>> and the question is how to formulate policies that get back to both consistency with our values, our international obligations, and to our national interests. in many senses, we have been tasked with unwinding practices that we would not have authorized, had we been in office when they were first encountered. and the primus on this is hard. well, we all know it is a week after a snowstorm, it takes a lot longer to dig out of a snowstorm that it does for it to snow, in the first place. and you can look at it two ways.

we got to the snowstorm, why is there still snow on the ground? or is there a path emerge in which we can follow? now, what is the president tried to do with the road to 9/11? he issued on his second day in office three executive orders to launch processes of review of the interrogation and transfer process, a task force issued a report. he is at an interagency group examined all of the cases, the individual detention cases, on guantanamo. another group that looked into the questions of policy. he has committed himself erbe to the closure of guantánamo, and freed him has been appointed ambassador for the closure of guantánamo, has been working on this issue. detainees are moving out everyday. the president directed that guantanamo be investigated to determine that it complies with

common article iii of the geneva convention. that all future detentions, interrogations be conducted consistently with the army field manual i'm a task force liquidation making this policy permanent. the task force itself issuing a set of recommendations to ensure that individuals are transferred are not transferred to situations where they will face torture. the military commissions act was revised and amended. the biggest change being a bar the admissibility of evidence of statements taken as a result of cruel and human or degrading treatment. we have established more robust new procedures for detainees in afghanistan that can now challenge the evidence on which detention is based. they have the assistance of personal representatives. the justice department has revived the state secret privilege to give a better balance between open government and national security. the u.s. has become a party to the convention on certain conventional weapons as of

january 21 of last year. reaffirming our commitment to the develop an of international humanitarian law. and our many other steps in the works and to come. now, is this the end? no. but i do not consider these to be insignificant achievement, nor do i consider them to be the status quo. it takes a lot longer to dig out of the snowstorm that it is to have a snowstorm, but we are on our way. now, a secondary besides the law of 9/11 is the whole area of international justice and dispute resolution. we are addressing these in a variety of settings. this past november for the first time we attended the international criminal court assembly of state party meetings. we are planning to attend the intersessional meeting in the united nations in march en route to the review conference to the icc in 2010.

we are supported particular prosecutions at the international criminal court, and we have worked to support accountability before various ad hoc tribunals, the yugoslav tribunal, sierra leone, lebanon, et cetera. in the business setting, when worked on questions of the ironic u.s. claims tribunal in its third decade. the u.n. compensation commission, the nafta tribunal, and we've taken positions in a number of domestic litigation, mostly like the brief that we filed along the office and the salmon tart case which will be argued on march 3. now, i think there's been a pattern over time, john bellinger noted this when he was himself a legal adviser. of the justice and state departments taking positions in many cases involving foreign policy issues, but not

necessarily a novel or significant foreign policy interests of the united states. just to remind you, back in 1964 in the sabatino case, the supreme court famously said often the state department will wish to refrain from taking an official position, particularly at a moment that would be indicated by the the development of private litigation, or which might be an opportune diplomatically. in other words, the fact that a private case raises a particular set of international law issues doesn't necessarily mean that the u.s. government ought to intervene. over the last few years, the sheer number of requests from courts and parties for statements of interest has expanded. this raises serious resource considerations, not just for us but for our clients in trying to work out the policy implications of a particular brief. and therefore ideally we would wait until these matters reach the highest level of the court

before participating. and i think that you should not then assume that just because your client has particular case that's an international dimension that u.s. government needs to intervene, needs to appear or make an statement that in many cases law or docked in the air as well settle. and candy and argue correctly decided by the court without participation by the state department or the justice department. and we have filed a number of pleadings. we will not participate but no inference should be drawn into these decisions not to participate. now i know every administration comes in overtime, says the not going to do as much of this in the past and then gets drawn in overtime. this is sort of a hydraulic effect, but i do think that as much as i've heard about the tape letter, which of course is by a former associate dean of yale law school.

another to take letters, at some point there may be a colder. but it's not one that i am rushing or looking for a vehicle to send forward. a third field a flaw in which we're working is in the air they international engagement. how to reach a certain kinds of chords and agreements with other nations. and here we are operating in the usual political environment. you all see the difficulty of getting 60 votes for health care. if you read the constitution, you know you need 67 votes to get a treaty ratified. and it's a long way from 60 to 67. i know how the treaty feels. i've got 65 votes for cloture. i got 62 votes for my confirmation. if i were a tree i wouldn't have made it. [laughter] >> so i tell you, i know how a treaty feels. nevertheless there are many areas in which we have been able

to do treaty making. last year the u.s. exchange and deposited instruments on more trees than any other year in u.s. history. already this year there has been won one ratification, the french tax protocol. were expecting the senate to ask on a number of other tax treaties, the child support treat them the defense cooperation trees with the u.k. and australia. we're hoping for actions on various bilateral investment treaties, et cetera. and we are considering a number of ways in which these international agreement processes can be moved forward. one area very much below the public radar screen at the moment is in the area of private international law. the hague convention on choice of courts will need to be implemented domestically,

following the supreme court's decision in that eating. there are a number of proposals on the table for exactly how to do that by statute, by an approach which some are calling a whopper to federalism. this will be an important dimension of my time. i think as legal adviser. fourth area out of five is what i call the law of the state department. this is where some of the most intricate and difficult lordly issues of our agency come to us. one area of course has been a dramatic expansion of contracting, consular issues, these are questions, restrictions on foreign assistance, diplomatic immunity. this body of law will continue to evolve. and in this and finally, the area of law that i find the most fascinating that i struggle everyday to get to is what i call the emerging law of globalization. there are bodies of law that are now emerging that did not exist

even 10, 15 years ago. one such area is cyber law. and this has become a vigorous area practice, including e-commerce, it includes issues about cybercrime, cyber terrorism. and it's an extraordinary important area. another polar law, polar law. i don't know about you, but i never thought much about polar law. but think about this, though global warming is occurring. the polarized cap is melting. people aren't able to sailboats deeper into the polarized cap. they can therefore investigate, and there's a possibly now finding more also fuels below the ice cap, which could then cause more global warming. and the oddest question is, what should be regime to do with this question. some of argued it should be the regime of law applied to

antarctica, but the fact of the matter is, as you might think they are, polar opposites. [laughter] >> antarctica is the land. the polarized cap is frozen or. there's a highly different regime. the polar area is buttered by only a small number of countries. this area of the high north will be subject of tremendous discussion and investigation in the years ahead. so in conclusion let me say that when all is said and done, there are basically two engenders, a lowering agenda which is answer the questions that come in each day. and the other is a rule of law agenda, which i think breaks into three, repair, resume and renew. one is to repair what we think our incursions to the rule of law that have occurred.

the resumption meaning to resume our multilateral engagement in the whole array of diplomatic for a, by which i mean the human rights council, the international criminal court, the climate talks, revised regional discussions in the middle east with north korea, a long ignored economic diplomacy agenda on trade, sanctions, private international law. here's an important message. reengaged and is not easy. it doesn't always have quick or perfect results. we need long-term strategy to build coalitions of the like-minded. we have to be able to stay the course to achieve meaningful outcomes. and then finally renewing international law by reviving a workable treaty process, and also renewing global legal initiatives in a number of areas. piracy, a 21, polar law, cyber law, e-commerce. hard straight, and remember,

that our laws of service in the number of goals among them bringing to the end the cold war, that's the future of our diplomacy in north korea, our nuclear disarmament discussions. building networks, public-private partnerships, not just walls, addressing new sources of global security, not just terrorism but also disease, climate change, food security issues. and then finally, listing the world bottom and particularly targeting problems of gender disparity, and basic human needs. many of these issues are coming to the floor in the haiti crisis, which i'm delighted to talk about in the question and answer. now it may seem, taken together, that this is a huge laundry list. mac and these are huge obstacles. one of my favorite sayings from yale chaplain, like to say what it looks like great obstacles,

he said, are really brilliant opportunities, brilliantly disguised as a great obstacles. [laughter] >> and i think that's for this administration, when we rise above the day today, the most brilliant opportunity for us to seize it to treaties issues, not just as a series of isolated challenges, but as an occasion for articulating this vision, this obama clinton doctrine that i'm describing. and in that effort, we are aided by civil society. we are aided by the practicing bar. we need your help and advice. in my own time as a professor, much of what i did was to write and speak to government officials. we need your input and your ideas. too often, those who are in the freight don't have the vision to get good ideas. and we need those ideas. and i think that there's not a

day that i don't go to work thinking that in 21st century, i had the good fortune to work for a government in the world where the defining image is not a world divided by a wall but a world interconnected by a world wide web. we need to think of the emerging technologies and scientific development, which posed threats as also posing brilliant opportunities. we need to think of them as toys. many people think of them as toys. i think we need to think of them as tools. tools for change. to calling eight phrase, change we can believe it. and with that, i think that is our brilliant opportunity. with the help of all of you here, i hope we can achieve this. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you, he'll. that is a hard act to file. i see that i drew the short straw here. i would have much preferred to introduce harold and to have followed him. i'm going to make very short remarks, because you're here really to hear from harold. so let me just, i've got really just one question for you, which am going to come to any minute in my role as discussing. let me first though say it's really a great honor to have harold here and to have him as legal advisor, as he knows there really is a great fraternity of the past legal advisers. and i have to of my predecessors here. i was very privilegeprivilege to endorse harold as the legal advisor when he was being attacked by conservatives who suggested that he had the

audacity to actually believe in international law. and not only do i think really that any president should have his or her own nominees, assuming that they are qualified, but that it was particularly well-qualified. he was perhaps the most qualified legal advisor nominee in history for some of the reasons that nancy menoned. so we are really very pleased to have harold as the legal advise or. he was very supportive of me and my mission when i was legal advisor, not the least of which was sending a whole lot of students from yale law school. both he and i and my predecessors had the great privilege to head up what is the largest and finest public international law firm in the world. it is really, almost everybody in this room, is involved in international law in some way. and it is a wonderful job.

no matter what the issues are that are thrown at you, it's just a great privilege. you were, as harold says, with the finest lawyers that there are. i'm actually privilege here to have to allow my, legal advisors office. jeff smith in the back who heads our national security law practice, and followed was a leader somewhere who heads our international arbitration practice. there are many others in the room. terrific lawyers. we work on fascinating issues. what i'm ashley seymour over time now is that historically every issue that you see in the newspaper had a legal issue behind it. now, the international law issues are the issues in the newspaper. you just turn from page one to page two, and those are the issues that the legal advisor is working on. you heard harold mentioned just in eight months that he's been in office he's already appeared before the international board of justice in the kosovo case,

filed briefs with his name on it before the supreme court, negotiated treaties, traveled around the world meeting with our partners. we have terrific diplomats we work with. both he and i were privileged to work for outstanding secretaries of state, and we were particularly privileged both of us to be really part of the inner management team where our advice was guided, not just as a matter of legal advice, really for the policy advice that we would give his will as long as we separated our policy advice from our legal advice. is a wonderful job. for the younger people in the room, who may at some point be wanted to go into the government, i encourage you to think about the legal advisors office. now, for my question, my presence here today reminds me a little bit of a time about three or four years ago when i was invited by the students at yale to come and give a presentation at yale. and i had been a legal advise

her at that point for about a year, for a little bit longer than harold has now. and i gave a presentation about the things that we had been doing so far, and that we wanted to do in the area of international law. and i began with secretary rice's personal commitment to international law. i talked about the fact that she had appeared before the american society of international law as one of her first public appearances. the first secretary of state to do so in 30 years. she appeared again the following year at the centennial of the american society of international law. i think it was the last secretary of state to appear before the american society. and i also talked about some of the actions that we were taking to engage in international law, but we had already at that point begun to try to begin the process of re- engaging with the international criminal court after what i thought was the unfortunate un-signing of the

rome statute. we agree to the referral of the genocide in darfur or to the international criminal court under resolution 1593, and i personally gave a number of speeches saying that we would support the prosecutor. and would begin a process of quite strong support for the court in the second term that was applauded by human rights groups. one of the first things would also done was to take strong action to implement the decision of the international court of justice in the case involving the denial of consular notice the 51 mexican nationals on death row. and in the arctic part of 2005, the president had ordered the states to review and reconsider all of those suggestions as. texas, the president hopes that, actually challenged him and was taken all the way up to the supreme court as you know and the supreme court reversed.

and that case it still lingers to this day. i mentioned the time, the treaties that we were working on including the law including the law of the sea treaty, the president had recently issued a statement calling for the rapid senate approval of the senate treated and i talked about what we were trying to do to get out of this sort of the detainee, including changes that had just been made to the military commissions act, the fact that we have transferred out by that .3 or 400 detainees from guantánamo that the president had said that he wanted to move to the day, that guantánamo should be close. and so i emphasize all of the things that we were doing. now, sitting in the front row of the auditorium at yale was the dean of the yale law school. and harold, who really is a good friend of mine as i said, has been very supportive of me, asked the first question, just as i get to do today.

and heralded then made a very transient dissection of all of the remarks that i had just made. not directed at me personally, but really harold has been a persistent critic of the past administration, and essentially said, yes, you know, john i know you're trying, but not good enough. guantanamo is not closed. you really need to become party to the international criminal court. you need to work harder to comply with the ruling of the icj. you should not have pulled out of the option of protocol that allows the case is actually to litigated before the icj. i've got concerns about military commissions. i've got concerns about guantánamo. you shouldn't just be trying the law of the sea treaty. you should be trying on sea dog and ctbt, and a number of other treaties.

so harold really sort of took me apart at that point. so my question for you, harold -- [laughter] -- is you've been working hard now on many of the same issues, just as i did as the legal advisor. and i think you and i share a number of the same concerns. the problem is, is the legal advisor is not a solo operator inside an administration, or even inside the federal government. there are bureaucratic politics at play, where the defense department and the cia and the justice department and the white house may not agree with the views of the legal advisor. as harold rightly said, to get a treaty through the senate you have to get 67 votes through the center. it's also and a lecture near this year. although at any are, unfortunately there is just not strong support for international

law and international institutions inside the united states. many of our senators tend to believe that treaties are things that we do to be nice to other countries, to be part of the international club, and fail to see that the reason that we enter into treaties is because they are in our interest. not in the interest of other countries. so, harold, i assume, knowing you as i do, that you must be frustrated with the lack of progress on a number of these issues. the policies of rendition, and military commissions, and definite detention without trial, predator strikes have continued, have continued to be criticized by human rights groups. the defense department has opposed any strong engagement with the international criminal court, and with respect to the icj's rulings, in fact, the administration has done nothing so far to even seek legislation

while we've got nearly 50 mexican nationals still on death row. with respect to treaties, i have to just respond on one point. the reason that the administration was able to submit so many, exchange to me instruments of ratification in 2009 was that in 2007 and 2008, we have actually pushed it through more treaties through the senate than at any point in american history. 90 treaties in 2007-2008. i happen to know that because i testified in favor of the number. but the difficulty is in an election year it will be very difficult to get any of these treaties through, certainly any of the major ones that i know that you and i have been concerned about. so my question for you is, given these difficulties for the legal advisor, who is, in fact, and invite the rest of the administration, by the senate, by domestic politics, how are

you addressing these difficulties? and what progress do you think you would make on some of these issues going forward? particularly in this year, an election year of the united states. [applause] >> i think we can address these from our seats here, so there should be a button there for you to hit to turn on your microphone. >> well, let me, you know, i acknowledged john's focus as a legal advise or. many of our goals were the same. i think we are pointing to three different factors. one, there were areas in which the bush administration reversed itself made stream. made errors, grievous errors very early through the hard work of people like john, got those

policies and either stalled or stopped, and started to move the pendulum and the opposite correction. and i have no problem in a continuity of policy with things that are already recognize when things were a mistake. there's a second area, which is areas in which progress has not been possible, because it's not the executive branch acting alone. you know, this is a group of people who live in shouldn't. every single one of you has focused on one or more issues in the political environment which we are living. which make it very difficult to get things done through legislative process, treaty. regular legislative process nevertheless a treaty process. john said the icj requires a legislative solution. i agree. that explains why it has not

been possible to get that problem solved. now you can take another approach, which say it doesn't involve a legislative solution. the risk you run there is you could have knocked legislative solution to be icj problem that is legally ineffective, or what you struck down by the supreme court. and i don't think that we advance the interest of the icj to pursue a policy at, you know, using the capital that we have internally to achieve a result which doesn't end of actually implementing our obligations under the treaty. now, i give john and secretary rice a great credit for their efforts to try to implement the advantage through nonlegislative means. it turned out that the supreme court, and the decisions that i think was incorrect, and found surprising, didn't bite. so the second time we have to be even more careful about how to do it. so i won't go into the details of the things that we explored

on this, but i think the statement that we are doing nothing is simply acknowledgment that until we have the approach that's going to work, i think we need to take our time. but i think that the third area to be pointed to, i pointed to areas in which legislative inertia makes it difficult to get the change as quickly as we would like in areas in which there has already been a significant shift of policy where we are keeping the pendulum moving. i do think that there are significant areas of change. i think on human rights policy our engagement with the human rights council. i think the process of -- i think john help to move the relationship with the icc from hostility to some sort of benign coexistence, i think the term the john hughes is we accept the reality of the court.

you know, this did not involve attending the assembly of state parties and meanings. it didn't involve engaging with the aggression conference, aggression issues. those are steps that we are moving toward. i think that a formal statement of recommitment to the geneva conventions is something that we have done. we are taking different approaches in a number of domestic litigation cases. sammons are being one of them. we have reengaged on climate change. our military issues are connected to the president's decisions with regard to withdraw from iraq and a new strategy toward afghanistan. i think our attitude toward the united nations has changed as you may have noticed, john bolton is not our ambassador to the united nations. on the detainee policy, i have enumerated the numerous areas of

change. the military commissions act have been amended and reformed. and have at this point been designated for a small number of cases. i disagree that the rendition policy is the same. we haven't had a detailed interrogation and transfer report, which has set the terms by which transfers are being done. and we are still in a situation which we are in armed conflicts. our goal is that armed conflict should occur within the framework of the law of war. i think the fundamental difference between the parts that we're taking and that of other administrations is that we have a few of domestic law in which we are relying on the authorization of the use of military force resolution as the basis for domestic authority, and on the international level we are operating within the framework of the laws of war. that doesn't mean that we are

not still engaged in military actions, that we are not still engaged in defensive exercises. we are in serious complex. those require vigorous exercise of those lawful tools that are available to us, and that is what we are making use of. so i think that a nuanced response to your question, john, is in the areas where you are starting to do the right thing, we are continuing. in areas where both you and i would have liked for congress to be more forthcoming, we're encountered the same obstacles that in those areas where we have discretion to modify and move the policy, we are moving it. [applause] >> all right. now, i know many of you may want to post questions, and we very much want that to be a part of this program.

so i do ask that you wait for a microphone. we have two microphone carriers here. and when you get the microphone, please say your name and your affiliation. we will start with this gentleman here. >> my name is joe hennessey. i have a question for mr. cho related to the rule of law, and your role in the ministration. on favored second, the director of national intelligence the announced that the ministration has drawn up rules that will govern the killing of the american citizens.

this is nothing short given that the supreme court presented issue related to -- [inaudible] >> and the united states -- my question for you is can you share with us and do they admittedly require the administration to present evidence? and do they require or allow to contest the allegations by the ministration? >> well, i'm not going to get into the details. it does seem that the president made clear and said it in his nobel lecture that, while we are

confronting an adversary abiding by nobles, we're continued to obey the rules of law and the way that we fight. and that that is a deep commitment being carried out by this administration on interagency basis. that means a commitment both to international law and to the specific laws of war. now, your characterization of what the director of national intelligence said is not my understanding of how it was put. i think there is an issue as to exactly how we're going to be conducting the kind of military operations that we're engaged in with individuals with whom we are in armed conflict. and that what was described their was a set of procedures that have been, are still being worked on as i understand it for the purpose of addressing this question within the framework of the laws of war. so i think that's all i'm going to say about it.

i think the key of it is, it is possible, it seems to us, to deal with the threats that we face within the framework of the laws of war. that's part of my job, and that's what i do every single day. that is both within the framework of domestic law and within the framework of international law. if it ever came to the point where i believe that those rules were being violated, i would resign. and i'm, frankly, someone who has both served in democratic and republican administrations, and i've said both democratic and republican administrations for violations of rule of law. i have a lifelong job. and to me, obedience with the law is why i am here. and if i ever believed that this administration were not obeying the law, i would leave. so since i'm still here, you can try your own conclusions. >> yes, sir.

>> my name is mark feldman. i would like to ask, talk a little bit about a question of, to what extent does this administration support the notion that we are, our troubles, the threats that we face from terrorists on all lines, and including terrorists in the united states, are governed by at the rules, i'm particularly interested in a what the administrations view is regarding rule 13 which suggests sending criminal justice, it

substituting welfare justice for criminal proceedings in the case is of terrorist suspects in the united states. an example of the underpants bomber. i haven't heard anyone say that prosecution and the military commission will be done constitution. and yet i tell my students that i think that's a better argument, that possibly -- but the broader question is, how broad does the law apply for all threats? afghanistan being one thing. domestic care of another, international. i'm very interested in which you can share about that. >> well, i think the president set forth the framework of his

response in a speech that he gave at the national archives on may 21. and possibility of article iii trials for persons engaged in ordinary criminal activity, richard reid, the shoe bomber famously said when he got off the plane in boston where are the television cameras? and the sheriff arresting and said, well, you're just a criminal. and this is repeated by judge him at his sentencing proceeding. there are offenses which are committed against u.s. entities on u.s. soil, for which there are many eyewitnesses. a process of prosecuting someone through an article iii quart is a time-honored method for dealing with such individuals. hundreds of cases were done in the article iii courts against such terrorists, and that remains and available method of

response. the president also suggested that military commissions could be used if there were an amendment of the military commissions act of 2004, i believe it was. that was recently reenacted in 2009. at this moment, the proceedings are only just now resuming, and only a few cases have been designated for those, for those commissions. so the full range of response, i think, will be determined though over time. but i think that the president made it clear that he wanted to pursue this in a way that he thought was persistent with our values. but nevertheless true to addressing our security concerns. i haven't heard anybody say that they think that the underwear bomber is not going to be

convicted. i haven't heard anybody say that they don't have the evidence against him. i haven't heard anybody say that he himself hasn't given ample evidence. and a time-honored way for gathering information from suspects has been through an article iii process your timing, the prosecution of mafiosi organized criminals is regularly done by prosecutions against operatives, and getting testimony that's given against higher ups. so i think the president has made the framework clear. but again, we are in an unusual situation. i think john would agree with his. in afghanistan and in iraq we are engaged in complicated conflicts. and then we're also still under the authorization of use of military force resolution addressing those individuals who attacked us on september 11, in

a series of networks that are changing and growing. and i think that this will call for this administration which cares deeply, there's nothing more urgent than the protection of u.s. citizens within the framework of the law. and that's exactly what the administration is trying to do. >> yes, here. >> thanks very much. thank you, mr. koh, for your remark that it's very much a privilege to hear from you, and to hear your comments and your vision for the legal advisors office. thank you for your remarks. my name is allison mccain, an international human rights and i spent the better part of my career advocating for women's property rights. so i would like to ask about

convention on all forms of discrimination against women. is the microphone present a problem? i'd like to ask you about an issue of u.s. application of the dog. and specifically, i was wondering if you could comment on the significance of this international treaty. [inaudible] >> but i likewise heard that the legal advisors office continue different levels of involvement with different processes. so would be interested in hearing anything you can share on your vision for how your office will approach this. >> well, i testified in favor of

the ratification of the sea dog when i was assistant secretary for human rights in 1999. and i testified for ratification of the sea dogs as a professor the next time it came up which i think was in 2004. now that i'm a legal adviser i have not changed my view at all. it's a national disgrace that we have not ratified this treaty. my mother is born in korea. shall be entitled to the protection of the tree. my wife's family is from ireland. is an island, they would be entitled. why is my daughter were in the united states, not entitled to the protections of history. i don't understand it. nevertheless, the treaty has kind of resonance in the senate that has made it complicated and difficult to address. and as we pointed out, getting 267 is the critical question. when i click of a supreme court

justice brennan, would call the clerks together and say, these are the most important things you can know about being on the court. and we were say what you mean, your fingers? no, the number five. whatever may be our core commitments, the bottom line with regard to the scent is 67. and i think those who believe that we should ratify the treaty, you need to figure out a way to work with us to get to the number 67. now, you could not have administration more committed on this issue. secretary clinton has been a passionate advocate. our ambassador on women's issues have been working on this. mike poser, assistant secretary for human rights. and so this won't -- and the vice president, joe biden, was himself one of the architects of the violence against women act in the senate. so i think that the real challenge though is that we have

a super majority rule. and getting to a super majority is difficult. i'll give you an example. robert bork was soundly defeated for a supreme court confirmati confirmation, and he had 42 votes. now, to defeat a treaty you need 34 votes. in fact, you need to get a group of people together to get the treaty to the floor, and then get the 67 votes organized. and it has been a major effort to find the sources of this issue. i think it even more egregious example is the condition of the rise of the child, where now if some all your proceeds with its efforts to ratify, we will be the only country in the world that's not a part. and a big part of that is the

super majority rule. now, just as a little bit of history, the united states has been slow to ratify human rights treaties. the genocide convention was first signed in 1949, and we didn't find ratify until 1986. i think there were five different funds at getting it done. and so, over time this does end up having to the international covenant on civil and public rights, again, took many turns at the wheel before it got there. so i would say, my own position has not changed one bit. in the legal advisors office, i see colleagues of mine who share exactly my views are i think the question, this falls in the zone that i was describing, that john i are both lamenting. but which is part of our constitutional process. you end up with a treaty that has to be advised and consented

to by 67 senators. >> all right, we are over time already, but i think we can take to question. can you stay for two more? >> sure. >> and the we have to respect the fact that harold has a lot of things to do. so back tohere. >> thanks. i am from "the wall street journal." i have a question for both mr. koh. in 2008 the bush administration authorized military commission to allow the prior military commission act in 2006 for six alleged 9/11 conspirators. but charges were a pro for only five of them. the sixth one, whose name is detainee number 63, and charges against him were rejected by a convening authority of military commissions appointing under the

bush administration, susan crawford. and the reason she gave was that the evidence against him as a cold restatement were obtained through torture. and thus he remains at guantánamo bay, not part of the five who the attorney general holders have would be tried in southern court as to perhaps reconsidering that decision. my question is, under the torture convention and related domestic law, does the united states have any obligation to investigate the finding of torture by the convening authority of the military commissions or not? i mean, it seems to me that under the torture convention, when there is a reasonably sourced allegation of torture, the state party does have an obligation to investigate and possibly prosecute. here, it's not an allegation by outside group or by detainee. it's a finding by a military

official of the prior administration, whose job is to determine whether charges can lawfully proceed. and while she approved them for the leachate vomit, and other suspects, this one detainee the charges were rejected. and secondly, if you cannot be prosecuted because of this finding, of what happens to this detainee? >> i'm not going to discuss a particular case. but i do want to talk in general terms about the issues that you raise. your ride that after the reform of the military commissions, there is a review. the interagency process, the detainee task force review process did an exhaustive review

of case-by-case. there's an extraordinary detailed and careful process in which attorneys from my office participated. that led to a series of recommendations, and based on that, different kinds of prosecutorial calls were made. and you have referenced some of them. questions of mistreatment were important in determining the weight of the evidence against somebody and how they ought to proceed. now, we have in our system procedures by which allegations of misbehavior or improper action by government officials are investigated, and those procedures are followed. with regard to particular cases. the new military commissions act, as you said, doesn't permit the admissibility of certain kinds of evidence, and so, you can draw your own conclusions

for the reason why that particular case hasn't gone forward before military commission. what would be the future policy about this? you know, we have a complicated situation that the policies were discontinued, and so we have inherited a group of detainees who we hope are in a different circumstance from individuals that might be encountered in the future. and as a result, the president is still making a series of decisions about the forward-looking policy. the so-called legacy issues are much more complicated, because of these questions. but at the end of the day, they are being addressed on a very careful individualized basis. you know, i studied many of these files myself, you know, i've examined the facts of particular cases. i know the names and numbers of

extraordinarily large number of persons whose cases are before, before the review process. and it's a kind of review that should've happened before. and i think it's being done in a careful, thoughtful, determined, and i think admiral way. recognizing mistakes that were made in the past and then try to figure out who should address the different issues as they arise in the future. >> all right. just one more. >> thank you. one of the questions that you did not address was the international trade policy. and i wondered whether you as the state department rule at the

doha round negotiations, -- [inaudible] >> and i know about the significance of the state department said ballmer, having been treasury and the parochial round, having trade policy, and we have 17 votes in favor. and the state department i said if you go into that, and so are chair said this is why proclamation, the vote is -- [inaudible] >> i'm wondering what your view is about the responsibilities to move the international trade

which seems to be now focused on other countries, the big picture like and doha issue, buy america, for example. >> well, peter, as you know i started my career teaching international trade law in the context of what was a move that seemed to me at the time to develop alternative venues for trade liberalization, bilateral fora like free trade agreements, as well as the nafta, and then what were called at the time for lateral discussions. right now i am the lawyer for the policy makers in the state department who are pursuing that. one of the complications that we face, frankly, is a very simple one. it takes a long time for people to get confirmed. extraordinarily long period of

time. the under secretary for economic affairs, bob, and the assistant secretary for economic energy and business affairs, josé fernandez, came in quite prickly. and both of them hit the ground running. they've done a fantastic job in a very short period of time. and to have a group of lawyers who are advisers to them. was the trade policy will look like in the course of the next year and a half, obviously depends on a much broader set of questions around our global economic policies. probably the greatest change over the last year has been the new focus on the g-20 process, and the question how that process relates to multilateral trade rounds, the follow on to doha, et cetera, i think remains to be determined. a trade representative's office, as you know from your time, has

traditionally taken on these issues and i think you're very closely in communication with them. but i think that the state department will be an important player on these issues, for the reasons that i gave. the secretary believes that the economic dimension of our diplomacy is google. she believes that economic diplomacy, commercial diplomacy are an important part of what she can. in particular with some of our most significant trading partners, both significant political partners, the trade and finance relationship is a critical aspect of it. addressing the problems and issues about intellectual property will have to be addressed in a trade sending. so i think that we are in a funny situation, where a number of issues have such high prominence that they have to be addressed.

it's a little bit like the floodwaters at such a high level that until the floodwaters start to drop, you don't know what issues will emerge and get the next level of prominence. at this point in time, i would've hoped that we would have moved on to issues of the current immigration, financial regulation, et cetera. all of these are still in the mix. but as john said, it's an election year. and, you know, there's efforts across a number of different areas to address these questions. and i'm sure that that question will be very high on the discussion list. >> all right. i hope you will all join me in thanking. [applause]