On September 11, British Member of Parliament Alistair Burt spoke with students at Elon University School of Law about current U.S., U.K. relations and the future of international law and policy.
A member of Britain’s Conservative Party and a Member of Parliament since 1983, Burt’s address emphasized the importance of collaborative action by the United States, the United Kingdom and their allies in addressing global challenges.
Speaking about climate change, Burt said his generation would not be harmed by the growing environmental crisis but that the grandchildren of young people today would face terrible conditions if new policies were not agreed upon to address the issue.
“How are you lawyers going to deal with this?” Burt said. “Is the international rule of law strong enough to demand something in principle from governments who have to deliver? Is it the principle of our survival that is dominant or is it what countries wish to do, set out for their populations today, that makes the rules?”
Burt asked law students to consider how they would help to address the world’s most vexing problems. “What are the international rules of law that are going to have to be drawn up?” Burt asked. “How are they going to work practically to connect people to governments of the world?”
Burt said it would take a new generation of leaders to resolve challenges like terrorism, achieving peace in the Middle East, and shaping relations with new powers like China. “The world we are looking at is different than how it used to be, but it needs us all,” Burt said. “It needs people who are engaged. It needs what America has got to offer. You can no longer live just by yourselves. You have to work with your allies to make things happen.”
Burt addressed a range of specific policy issues in his presentation. He said that the recent decision by the Scottish government to release Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi was an example of “misplaced compassion” focusing on the well being of the bomber and not on the significance of the situation for the victims and the victims’ families.
On the war in Afghanistan, Burt said international efforts should balance military action and diplomacy. “A combination of military strength, to deal with the terrorists, to deal with the insurgents and the Taliban, to ensure that they are not welcome anywhere, and efforts to stiffen and strengthen the native population so that they live as freely as they want to do, with a system of government that they want and that they choose,” Burt said.
Burt suggested that the recent change in power in the U.S. presidency was seen as essential by a majority of people across the world. “Iraq has been a watershed as we know and the way in which your president and your vice president and your administration were characterized was closing off a lot of avenues,” Burt said. “When the world wanted a subtlety between friend and foe, your administration’s voice was often strident. When the rule of law was paramount, what was seen trying to be done was Guantanamo Bay.”
Burt said President Obama’s early foreign policy actions bode well for strengthened international relations. “The Cairo speech, reaching out to the Muslim world is sensible and we hope productive,” Burt said. “[Obama’s] first phone call as leader was not to a certain prime minister in the west, it was to Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinians. There’s been an attempt to move the Middle East peace process. There’s been an attempt to do something about climate change. There are various signals therefore going out that the world is responding to.”
“The world needs an America which is engaged with the rest of the world and which the rest of the world likes,” Burt said. “Your enemies are often unfair and throw back in your face the very things that make you what you are. Your strong commitment to the rule of law and your democracy in which you have a philosophy of a free press. If that sort of country comes into mind by its enemies and is shown not to be a beacon on a hill, but something to be opposed, then the world is in peril.”
