Congressional Research Service Reports - 16 Matching Results
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- Global Climate Change Treaty: The Kyoto Protocol
- Negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) were completed December 11, 1997, committing the industrialized nations to specified, legally binding reductions in emissions of six "greenhouse gases." This report discusses the major provisions of the Kyoto Protocol.
- Global Climate Change: Reducing Greenhouse Gases - How Much from What Baseline?
- This report discusses the ways to reduce emissions of six greenhouses gases after the Kyoto meeting on Global Climate Change. Projecting the reductions that would be required if the U.S. were to ratify the treaty is difficult. While emissions of CO are fairly well established and account for 2 about 85% of total carbon equivalent emissions, emissions of the other gases, especially N O, are more uncertain.
- Global Climate Change: Selected Legal Questions About the Kyoto Protocol
- This report discusses the Kyoto Protocol and whether the United States is now legally bound by the Protocol, the legal implications of signing it, whether it could be implemented as an executive agreement without submission to the Senate, and whether the Protocol could be used as the legal basis for regulation of emissions even prior to ratification.
- Global Climate Change: Three Policy Perspectives
- This paper examines three reasonably distinct starting points from which a U.S. response to the 1992 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change is being framed.
- Trade Agreements: Renewing the Negotiating and Fast-Track Implementing Authority
- Legislation authorizing the negotiation and, where required, fast-track implementation of trade agreements expired in early 1994. Action in the 104th Congress to renew the authority, prompted in part by the near-term prospect of the negotiation of a free-trade agreement with Chile, which might later be followed by other agreements, reached an impasse in late 1995 because of a disagreement between Congress and the Administration as to the inclusion of labor and environmental issues in agreements approved by fast-track procedure.
- Terrorism: U.S. Response to Bombings in Kenya and Tanzania: A New Policy Direction?
- No Description Available.
- Bosnia: Civil Implementation of the Peace Agreement
- Since Dayton Peace Accords, the civilian side of peace implementation has been challenged by the scope of the tasks, and by the lack of commitment demonstrated by the Bosnian parties to various aspects of the peace agreement. In addition, issues such as International Framework for peace implementation, formation of governmental institution, election, civil police task force and displaced persons are discussed in this report.
- Immigration: Visa Entry/Exit Control System
- Section 110 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA; Division C of P.L. 104-208) mandates the development of an automated entry/exit control system to create a record for every alien departing from the United States and match it with the record for the alien arriving at the United States. Section 110 also requires that this system identify nonimmigrants who overstay the terms of their admission through online computer searching and that this the system is established at all international ports of entry by September 30, 1998.
- U.N Funding, Payment of Arrears and Linkage to Reform: Legislation in the 105th Congress
- The conference report on H.R. 1757, the Foreign Relations Authorization bill for FY1998-FY1999, will be debated in the Senate beginning April 24 with a vote expected April 28, 1998. On March 26, the House adopted the conference report (H.Rept. 105-432) on H.R. 1757; the bill authorizes a total of $926 million for payment of arrears to international organizations in exchange for U.N. and U.N. agency reforms. The House version of the bill did not address payment of the U.S. arrears or U.N. reforms. The conferees accepted virtually all the Senate language in Conference. The Conference version of the bill also contains unrelated House language restricting activities of foreign family planning organizations, which the President has threatened to veto. This linkage derailed passage of the bill in 1997.
- Economic Sanctions to Achieve U.S. Foreign Policy Goals: Discussion and Guide to Current Law
- This report provides background on foreign policy sanctions and the events that might necessitate their use, criteria to consider when determining if sanctions are appropriate, approaches that might be effective, and aspects of the use of sanctions that are sometimes overlooked or not considered fully. The report also provides an uncomplicated map of where sanctions policies and options currently may be found in U.S. law.
- Bosnian Muslim-Croat Federation: Key to Peace in Bosnia?
- The Federation of Bosnia and Hercegovina was established in March 1994, with U.S. mediation. It aims to unite areas held by the largely Bosniak (Muslim) pre-war republic government with areas held by Croats. The Bosnian peace agreement, signed in Dayton in November 1995, recognized the Federation and the Bosnian Serb Republika Srpska as two largely autonomous entities within a weak, but sovereign Bosnia and Hercegovina union. Real political, economic and military integration of Bosniak and Croat-held areas has been slow to materialize. The United States has played a key role in setting up the Federation and in efforts to make it viable. The long term viability of the Federation is open to question, however, due to continued mistrust between the two sides and significant differences in their perceived interests.
- Africa: Trade and Development Initiatives by the Clinton Administration and Congress
- In February 1997, the Clinton Administration submitted the second of five annual reports on the Administration's Comprehensive Trade and Development Policy for Africa as required by section 134 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (House Document 103-3415, Vol. 1.). On April 24, 1997, members of the African Trade and Investment Caucus introduced a bill, H.R. 1432, on U.S.-Africa trade and investment issues. In his State of the Union address in January 1998, President Clinton called on Congress to pass the trade legislation.
- Immigration: Visa Entry/Exit Control System
- Section 110 of the IllegalImmigrationReformand ImmigrantResponsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA; Division C of P.L. 104-208) mandates the development of an automated entry/exit control system to create a record for every alien departing from the United States and match it with the record for the alien arriving at the United States. Section 110 also requires that this system identify nonimmigrants who overstay the terms of their admission through online computer searching. The FY1999 Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act (P.L. 105-277) amends Section 110 to extend the original implementation deadline of September 30, 1998, to March 31, 2001, for land border and seaports of entry, but leaves the end of FY1998 deadline in place for airports of entry. Further, P.L. 105- 277 includes a clause directing that the entry/exit control system must “not significantly disrupt trade, tourism, or other legitimate cross-border traffic at land border ports of entry.”
- Indonesia: U.S. Relations With the Indonesian Military
- This report describes the history and the issues involved in the longstanding differences between Congress and the executive branch over U.S. policy toward the Indonesian military (ABRI). The report describes two past episodes when these differences broke out: the period of Indonesian radicalism under President Sukarno in the early 1960s and the initial years of the Indonesian military occupation of East Timor in the late 1970s. It outlines the different views of the Indonesian military between its congressional critics and executive branch officials who have promoted close U.S. relations with it.
- Economic Sanctions to Achieve U.S. Foreign Policy Goals: Discussion and Guide to Current Law
- This report provides background on foreign policy sanctions and the events that might necessitate their use, criteria to consider when determining if sanctions are appropriate, approaches that might be effective, and aspects of the use of sanctions that are sometimes overlooked or not considered fully. The report also provides an uncomplicated map of where sanctions policies and options currently may be found in U.S. law.
- Africa: Trade and Development Initiatives by the Clinton Administration and Congress
- This report summarizes legislation in Congress that President Clinton suggested concerning trade in Africa. Specifically, President Clinton called on Congress during his State of the Union address to pass the legislation.