No. 51910. United States of America and Democratic Republic of the Congo

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-191
Author(s):  
Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja

Abstract:While Africans are generally satisfied that a person of African descent was reelected to the White House following a campaign in which vicious and racist attacks were made against him, the U.S. Africa policy under President Barack Obama will continue to be guided by the strategic interests of the United States, which are not necessarily compatible with the popular aspirations for democracy, peace, and prosperity in Africa. Obama’s policy in the Great Lakes region provides an excellent illustration of this point. Since Rwanda and Uganda are Washington’s allies in the “war against terror” in Darfur and Somalia, respectively, the Obama administration has done little to stop Kigali and Kampala from destabilizing the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and looting its natural resources, either directly or through proxies. Rwanda and Uganda have even been included in an international oversight mechanism that is supposed to guide governance and security sector reforms in the DRC, but whose real objective is to facilitate Western access to the enormous natural wealth of the Congo and the Great Lakes region.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Danuta Pohl-Michałek

The 1980 United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) was adopted in order to provide uniform rules governing the international sale of goods. It has already been ratified by an impressive number of 92 Contracting States, with the major trading countries taking the lead. The CISG applies to contracts for the sale of goods between parties whose places of business are in different States, where the States are CISG Contracting States (Article 1(1)(a)). Moreover, it applies to contracts for the sale of goods when the contracting parties have their places of business in different States and when the rules of private international law lead to the application of the law of a CISG Contracting State (Article 1(1)(b)). However, at the time of ratification, the prospective Contracting States are given the possibility of making additional reservations, including one set out in Article 95 CISG, which limits the application of Article 1(1)(b) of the Convention. Although there are some CISG Contracting States that initially applied the reservation but have since withdrawn it, there are still a few Contracting States where the reservation remains[1], including the two largest trading countries – China and the United States. The paper presents various approaches regarding the interpretation of the effects of the reservation set out in Article 95 CISG, which in fact challenge the principle of the uniform interpretation and application of the Convention’s provisions. The author argues that the Article 95 CISG reservation leads to increased confusion and problematic conflict of law issues that bring more chaos than benefits.   [1] The remaining Article 95 CISG Reservatory States are: Armenia, China, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Singapore, Slovakia and the United States of America. Information is based on the official website: https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=X-10&chapter=10 (accessed: 9.12.2019).


1917 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 757-762

The mission for which I have the honor to speak is charged by the Government and the people of the United States of America with a message to the Government and the people of Russia.The mission comes from a democratic republic. Its members are commissioned and instructed by a President who holds his high office as Chief Executive of more than one hundred million free people, by virtue of a popular election in which more than eighteen million votes were freely cast and fairly counted, pursuant to law, by universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-281
Author(s):  
Stefano Recchia

Abstract Research suggests that military interveners often seek endorsements from regional international organizations (IOs), in addition to approval from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), to reassure international and domestic audiences. Toward that end, interveners should seek the endorsement of continent-wide regional IOs with the broadest and most diverse membership, which are most likely to be independent. In practice, however, interveners often seek endorsements from subregional IOs with narrow membership and aggregate preferences similar to their own. This should weaken the reassurance/legitimation effect significantly. I argue that such narrower regional endorsements are sought not so much to reassure skeptical audiences, as to pressure reluctant UNSC members to approve the intervention by putting those members’ relations with regional partners at stake. To illustrate this argument and probe its plausibility, I reconstruct France's successful efforts to obtain UNSC approval for its interventions in Côte d'Ivoire (2002–2003) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (2003) at a time when the United States was hesitant to support France because of the two countries’ falling-out over the Iraq War. For evidence I rely on original interviews with senior French and US officials.


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