Human rights education and Global crisis

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Human rights education in post conflict societies, especially in the view of the conflicts in the Caucus

Throughout the history, the United States has been deeply committed to the principle of liberty and has been shelter for many political and economic refugees in times of international conflict. It has very powerful and independent judiciary and a constitution that is characterized by separation of power which prevents tyranny. Under the law human rights in the US are those rights that are recognized by the Constitution of the United States, those recognized by treaties ratified by the United States Senate and certain rights articulated by the Congress of the United States.
The United States was central to the creation of the United Nations and to the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A significant part of this declaration was modeled on the U.S. Bill of Rights.
For many years the US has encouraged Georgia to work within the existing peace settlement frameworks for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which allowed for the Russian peacekeeping. This stance changed when the US supported Georgia’s calls for the finding or creation of alternative negotiation mechanisms to address this frozen conflicts. This change in policy resulted in certain Russian actions that seemed to threat Georgia’s territorial integrity. It formally withdrew from economic sanctions on Abkhazia imposed by the Commonwealth of Independent States, permitting open Russian trade and investment and created government-to-government ties with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. US were one of the four countries that called on the Russian Federation to revoke or not to implement its decision.
President Bush Administration officials were taken by surprise by Georgia’s attempt to occupy South Ossetia in early August 2008, since the Administration had cautioned Georgia against actions that might result in a Russian military response.
When the large scale fighting began, the president Bush on August 9 from Beijing stated the following: “Georgia is a sovereign nation, and its territorial integrity must be respected. We have urged an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down by all troops. We call for the end of the Russian bombings.”
On August 10 the US started retuning Georgian soldiers that were helping US in Iraq back home as Georgia recalled them.
On September 5 the USAID reported that the State Department and the Defense Department will provide $38.36 million in direct humanitarian assistance to Georgia. Besides this help US also announced another initiatives that included: broadening the U.S. Trade and Investment Framework Agreement with Georgia, negotiating an enhanced bilateral investment treaty, proposing legislation to expand preferential access to the U.S. market for Georgian exports, and facilitating Georgia’s use of the Generalized System of Preferences.
At this moment the most appropriate thing according to my country is increased OSCE presence in Georgia not only to help deter violence, promote human rights, and encourage dialogue and reconciliation” but also to monitor the commitments by Russia to withdraw its forces to pre-conflict positions.

Global financial crisis

The financial crisis began with the meltdown in the American sub-prime mortgage market. The subprime mortgage crisis was triggered by the dramatic rise in mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures in the United States, with major adverse consequences for banks and financial markets around the globe.

Investors lost confidence in the value of securitized mortgages in the United States, resulting in a liquidity crisis that prompted a substantial injection of capital into financial markets by the United States Federal Reserve, Bank of England and the European Central Bank.

Although the most often cited reason for the financial crisis is the America’s housing collapse we may freely say that the financial system was vulnerable because of intricate and highly-leveraged financial contracts and operations, a U.S. monetary policy making the cost of credit negligible therefore encouraging such high levels of leverage, and generally a "hypertrophy of the financial sector" (financialization).

The United States strongly believe that all countries must work together to address this instability and restore the health of the world economy. We realize that our own financial system need to be reformed. The US is already working to implement the findings of U.S. experts in the President's Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) and international experts in the Financial Stability Forum (FSF). More precisely it is working on implementation on findings on transparency, prudential regulation, risk management and market discipline. Nevertheless we should maintain a balanced view on regulation, and to not forget our shared commitment to economic freedom, open markets, and open investment regimes.

The role of the international financial institutions in providing assistance to countries that especially need help, must be strengthened. US also is ready to work with both individual governments and multilateral lenders to ensure that countries under pressure can benefit from the expertise and financing that international financial institutions bring to the table. Also this crisis should not be used as an excuse to abandon development commitments.