The Foreign Service Journal, October 2006

physical security for classified materi- al, classified computer security, and more. In recent years, spending on physical security has climbed sharply, according to the report. The ISOO, established by execu- tive order, reports directly to the pres- ident on national security classification policy ( www.archives.gov/isoo ) . In congressional testimony a year ago, ISOO Director William Leonard argued that overclassification is a bar- rier to critical information-sharing. “There’s over 50 percent of the infor- mation that, while it may meet the cri- teria for classification, really should not be classified in terms of what we lose,” Leonard told the House Government Reform Committee. “The price we pay for classification outweighs any advantage we perceive we gain” ( www.fas.org/sgp/congr ess/2004/082404transcript.html ). This and other developments in the area of classification policy can be found in Secrecy News , an online pub- lication of the Federation of Ameri- can Scientists’ Project on Govern- ment Secrecy ( http://fas.org/sgp/ news/secrecy/ ). New Index Grades Countries on Environmental Stewardship Scientists are finding increasingly useful ways to evaluate and rank the environmental health of countries. Two promising new indices — the Environmental Sustainability Index and the Environmental Performance Index — have been launched at the past two annual World Economic Forum meetings in Davos, Switzer- land. Available online, both the ESI and EPI are products of a joint initia- tive between the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network of Columbia University, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission ( http://sed ac.ciesin.columbia.edu/es/esi/ ) . “Our ultimate aim is to make our work policy-relevant,” Daniel Esty, Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and a member of the ESI-EPI research team, explains in the spring 2006 issue of Environment Yale . Though the two indices are comple- mentary, the EPI, introduced in January, is focused on current perfor- mance and is more concerned with results. EPI ranks 133 countries based on their performance within six policy categories: environmental health, air quality, water resources, biodiversity and habitat, productive natural resources (e.g., farmland, forests, fish- eries) and sustainable energy. Each category, in turn, is measured by two to five indicators, or data sets. Each indicator measures the distance a country is from an established policy target, based on goals set by treaties, by international organizations or, sim- ply, by the best available science. (For instance, the optimum target for sus- tainable energy is 100 percent; and that for childhood mortality due to environmental factors is 0.) New Zealand was ranked first in the 2006 EPI, followed by Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic and the U.K. The U.S. ranked 28th, with a strong performance on some issues and a weak one on others. In particu- lar, the U.S. lags its peers on water con- servation, sustainable energy and man- aging productive natural resources. While the EPI spotlights pollu- tion control and resource manage- ment efforts for which governments can be held accountable, the ESI presents a more complete, long- term picture of environmental sus- tainability as it includes a host of fac- tors over which the current govern- ment has no control. For instance, the U.K., which ranks fifth on the EPI, is 66th on the ESI. Though the country “is now managing well what it has to work with,” Esty notes, it has “300 years of industrialization to live down.” C Y B E R N O T E S O C T O B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 13 Site of the Month: www.eDiplomat.com Need to review the latest foreign policy statement from the U.K. Foreign Ministry, or get an official biography from the Cambodian Ministry of External Affairs? How about consulting the staff directory of Singapore’s mission in Canberra? And, wouldn’t it be nice to get a post report with nothing but the click of the mouse? eDiplomat.com is a global portal for diplomats that offers links to the official foreign ministry Web sites of 130 countries, and the Web sites of missions around the world for 26 of those countries. It also provides links to the State Department’s Post Reports, and to the Web sites of diplomatic clubs and asso- ciations around the world. The site also offers quick links to such things as “World’s 50 Best Restaur- ants” and “International Job Vacancies.” An independent, nonprofit organization that is not affiliated with any gov- ernment, eDiplomat was launched by a group of diplomats who recognized the potential of the Internet to serve as a platform for connecting diplomats and those interested in diplomacy. Its self-declared mission is to “raise awareness of and increase interaction among diplomats across the globe.”