently pressing Europe and Japan to open their highly protected agricultural markets. But in the first decade of this century,
access to supplies has emerged as the overriding issue as the world transitions from an era of food surpluses to a new politics of food scarcity.
At the same time, the U.S. food aid program that once worked to fend off famine wherever it threatened has largely been replaced by the U.N.
World Food Program (WFP), where the United States is the leading donor. The WFP now has food-assistance operations in some 70 countries
and an annual budget of $4 billion. There is little international coordination otherwise. French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- the
reigning president of the G-20 -- is proposing to deal with rising food prices by curbing speculation in commodity markets. Useful though this
may be, it treats the symptoms of growing food insecurity, not the causes, such as population growth and climate change. The world now
needs to focus not only on agricultural policy, but on a structure that integrates it with energy,
population, and water policies, each of which directly affects food security. But that is not happening.
Instead, as land and water become scarcer, as the Earth's temperature rises, and as world food
security deteriorates, a dangerous geopolitics of food scarcity is emerging. Land grabbing, water
grabbing, and buying grain directly from farmers in exporting countries are now integral parts of a
global power struggle for food security. With grain stocks low and climate volatility increasing, the risks are also increasing.
We are now so close to the edge that a breakdown in the food system could come at any time. Consider,
for example, what would have happened if the 2010 heat wave that was centered in Moscow had instead been centered in Chicago. In round
numbers, the 40 percent drop in Russia's hoped-for harvest of roughly 100 million tons cost the world 40 million tons of grain, but a 40 percent
drop in the far larger U.S. grain harvest of 400 million tons would have cost 160 million tons. The world's carryover stocks of grain (the amount
in the bin when the new harvest begins) would have dropped to just 52 days of consumption. This level would have been not only the lowest on
record, but also well below the 62-day carryover that set the stage for the 2007-2008 tripling of world grain prices. Then what? There would
have been chaos in world grain markets. Grain prices would have climbed off the charts. Some grain-exporting countries, trying to hold down
domestic food prices, would have restricted or even banned exports, as they did in 2007 and 2008. The TV news would have been dominated
not by the hundreds of fires in the Russian countryside, but by footage of food riots in low-income grain-importing countries and reports of
governments falling as hunger spread out of control. Oil-exporting countries that import grain would have been trying to barter oil for grain,
and low-income grain importers would have lost out. With governments toppling and confidence in the world grain
market shattered, the global economy could have started to unravel. We may not always be so lucky.
At issue now is whether the world can go beyond focusing on the symptoms of the deteriorating food
situation and instead attack the underlying causes. If we cannot produce higher crop yields with less
water and conserve fertile soils, many agricultural areas will cease to be viable. And this goes far beyond
farmers. If we cannot move at wartime speed to stabilize the climate, we may not be able to avoid runaway food prices. If we cannot
accelerate the shift to smaller families and stabilize the world population sooner rather than later, the
ranks of the hungry will almost certainly continue to expand. The time to act is now -- before the food
crisis of 2011 becomes the new normal.
Off
Nearly All Spec
We legalize recreational pot
Kamin-prof law Denver-12 43 McGeorge L. Rev. 147
SYMPOSIUM: THE ROAD TO LEGITIMIZING MARIJUANA: WHAT BENEFIT AT WHAT COST?: Medical
Marijuana in Colorado and the Future of Marijuana Regulation in the United States
2. The Coming Fight over Full Legalization The confusion and conflict over the legal status of the medical marijuana
industry has led many to call for the full legalization of marijuana. A number of states, most recently
California through Proposition 19, have considered legalizing marijuana not just for those claiming a medical
need for the drug, but for all adults interested in partaking of the drug for either medical or
recreational purposes. However, the federalism concerns regarding full legalization are, if anything, more pronounced than with
regard to medical marijuana. In contrast to the uncertainty surrounding the federal government's views on medical marijuana in the states, the
federal government's opposition to the full legalization of marijuana at the state level has been both consistent and full-throated. Attorney
General Holder made the government's position explicit during the run-up to the California's vote on Proposition 19 in 2010. 43 Responding to
a letter from a number of previous DEA administrators asking him to take a stand against the measure, Holder wrote that Proposition 19 would
"greatly complicate federal drug enforcement efforts to the detriment of our citizens ... . Accordingly, we will vigorously enforce the CSA against
those individuals and organizations that possess, manufacture, or distribute marijuana for recreational use, even if such activities are permitted
under state law." 44 With recreational marijuana [*158] legalization sure to be on the ballot in Colorado in
2012, 45 the push for full legalization is likely only to exasperate the complicated federal-state
relationship again.
Midterms
Dems win nowprefer Princeton predictions
LoGiurato, Business Insider, 9-17-14 (Brett, Meet The New Nate Silver,
http://www.businessinsider.com/sam-wang-nate-silver-forecasts-dem-senate-hold-2014-9, accessed 9-
17-14, CMM)
In 2012, as President Barack Obama fell behind in pre-election polls but not in election statistician Nate Silver's odds, this phrase quickly caught
on: "Keep calm and trust Nate Silver!" This summer, Democrats have a new election guru to turn to for comfort:
Sam Wang, a neuroscientist and professor at Princeton University who runs a model at Princeton's
Election Consortium. Most of the 2014 election models from The Washington Post, The New York Times, and from
Silver, among others have for a while projected Republicans not only furthering their grip on control of the House of
Representatives, but also having a good chance of flipping Senate control as well. But Wang's model has been the most
bullish for Democrats. His model has two forecasts: If the election were held today, Democrats would
have an 80% chance of retaining control of the Senate. Predicting for Election Day, he estimates slightly
less bullish 70% odds. He predicts that as of today, Senate Democrats and Independents that caucus
with the party will make up 50 seats in the chamber, enabling them to keep control by the thinnest of
margins. (In such a 50-50 situation, Vice President Joe Biden would cast the theoretical deciding vote.) On Tuesday, other models
began shifting toward a better chance for Democratic control of the Senate. The Washington Post on
Tuesday put Democrats' odds at 51%. The New York Times' new "Leo" model has control of the Senate
at a 50-50 tossup. And Silver's site, FiveThirtyEight, has Republicans' chances slimming to about 53%.
"My model is slightly more favorable because it relies on current polling conditions" as its main factor, Wang
said in a recent interview with Business Insider. The differences between their models and their differing
predictions has opened up a pseudo-rivalry between Wang and Silver in the lead-up to the midterm elections.
During an interview with WNYC's Brian Lehrer last week, Silver said Wang's model used "arbitrary assumptions," something Wang rejected as
an "out-and-out falsehood." In a blog post on Tuesday, Wang playfully responded to a comment from Silver in which Silver said he would like to
"place a large wager against" Wang. He called Silver's forecast that day, which gave Republicans a 64% chance of
swinging Senate control, into question, saying the "special sauce" (or formula) Silver used for his model
was "messy stuff." But the difference between Wang and Silver, Wang says, is substantive. It is
predicated on the divide between the models Wang's relies only on a reading of the latest polls,
while Silver's model adds in the "fundamentals" of the race when making predictions. Those
fundamentals vary by state. They can take into account fundraising, the liberal-conservative ideology
of individual candidates, and national factors like presidential approval rating and the history of the
president's party performing badly in the sixth year of his presidency, for example. "When he started in 2008, he
brought lively commentary and the addition of econometric assumptions to predict the future," Wang told Business Insider of Silver. "He made
the hobby fun for people to read about. All horse race commentators owe him a debt. "The difference between us is
substantive. In most years, adding assumptions doesn't alter the picture too much: 2008, 2010, and
2012 were not hard prediction problems. However, this year's Senate race is as close as 2004, and giving
an accurate picture of the race is challenging. Adding assumptions can bias an analyst's
interpretation." Somewhat similar to Silver's, Wang's interest in political prognostication grew out of the insatiable need to fuel what
had been a hobby. He is the son of Taiwanese immigrants, grew up in California, graduated with a B.S. from the California Institute of
Technology by age 19, and subsequently graduated with a Ph.D. from Stanford. He began his model in 2004, when he was intensely
following the presidential campaign that pitted President George W. Bush against Democrat John Kerry. In the constant horse-race mentality
and the over-reporting on single polls, he said, he saw an opportunity to contribute a new, more comprehensive and accurate element to the
conversation. "I was motivated by the extreme closeness of the Kerry-Bush contest, and the news stories about single polls were driving me
crazy," Wang told Business Insider. "I thought a simple way to summarize all the polls at once would improve the quality of coverage." Since
then, his model has nearly nailed the result in every national election. In 2004, the model predicted
Bush would grab 286 electoral votes to Kerry's 252. That was off by only a single electoral vote. (He made
a personal prediction that turned out to be wrong.) The 2008 presidential election was similar off by a single vote
in each direction. The model only missed Nevada's Senate race in 2010, a race in which nearly every
poll was off the mark. And the model in 2012 correctly predicted the vote in 49 of 50 states, the
popular vote count of 51.1% to 48.9%, and 10 out of 10 tight Senate races including Montana and
South Dakota, which Silver missed. To Wang, it proves that a model that solely focuses on polls is a
reliable indicator of eventual electoral outcomes. And he thinks models based on "fundamentals" like
Silver's and like The New York Times' new model, dubbed "Leo," significantly alter the picture this
year. "As of early September, both The New York Times's model 'Leo' and the FiveThirtyEight model
exert a pull equivalent to adjusting Senate polls in key races by several percentage points. In other words,
Republican candidates have slightly underperformed analyst expectations," Wang said. And this year, that
could mean the expected Republican "wave" might never materialize. Wang sees Democratic
candidates outperforming expectations all over the map.
Colorado proves conservatives see legalization as an economic issue which means
theyd support the planthats their economy key to election ev
Marihuana ballot initiatives fail to boost Dems
Enten, senior political writer and analyst for FiveThirtyEight, 14 (Harry, 5-1-14, Sorry
Democrats, Marijuana Doesnt Bring Young Voters to the Polls,
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/sorry-democrats-marijuana-doesnt-bring-young-voters-to-the-
polls/, accessed 7-14, CMM)
Some Democrats think theyve found a great smoky hope in state ballot measures seeking to legalize
marijuana. Come November, Alaska will vote on whether to make recreational marijuana legal, and several other
states are thinking about doing to the same. In Alaska, the referendum will appear on the ballot alongside a
competitive U.S. Senate race between Democrat Mark Begich and an as yet undecided Republican. The Begich
campaign declined to comment on whether it expected pot to help its chances,1 yet the idea that pro-marijuana ballot
measures can help Democrats makes sense. Young voters, who are very much in favor of marijuana
legalization and who tend to lean Democratic, havent made up as high a percentage of voters in
midterm elections as they do in general elections; if they come out to vote on pot, maybe Alaska
Democrats can get their candidate into office. But a closer look at the evidence suggests Begich might
not stand to benefit. Overall, past marijuana ballot measures havent meant that more young people
come out to vote. This years senate race in Alaska would likely have to be very close for the marijuana
ballot measure to make a difference. The conventional wisdom that marijuana ballot measures help
Democrats goes back to the 2012 exit polls conducted in Colorado, Oregon and Washington. Those surveys
showed that young people were a larger percentage of the electorate in 2012 than in 2008. In Colorado, 18- to 29-year-olds made up 6 points
more of the electorate (from 14 percent to 20 percent), 12 points more in Washington (10 percent to 22 percent), and 5 points more in Oregon
(12 percent to 17 percent), where the ballot measure failed.2 But theres some contradictory evidence from another
source: The governments Current Population Survey (CPS) didnt show anywhere near the increase in young
voters that exit polls did. The Census Bureau found youth turnout rose by 0.2 points in Colorado, dropped by 0.9 points in Oregon,
and dropped by 2.7 points in Washington from 2008 to 2012, an average 1.2-point drop across all three states. This drop is pretty much the
same as the 1.5-point drop in young voters nationally, as measured by the CPS. Theres reason to think we should trust the
CPS more than the exit polls. The latter arent designed to estimate the ages of voters, as the Center for
Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement has pointed out. Thats not to say CPS estimates are immune to margin of error.
But a third source of evidence backs up the CPS: pre-election polls. In Colorado,3 Oregon4 and Washington5 a variety
of pollsters had numbers more in line with the CPS than the exit polls. We can also look at prior years recreational
marijuana ballot measures, including those that sought to legalize, decriminalize or lessen the penalty for recreational marijuana.
For the 14 such ballot measures since 1998, the voting pool was made up of 0.2 percentage points
fewer 18- to 29-year-olds, according to the CPS, compared to the prior similar election (i.e. the prior midterm
for midterm years and the prior presidential election for presidential election years). Looking only at the midterms, the 18-to-29 demographic
rose 0.1 percentage points on average. Once again, marijuana on the ballot doesnt appear to have made a
difference in whether young people voted. Past research by political science professors Caroline Tolbert
and John Grummel of Kent State University and Daniel Smith of the University of Denver showed that ballot measures
drive up voter turnout overall. And in 2012, when pot was on the ballot, significantly more voters
turned out in both Colorado and Washington, though not in Oregon, where the referendum didnt
pass. But those voters didnt help Democrats. There was no relationship between a change in turnout
in these three states and how well President Barack Obama, or marijuana, did in individual counties. On
average, Obama lost the same amount of support in these states 3.4 points from 2008 as he did nationally.
None of this proves that marijuana wasnt helpful for Democrats among a subset of voters, but it suggests that the overall effect
was small and fairly neutral.
Republicans also support legalizationno vote swap
Fabian, political editor for Fusion, 4/29/14 Jordan, Jordan Fabian is political editor for Fusion, the new cable and digital network from ABC
News and Univision. Prior to joining Univision in 2011, he worked as a staff writer at The Hill newspaper, "Poll: Democrats Face an Ugly
Midterms Without Young Voters", April 29 2014, fusion.net/leadership/story/harvard-youth-poll-democrats-face-ugly-midterms-young-635862
President Obama and Democrats will have a tough time counting on young voters in this Novembers midterm elections, a new poll says. Young
voters are increasingly unlikely to cast a ballot this fall, according to a poll from Harvard Universitys Institute of Politics released Tuesday. The
survey found a growing sense of political apathy among adults under 30, driven by a lack of trust in political process and institutions. And one
issue that Democrats have hoped would drive youth turnout, marijuana legalization, might be more complicated than that. Heres a closer look
at the polls three main takeaways: 1. Bad news for Democrats Young people helped elect President Obama to office in 2008 and 2012. But this
year, theyre not so eager to vote. Just 23 percent of people ages 18 to 29 said they will definitely cast a ballot in the congressional elections in
November. By comparison, 45 percent of voters under 30 showed up in 2012, with Obama winning six in ten. Harvards midterm estimate has
dropped 10 percentage points since last fall and its eight points lower than the polls numbers before the 2010 midterms, when Republicans
won control of the House. Theres a lot at stake this November, as Democrats are in danger of losing control of the Senate. In presidential
election years, young people have become a key part of Obamas winning coalition and given an edge to Democrats in Congress. But
millennials traditionally stay home in midterm election years, and this one is no different . In addition, the young
voters who said they would show up come from traditionally Republican groups. Forty-four percent of those who
said they voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 said they will definitely vote this year, compared to 35 percent who voted for Obama. Young men
were nine points more likely to vote than women. Whites were also more likely to vote than African-Americans and Hispanics. The one silver
lining for Democrats? President Obamas approval ratings have jumped six percentage points to 47 percent from a historic low of 41 percent
last November. 2. A lack of trust Young Americans were already cynical about the countrys political process and
institutions. And the problem has only gotten worse in the last year. Trust in the president has dipped from 39 percent to
32 percent, trust in the military went from 57 percent to 47 percent, and trust in the Supreme Court fell from 40 percent to 36 percent. The
decline in trust was driven by changing attitudes among self-described Democrats and independents, according
to Harvard. The number of young people who say elected officials seem to be motivated by selfish reasons has jumped eight points since 2010
to 62 percent, another indicator that adults under 30 are losing faith in government. Twenty-nine percent say that political involvement rarely
has any tangible results, up from 23 percent from four years ago. 3. Marijuana isnt the key Legalized marijuana is more popular than
ever, leading some political consultants to believe that the issue could be used as a youth turnout mechanism. But the Harvard poll paints a
more mixed picture. Forty-four percent of those under 30 say they support legalizing marijuana, 23 percent strongly so. Thirty-four percent
oppose it, and 22 percent are not sure. Thats much different from what the Pew Research Center found earlier this year, which is that 69
percent of adults ages 18 to 33 want pot to be legal. Harvard found that millennials dont think monolithically about
weed. Almost half of young Democrats back legalized pot, but legalization also drew support from 32
percent of Republicans . And the desire for legalization isnt stronger among non-white millennials, who are often
more likely to be arrested for marijuana. Forty-nine percent of whites back legalization, more than 10 points higher than blacks (38 percent)
and Hispanics (37 percent). All of this shows that marijuana is a more complicated political issue for young voters
than what many in politics believe.
Theres massive backlash to the plan that swamps the link
Galston, senior fellow and Chair in Governance Studies at Brookings, and Dionne, senior fellow in
Governance Studies at Brookings, 13 (William and E.J., May, The New Politics of Marijuana
Legalization: Why Opinion is Changing,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/05/29%20politics%20marijuana%20leg
alization%20galston%20dionne/dionne%20galston_newpoliticsofmjleg_final.pdf, accessed 8-29-14,
CMM)
Despite last years legalization victories in Colorado and Washington, the battles of recent years suggest that, on
the whole, there is more intensity among those who oppose legalization and more ambivalence
among those who favor it. For example, a survey conducted during the battle over Californias Proposition
19 that would have legalized marijuana use found that 39 percent of the states voters were strongly
opposed to legalization while only 34 percent strongly favored it. The rest of the voters held their
views less intensely. Similarly, the survey found that 41 percent of voters said they were definitely
opposed to legalization, while only 27 percent were definitely in favor. There are other ambivalences in public
attitudes toward marijuana, notably a substantial dif - ference between attitudes toward legalization for recreational purposes and attitudes
toward medical marijuana. For example, the Pew survey that found a 52-to-45 percent majority in favor of overall legalization also found a
much larger majority, 77-to-16 percent, saying that marijuana had legitimate medical uses. Other surveys suggest that
decriminalization tends to enjoy more support than outright legalization.
Terrorism focus shields the link
Bolton, The Hill, 9-8-14 (Alexander, The return of the politics of terror,
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/216896-the-return-of-the-politics-of-terror, accessed 9-10-14,
CMM)
The politics of terrorism have returned with a vengeance for the midterm elections. National security
dominated the first election cycles after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, with Democrats fearful of being labeled unpatriotic if
they criticized then-President George W. Bush. The Republican advantage eroded years later as public opinion soured against the Iraq War. By
the time President Obama sought reelection in 2012, he was able to tout the killing of Osama bin Laden to portray Democrats as the party of
strength in foreign policy. But now, with the 13th anniversary of 9/11 just days away, Obama and the Democrats
are back on the defensive. Obamas response to the advances made by the radicals of the Islamic State in
Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has provoked a chorus of criticism, including from vulnerable Democrats up for
reelection this year. And its not just the broad threat posed by ISIS that has changed the political landscape Obama has given
GOP critics an opening by fumbling several public statements. One gaffe came during a recent press
conference when he admitted that, when it comes to countering ISIS, we dont have a strategy yet. Former
spokesman Robert Gibbs called it a wince-able moment. Senate Democrats who are running for reelection in a tough
political environment are sounding the alarm bell. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) fired off a letter to Attorney General Eric
Holder demanding to know what the Justice Department is doing to intercept American jihadists returning from Syria. I was troubled by the
presidents recent suggestion that the administration has not yet developed a comprehensive strategy to address the growing threat of ISILs
activities in Syria, he wrote, using an alternative acronym for ISIS. Separately, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.)
pounced on Obamas remarks during a trip to Estonia where he characterized ISIS as a manageable
threat. This is not in my view a manageable situation. They want to kill us, he warned. It was a rare instance when some Democrats sided
with McConnell over the president. Do not believe ISIL is manageable, agree these terrorists must be chased to the gates of hell, tweeted
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who is facing a tough reelection race. Following the criticism, Obama on Friday tried to walk back his comments,
saying ISIS must be destroyed and cannot be contained. He will expand on that idea when he delivers a televised address to the nation on
Wednesday. Previewing his message in an interview with Meet the Press Sunday, Obama said that he wanted the American people to
understand ISIS is a serious threat but that we have the capacity to deal with it. Democrats who could replace Obama in the Oval Office,
including Vice President Biden and Hillary Clinton, are also using more muscular foreign policy rhetoric. Biden has vowed to follow ISIS to the
gates of hell, while Clinton has blamed the growth of ISIS on the failure to help build a credible fighting force against strongman Bashar
Assad in Syria. Republicans who are mulling their own quest for the White House in 2016 are attacking Obamas foreign policy with gusto. Texas
Gov. Rick Perry (R) blasted the president for dithering and debating and always playing catch-up on international crises that threaten U.S.
interests. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) declared we ought to bomb *ISIS+ back to the Stone Age. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who in the past warned
against foreign entanglements and called for ending foreign aid, declared in Time magazine, I am not an isolationist, and faulted Obama for
letting a jihadist wonderland blossom in Libya and Syria. Some Democrats are frustrated by what they see as a lack of
clear leadership from the president. All of these members back in their home states have been
getting asked about all of these foreign policy issues for the last couple weeks. Very few if any have
gotten any guidance from the White House or indication about what the president is thinking, said a
Democratic strategist who has spoken with several lawmakers. The consequence, the strategist added, is that some
endangered Democrats are beginning to flail about a little. There is a growing belief among policy
experts that ISIS poses a greater national security threat than al Qaeda did before 9/11. The radical
group is estimated to control billions of dollars in assets, and has trained American and European
citizens who could return home to stage an attack.
No unique linkother issues more polarizing
Rucker, Washington Post, 8-9-14 (Philip, Robert Costa and Matea Gold, Unlike previous midterm
election years, no dominant theme has emerged for 2014,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/unlike-previous-midterm-election-years-no-dominant-theme-
has-emerged-for-2014/2014/08/09/8775aca6-1f0a-11e4-ae54-0cfe1f974f8a_story.html, accessed 8-17-
14, CMM)
Ask voters in North Carolinas Research Triangle what Novembers midterm elections are about and one will
tell you drones. A second will say closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Yet another, the middle-class
squeeze. At a Sunday school classroom in Ypsilanti, Mich., voters are concerned about deteriorating roads, teen
sex parties, truancy in schools and violent crime. Six hundred miles west at a Republican campaign office in Urbandale, Iowa,
people fear that America is on an irreversible decline like Germany after World War I, as one man predicted. Across Colorado, voters are
thinking about a whole other set of concerns veterans care, drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants, the soaring cost of housing, the
erosion of Christian conservative values, Russias rise, and fracking. This is an election about nothing and everything.
Unlike in previous midterm election years, no dominant national theme has emerged for the 2014
campaign, according to public opinion surveys as well as interviews last week with scores of voters in
five key states and with dozens of politicians and party strategists. Even without a single salient issue,
a heavy cloud of economic anxiety and general unease is hanging over the fiercely partisan debate.
Listening to voters, you hear a downbeat tone to everything political the nations economy, infrastructure and schools; the crises flaring
around the world; the evolving culture wars at home; immigration laws; President Obama and other elected leaders in Washington. I probably
feel the way everyone else feels, said Lindsay Perry, a 32-year-old Democrat, as she tried to keep her 9-month-old son from tipping over her
salad last week at a Durham, N.C., bakery. Clearly, its really dysfunctional and its essentially driven by monied interests at this point. Its really
just discouraging. It just seems clear the peoples interests arent being represented. Over the past 20 years, every midterm election has had a
driving theme. In 1994, Newt Gingrich led Republicans to power in a backlash against President Clintons domestic agenda. In 1998, it was a
rebuke to Republicans for their drive to impeach Clinton. Terrorism motivated voters in 2002, while anger over the Iraq war propelled
Democratic gains in 2006. And 2010 turned into an indictment of Obamas economic stewardship and, for many, his health-care plan. As
long as it has been polling, Gallup has asked voters to state their most important problem. For the
first midterm cycle since 1998, no single issue registers with more than 20 percent of voters.
Immigration was the top concern for 17 percent of those Gallup surveyed in July, while 16 percent
said government dissatisfaction and 15 percent the economy.
No internal gridlock
Ornstein, resident scholar at the AEI, 9-3-14 (Norman, Americas midterms will not break the
deadlock, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/5acaa630-3200-11e4-b929-
00144feabdc0.html#axzz3CHjzNMIS, accessed 9-3-14, CMM)
The US capitol is gripped by dysfunction. Republican hostility towards President Barack Obama is
obstructing progress on domestic initiatives such as immigration reform, and international ones such as the
administrations efforts to secure new agreements that would boost international trade. Midterm elections in November
provide an opportunity to break the deadlock. Alas, America is unlikely to take it. While voters despise
politicians of both parties, they are even more down on Republicans than Democrats. Yet this is not reflected in the electoral arithmetic. All 435
seats in the House of Representatives, now controlled by Republicans, are up for election, along with 36 seats in the 100-member Senate,
currently run by Democrats. In theory, either or both of the chambers could change in party control. But the
odds are that Republicans will hold on to the House of Representatives, and they are more likely than not to
seize control of the Senate. Democrats are less enthusiastic and more upset with their leader; while
Republicans, having been frozen out of the White House for six years, are angry and eager to vote. Similar circumstances
resulted in a huge Republican victory in the 2010 midterms. The effect will be less dramatic this year. But Democrats are
disillusioned with Mr Obama, a result of issues such as the continuing war in Afghanistan, renewed involvement in Iraq, revelations about the
National Security Agencys mass surveillance programme and the immigration crisis at the southern border. This is not the only factor that
harms the Democrats prospects. Republican victories in 2010 gave the party control of state politics in a majority of the 50 states, and they
used their power to dominate congressional redistricting, leaving them with few truly vulnerable House seats. The Senate, where Republicans
need to gain six seats to take control, is not subject to redistricting. Still, of the 36 seats up for election this year, 21 are held by Democrats,
many in firmly Republican states that voted for Mitt Romney, Mr Obamas opponent in 2012. Only two or three Republican seats are in danger.
November is likely to leave the US with divided government, and there is a strong possibility that
Congress will fall entirely under Republican control. Will that break the fever that has paralysed
Washington? No. In decades past, divided government was a way for the US system to operate in a
bipartisan fashion; both parties shared the responsibility to govern. President Ronald Reagan, facing a Democratic House, engineered
compromises on budgets, including programmes such as Social Security and Medicare, and enacted a sweeping bipartisan tax reform plan. But
sharp differences between the parties have since morphed into a kind of tribalism, with the president
facing visceral opposition from across the aisle to anything he might want. Republicans in Congress
have become a parliamentary opposition party in a country that does not have a parliamentary
system. The result has been deadlock. At the same time, Republicans have moved sharply to the right.
Although Tea Party activists won few victories over establishment figures in primaries this year House majority leader Eric Cantor was the
exception this is largely because establishment figures saw off challengers by adopting radical Tea Party positions themselves. A
Republican victory in the Senate would be seized by the partys politicians as vindication for the
strategy of obstruction. Why compromise with a lame duck president when Republican rule looms?
They would try to use control of the legislative process to bludgeon Mr Obama on everything from immigration to climate change. As Mitch
McConnell, Senate Republican leader, has said: We will be pushing back against this bureaucracy...All across the federal government, were
going to go after it. Besides voting 50 times to repeal Mr Obamas healthcare reform act, Republicans have investigated alleged scandals
ranging from claims that the state department did too little to protect US diplomats in Benghazi to accusations of impropriety at the Internal
Revenue Service. If they controlled Congress, they would seek to dish even more dirt. True, a Republican Congress would be
more visible to voters and more readily blamed for obstruction. The party would need to build a
positive record of accomplishment. But in the most obvious area for compromise, immigration
reform, agreement is slipping even further out of reach. Marco Rubio the Republican senator who was the catalyst for a
bipartisan immigration reform bill that passed the Senate in 2013, but was defeated in the House has abandoned his support for the measure
and taken a strident line against Mr Obama. Americans of all persuasions are hoping to see a less divisive kind of
politics. Novembers elections are likely to disappoint them.
Asia pivot fails too focused on middle east
Avni 14 Benny, Obamas incredible shrinking Pacific pivot http://nypost.com/2014/06/01/obamas-
incredible-shrinking-pacific-pivot/
President Obama once had a sound foreign-policy concept, an overarching theme with real promise of being remembered as his doctrine. Oh, did you forget about
the pivot to Asia, aka Rebalancing to the Pacific? Well, so did he. The pivot went unmentioned in Obamas Wednesday foreign-policy address at West Point. Indeed, he relegated Asias biggest fear
the growing military threat China poses to its neighbors to a sub-clause as he discussed the Senates decades-long refusal to ratify an international convention, the Law of the Sea Treaty (derided by opponents as LOST). Oh, yes,
folks on Obamas team wag fingers at China. Over the weekend, at a meeting of regional security officials in Singapore, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel opined that China conducts destabilizing, unilateral actions in the region. But
what to do about it? We cant try to resolve problems in the South China Sea, Obama said last week, when we have refused to make sure that the Law of the Sea Convention is ratified by the United States Senate. What makes
America exceptional, he added, is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions. So American exceptionalism means playing by everyone elses rules? This
worries our Asian allies, who fear our Navy will no longer secure the Pacific as it has for half a century. As Chinas aggression against Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam et al grows, all these US allies hear is Obama railing
against military solutions. Obama would rather confront Chinas aggression by persuading President Xi Jinping to obey
i nternational law, like the good 21st-century leader he must be. After all, Beijing has ratified the prized treaty and we didnt. Thing is, optimism about the future of
international law and institutions such as the UN has faded in recent decades. One reason: Last month, Beijing
joined Moscow in vetoing a US-backed UN resolution on Syria. Turns out Xi and Russias Vladimir Putin interpret international law (and 21st-century
leadership) very differently than Obama. Law, they believe, is made by the powerful. Yet the power dimension of the Asia pivot was to be a shift in US naval assets to the Pacific. But with Pentagon budget cuts, this rebalancing
will likely mean only shrinking our naval presence in the Atlantic, not growing it in the Pacific. (Indeed, it may shrink there, too.) Obamas big concept, turns out, was an
attempt to simply escape the endless wars of the Mideast and Europe, turning our attentions instead
to Asia and the Pacific. There, went the thinking, nations are more concerned with commerce and economic growth than with ancient enmities. Thats where future markets are. And, yes, we can
manage what Obama calls Chinas peaceful rise. Turns out that we cant all that easily escape that pesky old world: The meat of
Obamas speech last week was dedicated to the Mideast, al Qaeda and Europes Ukraine headache.
And oops, the Pacific region isnt all that pacified either. Notably, old enmities between Japan and China are resurfacing. Close calls like last weeks near-collision between Chinese and Japanese military planes threaten to
mushroom into hot skirmishes just as Americas refocused attentions on the region fail to materialize. Or because of it. Yes, Obama reassured Japan and others during his Asian swing in April that America will stand by its mutual-
defense treaties. Specifically, he said, the treaty with Japan applies to the Senkaku islands, which Tokyo has administered for decades but China now aggressively covets. But very few Asians are buying it. Why should they? As soon
as Obama left the region, China planted an oil rig smack at the heart of Vietnams maritime commercial zone. On Tuesday, the Chinese navy sank a Vietnamese fishing boat near there. America did little to defend Vietnam beyond
offering to mediate the dispute. Some pivot. America is AWOL, so Japan is now weighing stronger military ties with Vietnam. Expect more Pacific skirmishes, and perhaps real flareups. One
world power really did pivot: Russia. With a keen eye for US weakness, Putin just signed a $400 billion deal with Xi, assuring Russias status as Chinas chief natural-gas supplier for decades to come. Obama, by contrast, failed in his
trip (and since) to complete a long-negotiated US-led treaty, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, meant to open up cross-ocean markets. Did Obama ever truly believe in refocusing Americas attentions to the East? If so, his West Point
address produced no evidence that he still does. His actions, even less so.
Warrant for escalation is US-China warthat wont happen
Wu, China Foundation for International Studies Center for American Studies executive
director, 2013
(Zurong, China and Americas Innate Goal: Avoiding War Forever, 7-30,
http://watchingamerica.com/News/217271/china-and-americas-innate-goal-avoiding-war-forever/, ldg)
China and the U.S. are currently constructing a new kind of relationship between major powers, with
several aims. One intrinsic aim is especially worthy of attention, namely that China and the U.S. will not go to war today, nor in the
future, and will forever maintain a peaceful association. The Chinese and American governments and people are striving toward
this goal unceasingly because it is in the best interests of the people of China, America and the whole world. To avoid confl ict, to keep from fighting, to be mutually
respectful and to embark upon a path of mutual cooperation acting in these ways would benefit everyone. First of all, the globalization of the economy,
information and other essential factors have created a global village, and the U.S. and China live and work together within this community; their interests
are intertwined and neither can break the inseparable bond each has with the other. The global financial crisis of
2007 once again made clear the great extent to which the Chinese and American economies are linked and mixed, for when one sinks into a recession or
depression, it is almost impossible for the other to recover and flourish alone. When it comes to international security, climate change,
energy, counterterrorism, oceans and all sorts of other unprecedented areas, China and the U.S. share more common interests
every day, and cooperative negotiations are unceasingly strengthened. Within this sort of atmosphere, discussing
whether the U.S. and China want to go to war seems a little bit untimely and excessive. Second, the current period is fundamentally different than the era of the
Cold War, for the development of peace is the theme of the present. People from countries around the world are all concentrating their energy on revitalizing the
economy and improving quality of life. After the end of the Cold War, America launched several localized wars in smaller countries under the banner of the fight
against terrorism, in the process bringing upon itself a heavy financial and economic burden. Perhaps it was upon consideration of the
fact that large-scale conflicts could yield a level of suffering and destruction that would be difficult to
endure that America has not launched any wars against the great powers that are in possession of
nuclear arms. Even in the Cold War, during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, America and the Soviet Union did not go to war. The experience of history tells
us that the inherent goal of this new form of Sino-U.S. relations will have the support of the strength of the entire ranks of the worlds great powers; thus as long as
both China and the U.S. have unflagging perseverance, it can be achieved. Third, for over 40 years, China and the U.S. have
promoted a strategy of mutual trust, of the expansion of cooperation, of controlling differences of
opinion. These lessons from experience are the U.S. and Chinas most valuable treasure. Since Nixon visited the Chinese, Sino-American relations
have gone through wind and rain but have always developed onward; moreover, the speed, breadth
and depth of the development have far exceeded everyones expectations. Indeed, Sino-U.S. relations enjoy a great
vitality. And since the foundations were laid fairly recently, Sino-U.S. relations continually make significant progress. The highest leaders
communicate freely and military leaders exchange visits often. The two militaries are in the process of issuing plans for Chinese
troops to participate in the 2014 Pacific Rim joint military exercises. Both sides have decided to actively investigate significant
military activities, report mechanisms to each other and continue to research matters of security and issues regarding standards of conduct, which are
relevant to the Chinese and American navies and air forces. These collaborations will give rise to a significant and far-
reaching influence on world peace and international security and will vigorously promote the
actualization of the inherent goal of the new form of Sino-U.S. great power relations .
Voter enthusiasm is a bunk indicator
Issenberg, fellow at UCLAs Luskin School of Public Affairs, 14 (Sasha, 4-27-14, How the
Democrats Can Avoid Going Down This November,http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117520/how-
democrats-can-avoid-going-down-2014-midterm-election, accessed 8-17-14, CMM)
Gerber and Green have achieved even more striking results by sending out letters that threaten to distribute neighbors vote histories before
and after Election Day. But few political organizations are willing to be associated with such a blunt approach. Rogers wanted to see if
he could find a more palatable way to deploy social pressure to push people to the polls. So before the last
midterms, he enlisted one of the Analyst Institutes most reliable research partners to let him run another test. In 2010, the America
Votes consortium planned to send 800,000 pieces of mail in targeted congressional districts. Rogers,
working with his colleague John Ternovski, randomized those letters so that half featured the proven language and
half included that message plus an additional sentence in the upper right-hand corner: You may be
called after the election to discuss your experience at the polls. (A control group received no mail at all.) Rogers
and Ternovski were testing the potential of a new conceptself-integrityby threatening
accountability for potential voters who valued civic engagement. Their simple adjustment increased
the letters impact by more than 50 percent and generated about 1,500 votes across the experiment. The cost of a new vote
dropped to $47. Such results undercut the popular belief that Unreliable voters are driven to the polls by
passioneither about a given candidate or the general political climate. Pollsters imbue this so-called intensity gap
with near-prophetic powers: In mid-October 2012, for instance, the PoliticoGeorge Washington University Battleground Poll
reported that Republicans led Democrats by a ten-point margin among those calling themselves
extremely likely to turn out. But that didnt prevent Obamas reelection, of course. Similar findings
about this years midterms (Battleground has Republicans up by seven points in the enthusiasm category now) will likewise
reveal little about the returns come November. People cast ballots for reasons that have nothing to
do with their excitement level . For Unreliable voters, specifically, it often takes a psychologically
potent encounter to jolt them out of complacency.
Fresh Water 2AC
Illegal cultivation damages watersheds and increases pesticide pollution
Christensen, Godon Thomas Honeywell Energy, Telecommunications & Utilities Group chair,
2014
(Eric, Pot, Power & Pollution: The Overlooked Impacts of Marijuana Legalization on Utilities and the
Environment, 4-17, http://www.energynaturalresourceslaw.com/2014/04/pot-power-pollution-the-
overlooked-impacts-of-marijuana-legalization-on-utilities.html)
Water utilities and irrigation districts should also pay attention to the process of legalizing marijuana in Washington. In addition to being heavy
energy users, indoor grow operations also use huge amounts of water, especially if the operation uses hydroponics.
One recent estimate suggests that a one-room hydroponic operation may require as much as 151
liters of water per day, equivalent to application of nearly 100 inches of water per year. Often, water
discharged from indoor operations carries heavy nutrient and pesticide loads, of potential concern for wastewater utilities. Illegal operations
frequently steal fresh water and illegal dump wastewater, and legalization therefore represents an
opportunity to curb these practices . Even when grown outdoors, marijuana is a water-intensive crop.
Experts suggest that marijuana grown outdoors has water needs similar to water-intensive crops such as hops and corn. Not surprisingly, illegal
growers pay little heed to legal requirements for water diversions. Illegal diversions can severely
reduce water flows where marijuana cultivation is common. For example, recent reports indicate that illegal diversions for
marijuana farms have dewatered northern California streams, making the bad effects of its severe drought even worse. Such practices have
serious implications for legitimate water users downstream, as well as fisheries and other water-
dependent resources. Legalization should reduce this form of illegality, and may reduce pressure in
Washington watersheds that are already bumping up against limits on diversions , even on the relatively moist
west side of the state. Implications for Environmental Protection Contrary to the stereotype of marijuana growers as genial and environmentally-conscious hippies,
illegal marijuana growers are often heavily-armed and operate with little or no regard for the environmental impacts of their operations. A growing body
of evidence demonstrates that illegal marijuana operations often use extremely heavy doses of
pesticides and rodenticides, far above what would be allowed for legitimate agricultural enterprises. In
addition, labeling, storage, use, and disposal restrictions and other regulations aimed at reducing the
environmental and human health impacts of pesticide use are often ignored. Illegal operations have many other
environmental impacts. For example, thousands of "trespass" operations, illegally occupying sites on National Forests and other public lands, especially in California,
have cropped up in recent years. Often, these operations are associated with illegal clearing of forests and severe damage to other public resources such as streams,
lakes, and soils. Illegal operations in remote locations often rely on heavily-polluting diesel generators for
power. Indoor grow operations relying on diesel generators may require 70 to 140 gallons of diesel fuel to produce a single plant. Greenhouse gas emissions
associated with illegal marijuana production provide a good proxy for its total environmental impacts. One recent analysis suggests that U.S. marijuana operations
produce about 15 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the emissions of three million average automobiles. Moving these illegal
operations out of the shadows should help reduce these environmental impacts. Legal growers will
have to comply with environmental regulations in the same manner as operators in other legal
industries. In addition, specific regulatory requirements may increase the incentives for legalized
growers to reduce their environmental impacts. For example, as noted above, the LCB's draft regulations require growers to disclose
information about pesticide use, creating an incentive to reduce that use. Similarly, some commentators propose a specific tax on carbon-intensive grow
operations, which would create incentives to reduce energy intensity and switch to low-carbon or carbon-free energy sources. Already, the LCB, which originally
proposed to allow only indoor production, has revised its regulations to allow for outdoor production in response to comments about the carbon footprint
associated with indoor production,
Freshwater biodiversity is independently key to prevent extinction
Dudgeon et al, University of Hong Kong Ecology & Biodiversity professor, 2006
(David, he has spent 30 years researching the ecology, biodiversity and conservation of the animals that
inhabit streams and rivers, author of over 150 papers in international journals, with Angela H.
Arthington, Mark O. Gessner, Zen-Ichiro Kawabata, Duncan J. Knowler, Christian Leveque, Robert J.
Naiman, Anne-Hele`ne Prieur-Richard, Doris Soto, Melanie L. J. Stiassny, and Caroline A. Sullivan,
"Freshwater biodiversity: importance, threats, status and conservation challenges," Biological Reviews,
81.2, 2006, 163-82, Wiley Online Library)
Freshwater biodiversity is the over-riding conservation priority during the International Decade for Action Water for Life
2005 to 2015. Fresh water makes up only 0.01% of the Worlds water and approximately 0.8 % of the Earths surface, yet this tiny fraction of global water
supports at least 100 000 species out of approximately 1.8 million almost 6 % of all described species. Inland waters and freshwater
biodiversity constitute a valuable natural resource, in economic, cultural, aesthetic, scientic and educational terms. Their
conservation and management are critical to the interests of all humans, nations and governments. Yet this precious heritage is in crisis. Fresh
waters are experiencing declines in biodiversity far greater than those in the most aected terrestrial ecosystems, and if trends in human demands for water remain unaltered and species losses continue at current rates, the
opportunity to conserve much of the remaining biodiversity in fresh water will vanish before the Water for Life decade ends in 2015. Why is this so, and what is being done about it? This article explores the special features of
freshwater habitats and the biodiversity they support that makes them especially vulnerable to human activities. We document threats to global freshwater biodiversity under ve headings : overexploitation; water pollution ; ow
modication; destruction or degradation of habitat; and invasion by exotic species. Their combined and interacting inuences have resulted in population declines and range reduction of freshwater biodiversity worldwide.
Conservation of biodiversity is complicated by the landscape position of rivers and wetlands as receivers of land-use euents, and the problems posed by endemism and thus non-substitutability. In addition, in many parts of the
world, fresh water is subject to severe competition among multiple human stakeholders. Protection of freshwater biodiversity is perhaps the ultimate conservation challenge because it is inuenced by the upstream drainage
network, the surrounding land, the riparian zone, and in the case of migrating aquatic fauna downstream reaches. Such prerequisites are hardly ever met. Immediate action is needed where opportunities exist to set aside intact
lake and river ecosystems within large protected areas. For most of the global land surface, trade-os between conservation of freshwater biodiversity
and human use of ecosystem goods and services are necessary. We advocate continuing attempts to check species loss but, in many situations, urge adoption of a
compromise position of management for biodiversity conservation, ecosystem functioning and resilience, and human livelihoods in order to provide a viable long-term basis for freshwater conservation. Recognition of this need will
require adoption of a new paradigm for biodiversity protection and freshwater ecosystem management one that has been appropriately termed reconciliation ecology. I. INTRODUCTION In December 2003, the United Nations
General Assembly adopted resolution 58/217 proclaiming 2005 to 2015 as an International Decade for Action Water for Life. The resolution calls for a greater focus on water issues and development eorts, and recommits
countries to achieving the water-related goals of the 2000 Millennium Declaration and of Agenda 21: in particular, to halve by 2015 the proportion of people lacking access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. These
are vitally important matters, yet their importance should not obscure the fact that the Water for Life resolution comes at a time when the biodiversity and biological resources of inland waters
are facing unprecedented and growing threats from human activities. The general nature of these threats is known, and they are manifest in all non-polar regions of the Earth, although their relative magnitude varies signicantly
from place to place. Identifying threats has done little, however, to mitigate or alleviate them. This article explores why the transfer of knowledge to conservation action has, in the case of freshwater biodiversity, been largely
unsuccessful. The failure is related to the special features of freshwater habitats and the biodiversity they support that makes them especially vulnerable to human activities. We start by elucidating why freshwater biodiversity
is of outstanding global importance, and briey describe instances where humans have caused rapid and signicant declines in freshwater species and habitats. If trends in human demands for water remain unaltered and species
losses continue at current rates, the opportunity to conserve much of the remaining biodiversity in fresh water will vanish before the Water for Life decade ends. Such opportunity costs will be magnied by a signi- cant loss in
option values of species yet unknown for human use. In addition, these vital ecological and potential nancial losses may well be irreversible. Importantly, eective conservation action will require a major change in attitude toward
freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem management, including general recognition of the catchment as the focal management unit, and greater acceptance of the trade-os between species conservation, overall ecosystem
integrity, and the provision of goods and services to humans. At the same time, it is incumbent upon scientists to communicate eectively that
freshwater biodiversity is the over-riding conservation priority during the Water for Life decade and beyond ; after all,
water is the fundamental resource on which our life-support system depends ( Jackson et al., 2001; Postel & Richter,
2003 ; Clark & King, 2004).
Treaty
No Linklegalization with regulations does not violate the terms of the treatytheir
authors assume a laissez faire approach
Duke 13Steven, Professor of Law, Yale Law School, Article: The Future of Marijuana in the United
States, Oregon Law Review 91 Or. L. Rev. 1301, lexis
B. Legalizing Marijuana Is Prohibited by International Treaties "Decriminalization" is the mechanism of choice for the
countries and most states that have sought to de-escalate drug prohibition. Decriminalization entails sharply reducing to the equivalent of a
traffic offense or completely eliminating criminal penalties for the possession and use of small amounts of the drug. No government,
however, has ever legalized the drug's distribution, even if that distribution is small-scale and not for
profit. Although decriminalization reduces some of the dreadful costs of full-scale prohibition, it
retains and could even encourage black-market distribution. 77 Reducing or eliminating penalties for consumers while
failing to legalize and regulate distribution could even exacerbate the violence and corruption that are inherent in illegal distribution networks.
Alcohol Prohibition criminalized only the manufacture and distribution of alcohol, not its possession or use. 78 It was, therefore, a model of
decriminalization. Though a good start toward legalization, decriminalization cannot be the ultimate solution. There is a common
belief that the drug control treaties, chiefly the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 79 prohibit any
signatory state from legalizing the drugs covered by the treaty, one of which is cannabis. That is why it is
often said that the Netherlands does not legalize the distribution of marijuana but merely [*1317] declines to prosecute the "coffee houses"
that openly serve the drug to consumers. 80
Whether the Convention prohibits all efforts to legalize marijuana is debatable. The provision that is often
read as prohibitory is Article 4(c), which states that the parties shall take such measures as may be
necessary, "subject to the provisions of this Convention, to limit exclusively to medical and scientific
purposes the production, manufacture, export, import, distribution of, trade in, use and possession of
drugs." 81 That clearly allows "medical" liberalization. Article 33 provides that the parties "shall not permit the
possession of drugs except under legal authority." 82 This is either meaningless or contemplates the
granting of "authority." Article 36 says that the parties shall make intentional possession, use, et
cetera, of drugs "contrary to the provisions of this Convention" punishable and that "serious offenses"
should be "liable to adequate punishment particularly by imprisonment or other penalties of
deprivation of liberty." 83 This obligation, however, is subject to the parties' "constitutional limitations." 84 Article 28 permits
the cultivation of cannabis, provided it is controlled and the parties seek to "prevent the misuse of,
and illicit traffic in, the leaves of the cannabis plant." 85 Article 30 requires that the trade in drugs exist "under license"
except when carried out by a state enterprise. 86 These provisions appear to have been written by someone devoted to ambiguity. Some
provisions seem to invite legalization rather than precluding it. Nonetheless, the prevailing view is that legalization of marijuana, other than for
medical or scientific uses, is contrary to the l961 Convention and later treaties as well. 87
Some countries, most recently Portugal, Mexico, and Argentina, have decriminalized or legalized the
small-scale possession and consumption of marijuana and other drugs. If the UN Convention [*1318]
requires these states to make marijuana possession criminally punishable, then these reforms,
desirable as they are, violate the Convention. Surprisingly, however, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime
praises the Portugal experiment and opines that it does not violate the Convention. Decriminalizing drug use
"falls within the Convention parameters" because "drug possession is still prohibited, but the sanctions fall under the administrative law, not
the criminal law." 88 Apparently, therefore, an unenforced ten dollar civil fine would satisfy the Convention. Perhaps full legalization
with regulation would also suffice, leaving only laissez-faire prohibited.
Prohibition is comparatively worse for US reputation the plan shores up credibility
Duke 13Steven, Professor of Law, Yale Law School, Article: The Future of Marijuana in the United
States, Oregon Law Review 91 Or. L. Rev. 1301, lexis
H. Prohibition Impairs International Relations
Prohibited drugs are typically produced in different countries than they are consumed. The consumer
countries blame the producer country and often bully or bribe the producer to enforce its drug laws
more effectively. The United States takes such a position with [*1314] Mexico, whose cartels supply a large
portion of the marijuana and other illicit drugs that Americans consume. Mexico, on the other hand,
attributes its internal violence to the U.S. appetite for Mexico's drugs. The United States repeatedly
pressures other countries to more aggressively punish producers of drugs for export. Indeed, the United
States customarily intervenes and objects when any country, even one as small as Jamaica, considers
liberalizing its prohibition laws. 68
Not only would the creation of legal drug markets throughout the world allow for enormous drug
prohibition resources to be spent productively on something else and would reduce international
crime, it would also greatly diminish the international blame game and help rid the United States of
its reputation as an international bully. 69
Reputational capital is not uniform or zero sum have a high threshold for a link
argument
Guzman 8Andrew, is Jackson H. Ralston Professor of Law and Associate Dean at UC Berkeley School
of Law @ Berkeley, Reputation and International Law, http://andrewguzman.net/wp-
content/uploads/2012/07/Reputation-and-International-Law.pdf
Reputation can be defined as judgments about an actors past behavior used to predict future behavior7 . Consistent with that definition we
can define a states reputation for compliance with international law as judgments about an actors
past response to international legal obligations used to predict future compliance with such
obligations. This reputation is an estimate of the states true willingness to comply even when non-
reputational payoffs favor violation. This willingness to comply depends on the states discount rate, the
domestic politics in the state (e.g., the extent to which domestic political structures make violation of
international law difficult or costly), that states willingness to impose costs on others,8 the value of future opportunities to
cooperate (which may be jeopardized by a current violation), and so on.
Other states are assumed to be unable to observe this underlying willingness to comply, and so they
must estimate it based on the actions of the state. In principle every observing state has its own
perception of a particular states reputation. Thus, the United States may have different reputations in
Canada, Argentina, Russia, and Syria. For the moment we abstract away from this issue and assume that every observer has the
same view of the states reputation. This assumption is relaxed later in the article.
A simple model of reputation would treat the acquisition and loss of reputation in an extremely straightforward waystates that honor
their commitments acquire reputational capital , and states that violate their commitments lose it. A
moments thought, however , makes it clear that things must be more complicated than this. If it were simply a
matter of counting the instances of compliant behavior, states could build their reputations by signing
many treaties that impose trivial obligations. A sensible model of reputation building cannot, for example, lead to the
conclusion that Bolivia, a land-locked country, can improve its reputation by committing to keep its ports open. Similarly, it cannot be
that the tiny island republic of Vanuatu, whose total GDP in 2004 was $316 million, can improve its reputation by
agreeing to refrain from placing weapons in space. The acquisition of reputation clearly must be more complex than
simply complying with commitments.
Global prohibition is falling apartWestern hemisphere backlash
Meacham 13Carl, is director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.
Michelle Sinclair and Jillian Rafferty, staff assistants with the CSIS Americas Program, provided research assistance. Uruguay legalizes
marijuana: What will this mean for U.S. narcotics policy in the region?, http://csis.org/publication/uruguay-legalizes-marijuana-what-will-
mean-us-narcotics-policy-region
Q3: What will the law mean for U.S. counternarcotic efforts in the Western Hemisphere?
A3: Producing, selling, and possessing marijuana all remain illegal in the United States under federal law. To date,
however, 20 states and Washington, DC have legalized use of physician-prescribed marijuana for medical purposes. And in 2012, the state
governments of Washington and Colorado both legalized the recreational use of marijuanain direct contradiction to federal law.
Although the government has kept its firm opposition to legalizing marijuana under federal law, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that
it will not challenge Washingtons and Colorados laws, which some have read as tacit acceptance of the state-led legislative trend.
The trend towards greater acceptance of cannabis is still stronger among the U.S. publicand is clearly reflected in Gallups latest poll,
published in October 2013, showing that 58 percent of Americans support the legalization of marijuana while just 39 percent are opposed.
Meanwhile, world leaders are urging countries to implement alternative methods to the war on drugs . In
November, former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso released
a statement urging their contemporaries to break [the] century-old taboo and seek a new approach
to the issue.
This, in combination with regional leaders' explicit appeal to Vice President Biden during his travel to the region in May 2013 and the OAS
report released the same month, has resulted in increasing pressure throughout the hemisphere to reconsider
the strategy behind the war on drugs.
These recent trends advocate a move away from the current policythe approach championed by the
United States for more than forty yearsin favor of a health-centered approach.
And as the first to experiment with an innovative approach, Uruguays legislation poses a direct challenge to the U.S.
governments established policy in leading the war on drugs.
If Uruguays law proves to be successful, other Latin American countries may followgenerating still-
greater pressure on the United States to reconsider its current approach to counter-narcotic policy.
Conclusion: Over the past year, there has been a major shift in the debate on regional drug policy. Many of the Western
Hemisphere's leaders have expressed their growing frustration with the high costs of the drug warin
both monetary and human termsand, like Uruguay, are increasingly willing to experiment with new approaches.
Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to champion a "zero tolerance" approach in its efforts to combat drug trafficking through the region, while
reforms are implemented at the state level.
And moving forward, the apparent contradictions in its stance on drugs may well make it increasingly
difficult for the United States to advocate a "zero tolerance" policy throughout the region.
With Americans support for cannabis legalization increasing, it is likely that the momentum will
continue to spur further legalization efforts across the United Stateswhile Uruguays bill may inspire
other countries in kind.
Bond thumps DA
Davis 14Benjamin, Associate Professor of Law, University of Toledo College of Law, Bond Thoughts:
Federalism Aggression on Human Rights, 6/2/14, http://www.blog.saltlaw.org/bond-thoughts-
federalism-aggression-on-human-rights/
The Bond v. United States case came out today in which the Supreme Court supposedly ducked the Missouri v/
Holland question by focusing on interpreting the implementing legislation for the chemical weapons convention under federalism
concerns in a supposed act of avoidance of the constitutional question.
The decision seems to be an indirect trimming of Missouri v. Holland in the sense that going beyond Reid v. Covert
on a constitutional level, the federalism structural attack was made in the majoritys view of the language of
the implementing legislation which tracked the treaty language. Here the Court opts for a clear
statement being needed if the Congress truly meant to reach the kind of actions of this jilted spouse.
Absent a clear statement of that purpose, the Court stated it would not presume Congress to have
authorized reaching the conduct of the individual in question which the majority of the Court viewed would have been a
stark intrusion by the federal government into traditional state police power authority. That appears to be a fairly strong curtailment of a kind
of deference to Congress powers expressed in Missouri v. Holland with regard to that implementing legislation.
Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito concur in the majority opinion with a full throated view that the treaty power
does not reach domestic internal matters. Without stating it directly, anyone familiar with the human rights treaties
that the United States has entered into can see inherent in this view the challenge here to the power of the federal government to even enter
human rights treaties. This challenge is blinkered by the international range of possibilities that the framers envisioned for treaty-making and
not by the range of possible treaties that a sovereign has come to recognize as appropriate to enter. And, of course, it is blinkered by a
complete absence of any comprehension of the devastation of the two World Wars that helped to push forward the modern era of human
rights law making human rights a concern of both states and of citizens within states. Further, it attempts to erase or at least obscure the
human rights character of the domestic civil rights movement.
To me, the lesson here is that the federalism onslaught on international law that was enshrined in Medellin
continues forward in four ways: 1) first, in the attacking of the implementing legislation for non-self-executing
treaties on federalism grounds, 2) second, in the application in the future of the limited self-executing
treaties in terms of both Bill of Rights and structural concerns of federalism, 3) the assertion of non-self-
execution to any human rights treaty and 4) in an all out attack on the Treaty Power being used to address
domestic internal matters which would include human rights (independent of the self/non-self-execution) issue.
What the Court could have done is simply recognize the implementing legislation consistent with Missouri v/ Holland and leave the matter to
one of both state and federal prosecutorial discretion. That would not have trimmed back the chemical weapons convention in domestic law
while still vindicating our federalism.
Rather than an anodyne case, Bond should be seen, unfortunately, as an attack on the domestic vindication of
human r ights l aw. What we need to emphasize is that these international obligations are obligations that the United
States freely accepted and should be made to respect by ordinary Americans whether in our separation of powers or in our
federalism. Otherwise, we are accepting a further kind of social violence internally to the detriment of the ordinary citizens freedom. That
is to turn the double security of our rights as the people that these structures are to protect, into structures of oppression.
Non-unique---state legalization
Elliot 14Steve, United Nations Condemns Marijuana Legalization As Treaty Violation, 'Grave
Danger', 3/4/14, http://hemp.org/news/content/united-nations-condemns-marijuana-legalization-
treaty-violation-grave-danger
The United Nations drug watchdog group, the I nternational Narcotics Control Board, on Tuesday released its 2014 Annual
Report, in which it "deeply regrets" the states of Colorado and Washington have legalized marijuana and
said that cannabis legalization poses a "very grave danger to public health."
The INCB is in charge of enforcing international drug treaties , so it's no surprise that the body would take a dim view
of moves towards cannabis legalization in the United States and Uruguay, because such moves are technically in violation of international drug
treaties, reports Alan Travis of The Guardian.
The annual report claims that marijuana in Colorado has led to increases in car accidents involving "drug drivers" (the statistics actually show
otherwise), and that marijuana-related treatment admissions are on the rise.
"Drug traffickers will choose the path of least resistance, so it is essential that global efforts to tackle the drug problem are unified," said INCB
President Raymond Yans. "When governments consider their future policies on this, the primary consideration should beg the long-term health
and welfare of the population."
Yans said the UN is "concerned" about marijuana legalization initiatives, and that the non-medical use of cannabis poses "a very grave danger
to public health and wellbeing."
"We deeply regret the developments at the state level in Colorado and Washington, in the United States, regarding the legalization of the
recreational use of cannabis," the report states. "INCB reiterates that these developments contravene the
provisions of the drug control conventions , which limit the use of cannabis to medical and scientific
use only."
Credibility theory is bunk states work with us no matter what because we are more
powerful
Walt 12
Stephen, IR prof @ Harvard, Why are U.S. leaders so obsessed with credibility?, 9/11/12,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/09/11/the_credibility_fetish
Of course, we probably overstated the importance of "credibility" even then. Sloppy analogies like the infamous "domino
theory" helped convince Americans that we had to fight in places that didn't matter (e.g., Vietnam) in order
to convince everyone that we'd also be willing to fight in places that did. We also managed to convince ourselves that credible nuclear
deterrence depended on having a mythical ability to "prevail" in an all-out nuclear exchange, even though winning would have had little
meaning once a few dozen missiles had been fired.
Nonetheless, in the rigid, bipolar context of the Cold War, it made sense for the United States to pay some attention to its credibility as an
alliance leader and security provider. But today, the United States faces no peer competitor, and it is hard to think of any
single event that would provoke a rapid and decisive shift in the global balance of power. Instead of a clear
geopolitical rival, we face a group of medium powers: some of them friendly (Germany, the UK, Japan, etc.) and some of them partly
antagonistic (Russia, China). Yet Russia is economically linked to our NATO allies, and China is a major U.S. trading partner and has been a major
financier of U.S. debt. This not your parents' Cold War. There are also influential regional powers such as Turkey, India, or Brazil, with whom the
U.S. relationship is mixed: We agree on some issues and are at odds on others. And then there are clients who depend on U.S. protection
(Israel, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Taiwan, etc.) but whose behavior often creates serious headaches for whoever is in the White House.
As distinguished diplomat Chas Freeman recently commented, "the complexity and dynamism of the new order place a premium on diplomatic
agility. Stolid constancy and loyalty to pre-existing alliance relationship are not the self-evident virtues they once were. We should not be
surprised that erstwhile allies put their own interest ahead of ours and act accordingly. Where it is to our long-term advantage, we should do
the same."
What might this mean in practice? As I've noted repeatedly, it means beginning by recognizing that the United States is both very powerful and
very secure, and that there's hardly anything that could happen in the international system that would alter the global balance of power
overnight. The balance is shifting, to be sure, but these adjustments will take place over the course of decades.
Weaker states who would like U.S. protection need it a lot more than we need them, which means
our "credibility" is more their problem than ours. Which in turn means that if other states want our help, they should be
willing to do a lot to convince us to provide it.
Instead of obsessing about our own "credibility," in short, and bending over backwards to convince the Japanese, South Koreans,
Singaporeans, Afghans, Israelis, Saudis, and others that we will do whatever it takes to protect them, we ought to be asking them what they are
going to do for themselves, and also for us. And instead of spending all our time trying to scare the bejeezus out of countries like Iran (which
merely reinforces their interest in getting some sort of deterrent), we ought to be reminding them over and over that we have a lot to offer and
are open to better relations, even if the clerical regime remains in power and maybe even if -- horrors! -- it retains possession of the full nuclear
fuel cycle (under IAEA safeguards). If nothing else, adopting a less confrontational posture is bound to complicate their own calculations.
This is not an argument for Bush-style unilateralism, or for a retreat to Fortress America. Rather, it is a call for greater imagination and flexibility
in how we deal with friends and foes alike. I'm not saying that we should strive for zero credibility, of course; I'm merely saying that we'd be
better off if other states understood that our credibility was more conditional . In other words, allies need
to be reminded that our help is conditional on their compliance with our interests (at least to some degree)
and adversaries should also be reminded that our opposition is equally conditional on what they do. In
both cases we also need to recognize that we are rarely going to get other states to do everything we want. Above all, it is a call to
recognize that our geopolitical position, military power, and underlying economic strength give us the
luxury of being agile in precisely the way that Freeman depicts.
Of course, some present U.S. allies would be alarmed by the course I'm suggesting, because it would affect the
sweetheart deals they've been enjoying for years. They'll tell us they are losing confidence in our leadership,
and they'll threaten to go neutral, or maybe even align with our adversaries. Where possible, they will enlist
Americans who are sympathetic to their plight to pressure on U.S. politicians to offer new assurances. In most cases, however, such
threats don't need to be taken seriousl y. And we just have to patiently explain to them that we're not necessarily abandoning
them, we are merely 1) making our support more conditional on their cooperation with us on things we care about, and 2) remaining open to
improving relations with other countries, including some countries that some of our current allies might have doubts about. I know: It's a
radical position: we are simply going to pursue the American national interest, instead of letting our allies around the world define it for us.
The bottom line is that the United States is in a terrific position to play realpolitik on a global scale, precisely because it
needs alliance partners less than most of its partners do. And even when allies are of considerable value to us, we
still have the most leverage in nearly every case. As soon as we start obsessing about our credibility,
however, we hand that leverage back to our weaker partners and we constrain our ability to pursue
meaningful diplomatic solutions to existing conflicts . Fetishizing credibility, in short, is one of the reasons American
diplomacy has achieved relatively little since the end of the Cold War.
No impact to ilawlegal norms dont shape behavior
Posner 3/5/14Eric, Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, Have the Use of Force
Rules Reduced the Frequency of War? http://ericposner.com/have-the-use-of-force-rules-reduced-the-
frequency-of-war/
As I explained earlier, I have never claimed that international law is inconsequential. For example, trade law seems to matter. But it is always
an empirical question whether a specific rule affects state behavior or not, and in a meaningful rather
than trivial way. Anecdotal evidence gets one only so far. To address this problem, scholars use statistical methods
basically, event study methodology, to test whether state behavior changes in the predicted fashion after the state ratifies a treaty. This
approach has been productively used in the area of trade (yes) and human rights (generally, no). It helps in these areas that different states
ratify the treaties at different times. Unfortunately, the use of force rules came into effect all at once for everyone in 1945, so there is not
enough variation to do a real test. (Many countries joined the UN system later, but usually when they came into existence, or for other unusual
reasons that cannot be controlled for.) Still, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the incidence of interstate war, and I found
the graph I reproduce above in Kristian Skrede Gleditsch & Steve Pickering, Wars Are Becoming Less Frequent (2013), which seems
like a carefully written paper. The bars show the number of interstate wars (excluding civil wars) with at least 1,000 battle deaths in a given
year. Note that the 2011 Libya war is excluded because the data set ends in 2010, and the 2008 Russo-Georgian war is excluded, presumably
because of insufficient battle deaths. One can certainly detect a decline in the frequency of interstate wars (as shown
by the various trendlines). But it would be very hard to attribute any causal influence to the 1945 UN
charter. If you trust the linear time trend, 1945 just falls in the middle of a long-term decline. If you take one of
the nonlinear time trends, it falls before an increase in the number of wars. If one is looking for
causes, the end of the cold war with the onset of U.S. hegemony seems like the most plausiblethe
infrequent warfare over the last 20 years pulls down all the time trends. However, all in all it is hard to
find any causal pattern at all. If you want to, you can find reasons for giving causal effect to the 1945 law. You can say that it
took a while for the a new norm to work itself through the system, or that the cold war or
decolonization was an anomaly that interrupted what would otherwise have been a smooth pattern
of causal influence. Maybe. But it seems to me that if one makes such claims, one needs to acknowledge
a low level of confidence.
Psychoanalysis
The alts lack of a concrete strategy means it fails
McCormack, Leicester international politics lecturer, 2010
(Tara, Critique, Security and Power: The Political Limits to Emancipatory Approaches, pg 58)
Contemporary critical and emancipatory approaches reject the possibility of reaching an objective evaluation of
the world or social reality because they reject the possibility of differentiating between facts and values.
For the contemporary critical theorists, theory can only ever be for someone and for some purpose. As this is so then quite
logically critical theorists elevate their own values to be the most important aspect of critical theory. As a result of the rejection of the
fact/value distinction we see within the work of contemporary critical theorists a highly unreflective
certainty about the power of their moral position. Critical theorists argue that all theory is normative,
they offer in its place better norms: ones, as we have seen, that will lead to emancipation and will help the marginalised.
The claims made for the central role of the values of the theorist reveal the theoretical limits of critical
and emancipatory theory today. Yet even good or critical theory has no agency, and only political action can
lead to change. Theory does of course play an important role in political change. This must be the first step towards a critical engagement with
contemporary power structures and discourses. In this sense, we can see that it is critical theory that really has the potential to solve problems, unlike problem-
solving theory which seeks only to ensure the smooth functioning of the existing order. Through substantive analysis the critical theorist can transcend the narrow
and conservative boundaries of problem-solving theory by explaining how the problematic arises. Unlike problem-solving theory, critical theory makes claims to be
able to explain why and how the social world functions as it does, it can go beyond the given framework for action. The critical theorist must
therefore be able to differentiate between facts (or social reality) and values , this ability is what marks the critical
theorist apart from the traditional or problem-solving theorists, who cannot, because of their values and commitment to the existing social world, go beyond the
given framework for action. If we cannot differentiate between our desires or values or norms (or our perspective, to put it in Coxs
terms) and actually occurring social and political and historical processes and relationships, it is hard to
see how we can have a critical perspective (Jahn, 1998: 614). Rather, through abolishing this division we can
no longer draw the line between what we would like and everything else, and thereby contemporary
critical theories are as much of a dogma as problem-solving theories. Contemporary critical theorists
are like modern-day alchemists, believing that they can transform the base metal of the unjust
international order into a golden realm of equality and justice through their own words. For contemporary
critical theorists, all that seems that the crucial step towards progress to a better world order is for the
theorist to state that their theory is for the purposes of emancipation and a just world order.
Consider the consequences of enacting the plan---otherwise you are shirking political
responsibility which makes you complicit in injustice
Issac 2Professor of Political Science at Indiana-Bloomington, Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy and Public Life, PhD from Yale (Jeffery C.,
Dissent Magazine, Vol. 49, Iss. 2, Ends, Means, and Politics, p. Proquest)
As a result, the most important political questions are simply not asked. It is assumed that U.S. military intervention is an act of
"aggression," but no consideration is given to the aggression to which intervention is a response. The status quo
ante in Afghanistan is not, as peace activists would have it, peace, but rather terrorist violence abetted by a
regime--the Taliban--that rose to power through brutality and repression. This requires us to ask a question that most
"peace" activists would prefer not to ask: What should be done to respond to the violence of a Saddam Hussein, or a
Milosevic, or a Taliban regime? What means are likely to stop violence and bring criminals to justice? Calls for diplomacy and
international law are well intended and important; they implicate a decent and civilized ethic of global order. But
they are also vague and empty, because they are not accompanied by any account of how diplomacy or
international law can work effectively to address the problem at hand. The campus left offers no such account. To do so
would require it to contemplate tragic choices in which moral goodness is of limited utility. Here what matters is not
purity of intention but the intelligent exercise of power. Power is not a dirty word or an unfortunate feature of the world. It is the core of
politics. Power is the ability to effect outcomes in the world. Politics, in large part, involves contests over the distribution and
use of power. To accomplish anything in the political world, one must attend to the means that are necessary to
bring it about. And to develop such means is to develop, and to exercise, power. To say this is not to say that power is beyond
morality. It is to say that power is not reducible to morality. As writers such as Niccolo Machiavelli, Max Weber, Reinhold
Niebuhr, and Hannah Arendt have taught, an unyielding concern with moral goodness undercuts political responsibility.
The concern may be morally laudable, reflecting a kind of personal integrity, but it suffers from three fatal flaws: (1) It fails to see that the
purity of one's intention does not ensure the achievement of what one intends. Abjuring violence or
refusing to make common cause with morally compromised parties may seem like the right thing; but if such
tactics entail impotence, then it is hard to view them as serving any moral good beyond the clean conscience of
their supporters; (2) it fails to see that in a world of real violence and injustice, moral purity is not simply a form of
powerlessness; it is often a form of complicity in injustice. This is why, from the standpoint of politics--as opposed to
religion--pacifism is always a potentially immoral stand. In categorically repudiating violence, it refuses in principle
to oppose certain violent injustices with any effect; and (3) it fails to see that politics is as much about unintended
consequences as it is about intentions; it is the effects of action, rather than the motives of action, that is most
significant. Just as the alignment with "good" may engender impotence, it is often the pursuit of "good" that generates evil. This is the lesson
of communism in the twentieth century: it is not enough that one's goals be sincere or idealistic; it is equally important, always, to ask
about the effects of pursuing these goals and to judge these effects in pragmatic and historically contextualized
ways. Moral absolutism inhibits this judgment. It alienates those who are not true believers. It promotes
arrogance. And it undermines political effectiveness.
Psychoanalysis doesnt explain reality.
Bunge, McGill University philosopher, 2010
(Mario, Should Psychoanalysis Be in the Science Museum?, 10-5,
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827806.200-should-psychoanalysis-be-in-the-science-
museum.html)
We should congratulate the Science Museum for setting up an exhibition on psychoanalysis. Exposure to pseudoscience greatly helps understand genuine science,
just as learning about tyranny helps in understanding democracy. Over the past 30 years, psychoanalysis has quietly been displaced in academia by scientific
psychology. But it persists in popular culture as well as being a lucrative profession. It is the psychology of those who have not bothered to learn psychology, and
the psychotherapy of choice for those who believe in the power of immaterial mind over body. Psychoanalysis is a bogus science because
its practitioners do not do scientific research. When the field turned 100, a group of psychoanalysts
admitted this gap and endeavoured to fill it. They claimed to have performed the first experiment showing that patients benefited from
their treatment. Regrettably, they did not include a control group and did not entertain the possibility of
placebo effects. Hence, their claim remains untested (The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, vol 81, p 513). More recently, a
meta-analysis published in American Psychologist (vol 65, p 98) purported to support the claim that a form
of psychoanalysis called psychodynamic therapy is effective. However, once again, the original studies did not
involve control groups. In 110 years, psychoanalysts have not set up a single lab. They do not
participate in scientific congresses, do not submit their papers to scientific journals and are foreign to
the scientific community - a marginality typical of pseudoscience. This does not mean their
hypotheses have never been put to the test. True, they are so vague that they are hard to test and some
of them are, by Freud's own admission, irrefutable. Still, most of the testable ones have been soundly
refuted. For example, most dreams have no sexual content. The Oedipus complex is a myth; boys do not hate their
fathers because they would like to have sex with their mothers. The list goes on. As for therapeutic efficacy, little is known because psychoanalysts do not
perform double-blind clinical trials or follow-up studies. Psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience. Its concepts are woolly and
untestable yet are regarded as unassailable axioms. As a result of such dogmatism, psychoanalysis has
remained basically stagnant for more than a century, in contrast with scientific psychology, which is thriving.
Doesnt apply to states
Epstein, Sydney IR senior lecturer, 2010
(Charolotte, Who speaks? Discourse, the subject and the study of identity in international politics,
European Journal of International Relations 20.10, ebsco, ldg)
One key advantage of the Wendtian move, granted even by his critics (see Flockhart, 2006), is that it simply does away with the level-of-analysis problem
altogether. If states really are persons, then we can apply everything we know about people to understand how they behave. The study of individual identity is not
only theoretically justified but it is warranted. This cohesive self borrowed from social psychology is what allows Wendt to
bridge the different levels of analysis and travel between the self of the individual and that of the state,
by way of a third term, group self, which is simply an aggregate of individual selves. Thus for Wendt (1999: 225) the state is simply a
group Self capable of group level cognition. Yet that the individual possesses a self does not logically entail that the state possesses one too. It is in
this leap, from the individual to the state, that IRs fallacy of composition surfaces most clearly. Moving beyond Wendt but maintaining the psychological
self as the basis for theorizing the state Wendts bold ontological claim is far from having attracted unanimous support (see notably, Flockhart, 2006; Jackson, 2004;
Neumann, 2004; Schiff, 2008; Wight, 2004). One line of critique of the states-as-persons thesis has taken shape around
the resort to psychological theories, specifically, around the respective merits of Identity Theory (Wendt) and SIT (Flockhart, 2006; Greenhill,
2008; Mercer, 2005) for understanding state behaviour.9 Importantly for my argument, that the state has a self, and that this self is pre-social,
remains unquestioned in this further entrenching of the psychological turn. Instead questions have revolved around how this pre-social self (Wendts Ego) behaves
once it encounters the other (Alter): whether, at that point (and not before), it takes on roles prescribed by pre-existing cultures (whether Hobbessian, Lockean or
Kantian) or whether instead other, less culturally specific, dynamics rooted in more universally human characteristics better explain state interactions. SIT in
particular emphasizes the individuals basic need to belong, and it highlights the dynamics of in-/out-group categorizations as a key determinant of behaviour (Billig,
2004). SIT seems to have attracted increasing interest from IR scholars, interestingly, for both critiquing (Greenhill, 2008; Mercer, 1995) and rescuing constructivism
(Flockhart, 2006). For Trine Flockart (2006: 8991), SIT can provide constructivism with a different basis for developing a theory of agency that steers clear of the
states-as-persons thesis while filling an important gap in the socialization literature, which has tended to focus on norms rather than the actors adopting them. She
shows that a states adherence to a new norm is best understood as the act of joining a group that shares a set of norms and values, for example the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO). What SIT draws out are the benefits that accrue to the actor from belonging to a group, namely increased self-esteem and a clear
cognitive map for categorizing other states as in- or out-group members and, from there, for orientating states selfother relationships. Whilst coming at it from
a stance explicitly critical of constructivism, for Jonathan Mercer (2005: 1995) the use of psychology remains key to correcting the systematic evacuation of the role
of emotion and other non-rational phenomena in rational choice and behaviourist analyses, which has significantly impaired the understanding of international
politics. SIT serves to draw out the emotional component of some of the key drivers of international politics, such as trust, reputation and even choice (Mercer,
2005: 9095; see also Mercer, 1995). Brian Greenhill (2008) for his part uses SIT amongst a broader array of psychological theories to analyse the phenomenon of
selfother recognition and, from there, to take issue with the late Wendtian assumption that mutual recognition can provide an adequate basis for the formation of
a collective identity amongst states. The main problem with this psychological turn is the very utilitarian, almost mechanistic,
approach to non-rational phenomena it proposes, which tends to evacuate the role of meaning. In other words, it further shores up
the pre-social dimension of the concept of self/// that is at issue here. Indeed norms (Flockhart, 2006), emotions (Mercer, 2005) and
recognition (Greenhill, 2008) are hardly appraised as symbolic phenomena. In fact, in the dynamics of in- versus out-group categorization emphasized by SIT,
language counts for very little. Significantly, in the design of the original experiments upon which this approach was founded (Tajfel, 1978), whether two group
members communicate at all, let alone share the same language, is non-pertinent. It is enough that two individuals should know (say because they have been told
so in their respective languages for the purposes of the experiment) that they belong to the same group for them to favour one another over a third individual.
The primary determinant of individual behaviour thus emphasized is a pre-verbal, primordial desire to belong, which
seems closer to pack animal behaviour than to anything distinctly human. What the group stands for, what specific set of meanings
and values binds it together, is unimportant. What matters primarily is that the group is valued
positively, since positive valuation is what returns accrued self-esteem to the individual. In IR Jonathan Mercers (2005) account of the relationship between
identity, emotion and behaviour reads more like a series of buttons mechanically pushed in a sequence of the sort: posi tive identification produces emotion (such as
trust), which in turn generates specific patterns of in-/out-group discrimination. Similarly, Trine Flockhart (2006: 96) approaches the socializees desire to belong in
terms of the psychological (and ultimately social) benefits and the feel-good factor that accrues from increased self-esteem. At the far opposite of Lacan, the
concept of desire here is reduced to a Benthamite type of pleasure- or utility-maximization where meaning is nowhere to be seen. More telling still is the need to
downplay the role of the Other in justifying her initial resort to SIT. For Flockhart (2006: 94), in a post-Cold War context, identities cannot be constructed purely in
relation to the Other. Perhaps so; but not if what the other refers to is the generic, dynamic scheme undergirding the very concept of identity. At issue here is
the confusion between the reference to a specific other, for which Lacan coined the concept of le petit autre, and the reference to lAutre, or Other, which is that
symbolic instance that is essential to the making of all selves. As such it is not clear what meaning Flockharts (2006: 94) capitalization of the Other actually holds.
The individual self as a proxy for the states self Another way in which the concept of self has been centrally involved in circumventing the
level-of-analysis problem in IR has been to treat the self of the individual as a proxy for the self of the state. The literature on norms in particular has
highlighted the role of individuals in orchestrating norm shifts, in both the positions of socializer (norm entrepreneurs) and socializee. It has shown for example how
some state leaders are more susceptible than others to concerns about reputation and legitimacy and thus more amenable to being convinced of the need to adopt
a new norm, of human rights or democratization, for example (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998; Keck and Sikkink, 1998; Risse, 2001). It is these specific
psychological qualities pertaining to their selves (for example, those of Gorbachev; Risse, 2001) that ultimately enable the norm shift to
occur. Once again the individual self ultimately remains the basis for explaining the change in state behaviour. To
summarize the points made so far, whether the state is literally considered as a person by ontological overreach, whether so only
by analogy, or whether the person stands as a proxy for the state, the self of that person has been consistently
taken as the reference point for studying state identities. Both in Wendts states-as-persons thesis, and in the broader psychological
turn within constructivism and beyond, the debate has consistently revolved around the need to evaluate which of the essentialist assumptions about human
nature are the most useful for explaining state behaviour. It has never questioned the validity of starting from these
assumptions in the first place. That is, what is left unexamined is this assumption is that what works for
individuals will work for states too. This is IRs central fallacy of composition, by which it has persistently
eschewed rather than resolved the level-of-analysis problem. Indeed, in the absence of a clear demonstration of a
logical identity (of the type A=A) between states and individuals, the assumption that individual interactions
will explain what states do rests on little more than a leap of faith, or indeed an analogy.
Marijuana key to effective phytoremediation efforts-Prohibition massively delays
response time
Belville 3/13/11
http://stash.norml.org/could-hemp-help-nuclear-clean-up-in-japan
Could hemp help nuclear clean-up in Japan?
The tie-in between marijuana and Japan can be found in the efforts to clean up the soil following the
1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Ukraine. (McGraw-Hill Higher Education) In 1989, three years after the explosion, the Soviet
government asked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to assess the radiological and health situation in the area surrounding the
power plant. Among the most significant findings were radioactive emissions and toxic metalsincluding iodine, cesium-137, strontium, and
plutoniumconcentrated in the soil, plants, and animals. Such substances are potentially harmful to human health. For example, although
iodine tends to disappear within a few weeks of exposure, it can be inhaled or ingested and then accumulated in the thyroid gland, where it
delivers high doses of radiation as it decays. Since 1991, the Canadian Nuclear Association has noted a marked increase in the incidence of
thyroid cancer in the area surrounding the nuclear accident. Cesium-137, radioactive cesium with a mass number of 137, can enter the food
chain and deliver an internal dose of radiation before it is eliminated metabolically. Getting those toxic and radioactive
elements out of the soil is crucial to restoring the ecosystem after a nuclear disaster . A technique
called phytoremediation uses certain plants to leech these elements from the soil guess which one is one
of the best at that task? Good old industrial hemp, cannabis non-drug cousin that our government bans because our police are too uneducated
to tell the difference. (Hemp.net) In 1998, Consolidated Growers and Processors (CGP), PHYTOTECH, and the Ukraines Institute
of Bast Crops began what may be one of the most important projects in history the planting of
industrial hemp for the removal of contaminants in the soil near Chernobyl. Phytoremediation can be used to
remove radioactive elements from soil and water at former weapons producing facilaties. It can also be used to clean up metals, pesticides,
solvents, explosives, crude oil, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, and toxins leaching from landfills. Plants break down or degrade
organic pollutants and stabilize metal contaminants by acting as filters or traps. PHYTOTECH is conducting feild
trials to improve the phytoextraction of lead, uranium, cesium-137, and strontium-90 from soils and also from water. Hemp is proving
to be one of the best phyto-remediative plants we have been able to find, said Slavik Dushenkov, a
research scienst with PHYTOTECH. Test results have been promising and CGP, PHYOTECH and the Bast Institute plan full scale
trials in the Chernobyl region in the spring of 1999. This technique of hemp phytoremediation has applications that
extend beyond nuclear accident cleanups . If prohibition on hemp farming were lifted and the industry
were allowed to flourish, there could be thousands of new jobs created: (Damn Interesting) All in all, the field
of phytoextraction seems to be one of the most promising in the efforts to clean up the hundreds of
thousands of sites worldwide (30,000 in the US alone, according to the EPA), that require hazardous waste
treatment . Even if only modestly successful, the use of plants as contaminant removers could reduce cleanup costs considerably. Even
more promising, phytoextraction is only one aspect of the whole field of phytoremediation, in which
plants are being used not only to remove toxins, but sometimes to break them down (phytotransformation),
enhance microbial activity (phytostimulation), or prevent leaching of contaminants in the first place
(phytostabalization). In Belarus, site of the original Chernobyl disaster, they are not only using the hemp to clean up the soil, theyre making
money on the processing of that hemp into biofuel! (CannaZine.co.uk) Belarus Foreign Minister Sergei Martynov said: We consider ethanol to
be one of the most promising and sustainable sources of cheap and nature-friendly energy, and we have several advantages for its production
here. Belarus is probably the only country in Europe with vast territories which can be used for biomass production, the lands affected by the
Chernobyl catastrophe 21 years ago. The Minister concluded: The Government of Belarus has declared ethanol a priority topic for energy
development, so we are very happy today to see the first steps being taken, in what we are sure will be a successful and large-scale
development of ethanol production. Greenfield chairwoman Ann McClain said, Greenfields plan to produce bio-ethanol will use land which
has been contaminated by radioactive isotopes to cultivate biomass crops for the ethanol distilleries and at the same time, we believe growing
the biomass crops will work to clean up the affected areas. Japan allows for the farming of industrial hemp, but acquisition of a
license to do so is very limited, thanks to the US Government forcing the occupied Japanese to sign
onto a Cannabis Control Law in 1948 which, like US law, confuses cultivators of non-drug hemp with those growing medicinal
marijuana and consumer cannabis. (JapanHemp.org) However, the cannabis control law was enacted under GHQ under the United States
occupation after World War II in 1948. As a result, an annual license from the prefecture governor was needed to grow hemp . It felt that the
farmer was the same as making of the cultivation of hemp the narcotic drug because of the licensing system degree. After that, hemp products
of the plant origin disappeared one after another by the spread of the life use goods of the oil origin in postwar days. And the number of
farmers who grow hemp has decreased gradually. The hemp agriculture of Japan was 4049.2 ha the total planted acreage of the fiber harvest
and the seed harvest, and a scale of 25,118 people in 1950. However, the planted acreage in 1996 was only 12.4 ha according to Ministry of
Agriculture and Forestry today. Of that 12.0 ha was grown in Tochigi Prefecture, some 50 km north of Tokyo. There are only 102 hemp farmers
now. (From the Ministry of Health and Welfare Pharmaceutical and Medical Safety Bureau Narcotics Division as of January 1, 1999) At least
Japan does have some hemp farmers and laws that will allow them to get started on hemp phytoremediation as soon as possible. If an
American nuclear reactor melted down wed have to go through all the politics and argument and
legislation necessary to repeal a federal prohibition of industrial hemp as a Schedule I drug before we could
plant the first non-drug hemp plants to begin saving the land.
1ar
Politics
No resiliency
WWP 10
(Protecting Watersheds, Western Watersheds Project, Fall,
http://www.westernwatersheds.org/issues/protecting-watersheds)
Because there is very little land that is truly flat, watersheds and drainages are all around us, and just about everybody in the United States is within walking
distance of one whether they live in a city, on a farm, in a desert, or on an island. Some carry the names of well known rivers like the Columbia and the Rio Grande.
Most, however, do not, and remain anonymous, hidden in culverts or ditches or flowing only intermittently in high deserts,
unrecognized and unheralded as vital, contributing parts of the complex system that supplies all of our fresh surface water. East Fork Salmon River Watershed
WWP 2009 Surface water runs through watersheds and drainages, from mountains or high ground to the
sea. Underlying watersheds, or adjacent to most of them, however, is an even greater source of supply, ground
water. Ground water is formed when falling rain or melting snow percolates deep into the ground over
time, sometimes centuries, to a level where it is stored in porous rock and sand and accumulates there until
tapped by drilled wells or comes to the surface of its own accord as a spring or artesian well. This stored ground
water is commonly referred to as an aquifer and its level is measured in terms of a water table. Like watersheds, water
stored in aquifers generally seeps downhill, and many, like the Mississippi River drainage, cover wide areas of the United States. The
nations largest deposit of ground water is the Ogallala Aquifer System that underlies 8 states, Wyoming, Colorado, South
Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. Many smaller aquifers are found across the country and some remain unnamed and uncharted.
These two water resources, surface and ground water, not only sustain all life but are the only practical source
of fresh water we have for industry, agriculture, and municipal use. And although they are often viewed
as two separate entities, they are, for the most part, inextricably linked. For example, in addition to rain and
melting snow, ground water springs are vital to maintaining the flow of many streams and rivers in a watershed.
And a great deal of surface water, about 25% of it, percolates deep into the ground where it is stored in or
helps recharge our aquifers. The remaining surface water, after evaporation, which claims some 40%, becomes the complex system of streams and rivers that flow
through watersheds from the mountains or high ground to the sea. Along the way, however, some of that water is temporarily held back in
ponds, wetlands and the land bordering creeks, streams and rivers where water may not be visible but lies just below the surface. These areas are
collectively referred to as riparian zones, and while they constitute only a small percentage of the land in most watersheds, they are the heart and
soul of a delicately balanced natural system that, collectively, produces our fresh water. A healthy, functioning riparian zone is a virtual classroom in life sciences---
botany, biology, animal ecology, fisheries, entomology and ornithology---and contains a miraculous diversity of wildlife, fish, birds, bugs and an array of vegetation
ranging from trees and grasses to algae and other aquatic plants. Riparian zones and the biodiversity they contain are
interdependent. That is, the trees, plants, grasses, reeds, and algae provide food, shade, protection and habitat for wildlife, birds and fish. Their root
systems stabilize soil and prevent erosion and flooding in wet seasons; and in dry seasons, this vegetation retains water and
releases it slowly to maintain even stream flows. For their part, the variety of animals, fish, birds, and bugs living in these zones aerate the soil, spread
pollen and seeds and eventually, when they die and fungi and bacteria break down the dead organic matter, provide nourishment for a new generation of
riparian vegetation. This is an oversimplified description of a pristine riparian zone within a source watershed, that critical part of the system where water is
gathered from a web of springs, bogs and creeks and begins its long, twisting journey from the mountains to the sea. Such pristine conditions still exist in some
isolated areas, but today no major river arrives at its terminus in this condition, and some dont make it at all. Along the way, watersheds are radically transformed
by man. Rivers are dammed, channeled, and otherwise diverted to serve a multitude of agricultural, industrial and municipal purposes. And while a good portion of
the water is eventually released back into the system, much of it is polluted and requires costly purification. Today, water conservation is one of the most serious
natural resource issues facing this country, and nowhere is conservation more important than in the arid West which is
literally running out of water.
Cartels
1ar a2: diversification shift wmd
1. Only we access WMD terrorism and There is a link distinction Mexico will become
a failed state in the event of U.S. intervention which leads to a Pakistan-style safe
haven for terrorist attacks their Link is about cartels cooperating with terrorists, but
that will never happen
Keating 8/26
Joshua, writer @ Slate Magazine, Little evidence terrorists reaching US via Mexico,
http://www.stripes.com/opinion/little-evidence-terrorists-reaching-us-via-mexico-1.300032
The Mexican government is expressing some irritation with Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who suggested last week that theres a very real possibility
that members of the Islamic State or other terrorist groups are entering the United States illegally via
Mexico. As Perry acknowledged in his own remarks and as the Pentagon confirmed theres no clear evidence that this is
happening. But as is generally the case when fears of el-Qaida periodically emerge, a lack of evidence is no barrier to bold sweeping claims. Intelligence officials
have warned for some time that theres a possibility of terrorists entering the United States from Mexico, and there is indeed some
evidence of groups like Hezbollah operating in South America. It would be foolish, then, to completely rule out the possibility that terrorists have crossed into the United States from down
Mexico way. But the frequent claims that this is already a major problem are ridiculous. Last year, for instance, Rep. Louie
Gohmert, R-Texas, declared on C-SPAN that We know al-Qaida has camps over with the drug cartels on the other side of
the Mexican border and that the groups operatives are being trained to act Hispanic. This claim
appears to have been based on essentially nothing. Also last year, Deroy Murdock, of National Review, argued that there
are at least 7,518 reasons to get the U.S./Mexican border under control. That figure refers to the number of
citizens of State Department-listed state sponsors of terrorism arrested entering the United States not just at the Mexican border
in fiscal 2011. More than half of those were from Cuba, a country that is still on the State Departments list for a variety of reasons but whose immigrant population
in the U.S. is not known as a hotbed of jihadist sentiment. (This isnt to imply that those entering the United States from Syria or Afghanistan are likely terrorists. More likely, theyre fleeing
terrorism.) In 2012, Breitbart.com and a number of other conservative sites claimed that then-Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano had
admitted that terrorists enter the U.S. from Mexico from time to time. The evidence for this
supposed admission: what seems like a deliberate misreading of a garbled answer during
congressional testimony. (Napolitano hasnt always helped her own cause on this issue. In 2009 she had to walk back comments
that seemed to suggest, falsely, that the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had entered the U.S. from Canada.)
The best-documented case of a connection between Middle Eastern terrorism and Mexican drug cartels was facilitated by the U.S.
government. Mansour Arbabsiar, an Iranian-American car dealer in Texas, was arrested in 2011, and later convicted, after trying to recruit a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the
Saudi ambassador to the United States. The Obama administrations allegations that senior Iranian officials were likely in
on the plot were met with some skepticism at the time. Whether or not that part of it is true, we do know that no
actual Mexican gangs were involved. Arbabsiars contact was an undercover Drug Enforcement
Agency agent. The DEA also set up a 2009 bust involving a deal between alleged members of al-Qaida
in the Islamic Maghreb and Colombias FARC to smuggle cocaine through West Africa to Europe. This was
cited by the agency as evidence of the possibility of an unholy alliance between South American narco-terrorists and Islamic extremists. This despite the fact that
there were never any actual South American narco-terrorists involved and DEA agents had set the
whole thing up themselves. This case was also used in Congress to argue for tougher immigration rules in this case, more scrutiny of travelers from Venezuela.
Latin America
1ar a2 warming turn
Certification checks enviro impact-prohibition prevents that
Zuckerman, the Nation writer, 2013
(Seth, Is Pot-Growing Bad for the Environment?, 10-31,
http://www.thenation.com/article/176955/pot-growing-bad-environment?page=0,0, ldg)
That lack of regulation sets marijuanas impacts apart from those that stem from legal farming or
logging, yet the 76-year-old federal prohibition on cannabis has thwarted attempts to hold its
production to any kind of environmental standard. As a result, the ecological impact of an ounce of pot varies tremendously,
depending on whether it was produced by squatters in national forests, hydroponic operators in homes and warehouses, industrial-scale operations on private land,
or conscientious mom-and-pop farmers. Consumers could exert market power through their choices, if only they had
a reliable, widely accepted certification program, like the ones that guarantee the integrity of organic
agriculture. But thanks to the prohibition on pot, no such certification program exists for cannabis
products.
Status quo is worse prohibition makes environmental effets of smoking worse
Leaf Science 2013
(The Environmental Benefits Of A Legal Marijuana Industry, 11-17,
http://www.leafscience.com/2013/11/17/environmental-benefits-legal-marijuana-industry/, ldg)
The problem is, while regulators have taken great strides towards reducing the environmental impact
of many industries, the marijuana industry remains without such oversight. And even if energy efficient equipment
could be a cost-cutting investment for marijuana growers , most arent focused on the long-term. In fact, it is just the
opposite for those involved with the underground marijuana industry, who are constantly under
threat from state and federal law enforcement . Recent studies show that the aggressive spread of outdoor grow-ops in Northern
California have led to the destruction of forests, watersheds and local wildlife species. But there seems to be a simple solution. Legalizing marijuana in
Colorado has motivated marijuana growers to start looking at long-term solutions. And that means
investing in technology that can cut land, water and energy costs in a sustainable manner. One of these
technologies is LED lights, which consume less energy and give off less heat than traditional lighting systems. Denvers oldest marijuana dispensary, Denver Relief, is
already running tests on LED set-ups, with the hope of implementing the technology on a larger-scale if results are positive. According to
photobiologist Neil Yorio, who spent 20 years at NASAs Kennedy Space Center studying how to grow
plants in controlled environments and currently works at the Florida-based Lighting Science Group,
the company that supplies LED lights to Denver Relief, LED technology could save marijuana grow-ops
50% in overall electrical costs.
Treaty DA
1ar impact
Hard material power turns the DA
Smith, Tufts political science professor, 2009
(Tony, The Crisis of American Foreign Policy: Wilsonianism in the Twentieth First Century, pg 63, ldg)
Wilson recognized that the relative power position of the United States meant it had a leadership role to play in world affairs. Multilateralism thus
needed to be inspired and maintained by vigilant American participation. The failure of the League of Nations in the 1930s
was the inevitable outcome of a system of international order where America was absent. In the aftermath of World War II, it was
abundantly clear to leaders in the world democracies that the United States alone had the power to
coordinate what was understandably called the free world for the sake of its common peace and prosperity. Multilateralism (be it in the
creation of the Bretton Woods system, the United Nations, or NATO, for example) was therefore a product of Americas relative power
position after 1945. Such a system of international institutions could not have come about without
such a preponderance of power . Here was the meaning of Secretary Albrights baptism of the United States as the indispensable nation, the
only power capable of effectively organizing what she labeled muscular multilateralism. It is no accident that Albright was also the author of the concept of a
Community of Democracies, one presumable to take form and direct itself under the sway of her indispensable nation. Albright understood that
muscular multilateralism would contribute to American hegemonism and would be impossible without
it . Thus, to suggest that multilateralism is a concept more fundamental than democratization to the Wilsonian project seems to be obviously mistaken given the
need for democratic participation in such an international regime to make it successful in the first place. Moreover, to imply that unilateralism
and multilateralism are somehow polar opposites is to misunderstand the nature of the latter concept as
it emerged after 1945 (and indeed as it was understood by Wilson). Multilateralism was, and remains, a code word for
American hegemony. Such a form of leadership was a necessary, if not sufficient, condition of a
Wilsonian world order and would remain so for a goodly length of time into the future. As the structure of world politics changed after the
Cold War, so to did the relative meaning of multilateralism as an operative feature of American foreign policy. In time, it came to mean that
Americas allies would be force multipliers as they helped bear the burden of decisions made in
Washington as it pushed abroad the perimeter of the world of market democracies.
Terrorism turns international cooperation
Koh, Singapore Management University economics and social science professor, 2007
(William, Terrorism and its impact on economic growth and technological innovation Technological
Forecasting and Social Change, 74.2, February, Science Direct, ldg)
Impact on trade flows and technological diffusion For countries that are situated close to the technological frontier, innovation and
the development of new technologies is one of the prime drivers of economic growth for advanced industrial countries. However, for countries that are situated far
away on the technological frontier, foreign direct investment and trade are the main mechanisms for transmitting leading edge technologies and business practices
among countries. The concern here is that the war on terrorism would adversely impact trade flows, as costlier airfreight
and longer processing times at customs increase the cost of trade. While there is little evidence so far to suggest that cross-
border investment flows globally have slowed down in the wake of global terrorism, if the reduction in investment flows becomes
significant, it could slow down the diffusion of technology and impede technological advancement as
well as economic growth. Nonetheless, as national efforts are focused on fighting terrorism, it will lead to greater international collaboration on the sharing
of technological developments. Increased border controls or immigration restrictions may also impede the flow of
labor and technical talents. The just-in-time supply chain management system, commonly practiced nowadays for most industries, depends to a
large degree on the efficiency of border crossings. The introduction of comprehensive controls at the national borders due
to heightened terrorism concerns could lead to a slowdown in the movement of tradeable goods. If this
becomes substantial, it could have a negative effect on economic growth and on innovation.
1ar no unique link
Their 1nc evidence agrees no unique link
Posel 13.
Susanne Posel (Investigative Journalist; Chief Editor @ OccupyCorporatism.com). Marijuana
Legalization Violates US Gov Obligation to International Treaties, Occupy Corporatism, 3 May 2013,
http://www.occupycorporatism.com/marijuana-legalization-violates-us-gov-obligation-to-international-
treaties //dtac
The US government, in conjunction with Department of Justice (DoJ) lawyers, are considering suing states that
have passed marijuana legalization laws. For now, the federal government is observing how recreational
laws will affect punitive measures and how the federal laws in place are applicable. Illegal drugs from Mexico
will be directly impacted by the legalization of marijuana in the US. Attorney General Eric Holder explains: We have treaty
obligations with nations outside of the US. There are a whole variety of things that have to go into the determination that we
are in the process of making. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports research on drug trafficking in
the World Drug Report. The UN is monitoring the world heroin market and opium trade from the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic to
Afghanistan and tracing the flow of drugs through markets in the Russian Federation along its way to Easter Europe. Opium and heroin markets
are estimated at $33 billion annually. Global cocaine market that travels through the Near and Middle East, on to South-West Asia and Western
and Central Europe is worth about $88 billion. This cocaine is shipped from areas in the European Union to Colombia, Mexico or Central
America. The shipments then make their way into the US. In November of 2012, Raymond Yans, president of the
International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) asserted that the US government has treaty obligations
that preclude the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington State. In fact, Yans points out that
these developments are in violation of the international drug control treaties. Stated in the 1961
UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (SCND), the new legalization of marijuana laws in Colorado and
Washington must be overridden by the federal government because there was a limit of the use of
cannabis to medical and scientific purposes, according to the SCND. Therefore narcotic drugs must be made available for
medical purposes to all the States who signed the treaty. This fact would be reflected in national laws within each sovereign nations and be fully
in-line with international mandates. Treaty obligations would also ensure that nations would comply with the
SCND. The SCND is a combination of many international drug trade treaties which outlines the
limitations of the production, manufacture, export, import, distribution of, trade in, use and
possession of opiates, marijuana and cocaine to medicinal and scientific purposes. In Schedule 1, heroin, cocaine
and cannibus are the most restricted narcotics. The INCB was established to monitor nations and maintain compliance with the SCND. The
legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington State, according to Yans and the SCND, is a contradiction to the
international law set forth in the treaty. Yans made it clear that his organization was seeking to have the US
government come back into compliance with the SCND with regard to the legalization of marijuana
which is a violation of international drug control treaties for the sake of protect*ing+ the health and well-being of
American citizens. The Global Initiative for Drug Policy Reform states that: Although the objectives of the 1961 Convention made it clear that
its aims were the improvement of the health and welfare of mankind, the measures of success which have been used in the war on drugs
approach have been the number of arrests, size of the seizures or severity of prison sentences . . . these indicators may tell us how tough we
are being, but they dont tell us how successful we are in improving the health and welfare of mankind. In essence, the Obama
administration is facing the choice of knowingly violating the SCND or finding a legal remedy against
Colorado and Washington for allowing marijuana for recreational use within state limits.
If the link is true at all its non-unique US is already in violation because of the states
Don 14 Allison, University of Minnesota Law School, J.D. candidate 2015; Temple University, B.A.
2008, Note: Lighten Up: Amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 23 Minn. J. Int'l L. 213,
Lexis
Interpreting International Treaties Article VI of the Constitution of the United States says that treaties are
"the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby ..." 121 Exactly what that means can be
confusing. In 1829, the Supreme Court of the United States ("the Court") held that a treaty by itself was not a legislative act carrying immediate
effect upon the parties involved and their territories. 122 Rather, the Court stated, a treaty "is carried into execution by the sovereign power of
the respective parties to the instrument." 123 This concept is referred to as a treaty being "non-self-executing." 124 When courts are permitted
to rely on a treaty without any accompanying legislation, the treaty is thought to be "self-executing." 125 The Supreme Court has confirmed
these categories of treaties by explaining that "while treaties "may comprise international commitments ... they are not domestic law unless
Congress has either enacted implementing statutes or the treaty itself conveys an intention that it be "self-executing' and is ratified on these
terms.'" 126 Whether a treaty is considered to be non-self-executing or self-executing depends on numerous factors. The specificity with which
the treaty was written may be looked to, as well as the country interpreting the treaty. 127 In the United States, the [*232] President and
Senate alone hold treaty-making power, which forces the courts to tread carefully when interpreting treaties so as not to run the risk of
legislating. 128 At the state level, "courts have imposed quite rigorous requirement in many cases, suggesting a veiled attempt at limiting treaty
application in United States courts." 129 III. THE CURRENT AND FUTURE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE UNITED
STATES, THE SINGLE CONVENTION AND MARIJUANA A. Why the United States is in Violation of The
Single Convention At the time of accession to a treaty, a state may propose a reservation that their
accession is contingent upon. 130 There is also an opportunity upon accession for parties to provide
optional declarations which "allow States ... to assume additional or different commitments on joining
the treaty than those they would have absent a declaration." 131 In 1967, the United States became a
party to the Single Convention with no reservations or declarations, thus agreeing to be bound by the
treaty as it was written. 132 Through accession without any reservations or declarations, the United
States agreed to be bound by the entirety of the Single Convention. 133 Thus, the United States has
committed itself to criminalizing the use of narcotics, including marijuana, outside of the medical and
scientific fields. 134 By legalizing marijuana for recreational use and [*233] commercial sale, outside
the scope of approved uses the treaty specifies, both Colorado and Washington clearly placed the
United States in violation of the Single Convention. This violation has not gone unnoticed, with the
President of the Board reasserting that "the United States has a treaty obligation to ensure the
implementation of the treaties on the entirety of its territory." 135 Arguing that the treaty was not
self-executing and therefore needed to be adopted through domestic legislation does not provide the
United States with an exemption to its obligations under the Single Convention. The Court has
confirmed that unless a treaty contains language which signifies it to be "self-executing', treaties are
not regarded as national law until Congress has ""enacted implementing statutes.'" 136 Assuming the
Single Convention to be a "non-self-executing' treaty, Congress would have to adopt at least one
statute in order for the treaty to have full effect in the domestic legal system. Three years after
becoming a party to the Single Convention, Congress passed the CSA which fully adopt the Single
Convention into domestic law. 137 The CSA was enacted to "conquer drug abuse and to control the
legitimate and illegitimate traffic in controlled substances." 138 Several provisions were "adopted to
effectuate [the United States'] treaty obligations under Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs" 139 and
Congress made mention of the Single Convention throughout the legislation. 140 By executing the
treaty into the United States' legal system vis-a-vis the CSA, all obligations the United States
assumed by becoming a party to the treaty were realized.
1ar no impact
Ukraine is a huge alt cause and disproves their impact
Ku 3/2Julian, Professor of Law and Faculty Director of International Programs. B.A., Yale University
J.D., Yale Law School, Russia Reminds the World (and International Lawyers) of the Limits of
International Law http://opiniojuris.org/2014/03/02/ukraine-russia-international-law-governing-use-
force/
Which brings me to the Ukraine crisis. I agree with Erik Voeten that international law and institutions will be helpful in other ways. And I
think Chris provides very helpful analysis of how international law can shape official state rhetoric. But the fact remains that the international
law restraining the use of armed force has utterly and completely failed to constrain Russias actions in Ukraine. This is more than simply
adhering to the legislative veto. This is a body blow to a foundational piece of the international legal system. In
academic terms, the failure of the Charter is evidence for both realists (who think international law never
matters), but also for rational choice theorists like Posner, as to how international law really works.
Rational choice folks think that international law works best (in fact, works at all only) when states have a
rational self-interest to cooperate around certain legal norms and institutions. But where states no longer have
such a rational self interest, states will depart from those legal norms. Compliance with international law for the sake of complying with
international law is naive and unrealistic. The Russia-Ukraine crisis also impacts real-world policymaking. If international law, or at least the
Charters rule on the use of force, is very weak or non-existent as a tool for restraining state action,
then policymakers should not rely on the Charter rule as meaningful protection against aggression. A strong military or a network of alliances
would probably have been a better idea. States must not overestimate the impact or force of this species of
international law (as Ukraines new government seemed to do) when making decisions. And states like the United States
should be careful incorporating this rule into its domestic legal processes, or over-privileging its role in its own domestic public debate. I may be
biased as an American, but the U.S. has about the right balance on this. It does not ignore the Charter, but it does not treat the Charter as
having too much independent significance except to the extent it affects the actions of other states (especially its allies). The key thing to focus
on in this crisis are the interests of the different states (and leading groups within states). State interests are driving actions here,
and the Charter violation seems to be doing almost now work. The fact that the Charter is plainly being
violated will not necessarily mean that Charter proponents like France and Germany will get tough
with Russia (in fact, both are going the other way by opposing sanctions or any NATO consultations). The fact that the Charter is
plainly being violated will not mean China (another big Charter proponent) will do anything other than closely
watch developments and urging all sides to comply with international law without naming any country.
International law can be, and often is, a very important tool for facilitating international and
transnational cooperation. But it is not doing much to resolve to Ukraine crisis, and international lawyers need to
admit that.
Multilat fails-single shot solutions fail
Held, Durham IR professor, 2013
(Davdi, Gridlock: the growing breakdown of global cooperation, 5-24,
http://www.opendemocracy.net/thomas-hale-david-held-kevin-young/gridlock-growing-breakdown-of-
global-cooperation, ldg)
The Doha round of trade negotiations is deadlocked, despite eight successful multilateral trade rounds before
it. Climate negotiators have met for two decades without finding a way to stem global emissions. The
UN is paralyzed in the face of growing insecurities across the world, the latest dramatic example being Syria. Each
of these phenomena could be treated as if it was independent, and an explanation sought for the peculiarities of its causes. Yet, such a
perspective would fail to show what they, along with numerous other instances of breakdown in international negotiations, have in common.
Global cooperation is gridlocked across a range of issue areas. The reasons for this are not the result of any
single underlying causal structure, but rather of several underlying dynamics that work together . Global
cooperation today is failing not simply because it is very difficult to solve many global problems indeed it is but because previous
phases of global cooperation have been incredibly successful, producing unintended consequences
that have overwhelmed the problem-solving capacities of the very institutions that created them. It is
hard to see how this situation can be unravelled, given failures of contemporary global leadership, the
weaknesses of NGOs in converting popular campaigns into institutional change and reform, and the
domestic political landscapes of the most powerful countries .