As has been discussed here before, Kenya is in the midst of a diplomatic campaign to get the International Criminal Court to shelve its prosecutions of six important Kenyans, including the deputy prime minster. The reporting I've seen indicates that Kenyan diplomats have been jetting to various African capitals, seeking support. This standoff matters. If Kenya is able to marshal enough support, it could pressure the court to let its own courts handle matters through national prosecutions. Or Kenya and its allies might persaude the UN Security Council to order a delay in the ICC proceedings, which it is authorized to do. In either case, Kenya will have won an important battle.

What can the ICC itself do in response? The institution is a court, not a political organization or a government, and it isn't really built to lobby (although the prosecutor and certain of the judges have tried their hand on occassion). Activist groups can do their part. But, in essence, the ICC relies on its member states to stand up for it. You'll no doubt be shocked to hear that most states with diplomatic capital aren't spending it on behalf of the ICC.

And so the ICC is doing the best it can with what it's got. This week, the official who has been designated as the president of the assembly of all ICC members (formally called the Assembly of States Parties) headed to the region to try his hand at lobbying. And who is the president of the Assembly of States Parties? It is Christian Wenaweser, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary from, wait for it, Liechtenstein. According to this account, he met with the Kenyan president and other members of the diplomatic community. No doubt his meetings were useful.

But however able, Mr. Wenaweser is not going to accomplish much without the backing of some much more powerful national players. And that then raises the critical question hovering over the whole enterprise in the Hague: will the more than one hundred states that agreed to create the court use their diplomatic muscle to defend it?    

UN human rights expert takes on the proposed EU-India free trade agreement.

Report: Ban Ki-moon is changing his climate change tactics.

The EU's External Action Service has arrived in Tunisia. Plus, the EU will impose a new travel ban on Belarus's leaders.

U.S. financial credibility won't last forever, warns the International Monetary Fund. Plus, Portugal's PM again denies IMF talks.

IMF may be ready to juggle the basket of currencies that make up the Fund's Special Drawing Right.

Congressional leaders ask Obama to veto UN Security Council resolution on Israel.

At Davos, key trade ministers meet for dinner to get the Doha round moving.

Mohamed ElBaradei has arrived back in Egypt, where he was reportedly greeted by throngs at the airport. In Cote d'Ivoire, the internationally-recognized victor in the presidential election, Alassane Ouattara, is struggling to wrest power from the clinging hands of Laurent Gbagbo, with the backing of the international community. 

The two men facing down non-democratic forces in their countries have something in common: they both served for long stretches at international institutions. ElBaradei of course headed the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency after serving for more than a decade on the agency's professional staff. Ouattara rose through the ranks at the International Monetary Fund and held several key posts.

Their trajectories  raise the possibility that international organizations might be serving as an important incubator of democratic talent for non-democratic societies. Imagine that you're an ambitious, talented, politically-minded and generally progressive young person in a society with an autocratic or simply dysfunctional government. At a certain point, the traditional path of national politics may either be blocked or seem unappealing. ElBaradei worked within the Egytian foreign ministry for a number of years and then left for the world of international organizations. I can imagine that plenty of potential leaders would never want to work for a corrupt or undemocratic government and might try to start their careers in international organizations.

Becoming a dissident is one route, and plenty of brave souls take it. In some places (think Eastern Europe) jail-time was a common attribute of the first generation of democratic political leaders. But being a dissident isn't for everyone, and international organizations might be well placed to pluck and develop progressive political talent from these "blocked" societies. Importantly, an applicant usually don't need his or her goverment's backing to get a staff job; but nationality from an underrepresented country (and I'm betting that most closed or dysfunctional countries are underrepresented at major international organizations) can be a distinct benefit. When the time is right or political opportunity arises, the individual can reenter the domestic political scene with credentials, a record, and important international connections.

One can conjure up less optimistic interpretations of how the increasingly dense network of international organizations interacts with the domestic political scene in non-democratic countries. I wondered a few months ago whether these organizations might actually be having a negative effect on national political development by offering would-be reformers comfortable perches in Washington, New York, Geneva, or Vienna, in essence poaching important national political talent.  And there are plenty of reasons to doubt that the skills one develops inside an international organization's bureaucracy are really the ones needed to become an effective democratic politician. John Bolton would snort at the idea that anything good can come from inside an international organization's bureaucracy, but the truth is that IOs in general are well-run and professional, certainly when compared to most nondemocratic governments around the world.

ElBaradei and Outtara are at least intriguing examples. International organizations get accused all the time of being undemocratic, hidebound, and inefficient. It would be ironic if they proved to be a key source for the next generation of democratic national politicans.

From one reader: "Compared to OECD political systems, corporations, and academia, IO's are hidebound, undemocratic, inefficient mandarinates that serve as sinecures for the politically connected.

Compared to fascist party-states like Egypt or Vietnam or African kleptocracies, they are shining examples of meritocracy and law-based governance.

As an American rightwing Boltonite, I am not a fan of ElBaradei's IAEA tenure. But he is more qualified to run a government and a country than Ayman Nour, or anyone in Egypt's rubber-stamp parliament."

The World Bank's country director in Nigeria blogs on corruption...and Batman. More on the latter, actually:

Recently, I was asked whether I thought Nigeria’s problems would be solved if only we managed to fight corruption effectively. I responded that this alone would not be enough. That while important for sure, other problems needed to be tackled as well. The next day a headline in one of the papers read “World Bank says corruption not Nigeria’s Bane.” After I had looked up what "bane" meant, I realized my response had been misunderstood.

Bane, also the name of one of Batman’s nemeses, means 'spoiler' in English." Since corruption essentially entails those who have power stealing from those who don’t, I think it is reasonable to expect that Batman would fight the corrupt. Consequently, corruption must be Nigeria’s Bane. The fact that Nigeria and Batman have other enemies as well does not diminish the importance of fighting this terrible spoiler. [snip]

So if Batman also has to fight the Joker, does that make Bane less of an enemy? Clearly not. In fact, those who are familiar with Batman lore know well that Bane was resposible for breaking Batman’s back. The powerful who steal from the powerless are indeed a terrible adversary; Nigeria, like others, must fight them vigilantly to succeed. At the World Bank, we certainly try to do our part, both in our own programs where we have a policy of zero tolerance for corruption, as well as by working extensively with partners, including Nigeria, to support their fight against this brutal nemesis. 

Of course, if I were battling corruption in Nigeria I'd probably seek refuge in the occasional comic book. 

An interesting tidbit from Vijaya Ramachandran and Julie Walz with the Center for Global Development:

South Africa announced last week that it will launch its own development aid agency in 2011 – the South African Development Partnership Agency.  This move places South Africa ahead of other emerging donors such as India and China , who have yet to create separate agencies to dispense aid.

No longer just a recipient of aid, South Africa has quietly ramped up its role as a leader on the African continent, largely via peacekeeping, post-conflict reconstruction, and even analytical work.  South Africa’s development assistance program originated in the post-apartheid era, as an attempt to improve South Africa’s international image and win friends at the United Nations.  In 2001, South Africa launched the  African Renaissance Fund, although the majority of aid continues to be given through various government departments, notably the Departments of Defense and Education.

The phenomenon of the emerging powers and their development strategies is an important theme that bears watching. China's foreign aid policy, particularly in Africa, has gotten loads of attention and has been the subject of important recent books. The policies of Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa, and Turkey have received less attention.

One small part of the picture that should become visible in the next few weeks is these countries' contributions to the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA), the Bank arm devoted to aiding the poorest countries. None of the major emerging economies has made much of a showing yet as an IDA donor, in part because their overall aid numbers are low and perhaps also because they're reluctant to channel what they do have through the Western-dominated World Bank.

Final numbers on the latest IDA replenishment round should be out in February. Bank officials appeared pleased by the pledges they've received but there's no detail available yet on official national contributions. Through the grapevine, I've heard that the United States is set to displace the United Kingdom as the top donor; whether any of the emerging economies contributes substantially may be the much more important question for the program's long-term health.    

A portrait of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn--and more speculation about his political future.

NATO's secretary-general welcomes Russia's START ratification, hopes that "political momentum" will carry over to missile defense.

World Food Program warns that shrinking food subsidies may produce more instability, riots.

UN envoy argues for special courts for pirates in Puntland, Somaliland.

Condemnation all around for Richard Falk, UN expert and 9/11 conspiracy theorist.

Angela Merkel and EU Commission president Barroso skate over their differences on the bailout fund, at least publicly.

As an African Union summit begins, differences emerge over Cote d'Ivoire.

The International Criminal Court pushes back against Kenya's diplomatic maneuvers.

In today's Financial Times, World Trade Organization director-general Pascal Lamy argues that the way we calculate trade flows is inaccurate and is exacerbating tension over imbalances. The problem, he says, is an outdated system that assigns a given good only one country of origin:

Apple’s iPhone illustrates this clearly. It is assembled in China, then exported to the US and elsewhere. Yet the components come from numerous countries. According to a recent Asian Development Bank Institute study, the phone contributed $1.9bn to the US trade deficit with China, using the traditional country of origin concept. But if China’s iPhone exports to the US were measured in value added – meaning the value added by China to the components – those exports would come to only $73.5m.

I'm not yet clear on whether most economists would support Lamy's view (and some of the comments on the piece are pretty harsh in terms of economic fundamentals) but it's a clever gambit for improving what remains a difficult atmosphere for international trade negotiations.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee is holding a hearing on the United Nations this morning. The committee chair, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, has left little doubt that one of her top priorities will be curtailing American support for and engagement with the UN Human Rights Council.

In an attempt to blunt the GOP attack, a group of leading human rights organizations circulated a letter to the committee arguing that for all the HRC's defects, American engagement has made a difference. A key passage: 

We recognize that the pursuit of principled goals at the Human Rights Council or anywhere in the UN system can be frustrating. But the HRC can play a leading role within the UN system in promoting and protecting human rights. Over the years, abusive countries such as Libya, Cuba, Sri Lanka, and China have worked hard to try to silence–or dominate–the HRC because they know that it has the potential to delegitimize their conduct. If it is important to them to make this effort, it should be important to the United States and to all countries committed to promoting human rights to counter it. To disengage from the fight–or from any international body where the fight is being waged–would be to cede important ground to rights violators. Despite its significant flaws, the HRC and the human rights experts it has appointed are making a real difference in the lives of those facing human rights abuses across the globe. Victims of rights violations and human rights defenders need the United States to continue the push for expanding that impact, not to walk away.

Supporters of human rights will not win every battle at the United Nations. But as the United States has helped to show in the last two years, important battles can be won when friends of human rights band together, and work with patience and determination to achieve their goals. We hope to build on this progress with your support.

The hearing is ongoing now; we'll see whether these arguments carry any weight with the committee members.

Update: Turtle Bay has a recap of the hearing here. Reuters story is here, featuring this Dana Rohrbacher quote: "the U.N. should be one of our prime targets for reducing expenditures in order to bring down this deficit in the next few years." It sounds like a tough environment in which to make the case for the Human Rights Council.