For instance, the 1998 Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunication Resources for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations is the first global attempt to concretely define relief efforts by other nations, without demanding compliance or a singular rigid course of action. Instead, the Convention creates a flexible framework that each member nation can adapt to its own telecommunications infrastructure. In legislating on a global scale, the Convention acknowledges the interconnectedness of the world’s people, and presents ways in which global citizens can improve one another’s existence in the hours following a natural disaster—arguably when they need help most.

Introduction

In December 2007 the representatives of the EU Member States finally agreed on the text of Regulation 593/2008 concerning the law applicable to contractual obligations. 1 The ‘Rome I’ Regulation contains harmonized rules for choice of law in contract. It applies in all Member States from December 17, 2009, to contracts concluded after that date. This development is significant for three reasons. First, the Regulation replaces the familiar 1980 Rome Convention, 2 which previously governed contract conflicts in EU national courts. Secondly, it departs from the Convention in important ways. 3 Thirdly, being a Regulation and not a Convention, it is true Community legislation, not merely a treaty between the Member States. Rome I is part of what may be described, contentiously, as the federal law of Europe. But agreement was reached on the Regulation only at the last minute, by agreeing to disagree on one of the Regulation’s principal components. The sticking point was a single provision which exposed tensions not simply between Member States, but between different lobbies in Member States and even within national delegations. This provision begged questions of high technicality, and had exceptional practical importance. It was the stuff of choice-of-law theory, yet mobilized the finance ministries of Europe. It concerned the law governing transactions involving the world’s principal traded commodity, of which both the United States and the UK are major producers—debt.

“While Americans might decide to limit ‘halfway’ or exotic, sciencefiction inspired technologies, such as artificial hearts or brain transfers into robot bodies, it would appear unlikely they would ever approve limitations on medical research whose focus is to discover technologies, drugs and scientific techniques which not only maintain qualitative existence but extend life.” Professor George P. Smith II. 1

Introduction

In March 2009, President Obama signed an Executive Order reversing President Bush’s Order limiting the types of human embryonic stem cells that can receive federal funding for research. Many people believe this Order signals a new era in this research. However, it is only the first step towards allowing federal funding for American scientists to do the types of embryo research that are allowed in some other countries. Also, science moves at varying speeds and the focus moves quickly from one type of stem cell research to another. At the time of writing, embryonic stem cell research is moving more slowly, due partly to reports of an unregulated stem cell procedure in Moscow [End Page 211] causing a young Israeli boy to develop tumors, and partly to new developments in research deriving stem cells without forming embryos. However, embryonic stem cell research may again advance, especially with the increased funds that are expected to become available for it. This paper suggests that if embryonic stem cell research—or any other aspect of stem cell research—ultimately produces effective treatments for human health care, it will receive broad community support, even if there have been earlier reservations about the research has have led to the new treatments.

Yet NATO continues to struggle to justify itself, as the 60th anniversary summit of last spring demonstrated so clearly. The run-up to that summit revealed some major fault lines. Many American policymakers view NATO as a bureaucratic bog from which Europeans extract their security without having to get their own feet wet. Europeans, on the other hand, are likelier to view NATO as the last vestige of America’s Cold War primacy. Disagreement exists also on the fundamental question of how best to advance geopolitical interests today—as reflected in the observation of one editorialist that “NATO and the United States do hard power, the European Union does soft power.” 1

The run-up to the summit also revealed consensus that Afghanistan is emerging as the test of NATO’s staying power.