{"id":6058,"date":"2013-12-04T13:11:26","date_gmt":"2013-12-04T17:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/?p=6058"},"modified":"2014-08-11T14:53:25","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T18:53:25","slug":"bridging-the-gap-un-to-capitol-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/2013\/12\/bridging-the-gap-un-to-capitol-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"Bridging the gap, UN to Capitol Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As director of foreign policy for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Michael Shank, MA \u201905, is a familiar person in policymaking circles for his commentaries in blogs and newspapers and interviews on TV and radio.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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In 2006, the United Nations General Assembly replaced its Commission on Human Rights \u2013 the organization\u2019s main body dedicated to protection of human rights \u2013 with the reorganized and renamed UN Human Rights Council (HRC)<\/a>. As UN decisions and deliberations tend to be, it was a politically charged affair. Citing the HRC\u2019s perceived anti- Israel bias, the George W. Bush administration announced that the United States would boycott the new organization.<\/p>\n

Michael Shank<\/strong>, then in-between earning his MA at CJP<\/a> and his PhD in conflict analysis<\/a>, was working with Citizens for Global Solutions<\/a>, an NGO that promotes a cooperative, engaged U.S. foreign policy. Through a mutual acquaintance, he arranged for a meeting with Jan Eliasson, then the president of the UN General Assembly. After their discussion about American reluctance to participate in the HRC, Shank sent an out-of-the-blue email to Samantha Power, an advisor to then-Senator Barack Obama. Would the Senate Foreign Relations Committee consider inviting Eliasson and his staff to Washington to speak directly to Congress about the new human rights organization?<\/p>\n

Power responded quickly, and within days, Eliasson\u2019s staff, including the author of the HRC resolution, appeared before Senate committee staff. They later also spoke with staff from the House of Representatives\u2019 Committee on Foreign Affairs. While the United States continued its boycott of the HRC for the remainder of the Bush presidency (soon after President Obama took office, the U.S. changed course and joined the council), it was Shank\u2019s first direct experience working to improve communication and cooperation between the United Nations and Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re doing now on Syria,\u201d said Shank, when first reached by Peacebuilder<\/em><\/a> magazine in the fall of 2013.<\/p>\n

Now the director of foreign policy with the Friends Committee on National Legislation<\/a>, Shank was working
\nto dissuade the United States from launching air strikes, without UN or other international support, as a way of punishing Syria for its use of chemical weapons. (In an ironic twist, Samantha Power \u2013 now the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations \u2013 and President Obama were prominent advocates for American intervention, regardless of what the international community thought.) Again, Shank played the role of liaison, facilitating communication between members of Congress and various offices and people within the United Nations; he\u2019d periodically done similar work in the intervening years, while working as an advisor to U.S. Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more lines of communication we have between Congress and the UN, the better informed the members of Congress will be when they vote on military action,\u201d said Shank in mid-September (2013), at a time when a unilateral American strike was still being debated. \u201cNow is a really interesting time to observe whether or not America can participate in a morally and ethically centered conversation within the international community, and respect it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon after that conversation, in the face of significant international and domestic pressure, the Obama administration backed off its threats of military action and allowed UN-led inspections, accompanied by pledges for the destruction of Syria\u2019s chemical weapons in the near future. Calling the outcome a \u201cvictory for diplomacy,\u201d Shank nonetheless worries that the episode damaged his country\u2019s reputation and relationships with the UN. But still, in the pragmatic sense, weapons inspectors from the UN, rather than American war planes, headed to Syria.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will always be bureaucratic problems, and there will always be need for reform,\u201d continued Shank, responding to the criticism that the UN can be bloated and dysfunctional. \u201cI do think we need to, however, maintain a space within the international community that acts as a moral check and ensures international law and diplomacy first and foremost.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of CJP<\/a>\u2019s strengths, Shank said, is its grasp of restorative processes and theories that help countries and communities recover from violent conflict. These, he added, are increasingly relevant to the work the UN does around the world, and makes CJP graduates \u201cwell-positioned to provide critical analysis and prescription when it comes to helping societies heal at the national level or local level.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2006, the United Nations General Assembly replaced its Commission on Human Rights \u2013 the organization\u2019s main body dedicated to protection of human rights \u2013… Read more about Bridging the gap, UN to Capitol Hill<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":6101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1073],"tags":[],"issues":[1234],"class_list":["post-6058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","issues-fall-2013-14"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6058"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6617,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6058\/revisions\/6617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6058"},{"taxonomy":"issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/peacebuilder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issues?post=6058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}