The Obama Administration is already hard at work, creating a list of Executive Orders to revoke on Planetary Freedom Day (Jan 20). The list includes the global gag rule on abortion counseling and reversing the stem cell funding ban...
But why be satisfied with just a couple? Let's help the Obama Administration fill out the wish list. And I'm asking for your help to nominate the ones I've missed:
Executive Orders
Reversing the abstinence-only rules at home and abroad.
Science over ideology for harm-reduction strategies like needle exchange and cooperating with sex workers.
Enforcing anti-discrimination laws like Title VI and VII.
Closing Guantanamo and stopping torture.
Reverse the pro-drug company decision at the FDA to block state lawsuitsagainst dangerous drugs. The case was just argued before the Supreme Court, but since it rests on the FDA's political decision under Bush Administration pressure, it could be revoked by Executive Order.
Free NPR and the FCC from Republican censorship.
Not technically an Executive Order, but it would be sweet to fill the new IP czar position with Larry Lessig rather than some lobbying clone from K Street. This is an example of a mid-level appointment that can tremendously impact the world. Another will be the US delegation to the WTO in Geneva. How about Jamie Love for the TRIPS Council?
Presidential Actions on Treaties
George Bush "unsigned"the Kyoto Protocol. Obama could re-sign it. It would be a highly visible act, although a decade has been lost.
The US has negotiated several other treaties that Presidents haven't sent on to the Senate for ratification, including the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women - ratified by 185 countries, but not the US.
Other options include the Convention for Biological Diversity (191 countries have signed - but not the United States!!), and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. an important human rights document which entered into force in 1976 without - you guessed it - the United States of America. This Covenant is part of the International Bill of Rights, signed by the United States in 1976 but never ratified. We should join the 158 countries that have ratified, including well-known radical regimes in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel and Japan.
Amazingly, we've signed and ratified the Convention Against Torture, but now we need a President who will follow the law.
Presidential Actions on Free Trade Agreeements
The unsigned Free Trade Agreement with Columbia and other developing countries should be sent back for re-negotiation. This time, let's not insist on TRIPS-plus provisions written by the drug industry. Oxfam and MSF strongly oppose these deals because they block access for poor people to essential medicines. Perhaps if we could trade these sections for stronger environmental and labor protections.
When Congress gave Bush fast-track negotiating authority for trade agreements, the Democrats in Congress insisted that human rights and access to medicines be respected:
(C) to respect the Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement
and Public Health, adopted by the World Trade Organiza-
tion at the Fourth Ministerial Conference at Doha, Qatar
on November 14, 2001. Trade Act of 2002
You know the story by now. Bush also refused to appoint real public health representatives to the super-secret committees of lobbyists who advise USTR on these deals.
I'm sure that I'm just scratching the surface here - let's hear your nominations in the comments.
I may write another diary on the legislative changes to reverse the worst Supreme Court decisions of the last decade...but it's hard to know where to start.