Advancing U.S. Interests with the International Criminal Court

It is a great pleasure to be here in this beautiful lecture hall at Vanderbilt University Law School and to have the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon about the International Criminal Court (ICC). In recent months, one newspaper or magazine article after another, in examining the foreign policy of the current administration and the gulf (which seems to be so pronounced now) between the United States and even its closest allies throughout the rest of the world, has listed a basic set of treaties as being partly explanatory of that gulf. The Kyoto Protocol, for example, is always part of that discussion in the context of climate change. But another such treaty is the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court... The International Criminal Court has become an icon of analysis as to why that has happened. Thus, especially for students on the verge of going out into the world to practice, it is an interesting phenomenon to examine how central this treaty has become in a much larger geopolitical dialogue about the role and responsibilities of the United States in the world. That the treaty has suddenly become a fulcrum of that discussion was something rarely anticipated during the negotiations, because at times it was so incredibly technical. I think it is extremely important that we start any discussion about the International Criminal Court with its purpose. That is what is most commonly lost in the United States when we debate the ICC. Our primary concern always seems to be the potential exposure of the United States to this court

Combined stable isotope and gut contents analysis of food webs in plant-dominated, shallow lakes

1. To determine feeding links between primary producers, invertebrates and fish, stable isotope analyses and gut content analyses of fish were conducted on the components of four shallow, eutrophic to hypertrophic, plant-dominated lakes. 2. Although separation of basal resources was possible, the diets of both fish and invertebrates were broad, comprising food from different compartments (planktonic, epiphytic/benthic), as well as from different trophic levels. 3. Mixing models were used to determine the extent to which periphyton production supported higher trophic levels. Only one species of invertebrate relied upon periphyton production exclusively. 4. Fish density affected the diets of invertebrates. The response was different for planktonic and epiphytic/benthic invertebrates. The proportion of periphyton production in the diets of zooplankton appeared to increase with fish density, whilst it decreased for other invertebrates. 5. As all zooplankton samples were collected in the open water at dusk, these results are further evidence for the diurnal horizontal migration of zooplankton. Although not conclusive, they are consistent with a behavioural response by invertebrates and zooplankton in the presence of fish