Caramay Schmelzer wins Eisenhower Thesis Prize
On 18 December 2014 Caramay Schmelzer, a graduate of American Studies, won the Eisenhower Thesis Prize. This prize is awarded biennially by the Netherlands Atlantic Association in The Hague for the best thesis in the field of modern Transatlantic Relations (after 1940). The prize was awarded for her thesis .
Caramay Schmelzer graduated December 2013 from the graduate programme in American Studies at Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ. One of the other nominees was Tessa Bijvank, also an alumna of the Utrecht American Studies programme.
Caramay Schmelzer’s thesis addressed the question why the United States in 2001 rejected a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). Despite the fact that 165 countries are now States-Parties to the BWC, gross violations of the convention have occurred. The reason that these violations could – and can still – occur is that the BWC lacks formal compliance measures. The research guiding this thesis revolves around the question of whether the US rejection of the BWC verification protocol should be attributed primarily to the 'unilateral turn' of the Bush Administration or if this decision should be interpreted as a continuation of a longer-term tradition of American ambivalence towards multilateral instruments.