The Foreign Service Journal, February 2011

12 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 ble standards.” He also cited U.S. re- jection of the Goldstone Report (a 2009 United Nations investigation charging Israel, as well as Hamas, with committing war crimes during the Gaza War) as an example of America’s “contradictory attitude” toward human rights in the Middle East. —Mohammad Alhinnawi, Editorial Intern Getting to Zero On Nov. 12-14, 2010, the world’s Nobel Peace laureates held their 11th world summit ( www.nobelforpeace- summits.org ) in a symbolic location: Hiroshima, Japan, the first city in his- tory to be hit by a nuclear bomb. Among the laureates who participated in the event were the Dalai Lama; for- mer Soviet President Mikhail Gor- bachev; former Polish President Lech Walesa; andMohamed ElBaradei, for- mer head of the International Atomic Energy Association. As the 2009 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, President Barack Obama was invited but did not attend. Obama had given a big boost to the goal of “global zero,” a world without nuclear weapons, by endorsing it in a speech in Prague in April 2010. Over the course of three days at the summit, survivors of the nuclear at- tacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who are known as the Hibakusha (the “explosion-affected people”), testified about their painful experiences living in the shadow of the 1945 bombings and the discrimination they have experi- enced in Japanese society ever since. In a final declaration, conference participants urged further reductions in American and Russian nuclear stockpiles, but also made an impas- sioned plea for the United States to sign the Ottawa Treaty, which bans the use of land mines. (Although Wash- ington is not a signatory, it stopped using land mines after the 1991 Per- sian Gulf War and ceased production altogether in 1997.) Russia, China and India are among the other holdouts, but 156 countries have signed the Ot- tawa Treaty, commonly known as the Mine Ban Treaty. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and U.S. peace activist JodyWilliams made C Y B E R N O T E S I have identified and will propose a number of cuts to the State Department and foreign aid budgets. There is much fat in these budgets, which makes some cuts obvious. Others will be more difficult but necessary to improve the efficiency of U.S. efforts and accomplish more with less. We must shift our foreign aid focus from failed strategies rooted in an archaic post-World War II approach that, in some instances, perpetuates corrupt governments, to one that reflects current real- ities and challenges and empowers grassroots and civil society. I plan on using U.S. contributions to international organizations as leverage to press for real reform of those organizations, such as the United Nations, and will not hesitate to call for withdrawal of U.S. funds to failed entities like the discredited Human Rights Council if improvements are not made. — From a Dec. 8 press release issued by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., incoming chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com.