The chemical weapons convention : strategic implications for the United States
Abstract : On January 13, 1993, in Paris, 130 countries signed the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), to ban the entire class of Chemical Weapons. Debate continues on the strategic implications of the Convention, as drafted, and whether it is in the U.S. national security interest. This paper explores the historical, moral, and legal aspects of chemical warfare, and the strategic implications of the Convention, including operational, policy, constitutional, and industry impact for the U.S. This paper concludes that, although 'imperfect,' the Convention represents a significant contribution to U.S. security objectives, and serves the national interest.
Countering the Proliferation of Chemical Weapons
Abstract : For more than a decade, the U.S. government has been grappling with the question of chemical-weapon proliferation along with the associated problems of missile and nuclear-weapon proliferation. The Ceneva Protocol of 1925 banned the first use but not the production, transfer, or storage of chemical weapons. The extensive chemical-weapon arsenal of the former Soviet Union was the primary chemical-weapon threat to the United States fron the start of the Cold War in the early 1950s, and thus drove U.S. chemical-weapon policy. The United States finally ratified the Geneva Protocol in 1975. Iraq's use of chemical weapons in its war with Iran in the 1980s stimulated the United states to improve its export controls of chemicals used to make chemical weapons. With the demise of the Soviet Union as a military threat to the United states and its European allies, and Russia's willingness to honor the 1990 U.S.-Soviet agreement to destroy their respective chemical-weapon stockpiles, U.S. policy focused on the proliferation and use of chemical weapons among third-world rations, particularly in the Middle East. Chemical weapons have occasionally been used in violation of the Ceneva Protocol over the past decades, most extensively by Iraq in its war with Iran. In the past, however, U.S. policies for control of chemical-weapon proliferation had a lower priority than those for control of more threatening nudear weapons and balistic missiles.
Socially responsible enterprise in Cuba: a positive role model for Corporate Social Responsibility?’
This article examines the unique institutional environment of socialist Cuba, where currently a process of controlled marketization and expansion of private enterprise is taking place. The article investigates business behaviour in Cuba with particular reference to implicit assumptions relating to socially responsible enterprise, or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as the term is understood in Western Liberal Democracies. It draws upon a series of interviews with business practitioners and business commentators (both Cuban and non-Cuban residents on the island). The interviews focused on the participants’ awareness of business ethics and socially responsible enterprise, and the cultural differences in assumptions and expectations relating to the concept of CSR between the Cuban and non-Cuban interviewees. We find that Cuba at this early stage of tentative marketization presents a positive role model of socially responsible enterprise. Both the highly regulated State economy and the embedded norms and values of social equity that have emerged as a consequence of Cuba’s socialist revolution facilitate business social responsibility. The relevance of this research to current debates in relation to CSR is discussed and it is argued that capitalist economies may similarly benefit from tighter regulatory control and by cultivating more pro-social business norms that prioritise ethical over economic concerns.