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1nc K
Reject the affirmatives solution as grounded in a parsimonious model of IR predictions
that drives Newtonian rationality and serial policy failure key to complexify the
discipline
Kavalski, PhD, 12
(Emilian, professor of IR University of Western Sydney, PhD international politics Loughborough University, Waking IR Up from its Deep
Newtonian Slumber Millennium: Journal of International Studies 41(1) 137 150 )

Is the discipline of International Relations (IR) a science? Its scientific credentials have long concerned proponents and detractors. As
Ronald Rogowskis claim in the epigraph suggests, the hankering after an elegant science of international politics has virtually
become a dream to which his and subsequent generations of IR scholars have succumbed. Belying this
dreaming is a question whether IRs social-scientific inquiry can ever approximate that of the natural
sciences. Perceiving the natural sciences to be an exact science, cohorts of IR students have been developing
powerful and parsimonious models for the explanation and understanding of international politics. Take the
balance of power, for instance. Its aim is to ascertain the existence of a particular regularity in world affairs
parity between adversaries. Borrowing the notion of equilibrium from the natural sciences, the balance of power explains
international order as a regulating mechanism motivated by the natural desire of states for survival. In this way, IR has
tended to propound explanations premised on assumptions of predictability rooted in the conviction
that international life is a closed system, changing in a gradual manner and following linear trajectories,
which can be elicited through discrete assessments of dependent and independent variables. What IR
intends to produce in this way is a nearly mechanistic model of international politics that is perceived to be as
rigorous and robust as the one of the natural sciences. In recent years, the simplification and reductionism
underpinning this dream of a scientific IR have come under severe criticism from different quarters. In fact, some such
as John G. Ruggie have made the point that the discipline needs to wake up from this deep Newtonian slumber, if
it is to have any bearing on the real world of international politics. The three books under review actively contribute to this
decentring project by advancing the complexification of IR. The notion of complexification entails different things for different authors, but
what all of them share is some form of engagement with the complexity paradigm of the philosophy of science.3 Originating in the natural
sciences, the complexity paradigm challenges the Newtonian view of an orderly world and suggests that global
interactions occur in a non-linear fashion . Consequently, the outcomes of such interactions are difficult to
infer, let alone to predict. In this respect, the proponents of the complexification of IR have noted that while the
hard sciences have become increasingly soft as a result of their acceptance of the uncertainty and
randomness of reality, IR has hardened as a result of its suppression of ambiguity, disregard for
surprises and over-investment in its capacity to forecast international developments. Richard Ned Lebow
explains this search for (and commitment to) a predictable worldview of regularities as a need for psychological closure,
reflecting a desire for definitive conclusions in support of preferred theoretical assumptions.4 It is in this
context that Damian Popolo asks the pertinent question whether scientific IR is not premised on fundamentally
misleading notions about science.5 In other words, the question that emerges is whether things appear perplexing because the
ken of the mainstream is askew. In its response to this query, the complexity paradigm reveals that Newtonian IR tends to operate
on very little information (usually a few variables); yet, this does not prevent it from jumping to
conclusions as if it had knowledge about the whole picture . Such lack of sensitivity to what IR does not know
then underpins a model of the world that is rarely stumped . As a result, when the accepted framework for
explanation and understanding fails that is, it faces a question that it cannot answer (for instance, Why IR failed to anticipate
the end of the Cold War?) IR comes up with a question that it can answer (for instance, Why the Cold War ended?,
answer: Because the Soviet Union could no longer maintain the balance of power and, therefore, without such capability it could no longer
survive in the international system and had to implode). The complexified IR suggests that by
answering the wrong questions,
Newtonian IR enacts a theatre of validity to generate explanations far more coherent than reality .
Therefore, the incredible rate of failure of the very frameworks asserting the law-like regularities of
international politics to anticipate any of the major events of the past 25 years should not be surprising.6
The irony of this situation is not lost on Lebow, who notes that it is the commitment to science and scientific methods by
international relations scholars that provides a major impediment to their practice of science.7 Thus, this
review article assesses the three books under review in the context of the current state of the art in the emerging complexity paradigm of IR.
Since this paradigm intends a complete rethinking of the discipline , the article will focus on the complexification of the
ontology, epistemology, methodology and ethics of IR. It has to be stressed at the outset that while IR students will find all three books under
review of immense interest, their authors reach out to much wider and interdisciplinary audiences thus, the collection edited by Jonathan
Joseph and Colin Wight will be of immense relevance to any of the subfields of political science, especially international political economy;
Lebows work has historians, literary theorists and psychologists in mind; while Popolos book addresses political theorists and philosophers.
(137-9)
1NC Wolf DA
Prostitution reform is a lightning rod
Heiges 9 (Moira, J.D. Candidate 2010, University of Minnesota Law School; B.A. 2004, Yale University,
From the Inside Out: Reforming State and Local Prostitution Enforcement to Combat Sex Trafficking in
the United States and Abroad 94 Minn. L. Rev. 428)

The topic of prostitution is fraught with moral, ideological, and therefore political controversy . n233
Domestically, as well as internationally, a small but outspoken minority perceives prostitution as a freely chosen
profession that should be protected as a legitimate form of work. n234 Meanwhile, an opposing though equally
powerful lobby sees it as an inherently violent form of sexual exploitation that is particularly harmful to women.
n235 Yet in spite of the inherent political pitfalls, leaders at all levels of government have a vested interest in addressing both voluntary and
coercive forms of prostitution in their jurisdictions.

Wolfs PC passes Pennsylvania tax reform and oversight key to Marcellus shale
development, education, and drilling regs
Stephanie Ritenbaugh 3-24-2015; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Pennsylvania lawmakers dig in on natural gas severance tax
http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/policy-powersource/2015/03/24/Pennsylvania-lawmakers-dig-in-on-Marcellus-Shale-
severance-tax/stories/201503240019

Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers are maintaining a hardline stance against Gov. Tom Wolfs Marcellus Shale severance tax proposal, saying
they wont discuss a tax until bills dealing with pensions and liquor privatization are settled. And with
Mr. Wolfs proposal to use a
severance tax to reinvest in education being a campaign cornerstone, the stage is set for legislative horse
trading this spring. Voters elected him, and Pennsylvania understands this issue, said John Hanger, Mr. Wolfs director of
planning and policy. We are interested in good faith negotiation and conversation about the details. But we
need a drilling tax. Drew Crompton, chief of staff for state Sen. Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, the Senate president pro tempore said pensions
must be dealt with first. Were going to pick up the pension bill in April, Mr. Crompton said. Then we would be willing to talk about the need
for new revenue. The problem with the budget proposal isnt just the severance tax, but all the tax increases the governor is proposing, Mr.
Crompton said. Republicans make up the majority in both the state Senate and House of Representatives.
The severance tax proposal calls for a 5 percent tax on the value of the natural gas extracted from wells,
4.7 cents per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) on the volume of the natural gas, and a 5 percent tax on the value of natural gas liquids
produced. Mr. Wolf has said the proposal will raise $1 billion in its first full year, the lions share of which would be dedicated to education.
Drawing the ire of the natural gas industry is another feature of the governors plan a $2.97/Mcf minimum value for shale gas produced in
Pennsylvania, regardless of the actual sale price. Drillers wouldnt be able to pass any extra cost on to landowners, according to the proposal. In
the Marcellus Shale region, natural gas prices have been depressed as pipeline capacity has not kept pace with surging production. On March
20, natural gas traded at $2/Mcf at Dominion South Point, while natural gas at the Henry Hub the national benchmark in Louisiana sold for
$2.80, according to Bloomberg data. Meanwhile, operators selling gas at the Leidy Hub in north-central Pennsylvania traded at $1.49. The
severance tax is not much different than a sales tax it should be based on what youre actually paying, Mr. Crompton said. You cant
negotiate when one side is asking for too much, he said. Steve Miskin, a spokesman for the House Republican majority, said the proposal is out
of step with todays market. When natural gas prices are low, his tax hits its height, Mr. Miskin said. They arrived at $1 billion and they want
to spend higher and higher to meet that goal. Were not advocating for new taxes, Mr. Miskin said. If revenue is necessary, we believe its
through liquor privatization and dealing with cost drivers. Kevin Sunday, spokesman for the Harrisburg-based Pennsylvania Chamber of Business
and Industry, compared the inclusion of the $2.97 floor price as making someone making $40,000 a year pay income tax on $100,000. This
proposal is much higher than the advertised 5 percent tax, Mr. Sunday said. Mr. Hanger said the proposed severance tax would take effect in
2016, so the first day is still more than nine months away, and natural gas prices are at rock bottom levels. Theres only one place for it to go
and thats up. Current levels arent sustainable. For the first year of the tax, the proposal assumes gas prices will average $3.25, which wouldnt
trigger the floor price, Mr. Hanger said. Theres precedence for pricing a floor for commodity that provide public improvement, he said, noting
that Act 89, which funds bridge and road repairs, includes a floor price for gasoline at $2.49. The left-leaning Pennsylvania Budget and Policy
Center believes the severance tax proposal is important to the regional development of the Marcellus
Shale formation , which spans several states, said Michael Wood, research director. Pennsylvania is the only major
oil and gas producing state without a formal severance tax . Mr. Wolfs proposal is modeled after West Virginias tax, but
adds the $2.97/Mcf minimum. Mr. Wood also said natural gas prices wont stay low forever as demand increases and
as companies prepare to enter new markets. The first exports of liquefied natural gas are expected to
begin this year. The worry about low prices now is just an excuse to not pass this tax , Mr. Wood said. For the
last seven or eight years, people have found excuses to not have the tax that other states levy. Its past time to have this in place. The longer we
wait, the more it harms Pennsylvania. Environmental advocacy group PennFuture also supports the proposal as it stands, which
includes greater funding for regulatory and enforcement agencies . Robert Altenburg, director of the energy center
for PennFuture, notes that staffing levels have fallen at the state Department of Environmental Protection. I dont know if this will completely
reverse that trend, but its headed in the right direction, Mr. Altenburg said. While
the $2.97 minimum built into the proposal
will make it difficult for drillers to plan their tax burden and will eat into profit margins, its not likely to
drive drillers away from one of the most economical shale plays in North America , said Bill Holland senior
reporter for SNL Energy, a trade publication. Its shallow, its rich and its undeniably huge , Mr. Holland said. Pennsylvanias
unconventional gas producers pulled more than 2 trillion cubic feet of gas out of the ground during the second half of 2014 alone, according to
data released by the state Department of Environmental Protection. When the governor comes in, its part politics, part
horse trading. Hes starting with a high hand , Mr. Holland said. But the governor will likely get the tax. Its
just too large to ignore . A severance tax is going to narrow the margins and make Pennsylvania less attractive, but where else are you
going to go in this low price environment? Overall, the shale tax is popular with voters. According to a Franklin & Marshall poll in June
2012, 55 percent of Pennsylvania voters supported it, with another 18 percent somewhat favoring such a measure. About 20 percent were
opposed. Among independent polls, you might get different percentages depending on how the question is phrased, but youre not seeing
anything showing its unpopular, said G. Terry Madonna, a political scientist and pollster at Franklin & Marshall in Lancaster. For most people,
its not a tax that they have to pay directly not like an income tax. But the budget debates this spring are shaping up to
be challenging. With a Republican majority in both state houses, it will be difficult to deal with a
severance tax unless they reach some accommodation on pensions and liquor privatization, Mr. Madonna said.

Key to manufacturing base


John Yudichak, MSC, et al 11-13-2013; Marcellus Shale Coalition Founded in 2008, the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) works with
exploration and production, midstream and supply chain partners in the Appalachian Basin and across the country to address issues regarding
the production of clean, job-creating, American natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays. Yudichak, Pa. state Senator John Yudichak
(Dem.-Plymouth); Marcellus Shale: A Transformational Economic Opportunity For All http://marcelluscoalition.org/2013/11/marcellus-shale-
a-transformational-economic-opportunity-for-all/

The overwhelmingly positive impact of the Marcellus Shale continued to make its way throughout
Pennsylvania this week. At an economic seminar, Pa. state Senator John Yudichak (Dem.-Plymouth) touted safe and tightly -
regulated shale development as a transformational economic opportunity. These homegrown jobs are
renewing small towns, driving down once-skyrocketing unemployment rates and reigniting our manufacturing
sector. At the same time, as Bloomberg News reports this week, The shale boom has moved the U.S. closer to energy
independence, added jobs, helped revive manufacturing, and lowered gas bills. Heres what theyre saying
about the clear benefits of shale which are Powering An American Renaissance: Economic Benefits of Marcellus Shale Are Many: Public and
private officials said Thursday that the economic benefits of the Marcellus Shale are many. When [KDKAs Jon] Delano
asked what they considered to be the single most important contribution to the region, panelists had a difficult time limiting their answer to one
item. To [MSCs Dave] Spigelmyer, the explosion of natural shale gas production has put the country on a path to
energy security and created more than 200,000 jobs across the commonwealth, while setting a market price for power in just a few short
years. Speaking for the airport authority, which in February received a $50 million signing bonus from Consol Energy to extract natural gas from
beneath Pittsburgh International Airport that officials say could bring as much as $450 million in royalties, Penrod listed the financial gain, as
well as strong regional economic growth. Some of that growth is directly impacting the airports bottom line, he said. Weve had a 4.5 percent
increase in seats sold at the airport from a year ago, Penrod said. Noble said her township is benefitting from the impact fees generated from
Act 13, noting that it has received $1.1 million in fees over the last two years. (Washington Observer-Reporter, 11/14/13) Sen. John Yudichak:
Marcellus Shale Presents Transformational Economic Opportunity: State Sen. John Yudichak Thursday said the Marcellus shale industry will lift
Northeastern Pennsylvania out of the cloud of economic hardship and will continue to do so for generations to come. We are all here
for one reason and singular goal to learn how NEPA can
leverage the transformational economic opportunity
presented by Marcellus shale into the creation of new jobs, new businesses and sustainable economic
growth. John Augustine, community outreach manager for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, gave a detailed presentation on the state of the
industry, its economic impact and the anticipated growth over the next 40 to 50 years. Augustine said the Marcellus shale region produces 12
billion cubic feet of natural gas per day and will soon surpass 13 billion cubic feet per day. Augustine said the industry employs about 232,000
people with an average salary of $83,000 per year. Between 2010 and 2012, Augustine said there were 4,500 wells drilled, representing a $31.5
billion investment. He said the industry has generated $1.8 billion in tax revenue since 2006. Webber said the gas industry has dramatically
grown jobs for members of his union. Since 2006, the union man hours have grown from 200,000 to 3.6 million in 2012. Yudichak said the
natural gas industry will power modern manufacturing plants, fuel more efficient vehicles and light the way for new technologies that push
the boundaries of health, science and commerce. (Times-Leader, 11/15/13)

Global war
Barry D Watts 2008; Senior Fellow, The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, The US Defense Industrial Base, Past, Present and
Future, CBA, http://www.csbaonline.org/4Publications/PubLibrary/R.20081015._The_US_Defense_In/R.20081015._The_US_Defense_In.pdf

Since the 1950s, theUS defense industrial base has been a source of long-term strategic advantage for the United States, just as it
was during World War II. American defense companies provided the bombers and missiles on which nuclear deterrence
rested and armed the US military with world-class weapons, including low-observable aircraft, wide-area surveillance and targeting sensors,
and reliable guided munitions cheap enough to be employed in large numbers. They also contributed to the development of modern digital
computers, successfully orbited the first reconnaissance satellites, put a man on the moon in less than a decade, and played a pivotal role in
developing the worldwide web. Critics have long emphasized President Eisenhowers warning in his farewell television address that the nation
needed to guard against the acquisition of undue influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. Usually forgotten
or ignored has been an earlier, equally important, passage in Eisenhowers January 1961 speech: A vital element in keeping the peace is our
military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be
tempted to risk his own destruction. Eisenhowers warning about undue influence, rather than the need to maintain American
military strength, tends to dominate contemporary discussions of the US defense industrial base. While the percentage of US gross domestic
product going to national defense remains low compared to the 1950s and 1960s, there is a growing list of defense programs that have
experienced problems with cost, schedule, and, in a few cases, weapon performance. In fairness, the federal government, including the
Department of Defense and Congress, is at least as much to blame for many of these programmatic difficulties as US defense firms.
Nevertheless, those critical of the defense industry tend to concentrate on these acquisition shortcomings. The main focus of this report is on a
larger question. How prepared is the US defense industrial base to meet the needs of the US military Services in coming decades?
The Cold War challenge of Soviet power has largely ebbed, but new challenges have emerged. There is the immediate threat of the
violence stemming from SalafiTakfiri and Khomeinist terrorist groups and their state sponsors, that have consumed so much American
blood and treasure in Iraq; the longer-term challenge of authoritarian capitalist regimes epitomized by the rise of China and a
resurgent Russia; and, not least, the worsening problem of proliferation, particularly of nuclear weapons. In the face of
these more complex and varied challenges, it would surely be premature to begin dismantling the US defense industry. From a competitive
perspective, therefore, the vital question about the defense industrial base is whether it will be as much a source of long-term advantage in the
decades ahead as it has been since the 1950s.
CP 1
Plan: The United States courts should rule that prostitution is legal and should require
states to:
-classify sex workers as employees and create regulations for sex work that ensure a safe and healthy
workplace, not including mandatory health screenings or licenses for individual workers;

-require licensing for third-party operators, exempting single-operator owned entities with four sex
workers or less;

-prohibit employers from forcing a worker to engage in a sex act;

-provide recourse to workers whose employer violates these employment regulations


CP 2
The Congress of the United States should require that prostitution is legal based on
international human rights law, citing the Supreme Court of Canadas citing the
Supreme Court of Canadas decision in Bedford v. Canada, and should require states to:
-classify sex workers as employees and create regulations for sex work that ensure a safe and healthy
workplace, not including mandatory health screenings or licenses for individual workers;

-require licensing for third-party operators, exempting single-operator owned entities with four sex
workers or less;

-prohibit employers from forcing a worker to engage in a sex act;

-provide recourse to workers whose employer violates these employment regulations


CP 3

The United States Congresses should require that prostitution is legal based on
international human rights law, citing the Supreme Court of Canadas citing the
Supreme Court of Canadas decision in Bedford v. Canada, and should require states to:
-classify sex workers as employees and create regulations for sex work that ensure a safe and healthy
workplace, not including mandatory health screenings or licenses for individual workers;

-require licensing for third-party operators, exempting single-operator owned entities with four sex
workers or less;

-prohibit employers from forcing a worker to engage in a sex act;

-provide recourse to workers whose employer violates these employment regulations


1nc treaty power

Federal treaty power is strong now the plan shatters it


Corn & Brenner-Beck 15 (Geoffrey S. Corn, Professor of Law, South Texas College of Law; Lieutenant
Colonel (Retired), U.S. Army Judge Advocate Generals Corps, formerly the Armys senior law of war
advisor, supervisory defense counsel for the Western United States, Chief of International Law for U.S.
Army Europe, and served as a tactical intelligence officer in Panama; and Dru Brenner-Beck, Lieutenant
Colonel (Retired), U.S. Army Judge Advocate Generals Corps, formerly served as Deputy Legal Counsel,
U.S. Armys Office of the Inspector General and Chief, Military and Civil Law, U.S. Army Europe, former
law clerk to the Honorable Carlos F. Lucero, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and legal
consultant on international law matters, President of the National Institute of Military Justice; Exploring
U.S. Treaty Practice Through a Military Lens, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, 38(2), forthcoming
2015, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399917)
VII. THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUILIBRIUM, TILTED TOWARD OUR AMERICAN VALUES Perhaps the only normative conclusions that can be drawn from examining
LOAC treaty practice is that this area of treaty practice involves a continual search for equilibrium between the
nations sovereign prerogative to act in defense of its vital national interests and the advancement of
those interests through commitment to international legal constraints . The search for this equilibrium in large measure
parallels an analogous search embedded in the law itselfthe equilibrium between the necessities of war and humanitarian constraint. U.S. LOAC treaty practice
reveals the vital and at times competing roles of the three branches of the federal government, and the
inherent limitations of federalism, in achieving this equilibrium . This search for equilibrium is similar to that conducted by James
Madison himself. Considered a political pragmatist, Madisons constitutional interpretations did not follow an evolutionary development. Instead, they
pragmatically changed with circumstances in order to maintain political equilibrium . . . equilibrium between national departments, the federal center, and the state
periphery.268 This Article posits that similar shifts can be seen among the various branches, and between state and federal power in the maintenance of
equilibrium in the treaty power, with a small tilt toward an equilibrium that preserves American values. The Senate, in the early 1950s, consented to an
unprecedented expansion of binding international obligations through the treaty power.269 Accepting both the NATO Treaty itself, and the NATO SOFA, as well as the
1949 Geneva Conventions, the Senate understood both the necessity of mutual defense arrangements and the concomitant restriction on U.S. unilateral action.270
Because of the shared worldview between the President and the Senate that arose in the aftermath of World War II and the advent of the Cold War, the

Senate understood and accepted the necessity of binding international ties in the U.S. policy of active
diplomacy, even when those agreements affected both the rights of U.S. soldiers overseas and the jurisdiction of
domestic U.S. state courts . These important treaties were concluded at the same time as Senator Brickers failed attempts
to amend the U.S. Constitution to overrule Missouri v. Holland and limit the treaty powers domestic effects to those
areas already strictly within Congresss Article I powers . The rejection of the Bricker Amendment and the acceptance of
these binding international treaty obligations reflects an acceptance by the Senate of the necessity of a
robust treaty power at the federal level . Significant to the Senates acceptance of these limits on autonomy is the perception that they
reflected both American values and practice.271 By the 1990s, however, the Soviet Union had disintegrated, and the omnipresent threat that had motivated the
imperative of maximizing congressional and presidential consensus on foreign policy dissipated. No longer was foreign policy conceived of as an area immune from
partisanship and this change in national security perspective produced increased friction between the Senate and the President in relation to treaty obligations. As a
result, even seemingly uncontroversial treaties, such as the Chemical Weapons Convention, were subject to divisive battles in the Senate during its consideration of
their ratification. Similar opposition can be seen in the Senates decades-long and still extant delay in considering Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions,
and in its passage of the 2006 Military Commissions Act provision that prohibited the invoking of the Geneva Conventions as a source of rights in habeas or civil
proceedings in any U.S. court. During this same period the courtsand most notably the Supreme Courtseemed to indicate a greater inclination to impose
limitations on national power through the treaty interpretation process. In Yamashita and Eisentrager, the Supreme Court in the late 1940s and early 1950s narrowly
construed treaty provisions to permit the military commission trials of General Yamashita and 28 German prisoners, even though this interpretation was arguably a
contravention of the humanitarian object and purpose of the 1929 Geneva Conventions. Yet, even at this time, vociferous dissents by Justices Murphy and Rutledge
advocated interpretations that reflected an inconsistency between a narrow and permissively oriented interpretation of the Geneva Conventions and fundamental
American values. 272 In 2006, however, the Supreme Court interpreted Common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions to provide a floor of humanitarian
protection to Salim Hamdan, invalidating his military commission trial conducted solely under executive authority. Although subject to debate, the Courts decision
to interpret Common Article 3 to apply to the non-international armed conflict against al-Qaeda was an effort to fulfil the humanitarian purposes of the 1949
Geneva Conventions.273 Finally, the defeat of the Bricker Amendments during the 1950s sustained the holdings of Missouri v. Holland and ensured that federalism
would pose no real constraints on the treaty power. Nevertheless, the resurgence of federalism in the Courts commerce clause
jurisprudence in the 1990s may have predicted a similar return of federalism challenges to the treaty power. In
its Bond decisions, the Court recognized both that federalism protects the liberty of individual citizens,
and that treaties will not be interpreted to intrude on traditional areas of state responsibilities absent a
clear Congressional statement of their intent to do so . In its 2014 decision, the Court also cast doubt on Hollands shorthand holding
that a valid treaty equals valid implementing legislation, creating possibilities of attack against future treaty implementing

legislation. The three concurrences in that case would have gone even further in restricting the scope of
the federal treaty power, even in this core LOAC treaty, with Justice Scalias eliminating it as an
independent power altogether.274 This resurgence of federalism concerns , particularly where the
underlying treaty lies at the core of the treaty power, may reflect an underlying new susceptibility to a
treaty impacting a states traditional role , something also seen in the 2008 Medelln decision.
Nevertheless, the Supreme Court, although sanctioning federalism challenges to treaty-based legislation, did not address the key
treaty power questions raised, preserving the broad ruling of Missouri v. Holland , at least for the near
future . VIII. CONCLUSION As in any political system, voluntary international obligations assumed by a nation reflect the values and history of the nation acting on
the international stage, both of which can change over time. In the U.S., the policy objectives, views of the proper U.S. role in

the world, and perception of U.S. values influence all three branches of government as they fulfill their
constitutional roles in the formation, implementation, and interpretation of treaties . Although limited in number,
because they implicate the core functions of the national governmentforeign policy and national defenseLOAC treaties and the cases implicating them provide
important insights into U.S. treaty practice. The
role of treaties and international law influence all three branches search
for the equilibrium between national and international imperatives . Done against the background of their reverence for, and
commitment to, the law of nations,275 the Framers designed the Constitution to involve all three branches of the U.S. Government in formulating and enforcing its
international obligations. Although cases interpreting LOAC treaties are sparse, they do exist, and they do provide evidence of the significant influence the judiciary
has and will continue to have on the rules that regulate the use of U.S. military power. Perhaps the nation has entered an era of a greater willingness by the judiciary
to prioritize the object and purpose of relevant LOAC treaties over Executive interpretation. Such an interpretive perspective would certainly help explain decisions
like Hamdan and Noriega. Whether this perception is justified or exaggerated, it is interesting that in the wake of the Hamdan decision, Congress sought to foreclose
reliance on the Geneva Conventions as a basis for judicial relief. This provision of the Military Commission Act of 2006 was, ironically, challenged by none other than
General Noriega when he sought to block his post-incarceration extradition to France based on Frances inability or unwillingness to ensure respect for his rights as a
POW. The district court rejected his challenge based on this statutory ban on asserting the Geneva Conventions as a source of right in U.S. courts, a holding upheld
by the Eleventh Circuit. None other than Justice Thomas questioned the validity of such a statute when he dissented in the subsequent denial of Noriegas petition
for certiorari to the Supreme Court.276 Even more important, in the 2009 MCA, Congress significantly limited this bar. Ultimately,
this merely
reflects the ongoing ebbs and flows of influence asserted by each branch of our government on the
treaty creation, implementation, and interpretation process as each seeks the appropriate equilibrium . It
is also possible that the nation is experiencing an era in which Congress is taking a more narrow view of

international law as a mechanism to restrict U.S. national power; a narrowing that can be seen through
its role in LOAC formation, advice and consent, and statutory treaty implementation . In its approval of the 1949
Geneva Conventions, the Senate embraced the imposition of binding international standards governing armed conflict in large measure because it saw those
standards as embodying the values and practices of the United States in the face of the emerging Cold War threat from the eastern bloc. In other cases, the Senate,
and Congress more generally, resisted treaties they believed limited U.S. freedom of action in foreign affairs and war powers. Most notably, the
Senate has
leveraged the advice and consent process to compel Executive commitment to implement treaty
obligations consistent with Senate will , and at times to even assert pressure on the President in relation to matters in no way connected to the
treaty. The ratification struggle over the CWC illustrates both of these Senate practices, resulting in presidential concessions that were arguably inconsistent with the
object and purpose of the treaty. Limitations
imposed by the U.S. federalist system of government are also now
impacting the nations implementation of LOAC treaty obligations. The Bond case demonstrates that
individual citizens will have standing to contest the validity of implementing legislation or perhaps self-
executing treaties in circumscribing their behavior in areas traditionally reserved to the states . Regardless,
although not resolving Justice Holmes invisible radiations from the Tenth Amendment, Bond establishes that implementing legislation will not be interpreted to
interfere with the traditional division of law enforcement authority between federal and state governments absent a clear statement from Congress of that intent.
Given the central concern of the Framers during the drafting of the Constitution over the states
interference with the fulfillment of national treaty obligations, it is ironic that federalism may still have
an impact on such an important function of the federal government in the twenty-first century . Ultimately,
while it is true that war is a challenge to law,277 it
remains an open question whether it is the law, or war itself, that must
adjust. Leveraging the nations military power to advance vital national security interests while
advancing the regulation of hostilities through the treaty power will, as it has in the past, impose
pressures on the three branches of the U.S. government and on our federal system itself. Their actions
in response will provide a lens into how treaties and i nternational law itself will operate in U.S.
practice in the future.

The plan shifts to a constitutional model that favors federalism concerns over the
treaty power
Powell 1 (Catherine Powell, Associate Clinical Professor of Law, Columbia Law School, Executive
Director, Human Rights Institute, J.D., Yale Law School, M.P.A., Woodrow Wilson School in Public and
International Affairs, Princeton University, B.A., Yale University, Dialogic Federalism: Constitutional
Possibilities for Incorporation of Human Rights Law in the United States, University of Pennsylvania Law
Review, November 2001, 150 U. Pa. L. Rev. 245-295 (2001),
http://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3254&context=penn_law_review)
While the U.S. Constitution assigns the power to make and adopt treaties to the federal government,
several state and local governments have "adopted" human rights treaties and other international norms ,
often in response to constituent pressures that are more effectively mobilized at the subnational level . For example, in the absence of federal

ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), San Francisco has
incorporated "principles of CEDAW" into binding local law . In the death penalty context, where the federal government has not yet
opted to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR) , aimed at the
abolition of the death penalty, a handful of cities have urged their states, and in some cases the federal government, to support a moratorium, relying on the United

Nations Commission on Human Rights' call for such a moratorium. What are the constitutional implications of this and other moves to
bypass the federal government in incorporating and enforcing international human rights ? Discussions about
the allocation of authority between federal and subfederal systems in the implementation of international human rights law typically proceed by staking out one of

two initial positions At one end of the spectrum, a traditional constitutional theory takes a restrictive view of
state and local authority, envisioning hierarchical imposition of federally implemented international law
norms through the federal treaty power " and determination of customary international law ' 9 by federal courts.'0
At the other end of the spectrum, a revisionist theory assumes greater fragmentation and authority
reserved to the states based on federalism and separation of powers limits on federal authority ." "These
divergent images capture different moments of political promise and despair, at times focused on the immense power of the national project, and other times
appreciating the vitality and durability of forms of governance that, without . . . great resources, continue to have social and political force."12 Under
both
models, one system -either federal or sub-federal has a predominant voice in deciding when and how
international human rights law is implemented . Such either/or approaches seek to avoid the conflict and
indeterminacy created when the distribution of constitutional authority is uncertain .13 At the
traditional/hierarchical end of the spectrum, the conflict is interference with the ability of the nation to
speak with "one voice" in foreign affairs, 4 posed by "divergent and perhaps parochial state
interpretations" of international law.' 5 At the revisionist/fragmentation end, the conflict , at its core, is
interference with states' rights by federal courts (without authorization to do so by the federal political branches) and by the political
branches (particularly Congress, when it exercises the treaty power to legislate in areas beyond those
specifically conferred in the U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 8).' While the two paradigms described here are idealized and oversimplify
the subtlety and hybridity within these paradigms, in fact much
of the scholarship on federalism and human rights law in the
United States loosely tracks one or the other of these two models , if not always in its purest form.

Specifically, expanding state court jurisdiction to interpret and apply treaties results in
Status-of-Forces Agreement breaches and collapses NATO cohesion and LOAC
compliance
Brenner-Beck 14 (Dru Brenner-Beck, Lieutenant Colonel (Retired), U.S. Army Judge Advocate
Generals Corps, formerly served as Deputy Legal Counsel, U.S. Armys Office of the Inspector General
and Chief, Military and Civil Law, U.S. Army Europe, former law clerk to the Honorable Carlos F. Lucero,
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and legal consultant on international law matters, President
of the National Institute of Military Justice, Federalism and the Treaty Power: Breaking the Bond(S)
Between Nations: The Treaty Power and Status of Forces Agreements, American University National
Security Law Brief, 5(1), 9-4-2014, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2491979
*bracket edited for gendered language)
B. Visiting Forces, Status Agreements, and the Usurpation of State Criminal Jurisdiction? The Bond case raises potentially significant federalism concerns in relation to
treaties regulating the means of warfare. However, a much more direct and potentially disruptive effect on the balance between federal and state authorities in our
Constitutional structure is produced by a different category of treaty related to military affairs: status of forces agreements (SOFAs). Because the numbers of foreign
soldiers present in the United States are relatively few in comparison to the numbers of U.S. soldiers overseas, the effect of these agreements on the federal-state
division of power has been infrequent Nonetheless, SOFAs offer an important illustration of the intersection of treaty power and federalism concerns, and how
Bonds clear statement rule could genuinely frustrate the nations ability to advance its national security interests by reciprocally protecting allied forces from
assertions of a states criminal power. The United States hosts over 7000 military students from over 136 nations at 150 schools or installations nationwide under its
International Military Education and Training (IMET) program.144 Additionally, at least two German units are permanently stationed in the United States at Fort Bliss
in Texas and at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico.145 Thus, there are significant numbers of foreign NATO forces and family members as well as significant
numbers of non-NATO military personnel engaged in international exchanges present in the United States present at any given time. Although relatively small in
number compared with the number of U.S. forces and associated personnel residing overseas, these foreign forces and their families are involved in the same
proportion of crimes and accidents as any other inhabitant of the United States.146 With a far-flung military presence in dozens of
foreign nations, the United States currently has over 100 international SOFA type agreements that address
the status of military forces.147 These agreements can be bi-lateral, multi-lateral, reciprocal or non-reciprocal. With the exception of the multi-lateral
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) SOFA- the only SOFA that is a treaty148- most SOFAs take the form of executive agreements,

some of which are concluded on the basis of authority contained in a treaty, while others are based on
other congressional authority, and still others, more loosely associated with other defense agreements
or based on exclusive executive authority.149 Because the domestic legal effect of the alternatives to formal Article II, section 2 treaties is far
from settled, the form of the SOFA can be critical is assessing its federalism impact. Although treaties clearly operate as the supreme law of the land under the
Constitutions Supremacy Clause, the effect of a SOFA concluded by executive agreement would not necessarily have the same domestic force and effect.
Accordingly, any interference with a state criminal prosecution arising from operation of a SOFA, particularly the
typical executive agreement type SOFA, could very easily trigger federalism concerns and state initiated challenge to

the effect of the agreement. Because the NATO SOFA jurisdictional framework is considered a
benchmark and model for all other SOFA type agreements, examination of its criminal jurisdiction
provisions is critical to understanding the potential impact of SOFAs on federalism .150 Article VII of the NATO
SOFA151 grants exclusive criminal jurisdiction where only the laws of one state are broken;152 in all other cases the NATO SOFA grants concurrent jurisdiction to
both the sending and receiving state. In other words, if a service-member covered by the SOFA commits an act that violates the law of only one state, that state has
exclusive jurisdiction. But in the much more common situation where the conduct violates the laws of both the sending and receiving state, jurisdiction is
concurrent. Within this category of concurrent jurisdiction, the SOFA allocates the primary right to exercise jurisdiction to the sending state for acts or omissions
arising from the performance of official duties or for inter se cases where both the accused and the victim are members of the sending state.153 The receiving
state is granted primary jurisdiction in all other cases. In cases of concurrent jurisdiction, either state may cede their right of primary jurisdiction to the other. This
jurisdictional allocation creates the potential for interference with U.S. state criminal proceedings in the two
situations of concurrent jurisdiction: - cases arising from official duty and inter se cases.154 In both these situations, the foreign sending State would have the
primary right to exercise jurisdiction, a right granted by an international agreement with the United States. This means the
United States would be
obligated to allow the sending state to assert jurisdiction and would preclude the assertion of U.S.
jurisdiction absent a waiver by the sending state. But what exactly is U.S. jurisdiction in such a context? Does such a SOFA foreclose the assertion of jurisdiction
by only the federal government? Or does the agreement prohibit the state from asserting jurisdiction for a crime that occurs in its territory whenever the sending
state chooses to assert its primacy under the SOFA? Considering that most criminal law in the United States is administered primarily by the states, this is a
profoundly significant question, and for the NATO SOFA treaty was one explicitly considered by the Senate. Examples of cases where the
sending state has the primary right of jurisdiction highlight the tensions that can emerge between state
and federal authorities when compliance with an international treaty or international agreement is at
stake. Two hypothetical examples involving the German forces stationed in Texas and New Mexico illustrate the potential for federalism concerns produced by the
NATO SOFA.155 First, recall that the SOFA grants the sending state primary jurisdiction for official duty offenses. If an on-duty German military member kills an
American citizen as the result of an automobile accident while driving an official German military vehicle offpost,156 the State of New Mexico or Texas would
ordinarily have jurisdiction to charge the German driver with vehicular homicide or other applicable criminal offense. However, because the alleged criminal act
occurred while the soldier was in an official-duty status, the German government (as the sending State) would have a treaty-based right to assert primary jurisdiction
for this offense.157 In the second type of case, a foreign military member might commit spouse or child abuse in the familys off-post residence. Assuming both the
victim and the accused in this hypothetical are German citizens present in the United States under the provisions of the SOFA, this is an inter se case, and again,
under Article VII Germany would have primary jurisdiction.158 It is easy to comprehend the sensitivities of local prosecutors and courts in cases involving these and
other types of criminal misconduct committed in their jurisdictions.159 Nevertheless, a local court would be expected to analyze the provisions of the SOFA to
determine the treatyimposed limitations on the exercise of its own jurisdiction, and in these cases, forego prosecution or dismiss160 charges absent a German

waiver of the right to exercise primary jurisdiction. If, however, the


local court refused to defer to the German assertion of
primary jurisdiction - the outcome mandated by Article VII of the NATO SOFA - the state through the decision of the local prosecutor
or state judge, would effectively force the U nited S tates to breach its international obligations . Interestingly, the
Senate appears to have contemplated these type of conflicts when it considered the NATO SOFA during ratification hearings. In order to illustrate the potential
interference with states rights, the Senate explicitly discussed the impact of the NATO SOFA jurisdictional sharing provisions on a
hypothetical foreign soldier in the United States involved in an automobile accident while on official duty resulting in injury or fatality to a U.S. citizen. The Senate
fully understood that if ratified, Article VII161 would
alter state criminal law under the Supremacy Clause, and further, it
would regularly fall to the state courts to implement NATO SOFA obligations. Thus, the Senate envisioned a local court
determining its own jurisdiction under the SOFA and the Supremacy Clause and dismissing any case in which the SOFA granted the primary right of prosecution to
the foreign sending state. It is therefore clear the Senate understood the seriousness of this potential interference with U.S. state criminal
jurisdiction. However, it also understood that permitting this interference was necessary to protect U.S. forces
abroad from the plenary territorial sovereignty of allied receiving states, a trade-off certainly influenced by the expectation that U.S. forces would be affected by
the SOFA far more frequently than allied forces in the United States.162 In its hearings on the NATO SOFA the Senate expressed the

understanding that state courts would comply with the Constitutions Supremacy Clause and properly
limit their own jurisdiction to try the foreign military member in accordance with the SOFAs provisions .
Furthermore, because the Senate considered the provisions of the NATO SOFA to be self-executing, Congress never passed explicit implementing laws that would
allow the federal government to compel dismissal of the state criminal proceeding if it believed the state court did not properly interpret the SOFA provisions.163

Indeed, in its hearings the Senate recognized that there was no real federal remedy if the local state criminal
court improperly determined that it had jurisdiction over a visiting force member when the foreign
sending state disagreed. Instead, such disparate interpretations of the SOFAs concurrent jurisdiction provision would be left to the realm of
international negotiation.164 Such an unresolved breach could easily lead to retaliatory action by our NATO

allies , affecting U.S. military members and their families overseas, but also the integrity of the defense alliance itself . This is
especially true in our modern era, when unlike the height of the Cold War, foreign hosts of U.S. forces
often perceive the U.S. military presence to be of less interest to their own security than to that of the
U.S. Accordingly, enforcement of the NATO SOFA, and other analogous status agreements, is functionally
dependent on a state court recognition and application of the SOFAs allocation of concurrent
jurisdiction- recognition ostensibly mandated by the Supremacy Clause for treaties , and from the federal
government perspective, hopefully for executive agreements as well. This enforcement is well within a state courts

capabilities. However, should a court prove obdurate or a local prosecutor unconvinced of the
importance of these SOFA provisions when weighed against local sovereignty and the interests of the
local community, it would prove difficult to enforce compliance with these treaty provisions . Ironically, this was a
problem the Founders certainly appreciated, as compliance with Treaty obligations was a driving reason for the failure of the Confederation.165 Nonetheless,

because they remove state criminal jurisdiction where the sending state has primary jurisdiction,
SOFAs affect a traditional and core area of state sovereignty in the most fundamental way . Still, given that the
Senate consented to the NATO SOFA Treaty as it was rejecting Senator Brickers proposed constitutional amendment to overturn Missouri v. Holland, which explicitly
permitted interference with traditional state prerogatives under the treaty power, any state failure to comply with the NATO SOFAs jurisdictional provisions would be
particularly ironic. Bond, as resolved by the Supreme Court, only defers resolution of the extent of the invisible radiations arising from the Tenth Amendment on
treaty-implementing legislation, and does not address what limitations, if any, exist when, as directly contemplated by the Founders, the treaty is self-executing.166
other soFas: executive & congressional-executive agreements While the NATO SOFA is the sole SOFA concluded as a treaty, the
United States is currently
party to over 100 agreements that may be considered SOFAs .167 These agreements can be bi-lateral,
multi-lateral, reciprocal or non-reciprocal, and most SOFAs take the form of executive agreements .168 The
form of the SOFA agreement can arguably impact its domestic legal consequences. If the President is authorized by Congress to negotiate and conclude international
agreements on particular subjects, or if the agreement is approved by a joint resolution of Congress, these Congressional-Executive
agreements have been considered the equivalent of a treaty .169 Although treaties clearly operate as the supreme law of the land
under the Constitutions Supremacy Clause, the domestic effect of a SOFA concluded by congressional-executive

agreement could arguably be subject to Bonds clear indication rule before it could affect the traditional division of law
enforcement authority between federal and state governments . Although most SOFA agreements have been
entered into as part of an overall mutual or bi-lateral defense or security agreements, only the NATO SOFA and the Partnership for Peace (PfP) SOFA are

reciprocal, posing federalism concerns in their enforcement . As part of post-Cold War diplomacy, the PfP Agreement authorized
the establishment of bilateral agreements between NATO and individual Euro-Atlantic partner countries, usually former Warsaw pact countries, to encourage their
democratization and integration with Europe and NATO.170 The PfP applies most of the provisions of the NATO SOFA bilaterally between signatory states of the PfP
and NATO member nations.171 In 1994, Congress authorized the President to apply the provisions of the reciprocal NATO SOFA to PfP nations by entering into
executive agreements to that effect.172 As of 2012, an additional 24 counties are subject to the NATO SOFA through implementation of the PfP Agreement through
executive agreement, with the NATO SOFA implemented by a treaty, and the PfP SOFA by a congressional-executive agreement. Between
the NATO
SOFA and the PfP SOFA, the U.S. has common reciprocal SOFA arrangements with approximately 58
countries, amounting to over half the SOFA arrangements currently in place .173 Just as the Supreme Court did not
discuss the effects of its requirement for a clear indication that Congress sought to change the traditional balance of criminal authority, it also did not discuss
whether and how such a clear indication would be shown when the source of the change was a congressional-executive agreement, such as the PfP SOFA
agreements. The
Senate in considering the NATO SOFA did understand, and accept, the effect of the SOFAs
criminal jurisdiction provisions on traditional state criminal jurisdiction . While Congress clearly authorized the President to
enter into these reciprocal PfP SOFA arrangements, and because the underlying PfP agreement requires direct application of the NATO SOFA provisions to these new
countries,174 they should have equal domestic effect. Nevertheless, just as the effect of the Bond decision on self-executing treaties is unknown, so too will be its
effect on a reciprocal SOFA entered into as a congressional-executive agreement. Here, it is clear that reciprocity
was authorized by Congress
in the context of extending the NATO SOFA protections to PfP nations. Presumably, Congress in
extending these provisions did so with the knowledge that the NATO SOFA itself was a self-executing
treaty, and applied directly to affect state criminal jurisdiction . Such common sense evaluation of the statutory effect, however,
may not be the sort of clear indication mandated by the Supreme Court in Bond. Conclusion Limitations imposed on federal power

pursuant to the U.S. federalist system of government are central to our democracy. However the exercise
of the national treaty power , and the implementation of these agreements, have historically been
immune from these limitations . This may no longer be the case as federalism concerns are now impacting
the nations implementation of core LOAC treaty obligations . The Bond case demonstrates that individual citizens
will have standing to contest the validity of implementing legislation or perhaps self-executing treaties in
circumscribing their behavior in areas traditionally reserved to the states . Although not resolving Justice Holmes invisible
radiations from the Tenth Amendment, Bond establishes that implementing legislation will not be interpreted to interfere with the traditional division of law
enforcement authority between Federal and State governments absent a clear indication from Congress of that intent. Lurking
in the background
are SOFA treaties, treaties that reflect fundamental foreign policy , war powers , and national security
decisions of the nation, but that similarly implicate the core of traditional states areas of responsibility
in our federal system. Given the central concern of the Founders during the drafting of the Constitution over the States interference with the fulfillment
of national treaty obligations, it is particularly ironic that federalism may still have an impact on such an important function of the federal government in the 21st
Century. Awareness of the periodic ebbs and flows of the relationship between the nations treaty powers and federalism, against the backdrop of our nations
history, indicate that Congress and the President should directly address the federalism concerns extant in relation to adoption of treaties and other international
agreements. The current position of the Supreme Court reflects these historic divides. Just as our Founders wrestled with the creation of unified nation capable of

acting on the world stage as a legitimate member of the family of nations, the Court should carefully consider rulings, which in the
name of federalism , emasculate [ weaken ] the nation as a responsible international actor and compromise
its vital national security interests . In spite of Justice Holmes resolution of questions related to the scope of the treaty power framed by the
outcome of the Civil War, and President Eisenhower by the rejection of Senator Brickers proposed constitutional amendments, Bond seems to have only
exacerbated federalism uncertainty. The
political branches must take up the mantle and provide much clearer statements of their
expectation that treaties and international agreements, especially those related to status of visiting
forces, trump states rights.

Extinction
Farmer 15 (Ben Farmer, Defense Correspondent at The Daily Telegraph, citing General Sir Adrian
Bradshaw, Deputy Commander of NATO Forces in Europe, and former Director of British Special Forces,
and Michael Fallon, Secretary of State for Defence, member of the National Security Council, and
Member of Parliament, United Kingdom and Great Britain and Northern Ireland, NATO general: Russia
tensions could escalate into all-out war, Business Insider, 2-20-2015,
http://www.businessinsider.com/nato-general-russia-tensions-could-escalate-to-war-2015-2)
Tensions with Russia could blow up into all-out conflict , posing an existential threat to our whole being,
Britains top general in Nato has warned . Gen Sir Adrian Bradshaw, deputy commander of Nato forces in
Europe, said there was a danger Vladimir Putin could try to use his armies to invade and seize Nato territory, after
calculating the alliance would be too afraid of escalating violence to respond. His comments follow a clash between
London and Moscow after
the Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, said there was a "real and present danger " Mr
Putin could try to destabilize the Baltic states with a campaign of subversion and irregular warfare . The
Kremlin called those comments absolutely unacceptable". Sir Adrian told the Royal United Services Institute there was a danger such a campaign of undercover

attacks couldparalyze Nato decision making, as members disagreed over how much Russia was responsible, and how to
respond. Nato commanders fear a campaign of skilfully disguised, irregular military action by Russia , which is

carefully designed not to trigger the alliance's mutual defence pact . He said the "resulting ambiguity" would
make "collective decisions relating to the appropriate responses more difficult". But Sir Adrian, one of the
most senior generals in the British Army and a former director of special forces , went further and said there
was also danger that Russia could use conventional forces and Soviet-era brinkmanship to seize Nato
territory. He said Russia had shown last year it could generate large conventional forces at short notice for
snap exercises along its borders. There was a danger these could be used not only for intimidation and
coercion but potentially to seize Nato territory, after which the threat of escalation might be used to
prevent re-establishment of territorial integrity. This use of so called escalation dominance was of course a
classic Soviet technique. He went on to say that the threat from Russia, together with the risk it brings of a
miscalculation resulting in a strategic conflict , however unlikely we see it as being right now, represents
an existential threat to our whole being. Nato has agreed to set up a rapid reaction force of around 5,000 troops ready to
move at 48 hours notice, in case of Russian aggression in Eastern Europe . Supplies, equipment and ammunition will be stockpiled in bases

in the region. Alliance leaders hope the force will deter any incursion . David Cameron warned Vladimir Putin there will be more
sanctions and "more consequences" for Russia if the ceasefire in Ukraine does not hold. The Prime Minister vowed that the West would be "staunch" in its response
to Russia and was prepared to maintain pressure on Moscow "for the long term". He rejected the findings of a scathing parliamentary committee report that the UK
found itself "sleep-walking" into the crisis over Ukraine. The EU Committee of the House of Lords found there had been a "catastrophic misreading" of mood by

European diplomats in the run-up to the crisis. Earlier this week, Mr Fallon said the Russian president might try to test Natos
resolve with the same Kremlin-backed subversion used in Crimea and eastern Ukraine . A murky
campaign of infiltration, propaganda, undercover forces and cyber attack such as that used in the early
stages of the Ukraine conflict could be used to inflame ethnic tensions in Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia , he
said. The military alliance must be prepared to repel Russian aggression whatever form it takes, Mr Fallon
said, as he warned that tensions between the two were warming up. His comments were dismissed in Moscow. Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman said the
country does not pose a threat to Baltic countries and accused Mr Fallon of going beyond diplomatic ethics . Alexander Lukashevich said: "His absolutely
unacceptable characteristics of the Russian Federation remind me of last year's speech of US president Barack Obama before the UN general assembly, in which he
mentioned Russia among the three most serious challenges his country was facing. "I believe we will find a way to react to Mr Secretary's statements."
1nc judicial budgets

Courts are efectively lobbying state governments now for budgetary relief inter-
branch relations are key
Hartley & English 14 (Roger E. Hartley, professor and director of the masters of public affairs
program in the Department of Political Science and Public Affairs at Western Carolina University, and
Melissa L. English, assistant professor of business law at Western Carolina University, former civil
litigator, J.D. University of Arizona, The State of State Courts: Efforts to Improve Interbranch Relations in
the Wake of Perceptions of Crisis, The Council of State Governments, The Book of the States 2014, 10-
15-2014, http://knowledgecenter.csg.org/kc/content/state-state-courts-efforts-improve-interbranch-
relations-wake-perceptions-crisis)
Efforts to Improve Intergovernmental Relations In the past five years, a renewed focus has been placed on improving the
judiciarys intergovernmental relationships and crafting strategies that will help courts negotiate the
rough-and-tumble of the political process . Court officials at the highest levels , public legal organizations
such as the National Center for State Courts and the American Bar Association, political scientists and
legal scholars have shared this focus. The result has been the identification of important opportunities
for the judiciary to improve intergovernmental relationships , and the development of innovative
programs to develop the opportunities and capacity for courts to advocate within the political process .
One opportunity that has been identified is for court leaders to build collegial relationships with the other branches so

the members of those branches understand the role of courts, their importance to the legal system and
their needs. In 2009, the American Bar Associations Presidential Commission on Fair and Impartial State Courts and the National Center for State Courts
sponsored a national summit in Charlotte, N.C., entitled Justice is the Business of Government: The Critical Role of Fair and Impartial State Courts.23 The summit
included 300 attendees and delegations for each branch of government from 37 states. It focused on the need to improve relations among the branches and
concluded that court leadership needed to become more assertive about the needs of courts. Among the conclusions of the summit was for each delegation to
create local plans for regularized communication with the other branches of government with specific attention to legislation with an impact on courts.24 The 2013
annual meeting of the Conference of Chief Justices and Conference of State Court Administrators in Burlington, Vermont, had a similar focus: Collaborative Justice:
Interbranch Relations in the New Century. This meeting was notable for including representatives from the National Governors Association and the National
Conference of State Legislatures. The Justices and court administrators spent significant time discussing how to improve lobbying efforts with other branches. Among
the findings were that judicial leaders needed to create and maintain personal relationships with legislative and executive leaders.25 The attendees established a
framework for an institutionalized meeting structure where regular interbranch communication can occur and committed to build national partnerships with the
National Governors Association and National Conference of State Legislatures to work on policy agendas and research of interest to all three branches.26 Courts

also recognize the necessity of internal and external reforms to increase the courts capacity to lobby
while also closing avenues for reprisal . In the context of budget politics , external reforms include
constitutional amendments to allow direct submission of the budget to state legislators, legislative
efforts to free courts of restrictive budget line items and institutional changes inside courts that would
build better strategic lobbying efforts .27 Internally, courts can improve capacity for political engagement by devoting more resources to
intergovernmental relations staff and building internal lobbying processes that persist across budget cycles.28 Unfortunately, no research examining the amount of
money and staff courts devote to their intergovernmental relations work has been conducted. Other scholars have noted the importance of improving tactics and
effective messaging. For example, Jeremy Buchman, Associate Professor of Political Science at Long Island University, has documented how the U.S. Supreme Court
successfully lobbied for the Judiciary Act of 1925. The Act sought to reduce the U.S. Supreme Courts caseload by expanding the Courts discretionary jurisdiction and
forcing more parties to seek review by writ of certiorari. The U.S. Supreme Court used improvement of court efficiency as a means to persuade lawmakers.29
Research also documents strategy and successful efforts where federal court officials worked with the other branches to build judicial institutions over time and the
lobbying work of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.30 For example, court officials at the federal level successfully lobbied for the Judiciary Act of
1891 that created the United States Circuit Court of Appeals and in 1939 Congress created the Administrative Office of the United States Courts. In
states, a
host of reforms have been created in partnership with state legislatures and governors like court
unification of administration efforts, changes to judicial selection methods, and support of specialized
courts.31 Judicial leadership and tenure also have been identified as being important to improving interbranch relationships. Effective leadership is
important to build better relations with the other branches and to form partnerships . Rather arbitrary selection
methods, limits on the tenure of court leadersin Alabama, for example, presiding circuit judges are limited to three-year termsor mandatory rotation of judicial
positions and benches may fracture important networks once they are formed. For example, chief judges of the circuit and district courts are the most senior judge
in the federal court system. They may serve a seven year term or until the age of 70.32 An alternative to short rotations of judicial leaders is longer terms with
attention to judges with court leadership skills, providing mentoring and grooming them for succession into leadership, and giving them the opportunity to serve
longer or multiple terms. Courts also might create partnerships with outside organizations to help advance causes of importance to courts. Courts in Tennessee, for
example, have created partnerships with executive branch agencies that are participants in the court system, including the prosecution and public defense bars.33

Partnerships like these allow courts to have allies that might raise the salience of court issues and needs
that would otherwise be ignored when the branch goes into the political process alone . In Washington state, the
courts helped organize the Justice in Jeopardy Commission, which included representatives from business, the bar, the legislature and others to lobby on behalf of
court funding increases.34 Conclusion Indiana Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard wrote the following about the need for effective court leadership on societal problems
and interbranch relations: A member of the judicial family is called upon to play roles that are not strictly a part of the classic adjudicative function, but reflect
instead the exercise of leadership in other ways, like lending a part of the credibility the judicial branch acquires over time to a very important undertaking that

society needs.35 The crisis in court funding and efforts to alter the powers of courts call attention to
importance of the courts intergovernmental relationships and how, without efective and
competitive advocacy, court needs get lost in the rough and tumble of the political process . While courts and
allied organizations have a renewed focus on the importance of intergovernmental relations, the effectiveness of emerging strategies and best practices still need
evaluation. In addition, more scholarly research is needed to continue to identify effective strategies for courts to improve their capacity and ability to lobby other
branches, their tactics and how these strategies compare to those of the executive agencies with whom courts compete.

The plan sours state inter-branch relations generates massive controversy

Controversial rulings sour inter-branch relations and trade of with eforts to secure
funding
Amestoy 14 (Jeff Amestoy, former Chief Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, former Attorney
General of Vermont, Fellow at the Center for Public Leadership, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
University, The Politics of Restraint: State Judicial Leadership in the 21 st Century, Perspectiives on State
Court Leadership Series, 4-30-2014, http://www.ncsc.org/Services-and-Experts/Court-
leadership/Harvard-Executive-Session/~/media/Files/PDF/Services%20and%20Experts/Harvard
%20Executive%20Session/Politics-of-Restraint.ashx)
In an age of political excess, restraint is little valued as a source of political authority. By
training, temperament, and judicial function,
state court leaders rightly conceive restraint as a virtue essential to the branchs legitimacy . But restraint
can provide state judicial leaders the standing to exercise the necessary political dimension of their
leadership . The restrained and prudent use of judicial branch authority maximizes the capacity of state judicial leaders to
exercise their broader responsibility as leaders of a democratic society. The affirmative rights that typify many state constitutions (e.g., the right
to privacy, the right to adequate education) often compel judicial decisions that prompt public, legislative, and executive branch responses.4 The structure of state
constitutional law provides legitimate roles for the public, legislature, and executive in responding to judicial opinions.5 State constitutional amendments prompted
by citizen initiative petitions or a states legislative process are often a part of the constitutional discourse. Effective state judicial leadership recognizes that judicial
authority is not ultimate authority. The
politics of restraint cautions judicial leaders to be equally alert to nuances of
political engagement in judicial advocacy of programs and appropriations . Every state judicial leader engaged in the
challenges confronted by American society understands the inherent tension between the judicial responsibility to decide cases and the desire to alter the social

conditions that give rise to those cases. Problem


solving courts, of which drug courts, mental health courts, and
fathering courts are but three examples, represent responses of state judicial leaders to the
understandable desire to confront the fierce urgency of now. 6 Yet such initiativeswhich require interaction with
legislators and other stakeholdersmust be accompanied by a nuanced calculation of both the cost of that political
engagement and the risk of compromising the distinct status of the judiciary as impartial
adjudicators .7 Restraint provides a value for state judicial leaders who are compelled to navigate the
currents of interbranch relations . If judicial independence is to be found in the freedom to design the
architecture of ones own restraint, state judicial leaders must be particularly attuned to how they
expend political capital in building the architecture. For example, a state judicial leadership initiative that
seeks to marshal legislative support for judicial appropriations by enlisting the lobbying power of the business community
could raise questions of its potential effect on the judiciarys reputation for decisional independence. A
judicial independence, historically rooted in the capacity to produce case decisions free from influence, cautions restraint in utilizing a
state judicial leaders political capital for protecting funding when it may be needed to preserve
decisional independence .8

Failure to mitigate court budget crisis slows economic growth and collapses rule of law
reverse causal prefer quantitative studies
Magnuson, et al 14 (Eric J. Magnuson, Partner at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P., Vice Chair of
DRIs Judicial Task Force, former Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, has more than 35 years
of experience practicing law; Steven M. Puiszis, Partner and Deputy General Counsel of Hinshaw &
Culbertson LLP, Secretary Treasurer of DRI, a member of its Board of Directors and former Chair of DRIs
Judicial Task Force, former President of the Illinois Association of Defense Trial Counsel; Lisa M.
Agrimonti, Shareholder at Briggs and Morgan, Professional Association, currently pursuing Doctorate of
Business Administration; and Nicole S. Frank, Associate at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P.; The
Economics of Justice, DRI, 2014, http://www.dri.org/DRI/webdocs/news/2014%20Economics%20of
%20Justice.pdf *bracket edited for ablest language)
Executive Summary In 1776, Thomas Jefferson decried that the king has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount
and payment of their salaries. For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury. (Declaration of Independence, 1776).1 While Jefferson and the other
Framers provided for an independent federal judiciary in the Constitution, no effective way has been found to address the occasional choke hold that the executive
and legislative branches exert on the federal and state judiciaries through control of the purse strings. The
reality is that the third and co-equal
branch has been reduced to a supplicant in search of funding from the two other branches of government. It does not
bode well for democracy when access to the justice system can be held hostage to political debate and
often loses out to the competing policies of the moment . While much has been made of the political/philosophical ramifications of
this regrettable reality and its effect on the timely administration of justice, little debate has turned on a more practical reality. That is, the economic effects of a
woefully underfunded judiciary on local economies or inversely the economic benefits of a fully funded judiciary on those local economies. That exploration is the
purpose of this paper. Citizens turn to our state courts when their lives are in crisis. But after
years of underfunding, many state courts
are unable to timely deliver the justice our citizens seek, and to which they are entitled. The business community also relies
on a functioning court system to efficiently resolve their disputes . Budget cuts in many states, however, have
required court systems to lay off staff, reduce court hours, close or consolidate courts in some instances, and give priority to
criminal cases that require speedy trial rules. This has resulted in significant delays in resolving civil cases in jurisdictions where

court funding has been cut. Delayed resolution through lack of judicial funding inflicts widespread economic harm.

Because of uncertainty in the outcome of a pending trial or even a trial date, for that matter, businesses are reluctant to add
employees, expand product lines, or invest in capital equipment all of which affects the vitality of the
local economy. From an economic analysis, underfunded courts have a profound negative impact on the state
economies they serve. Multiple economic studies independently demonstrate that the savings achieved
through funding reductions to a state-court system are exceeded by lost tax revenues and other harmful
economic impacts to a states economy. State court systems take up a minute percentage of a states overall budget, typically from less than
one percent to three percent. Thus, the overall savings resulting from cuts to a states judicial branch are relatively small. Because of the courts structural
composition, however, the vast majority of a state courts budget, sometimes as high as 96 percent,2 is consumed by the salaries of judges, clerks, court staff, and
probation officers. Cuts to the judicial branch often result in disproportionate job losses, diminished tax revenues, and increased unemployment benefits. The
relatively small savings achieved by cuts to a states judicial branch are outweighed by direct loss of revenues. Moreover, these
budget cuts indirectly
create additional social and economic problems for the state and local governments . At a time when scarce
resources need to be carefully managed, the relatively small investment needed to ensure adequate funding of our

state courtsa fraction of a penny for each tax dollarcan be made with no significant impact on the other needs of
state and federal government . In short, adequate court funding is a smart use of the publics resources. Today however, this issue
flies under the radar of the public, and in many instances is ignored by the leaders of other branches of
state government. A 2013 national poll conducted by the DRI Center for Law and Public Policy on our civil justice system revealed that only 40 percent of
those polled felt that our state courts were underfunded. (DRI National Poll on the Civil Justice System, 2013). A similar percentage expressed the view that state
courts were adequately funded, while another 20 percent of those polled had no opinion on the issue. (Id.) The
sad reality facing America is
that many of our state court systems are so poorly funded that they are at a tipping point of
dysfunction . We hope that this whitepaper will help to educate both the public and leaders of state and local governments that many of our state-
court systems are woefully underfunded to the extent that justice may end up being rationed . Our state
courts impact the lives of virtually every citizen in America . They are not simply another governmental agency with projects that
can be pushed into the next fiscal year. As Chief Justice Roberts explained in his 2013 Year-End Report: The impact of the sequester was more

significant on the courts than elsewhere in the government, because virtually all of their core functions
are constitutionally and statutorily required. Unlike Executive Branch agencies, the courts do not have discretionary
programs they can eliminate or postpone in response to budget cuts . The courts must resolve all criminal, civil, and
bankruptcy cases that fall within their jurisdiction, often under tight time constraints. (Roberts, 2013). It is not an understatement to say that

American democracy is built on our court systems . To protect our democracy and contribute to the well-
being of local economies, it is critical that our courts remain independent and adequately funded . Thus, this
whitepaper will document the evidence that our court systems are woefully underfunded; explore the impact of underfunded courts on American society; and
explain the urgent need for both the public and governmental leaders to recognize the value of a fully funded justice system, and restore adequate funding to the
judicial branch. The First Purpose of Government: Upholding the Rule of Law No
matter how fair a law may be, if it cannot be
enforced, it becomes meaningless. Our state courts are constitutionally charged with upholding the rule
of law and providing citizens with equal access to justice . The fairness of our laws is rendered
meaningless if our courts lack the necessary resources to enforce them. The essence of American democracy is premised
on a clear separation of powers between the judicial, executive and legislative branches of government. Indeed, Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist Papers No. 78
observed, there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive branches. As the Supreme Court has observed: The
Framers of our Government knew that the most precious of liberties could remain secure only if they created a structure of Government based on a permanent
separation of powers. Indeed, the Framers devoted almost the whole of their attention at the Constitutional Convention to the creation of a secure and enduring
structure for the new Government. It remains one of the most vital functions of this Court to police with care the separation of the governing powers. Pub. Citizen v.
United States Dept of Justice, 491 U.S. 440, 468 (1989) (internal citations omitted). A courts mission, as part of an independent branch of government, is to
administer justice equally to all and protect the rights and liberties guaranteed by the state or federal Constitution and laws. Enforcing
the rule of law
requires resources, generally in the form of human capital, which requires adequate funding . However, by
constitutional design, the judiciary is the least dangerous branch of government because it has been granted no influence over either the sword or the purse.
(The Federalist No. 78). Neither the U.S. Constitution, nor state constitutions address the level of funding the judicial branch should receive, nor how the adequacy of
that funding should be determined. Rather, funding is left in each instance to the executive and legislative branches of state government. Thus, state courts
are at the mercy of other branches of government when it comes to funding . (Interview Lippman, 2013). While our
courts are an independent branch of government by constitutional design, [they] are also, in so many ways, interdependent, including with respect to [their]
budget[s].(Id.). Fully Funded vs. Underfunded: A Penny or Less Our
state court systemseven when fully fundeddo not
consume much of a states overall budget. In fact many states fund their courts at less than 1 percent and not a single state in
America spends more than 4 percent of its annual budget on its judiciary. (Gildea & Tews, 2012, p. 10 (quoting Edwin Meese III & Robinson III, William T., 2012)). As
a result: The proportion of state and local budgets represented by even a fully funded court system is quite smallin the range of 1 to 2 percent. (ABA Task Force
on Preservation of the Justice System Rep. (ABA Task Force), 2011; see also DRI, WFOF in 2011 (Despite the broad services provided by our state court systems,
they typically receive only one to three percent of a states budget.)). At the federal level, for each citizens tax dollar, only two-tenths of one penny go toward
funding the entire third branch of government. (Roberts, 2012; see also Hogan, 2010 (same)). Nonetheless, state court systems around the
country are experiencing an underfunding crisis as budget cuts continue. Because the judicial branch
comprises such a small portion of a state governments overall budget, cuts to the judicial branch result
in little savings for state governments, but trigger significant governmental, social, and economic costs .
Notably, underfunding state justice systems also raises serious constitutional issues as underfunded courts struggle to perform their constitutional duties.
Citizens are denied access to the courts and access to justice . In some cases, criminal defendants are denied
their right to a speedy trial, resulting in the dismissal of charges . (Gildea & Tews, 2012 (citing State v. Colbert, No. A10-55, 2011
WL 67785, at *6 (Minn. Ct. App. Jan. 11, 2011) (reversing conviction for speedy trial violation)). More fundamentally, however, the failure of the

executive and legislative branches to adequately fund a state court system poses a significant
constitutional threat to the very structure of American government. To adequately fund our state court
systems requires only a little additional funding , but that modest investment will deliver manifold benefits. National Trend to Underfund
State Courts State courts are the cornerstone to justice in America. Funding cuts to state courts have a

particularly negative impact on our nations legal system because they handle the vast majority of legal
business more than 95 percent of all civil and criminal litigation. (DRI, WFOF in 2011 p. 611 ; see also Interview Lippman,
2013). Despite the important role that state courts play, the trend in judicial funding since 2008, or in some cases, over the last decade, has

been flat or declining nationally. (See Greenberg & McGovern, 2012). For instance, a 2013 Report by the Illinois State Bar Associations Special
Committee on Fair and Impartial Courts illustrates that appropriations to Illinois state courts have declined in inflation-adjusted (2002) dollars by 22 percent.2 (ISBA,
2013). The budget allocation for the judicial branch in Illinois as an overall percentage is now barely one-half of one percent. (ISBA, 2013 at 1). Similarly in Georgia,
the judicial branch comprises a mere 0.89 percent of the states overall budget. (ABA Task Force, 2011, at 3). Professor Irwin Chemerinksy, of the University of
California Irvine School of Law, noted that in 2011, 42 states had cut judicial funding (Chemerinsky, 2011, citing NCSC). He cautioned that the decline in
judicial funding will slowly erode services over time as staff are laid off, or not replaced . The most visible impact of
budget cuts is the reduction of court services. Reduced court services results in delayed or denied justice which leads to a

growing loss of public confidence and trust in our courts. The Sacramento Bee recently reported that the Los Angeles County Court
closed eight court houses and eliminated 511 jobs to address an $85 million deficit. Overall, one in five court jobs was eliminated due to funding shortages (The
Associated Press, Budget cuts lead, 2013).3 The California Trial Courts Presiding Judges Advisory Committee undertook a comprehensive evaluation of the impacts
of those cuts throughout the state through a survey of 1,560 judges and 260 commissioners in 48 counties. (Goode, 2013). Contra Costa County Superior Court
Presiding Judge Barry Goode described cuts in court services ranging from closed court houses to reduced service hours and staff. As a result of reduced service
capacity, the survey also found significant delays and backlogs in processing times for various services including court closures and trial delays. (Id.). Indeed, in recent
years, California has closed 114 courtrooms, 22 courthouses, reduced hours of operation at 30 courts, and had furloughs as long as 58 days. (Robert, 2013). In June
2013, the Los Angeles Superior Court announced its plan to eliminate 511 more positions resulting in 177 people losing their jobs, 139 getting demoted, and an
additional 223 people getting reassigned. (Robert, 2013). As the largest justice system in the nation, the impact of budget shortfalls is quickly identified in California.
But smaller states are suffering as well and beginning to document the adverse impacts. For example, states like Illinois are reporting the impact of cuts over the last
dozen years, which the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts reports has resulted in: delayed or unfilled long-term, non-judicial vacancies; graded positions
filled at the minimum salary; imposed moratorium on merit and performance pay increases; encouraged use of videoconferencing to reduce travel expenses; and
delayed technology purchases and upgrades. (ISBA, 2013). Alabama courts are now closed on Fridays to save costs; Michigan cut as many as 49 judgeships through
retirement and attrition; the Chief Judge of the Supreme Court of Kansas announced a potential need to close all courts for as long as seven weeks; and courts in
Iowa operate with staff levels at 12 percent below the staffing standard. (Voice America Radio Show, 2013). The chart below depicts the debilitating impact of budget
shortfalls on state courts nationwide. (Id.) [GRAPH OMITTED State Court Actions 20092012] As may be expected, these ongoing cuts will
ultimately lead to the significant loss of public confidence in the judiciary as courts do less justice less
well in a less timely fashion. Impacts of an Underfunded Justice System Why Cuts Quickly Injure the Courts Much has been written on the cost of the
American criminal justice system, but the broader economic impacts of funding cuts to the judicial branch have been

overlooked or inadequately documented, making a precise cost-benefit analysis difficult. In todays age of sequestration, budget cuts, and falling government
revenue, no one seriously questions that both federal and state court systems are facing significant economic challenges. (Rutledge & Brandenberg, 2013). The
unique demands and restraints that are placed on our state courts make trimming their budgets difficult. Chief Justice John Roberts noted this challenge in his 2013
Year-End Report when he explained that courts are constitutionally mandated to resolve civil disputes that citizens bring to court as well as the criminal cases filed by
prosecutors, and that prolonged shortfalls in judicial funding will result in the delay or denial of justice for the people the courts serve. (Roberts 2013). Courts

have heavy responsibilities to those they serve and little ability to trim their budgets in a manner that
does not affect capacity to provide those constitutionally mandated services, all during a time when case
filings, especially bankruptcies and foreclosures, are increasing . (Gibbons, 2011 at 3 Overall, the [federal] Judiciarys workload is
at or near record levels in most filing categories.). Courts across the country have responded to the diminished resources

with a remarkable effort to streamline, modernize, and digitize the judicial process . (ABA Task Force, 2011, at 1213)
(discussing the many forms that enhanced use of technology, which courts have taken in recent years to reengineer to process for increased efficiency)).
However, at the end of the day, justice is a human process . Cases need to be decided by judges, and litigants, whether civil or
criminal, deserve to see justice first-hand. Simply put, our
system of justice and our courts depend on public trust and
confidence to function effectively, and when justice becomes remote or unavailable, that trust and
confidence suffers greatly. Just how little room the judiciary has in its budget is underscored by the overwhelming portion of funds that go to human
resources. Personnel expenses constitute the lions share of a states judicial branchs budgetas much as 95 percent in Iowa. (Iowa Judicial Branch, 2010). Because
the judicial branch requires predominantly human resources to function,1 there are limited alternatives to dealing with budget cuts other than reducing staff or
salary. It is understandable why state courts have resorted to closing courthouses on certain days of the week, suspending jury trials, and enduring layoffs, furloughs,
and hiring freezes in the face of budget shortfalls. (Gildea & Tews, 2012). However, each of these actions reduces efficiency of our court systems and increases the
time it takes to resolve disputes. The justice system is more significantly affected by budget cuts when compared to other branches of state government. For
instance, in the 2010 Iowa study, there were at least twenty state agencies that weathered budget cuts without any layoffs. (Iowa Judicial Branch, 2010). However,
the Iowa Judicial Branch laid off more employees, cut more jobs, and required more unpaid leave than most state offices and departments, including the regents.
(Id. (quoting Chief Justice Marsha Ternus of the Iowa Supreme Court). While the judicial branch in Iowa employed only four percent of the entire states government
workforce, Iowas across the board budget cuts resulted in the judicial branch losing nearly half49 percentof all the state government positions that were
trimmed due to that budget cut. (ABA Task Force, 2011, at 5)). Delayed Justice Is Denied Justice: The Human Impact of Underfunded Courts Courts deliver justice to
the citizens of our statestaxpayers and voters. People turn to courts when they are facing some of the most important and challenging times of their liveswhen
they are facing divorce, bankruptcy, seeking protective orders, suing a business partner, enduring home foreclosures, or even defending their own liberty. But

when the judicial branch is underfunded, courts resources shrink and delays increase . As Chief Justice Cantil-
Sakauye noted regarding Californias court system, [w]e face astonishing and harmful delays in urgent family matters, in business contracts, wrongful termination,
discrimination cases, personal injury cases across the board. (Koseff). Delays due to underfunded courts impact the people courts serve in a variety of ways.
Naturally, reduced funding restricts the courts ability to dispose of civil matters in a timely manner. Indeed, not long ago in Sacramento, Judge Steve White told the
New York Times: people are bringing lawn chairs to the court because of the long wait for civil services. (Robinson III, 2011). In Utah, the average age of pending
cases is up 84 days over the past two years. (Micronomics, 2012). Imagine waiting months for a court to finalize an uncontested divorce or resolve a parenting
dispute. In addition to causing delays in civil cases, underfunding the judicial branch triggers other economic and societal issues in the criminal context. Probation is a
low-cost alternative to incarceration, but in many states, the salaries of probation officers are a part of judicial branchs budget. Funding cuts place the jobs of
probation officers on the chopping block, and thereby increase the risk to public safety when fewer officers are available to work with those placed on supervised
release. Additionally, individuals who are ultimately found guilty of a crime, but who can afford bail, remain out of custody for a longer period of time while awaiting
trial as a result of the underfunding of our court systems. By contrast, those
who are innocent, but cannot afford bail are held in
custody longer. These scenarios of delayed justice due to underfunded courts expose social costs and
places public safety at greater risk, in addition to wasted taxpayer dollars reflected in larger jail populations. Court delays are even affecting
lawyers civil litigation strategies. Judges in Los Angeles are discouraging parties from filing demurrers because those motions further delay an action. (Coe, 2013). In
addition, there are other, hidden costs resulting from delayed justice that impair a governments treasury. Because cuts to the judicial branch inevitably result in
layoffs, there is an immediate harm to the local and state economy in the form of lost tax dollars from those workers, and a loss of other economic activity they
would produce. (ABA Task Force, 2011, at 56) ([T]he reduction in state expenditures for properly functioning courts even harms the state treasury itself because
directly lost salaries and indirectly lost business opportunitiesresult in corresponding tax losses). Moreover, delays in civil case dispositions create additional
economic losses because litigants cannot invest or otherwise use their resources as they might if the dispute were resolved. (Id.) In exchange for all these costs,
taxpayers do not receive any benefit, but instead face other adverse economic and societal impacts. Adverse Economic Impacts and Induced Effects of Underfunded
Courts The
irony in cutting the funding to our state-court justice systems is that those attempts to save
money during economic downturns are not only ineffective, but also handicap [depress] the states economy.
A 2012 survey conducted by the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform documents that adverse impact. In that survey, 1,125 general counsel or senior litigators
were asked: How likely would you say it is that the litigation environment in a state could affect an important business decision at your company such as where to
locate or do business? Would you say very likely, somewhat likely, or very unlikely? (U.S. Chamber Institute, 2012, at 6). In response, 70 percent said that a states
litigation environment was either very likely or somewhat likely to affect an important business decision. (Id.) The delays
and other service-related
repercussions from the underfunding crisis translate not only to lower performing economies stemming
from increased litigation costs to existing local business, but also result in the cost of lost opportunities
for further economic development as businesses turn away from states with underfunded justice
systems. Four Studies Quantify Adverse Economic Impact Several studies have independently quantified the impact of
reduced judicial funding on the state and local economy . While taking different approaches in their economic models, these studies
each quantified losses in the hundreds of millions annually to the state economies resulting from the
underfunding of the states court systems. Three studies found significant adverse economic impacts
involving direct, indirect, and induced effects that resulted from reductions in court funding, which in
turn led to longer case processing times. The fourth study focused primarily on a lost investment model
and similarly found significant adverse economic impacts . Two of these studies were authored by the Washington Economics Group,
Inc. (WEG)the first for the Florida Bar in 2009, and the second was for the Georgia State Bar two years later in 2011. Micronomics, Inc. authored the third study,
which evaluated funding cutbacks of the Los Angeles Superior Court in Los Angeles County as well as a fourth evaluation of the Los Angeles County court system
relying in part on information obtained from a survey of 42 states by the National Center for State Courts (Micronomics, 2009). WEGs Studies in Florida and Georgia
The WEG studies examined the total economic impact of reduced funding by examining 1) direct effects on production resulting from increased demand; 2) indirect
effects of the production changes for backward-linked industries caused by the increased demand in the directly impacted industry; and 3) induced effects
representing changes in regional household spending caused by household income generated from the direct and indirect effects (WEG 2009; WEG 2011). In the
2009 Florida Study, WEG noted that funding for Floridas state courts had declined annually since FY 20042005 in terms of inflation adjusted dollars, at the same
time real property/mortgage foreclosures and the states population were on the rise. WEG concluded that the backlog of real property/mortgage foreclosure cases
caused by the underfunding of the Florida court system resulted in a $9.9 billion loss annually to the states economy in direct costs, and an additional $7.2 billion in
indirect and induced costs to the states economy. WEG offered a best practice recommendation that funding be adequate for constitutional responsibilities, stable,
and equitable through the court system (WEG, 2009). In a 2011 Georgia study, WEG reached similar conclusions, but on a smaller scale, basing its economic analysis
on three years of declines in funding and a review of civil and domestic relations cases (WEG, 2011). Between 2003 and 2008, there was an 8 percent increase in
Superior Court judges and a 24 percent climb in caseload. WEG concluded: The inadequate funding levels of the States Court System have had adverse impacts not
only to the statewide economy, but have also resulted in unquantifiable adverse effects on business and professional activities throughout the Statethereby
negatively impacting the business climate of Georgia (WEG, 2011). WEG opined that funding reductions resulted in direct, indirect and induced economic impacts
on the state of between $337 million and $802 million annually. (WEG, 2011; Fulton County Sup. Ct., 2012). [CHART OMITTED Comprehensive Economic
Development Impacts of Investing in the State of Georgia Court System] The authors concluded an adequately funded and efficient court system increases the
States ability to attract and expand industries, improves access to legal services for residents, reduces costs to the State from inefficiency, and also improves the
quality of Georgia communities (WEG, 2009). Micronomics Group Studies Estimate Losses in the Billions WEGs studies do not stand alone. In 2009 and 2012, the
Micronomics Group prepared additional studies to evaluate the impact of court funding cuts . The 2009 study focused on the
County of Los Angeles (Micronomics, 2009). The Los Angeles Superior Court budget was set to accommodate deficits between $79 million and $140 million through
2012 to 2013. Weinstein & Porter determined that the cutbacks would prompt courtroom closures, operating capacity reductions and lost court days, which
Micronomics in turn concluded would cause the following economic impacts: $13 billion in lost business
activity due to reduced use of legal services; $15 billion in economic losses caused by litigation
uncertainty; $30 billion in lost revenue to the county and state and 150,000 in job losses; and $1.6
billion in lost local and state taxes. (Micronomics, 2009). Micronomics undertook a follow-up study in 2012, building on its Los
Angeles County work and focusing on the direct impact of judicial budget cuts based on the National Center for

State Courts survey of 42 states (Micronomics, 2012). Using a proxy it developed for calculating the economic loss associated with delays in civil
case processing, Micronomics concluded that proposed funding cuts would cause estimated losses of $52.2 billion

from increased uncertainty on the part of litigants, excluding the direct losses from job cuts in firms and
the courts and related economic output . (Micronomics, 2012). A 2012 RAND assessment similarly noted the financial crisis and subsequent
erosion in state budgets has placed stress on court mechanisms at the same time that particular kinds of litigation, such as disputes over foreclosure, seem to have
increased (Greenberg, 2012). Economic Theory: Judiciary as Catalyst to Economic Development Other
studies have also concluded that the
difference between a high-performing economy and a lower-performing economy is rooted in a
functional judicial system . Richard E. Messick, international consultant formerly with the World Bank, examined the economic impact of a fully
funded justice system. (Messick, 1999). In particular, he reviewed how Oliver Williamson, a World Bank Economist, distinguished economies based on the societys
ability to enforce contractual obligations through its judiciary. A
high-performance economy is one that is characterized by a
significant number of long-term contractsjust the type of business relationship that is unlikely to thrive
in the absence of a well-functioning judicial system. When the judiciary is unable to enforce contract
obligations, a disproportionately large number of transactions take place in the spot market, where there
is less opportunity for breaching contracts. Or, alternatively, firms circumvent the judicial system
altogether by vertical and conglomerate integration, turning arms-length transactions into intrafirm
ones. In either case, argues Williamson, the results are higher transaction costs and a low-performance
economy. (Messick, 1999 (Williamson 1995)). In his 1999 article, Judicial Reform and Economic Development: A Survey of the Issues, Messick noted the widely
held belief that judicial reform for developing countries will result in enhanced economic performance (Messick, 1999 (citing Sherwood, 1995)). Among Messicks
identified hypotheses is the judiciarys effect on enabling exchanges between private parties, or enforcing contracts. (Messick, 1999). In a 1997 World Bank survey of
3,600 firms in 69 countries, unpredictability of the judiciary presented a significant problem in their business operations (Messick, 1999 (citing World Bank, 1997).

Enforcement of contracts is essential for economic growth (Messick, 2005). When entrepreneurs have
confidence contractual obligations will be met , specialization and the resulting increase in growth and
productivity can occur. (Messick, 2005). The most important public means of contract enforcement is the
court system, [n]ot only because they are an avenue of last resort in the event of a breach but because the threat of a lawsuit can deter breach.
(Messick, 2005). Messick also referenced the 2005 Word Development Report that affirmed the importance of well performing courts

for a better investment climate Better courts reduce the risks firms face, and so increase the
willingness to invest more in their enterprises . (Messick, 2005). The U.S. Chamber Institute 2012 study supports these economic
conclusions as it found that a states litigation environment affects important business decisions. (U.S. Chamber Institute, 2012, p. 6) (only 10 percent of survey
responses indicated that the litigation environment was very unlikely to affect an important business decision)). With so much documented support that a fully
funded state-court system improves economic development and underfunded justice systems contribute to a low-performing economy, our attention must turn to
change. All stakeholders in our state-courts system must grow the constituency of supporters of adequately
funded state court systems. Actions Already Taken to Address the Underfunding Crisis Various bar associations and the National Center for States
Courts (NCSC) have sounded the alarm, expressing the concern that further reductions in funding threatens the ability of the

courts to perform their constitutional functions. The American Bar Association (ABA), DRI, and the American Association for Justice have
similarly expressed grave concern in the context of the 2013 sequestration noting that state courts have endured years of withering cuts despite overwhelming
caseloads (DRI, 2013). They jointly warned budget cuts through sequestration will impinge access to justice at the state and federal levels and put court
petitioners, staff and judges in harms way (DRI, 2013). The ABA has spoken out about the threats that cuts to the judicial system pose to our democratic
government and even formed the ABA Task Force on Preservation of the Justice System. The efforts have not ended there. In 2011, Californians were encouraged to
participate in hearings on the civil justice crisis held in major cities across the state. (Selbin & Steinbach, 2011). These hearings were modeled after a similar effort in
New York. (Id.). But these efforts have not resulted in much progress. (See State Bar of Calif. et al. Findings & Recommendations, 2012). Legislators
have
the ability to restore funding to the states justice systems by appropriating funds at a level that not only
allows courts to meet their constitutional obligations, but also enables economic growth. The time for
this investment in our states justice systems is now . Legislative and Executive Branches Must Choose to Invest in the Justice System
By neglecting to fund their state justice systems, the legislative and executive branches will continue to
harm and eventually disable the third and co-equal branch of state government. We have to understand that underfunding
our court system has long-term, negative consequences and could wind up costing us much more than we would ever save financially in the short term. (Cooper,
2013). By the same token, in
deciding to fund the justice system properly, the legislative and executive branches
have the ability to restore the judicial branch to its optimal state, improve efficiency, shorten length of
time to disposition, save significant annual economic losses to their states, and pave the way for
economic growth . The judicial branch cannot force this change of heart in its two partner branches of government on its ownrest assured it has tried.
In the spring of 2008, Chief Justice Judith S. Kaye filed suit in the Supreme Court of New York against New York state legislators and the governor on behalf of New
Yorks state judiciary, claiming that the nine-year freeze on judicial pay violated New Yorks constitution. Kaye v. Silver, et al., No. 400763/08 (Sup. Ct., NY County,
2008); see also Larabee v. Governor of the State of New York, 65 A.D.3d 74, 77 (N.Y. App. Div. 1st Dept 2009); Maron v. Silver, 58 A.D.3d 102 (N.Y. App. Div. 3d Dept
2008). The theory was that by failing to adequately compensate the state supreme court judges and other judges, Governor David A. Paterson and the legislature
violated separation of powers and independence of the judiciary. But while [t]he intersection of the separation of powers and judicial compensation has a lengthy
history, the legislature, in truth, makes decisions about appropriating funds for judicial compensation and the judicial branch in general. (See Larabee, 65 A.D.3d at
99). The decision rests with the other branches. Committees may make recommendations to the legislature but the legislators must agree and decide to adequately
fund the judicial branch. Conclusion The role of the judicial branch cannot go overlooked or undervalued. The cost is
simply too great. Federal and state governments are premised upon the framework of three fully functioning branches of government. An adequately
funded judiciary would only require a penny more per dollar, or in some cases, a fraction of a penny per dollar, from tax dollars. Any savings to a state government
from cuts to the justice system are insignificant compared to a governments overall financial set-backs and create other, hidden costsboth social and economic. By
contrast, theimpact of funding cuts on the judicial branch is drastic and undermines a courts ability to fulfill its constitutional
duties. The judicial branch has a massive impact on the success of government , social cohesion, and

economic stability . A fully funded justice system offers business consumers a better investment climate,
deterred breach of contract, and enforcement of private contracts, and an efficient disposition of
matters. The case is overwhelming that the first priority of government in times of shortage should be a strong,
effective, and adequately funded justice system .

Extinction
Richard N. Haass 13, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, 4/30/13, The World Without
America, http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/repairing-the-roots-of-american-power-by-
richard-n--haass

The most critical threat facing the United States now and for the foreseeable future is not a rising China, a reckless
Let me posit a radical idea:

North Korea, a nuclear Iran, modern terrorism, or climate change. Although all of these constitute potential or actual threats, the biggest challenges
facing the US are its burgeoning debt, crumbling infrastructure, second-rate primary and secondary schools, outdated immigration system, and slow economic growth

in short, the domestic foundations of American power . Readers in other countries may be tempted to react to this judgment with a dose of schadenfreude, finding more than a
little satisfaction in Americas difficulties. Such a response should not be surprising. The US and those representing it have been guilty of hubris (the US may often be the indispensable nation, but it would be better if others pointed
this out), and examples of inconsistency between Americas practices and its principles understandably provoke charges of hypocrisy. When America does not adhere to the principles that it preaches to others, it breeds resentment.

But, like most temptations, the urge to gloat at Americas imperfections and struggles ought to be resisted. People around the globe should be careful what they wish for. Americas failure to deal
with its internal challenges would come at a steep price . Indeed, the rest of the worlds stake in American success is nearly as large as that of the US itself. Part of
the reason is economic. The US economy still accounts for about one-quarter of global output. If US growth accelerates , Americas capacity to consume

other countries goods and services will increase, thereby boosting growth around the world. At a time when
Europe is drifting and Asia is slowing, only the US (or, more broadly, North America) has the potential to drive global
economic recovery . The US remains a unique source of innovation. Most of the worlds citizens communicate with mobile devices based on technology developed in Silicon Valley; likewise, the Internet was
made in America. More recently, new technologies developed in the US greatly increase the ability to extract oil and natural gas from underground formations. This technology is now making its way around the globe, allowing other
societies to increase their energy production and decrease both their reliance on costly imports and their carbon emissions. The US is also an invaluable source of ideas. Its world-class universities educate a significant percentage of

the US has long been a leading example of what market economies and democratic
future world leaders. More fundamentally,

politics can accomplish. People and governments around the world are far more likely to become more open if
the American model is perceived to be succeeding . Finally, the world faces many serious challenges, ranging from the need
to halt the spread of w eapons of m ass d estruction, fight climate change, and maintain a functioning world economic

order that promotes trade and investment to regulating practices in cyberspace, improving global health, and
preventing armed conflicts These problems will not simply go away or sort themselves out
. . While Adam

Smiths invisible hand may ensure the success of free markets, it is powerless in the world of geopolitics . Order requires the
visible hand of leadership to formulate and realize global responses to global challenges. Dont get me wrong: None of this
is meant to suggest that the US can deal effectively with the worlds problems on its own. Unilateralism rarely works. It is not just that the US lacks the means; the very nature of contemporary global problems suggests that only

multilateralism is much easier to advocate than to design and implement. Right now
collective responses stand a good chance of succeeding. But

there is only one candidate for this role: the US. No other country has the necessary combination of
capability and outlook. This brings me back to the argument that the US must put its house in order economically , physically, socially, and
politically if it is to have the resources needed to promote order in the world . Everyone should hope that it does: The alternative to

a world led by the US is not a world led by China, Europe, Russia, Japan, India, or any other country, but rather a world

that is not led at all . Such a world would almost certainly be characterized by chronic crisis and conflict . That would be bad not just for Americans, but
for the vast majority of the planet s inhabitants.

AND, rule of law stops pandemics


Greco 5 (Michael, president of the American Bar Association, Miami Daily Business Review, 12/5, lexis)
What makes the rule of law so important that it attracted such a distinguished community? First, because the rule of law is so central to
everything the legal community stands for, both in the U nited S tates and around the worl d. And second, because we
increasingly find that our nation's top international priorities -defeating terrorism, corruption and even the spread of deadly

diseases-are being undone at the ground level by poor governance and lawlessness. As Rice eloquently told the gathering, "In a world
where threats pass even through the most fortified boundaries, weak and poorly governed states enable disease to spread
undetected , and corruption to multiply unchecked, and hateful ideologies to grow more violent and more vengeful." The only real antidote to
these global threats is governments , in all corners of the world, that operate with just, transparent and consistent
legal systems that are enforced b y fair and independent judiciaries . These issues are not just the province of distant foreign
governments. Building the rule of law must begin at home . Recent revelations in our own country-that the CIA has maintained secret
prisons for foreign detainees-underscore the urgent need for an independent, nonpartisan commission to investigate our treatment of such prisoners.

Extinction
Casadevall 12 (Arturo Casadevall, Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology and
Immunology, Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, and Director of the Center for
Immunological Sciences, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, The future of biological warfare,
Microbial Biotechnology, 5(5), September 2012, p.584-585,
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-7915.2012.00340.x/abstract)
In considering the importance of biological warfare as a subject for concern it is worthwhile to review the known existential threats. At this time this writer can
identify at three major existential threats to humanity: (i) large-scale thermonuclear war followed by a nuclear winter, (ii) a planet killing asteroid impact and (iii)
infectious disease. To this trio might be added climate change making the planet uninhabitable. Of the three existential threats the first is deduced from the inferred
cataclysmic effects of nuclear war. For the second there is geological evidence for the association of asteroid impacts with massive extinction (Alvarez, 1987). As to

an existential threat from microbes recent decades have provided unequivocal evidence for the ability of certain
pathogens to cause the extinction of entire species. Although infectious disease has traditionally not been associated with extinction this view has
changed by the finding that a single chytrid fungus was responsible for the extinction of numerous amphibian species (Daszak

et al., 1999; Mendelson et al., 2006). Previously, the view that infectious diseases were not a cause of extinction was

predicated on the notion that many pathogens required their hosts and that some proportion of the host
population was naturally resistant. However, that calculation does not apply to microbes that are acquired
directly from the environment and have no need for a host, such as the majority of fungal pathogens. For those
types of hostmicrobe interactions it is possible for the pathogen to kill off every last member of a species without harm to itself,

since it would return to its natural habitat upon killing its last host. Hence, from the viewpoint of existential threats environmental
microbes could potentially pose a much greater threat to humanity than the known pathogenic microbes, which number somewhere near 1500 species (Cleaveland
et al., 2001; Tayloret al., 2001), especially if some of these species acquired the capacity for pathogenicity as a consequence of natural evolution or bioengineering.
1nc backlash

Plan causes overwhelming federal backlash turns case


Posner 8 (Eric Posner, professor at the University of Chicago Law School, Medellin and America's
ability to comply with international law, Slate, 3-25-2008,
http://www.slate.com/content/slate/blogs/convictions/2008/03/25/medellin_and_america_s_ability_to
_comply_with_international_law.html)
There is an academic theory that holds that the type of litigation (sometimes called " transnational legal process ")
exemplified by the Medellin case would eventually bring the United States into greater and greater compliance with i nternational
law . But with the benefit of hindsight, we see that the opposite has been the case . The U.S. government reacted to
this litigation by withdrawing from the protocol that gave the ICJ jurisdiction over these cases, and the
U.S. Supreme Court has reacted to this litigation by weakening the domestic efect of treaties ,
expressing discomfort with international adjudication and making clear that the president lacks the power to compel the states to
comply with treaties. The United States will violate or withdraw from i nternational law when its national

government wants to, and sometimes it will do so even when its national government does not want to.

Crushes diplomacy and turns cred


Wilkinson 4 (J. Harvie Wilkinson, Circuit Judge for the 4th Circuit, Debate: The Use of International
Law in Judicial Decisions, 27 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 423, 2004)
So of course international law should play a part in American judicial reasoning. It would be odd if it did not. In some areas,
foreign and international law is made relevant by our Constitution, by statute or treaty, by the well-developed principles of common law, by overwhelming
considerations of comity, or simply by private commercial agreement of the parties. But
when judges, on their own motion and
without any direction by Congress or the Constitution decide to make such precedents relevant, we are
dealing with an entirely different question. So judges must not wade, sua sponte, into i nternational
law 's deep blue sea. Rather, we ought to ask: How does American law make foreign or international standards relevant? Why should we ask this
threshold question? Because it is important that the United States speak with one, not multiple, voices in foreign
afairs . The Constitution is explicit on this: Article I, Section 10 says that "no State shall enter into any Treaty [or] Alliance" with a foreign power. 9 The
Constitution leaves the conduct of foreign and military affairs largely to the political branches -- not the
courts. The diplomatic credibility of the United States would plummet if the actions and pronouncements
of the executive and legislative branches in foreign and military matters were later repudiated and
contradicted by judicial decree. Where courts go too far, in my view, is where they rely upon international (and mostly
European) precedents when resolving important and contentious social issues. This "internationalization" of the Constitution on domestic
social issues raises three types of problems.

Efective diplomacy prevents nuclear war


Douglas Ross, professor of political science, 1999; professor of political science at Simon Fraser
University, Canadas functional isolationism and the future of weapons of mass destruction, International
Journal, p. lexis
Thus, an easily accessible tax base has long been available for spending much more on international security than recent governments have been
willing to contemplate. Negotiating the landmines ban, discouraging trade in small arms, promoting the United Nations arms register are all
for, a
worthwhile, popular activities that polish the national self-image. But they should all be supplements to, not substitutes
proportionately equitable commitment of resources to the management and prevention of international
conflict and thus the containment of the WMD threat. Future American governments will not police the world
alone. For almost fifty years the Soviet threat compelled disproportionate military expenditures and sacrifice by the United States. That world
is gone. Only by enmeshing the capabilities of the U nited S tates and other leading powers in a co-operative
security management regime where the burdens are widely shared does the world community have any
plausible hope of avoiding warfare involving nuclear or other WMD .
Adv 2
WMD TerrorismNo Impact
No nuke terrorthis card is unbeatable
Weiss 2/13visiting scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford
(Leonard, On fear and nuclear terrorism, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists March/April 2015 vol. 71 no. 2 75-87, dml)

If the fear of nuclear war has thus had some positive effects, the fear of nuclear terrorism has had mainly negative effects on the lives of millions
of people around the world, including in the United States, and even affects negatively the prospects for a more peaceful world. Although
there has been much commentary on the interest that Osama bin Laden, when he was alive, reportedly
expressed in obtaining nuclear weapons (see Mowatt-Larssen, 2010), and some terrorists no doubt desire to obtain such
weapons, evidence of any terrorist group working seriously toward the theft of nuclear weapons or the
acquisition of such weapons by other means is virtually nonexistent . This may be due to a combination of reasons.
Terrorists understand that it is not hard to terrorize a population without committing mass murder : In
2002, a single sniper in the Washington, DC area, operating within his own automobile and with one accomplice, killed 10 people and changed
the behavior of virtually the entire populace of the city over a period of three weeks by instilling fear of being a randomly chosen shooting
victim when out shopping.

Terrorists who believe the commission of violence helps their cause have access to many explosive materials and conventional weapons to ply
their trade.If public sympathy is important to their cause, an apparent plan or commission of mass
murder is not going to help them, and indeed will make their enemies even more implacable , reducing the
prospects of achieving their goals. The acquisition of nuclear weapons by terrorists is not like the acquisition of
conventional weapons; it requires significant time , planning , resources , and expertise , with no
guarantees that an acquired device would work. It requires putting aside at least some aspects of a
groups more immediate activities and goals for an attempted operation that no terrorist group has
previously accomplished. While absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence (as then-Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld kept reminding us during the search for Saddams nonexistent nuclear weapons), it is reasonable to conclude that the fear of nuclear
terrorism has swamped realistic consideration of the threat. As Brian Jenkins, a longtime observer of terrorist groups, wrote in 2008:

Nuclear terrorismturns out to be a world of truly worrisome particles of truth. Yet it is also a world of fantasies, nightmares, urban legends,
fakes, hoaxes, scams, stings, mysterious substances, terrorist boasts, sensational claims, description of vast conspiracies, allegations of coverups,
lurid headlines, layers of misinformation and disinformation. Much is inconclusive or contradictory. Only the terror is real. (Jenkins, 2008: 26)

The three ways terrorists might get a nuke

To illustrate in more detail how fear has distorted the threat of nuclear terrorism, consider
the three possibilities for terrorists
to obtain a nuclear weapon: steal one; be given one created by a nuclear weapon state; manufacture
one. None of these possibilities has a high probability of occurring .

Stealing nukes. Nothing is better protected in a nuclear weapon state than the weapons themselves, which
have multiple layers of safeguards that, in the United States, include intelligence and surveillance, electronic
locks (including so-called permissive action links that prevent detonation unless a code is entered into the lock), gated and locked
storage facilities, armed guards, and teams of elite responders if an attempt at theft were to occur . We
know that most weapon states have such protections, and there is no reason to believe that such
protections are missing in the remaining states, since no weapon state would want to put itself at risk of
an unintended nuclear detonation of its own weapons by a malevolent agent. Thus, the likelihood of an
unauthorized agent secretly planning a theft, without being discovered, and getting access to weapons
with the intent and physical ability to carry them off in the face of such layers of protection is extremely low but it isnt impossible,
especially in the case where the thief is an insider.
The insider threat helped give credibility to the stories, circulating about 20 years ago, that there were loose nukes in the USSR, based on
some statements by a Soviet general who claimed the regime could not account for more than 40 suitcase nukes that had been built. The
Russian government denied the claim, and at this point there is no evidence that any nukes were ever loose. Now, it is unclear if any such
weapon would even work after 20 years of corrosion of both the nuclear and non-nuclear materials in the device and the radioactive decay of
certain isotopes.

Because of the large number of terrorist groups operating in its geographic vicinity, Pakistan is frequently suggested as a
possible candidate for scenarios in which a terrorist group either seizes a weapon via collaboration with insiders sympathetic to its cause,
or in which terrorists inherit nuclear weapons by taking over the arsenal of a failed nuclear state that has devolved into chaos. Attacks by a
terrorist group on a Pakistani military base, at Kamra, which is believed to house nuclear weapons in some form, have been referenced in
connection with such security concerns (Nelson and Hussain, 2012). However, the Kamra base contained US fighter planes, including F-16s, used
to bomb Taliban bases in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, so the planes, not nuclear weapons, were the likely target of the terrorists, and in
any case the mission was a failure. Moreover, Pakistan
is not about to collapse, and the Pakistanis are known to have
received major international assistance in technologies for protecting their weapons from unauthorized
use, store them in somewhat disassembled fashion at multiple locations, and have a sophisticated
nuclear security structure in place (see Gregory, 2013; Khan, 2012).

However, theweapons are assembled at times of high tension in the region, and, to keep a degree of
uncertainty in their location, they are moved from place to place, making them more vulnerable to
seizure at such times (Goldberg and Ambinder, 2011). (It should be noted that US nuclear weapons were subject to such risks during
various times when the weapons traveled US highways in disguised trucks and accompanying vehicles, but such travel and the possibility of
terrorist seizure was never mentioned publicly.)

Such scenarios of seizure in Pakistan would require a major security breakdown within the army leading to a takeover of weapons by a nihilistic
terrorist group with little warning, while army loyalists along with India and other interested parties (like the United States) stand by and do not
intervene. This is not a particularly realistic scenario, but its also not a reason to conclude that Pakistans nuclear arsenal is of no concern. It is,
not only because of an internal threat, but especially because it raises the possibility of nuclear war with India. For this and other reasons,
intelligence agencies in multiple countries spend considerable resources tracking the Pakistani nuclear situation to reduce the likelihood of
surprises. But any consideration of Pakistans nuclear arsenal does bring home (once again) the folly of US policy in the 1980s, when stopping
the Pakistani nuclear program was put on a back burner in order to prosecute the Cold War against the Soviets in Afghanistan (which ultimately
led to the establishment of Al Qaeda). Some of the loudest voices expressing concern about nuclear terrorism belong to former senior
government officials who supported US assistance to the mujahideen and the accompanying diminution of US opposition to Pakistans nuclear
activities.

Acquiring nukes as a gift. Following the shock of 9/11, government officials and the media imagined many scenarios in which terrorists
obtain nuclear weapons; one of those scenarios involves a weapon state using a terrorist group for delivery of a nuclear weapon. There are
at least two reasons why this scenario is unlikely : First, once a weapon state loses control of a weapon, it
cannot be sure the weapon will be used by the terrorist group as intended. Second, the state cannot be
sure that the transfer of the weapon has been undetected either before or after the fact of its
detonation (see Lieber and Press, 2013). The use of the weapon by a terrorist group will ultimately result in the transferring nation
becoming a nuclear target just as if it had itself detonated the device. This is a powerful deterrent to such a transfer,
making the transfer a low-probability event.
Although these first two ways in which terrorists might obtain a nuclear weapon have very small probabilities of occurring (there is no available
data suggesting that terrorist groups have produced plans for stealing a weapon, nor has there been any public information suggesting that any
nuclear weapon state has seriously considered providing a nuclear weapon to a sub-national group), the probabilities cannot be said to be zero
as long as nuclear weapons exist.

Manufacturing a nuclear weapon. To accomplish this, a terrorist group would have to obtain an
appropriate amount of one of the two most popular materials for nuclear weapons, highly enriched uranium (HEU) or plutonium
separated from fuel used in a production reactor or a power reactor. Weapon-grade plutonium is found in weapon manufacturing facilities
in nuclear weapon states and is very highly protected until it is inserted in a weapon. Reactor-grade plutonium, although still
capable of being weaponized, is less protected, and in that sense is a more attractive target for a terrorist, especially since it has been
produced and stored in prodigious quantities in a number of nuclear weapon states and non-weapon states, particularly Japan.
But terrorist use of plutonium for a nuclear explosive device would require the construction of an
implosion weapon, requiring the fashioning of an appropriate explosive lens of TNT, a notoriously difficult technical
problem. And if a high nuclear yield (much greater than 1 kiloton) is desired, the use of reactor-grade plutonium would
require a still more sophisticated design. Moreover, if the plutonium is only available through chemical separation from some
(presumably stolen) spent fuel rods, additional technical complications present themselves . There is at least one study showing
that a small team of people with the appropriate technical skills and equipment could, in principle, build a plutonium-based nuclear explosive
device (Mark et al., 1986). But even
if one discounts the high probability that the plan would be discovered at
some stage (missing plutonium or spent fuel rods would put the authorities and intelligence operations under high alert), translating
this into a real-world situation suggests an extremely low probability of technical success . More likely,
according to one well-known weapon designer,4 would be the death of the person or persons in the attempt to build the
device.

There is the possibility of an insider threat; in one example, a team of people working at a reactor or reprocessing site could conspire to
steal some material and try to hide the diversion as MUF (materials unaccounted for) within the nuclear safeguards system. But this scenario
would require intimate knowledge of the materials accounting system on which safeguards in that state
are based and adds another layer of complexity to an operation with low probability of success.

The situation is different in the case of using highly enriched uranium , which presents fewer technical challenges. Here
an implosion design is not necessary, and a gun type design is the more likely approach. Fear of this scenario has sometimes been promoted in
the literature via the quotation of a famous statement by nuclear physicist Luis Alvarez that dropping a subcritical amount of HEU onto another
subcritical amount from a distance of five feet could result in a nuclear yield. The probability of such a yield (and its size) would depend on the
geometry of the HEU components and the amount of material. More likely than a substantial nuclear explosion from such a scenario would be a
criticality accident that would release an intense burst of radiation, killing persons in the immediate vicinity, or (even less likely) a low-yield
nuclear fizzle that could be quite damaging locally (like a large TNT explosion) but also carry a psychological effect because of its nuclear
dimension.

In any case, since the critical mass of a bare metal perfect sphere of pure U-235 is approximately 56 kilograms, stealing
that much
highly enriched material (and getting away without detection, an armed fight, or a criticality accident) is a major problem for
any thief and one significantly greater than the stealing of small amounts of HEU and lower-enriched
material that has been reported from time to time over the past two decades , mostly from former Soviet sites that
have since had their security greatly strengthened. Moreover, fashioning the material into a form more useful or convenient
for explosive purposes could likely mean a need for still more material than suggested above, plus a means
for machining it, as would be the case for HEU fuel assemblies from a research reactor . In a recent paper,
physics professor B. C. Reed discusses the feasibility of terrorists building a low-yield, gun-type fission weapon, but admittedly avoids the issue
of whether the terrorists would likely have the technical ability to carry feasibility to realization and whether the terrorists are likely to be
successful in stealing the needed material and hiding their project as it proceeds (Reed, 2014). But this is the crux of the nuclear terrorism issue.
There is no argument about feasibility, which has been accepted for decades, even for plutonium-based weapons, ever since Ted Taylor first
raised it in the early 1970s5 and a Senate subcommittee held hearings in the late 1970s on a weapon design created by a Harvard dropout from
information he obtained from the public section of the Los Alamos National Laboratory library (Fialka, 1978). Likewise, no one can deny the
terrible consequences of a nuclear explosion. The question is the level of risk, and what steps are acceptable in a democracy for reducing it.

Although the attention in the literature given to nuclear terrorism scenarios involving HEU would suggest major attempts to obtain such
material by terrorist groups, there is only one known case of a major theft of HEU . It involves a US government contractor
processing HEU for the US Navy in Apollo, Pennsylvania in the 1970s at a time when security and materials accounting were extremely lax. The
theft was almost surely carried out by agents of the Israeli government with the probable involvement of a person or persons working for the
contractor, not a sub-national terrorist group intent on making its own weapons (Gilinsky and Mattson, 2010). The
circumstances
under which this theft occurred were unique, and there was significant information about the
contractors relationship to Israel that should have rung alarm bells and would do so today . Although it
involved a government and not a sub-national group, the theft underscores the importance of security and accounting of nuclear materials,
especially because the technical requirements for making an HEU weapon are less daunting than for a plutonium weapon, and the probability of
success by a terrorist group, though low, is certainly greater than zero. Over the past two decades, there has been a significant
efort to increase protection of such materials, particularly in recent years through the efforts of
nongovernmental organizations like the International Panel on Fissile Materials6 and advocates like Matthew Bunn working within the
Obama administration (Bunn and Newman, 2008), though the administration has apparently not seen the need to make the materials as secure
as the weapons themselves.

Are terrorists even interested in making their own nuclear weapons?

A recent paper (Friedman and Lewis, 2014) postulates a scenario by which terrorists might seize nuclear materials in Pakistan for fashioning a
weapon. While jihadist sympathizers are known to have worked within the Pakistani nuclear establishment, there is little to no
evidence that terrorist groups in or outside the region are seriously trying to obtain a nuclear capability .
And Pakistan has been operating a uranium enrichment plant for its weapons program for nearly 30 years with no credible reports of diversion
of HEU from the plant.

There is one stark example of a terrorist organization that actually started a nuclear effort: the Aum
Shinrikyo group. At its peak, this religious cult had a membership estimated in the tens of thousands spread over a variety of countries,
including Japan; its members had scientific expertise in many areas; and the group was well funded. Aum Shinrikyo obtained access to natural
uranium supplies, but thenuclear weapon effort stalled and was abandoned . The group was also interested in chemical
weapons and did produce sarin nerve gas with which they attacked the Tokyo subway system, killing 13 persons. Aum Shinrikyo is now
a small organization under continuing close surveillance.

What about highly organized groups, designated appropriately as terrorist, that have acquired enough territory to enable them to
operate in a quasi-governmental fashion, like the Islamic State (IS)? Such organizations are certainly dangerous, but how would
nuclear terrorism fit in with a program for building and sustaining a new caliphate that would restore
past glories of Islamic society, especially since, like any organized government, the Islamic State would
itself be vulnerable to nuclear attack? Building a new Islamic state out of radioactive ashes is an unlikely
ambition for such groups. However, now that it has become notorious, apocalyptic pronouncements in Western media may begin at
any time, warning of the possible acquisition and use of nuclear weapons by IS.

Even if a terror group were to achieve technical nuclear proficiency, the time , money , and
infrastructure needed to build nuclear weapons creates significant risks of discovery that would put
the group at risk of attack. Given the ease of obtaining conventional explosives and the ability to deploy
them, a terrorist group is unlikely to exchange a big part of its operational program to engage in a risky
nuclear development effort with such doubtful prospects . And, of course, 9/11 has heightened sensitivity to
the need for protection, lowering further the probability of a successful effort.
Adv 1
AT: State Courts

State courts accomplish nothingaf just adds another layer of confusion to an issue
devoid of consensus
Posner 12/4/2014 professor of law at the University of Chicago (Eric, The Guardian, The case against
human rights, http://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/dec/04/-sp-case-against-human-rights)

The reason these kinds of problems arise on the international but not on the national level is that
within countries, the task of interpreting and defining vaguely worded rights, and making trade-offs between
different rights, is delegated to trusted institutions. It was the US supreme court , for example, that decided that
freedom of speech did not encompass fraudulent, defamatory, and obscene statements. The American public accepted these judgments
because they coincided with their moral views and because the court enjoys a high degree of trust. In principle, international institutions could
perform this same function. But the international institutions that have been established for this purpose are very weak.

In truly international human rights institutions, such as the UN human rights council, there is a drastic lack of consensus
between nations. To avoid being compelled by international institutions to recognise rights that they
reject, countries give them little power. The multiple institutions lack a common hierarchical superior
unlike national courts and thus provide conflicting interpretations of human rights, and cannot compel
nations to pay attention to them. That is why, for instance, western countries have been able to disregard the
human rights councils endorsement of defamation of religion, the idea that criticism of Islam and other religions
violates the human rights of those who practice those religions.
Torts
Particularly causes a surge of extra-territorial torts theyre terrible turns case
Parrish 13 (Austen L. Parrish, Professor of Law and Interim Dean, Southwestern Law School, former
Professor of Law, Maurer School of Law, Indiana University, State Court International Human Rights
Litigation: A Concerning Trend? Faculty Publications, Paper 882, 2013,
http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/facpub/882)
A new, but somewhat predictable, phenomenon is beginning to emerge in the human rights field. Reluctant
to re-embrace more traditional international lawmaking and faced with higher hurdles to successfully asserting Alien Tort Statute
claims in U.S. courts, advocates have begun to experiment with alternative strategies for redressing human

rights violations. One strategy involves state court litigation.' State courts are emerging as the next battleground in
efforts to incorporate international human rights norms into American law and to advance respect for
human rights generally.2 Some predict that state courts, applying state constitutional, statutory, or common law, may prove a
particularly promising venue for the recognition of economic, social, and cultural rights .3 This strategy, while just
now emerging in the human rights context,4 is not unfamiliar. Human rights activists draw on and imitate the strategies of

others .5 In the 1970s, the state constitutional rights movement sought out state courts when federal courts grew less receptive to recognizing certain kinds of
civil liberties.6 More recently, international environmental rights activists have asserted state claims as a way to address global climate change and other
transboundary harms when opponents have stymied international lawmaking efforts.7 In both contexts, the
retreat to state courts on some level
represented defensive maneuvers: attempts to eke out marginal gain when other avenues for progress were
blocked . Both movements hearkened back to an earlier time, when the bench and bar were more preoccupied with application of state, rather than federal,
law.8 This Article explores the parallels between the recent willingness to consider state court litigation to remedy human rights violations occurring abroad and
earlier attempts to use similar strategies to advance other causes, particularly those implicating environmental rights. The exploration is made in three steps. First, I

sketch the emerging phenomenon where advocates and scholars have urged greater use of state law remedies to
advance human rights. Second, I describe how a parallel strategy was recently employed in the international environmental law context and how that
strategy also traces back to the state rights movement from the 1970s. Finally, I end on a note of caution. Asserting state claims in state courts,

unconnected to treaty regimes and as a way to advance international human rights for human rights
violations occurring abroad (i.e., Alien Tort Statute-ty pe litigation), has its drawbacks. State court litigation is at best a
short-term palliative . Over the longer haul, it potentially places human rights on a weaker , defensive
footing. State court litigation-similar to its federal analogue is likely to prove a poor substitute for more traditional,
multilateral, and collaborative international lawmaking .
IHRL Fails
IHRL fails prefer quantitative empirical analysis
Landman 5 (Todd Landman, senior lecturer in the department of government and member of the
Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex, Protecting Human Rights: A Comparative Study,
October 2005, http://press.georgetown.edu/book/georgetown/protecting-human-rights)
In Protecting Human Rights, Todd Landman provides a
unique quantitative analysis of the marked gap between the
principle and practice of human rights . Applying theories and methods from the fields of international law, international relations, and
comparative politics, Landman examines data from 193 countries over 25 years (1976-2000) to assess the growth of the

international human rights regime, the effect of law on actual protection , and global variation in human
rights norms. Landman contends that human rights foreign policy remains based more on geo-strategic interest
than moral internationalism . He argues that the influence human rights ideals have begun to have on states
cannot be separated from the broader impact of socioeconomic changes that swept the globe in the
late twentieth century. Landman concludes that i nternational law alone will not suffice to fully protect
human rightsit must be accompanied by democratic government, effective conflict resolution, and just
economic systems.
AT: HR Cred/Treaties

Rights are doomed in the US and globally


Posner 12/4/2014 professor of law at the University of Chicago (Eric, The Guardian, The case against
human rights, http://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/dec/04/-sp-case-against-human-rights)

We live in an age in which most of the major human rights treaties there are nine core treaties have been ratified by the
vast majority of countries. Yet it seems that the human rights agenda has fallen on hard times. In much of the
Islamic world, women lack equality, religious dissenters are persecuted and political freedoms are
curtailed. The Chinese model of development, which combines political repression and economic liberalism, has attracted numerous
admirers in the developing world. Political authoritarianism has gained ground in Russia, Turkey, Hungary and
Venezuela. Backlashes against LGBT rights have taken place in countries as diverse as Russia and Nigeria. The
traditional champions of human rights Europe and the United States have floundered. Europe has turned inward as
it has struggled with a sovereign debt crisis, xenophobia towards its Muslim communities and disillusionment with Brussels. The United
States, which used torture in the years after 9/11 and continues to kill civilians with drone strikes , has lost much
of its moral authority. Even age-old scourges such as slavery continue to exist. A recent report estimates that nearly 30 million people are
forced against their will to work. It wasnt supposed to be like this.

Human rights through i-law failsimpact is academic junk


Posner 12/4/2014 professor of law at the University of Chicago (Eric, The Guardian, The case against
human rights, http://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/dec/04/-sp-case-against-human-rights)

At a time when human rights violations remain widespread, the discourse of human rights continues to flourish. The use of
human rights in English-language books has increased 200-fold since 1940, and is used today 100 times more often than terms such as
constitutional rights and natural rights. Although
people have always criticised governments, it is only in recent
decades that they have begun to do so in the distinctive idiom of human rights. The United States and Europe
have recently condemned human rights violations in Syria, Russia, China and Iran . Western countries often make
foreign aid conditional on human rights and have even launched military interventions based on human rights violations. Many people argue
that the incorporation of the idea of human rights into international law is one of the great moral achievements of human history. Because
human rights law gives rights to all people regardless of nationality, it deprives governments of their traditional riposte when foreigners criticise
them for abusing their citizens namely sovereignty (which is law-speak for none of your business). Thus, international human rights law
provides people with invaluable protections against the power of the state.

And yet it is hard to avoid the conclusion that governments continue to violate human rights with impunity. Why, for example, do more
than 150 countries (out of 193 countries that belong to the UN) engage in torture? Why has the number of authoritarian countries
increased in the last several years? Why do women remain a subordinate class in nearly all countries of the world?
Why do children continue to work in mines and factories in so many countries?

The truth is that human rights law has failed to accomplish its objectives. There is little evidence that human
rights treaties , on the whole, have improved the wellbeing of people. The reason is that human rights were never as universal
as people hoped, and the belief that they could be forced upon countries as a matter of international law was shot
through with misguided assumptions from the very beginning. The human rights movement shares something in common
with the hubris of development economics , which in previous decades tried (and failed) to alleviate poverty by imposing top-
down solutions on developing countries. But where development economists have reformed their approach, the human rights movement has
yet to acknowledge its failures. It is time for a reckoning.
Multilat Fails
[ ] Multilat fails
Langenhove, 11 Luk Van, Director of the Comparative Regional Integration Studies Institute of the
United Nations University (Multilateralism 2.0: The transformation of international relations, UN
University, 5/31/11, http://unu.edu/publications/articles/multilateralism-2-0-the-transformation-of-
international-relations.html)Red

Two major developments are currently transforming the multilateral system. The first is the trend towards multi-polarity as expressed by the rising number of states
that act as key players. There have been times when only a few or even one player dominated the geopolitical game. But today it seems that several states are
becoming dominant players as global or regional actors. The (voting) behavior of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) in the UN and
their presence in the G20 illustrates this trend. The second development, meanwhile, is that new
types of actors are changing the nature
of the playing multilateral field. Regions with statehood properties are increasingly present in the area of international relations. Since 1974, the
European Union (EU) for instance has been an observer in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). But on 3 May 2011, UNGA upgraded the EUs status by
giving it speaking rights. And that same resolution opens the door for other regional organizations to request the same speaking rights. Undoubtedly, this is what is
what will happen in the near future. But as stated by some UN members in discussions on this resolution, this could unbalance the one state, one vote rule within
the UN. On the other hand, this opening towards regional organizations brings with it new opportunities. Together these two developments illustrate that
multilateralism is no longer only a play between states: various regions as well as other actors are
present and are profoundly changing the multilateral game. But thinking about multilateralism is still
very much based upon the centrality of states: they are regarded as the constitutive elements of the
multilateral system and it is their interrelations that determine the form and content of multilateralism. This implies

that international politics is regarded as a closed system in at least two ways: firstly, it spans the whole world; and, secondly, there
are huge barriers to enter the system. Many authors have pointed to all kinds of dys-functions such as the complexity of the UN system with its
decentralized and overlapping array of councils and agencies, or to the divides between developed and developing countries. The emergence of truly

global problems such as climate change, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and many others have indeed led to an increasing
paradox of governance. As Thakur and Van Langenhove put it in Global Governance (2006, 12:3) [t]he policy authority for tackling
global problems still belong to the states, while the sources of the problems and potential solutions are
situated at transnational, regional or global level. As such the building blocks of multilateralism, the
states, seem to be less and less capable of dealing with the challenges of globalization. But because the
multilateral world order is so dependent on the input of states, multilateralism itself is not functioning
well. From an open to a closed system One way to capture the above-mentioned developments is to use the metaphor of multilateralism 2.0 in order to stress
how the playing field and the players in multilateralism are changing. The essence of the Web 2.0 metaphor is that it stresses the emergence of network thinking and
practices in international relations, as well as the transformation of multilateralism from a closed to an open system. In multilateralism 1.0 the principle actors in the
inter-state space of international relations are states. National governments are the star players. Intergovernmental organizations are only dependent agents whose
degrees of freedom only go as far as the states allow them to go. The primacy of sovereignty is the ultimate principle of international relations. In contrast, in
multilateralism 2.0, there are players other than sovereign states that play a role and some of these players challenge the notion of sovereignty. Regions are one such
type of actor. Conceived by states, other
players can have statehood properties and as such aim to be actors in the
multilateral system. Regional organizations especially are willing and able to play such a role. But sub-
national regions as well increasingly have multilateral ambitions as demonstrated by their efforts
towards para-diplomacy. As a result international relations is becoming much more than just inter-state relations. Regions are claiming their place as
well. This has major consequences for how international relations develop and become institutionalized, as well as for how international relations ought to be
studied. What was once an exclusive playing ground for states has now become a space that states have to share with others. It is a fascinating phenomenon: both
supra- and sub-national governance entities are largely built by states and can therefore be regarded as dependent agencies of those states. However, once created,
these entities start to have a life of their own and are not always totally controllable by their founding fathers. These new sub- and supra-entities are knocking on the
door of the multilateral system because the have a tendency to behave as if they were states. This actorness gives them, at least in principle, the possibility to
position themselves against other actors, including their founding fathers! All
of this has weakened the Westphalian relation
between state and sovereignty. One state, one vote Organizing multilateralism in a state-centric would only be possible if all states are treated as
equal. This means that irrespective of the differences in territorial size, population size, military power or economic strength, all states have the same legal
personality. Or in other words, the Westphalian principle of sovereign equality means working with the principle of one state, one vote, although it is universally
acknowledged that this principle does not correspond to the reality. In multilateralism 2.0 this could be balanced through a more flexible system that compares
actors in terms of certain dimensions (such as economic power) regardless of the type of actors they are. In other words, one can for instance compare big states
with regions or small states with sub-national regions. This allows not only a more flexible form of multilateralism. It could perhaps also lead to a more just system
with a more equal balance of power and representation. Within the present multilateral system, the UN occupies a major position. But, in order to adapt to the
emerging mode 2.0 of multilateralism, it needs to open up to regions. This is a problem, as the UN is a global organization with sovereign states as members.
Indeed, the way the UN is organized, only sovereign states, the star players, can be full members (see Article four of the UN Charter). Even though the EU was
granted speaking rights, it was not granted voting rights. Chapter VIII of the Charter also mentions the possibility of cooperation with regional organizations and
right from its conception there have been attempts to go beyond a state-centric approach. However, for
many years now, the UN has struggled with the question of what place supra-national regional
organizations should and could take in achieving UN goals. On one end of the spectrum is the position that regionalism blocks the
necessary global and universal approach needed to solve the problems of today. At the other end there is the position that regionalism can serve the overall goals
of the UN. Obviously, the question is not only a philosophical one. Rather, it is also about power of institutions. Are regional organizations weakening the UN or can
they be considered as allies of the UN in dealing with supra-national problems? Further recognition required The key issue in relation to any institutional reform
aimed at reinforcing multilateralism is how to create a balance of power among UN members and a balance of responsibilities and representation for the people of
our planet. Such
a complex set of balances cannot be found if reform propositions continue to be based
upon states as the sole building blocks of multilateralism. A radical rethinking is needed , which recognizes that,
next to states, world regions based upon integration processes between states have to play a role in establishing an effective multilateralism. Todays reality is that,
next to states, world regions are becoming increasingly important tools of global governance. There needs to be, however, a lot of creative and innovative thinking
based upon careful analysis of the regional dimensions of ongoing conflicts and of existing cooperation between the UN and regional organizations. The upgrading of
the EUs status in the UN is an important step forward. But it is not enough. Other regional organizations such as the African Union, ASEAN or the League of Arab
States should follow. And next to speaking rights, collaboration between the UN and regional organizations needs to be further developed. This is the only way to
increase regional ownership of what the UN and its Security Council decide. As a matter of fact, this recently happened with the UNSC resolution 1973 regarding
Libya: explicit reference is made to the African Union, the League of Arab States and the Organization of Islamic Conference. Moreover, the League of Arab States
members are requested to act in the spirit of Chapter VIII of the UN Charter in implementing the resolution. Reviving Chapter VIII seems to be a promising way to
combine global concerns with local (regional) legitimacy and capacity to act. The challenge is that in line with the complexity of the emerging new world order, any
proposal to rethink multilateralism in such a way that it incorporates regionalism needs to be flexible. A
simplistic system of regional
representations that replace the national representations will not work. And not only the UN, but also
the regional organizations themselves need to adjust to the reality of multilateralism 2.0. In this respect it remains to be seen to what
extent the EU Member States will allow the EU to speak with one vision. And above all, in order to become politically feasible, the idea

of a multi-regional world order needs to be supported and promoted by civil society. As long as this is
not the case, old habits and organizational structures will not change, and the world will not become a
more secure place to live in.
Thumpers
Treaty spillover empirically denied
Koplow, 13 [Indisputable Violations: What Happens When the United States Unambiguously Breaches
a Treaty?, David A. Koplow is Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Applied Legal Studies at
Georgetown University Law Center. He was Special Counsel for Arms Control to the General Counsel, U.S.
Department of Defense, Washington, DC, from 2009 to 2011.]

The United States justifiably prides itself on its devotion to the rule of law. We take legal instruments seriously; when we
assume a binding legal obligation at home, we mean it, and we expect all parties to the agreement to demonstrate comparable fealty. !is
commitment to the law also extends to international agreements. Treaties
are the coin of the international realm , and the
United States leads the world both in making treaties and in publicly and pointedly holding others
accountable when they fall short of full compliance. 1 What happens, then, when the United States
contravenes a binding international legal obligation in a manner so obvious and unarguable that it can
ofer no defense to the charge of breach? It happens more often than one might think and to more
important treaties than one would hope, including treaties for which the United States continues to depend upon fastidious
performance by other countries. Here, I present three illustrative cases studies of blatant U.S. violations of binding

legal obligations : the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, the 1963 Vienna Convention on
international
Consular Relations, and the obligation to pay annual dues under the Charter of the United Nations . I
explain the causes of these breaches and examine their adverse consequences for the United States and for the
international rule of law .

Surveillance Thumps
Greenwald, 10/15/14 [UN Report Finds Mass Surveillance Violates International Treaties and Privacy
Rights, Glenn, https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/15/un-investigator-report-condemns-mass-
surveillance/]

The United Nations top official for counter-terrorism and human rights (known as the Special Rapporteur) issued a
formal report to the U.N. General Assembly today that condemns mass electronic surveillance as a clear violation of core
privacy rights guaranteed by multiple treaties and conventions. The hard truth is that the use of mass surveillance technology effectively
does away with the right to privacy of communications on the Internet altogether, the report concluded. Central to the Rapporteurs findings is the distinction
between targeted surveillance which depend[s] upon the existence of prior suspicion of the targeted individual or organization and mass surveillance,
whereby states with high levels of Internet penetration can [] gain access to the telephone and e-mail content of an effectively unlimited number of users and
maintain an overview of Internet activity associated with particular websites. In a system of mass surveillance, the report explained, all of this is possible without
any prior suspicion related to a specific individual or organization. The communications of literally every Internet user are potentially open for inspection by
intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the States concerned. Mass surveillance thus amounts to a systematic interference with the right to respect for the
privacy of communications, it declared. As a result, it is incompatible with existing concepts of privacy for States to collect all communications or metadata all the
time indiscriminately. In concluding that mass surveillance impinges core privacy rights, the
report was primarily focused on the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty enacted by the General Assembly in 196 6, to which all of the
members of the Five Eyes alliance are signatories. The U.S. ratified the treaty in 1992 , albeit with various reservations that allowed for the
continuation of the death penalty and which rendered its domestic law supreme. With the exception of the U.S.s Persian Gulf allies (Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar),
virtually every major country has signed the treaty. Article 17 of the Covenant guarantees the right of privacy, the defining protection
of which, the report explained, is that individuals have the right to share information and ideas with one another without interference by the State, secure in the
knowledge that their communication will reach and be read by the intended recipients alone. The reports key conclusion is that this core right is impinged by mass
surveillance programs: Bulk access technology is indiscriminately corrosive of online privacy and impinges on the very essence of the right guaranteed by article 17.

In the absence of a formal derogation from States obligations under the Covenant, these programs pose a direct and ongoing
challenge to an established norm of international law. The report recognized that protecting citizens from terrorism attacks is a
vital duty of every state, and that the right of privacy is not absolute, as it can be compromised when doing so is necessary to serve compelling purposes. It
noted: There may be a compelling counter-terrorism justification for the radical re-evaluation of Internet privacy rights that these practices necessitate. But the
report was adamant that no such justifications have ever been demonstrated by any member state using mass surveillance: The States engaging in mass
surveillance have so far failed to provide a detailed and evidence-based public justification for its necessity, and almost no States have enacted explicit domestic
legislation to authorize its use. Instead, explained the Rapporteur, states have relied on vague claims whose validity cannot be assessed because of the secrecy
behind which these programs are hidden: The arguments in favor of a complete abrogation of the right to privacy on the Internet have not been made publicly by
the States concerned or subjected to informed scrutiny and debate. About the ongoing secrecy surrounding the programs, the report explained that states
deploying this technology retain a monopoly of information about its impact, which is a form of conceptual censorship that precludes informed debate. A June
report from the High Commissioner for Human Rights similarly noted the disturbing lack of governmental transparency associated with surveillance policies, laws
and practices, which hinders any effort to assess their coherence with international human rights law and to ensure accountability. The rejection of the terrorism
justification for mass surveillance as devoid of evidence echoes virtually every other formal investigation into these programs. A federal judge last December found
that the U.S. Government was unable to cite a single case in which analysis of the NSAs bulk metadata collection actually stopped an imminent terrorist attack.
Later that month, President Obamas own Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies concluded that mass surveillance was not essential to
preventing attacks and information used to detect plots could readily have been obtained in a timely manner using conventional [court] orders. Three Democratic
Senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee wrote in The New York Times that the usefulness of the bulk collection program has been greatly exaggerated and
we have yet to see any proof that it provides real, unique value in protecting national security. A study by the centrist New America Foundation found that mass
metadata collection has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism and, where plots were disrupted, traditional law enforcement and investigative
methods provided the tip or evidence to initiate the case. It labeled the NSAs claims to the contrary as overblown and even misleading. While worthless in
counter-terrorism policies, the UN report warned that allowing mass surveillance to persist with no transparency creates an ever present danger of purpose creep,
by which measures justified on counter-terrorism grounds are made available for use by public authorities for much less weighty public interest purposes. Citing the
UK as one example, the report warned that, already, a wide range of public bodies have access to communications data, for a wide variety of purposes, often
without judicial authorization or meaningful independent oversight. The report was most scathing in its rejection of a key argument often made by American
defenders of the NSA: that mass surveillance is justified because Americans are given special protections (the requirement of a FISA court order for targeted
surveillance) which non-Americans (95% of the world) do not enjoy. Not only does this scheme fail to render mass surveillance legal, but it itself constitutes a
separate violation of international treaties (emphasis added): The Special Rapporteur concurs with the High Commissioner for Human Rights that where States
penetrate infrastructure located outside their territorial jurisdiction, they remain bound by their obligations under the Covenant. Moreover, article 26 of the
Covenant prohibits discrimination on grounds of, inter alia, nationality and citizenship. The Special Rapporteur thus considers that States are legally obliged to afford
the same privacy protection for nationals and non-nationals and for those within and outside their jurisdiction. Asymmetrical privacy protection regimes are a clear
violation of the requirements of the Covenant. That principle that the right of internet privacy belongs to all individuals, not just Americans was invoked by NSA
whistleblower Edward Snowden when he explained in a June, 2013 interview at The Guardian why he disclosed documents showing global surveillance rather than
just the surveillance of Americans: More fundamentally, the US Persons protection in general is a distraction from the power and danger of this system.
Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because its only victimizing 95% of the world instead of 100%. The U.N. Rapporteur was clear that these
systematic privacy violations are the result of a union between governments and tech corporations: States increasingly rely on the private sector to facilitate digital
surveillance. This is not confined to the enactment of mandatory data retention legislation. Corporates [sic] have also been directly complicit in operationalizing bulk
access technology through the design of communications infrastructure that facilitates mass surveillance. The
latest finding adds to the
growing number of international formal rulings that the mass surveillance programs of the U.S. and its
partners are illegal . In January, the European parliaments civil liberties committee condemned such programs in the strongest possible terms. In April,
the European Court of Justice ruled that European legislation on data retention contravened EU privacy rights. A top secret memo from the GCHQ, published last
year by The Guardian, explicitly stated that one key reason for concealing these programs was fear of a damaging public debate and specifically legal challenges
against the current regime.
OverpopNo Impact
No impact to overpopulation
Albert 04 (Michael, founder and current member of the staff of Z Magazine, Humanitys Future, p. 151, dbm)

Overpopulation Is Not the Problem Of course population


can reach a point where , for a given level of technical
know-how, and with a given social structure, more people means more environmental degradation
and a lower standard of living for most. But there is no evidence that we are near such a population
level. And there is no evidence that current poverty, hunger, and tenacity degradation etc. owe their
origins or tenacity in any significant degree to a population problem, but, instead, the evidence is
abundant that these particular crimes against humanity are rooted in oppressive institutional
structures and the abhorrent misallocations of labor and energy and maldistribution of product that
they foster.

Population will stabilize


Population and Development Program 2006 (10 Reasons to Rethink Overpopulation, Fall 2006,
http://popdev.hampshire.edu/projects/dt/dt40.php

World population is still growing and is expected to reach 9 billion by the year 2050. However,
demographers agree that the era of rapid growth is over. Population growth rates peaked in the 1960s
due to dramatic reductions in death rates and increased life expectancy. Since then, with increasing
education, urbanization, and womens work outside the home, birth rates have fallen in almost every
part of the world. The average is now 2.7 births per woman. A number of countries, especially in Europe,
are now concerned about declining population growth as many women have only one child. The UN
projects that world population will eventually stabilize , falling to 8.3 billion in 2175.

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