Durban Conference: Questionable Expectations

As the world meets in Durban, South Africa, for what has become a yearly attempt to secure a global response to climate change, let us look back on 20 years of events that have brought negotiations to this point.

1988. The IPCC is born
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is established in response to record heat levels, droughts and studies that point to carbon dioxide as a factor in global warming. Set up by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ant the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), the panel is seen as both a political and a scientific body. Through the review and assessment of the scientific, technical and socioeconomic information, it aims to enhance global understanding of climate change and the consequences thereof.

1990. Experts warn of a pressing need to tackle global warming
In its first assessment report, the IPCC predicts a rise in global mean temperature of some 0.3 degrees Celsius per decade throughout the 21st century. The increase would be greater than the experienced over the previous 10,000 years. The panel warns that the trend towards serious global warming can only be stopped if ‘strong measures’ are put in place to tackle it.

1992. US shows first signs og going it alone
Rio de Janeiro hosts the Earth Summit which leads to 154 nations signing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The aim of the convention is to reduce emissions from industrialized countries to 1990 levels by the year 2000. While the majority of signatories call for mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions, US President George W. Bush insists that any targets or timetables must be entirely voluntary and non-binding.

1995. Berlin mandate paves the way for the Kyoto Protocol
In the spring of what is the hottest year on record thus far, Berlin hosts the first UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP). Industrialized nations agree on the need for longer-term action to prevent climate change, and the session results in the Berlin Mandate. Under the terms of the declaration, which lays the groundwork for the Kyoto Protocol, legally binding obligations commit industrialized nations to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. By now, economic growth in China means it is en route to become the largest greenhouse gas polluter by 2010.

1997. Kyoto Protocol is adopted but not ratified
On December 11, the Kyoto Protocol is adopted in the Japanese city of the same name. According to its core principle of «common but differentiated responsibility,» industrialized countries responsible for climate change have to do more to solve the problem than developing nations. The document agrees legally binding emissions cuts for industrialized nations and sets a target of reducing 1990 levels by 5.2 percent before the year 2012. The USA says it will not ratify the Protocol until it sees developing countries do their bit.

2001. President George W. Bush pulls the US out
Despite campaign promises to tackle the problem of America’s greenhouse gas emissions, when George W. Bush enters the White House, he pulls the US out of the Kyoto Protocol, which he describes as «fatally flawed in fundamental ways.» He justifies the move on the grounds that Kyoto fails to address two major pollutants –black soot and tropospheric ozone– and would have «a negative economic impact.» The Bush administration’s decision not to ratify the Protocol forces the delays of its implementation.

2002. Russia is put in a decisive position
In order to come into effect, Kyoto has to be ratified by nations collectively responsible for 55 percent of emissions from the industrialized world. European Union countries and Japan press ahead with ratification, but with the US no longer in the game, there is little room for anyone else to back out. Australia follows Bush’s lead, leaving Russia holding the final card.

2004. Moscow finally agrees to ratify Kyoto
After a long period of uncertainty, on November 18, Moscow ratifies the Kyoto Protocol. Although there are fears that the agreement could have a negative impact on economic growth, talk of stronger EU support for Russia’s bid to become a member of the World Trade Organization helps to tip the scales.

2005. Kyoto comes into effect but its limitations are clear
Kyoto comes into effect seven years after it was agreed. Ratified by 144 countries, the treaty aims to reduce the emissions by 5.2 percent by 2012. Major developing nations, such as India and China, are not yet required to meet targets. The European Union launches its Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), limiting levels of greenhouse gases from large industrial emitters of carbon dioxide. Under the scheme, companies are given emissions allowances to buy and sell among themselves. The plan is to cut allowances gradually to reduce emissions.

2007. Bali talks start a critical countdown
Tensions reach a boiling point at the 2007 Climate Conference in Bali. Countries’ failure to reach consensus on a successor to Kyoto proves too much for UN climate chief Yvo de Boer, who dramatically breaks down in tears. Nerves fray as China appears to walk out and the US chief negotiator is openly jeered. The world eventually agrees to pursue two tracks of negotiations: one on extending Kyoto and another on a potentially new agreement. Delegates give themselves two years to settle the question.

2009. Copenhagen descends into farce
Hopes abound that Copenhagen will conclude with a tough legally-binding agreement for the planet. Not since the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 have so many world leaders come together in one place. With Barack Obama in the White House, there is speculation of grater US commitment and many hope China and India will sign up to targets. The talks end instead in acrimonious chaos. The most to emerge are references to significant financial incentives for poor countries, and grater –if voluntary– pledges to cut emissions under the Copenhagen Accord.

2011. The death knell for Kyoto
Government representatives and climate experts meet in Durban for COP17. With the first phase of the Kyoto agreement due to expire at the end of next year, the need to decide on its future looms large. Japan, Russia and Canada have said they will only sign if all major economies, including China (now the world’s largest emitter) and the US are bound by mandatory targets. UN climate chief Christiana Figueres has already made clear that it is too late for Kyoto and that an interim solution will have to be found.

Business and Human Rights, a difficult bridal

After six years in office the UN Special Representative for Business and Human Rights, Professor John Ruggie, acknowledges that he has made ​​progress in his job since his appointment in 2005, but he has been mainly driven by many NGOs that accused for decades the companies’ manners in some countries, particularly international businesses. Carlos Lopez, a senior legal advisor to the International Commission of Jurists, an NGO based in Geneva, reports that national and international corporations – and the states from which they originate – are opposed to excessively restrictive obligations or texts.

These firms consider that these rules could affect their ability to compete against other companies from China, India or Russia, which have different standards. But precisely a hundred years ago, the International Labour Organisation was created to establish standards that everyone would agree to meet.

It goes now beyond the rights of workers. Some suggest e.g. a set of standards, such as the right to a healthy environment. But businesses and their respective states do not want to hear about it. They say we must leave the markets go without putting rules that may impede business operations. Otherwise, facing too many binding rules (eg. taxes), they are afraid they will make less profit. There’s the rub.

A country where standards should urgently be implemented is the Democratic Republic of Congo. Navanethem Pillay, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, has repeatedly criticized the serious violations of human rights in the region, breaches connected to the mining activities and the extraction of natural resources, which are often contracted with transnational industries.

Many armed groups control these areas and they do it for economic reasons. They want to make a lucrative profit because these regions are rich in minerals. It is very well described in the meddling report to the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights. It is precisely in these pockets controlled by armed groups that mining is organized. They manage resource exploitation in situations of terrible abuse that could be defined as international crimes. In addition, international companies and companies located in other countries buy these minerals and are therefore involved in transactions. So there are different levels of involvement of foreign companies. And the international community does little to change that.

Yet the situation in DRC is closely followed by the Security Council. It has established codes of conduct and asks corporations to pay particular attention to the fact that minerals mined in the DRC do not benefit armed groups and do not help fueling the conflict. Companies should have clearer objectives in terms of respect for human rights. It should set more rules to ensure that the entire chain, all activities in any way, do not violate human rights. And that in addition they do not contribute to ensure that others do so.

Last June John Ruggie’s mandate ended. The first Special Representative of the UN for Business and Human Rights has succeeded anyway adopting common principles. However, he did not want that these principles were binding. Thus, only the goodwill shall prevail. That is a bit thin in the competitive world of these often lawlessness areas where victims have often no remedy at law.

The corporate capture of governments

The G20 — the most powerful summit of world governments — meets tomorrow to discuss the global economic crisis, and who is sponsoring the meeting? Banks and corporations.

No wonder the site of the meeting — the French city of Cannes — is completely locked down to any ordinary citizens, while banks and large corporate CEOs have all access passes to tell our governments what to do.

Corporations and banks have captured our governments, winning vast bailouts after helping to create the crisis. Now they are buying their way into the very meeting that could decide the world’s financial future.

The line between corporate power and responsible government has steadily blurred, undermining our democracies and our economy. Politicians take money from corporations for their campaigns, make policies that reward them when in office, and then take high-paid jobs with them after they leave. It’s venality, plain and simple.

Now Société Générale, a French bank that received a public bailout and has a vested interest in Europe’s financial policy, is an official sponsor of the summit. This bank and 20 other corporations have paid large sums of money in sponsorship for a seat at the table of our governments.

The only way to get policies that protect jobs, tackle speculators and guarantee a fair future for us all is to kick back against the lobbies and prise our leaders away from corporate interests.  The global economic crisis resulted in large part from reckless banks that were no longer regulated effectively by governments because of the control banks stress over our leaders. This corporate capture of government is the major threat today, both to democracy, and to an efficient and fair economy.

Last Train Home. A hard life metaphor in China

Last Train Home (2009), directed by Lixin Fan, is a Chinese documentary, or possibly a docudrama. According to the film, over 200 million factory workers, who have left their homes to work in the city, attempt to return home for the Chinese New Year holiday. The film shows a couple’s conditions of slavery at work and the family life fragmentation, in the (vain) intent that their children can achieve education to access a better life.

When you ‘undergo’ the film that keeps track of the effort of the Chinese for export, it comes to my mind what Deng Xiaoping evoked: « It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice. » It is true that in 1978, at the beginning of Deng’s reforms, China exported in a year what it now sells abroad in one day. But this success in catching mice – in other words, the transformation of China into a global largest exporter – is being done through an unsustainable human and social cost.

Last Train Home is touching, really inspiring, and documentary film-making at its best. Director Lixin Fan forces no comment, on no occasion partisan, as he tracks the lives of two Chinese migrant workers over a gap of two years. The camera is merely an observer- it’s this kind of focused observational film-making that makes this film so moving and poignant.

The Need for Radical Change

THE FUTURE OF MONEY (4/4)

Proposed solutions to the financial crisis tend to involve more regulation and the break up or separation of banking activities, but these merely scratch the surface. The financial sector is not only too big; it embodies massive contradictions. In particular, the social role of finance makes it impossible for monetary authorities to let the system fail. This creates moral hazard on an epic scale, ‘Wall Street socialism’ with massive benefits for the financial elite and costs and liability for the many.

Given that the public nature of money makes the financial system a public liability, there is no case for its private ownership and control. As bank credit issue is the main engine of money creation in modern societies, how that money is issued and circulated is a crucial question. The allocation of that credit determines economic priorities.

Under free enterprise system the only priority is private profit. On this basis global speculative ventures are supported while local, particularly social, businesses are marginalised.

The allocation of credit is only part of the problem, however. The main question must be why the private banking system should have control of the monetary system at all. Historically this was developed through the link between trading money, promissory notes and bills of exchange, which were exchanged for bank credit notes designated in the national currency (legal tender). More recently the system has shifted to ‘sight accounts’, money records rather than cash in hand. The question that needs to be asked is: why is the private issue of notes and coin (counterfeiting) punished by law while the private creation of sight accounts is seen as a natural function of banking?

Capitalistic control of the financial system has played a major trick on the public. Given that bank credit is created out of fresh air, like fresh air it should be a public resource, not a private horn of plenty. Decisions about the allocation of that credit should be made democratically. Private profit should not be the only criterion for money issue.

Nor should all money be issued as debt with the interest charged accruing to the issuing financial institution. Debt-based money builds in a growth dynamic that prevents the emergence of a more socially and ecologically sustainable economic system. Instead money could be issued without debt as grants or interest-free loans. The only reason this is not done is that capitalism has ideologically captured economic reasoning. The right of banks to issue money for profit is not challenged.

If people demand to issue money themselves or demand that social and ecological priorities come first they will be told that ‘this cannot be afforded’. The trick is that the market puts some kind of brake on money creation and allocates it most efficiently. The recent crisis shows that neither of these claims is true. Any money creation by the public is decried as inflationary, while massive inflation of the capitalist financial system was given the euphemism ‘capital growth’. The public were to be grateful for the few portions of taxes that were reluctantly extracted from the financial sector.

In fact, there is no reason why money should be issued through the private banking system. It may be that with money under democratic control the public would vote to give financial resources back to the private sector, but it is more likely that social expenditure would be prioritized. The private sector would then have to re-orient its activities to serving public needs. This could form the basis of an economy in which growth would occur in response to social need, rather than the demand for ever expanding profits. Money circulation would return to the production of goods and services and not the never never land of perpetual financial growth. The idea that the whole of society could secure itself on constantly inflating financial assets is a total illusion.

The financial crisis has revealed the financial system’s enormous power and lack of democratic control. Money and finance, nationally and internationally, must be socially and politically re-embedded to enable socially just and ecologically sustainable economies to emerge. Rather than asking ‘can the financial crisis be the basis of radical change?’ the crisis must be the basis of radical change if we are not to continue on the capitalist financial merry-go-round until we all fall off.

The Contradictions of Privatised Finance

THE FUTURE OF MONEY (3/4)

Financialised capitalism rests on its capacity to create credit to lend to itself to inflate its speculative profits and financial assets. But financial asset inflation is always a pyramid scheme, whose value will collapse as soon as there are no new investors.

Traditionally states had a concentration of financial power through their ability to issue money as currency and tax it back. Capitalism has similar power through its control of financial resources. It creates money and calls it back with interest. This puts a growth dynamic into the economy. More money must come back than has been issued; this in turn demands that more money be created.

The neoliberal rationale for private control of money issue is that the market is more ‘efficient’. This is despite the endemic tendency to crisis in financialised capitalism. People have been encouraged to trust their future security in terms of pensions and savings to the financial markets, which in itself creates the conditions for a boom.

While hedge speculators can make money on rising or falling assets, for most people money can only be made on inflating financial assets such as housing or equities. This requires constant creation of credit to fuel the new buyers, a phenomenon that was clearly seen in the mortgage market. When the market has peaked and no one is willing to take on more credit, or the borrowers can no longer pay, the value of the financial assets must fall. Even in the case of hedge speculators, winners will be balanced by losers.

Why were the banks so desperate to lend money recklessly to homebuyers and to develop such complex financial packages? The answer lies in the demand for increased profits to raise dividends and share prices. The bonus strategy of payment in shares also drove this. In such a situation banks engaged in the most profitable aspect of banking, which was also the most risky. It is not without irony that financialised capitalism fell because of its exploitation of the very poor. As capitalism runs out of a market for its goods, services or investments, all that is left is the poor. In the case of financialised capital this was the subprime householder. However, the subprime borrowers did not cause financialised capitalism to fail; the cause was its own contradictions.

Profit-driven banks must always be tempted towards speculation, no matter how many firewalls are put up between deposits and investments. For this reason the calls for narrow banking or smaller banks will not work. As long as the companies running the banks are driven by capitalist values they must be driven by the drive for profit, and therefore risk. This would not be so important if the activities of the privatised banking sector were not a liability on the public. But the financial system is interconnected and the only way to save some parts is to save the whole. The speculative sector can only be separated if the deposit-based sector is not part of the capitalist system and if its credit creation capacity is brought under democratic control.

The private control of banking and finance is fundamentally flawed in that its neoliberal claim to financial freedom is in contradiction to the social foundation of money systems. The crisis has also undermined the claim that through global financialisation a substantial portion of national populations can sustain their economic future through appreciating financial assets. Far from ‘rolling back’ the state, the implosion of deregulated finance has directly contradicted the neoliberal case that the market and its money system is a self-regulating process that would be distorted by state intervention.

Under the illusion that money was a neutral representation of the wealth of the market, financial institutions operated far and wide. Financial traders speculated on currencies and borrowed from low-interest countries to invest in higher-interest ones. Claiming that their industry was global they played off countries against each other, demanding favourable tax status or lodging themselves in tax havens. In doing so they undermined the conditions of their own existence, the public authority of money.

A major problem for countries such as Greece or Argentina is that they have considerable problems in raising tax with substantial informal economies and high levels of tax avoidance. Finance may have escaped regulation but it has also separated itself from the legitimisation of money through public authority. This led the sector to expand to such an extent that the amounts of money at risk threatened the solvency of countries that had residual responsibility for their activities.

Greece. A debt, three possibilities.

For several months, Europe is at the bedside of a Greece worse every day. The issue is not only whether the Greek state will emerge from the debt crisis but also how to. And then, three possible scenarios emerge.

The Greek government has become reconciled this week to adopt a new set of austerity measures, in exchange for a €8 billion check, without which the country will end up insolvent in October. But even if the EU, with Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy on top, continues to ensure that Greece is not going into bankruptcy, experts now believe that the country only has three options, from the most optimistic to the darkest one.

Greece succeeds in landing on its feet

The most optimistic scenario – the country succeeds to level off in the end – is the most improbable as well. Despite the burst of rescue packages lined with austerity measures, Greece does not show any sign of progressive rearrangement of finances so far. The unfulfilled promises of Papandreou government have discredited this option, as well as country’s fiscal permissiveness. Social tensions that prevail in the Greek state – no public transport on Thursday, a call for a 24 hours general strike on October 19 and, before that, a public sector strike on October 5 – does not encourage this path .

A well-ordered payment default

By this option, the failure of Greece takes place under control, as part of an “orderly default”, which witnesses Athens officially recognizing it is not able to pay off all or some of its debt. Well prepared and controlled, the voluntary bankruptcy offers the ability to limit panic and overheating in financial markets – avoiding possible contagion to other countries affected by the debt crisis, Italy and Spain on top. This perspective has the unofficial support of Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, but not France’s and it means to make a cross on much of the advanced funds, given that the current Greek debt comes up to € 350 billion.

Total disaster with the collapse of the euro area

Worst-case scenario: Greece is in default, but without structure. Asphyxiated by debt, Athens no longer reimburses, no longer pays its officials and anger earns more than ever on the street. Contagion to other countries at risk would appear then imminent, and Greece should probably leave the Eurozone. All the same, returning to the drachma would mean ruin, poverty and unemployment, and GDP possibly could be halved. The possible Greece’s exit by the back door could give the idea to the strongest EU States (Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Finland) to slam at first, or even to start up each other a new mini-euro area. This would be the epilogue of sixty years of European integration.

Things could become clearer after a possible referendum on austerity, which Greek government envisages at autumn.

Playing to financial crisis with Lego minifigures

The latest report from JP Morgan astonishes by sharp analysis of the financial crisis provided by Peter Cembalest, aged 9. JP Morgan ensures that Peter’s interpretation cannot be more unreasonable than the results of stress tests conducted by European banks. A real blow to the chin in the theater of the absurd, ridden by the EU / ECB / IMF troika – themselves overtaken by events they were unable to anticipate in modern economies they were supposed to manage.

© JP Morgan

With the figures of a well-known toy manufacturer, the child assembles a chart that the European bosses would be well advised to review, as a ripple to their actions. The following is an echo on Peter’s composition. Lines and arrows interacting with minifigurines should be noted.

[1] The bullfighter and the pilot of Formula 1: Spain, Italy and the rest of the Euro Periphery believe the ECB should buy bonds, prevent spreads from rising and give them time to implement austerity plans.   Italy is the flash point, with sovereign debt equal to 25%of GDP rolling in the next year,.  Italy has undergone austerity before (1990’s), but that was when the promise of EMU integration was the carrot.

[2] The three little men with helmets, shields and medieval weapons, are the CDU, CSU and FDP, the 3 German parties which control the Bundestag and are against doing more than what Germany has already committed to.  They are strongly opposed to premature introduction of Eurobonds.

[3] By requiring collateral for its share of EFSF exposure to Greece, Finland (the sailor in blue and white) raised the ante on France and Germany, whose banks have much more exposure to the Periphery.  Finland wants the bailout to reflect actual exposure, rather than ECB capital weights.  The Dutch now want the same treatment.

[4] The Social Democrats and Greens (the woman with the carrot and her friend with a spade) are opposition parties in the Bundestag, but if an early election were held today, polls suggest they would be in control.  Both parties support expanding the EFSF.

[5] The Wotan Bundesbank is the ultimate protector of German monetary and fiscal interests, and is very concerned with steps already taken to deal with the crisis.  Their strong preference would be for EMU countries looking for aid to first implement austerity and pension and labor market reforms (i.e., German Reunification steps).  Bondholder losses (“creditor participation”) should take place before shareholders are subsidized by taxpayers.

[6] The IMF piggy bank has taken a mostly passive role, lending money and overseeing austerity plans in Greece that are failing miserably.

[7] The European Central Bank is purchasing Spanish and Italian bonds in the secondary market to bring yields down with the intention of facilitating better primary auctions.  This not work in Ireland, Greece or Portugal.  Spain and Italy yields declined by 1% once the ECB began buying, but have since drifted higher. The ECB does not like its current role as fiscal agent, and believes that EU taxpayers should bear the cost of solving the crisis.

[8] Poland (the barber), after a long period of wanting to enter the EMU, is waiting for a clearer picture of who will bear the costs of the sovereign debt crisis.   The Polish Finance Minister is calling for more ECB buying of sovereign debt, a much larger EFSF, and warned that Poland will not want to join the EMU until the Euro is earthquake-proof.  “The fundamental problem of the Eurozone is not an economic but a political one,” he explained.

[9] Artists from France are relying on the ECB to handle what the EFSF cannot.  While France supports greater fiscal federalization, if this were done via further EFSF enlargement, it could risk France’s AAA rating.

[10] EU taxpayers – the outraged — in Core countries would be affected by various efforts to federalize costs of the EMU sovereign debt crisis, either through EFSF expansion, or introduction of Eurobonds.  Lots of arrows point in this general direction.

[11] The assault troops at the bottom of the chart: the EU Commission and Euro Group Finance Ministers, chaired by Jose Manuel Barroso and JeanClaude Juncker, support ECB bond buying and fiscal federalization in a variety of forms.   They oppose Franco-German incrementalism, but may not have enough power to change it.

[12] The great white-collar theft. So far, EU bondholders and shareholders have been subsidized by the ECB and EU taxpayers.  The latest EU bank stress tests called for an additional Eur 2.5 billion of capital.  This is not a misprint.

We must recognize Peter’s acuity of visual synthesis, who at  9 has accomplished to  scaffold what is perhaps the best map of the financial crisis – with very likely characters, actions and intentions.

Public Foundations of the Financial System

THE FUTURE OF MONEY (2/4)

The financial system is concerned with the issue and circulation of money. Within capitalism the purpose is to direct money to the most profitable use.

Money is a peculiar phenomenon, real and not real so far. In essence it is a promise. Holding money is a claim on any resources, goods or services that are categorised in money terms. However, for these claims to be realised, the sellers of resources, goods or services must trust in the persistent value of that money.

Historically, money has been made of a commodity that can itself be resold, such as gold, but today it mostly consists of base metal, paper, or merely electronic records. People trust it because convention and experience tells them it will be honored. It is also backed by a public monetary authority as legal tender that has a stated value.

This is critical to public responsibility for money. For example, all monetary activities designated in pounds are collectable from the British banking system (or its international agents). Underlying the whole banking system is the Bank of England. Despite it having been made independent in policy terms, the Bank’s authority rests on the financial viability of the nation in terms of its productivity (GDP) and its ability to collectively assemble money through taxes.

As has been shown in Iceland, the people, through the state, are forced to take on financial liabilities created by the private sector. If a company produces a car that ceases to function, the owner does not go to the state asking for a new one. With money, however, this is exactly what the holder of that money will do. People invested in Icesave, the Icelandic online bank, because it offered higher interest. Despite the fact that the bank was linked to a small country of only 300,000 people, investors did not see it as a risky investment.

When the parent bank failed, depositors turned all together to the British government and demanded payment in full. In order to secure the safety of its own banks, the UK lent Iceland the money to repay deposits – a huge debt on the Icelandic people against which they are now protesting.

How could Iceland’s banks have financial commitments several times larger than its economy? Partly this was because the banks took in deposits from around the world, but mainly it was because banks can themselves create money. They do this by issuing bank credit – loans.

Free market has been built on bank credit. Traders and companies have borrowed bank money to set up their businesses. Recently most credit issue has been related to consumption or financial investments such as housing. The illusion is that banks act as intermediaries between savers and borrowers, but that is not so. Banks take in deposits, some paying interest. They also issue loans and charge interest. There is no direct relationship between savers and borrowers.

All deposits are returnable, regardless of what loans are still outstanding. Banks can also lend much more than they have in deposits, traditionally up to ten times more and even more in recent years. This is how financial sectors can explode in total value, eclipsing the productive economy and inflating financial assets.

Recently bank lending has contributed to the vast use of ‘leverage’ to enable the investments of the rich to go even further. Hedge funds, private equity investments and the investment arms of banks use borrowed money to inflate their speculative gambles. Some of these may even be gambles against the banks themselves or the national currency. As more money is issued it floods into the financial system and becomes part of the waves of money looking for a profitable home. As it is impossible to separate the interests of bank depositors or pension holders from financial speculators, in a crisis the whole system must be secured.

In such a crisis, the public groundwork of the money and banking system becomes clear. As all bank-created credit is designated in the national currency, this becomes a liability on the state. The logic would be that such a public liability should also be seen as a public resource. If the people are to be made ultimately responsible for whatever money is issued in their name, should they not have a say about how this money is used?

Far from having democratically controlled access to the process of credit issue, the public, as represented by the state, has itself to borrow from the capitalist owners and controllers of the nation’s money supply or tax money for public expenditure as it circulates. Today more than 95 per cent of money issue is through bank credit. Historically states controlled much higher levels of money issue as coinage. As expenditure on social or public needs are seen as secondary to privatised economic forces, the private sector determines how much public expenditure can, or cannot, be ‘afforded’.

Privatised control of money issue creates the impression that it is the private market that is creating wealth. Certainly it is making money, quite literally, largely through issuing it to itself as leverage to swell speculative trading. Private ownership and control of money issue has created huge differences of wealth. The mass of the people can only hope for a trickle down of economic activity through the consumption of the champagne-swigging traders and increasing numbers of billionaires. On the illusion that the manipulators of money have actually generated the wealth they gamble with, those playing the money markets demand a huge percentage of the product. The levels of pay and bonuses have become so obscenely puffed that they have become an economic ‘gated community’ set apart from ordinary mortals by their wealth. In fact they have stolen what should be a public resource and harnessed it for private benefit.

Finance Is Not Private

THE FUTURE OF MONEY (1/4)

The global economic crisis in progress has naked the contradictions of privatised finance. If taxpayers have to bolster the system when it fails, why should they not also have control over the supply and allocation of money in the first place?

The UN's Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) painted a grim picture for the region overall in the wake of the global financial crisis

At the height of the financial crisis, the total public financial exposure in rescuing the world’s financial systems was around $15 trillion – a quarter of world GDP. Most of this was not operated, but the existence of public aid prevented a worldwide collapse of financial institutions. This vital role of the public sector has in practice been ignored, as the surviving banks return to the bonus culture, benefiting from reduced competition and additional state support through, for example, quantitative easing/ facilitation (increased money supply).

Not all states could support their bloated financial sectors. Iceland collapsed with financial commitments up to ten times its GDP. Britain, with a financial sector worth around five times GDP, could have faced similar problems. Globally the financial sector eclipses world GDP by at least ten times.

Why do governments feel compelled to spend uncountable billions rescuing the banks and financial sector when other businesses are often left to fail? The answer is that the financial sector is not a private sector at all. It embraces a public function, the issue and circulation of money – something that has been appropriated by private capital.

The contemporary banking and financial system has appropriated this public doings for its own benefit. However, when the financial system goes into crisis, the need to retain this public function means that it becomes a liability on the public, as represented by the state or equivalent monetary authority. As John McFall, chair of the UK Treasury select committee, wrote (Guardian, 9 January 2009):

 ‘After the extraordinary self-induced implosion of the financial system, the future of the market system now rests in the hands of governments. The politicians are the only show in town.’

The financial crisis and the public response have revealed both the instability of the global financial system and the importance of a public monetary authority of last resort.

The latter half of the 20th century saw a rapid growth in the financial sector as people became entangled in debts (particularly consumer debts and mortgages), as collective and public financial security was abandoned in favour of personal investments (particularly pensions), and because there was benefit to be had from inflated financial assets (particularly housing). Even institutional investors were tempted by the promise of higher profits in the most speculative areas, such as hedge funds.

With such a large proportion of the population entangled in the financial system, a demand for public rescue became more likely. A collapse in the financial system is much more threatening to social order than failures in the productive sector. If one factory fails it does not automatically close the rest (they may even benefit from less competition). But if a bank fails the panic threatens to become systemic as people lose confidence in the banking system. This alone was a major reason why states had to get involved.

The need for state intervention has exposed the contradictions of financialised capitalism and its reliance on ‘Wall Street socialism’. A pivotal point was the rescue of the US investment bank Bear Stearns. The US monetary authorities were not only bailing out the retail banks, but finance capital as well. When the US Treasury later tried to isolate the investment sector by letting Lehman’s fail, there were nearly fatal consequences for the banking sector. The financial sector was so interconnected that a crisis of default in the US subprime sector could bring down a relatively small bank in the UK, France or Spain via the functioning of the global money market and the drying up of credit.

Northern Africa: A Choice between Reform and Stability

An Egyptian army band plays music in Cairo's Tahrir Square during celebrations marking one week after Egypt's long-time president Hosni Mubarak was forced out of office

In the wake of uprisings in North Africa, West may be forced to make a choice between much-needed reform or stable dictatorships. NATO will need to reconsider its newest partnerships, beyond the interest of its allies, and start guaranteeing actual security.

Doused in paint thinner, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight in Tunisia on Dec. 17, sparking a string of protests throughout northern Africa. The 20-year old college graduate, angry after the government confiscated his source of income- a fruit cart- and beat him, has been credited as the beginning of a series of uprisings in North Africa.

Protests have now spread to Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen, as well as Morocco and Algeria. Citizens have taken to the streets in protest of high food prices, and even higher unemployment rates, and general discontent with, in many cases, decades of inefficient dictatorial regimes.

With protests mounting from country to country, igniting passion for reform in nations’ citizens, the uprisings of North Africa may be the 21st century’s Berlin Wall. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen recognizes the potential effect the uprisings could have on the world order, but says, “The outcome of this turmoil remains unclear.”

Resource-rich North Africa has become a strategic battlefield among the US, Europe, China and Russia. The US and Europe seemed to prevail under two NATO initiatives: the Mediterranean Dialogue and a military alliance with the 53 countries of the African Union (AU).

Member nations of the AU and the Mediterranean Dialogue are believed to benefit from the initiatives under the broad public goals of countering security threats against Africa and using NATO as a model for the African Standby Force. But NATO members will receive more concrete benefits, such as limiting Russian and Chinese expansion and blocking arms suppliers of non-NATO members.

The interests of NATO fake ahead, devoid of serious regard to its public objectives. Rasmussen has outlined his concerns with the uprisings in terms of its impact upon the Middle East peace process and a possible increase of illegal immigration to Europe, validating NATO-centric concerns to the world under a “we don’t interfere in domestic politics” stance. Forget about partnerships, dialogues, and goals.

This lack of response from NATO is only amplified by a muted response from the US, with Europe following suit. Though Obama exercised caution in denouncing violence against peaceful protesters in Libya out of fear that the Gadhafi regime would target American nationals in Libya, Washington was also slow to react to protests in Egypt earlier in February.

Only after receiving strong criticism in the media did Obama denounce Mubarak, a long-time ally to the US, calling for transition “now.” Washington has supported up dictatorial regimes, such as that of Mubarak, for decades, benefiting from such stable relationships with dictators. In Egypt, which has been known to hold and torture terrorist suspects for the US, there has been a “protect us in our war and we will forgive your human rights abuses” policy. It seems US policy is in support of stable dictators, rather than fledgling democracies. Why would the US and NATO, which so avidly promote democracy, not have supported it in North Africa?

“The US and allies pull out no stops to prevent democracy because of major energy resources,” says Noam Chomsky, a well-respected American intellectual. In fact, as the protests spread to Libya, the major concern in the US was rising gas prices, not Gadhafi dropping bombs on his own citizens and executing Libyan soldiers who refused to kill their compatriots. Oil prices, which could reach $220 per barrel if Libya and Algeria, both dealing with internal protests, were to cut off oil supplies, could slow down economic recovery.

Both NATO and the US have screened selfish intentions behind national sovereignty, but after decades of support for allied dictators and more recent initiatives for a firm grasp on African affairs, perhaps it is not an honest stance to take. And if the US and NATO do not take a stance, we should hope they set aside potential gains and focus on allowing the internal movements of Africa choose the next step.

Recently, NATO has urged all parties to stop violence and ensure peaceful transition to democracy. A little less recently, Mubarak urged protestors for ‘orderly transitions’ that only served to postpone change. While we can hope and urge for peaceful transitions, we must remember that NATO should not be just a collection of military power, but also a political entity with a widely stated goal to “promote democratic values to build trust and prevent conflict in the long-run. To prevent conflict in the long run, might it be in the best interests of North Africa to allow reform?

West cannot both call for stability and advocate reform. It will need to reconsider its newest partnerships, beyond the interest of its allies, and start guaranteeing actual security.

Do Reforms Inhibit or Support African Development?

THE AFRICAN GOVERNANCE CRISIS (4/4)

After the analysis of decades  of public sector reform in Africa with special focus on Ghana, one can draw the conclusion that the  external support during the 1980ies has been  vital,  but  to  some  degree  harmful  due  to  a  “faulty  diagnosis  and  prognosis” (1). The African public sector during that time cannot be described as too big, but as expanding. This growth was a direct result from the new-won independence and was therefore a necessary step of taking control.

In order to overcome the economic decline in the 1980ies African states were dependent on foreign investments. While the IMF, the World Bank and individual donors did provide the money, they also set unfitting goals and an unrealistic time schedules. Instead of strengthening the existing system of public administration, Western NPM methods of downsizing, retrenchment and cost cutting were introduced. As has been stated in the above, African states did not have an oversupply of qualified civil servants, but a demand for the latter. Instead of ensuring their loyalty and providing a better education for them, many positions were cut and the crucial increase of salaries was implemented with reluctance (2).

The results of these reforms of the public administration of the 1980ies in Ghana and other countries were modest to say the least. From a different point of view, one could even assert that they were modest from a short-term perspective, but fatal in a long-term perspective, because they focused on technicalities in order to save money – that actually weakened the civil service (1) and ignored the core aspects of successful public sectors. While it might make great sense to concentrate on cost-cutting and downsizing of the public administration in Western countries like the UK or  Germany – where  a  certain ethic belief may  be  attributed  to  the  public officials because of centuries of institutionalized rules and norms – African bureaucracies were nowhere near this point of development. If one observes the economic progress of Asian tiger states whose economies greatly strengthened during the past decades, one is also able to attribute this success to strong systems of public administration (3).

As there is no such history in African public management, it seems obvious that an emphasis has to be laid on the establishment of civil service ethics and accountability. One could conclude, that the reforms of the 1980ies in Africa skipped one step, because they  aimed  at  shrinking  something  that  wasn’t  even  stable  to  begin  with.  Only technicalities were at focus. Therefore, one is drawn to argue that reforms from this time period inhibited the development of committed reformers in Africa.

Of course, this statement must be handled with care, as one does not have the possibility of comparison with an African country that did not follow the NPM reforms at all. However, cutting costs at the wrong places led to the “unfolding challenges” (4) African countries encountered during the 1990ies and even in the new millennium. While techniques for more ethical behavior and accountability are decided on, their implementation must be coordinated among the African states. Instead of relying on external help, the more successful countries have to set an example and support  the weak links.

Dealing with these problems, the UN concludes:

“For poor, resource-constrained countries, the reform challenges are daunting, not because the countries do not know what to do, but because they lack the resources to initiate and sustain a comprehensive programme of change.” (4)

Financial aid is thus still vital today. But instead of forcing these different systems to adapt Western ideals of public administration reforms, the support should be engaged on the  education  of  civil  servants,  hence  human  capacity  building  and  training.  In combination with a rise of public official salaries, the two core weaknesses identified in this work would be tackled. While the downsizing of the public sector has already taken place, one could attempt to stabilize this system now. Therefore, the current trend of African civil service reform can no longer in any way be attributed with an inhibition of the countries’ development.

On the whole, it has been clear that the reforms of the NPM-wave during the 1980ies did   little   to   promote   sustainable   development   in   African   public   sectors   and consequently in the countries’ economies (1) (2). Despite these negative experiences and the sentiment of wasted money, external support is a sine qua non in Africa now. The necessary strategies can only be implemented after the application of sophisticated analyses and diagnoses and with the involvement of all stakeholders, especially the civil servants in regard to more ethical behavior (2).

Only by doing so, policies – such as the liberalization of markets, vital for a more successful participation in global trade – can be implemented.

In order to highlight the difficulties encountered by Ghana and other African states in establishing an efficient and sustainable civil service resulting in a stronger economic development, this paper concentrated on the introduced governance crisis (2). However, there are of course great interdependencies between the public administration and the central government of a country. The best governance system would only get so far without a stable, organized and constitutional government (4). It would be interesting to analyze these realities for African states, as it seems logical that weak governments are another trigger for underdevelopment.

On the whole, one can conclude that reforms of the 1980ies were not customized for African   developing countries and most probably inhibited a quicker economic development. The second  wave of reforms however, is much more focused on the involvement and training of civil servants, which is – as seen in the cases of Developed Countries and Tiger States – crucial for a stable public  administration and economic growth. If provided with the necessary financial aid, reform-committed African states like Ghana could indeed face an overcome of economic underdevelopment.

Related posts:
· The African Governance Crisis (1/4) · A sift inventory of Africa’s development problems
· The African Governance Crisis (2/4) · The Consequences of Reforms on the African Civil Service
· The African Governance Crisis (3/4) · Rehabilitating the African Civil Service
· Millennium Development Goals: Fragile states claim summit outcome off-target

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(1) Olowu, B. (1999). Redesigning African Civil Service Reforms. In: The Journal of Modern African Studies 37, 1 (1999). Cambridge University Press.
(2) Adamolekun, L. (2005). Re-Orienting Public Management in Africa: Selected Issues and Some Country Experiences. In: African Development Bank – Economic Research Paper Series No. 81.
(3) Evans, P. (1995). The State as Problem and Solution: Predation, Embedded Autonomy, and Structural Change. In: Politics and Society.
(4) United Nations. (2005). Public Administration and Development – Report of the Secretary General.

Rehabilitating the African Civil Service

THE AFRICAN GOVERNANCE CRISIS (3/4)

The customary  problems  of  public  sector  ineffectiveness  due  to  erroneous  reform movements – leading to a reduction instead of a reinforcement of the system – and the ongoing  danger  of  corrupt  public  officials,  give  reason  to  speculate  about  more successful policies for the reinvention of the African public administration. In order to do so, public service ministers came together in Stellenbosch, South Africa in 2003 to respond to “unfolding challenges” in African public administration (1).

In accordance with some reform approaches of the late 1990ies, the aim of new reforms is to switch to home-grown and demand driven methods directed at specific problems and challenges instead of the donor-pressured goals of broad downsizing and cost- cutting (1). While the UN observes that contemporary reform methods do still aim to improve business and customer satisfaction techniques –“a  carry-over from the early days  of  New  Public  Management”  (1),  intangible  reform  topics   such   as  the implementation of norms and values as well as public service ethics and accountability play a vital role.

Since African countries like Ghana do not possess the financial assets necessary for a much needed rise of public servant salaries, it seems crucial to at least stabilize the employees feeling of normative obligations. Despite negative experiences citizens have encountered with corrupt public officials so far, the latter must still be expected to have a  special  awareness  for  accountability  since  they  belong  to  the  directly  elected government of the country (2). Von Maravic argues that ethics in public management influence the quality of decisions made in public administration as well as the trust the citizen has in the system. (3). Hence, if one could ensure the ethical comportment of public officials, African (and more precisely Ghanaian public administration) could highly improve.

However, at this point another problem must be faced: the lack of resources. In this way, the UN states:

“In many countries, public administration remains weak largely owing to a shortage of human resources and to deficiencies in staff training and motivation.“ (4).

When speaking about the amelioration of African public services, one must be cautious not to attempt to apply the same public sector reform logic to all African countries. The differentiation of Adamolekun provides a possible classification of African states that has been mentioned before when referring to Ghana as a reform-committed country.

The above  table  or  a  similar  one  could  be  used  in  order  to  ensure  a  sustainable improvement  of  African  public  administration  systems.  In regard to this, the UN highlights the necessity of information sharing among reforming African states (4). Implementing the homegrown, but still NPM influenced methods of public sector reform in combination with the support of ethical and accountable changes in countries of the “virtuous circle” could be a first step (5). While the public service ministers all attempt to work on similar criteria they must accept countries like Botswana, Namibia or South Africa as a ‘primus inter pares’and a focal point of orientation. Moreover, it is obvious that foreign investments are still necessary; however one must not repeat the mistakes of the 1980ies and let donor schedules pressure the implementation of reforms.

Related posts:
· The African Governance Crisis (1/4) · A sift inventory of Africa’s development problems
· The African Governance Crisis (2/4) · The Consequences of Reforms on the African Civil Service
· Millennium Development Goals: Fragile states claim summit outcome off-target

______________

(1) African Press Organization. (2008). 6th Conference of African Ministers of Public Service Opening Remarks.
(2) Solinski, H.M. (1993). Ethic-conscious outlook behavior in public administration in Switzerland. Considerations and suggestions for the introduction of an ethics understanding based on the American experience. Reports and contributions of the Institute for Business Ethics at the University of St. Gallen.
(3) Von Maravic, P. (2009). Ethical challenges in administrative action. 5/4/2009.
(4) United Nations. (2005). Public Administration and Development – Report of the Secretary General.
(5) Adamolekun, L. (2005). Re-Orienting Public Management in Africa: Selected Issues and Some Country Experiences. In: African Development Bank – Economic Research Paper Series No. 81.

The Horn of Africa, a recurring scenario of drought and famine

Refugees from Somalia have to walk for days to reach Dadaab camp

The Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya are grappling with the arrival of thousands of people fleeing drought and fighting in neighboring Somalia. Many, especially children, fail to survive the long journey.

Some 2,000 people have been arriving every day in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camps from Somalia, Ethiopia and drought-stricken areas in Kenya. Many walk for weeks to get there. Young children, in particular, often don’t survive the long journey or succumb to exhaustion and severe malnutrition even after reaching the camps. The Dadaab camps are currently home to some 350,000 people.

Crop failure, droughts and floods are not the only causes of hunger. Corruption, mismanagement and bad governance are mainly to blame for catastrophes such as the current famine in the Horn of Africa.

Every day, between 1,000 and 2,000 refugees from Somalia come to the Dadaab refugee camps in northern Kenya. They are fleeing from hunger – and from a nation which isn’t a country at all. The situation is so chaotic in southern Somalia, that it’s even dangerous for aid workers to go there. Rebel groups are spreading fear and terror among the population, blocking desperately needed food aid and making any possible help from the outside world impossible.

Add to this the extreme drought. The result is that many who are already living at the poverty level and below are robbed of their last chance to survive. The food scarcity is causing prices to soar. Whoever can’t pay them starves. Millet is a very important foodstuff in Somalia and is twice as expensive as it was just a short time ago. The people don’t have any choices anymore.

Democracy can battle hunger

But there’s no government to blame for the catastrophe in Somalia. The country is a classic example of a failed state. There is neither a government nor an administration. In these cases, hunger crises are practically inevitable.

The Indian economist and Nobel Prize laureate Amartya Sen proved that acute famine hardly occurs anymore in democracies. However, chronic hunger can prevail under democratically elected governments, as well. This means many people remain undernourished, but they don’t die in large numbers as a result.

Over a billion people worldwide are starving. This leads to a high level of childhood mortality, physical and mental handicaps and hopeless poverty.

Ethiopia can’t battle the problem

The catastrophe currently raging in the Horn of Africa is not daily hunger, though, but rather a famine of biblical dimensions. There are people starving to death during their flight, children who often don’t survive the weeks-long march to the Kenyan refugee camps in Dadaab, or who die shortly after arriving because they are already too weakened to survive.

They come from Somalia or Ethiopia, where the government is also in a desperate battle against hunger.

Ethiopia has invested enormously in the agrarian sector in the past 10 years. Every year, the number of starving has sunk by one to one-and-a-half percent, but beginning at a very high level.

However, the measures aren’t enough. Ethiopia belongs to the poorest countries in the world. The rapid growth in population makes it difficult to expand the agricultural sector sufficiently and ensure food security. A devastating drought like the one right now cannot be thwarted by investments in rural development. Those people who have lost their land or animals due to the drought can only resort to fleeing.

Promises need to be fulfilled

In the long-term, consistent investments in agriculture and poverty reduction is the only thing which could prevent hunger catastrophes like this one. And these need to be investments that are transparent and sustainable – without the funds seeping away through corruption and nepotism. All that, without leaving Africa back in the hands of agribusiness or predatory countries that acquire African land for monocultures and speculation on cereals (China, South Korea); by facilitating and promoting the capitalization of small-scale agricultural projects, local and traditional (encouraging microfinance at all possible levels to generate self-sustaining economies that will fuel food self-sufficiency) — instead of capital investments seeking a return on investment in the short-term.

African Union’s so-called Maputo agreement is welcomed for sure. In 2003, African countries pledged to invest 10 percent of their entire budget into agriculture. Unfortunately, Kenya for example, where the drought is threatening hundreds of thousands of people, has not kept this promise. Additional funds or food reserves need to be put aside for acute crises like this one. Or the international donor community has to be asked for help. But this additional aid by the international community has flowed fairly sparsely – despite all the promises. And it is by far not enough to battle a catastrophe of this degree. UN agencies have a mandate by the governments to help these people, but not the necessary funds.

Many aid organizations are already warning of the next famine: in South Sudan, which has just become independent. The UN’s youngest member nation is marked by a shortage of funds, lacking government competence and growing corruption. The downward spiral continues to turn.

Related Posts: The Horn of Africa – An everlasting battleground

The Consequences of Reforms on the African Civil Service

THE AFRICAN GOVERNANCE CRISIS (2/4)

 “Since the late 1980s, many African countries have been reforming their civil services (…) Unfortunately, these reforms have not been very successful because of faulty diagnosis and prognosis. They have failed to tackle the major problems confronting African civil services.” (1)

Before the analysis of African public administration reforms can be undertaken, one must remember that the landscape of Africa’s civil service was not build from scratch. With its independence from British colonial rule, countries like Ghana inherited a system of public management that fulfilled tasks of “assuring the continuity of the state and maintaining law and order” (2). However, the civil service was doomed to re-orientate after independence in order to follow national interests instead of the ones of former colonial rulers. The African Development Bank thus asserts  that  an  enormous  expansion  of  the  civil  service took  place  until  the  grave economic decline at the  end of the 1970ies leading to a full-scale development crisis (2). This is when reforms of the civil services this paper aims to concentrate on were launched. Ghana shall be utilized as a hands-on example in this work, because it may be identified as a reform-committed country (2) that demonstrates strong efforts to rehabilitate its public service despite tremendous economic shortfalls. Therefore, a lack of commitment can be dismissed as a possible inhibiting factor to a successful development of Ghanaian public administration.

The goal of the following chapter is thus to properly understand why policies from the 1980ies aiming at the economic stabilization and development of African states such as Ghana have shown little success (1). One of these policies is the liberalization African markets (3). Taking this as the initial point of  this  work’s  analysis,  one  is  more  likely  to  comprehend  the  nature  of  reforms launched  during  the  1980ies.  The question whether the latter actually inhibited or actually reversed Ghanaian administrative, hence ultimately economic progress shall now be at focus.

NPM-Waves in Africa

Influenced by donor countries providing the necessary financial support for reforms (4), the ideal of New Public Management began gaining ground as a leitmotif for reforms in Ghana and other SSA countries. In general one can follow Bamidele Olowu in asserting that “African civil services [were] originally modeled on their metropolitan precursors.” (1). Although New  Public Management does not  translate  into  the  same  dogmatically  closed  catalogue  of  instruments  in  every country, in this work NPM shall be understood as a business interpretation of administrative action, hence a trend toward micro economic behavior in public management.

According to Peter Evans, this phase of reforms in developing countries may be seen as market-centered (5). After decades of viewing the state as the ultimate instrument of development, reforms in the 1980ies were initiated under the sentiment of negative experiences with the central government, hence a thrive for a reduction of the state.

As mentioned before, Ghana like many other African countries experienced a great expansion of the civil service sector after the 1960ies (1). After the global oil crisis, African economic decline and the ideal of a business-oriented reform wave  of  the  public  administration,   this   growth  of  the  state  was  to  be  ended (2). Donor countries provided African states with the necessary financial aid for the cutback of civil services (4). To make this more accessible, one must look at some exact data, in this case from Ghana.

The shrinking of the Ghanaian public administration was tackled through a myriad of reforms steps. The most important ones for the analysis in this paper are as follows. A grand movement of organizational restructuring led to a reorganization of government ministries eliminating four agencies during the reform efforts. Hence, seemingly unnecessary agencies were cut.  Another method, which was very well received by donor countries, was Ghanaian retrenchment. The core goal of this policy may be seen in the cutback of unneeded civil servants in order to shrink the countries’ public administration system. Therefore, Ghana reduced its civil servants from 131 089 in 1990 to 80 000 in 1995 (1).

Despite the reduction of civil servants, the payment of the latter was to be increased. Therefore Ghana foresaw decompressing wages and providing higher salaries for public managers. While information on the actual increase varies depending on the source, it is safe to say that actual salaries in Ghana did not rise significantly. Although still higher than for many African countries, the increase during the reforms in Ghana was modest (2).

These three aspects of Ghanaian public sector reform are sufficient for the following line of argumentation. However it shall be noted that Ghana was also at the forefront in regard to privatization and decentralization of public services (1). Due to its British past and organizational influence, reforms like the latter were faster implemented than in other African countries (1).

Evaluation of the NPM Reforms in Africa

The crucial part now lies in the evaluation of the New Public Management reforms and their effect on policy-making capabilities of the African civil service.

As mentioned above, the size of the Ghanaian public administration was decreased in regard to the number of agencies as well as the number of employees. Donor countries favored this approach due to  the conviction that a smaller public sector would work more  efficiently  as  for  instance  experienced  in  the  UK  (3). Moreover, the state’s involvement was seen as one of the core problems in developing countries after the 1970ies (5), thus the idea of a roll back of the state was widely popular (6).

However, the African civil service was never abnormally big in comparison to other regions (1).

      Figure 1: Government Employment as a Percentage of Population (various recent years)

Source: Olowu, 1999, p. 9.

As visible in the above chart, the central as well as the local government in sub-Saharan Africa is much smaller than the OECD average. While the observation that there was an enormous growth of the latter may very well be correct, this must be viewed as a post- colonial necessity. It seems rather logical that a growing economy must increase its public administration capacities. In regard to the number of public employees, the UN states that the African public administration “is significantly understaffed in professional and managerial areas, and perhaps overstaffed in semi-skilled and unskilled areas.” (4).

Therefore, one must conclude that a reduction of Ghana’s civil service at all levels was contra-intuitive and defeating the purpose of a more effective public administration.

The retrenchment in the civil service in general has proven to be more costly than expected in the beginning. More precisely, the research on the proper identification of cost saving possibilities mostly exceeded the actual ex-post cost saving (1).

Ghana is once again a perfect example for this miscalculation as the country actually encountered cumulative losses as a result from downsizing in the 1980ies. Although  Ghana  has  been  classified  as  a  committed  reformer,  the  former  head  of Ghanaian civil service, Robert Dodoo asserted his dissatisfaction in regard to the reform movement. According to him, the reason for the lack of improvement of the country’s development lay in the “donor time-tables, agendas and conditionalities” (7). While external support was necessary and vital for an improvement of the African  civil  service  the  provision  of  money  came  with  unreasonably  short-term expectancies.  It  does  not  seem  surprising  that  a country in  danger  of  loosing  all monetary  support  decides  to   hustle  through  a  reform  and  risk  less  successful implementation instead of the loss of crucial financial aid.

There are two core weaknesses to be identified after this ex-post evaluation of the first part of African civil service reforms: (1) the way reform was embarked upon, along with (2) the goal of the reform.

The first point has been made quite clear with the previous statements of Robert Dodoo. The pressure for success coming from donor countries was in no way beneficial for the improvement of the Ghanaian civil service. As one of many, Ghana had agreed to reduce the cost of the public sector and implement questionable structural adjustment programs: “This was an explicit condition for financial support from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.” (2). Although the size of the civil service was reduced, the results in cost saving were modest.

But why reduce the African public administration at all? As demonstrated with the graph, the African civil service was in no way bigger than ones from many other states. While it was indeed expanding after the colonial rulers granted independence, this was a vital step toward a functioning economy and a sustainable development of countries like Ghana. State and market building are mutually dependent; hence a strong state in combination with a functioning market could be seen as the more adequate policy for Africa at this delicate time (3).

The World Bank itself states that

‘An effective  state  is  vital  for the  provision  of the  goods and  services  – and  the  rules  and institutions – that allow markets to flourish and people to lead healthier, happier lives. Without sustainable development, both economic and social is impossible.’ (8)

The problem  of  the  1980ies  believe  that  effectiveness  would  be  achieved  through downsizing is  made clear in the above. However, it now becomes tangible that the effects of the 1980ies reforms may very well have resulted in lacking capabilities to implement crucial policies for the countries’ development, i.e. the liberalization of markets. If there are too few agencies and employees to oversee the realization of liberalization, this process is doomed to fail.

The third reform step that shall be evaluated here is the alteration of salaries in the civil service. While there was indeed some increase in the salaries of civil servants in Ghana, they are still stunningly low (1).  When being confronted with unattractive   employment   opportunities, the reaction of workers is universally comparable. High-qualified human capital either leaves the country in order to find better-paid jobs or the employee opens him – or herself to corruption. A report by the IMF shows a strong correlation between wages in public administration relative to wages in manufacturing: “It is estimated that government wages needed to be 2×8 (…) times higher to make corruption negligible.” (The Economist 1997, Reasons to be venal).

Corruption is another major weakness of African public administration and must be seen as another NPM-influenced repercussion (1). Peter Evans asserts in this regard that methods of personalism and plundering at the top levels of African civil service destroy all possibilities of rule-governed behavior in the lower levels of public administration (5). More precisely, in order to make a living less qualified officials go along the example set at the top.

Another fatal repercussion of corruption for these countries is not only the waste of financial  resources,  but  also  the  cancelation  of  international  aid  programs  as  a punishment (5). Weak public administration with corrupt officials therefore results in a vicious circle for the whole country.

After evaluating the three vital reforms in Ghana, the downsizing of the public sector as well as an insufficient rise of civil servant salaries, in the following, this paper aims at observing some of the latest reform movements. By doing so, the goal is to make a recommendation as to where the development of the Ghanaian and African civil service should be headed in order to guarantee more capable ways of implementing policies for an improvement of the countries’ development.

Related posts:
· The African Governance Crisis (1/4) · A sift inventory of Africa’s development problems
· The African Governance Crisis (3/4) · Rehabilitating the African Civil Service
· Millennium Development Goals: Fragile states claim summit outcome off-target

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(1) Olowu, B. (1999). Redesigning African Civil Service Reforms. In: The Journal of Modern African Studies 37, 1 (1999). Cambridge University Press.
(2) Adamolekun, L. (2005). Re-Orienting Public Management in Africa: Selected Issues and Some Country Experiences. In: African Development Bank – Economic Research Paper Series No. 81.
(3) Chaudhry, K. A. (1993). Myths of the Market and the Common History of Late Developers.
(4) United Nations. (2005). Public Administration and Development – Report of the
Secretary General, Sixtieth Session.
(5) Evans, P. (1995). The State as Problem and Solution: Predation, Embedded Autonomy, and Structural Change. In: Politics and Society.
(6) Goldsmith, M. J. & Page, E. C. (1998). Farewell to the British State? In: Public Sector Reform by Jan-Erik Lane. London: SAGE Publications.
(7) Dodoo, R. (1996). The Core Elements of Civil Service Reforms. In: African Journal of Public Administration and Management
(8) World Bank. (1997). World Development Report. New York: Oxford University Press

A sift inventory of Africa’s development problems

THE AFRICAN GOVERNANCE CRISIS (1/4)

Index of African Governance Human Development © European Statistical Laboratory

The underdevelopment of developing countries and the attempted overcome of the latter are at heart of international debates ever since development politics began gaining ground in world politics in the 1960ies. Today, African states receive special attention in regard to possibilities of an amelioration of their economic status quo.

Core problems  of  these  so-called  Least  Developed  Countries  (LDCs)  are  a  highly restricted  access  to  basic  human  needs  such  as  food,  water,  energy  resources  or medicine.  Moreover “social services and infrastructure have largely collapsed  owing  to  a  lack  of  resources  for  their  upkeep.”  (1). Although the Millennium Development Goal aiming at a worldwide reduction of extreme poverty by 50% is expected to be reached until 2015, this data must be considered with caution in regard to Africa. While countries such as India or China, who are also targeted by the UN agenda  do  indeed  face  an  incredible  improvement  of  public  wealth,  sub-Saharan countries are at risk of being left behind permanently. More precisely, the UN today expects goals such as the reduction of extreme poverty to be reached in Africa no sooner than in 150 years (1).  This vicious circle of underdevelopment is well highlighted in the Human Development Index. From the 1980ies until the end of the millennium 13 of 22 countries that suffered large setbacks were African (1). Among a great number of possible explanations for this economic disaster, one of the most plausible ones is the conviction that “governance and public administration  weaknesses,  [and]  the  failure  to  reflect  poverty  concerns  in  budget allocations…” (1) generate economic gaps. This analysis thus aims to demonstrate that so far weak governance institutions are one of the main causes for the above-depicted underdevelopment of some African countries.

But how exactly does the public administration system of sub-Saharan LDCs affect their (economic) development?

Many theories regarding the economic improvement of these poorest countries have been launched and abolished. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been at the receiving end of a myriad of developmental experiments ranging from modernization concepts to self-help and good governance approaches. The core train of thought driving these, mostly Western models of development, has been the ideal of market liberalization (2) as  a  motor  for development.  But  what  is  often  forgotten  when  dealing  with  the  approach  of  free markets is the vitality of  strong governance institutions. Kiren Chaudhry and Peter Evans acknowledge that market building and state building must go hand in hand (2)(3). More precisely, they hereby avert from the idea of a simple roll back of the state of New Public Management (NPM) reforms launched during the 1980ies (4).  The UN General Assembly corroborates: “With challenges of poverty and growing inequality (…) organized and constitutional Government becomes the only guarantee of personal and collective security.”  (1).

Although development aid or development strategies in general may have fallen into some disgrace during the last decades due to little trickle down effect and images of corrupt African leaders wasting  Western money for their personal pleasure,  increased  financial  aid  might  be a sine qua non at this crucial time of development of African governance institutions. A lack of financial resources leads to dramatic human capital flight in the African public administration (1). Further, NPM-like cuts in administrative resources in order to minimize the size of African public management could have led to a setback and to less development in the target countries.

The reforms of the civil sector in Africa so far have been mainly concerned with technicalities, such as the reduction of the size and the cost of the public sector (5).

However, this approach fails – as I shall argue later in more detail – to comprehend the crucial task of building lasting human and institutional aptitudes.

This contribution therefore aims to concentrate on the civil service sector of underdeveloped sub-Saharan countries. Questions such as: ‘What kind of reforms were implemented?’ must be answered before diving into the complex task of evaluating the latter and discussing a different approach to possible improvement in the civil service, hence in the countries’ development. Thus, in a first step, this paper will focus on some major reforms in reform-committed African countries such as Ghana and underline the weakness of the attempts to change the system of public management (6).

A second step will then be dedicated to suggestions of a new direction for the handling of the African public administration.

In a last step, this paper then aims to draw a conclusion and answer the initial question whether public sector reforms in Africa so far actually inhibit or support development.

Related posts:
· The African Governance Crisis (2/4) · The Consequences of Reforms on the African Civil Service
· The African Governance Crisis (3/4) · Rehabilitating the African Civil Service
· Millennium Development Goals: Fragile states claim summit outcome off-target

______________

(1) United Nations. (2005). Public Administration and Development – Report of the Secretary General. Sixtieth Session.
(2) Chaudhry, K. A. (1993). Myths of the Market and the Common History of Late Developers.
(3) Evans, P. (1995). The State as Problem and Solution: Predation, Embedded Autonomy, and Structural Change. In: Politics and Society.
(4) Goldsmith, M. J. & Page, E. C. (1998). Farewell to the British State? In: Public Sector Reform by Jan-Erik Lane. London: SAGE Publications.
(5) Olowu, B. (1999). Redesigning African Civil Service Reforms. In: The Journal of Modern African Studies 37, 1 (1999). Cambridge University Press.
(6) Adamolekun, L. (2005). Re-Orienting Public Management in Africa: Selected Issues and Some Country Experiences. In: African Development Bank – Economic Research Paper Series No. 81.

Dreadful post coitum in the backstage of power (2)

Dominique Strauss-Kahn VS. Nafissatou Diallo: A case of Comparative Law

A media event on the threshold of the American Criminal Procedure

A brilliant career, stunning accusation · © CNN

Reality is a hard nut to crack.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn is a major figure who has friends who may be sincere in their affection, no matter how often crossbred with ulterior political motives. Whenever a person is accused of something incredibly serious, his relatives have the natural reflex to refuse to believe that it is just possible.

The first instinct is to protect, to rush to help, sometimes awkwardly, like that wife who thought helping her husband accused of robbery and who found nothing better to say at the bar of the criminal court: « Murderer maybe, but a thief, surely not! »

Clumsy reactions, not to say completely ill-advised have been held. Most of those who did so have retracted or expressed their regrets by realizing the nonsense of their arguments.

It is not herein about demonstrating the guilt or innocence of the IMF’s managing director. No more than trying to prove a hypothetical plot, in one way or another, but to describe and explain the criminal proceedings which he is subject to understand what is happening and what will happen. Note that I do not pretend to be a lawyer practicing in New York and I beg more eminent experts than me to forgive my probable errors and approximations, and I will correct the post if required.

The U.S. procedure, a much more balanced system than the French feedback might suggest.
Let us briefly recall the facts: DSK is charged of having appeared suddenly naked, facing a maid who had entered the room thinking it was cleared out, to put it back in order. After closing and locking the door, DSK would have intended to force her for oral sex, he would have tried to take off her clothes in order to go further, but she managed to escape. The police arrived, reportedly found that he had left the scene, forgetting one of his (seven) mobile phones, and tracked him down in the list of passengers on an Air France flight to Paris.

He was arrested onboard by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey – the local Border Police – and delivered to the NYPD, the Special Victims Unit to be precise.

In the United States like in England, police have broad powers of inquiry and initiative in investigations. Unlike France, where the prosecutor leads the investigation and gives instructions to the police – which are in fact orders –, the district attorney discovers the records when the police bring them together with the suspect. For some serious cases, police officers may have an advisory role, stating the evidence that the DA needs to go further on prosecution. Both authorities are more separated in the U.S. than in France.

The arrest may take place without an arrest warrant in two cases: the crime takes place in the presence of the police officer or if the officer has sufficient evidence to arrest the person (sufficient grounds). In general, a home arrest requires a judge to issue an arrest warrant.

The first stage is booking and it is held at the police station. Fingerprinting, photo identification, judicial collect of criminal record (in New York it is called NYSID report or rap sheet. The person under suspicion may be questioned but he has the right to remain silent (which will never be retained for the prosecution against him unlike in French law). He may be assisted by a lawyer who has the right to intervene during interrogations (the Paris prosecutor shivers in terror at this perspective). The police officer in charge of the case (usually the first on scene) prepares a report – the criminal complaint— which is the basis for prosecution.

Less serious facts give rise quickly to release from custody with straight summons by the judge (Desk Appearance Ticket, DAT). Here we are facing a felony – on top of the scale of gravity, not DAT, but submission to a judge. This arrest should be as brief as possible. The law provides for a period of 48 hours in case of arrest a weekend away, but this rule does not apply in NYC, where hearings are held 365 days a year (from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m.). In this matter, DSK agreed that such hearing which could take place on Sunday – as ‘New York city’s justice doesn’t sleep’— might be postponed to allow achieving DNA testing.

Once the booking is completed, the suspect is escorted to the Court Building, the competent court (here, in the case of felonies, the New York City Criminal Court, but only for the preliminary phase). It was there that DSK was featured on May 16: his memorable walking out under the flashes, that most French journalists published by asking if they could do it, and his transfer from police station to Criminal Court.

There, the police officer handling the case – and/or the complainant – is received by a substitute (Deputy District Attorney, DDA) who decides whether to prosecute or not. The DDA does NOT speak to the suspect, since in the United States, they have realized quite a long time ago that he is the opposing party (in France, there is hope it finally occurs all along the XXII century). If DDA considers the record substantial, he should formalize a ‘written complaint’, i.e. the official complaint of public prosecution.

The suspect is then brought before a judge for a hearing called the arraignment. The judge notifies the suspect of charges against him (a copy is delivered to him), of his right to counsel (he must be assisted, if necessary by a court-appointed lawyer at the arraignment), he is entitled to a preliminary hearing (in the case of a felony as it happens to DSK). He will not be asked at this stage whether he pleads guilty or not guilty, only in cases of misdemeanors and minor offenses, the equivalent in France of ‘délit’ and ‘contravention’ (but the suspect is entitled to give it up and, if need be, to plead guilty before the Criminal Court, this option is already ruled out by DSK’s lawyers).

The judge may decide to immediately stop the proceedings if he believes that the offense is not clearly established (case dismissed, French’s ‘affaire classée’)). With regard to alleged felonies against DSK, the indictment is incumbent on the Grand Jury.

The judge will then decide what happens to DSK until the Grand Jury decides. He can be released on his promise of appear spontaneously (Released on his Own Recognizance, ROR), released on bail or exceptionally remanded –i.e. arrested up to 120 hours until the Grand Jury has ruled or a Preliminary Hearing is held if the suspect, who is now the defendant, asks for it; but the prosecution does not bet on it usually).

The essential difference between Preliminary Hearing and Grand Jury is that the former is public and is held in the presence of the defendant while the Grand Jury meets closed-doors in the presence of the sole District Attorney and witnesses brought to testify.

The Grand Jury is composed of 23 people (a quorum of 16 people is required for it to decide). It outlines the evidences gathered and deliberates and it either votes a true bill – 12 jurors at least consider that there is prima facie, and then the case goes to trial (indictment) – or a no bill – i.e. no trial, then the case is dismissed.

In case of indictment by the Grand Jury, a new arraignment hearing is held before the Superior Court competent to try crimes (felonies), here the New York Supreme Court. Thus began the preparatory stage: the parties may negotiate a plea bargaining, ie, a guilty plea, where they have 45 days to submit petitions (motions) to be settled before the trial, eg to exclude illegally obtained evidence, or direct certain actions. Once these motions considered, a trial date is set. The trial shall be public, and judged by a jury who votes only over the conviction. The penalty, under the sole judge’s domain, is ruled at a subsequent hearing.

Finally there are 3 qualifications retained at this point: criminal sexual act, attempted rape, unlawful imprisonment. The penalty system is somewhat complex. Crimes are divided into categories AI, A-II. B. C, D and E. DSK appears to fall into the category B, so a maximum of 25 years imprisonment and a minimum of 1 to 8 years (Criminal Code of New York State. art. 70).

Dreadful post coitum in the backstage of power (1)

Dominique Strauss-Kahn vs. Nafissatou Diallo: A case of Comparative Law

On the eve of the hearing to be held June 6, throughout Dominique Strauss-Kahn will have to plead guilty or not guilty on the seven charges against him, it seems appropriate to analyze the situation – and report progress – from the perspective of comparative law. To be precise, if DSK pleads guilty, there will be no trial but a conviction to several years in prison, whose number will be negotiated with the judge. If he pleads not guilty – as his lawyers have suggested – a trial will take place.

From crime disguised as vaudeville to presumption of innocence

DSK was the favorite candidate for the French presidential elections of 2012

Falling of an idol. After two breathless weeks of one of the most spectacular cases in French politics, with hearings filmed, suspense, shocking images, conspiracy theories – will this century experience a significant event without its conspiracy theory? – and of course sex – which means outselling–, the excitement will drop, so to speak, and a media relief will be imposed from necessity.

But the jurist loves nothing more than the calm and serenity, which are propitious to reflection.

In hindsight, 15 days later, it is clear that the omnipresence of this case in the timeliness will inevitably recess. « At last! » some masochists might say – the same ones who are sick of this case but who still read this article.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been released (but is very closely supervised) and I am delighted, beyond any consideration, of his eventual guilt. Everyone expects to be released until their trial, as detention must be truly exceptional. This is not the case in France. This principle is best applied in the U.S. than in France, especially in criminal cases. Not to mention that before 2000 in the French criminal procedure, before a criminal court, the accused was free until he would necessarily become a prisoner on the eve of the hearing.

The conditions under which this freedom has been granted (a deposit of one million dollars, in addition to a 5 million warranty executed if Dominique Strauss-Kahn does not attend the hearing; prohibition from leaving NYC where he ought to live in a CCTV apartment, an armed guard at the door entrance, waged by the accused himself; a permanent electronic tracer anklet… anything at his expense) have prompted comments on Justice of richest (the accused had to raise $ 6 million and spend about $ 200,000 a month to ensure his own 24-hour monitoring). One thing must be understood.

Though a person who’s well off can probably – and in the U.S. probably more than anywhere else among the democratic countries with an independent judiciary – easily put the necessary resources to ensure his defense and will necessarily be much better defended than a person that may not do so, at this point it was not the New York justice who imposed stringent conditions for releasing DSK. It was the DSK defense who proposed what is called a lease package made of reinforced concrete: the defense came with such a turnkey probation, saying « That’s what we propose.» Basically, the judge just alleged: «Okay, I’m fine with this. » Defense brought out the (very) heavy artillery, for it knew that the prosecutor’s office (District Attorney, DA) would do everything possible to keep this very big fish in the fishpond of Rikers Island. Being elected, the NY prosecutor (in contrast to French judges who are appointed by the President of the Republic on proposal of the Minister of Justice, and the opinion of the Supreme Council of Magistracy; if someone could point it out to some know-it-all, thank you) has everything to gain by showing that he’s severe with the powerful, especially if this powerful is an alien. The prosecutor’s office has pushed to the limits the Polanski precedent: the flight risk (under French law, one talks about « lack of guarantees of representation »), stressing that the accused was arrested on an airplane when he was getting ready to leave the territory. The defense did expect this and anticipated correctly: it showed the ticket purchased before the facts occurred and came up with a proposal that no judge would probably have dared to require since it is costly and burdensome. Add to this the argument that the IMF Managing Director may be considered an honorable man, and the decision has been taken away…

Now begins a period that in French law would be called « pretrial » –understand « making the case ready for trial. » Indeed, U.S. law in general and New York in particular ignores the criminal enquiry conducted by a judge, specific to the Anglo-American inquisitorial system. It is an accusatory system, where the Judge is at a retreat – on a temporary basis – and acts as arbitrator.

A clarification: the Anglo-American accusatory system has never meant that it was on the accused to prove his innocence. It does not preclude the innocentation scheme, but the inquisitorial system, where Justice leads the investigation and keeps the bulk of the initiatives. The systems are not incompatible: in France, civil proceedings are accusatory, while criminal procedure is inquisitorial, with accusatory parties (such as the procedure before the trial chamber). Both parties – and I mean both parties because under U.S. law the complainant is not a party to criminal proceedings – will present their motions to the judge who will decide essentially on the admissibility of an evidence a party wants to produce and which the other does not want to hear about (Let’s say if a DNA test charges the defendant but the chain of custody was broken, meaning that at some point the integrity of the sample was not preserved with certainty -if  the sample has been forgotten in the police officer car at night, so as that could allow its contamination or its replacement- the Judge will exclude this evidence and the prosecution may not fall back on it). They have 45 days to do so. The hearings will be held in the Office of the Judge without publicity so the jury is not aware of these elements. If the DA had fled the information that a DNA test was rejected the defense may request a mistrial, (which is) to consider that the right of the defendant to a fair trial was irreparably damaged and that case should be permanently dismissed. And for those wondering, if it was the defense that was the source of the leak this would allow the DA to make a point of mentioning before the jury. Proceedings are not messy…

To sum up,at the end of the day,  until the trial begins the case will be prepared secretly, without further hearing or videoed suspense. So goodbye, hilarious scenes of special correspondents from the courthouse live from New York, less well informed about what is happening than journalists in Paris who have access to Twitter. I will miss it.

I have heard the optimistic statements of a DSK’s lawyer, Mr. Benjamin Brafman. I must confess my astonishment. Such statements, even cautious are not common in general and it is a first for this lawyer who has now a lot to loose in the event of a guilty plea or of a conviction. I can only speculate that he has a wild card up the sleeve to be so affirmative.

This leads me naturally to the presumption of innocence. In short, it is primarily a rule of evidence (it is up the prosecution to prove the guilt) to which French law added a protection matter of reputation: it is forbidden to make a person being subject of an investigation or prosecution as guilty until he has not been finally convicted. It is not easy (enough), even a lawyer like President Sarkozy cracks up regularly.

Respect for the presumption of innocence is then both a fundamental principle of trial, a pillar of the rule of law – listed by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, Article 9, since this assumption was far from obvious in 1789 – and a rule limiting freedom of expression.

So to avoid torturing Language, let us clarify concepts so far. Talking about Dominique Strauss-Kahn as a suspect or indicted or accused is entirely correct. Legally speaking, the most accurate perception at this stage is ‘defendant’ since the indictment has been delivered by the Grand Jury. To designate him as « rapist » would undermine the presumption of innocence. But designate him as « alleged rapist » is cumbersome, inelegant and imprecise – as the implicit concept, probably inspired by presumption of innocence, has a sense of « Who is supposed by hypothesis or conjecture. » The opposite of what we mean actually. An alleged rapist is not a presumed innocent.

Where the auditor risks headache is when the victim becomes in turn alleged. Lord! If the rapist is presumed innocent, the victim is an alleged liar? No, of course not, she’s just downgraded to alleged victim category. This makes a lot of suspects, presumed and alleged, isn’t that so?

The French word for « alleged victim » (‘victime présumée’) is « complaining » (‘plaignant’). The concept of « victim » which etymologically refers to the religious as it refers to what is offered in sacrifice to the gods (‘victima’ in Latin) is legally adequate once the crime is established or after conviction. In short, the term victim is inconsistent with presumption of innocence.

This leads me to my second assessment (next week), namely, the French perception of the U.S. procedure –which often forgets the U.S. context and aims to exonerate the alleged abuse of power while forgetting the alleged victim.

Sublime!

The nicest Champions League final in years? No big deal, but some credit has to go to Manchester Utd. Sir Alex’s tactics were wrong. He could have set his side up to try and defend to a penalty shoot-out but instead he tried to make a game of it. That Barcelona won playing not just the usual neat stuff but also some good expansive football and without any usual simulation (that could spot) means they are most worthy. Good match but no surprises then, Barcelona were of course the better team. Man Utd gave a reasonable account of themselves, but with Giggs and Carrick in central midfield there was only going to be one result. Barça made Utd look like somewhat amateurs.

Admirable Wayne Rooney though. Seven minutes after first Barça goal, Barcelona’s defensive flaws were exposed as Rooney combined first with Fábio and then with Giggs before meeting the Welshman’s delicately weighted return pass with a beautifully judged first-time shot which curled away from the diving Valdés. Giggs appeared to be in an offside position, but Xavi, Iniesta and Messi could only stand and admire the confidence with which Rooney created and finished the move.

Messi and Villa’s strikes were magnificent. Rooney’s was magnificent. A game with at least 3 superb goals is never a bad game, win or loss.

United are comfortably the second best team in Europe, Barcelona comfortably the best team in Europe. In fact, you’d have to go back to their game against Arsenal to find the last time they lost in Europe. They’re sublime. Their last two (killer) goals were, for me at least, totally unexpected. I doubt anyone expected Barça to shoot from outside the box, and therein lies the problem with beating them.

Congratulations to my Barça. A truly great side, and worthy of their title.

Two weeks under the sea

If we pay attention to what the newspapers tell us, Osama bin Laden endures two weeks on the waters of the Arabian Sea – round 4,500 meters deep.

Well-known British actor Rowan Atkinson (Mr Bean) characterized as Bin Laden

That area of the Indian Ocean gives up the ghost in all. But who knows what the carcass became in such a dark abyss, considering that the official shroud was supposedly placed in a plastic bag and ballasted enough to reach the bottom. Barack Obama has chosen to ignore the wise advice of senators and representatives calling to « show the body so that everyone witnesses it. »  At this point in time, no pictures or videos. Shooting a gangland killing, an execution or an act of extreme war – it makes no difference actually – is often unpleasant. Remember the hanging of Saddam Hussein or the beheadings of Western hostages in the hands of any franchise of al Qaeda. If you have a mobile phone and you are among the murderers, the recording is a guaranteed success. Before the technology was so extraordinarily advanced, everything was different. Stalin would have paid what is not written by recording the moment when a revolutionary gentleman tacked an ice pick in Trotsky’s head. And yet, he would have ordered that no one shoot the kidnapping of 5 to 10 million missing from the Stalinist regime, except for manipulating images and place them in Belgrade or Berlin moments before their perfect revolutionary forced disappearance. Actors, circumstances and cons change, but a good number resemble closely.

Exterminators are decorated in life, even in private. Of course, when they die they are buried in mausoleums set aside for national heroes. But let us not make a mistake. Bin Laden must be surrounded by houris sirens in his aquatic grave. Worse would be wearing an orange Guantanamo Bay-style typical dress…

High Food Prices Endanger Food Security

Along with officers from the Food and Agriculture Organization, mankind is only two bad seasons away from a disaster on a global scale.

This spring already, the previous year’s deficient harvests contributed to the social unrest in North Africa. Even though the World Bank asserts that rising food prices have not initiated the protest movement in the Arab world, the price ramble however contributed to an intensification of tensions. Exploding prices are a main headache for political and economic decision-makers across the globe. One thing is clear: A search for solutions needs to be made a top priority.

The developments in the markets over the past year certainly give full reason for concern: Within the past decade, prices for agricultural goods rose by 83 percent. In 2010, inclement weather proved a major challenge for food security: In the spring, heavy rainfall in Canada destroyed a quarter of the wheat harvest. During the summer drought and bushfires in Russia, the Ukraine and Kazakhstan lowered yields. In China drought and sandstorms have made life difficult for farmers ever since last spring and significantly decreased their income from wheat sales. In early 2011, strong snowstorms threatened winter wheat plants in the leading export nation, the United States. In the southern hemisphere in 2010, La Nina led to drought and losses for soya beans and maize plantations. Floods in Australia made half of the planted wheat there unfit for human consumption. The wheat price has doubled since last summer. Lower wheat supplies led consumers to switch to maize. The maize price shot up by 73 percent as a result in the second half of the year. Meanwhile numerous Mediterranean countries like Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Jordan, Libya, and Turkey have engaged in panic-buying and hoarding large stocks of wheat. China is expected to follow suit sometime later in 2011. This will further push up prices in the world markets. It is not only climate change and the bad weather that is responsible for the increasing shortage of food stuffs. In many emerging countries, changing consumption patterns – especially increased reliance on meat as a dietary source – encourage prices escalate. Moreover, additional agricultural land is lost to planting crops for biofuel instead of food stuff. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, one third of the price rise needs to be attributed to the increasing use of grain as a biofuel.

Despite these disquieting numbers, it is not predictable that the United States, the European Union, or Brazil will in the short-term abandon their biofuel projects. Neither can consumption patterns worldwide easily be changed. The developments observed therefore point that supply shocks caused by bad harvest today can more easily upset the delicate balance in the increasingly globalized food chain. Structural changes render it difficult for the system to deal with such shocks at the present time. In order to prevent further upset on the supply side, much more investment in agriculture is needed today. It is necessary to be better prepared for the challenges posed by climate change. It is high time to coordinate on a global level in order to stabilize agricultural markets in such a manner that external supply shocks will not automatically lead to systemic consequences and social unrest.

Libyan costly battles

The battle in the Libyan desert lacks of cinematographic epics.

Neither “Rommel” Muammar el-Qaddafi withdraws as in Germanic retreat with his Jamahiriya’s Afrika Korps nor does Montgomery-champion-of-freedom conclude crushing the bad guys. But one thing’s for sure, we see how accurately are destroyed from the air some armored tanks that seem relics of the Second World War. We also perceive groups of insurgents, up the road, down the road, burning wheel on civilian vehicles with batteries of rockets that on no occasion will reach any target.

Clumsy images, testimonial prints, broadcasted and televised where the self-proclaimed members of the Libyan Free Army proclaim: « God’s with us. » Allah’s intervention must be prodigious, because only in this way insurgents have not been literally wiped out by the Muammar el-Qaddafi’s worshippers. But we do not see either pictures of massacres – unless the good old Tarantino is unable to record them.

It is a war of mirages, where the only unnatural gadget is the overwhelming war machine deployed by NATO, U.S., UK and France at the forefront. France which does not miss an opportunity, that’s why it is the third world’s biggest arms exporter. In fact, France sold military equipment to Libya up to yesterday. That may be, but our Odyssey Dawn is limited in terms of GDP. Nothing to do with the fireworks deployment that the American Tomahawk missiles display – hundreds of which have been released at a rate of 600,000 euros each. France is further unpretentious. Our tiny little Raffale fighters consume nearby 40,000 insignificant euros in fuel per flight hour. Best not to shoot or we sink our GDP.

Inside Job – White collar mafia

Inside Job (2010), American documentary by Charles Ferguson on the financialization of the economy that led to the crisis of 2008 and that just received the Oscar for best documentary.

Beyond the director’s unrelenting demonstration, and the very accomplished mise en scene, the framework gravitates around film noir where mafia plots — this time white collar — are replacing  one another. Relying on true images, Ferguson’s work shows that deregulation of the economy, which began in 1980 with Reagan, was continued by Clinton, then by George W. Bush and now by Obama — the last avatar of a president who has forgotten his promises to reform Wall Street.

A lukewarm record of greed that caused the collapse of Wall Street.
On the downside, the movie oversimplifies the causes of the crisis. It focuses primarily on deregulation and Wall Street’s incentive structure and culture of reckless risk-taking and lax morals and ethics. It also briefly mentions poor risk assessments by credit rating agencies and predatory lending, without really explaining what it was or getting into any depth on the matter.

Sub-prime lending was mentioned only in a very cursory manner. There was no mention of the Clinton Administration’s push for sub-prime lending to expand mortgage loans to low and moderate income people.

There was no mention of the Federal Reserve’s contribution to the housing bubble as a result of its policy to ease credit conditions in the early 2000s to soften the impact of the collapse of the dot com bubble and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

There was no mention of the shadow banking system; how it contributed to the crisis and how it greatly amplified the losses.

The film has the merit of showing how little has changed the U.S. financial world, despite Obama’s rhetoric. Rather than being held accountable for their role in the collapse, many of its architects remain in key positions of power. Recommended.

War of words

While we wait for history to judge the decision of the Security Council, words place themselves as judges.

The war in Libya is not virtual but very real. Then the outcome depends a lot on the war of words. Prudence dictates to wait for a positive outcome (with a free Libya at the end of the tunnel) or a disastrous issue instead (with a Muammar el-Qaddafi stronger and more upset than ever) for the decision of the UN Security Council to be judged in the light of history … And while we wait for the history words place themselves as judges — words used to judge what is happening in Libya.

The purpose of resolution 1973 of the Security Council was to protect the Libyan people against the tyrant, but as this reality bothers the tyrant he relieves all sorts of conceivable semantic tricks to transvesty reality and attempt to pass for a victim. Seeing is believing. Muammar el-Qaddafi vows to protect his people against the foreign invader when in fact it is about protecting the very people from the aggression of the tyrant. The crasser is the lie the more likely it is to pass through as true. And it would be a mistake to trifle with it because although the colonel’s propaganda is particularly rough and fallacious, his misinformation affects those whom such propaganda is flattering given their self-interest or ideological reasons. Such as in the case of some countries, headed by China (whom Muammar el-Qaddafi has promised concessions in the Libyan oil if they look the other way – thus allowing him to get out of trouble), as in the case of other regimes - Arab or not - who have no desire for the UN interfering in their affairs to ensure compliance or not with human rights in their respective countries.

But there is a category even more revolting: that of narrow-minded and dumb ideologists  for which any intervention involving Western countries is imperialist by nature. These zealous advocates suffer from true migraines because if, by any chance, Westerners were not a horde of unkind and greedy people, then the imposture  would not fit into their lowbrow straitjacket. It has to be particularly indigestible for them to witness how Western and Arab countries assume jointly undeniable risks to save Libyan rebels – including those who are shouting “Allahu Akbar “. The more if you believe upside down in the war of civilizations and that you deem the intervention hides, as usual, other unlawful and guilt-producing interests.

What then is the alternative to doing nothing?
Muammar el-Qaddafi counts on that – unfortunately widespread – ominous approach. That’s why it is essential to avoid falling into the trap by describing this coalition as a typical western one and try on the contrary to associate the largest possible number of Arab countries. It was not easy to reach an agreement and this alliance will not last long, we know that. As soon as the first air strikes took place, the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, started disassociating oneself. In fact, this former Mubarak minister, greeted by some Egyptians for his hostility to Israel and his support to the revolution, has just one thing in mind: to become the next president of Egypt. And in this case, Mr. Amr Moussa wanted to bet on all winning horses to seduce western countries by giving support to the resolution draft, but without having to accommodate and assume the consequences in the eyes of the Arab citizens in general and in Egyptians’  in particular. The dude in fact bet on Russian and Chinese veto power. But it was not so. Hence his current confusion and hardship, especially having regard to the Egyptian people sensitivity, whose solidarity with the suffering of the Libyan people is more than obvious. The opportunism of Mr. Amr Moussa is currently blamed by Egyptians: he wanted to flatter the people and adulate their demons. He got the wrong war and marched out of step as Libya’s events have nothing to do with the war in Iraq: rebels yell in Benghazi without blushing: “Merci la France, Thak U America” (which for sure would not last long, we know that): indeed, many who now criticize the military intervention would make a great fuss if the United Nations had been passive not facing the massacres of Muammar el-Qaddafi. If the UN would have done so, now Benghazi would have fallen into the hands of the tyrant, the people would have been crushed and probably the Arab spring would have come to an end.

 

While we wait for history to judge the decision of the Security Council words place themselves as judges.

The war in Libya is not virtual but very real. Then the outcome depends a lot on the war of words. Prudence dictates to wait for a positive outcome (with a free Libya at the end of the tunnel) or else a disastrous issue (with a Colonel Gaddafi stronger and more upset than ever) for the decision of the Security Council of UN to be judged in the light of history … And while we wait for the history words set themselves up as judges, words used to judge what is happening in Libya.

The purpose of resolution 1973 of the Security Council was to protect the Libyan people against the tyrant, but as this reality bothers the tyrant he relieves all sorts of conceivable semantic tricks to transvesting reality and attempt to pass for a victim. Seeing is believing. Colonel Gaddafi vows to protect his people against the foreign invader when in fact it is about protecting the very people from the aggression of the tyrant. The crasser is the lie the more likely it is to pass through as true. And it would be a mistake to trifle with it because although the colonel’s propaganda is particularly rough and fallacious, his misinformation affects those whom such propaganda is flattering given their self-interest or ideological reasons. Such as in the case of some countries, headed by China (whom Gaddafi has promised concessions in the Libyan oil if they look the other way – thus allowing him to get out of trouble), as is the case of other regimes - Arab or otherwise - who have no desire for the UN interfering in their affairs to ensure compliance or not tof human rights in their respective countries.

But there is a category even more awful: the narrow-minded and dumb ideologues for which any intervention involving Western countries is imperialist by nature. They suffer from true migraines because the opposing would not fit into their intellectual straitjacket. It should be particularly indigestible for them seeing how Western and Arab countries assume jointly undeniable risks to save Libyan rebels – including those who are shouting “Allahu Akbar “. Even more if one believes in the war of civilizations upside down and says that the intervention hides other unlawful interests.

What then is the alternative to doing nothing?
And the colonel Qaddafi counts on that – unfortunately widespread – ominous approach. That’s why it is essential to avoid falling into the trap by describing this coalition as western one and try on the contrary to associate the largest possible number of Arab countries. It was not easy to reach an agreement and this alliance will not last long, we know that. As soon as the first air strikes took place, the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, started disassociating oneself. In fact, this former Mubarak minister, greeted by some Egyptians for his hostility to Israel and his support to the revolution, has just one thing in mind: to become the next president of Egypt. And in this case, Mr. Amr Moussa wanted to bet on all winning horses to seduce western countries by giving support to the resolution draft, but without having to accommodate and assume the consequences in the eyes of the Arab citizen in general and Egyptians in particular. The dude in fact bet on Russian and Chinese veto power. But it was not so. Hence his current confusion and hardship, especially having regard to the Egyptian people sensitivity, whose solidarity with the suffering of the Libyan people is more than obvious. The opportunism of Mr. Amr Moussa is currently blamed by Egyptians: he wanted to flatter the people and adulate their demons. He got the wrong war and marched out of step as Libya’s events have nothing to do with the war in Iraq: rebels yell in Benghazi without blushing: “Merci la France, Merci l’Amérique “ (which not last long, we know that): indeed, many who now criticize the military intervention would make a great fuss if the United Nations had been passive not facing the massacres of Gaddafi. At present Benghazi would have fallen into the hands of the tyrant, the people would have been crushed and probably the Arab spring would have come to an end.

Economic anemia and financial crisis (I)

First released in ‘Segunda Naturaleza‘ on 28 March 2009. Updated March 16, 2011

Prior to the financial crisis and as a prelude to the one we behold, we are witnessing a gradual but determined economic anemia. Since 2006.

The history of capitalism is marked by crisis. Definitely, since the 70′s we are witnessing a dip every 5 or 6 years. Systematically. Yet, the current one we endure, we ignore its internal mechanics: this is neither a cyclical crisis we ensue periodically nor a predictable structural collapse – so not analyzable in conventional terms.

Since capitalism exists per se in the dawn of the nineteenth century, the housing issue became a matter of essential focus. The issue is whether or not granting a mortgage to someone who has no assets, but offers reasonable assurance to invest the equivalent of 5 – 7 years earnings, which is the average housing cost. The loan is granted through a mortgage atop the object by itself, provided that the financial institution truthfully assesses the applicant’s income – say provided holder’s solvency. The financial institution does not usually covers further than 70 to 80% overall. The mechanism relies therefore on the holder’s complementary efforts.

However, in practice, since the late 90′s, the tendency in the United States has been encouraging a majority of citizens to become capitalist (whether they were solvents or not) and beginning with the house. The Bush administration pushed this ahead, banks operated with lax « after all, they said, why not lending to anyone. » Often, the assessment on the client’s financial coverage capacity depended if his face fitted, when not in practice, he was supposedly solvent. The bank saved itself because its solvency position no longer depended on the borrower’s sole creditworthy but especially on the intrinsic value of the property: so, if the holder failed to pay, the bank expropriated (sometimes people speak wrongly of seizure) and sold the house to redeem the debt. This system generalized up to December 2008. U.S. banks and European to a lesser extent, granted credit indiscriminately, especially low-income families and active minorities (Hispanics and African Americans), bestowing 100, 110 and even 120% of the property value with the reason that there is always some home remodeling to perform or new furniture to buy when you get settled in a new place. And in order to get a more tempting technique when possible, financial engineering used to propose a financial gimmick: namely, there was no capital refund thru the first 2 or 3 years, other than interests. The uncut gadget was escorted by variable interest rates, i.e. fluctuating, under the pretext that with time, « you’ll see your earnings will go up. » This is what has come to be called the doctrine of constant expansion.

Throughout the summer of 2007 roughly 1,700,000 American families loosed their homes, seized, evicted and their children threw out the street, frequently evicted from the school system. In fact expropriation measures were targeted at around 4,000,000 households, but the authorities responsible for executing the judgments of eviction – judges and police –refused regularly to enforce such unpopular measures. This impelled serious cash flow problems for a lot of credit institutions –to say bankruptcy as they were holding massive amounts of toxic loans (150 to 300,000 million dollars). The multiplier effect soon arose and the entire U.S. banking system realized it was holding failed, flawed, toxic mortgages: the so called subprime lending involved an extra interest rate, a bonus on the event of the loan holder was insolvent.

Yet we cannot talk of robbery; let us rather point to a cynical « brutalization » of the banking system inasmuch as the system decided not to deal with individuals (families, children and their risks), but with objects (the value of their risks). In an ethical and regular system, their loss statements should have been assessed, compulsory provision of funds required and finally the security authorities (central bank and stock exchange authorities) would have taken the necessary steps. Not so. Most financial institutions disguised toxic  loans with others who were not, creating packages, the perverted packages. These, in turn, were subject to new transactions targeted to other entities (which obviously did not warn the gambit). With it, banks got rid of noxious loans on their balance sheets while new (surreptitious) assets appeared healthy. This technique, called « securitization of credit », is perfectly legal but it has been denatured in those circumstances. In theory it happens to convert assets (loans, for example) in securities or bank values. In practice, the conversion was made ​​based on personal loans, thus giving rise to corrupted assets because the failed effects remained hidden behind the creditworthy assets. The hoax is unquestionable as long as the U.S. banks have accepted the situation and many Western banks assumed the subprimes without question. Since then the new titles became « marketable securities » throughout the world, ie they were admissible to official stock exchange quoting and were therefore transferable in the stock market. Titles invaded Western markets and, little by little, the deposit banks collapsed: some were aware of it and others suspected insolvent loans in their portfolio, but they were incapable to determine how many and how important they were. The perversion led to extreme fraud:  there were cases where the mortgage ownership on a home was split throughout several titles so as to detach and include them throughout different packages. Who bids higher?

Very few banks were clever enough to assess their risk or that of their neighbor whom, so far, traded cash daily. Mistrust among banks generalized and interbank credit was finished off.

As for Q4 2008, the real (productive) economy suffered strongly the bias effect of the increasing blockade of credit lines to businesses and small firms. From then on, banks do not guarantee their fundamental duty, i.e. the necessary cash « irrigation » in order to keep in force the levels of trade.

Next post: The imbalances in the spotlight

Libya, the international community and the responsibility to protect

The situation in Libya requires the international community to get involved early. In such cases, the problem of sovereignty must give way to the responsibility to protect. The international community cannot accept that the government of Muammar el-Qaddafi keeps on insisting that these are facts that relate only to Libyan domestic policy, then to be managed in terms of domestic policy.

The international community’s response must be fast, firm and effective. The history of Rwanda in 1994, Srebrenica and Darfur does not allow us to be very optimistic about the effectiveness of the international community when responding to emergency situations. But we must try it. A special meeting on Libya took place at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday February 25. The next day, the Security Council of United Nations met in New York in this regard. This last resort has ultimately a role and in particular the International Criminal Court – once the ICC is entitled to act at the request of the executive organ of the UN.

The fact that the Security Council of United Nations recognizes that the Libyan issue is of its concern, portends a significant point. At most if the Council just requested the ICC to take hand in the matter. Libya is not a State Party to the Rome Statute (1). Conversely, the Security Council can always promote preliminary investigations: in the case of Darfur, the Council established an investigation committee headed by Italian jurist Antonio Cassese (2). The work of the commission allowed the ICC to be aware and to have jurisdiction on the atrocities committed in the Darfur region.

Such a committee would be useful in elucidating the events in Libya and would be a quick reaction faster to materialize in situ. Its presence and implementation would largely stem the state of violence and abuses that run on the ground at the moment. There are precedents.

So, can the UN act effectively? What can be done?

Both much and little. Because the United Nations are States. The ones that might be fully involved and committed. There has been progress lately, yet the UN machine still remains slow-moving today. The Security Council meets permanently and the Human Rights Council can be in session urgently. Obviously a watchdog having a streamlined executive resolving power would be more effective, but the reality of the current international relations does not allow a real quick response in dealing with such concerns.

Since Monday 28 February, the Human Rights Council shall be meeting for 3 weeks. Surely Libya shall be at the center of the debate. Last Friday, during the Council special session, while the Libyan seat remained empty in the morning, the second secretary at the Libyan embassy in the UN announced in the afternoon, amidst loud applause, that from that moment the Libyan delegation in Geneva represented « the free people of Libya. »

________

(1)  The treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). Adopted in Rome on July 17, 1998, and that 139 countries have now ratified.

(2) Antonio Cassese was the first President of the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia. He is Professor of International Law at the University of Florence and Editor in Chief of the Journal of International Criminal Justice

Related Posts:

· The ‘Responsibility to Protect’ in the spotlight

Universal Periodic Review, A Lukewarm Success

Updated March 2, 2011

>> Pulse aquí para la versión en Castellano

US report booklets are displayed on a table during the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on United States of America of the Human Rights Council at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, November 5, 2010. © PressTV

Late February the 7th meeting session on Universal Periodic Review came to a close in Geneva. UPR is a mechanism introduced in 2006 — and first started early 2008 — that might allow scrutinizing the overall human rights situation in the 192 UN member countries during four years. 112 countries have been examined so far. This seventh session assessed in detail states as El Salvador, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iraq – Iran and Egypt especially generated the most reactions. Two years gone after this mechanism kick off, what conclusions can we draw?

The presentation takes about 2 or 3 hours by country. Previously, each country under review presents the measures that have been launched to improve the inland situation of human rights, while other states put forward their questions and offer their recommendations: that is what the UPR is. In fact states examine each other – but when this instrument first started, many NGOs feared that the states concerned do not act condescending each other.

For Julie de Rivero, Geneva advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, after two years the balance is ultimately positive:

“For us, this is a useful tool because it allows open debate on the human rights situation in a country, despite being an assessment between states (…) NGOs have the opportunity to enforce the discussion in presenting documents which provide support for the review, and otherwise enable us to make allegations on countries participating in the review (…) Thus, proposals of the NGOs have been accepted in the final recommendations.”

Eric Tistounet, Secretary of the UN Human Rights Council, makes a fairly positive assessment despite the initial reluctance:

“We shared the initial fears with NGOs. As High Commissioner our vision (…) is that peer review has given a more effective result than if it had been carried out by experts. Another positive point was the attendance of all participants. At first we feared an audience of only 60 or 70%, which is usual, ie normally countries cooperate within the system. This time all were there, including micro-states and states without delegation in Geneva. That allowed us to realize our influence over a majority of states, which we have been able to run in a non-controversial or political mood. “

For Julie de Rivero it is also essential that discussions raised during the UPR have to be undertaken at a national level – and here it is where international and domestic NGOs are involved to attempt influencing political decisions. In the case of Egypt and Iran both rejected criticism during the session. Iran has categorically rejected all criticism and has not supported favorably the request for inspection by independent experts on torture and freedom of expression, although the authorities had promised to do so earlier.

“It’s just an opportunity for a state to face up its commitments and promises (…) It is clear that there is no enthusiasm on the part of Iran – more reason to maintain the pressure.”

The downside, as a result of each session, is post monitoring. After examining, each state returns home with lots of recommendations (between 150 and 200, on average), and this is where the mechanism has shown its limits. Eric Tistounet, from the UN Human Rights Council:

“The recommendations can not be in the air (…) It is necessary to implement a proper monitoring system so that the main recommendations come into effect at least. Knowing what kind of action or how it will work is the next project. “

112 states have been examined to date. 80 remain from now till late 2011. At the 8th meeting in May Guinea, Haiti, Kenya, Belarus, Turkey and Spain will be examined among many other countries.

Sources: The Universal Periodic Review Mechanism (HRW) / Véronique Gaymard, RFI – Chronique des droits de l’homme, Paris, march 2010 / Universal Periodic Review – Seventh session meeting highlights

Related Posts:
· The United States and the Human Rights Council
· U.S. faces criticism from HR abusers at Universal Periodic Review

Way forward for the Palestinian recognition is underway

After direct peace talks with Israel failed last autumn, Palestinian leaders have stepped up their drive to gain global recognition for a Palestinian state. Israel has warned the move could hamper further peace efforts.

 

Map showing states having recognized or have special diplomatic arrangements with Palestine. ©Wikipedia

Since Brazil in December officially recognized a Palestine as a sovereign, independent state within its borders prior to 1967 a whole wave of other Latin American nations have followed. In recent weeks Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia and Ecuador have done the same. Chile and Peru also recognized a Palestinian state, but declined to mention particular borders in their recognition.

South American and Arab states are due to discuss these developments at a summit in Lima this weekend.
Ireland last month upgraded the status of the Palestinian delegation to that of a mission, thereby elevating the head of the mission to the rank of ambassador. A spokeswoman for the Irish foreign ministry said, the country was following the example of France, Spain and Portugal.

Israeli irritation

Israel has criticized the recent wave of recognitions. It called Latin American countries’ recognition of a Palestinian state “highly damaging interference” by countries that were never part of the Middle East peace process.
Ireland’s decision drew an angry response from Israel, which condemned Dublin for a “long-standing biased policy on the Middle East”. “This will only strengthen the Palestinians’ rejection of any return to direct dialogue and peace negotiations,” Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said.
Currently, more than 100 countries, mostly in Africa and Asia, have recognized a Palestinian state. Palestinian authorities are hoping for a diplomatic domino effect to back their claim for a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israel disputes the Palestinian claim on all the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land it captured from Jordan in a 1967 war and has extensively settled.

Revolts put focus on Arab civil society

Youth revolts in Tunisia and Egypt could spread throughout the Maghreb and the Arab World as the discontented masses take to the streets.

Street clamor is not exactly the same in Egypt as in Tunisia

In Tunisia, a popular insurrection knocked down a dictator for the first time in Arab history. In the meantime, the largest protests in decades have broken out in Egypt. Could Morocco and Algeria be next?

Tunisia’s revolution generated tremors not just in Egypt. Throughout the Maghreb, authoritarian regimes like those in Morocco and Algeria have a difficult time addressing the frustration and despair of their young populations. Could the revolutionary example set in Tunisia take root among its neighbors?

The revolution arose on mid December when a desperate, unemployed computer scientist named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in the small town of Sidi Bouzid. Bouazizi’s death symbolized the despair of a generation, triggering a series of general protests that ultimately swept longtime dictator President Ben Ali from power.

“We have 13 percent unemployment but the figures in the interior of the country are significantly higher, sometimes upwards of 70 percent,” said Adelwahab El Hani, a Tunisian human rights lawyer from Sidi Bouzid. “80,000 Tunisians have just finished up with their studies and they need jobs. That’s an enormous challenge for the government.”

Extreme imbalances and poor human rights records
One Tunisian student said it was like the top cover had shot off of a pressure cooker. He wasn’t just alluding to his homeland, but to the entire Maghreb. In Morocco, half the population is under 25 years old and 40 percent of them do not have a steady job. Young graduates are especially hard hit. The grumbling from the streets has become audible. Sure, there are limited political freedoms, woman’s rights, a parliament and a government – but no genuine open democracy. The military and secret police are omnipresent. The social imbalances are extreme.

“Motives for these kinds of revolts are all over the Maghreb,” said Francis Ghiles, from the Center for International Studies in Barcelona. “The elites in Morocco live the high life, but that doesn’t guarantee social stability. The pie can’t just belong to the rich. When there’s no redistribution of wealth, when the upper class parades around arrogantly, then there will be revolt someday.”

In Algeria it has already reached that point. This massive land is a social barrel of gunpowder. In January there were wounded during protests against high grocery prices. In many Algerian cities, the young expressed their rage in a flurry of stones, tear gas grenades and Molotov cocktails.

Algeria’s government promised to take decisive action, but the country is politically stagnant. Longtime President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is supported by a corrupt clique of military officers and secret police. Three-fourths of Algerians are under 30. Most of them do not have jobs, lodging or perspective. All this despite the fact that the state strongboxes are full with money from oil and gas exports.

Algeria “has accumulated 150 billion euros in foreign exchange,” Ghiles said. “The problem is not a lack of money, but a clientele economy. It’s a casino. There’s no order, no plan, no perspective. And on top of that the government is autistic. Those in power just don’t listen, they don’t see the problems of their people, or they simply just don’t want to see.”

But now they have to see. A growing number of desperate, well-educated young people are extinguishing themselves in gasoline and lighting themselves on fire: In Egypt, in Yemen, in Mauretania and also in Algeria. Just like Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, whose final act of self-determination set a whole country in flames.

Domino effect
Ghiles believes that the so called “Jasmine Revolution” in Tunisia is a historic event that has shaken the entire Maghreb. However, he does not believe that it will set off a domino effect which collapses other authoritarian regimes throughout the region. The Moroccan King Mohammed VI has a broad power base and his role as the highest religious leader of the Moroccan people lends him additional legitimacy.

In Algeria the middle class, which played a critical role in Tunisia, has largely disappeared. There has been social turmoil for years, but the regime has never been seriously threatened. The military and secret police are so tightly connected with the halls of power and the oil and natural gas industries that they have too much to lose in a revolution.

In glaring contrast to Tunisia, the Algerian army would gun down demonstrators. And nobody wants a new civil war in Algeria – the last one cost 200,000 lives. Even if the states of the Maghreb do not fall like dominoes, Tunisia serves as a warning. When these kinds of events repeat themselves, like recently in Algeria or a few years ago in Morocco, or even in Tunisia or Egypt, then governments have to draw some conclusions. If they don’t do that, then the pressure cook will explode – just somewhat later.
________
Francis Ghiles, The Maghreb refuses to share, Le Monde Diplomatique, Feb. 2010; El Coste del No-Maghreb, IEMed and ToledoPax, Madrid, May 2006 and Barcelona, Nov. 2007.

The social economy, an antidote to the crisis

ECONOMICS AND UTOPIA (4/4)

Between SOEs and private sector, there is space enough for respect for human and environment

The Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century changed the world. But it also produced rural exodus, crowding of workers in impoverished and poorly organized suburbs. It generated as well long working hours in noisy and polluting factories and workshops, and exploitation of children and women assigned to ungrateful tasks. The concept of social and solidarity economy (SSE) was born in response to this vulnerable and unprotected new working class.

Britain, where the textile industry was booming thanks to the cotton supplied by the colonies, became the first laboratory of social economy. On top of a spinning factory in New Lanark, Scotland, Robert Owen (1771-1858) made his fortune thanks to the cotton trade. At the same time, he was not insensitive to his workers’ plight. He implemented a schooling system for them and their children, financing and establishing nurseries, dairy care and stores where customers were also owners. Thereby the cooperative movement was born, and Robert Owen went on to become one of the founders of SSE.

The Social and Solidarity Economy Network
In France, Charles Fournier (1772-1837), inventor of the phalansteries, communities where many families were sharing housing, work and leisure; Louis Blanc (1811-1882), creator of the social workshops as spot of workers’ protection; and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865), initiator of mutual societies, were the forerunners. After the First World War, cooperatives are institutionalized and are characterized by a great utopia: the cooperative movement can establish a cooperative republic. But even before the Second World War, it seems clear that the cooperative movement will not be skilled in overthrowing the capitalist economy. Since that time, the cooperative movement lost its unique alternative purpose.
In line with it, the European cooperative movement grows economically while it goes gradually downplaying the original values. First of all cooperatives try to survive in a world marked by large organizations and the growing influence of management and administration. Democratic participation weakens whilst the power of managers increases. Together, access to the independence of the southern hemisphere countries causes an unprecedented deployment of cooperative organizations, particularly in agriculture, savings and credit.

In France, the State has tried to appropriate most of the independent action of the cooperative movement. The Délégation Interministérielle à l’Innovation Sociale et à l’Economie Sociale and the Conseil Supérieur de Coopération, promote ‘from above’ a skewed view of the cooperative area. Meanwhile, in 1968, federations and confederations of cooperatives agglutinated in an association, Groupement National de la Coopération (National Association for Cooperation) with the mission to defend and promote the fundamental principles of cooperation, ensure exchange of information and experiences between different national organizations, organizing and promoting the development activities undertaken by their members. In France, one in two people is a member of one or more cooperatives. The cooperative sector includes there companies such as ACDLEC – E. Leclerc, Crédit Agricole, Système U, Crédit Mutuel, Caisse d’Epargne Groupe, Banque Populaire, Vivo, Terrena, Tereos and Astera.

In Switzerland, the retail networks Migros and Coop, several housing cooperatives and the Raiffeisen Bank are based on the cooperative movement. More recently the Swiss Alternative Bank (BAS) and all fair trade firms joined the SSE.

Although at first utopian, SSE has continued bringing new supporters. The recession in industrialized countries in 2008-2009 where thousands of people were tossed out, has pushed them to seek alternatives to the dominant economic system. In 2010 the 37 European members of Cooperatives Europe have 160 000 organizations, employing about 5,400,000 employees. Italy, Spain and France are the top three countries in terms of number of cooperatives. French cooperative movement is a leader in terms of number of cooperatives with more than 23 million members, followed by Germany (20,509,973) and Italy (13,063,419). As workers, Italy has more than one million employees, nearly a million France and Germany over 830,000.

Drifts of free trade
As an alternative to state-owned enterprises and private sector, the SSE follows number of fundamental values. It is nonprofit or for-profit limited. Commercial or industrial units are handled democratically and owners, whatever the size of their investment, have only one vote – unlike the practice in private companies, where the number of votes depends on the number of shares. The wage differences are minimal.

Besides in its modern way, the other economy intends as an antidote to the excesses of mercantilism and free trade. Thus, the respect for human beings and the environment is a main concern. The SSE is firmly positioned against speculation or profits maximization at any cost.

Related Posts:
· Economics & Utopia (1/4) – Do we need central banks?
· Economics & Utopia (2/4) – The regression of workers’ self-management
· Economics & Utopia (3/4) – The resurgence of mercantilism

The resurgence of mercantilism

ECONOMICS AND UTOPIA (3/4)

Buried by Adam Smith, mercantilism recurs.

The temptation recurs elsewhere.
In the seventeenth century, France was trying to get rich at the expense of its neighbors. When the European partners accuse Germany to promote its exports and curb imports, they do not just throw spears against a country unwilling to assume its pivotal role in the euro area in crisis. They accuse it of consciously practicing a policy that has left bad memories when it was applied for the last time on a large scale between the two world wars: mercantilism.

Sometimes known as « beg thy neighbor », this policy consists for a country to boost exports and cut back imports in order to accumulate as much wealth as possible. Emerged since the Renaissance, developed over the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, particularly in France of absolute monarchy, the theory was to allow the king to assert his economic and military power. The main architect was the Minister of Economy and Finance of Louis XIV, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who tried to stimulate exports by expanding the luxury industry in the kingdom. Denounced by liberal economists including Adam Smith at the end of the Enlightenment, mercantilism gave way to free trade during the industrial revolution of the next century.

Increased disorganization
The theory re-appeared in the inter-war years, when the major Western countries have tried to emerge from the crisis through competitive devaluations and protectionist measures. The result was a greater disruption of economic networks on the eve of the Second World War. The implementations of the Common Market after the conflict, and globalization of trade, have seemed to definitely place mercantilism in the cemetery of outdated ideas.

This is not a mere utopia. Germany is not the only in being accused of reviving a ghost – the United States and China as well. The first, as a result of its uncontrolled money supply resulting in a constant devaluation of the dollar and curbing imports. The latter, because of its refusal to let the yuan rising – thus stimulating exports. In the case of these three countries, protectionism does not take place via the customs office, in contrast to the 1930s. In Germany, the standard is a concerted policy of wage moderation. In United States and China, the chosen instrument is the exchange rate policy.

The problem with the mercantilist policies is that they evade large parts of their domestic economy to international competition, leading ultimately to a lack of competitiveness. India, which has practiced it over forty years since its independence in 1947, had to adapt its industrial sector after the gradual opening of its borders by 1991. The classical theorists have denounced, in addition, an inflationary effect: If you earn gold in your economy without allowing the market to grow up, you cause price rises ultimately.

Mercantilism, however, is not devoid of supporters. It holds a social value because it confers on the State the responsibility for determining the goods and services that must escape from Liberalism – whose limits have been demonstrated by the crisis. In the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes himself equally complimented the mercantilism due to job protection in times of crisis.

Related Posts:
· Economics & Utopia (1/4) – Do we need central banks?
· Economics & Utopia (2/4) – The regression of workers’ self-management

The regression of workers’ self-management

ECONOMICS AND UTOPIA (2/4)

100 years ago, the first kibbutz was founded. Today, the traditional ideal of a collectivist society and community model is disappearing.

On 28 October 1910, two women and eight men went across the Jordan towards the east. They settled on the shores of Lake Tiberias and founded Degania – the one still identified today as “the mother of all kibbutzes.” These pioneers from the second aliyah – literally “ascent” or emigration to Israel – had fled the pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe to settle in Palestine. Imbued with utopian and revolutionary mainstream of the late nineteenth century, they landed onto the “Promised Land” with the one and only dream of building a new life.

Neither exploiter nor exploited

New migrants will then benefit from the Yishuv – the Jewish community present in Palestine before the creation of the State of Israel – as a “laboratory” for building a new form of ideal society where all people live free and equal. With the help of the Jewish National Fund, they will buy land to Arabs on a regular basis and will conduct experiments of communal villages.

It was not until the founding of Degania that a real settlement adopts a structure and a collectivist organization. The reason is simple: people no longer want to work on behalf of others but want to live off the fruits of their labor. Following this example, many communities organized around the principle of common ownership of production means and consumer goods, will then bloom all over Palestine.

The ideal of a new society is not the only reason for this success. Community life also responds to practical issues. Faced with the hostility of the land on which they arrive — malaria, swamps in the north, desert in the south and Bedouins who do not necessarily look kindly the inception of new residents– migrants are well advised to joint their forces if they intend to build the Jewish homeland as hoped. Conversely, a village where everyone would live separately in its own corner would not be viable. The kibbutz will thus become one of the pillars of Zionism and actively participate in the construction of the State of Israel and the design of its future borders.

End of individualism

When moving to a kibbutz, newcomers abandon all forms of personal property. All their personal belongings are now owned by the community. Collaborative decisions are made democratically and horizontally at regular meetings. As for individualism, it gives way to a community life assembled around social, economic and cultural shared activities. The refectory is usually the kibbutz hub. Housing, schools and treatment rooms are available to residents here and there. Beyond in the periphery, we find the fields and factories where rotations are organized among the members to sustain the community economically.

The kibbutz does not live in autarky. As members are not self-sufficient, they engage trade and even employ staff from outside. By contrast, money does not exist as such inside the kibbutz. Resources – be it fruit or clothes – are not bought but are always distributed equally among all residents.

End of an era

This ideal did not survive globalization and economic and demographic crisis of the 1980s. Although in 2010 – the centenary year – there is always more than 120 000 people living in some 270 kibbutzim in Israel and the West Bank, the traditional model has become a minority. Most members now work outside the kibbutz. They always give a percentage of their earnings to cover common expenses but the distribution of resources is more often based on each person revenues. Some critics of workers’ self-management from the left, such as Gilles Dauvé and Jacques Camatte, do not admonish the model as reactionary but simply as not progressive in the context of developed Capitalism. For other detractors this attests that the kibbutz as a social project no longer exists.

Related Posts:
· Economics & Utopia (1/4) -Do we need central banks?

Do we need central banks?

ECONOMICS AND UTOPIA (1/4)

A trend of thought, increasingly listened within liberal theory, wants to end the monopoly of issuing institutions

Bankers put their feet down

A Bloomberg survey from early December shows that 16% of Americans support abolishing the Federal Reserve. Malaise is real in the public. Central banks are mostly accused of manipulating currency and rates to soften the economic cycles and subsequently generate false and perverse incentives that result in generalized crisis. The explosion of their balance sheet, the massive purchases by the ECB of government bonds of peripheral European countries are finger-pointed. Fears of loss of independence over the policies are logically strengthened.

The emergence of a movement calling for the abolition of central banks is not extraordinary. The Tea Party and one of its leaders, Ron Paul, who has just published “End the Fed”, reassert the idea today. In Switzerland, the banker Karl Reichmuth, laureate of Röpke Price 2010 (from the “Liberales Institut”), has long argued for a system of competition in the production of currency. “Doing economy is having a choice. This is true everywhere except for the currency”, he said early December in Zurich.

The thesis is not new. The Austrian school of liberalism, led by Ludwig von Mises, in his book on currency (1912), wanted to “privatize the production of currency.” In 1977, Hayek assumed that “if we want a change worthy of the name, it will not come from the statesmen.” Hayek and von Mises want to give back the central role to interest rate as main indicator of money value in economy.

By artificially lowering rates, central banks are pushing companies to invest. “The end result is that producers have used up resources in order to produce future goods for which there is not a sustainable demand,” writes Gary Wolfram in the National Review.

The current monetary system is based on institutions – as the monopoly of central banks and paper money – which have been set up by governments for over a century. It is they who are the primary beneficiaries, according to Jörg Guido Hülsmann (The ethics of money production, 2010). This criticism to central banks has been widely documented, from Pierre Leconte (The Counterfeiters, 2008), to Pascal Salin (Return to capitalism to avoid crises, 2010).

Return to a gold standard

The Austrian solution is free banking. The term was coined in 1984 with Lawrence White’s homonymous opus (Free Banking and the Gold Standard). Free banking means primarily the end of central banks monopoly on issuing currency. They could issue money but in a competitive situation. The idea is intellectually attractive, but it is not at no cost. It requires an acceleration of loans repayment and debt reduction.

The cost of the process would be “undeniably costly in terms of a loss in output and employment” (i.e. in terms of growth), says Thorsten Polleit, chief economist at Barclays Capital and recognized author of the Austrian school. This debt reduction also prevents governments to continue to live on credit. Free banking therefore leads to a reduction in the size of the State, which means necessarily an outcry among politicians.

A large majority of supporters to such reform favors a return to a gold standard. This system would eliminate the problem of systemic risk, according to Thorsten Polleit. Bank collapses will not lead to further reduction in money supply. In addition, taxpayers would not be called to come to the rescue.

No question, free banking does not require a return to gold utterly. Of course, the argument is somewhat marginal. Three years ago, however, no newspaper would do public speaking on it. Besides George Selgin, professor at the University of Georgia, gave an interview on this topic on the Richmond Fed website…

Related Posts:
· Economics & Utopia (2/4) -The regression of workers’ self-management

Slavery still exists in our globalized world

Discrimination is a pivotal part of slavery practices because it allows people to disengage their humanity and justify or tolerate the violation of other people’s human rights.

Despite living in an age capable of achieving great technological dreams, the same old slavery (the buying and abduction of persons for private use) remains unchanged in some countries. While the most prestigious organization fighting against this evil scourge, Anti-Slavery International, was born at the time of ancient slavery, when the boats were traveling packed with human flesh. The NGO goes on fighting … The latest news could not be more pessimistic. One of the greatest abolitionist fighters, the Mauritanian Biram Dah Ould Abeid, is being tried along with five other activists from the organization he’s heading, the Initiative de Résurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste en Mauritanie.

Prosecution inquires for a million ouguiya (2,700 euros, in a country where 25% of the population lives with less than one euro a day) and three years in prison, on grounds of a demonstration where he allegedly assaulted a police officer. At the time of arrest demonstrators were engaged against slavery of two Haratin girls, ethnicity that has suffered for centuries. In fact, slavery in Mauritania is hereditary (100% of actual slaves come from former slaves) and although it is prohibited since 2007, activists put it at over 20% of the population. Fatimata Mbaye lawyer, human rights icon, president of the Association Mauritanienne des Droits de l’Homme and three times imprisoned, speaks of systematic practice. And this is how this friendly Islamic Republic, theoretical ground of the struggle against jihadist phenomenon operating in the area, allows its white castes continue enslaving black Africans, as they have done for centuries. In this regard, the trial of Biram is highly significant. Biram’s public message is clear: the Government is more interested in prosecuting the anti-slavery than suing those pro-slavery.

But Mauritania is not the only case and Anti-Slavery is blunt: there are millions of slaves in the world. Sudan takes the cake, along with Emirates, Pakistan, Haiti and Mauritania itself – but in the form of unpaid work— the practice extends to many other countries.

Consequently, Biram’s trial is a tragedy. However, I express my frustration. Who cares in our well-off countries? Mauritania is so far from our mental map that it does not awaken  any inner gloom. Yet, these harsh facts should really break us if we were citizens of this world, and not just residents in our small inner planet.

Convention against Enforced Disappearances comes finally into force

On 23rd December 2010, almost four years after its adoption by the General Assembly of the United Nations, the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance eventually reached the 20th ratification by Iraq which was necessary for its entry into force. Later on Brazil also ratified this treaty, which the Convention enters into force with 21 member states.

“This is an historical date”, said Mary Aileen D. Bacalso Chair of the Asian Federation Against Disappearances (AFAD) and focal person of the ICAED (1), which gathers associations of families of the disappeared together with human rights NGOs.

“The Convention represents by itself an achievement of associations of relatives of disappeared people and NGOs from all over the world. Its adoption was first requested by families of victims of disappeared people from Latin America, back in the eighties. It took more than 30 years to the international community to adopt this legal tool, which fills an immense and intolerable gap: the lack of an international treaty to prevent and suppress enforced disappearance. Contrary to what many people think, enforced disappearance is not a practice of the past nor is it limited to a few regions of the world. All the continents have experienced or are experiencing this criminal practice. People are disappearing in many parts of the world. In such light, the Convention will be an effective tool for the international community in its struggle against this scourge”.

Everyone remembers the mothers of Plaza de Mayo whose we’re still hearing about today. In the late 70′s they paraded on the main square in Buenos Aires at the worst moment of the Argentine dictatorship, when thousands of people disappeared. They brandished pictures of their sons, their daughters by asking “¿Dónde están?” (“Where are they?”)

It is these and other organizations of families of the disappeared who rally together in support of this convention to stop these practices. Olivier de Frouville (2), member of the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances:

“This is the culmination of a long and arduous process that began in the late ’70s with the action of the families of the disappeared in Latin America next to United Nations to first identify the practice of enforced disappearances as such and achieve (…) bannishing them. “

For several months, 19 states had already ratified the convention. All was needed was one more country to sign so the treaty comes into force. Iraq was the 20th country that ratified this international treaty and consequently it allowed the instrument coming into force December 23, 2010. Besides, according to Olivier Frouville:

“There are undoubtedly pressures, but also the interest of the new Iraqi regime (…) to shed light on violations of human rights that took place during the former regime (of Saddam Hussein). “

Iraq is indeed one of the countries where it was found the highest number of disappearances. The Committee on Enforced Disappearances has identified that country as a one with the largest number of cases reported and demonstrated.

Neither China nor Russia nor the United States have ratified the Convention. In contrast, many Latin American countries have done so. Some African countries like Senegal, Burkina Faso, Mali and Nigeria, as well. Very few Asian and very few European countries. It’s a shame. Especially since the disappearances involve European countries: they have affected them in the past, especially through the colonial wars, and they still affect them through practices related to the fight against terrorism, particularly secret detentions and extraordinary renditions that are practiced by the United States with the complicity of a number of European countries.

The Convention provides for the right not to be subjected to enforced disappearance as well as the right for the relatives of the disappeared persons to know the truth. The Convention contains several provisions concerning prevention, investigation and sanctioning of this crime, as well as the rights of victims and their relatives and the wrongful removal of children born during their captivity. The Convention further sets forth the obligation of international cooperation, both in the suppression of the practice and in dealing with humanitarian aspects related to the crime. The Convention establishes a Committee on Enforced Disappearances, which will be charged with important and innovative functions of monitoring and protection at the international level.

Enforced disappearance is considered a continuing crime. Families of victims can now use this convention to require that light be shed on the fate of their missing.

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(1) International coalition against Enforced Disappearances

(2) Olivier de Frouville is professor of law at the University of Montpellier 1 and member of the Academy of European Law of Human Rights.

Bed sports for Christmas

I cannot resist the temptation to share the video that my adorable Click-Clack-Chuc-Chuc forwarded me a few days ago under the title “Sport en chambre” (which somewhat means “Sports at Room”).

It’s in fact Birth-day, a very funny composition, full of finesse, which the staging is definitely inspired by Mozart.

Performance was ‘committed’ by the Nederlands Dans Theater under the direction of its former (but always associated) art director, the famous Czech dancer and choreographer Jiří Kylián. It is watermarked by his Six Dances, a sort of facetious tribute to Mozart and the nonchalance of the Baroque period. Birth-Day was inspired in part by Sabine Kupferberg, who is one of the performers, as well as Jiří Kylián’s wife. The music is by Mozart, the dancers (who play in real time while the scene is performed in fast motion) wear period costumes and wigs. Here the duo recreates an endearing naughty bed scene.

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Also, a frantic Charlie Chaplin-ish scene, always in line with Six Dances, is where two dancers are preparing a birthday cake competition that ends in smackdown.

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That’s a great fun. Judge for yourself and enjoy it!

Development, Democracy and Human Security

An approach to the concerns on democracy promotion.

There is a great debate about the principles that should guide promotion of democracy abroad.  There are sensitivities involved in promoting democracy and we should be mindful of how its democracy assistance is perceived in recipient countries.  Others should raise the importance of democratic assistance to Western interests and values.

Many analysts see democracy promotion as a key foreign policy responsibility and suggest that Western states should focus on a holistic approach with a specific focus on developing civil society and establishing long-term goals. Western countries need to be accountable for their actions abroad. They can best promote democracy by leading by example.

Other analysts note that Western countries should only engage in democracy promotion activities when invited by other states, arguing that democracy must take root from within.  Still others felt that democracy promotion was best left to NGOs with indirect support from Western governments.

Significant elements of democratic governance

There is a wide variety of elements of democratic governance.  Some think that developed countries should focus on civic education of children (particularly girls) and youth while others think the establishment of democratic institutions and rule of law are of greater importance.

There is a great debate on what should come first: democracy or development – yet, no consensus is formed. Views diverge on whether economic development is sufficient to bring democracy to other countries.  Many specialists suggest that a market economy is not a precondition or impetus for democratization. Some others focus on the need for an empowered civil society, human rights and free media as essential elements of democratic governance.

How developed countries can promote Democracy

Following along from the discussion of guiding principles above, one should agree that democracy is best cultivated using a bottom-up approach:  hence, the important distinction between democracy promotion and imposition.

In this light, West can promote democracy through its participation in international or regional forums (i.e. by sharing best practices).  In that way, EU missions abroad could support democracy promotion by engaging citizens who had previously lived in the EU.

Developed countries could assist with enhancing the elements of democratic governance.  For example, contributing to dynamism of civil society, supporting the logistics of a free media, encouraging forums of assembly, giving support to international exposure of grassroots democratic struggles, promoting human rights and generally providing consultation and support for countries who request it.

Barriers such as conflict and state fragility, poverty and authoritarian regimes are often interlinked.  Western countries can work to increase transparency and accountability through their efforts to strengthen corporate social responsibility, meet an Official Development Assistance (ODA) level of 0.7% of GDP and restrict financial support to countries with authoritarian regimes (Note that some countries just focus their resources on one region of the world.)

Other analysts mention that it could best assist democracy by focusing at home and implementing, for example, a proportional representation electoral system.

This graphic is world imports in 2002, Colors reflect the level of democracy (blue) or autocracy (tan) in each of these countries (based on the POLITY IV indicators).

What is most notable about this cartogram is the disappearance of the African continent: Africa is almost invisible in terms of global trade patterns, a continuing point of contention in (barely) ongoing global trade negotiations.

© Department of Political Science, Duke University

Main obstacles to democracy promotion

The state, whether authoritarian or exaggeratedly bureaucratic, is the main obstacle to democracy promotion.  In these situations, it is highly recommended to support the community-based democratic initiatives and a strong focus on the mobilization of civil society and a strong middle class.

Lessons learned from South Africa

In this regard, it is interesting to note the South African experience. According to the South African Institute for Security Studies, four critical elements are particularly important to strengthening democracy:

1. Fairness of elections and electoral processes;
2. Freedom to form and participate in an opposition party;
3. Adherence to limits on time served in office as outlined by constitutions; and,
4. Independence of the judiciary.

Another remarkable action is the relative success of US NGO involvement in the colour revolutions (1) that occurred in three countries of the former Soviet Union.  But note that although this method was an example of productive outside intervention, it may not be appropriate in other areas of the world.

Sources:

· David Held, Models of Democracy, Polity and Stanford University Press, 1987.
· New Institute for Multiparty Democracy (IMD).
· openDemocracy.
· Rights & Democracy.
· Samantha Power, Professor of Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Take a view on her very interesting approach at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUUOO5cCNVg.
· Wikipedia.

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(1) Participants in the colour revolutions have mostly used nonviolent resistance to protest against governments seen as corrupt and/or authoritarian, and to advocate democracy. These movements all adopted a specific colour or flower as their symbol. The colour revolutions are notable for the important role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and particularly student activists in organizing creative non-violent resistance. So far these movements have been successful in Serbia (especially the Bulldozer Revolution of 2000), in Georgia’s Rose Revolution (2003), in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution (2004), and (though more violent than the previous ones) in Kyrgyzstan’s Tulip Revolution (2005). Each time massive street protests followed disputed elections and led to the resignation or overthrow of leaders considered by their opponents to be authoritarian.

The seamy side of American diplomacy and China’s true face

The Wikileaks list seems interminable. American diplomats spy on the United Nations Secretary General and on other senior UN officials, to the extent of learning their credit card numbers. The Gulf monarchies are pressing Washington to start a war against Tehran before Iran becomes a nuclear power and brings them to their knees. Turkey’s moderate Islamist government faces continued resistance from secular army officers, and a secret Islamist plan is feared. Beijing orders a cyber-attack on Google at the end of 2009, while planning to ditch its long-time Stalinist ally in North Korea in return for hegemony over a unified Korean peninsula. Pakistan discreetly supports terrorist groups, while its nuclear arsenal grows. To do business in Morocco you have to pass on a cut to the royal house, which maintains its army in a deplorable state. Saudi Arabia is the main source of financing for Islamist terrorism.

The list extends to every continent. The emotional stability of the president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, is a worry to many; when her husband was alive she passed official business on to him. Cuban-Venezuelan relations are so close that Cuban spies operate freely on Venezuelan soil. The Cubans also treated the Bolivian president for a serious nose tumor. The German coalition government is limping along due to the chancellor’s timid, reserved personality. The French president, the most pro-American since De Gaulle, has a despotic streak. The Spanish prosecutor’s office played a questionable role in the inquiry into torture at Guantánamo…

Further material may yet emerge from the State Department papers, which renowned newspapers (1) have been publishing having had access to the massive leak mounted by the Wikileaks organization. Significantly, its founder is wanted by Interpol, and his website is being boycotted by servers and service providers.

The publication of the diplomatic cables has stirred international opinion and surprised some governments, who often adduce false arguments to downplay or discredit this news bomb. The security of individual sources has been assured by eliminating names and data that might endanger them. The media that have published the revelations have acted within the limits sketched out by the US Supreme Court in the Pentagon Papers case (2), opting for freedom of information and the citizen’s right to know.

There is no historical precedent for this in term of scope, as it affects so many conflicts throughout the world. The revelations show a seamy side of the political world, about which we all had well-grounded suspicions, but no clear certainty. We are, in a sense, freer now than we were before.

China shows its true face.

If the Chinese government was hoping to snuff out the international repercussions of yesterday’s presentation in Oslo of the Nobel Peace Prize to the dissident Liu Xiaobo, the results of its attempt turned out quite differently. The Beijing regime sentenced him to 11 years in prison as a deterrent to all other dissidents, as has been revealed by the US State Department cables by WikiLeaks. And once Liu Xiaobo had been designated a Nobel winner, China managed to reduce the numbers of foreign state representatives at the ceremony after a forceful campaign of diplomatic threats, at the risk of exposing the limitations of the country’s political system in full view.

All this, added to the campaign of slander and harassment against the Nobel winner, his family and friends, seriously damages China’s international reputation.

The status of emerging power has turned China into an inescapable force in the world. With this award for Liu, Beijing had the chance to prolong the current situation in which all the leading powers, with the United States at the forefront, choose to minimize their demands in terms of human rights given the necessity of reaching understanding with a country considered so crucial to the shaping of the world’s future. After such a display of bad temper on the part of Beijing, maintaining the delicate balance somewhere between cynicism and realism becomes that much harder.

Among the steps it has taken in reaction to the Norwegian committee’s decision, China decided to create an alternative to the Nobel, the Confucius Peace Prize. The aim of this distinction is to reinforce the singularity of China’s attitude toward internationally accepted principles, such as the need to respect human rights and political and civil liberties.

China to award Confucius peace prize

This is yet another mistake. The reasoning behind the Confucius Prize is identical to that which is employed by other authoritarian regimes when they are denounced for human rights violations. China is therefore aligning itself with such nations.

Dealing with the situation created by China with its reaction to the Nobel for Liu Xiaobo will not be an easy task for the international community. Cynicism and realism cannot be so easily combined from now on. And in the same way that China has been forced to show its true face, so too now must all the governments which maintain an ever-more intense relationship with the emerging power.

So, does traditional diplomacy have any contemporary relevance yet?

Related posts:
Should we be afraid of China?
WikiLeaks reveals essentials of the ‘dirty war’ in Iraq

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(1) WikiLeaks turned over all of the classified U.S. State Department cables it obtained to Le Monde in France, El Pais in Spain, The Guardian in Britain and Der Spiegel in Germany. The Guardian shared the material with The New York Times, and the five news organizations have worked together to plan the timing of their reports.

(2) The Pentagon Papers was a top-secret United States Department of Defense history of the United States’ political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. The papers were first brought to the attention of the public on the front page of the New York Times in 1971. A 1996 article in the New York Times said that the Pentagon Papers “demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance”. In the summer of 1971, David Ellsberg, a Harvard graduate and former Marine, brought out 7,000 pages of secret notes on the war in Vietnam. The Nixon administration had no mercy with Ellsberg, spied him, harassed him, attacked him. Ellsberg won his trial in 1973. Also did The New York Times — which published excerpts of the Pentagon Papers.
New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971), was a United States Supreme Court per curiam decision. The ruling made it possible for the New York Times and Washington Post newspapers to publish the then-classified Pentagon Papers without risk of government censure.
President Richard Nixon had claimed executive authority to force the Times to suspend publication of classified information in its possession. The question before the court was whether the constitutional freedom of the press, guaranteed by the First Amendment, was subordinate to a claimed need of the executive branch of government to maintain the secrecy of information. The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment did protect the right of the New York Times’ to print the materials.

World climate talks in Cancun: a new kick in the teeth?

One year after efforts to plan a global climate treaty felt to pieces in Copenhagen, negotiators are going into this month’s United Nations summit in Cancun, Mexico, with brand new hopes – but limited expectations.

A man and a boy, displaced by floods, walk through flood waters, Pakistan (Photo: GETTY)

As almost 200 nations gathered in Cancun for the first day of climate talks on Monday 29, representatives were focused on securing smaller-scale agreements on issues fluctuating from deforestation to green technology-sharing, rather than a comprehensive pact on global warming.

Efforts to carry out a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol have slowed down in the midst of partial disagreements on binding emissions cuts – with the last big push to draw up a set of collective targets falling short at the UN summit in Copenhagen last December.

As a compromise, the Copenhagen Accord saw countries sketch out their climate protection approaches – but the last-minute document was non-binding and opposed by some developing countries.

Climate change is definitely tangible

At the opening of the talks, host and Mexican President Felipe Calderón emphasized that the effects of climate change were already being felt, with the most severe hurricanes on record in Mexico, flooding in Pakistan and the record heat wave that caused forest fires in Russia earlier this year.

« Climate change is beginning to make us pay for the fatal errors we as humanity have committed against the environment, » said president Calderón.

« It’s crucial for the international community to prove that Cancun can deliver progress, » EU Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard of Denmark, said in Brussels before departing for Mexico. « If not, I fear that some parties would lose patience in the UN process, » she warned.

Helping developing countries to handle the financial impacts of climate change remains a hot-button issue for negotiators.

International representatives see the two-week talks in Cancun as a fresh start and hope concrete steps forward will push away the crisis of confidence facing the latest round of negotiations.

Environmental lobbying

Environmental organizations are also putting more pressure on world governments to work through the deadlock.

The environmental group Greenpeace floated a hot air balloon past the nearby Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza, in a symbolic gesture aimed at reminding delegates of the collapse of earlier advanced civilizations.

« For all their sophistication, the Mayans did not see their destruction coming. But we can see ours, » the group said in a press release (A message from the heart of the Mayan ruins).

Development agency Oxfam also warned of the risks of inaction at this year’s talks.

« The human impacts of climate change in 2010 send a powerful reminder why progress in Cancun is more urgent than ever, » said Tim Gore Climate Change advisor for Oxfam.

The issue of emissions cuts is also getting more targeted attention at the political level. The European Union has encouraged those countries with high greenhouse gas output to reduce emissions.

Despite political opposition in Congress, US President Barack Obama has said he will push toward his country’s promise to cut back emissions over the next decade. The United States is the world’s second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China.

But China is not enthusiastic with the panorama of binding emissions reduction targets – despite US calls that Beijing commit to cuts.

More than 70 cities sign pact in Mexico to fight against global warming

Haga clic aquí para la versión en Castellano

Over a thousand local and regional representatives from 114 countries get together, from November 17 to 20, in Mexico, during the third World Congress of Cities and Governments (UCLG) that will go on Sunday 21 with the first World Summit of Mayors on climate in which will be signed the first International Register of sustainable initiatives in cities. The document will be presented to the UN Conference on climate, from November 29 to December 10 in Cancun, Mexico.

The mayor of Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard, said that the “Pact of Mexico” would be signed November 21, during the first World Summit of Mayors on climate, by which cities around the world undertake to adopt figured and tangible targets on reduction of their CO2 emissions to fight against global warming. Hence, Los Angeles, Dakar, Mexico, Amsterdam, Jakarta, Sao Paulo, Paris want to commit to carry out ambitious climate policies – hoping that many other cities will join them.

The Mexico agreement will be presented at the 16th UN Conference on climate Nov. 29 in Cancun (Mexico). “This agreement is a way of pressuring governments that have not listened to the cities at the Copenhagen conference, ended in total failure”, said M. Delanoë, the mayor of Paris.

The claim of the presence of cities in climate negotiations is more than justified: more than half the world population lives in urban areas, which generate between 60% and 80% of CO2 emissions. Moreover, many cities have already committed more ambitious approaches than their countries’: “It is in the cities that the battle to curb global warming will be won. Yet we have not even been invited to Cancun”, Ebrard said.

Beyond this symbolic recognition, direct access from the cities to financial instruments to fight against climate change is at stake – future “green fund” and clean development mechanisms. At the end of the deal: billions of dollars that local officials hope to capture in a significant split – while in Copenhagen, states had decided to create an aid fund for the South without stating how money will be provided nor who will be granted to get hold of it!

It is with this objective that the Pact of Mexico wants to make local climate policies “measurable, reportable and verifiable”, according to UN criteria. Then the Pact must list them in a climate inventory of cities, called “Carbonn”, located in Bonn, Germany.

To set an example, the mayor of Mexico City has agreed a 14% reduction of greenhouse gases in the city by 2012. The “Green Plan” of the Mexican capital – launched in 2007 – plans to fall CO2 emissions by 7 million tons in 2012. This program has already helped cut greenhouse gas emissions by 4% (2,000,000 tons). Car traffic was limited, water pipes refurbished, bike paths and bus lanes built. Next step: to double the recycling of garbage, replace 45,000 polluting taxis, inaugurate a twelfth subway line and extending to 30,000 m2 area of rooftop gardens.

However, not all the signatory cities to the (not compulsory) pact will lead to similar commitments: most of them lack access to technologies to assess their reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, these cities need adequate training and technology to grow without polluting. The initiative, in short, is complicated because of the heterogeneity of urban areas in terms of size and richness. Its success will depend on transparency and decentralized cooperation between the cities of South and North.

Aung San Suu Kyi faces her destiny

Freed at present, the Burmese opponent seems to be bound hand and foot. According to the international press, it is far too early to declare victory.

Aung San Suu Kyi even released and celebrated by activists of her party, remains the bete noire of the military regime in Burma. (Soe Than Win / AFP)

Aung San Suu Kyi, released Saturday after seven years under house arrest in a minute-by-minute operation described by the Guardian, has come back to work Monday morning at her party’s headquarters, the National League for Democracy (NLD officially dissolved by the junta). Sunday, Burmese dissident had held her first political speech since 2003. Burma’s Nobel peace laureate (1991) has called on the opposition to merge, telling her supporters that she would take time to listen to her fellow citizens before deciding on a strategy. Because we know that for the past fifteen years, her leeway against the military junta in power is narrow actually.

“So what is her political future?” seems wondering the Bangkok Post in its editorial: If she wants to launch a protest movement and “challenge her enemies in the new government, she needs to urgently consolidate the opposition forces. Now that the new political landscape in which Burma becomes a little more civilianised is providing the rightful context for Mrs Suu Kyi to play a role, she must take this opportunity to work with numerous factions in the opposition and the ethnic minorities. But it will not be an easy task.”  Because of her long years under house arrest, Mrs Suu Kyi has little experience political dealings: “She has never directly participated in politics and has been idolised as the icon of democracy and the face of Burma’s struggle against dictatorship. Her angelic image has sustained the anti-military junta movements inside and outside Burma.” But this isolation “has come at a heavy price. It has made her more “divine”, thus separating her from the political reality.”

Her party singularly lacks of activists who can make the link between pro-democracy personalities and the electorate base. Thus, she is exposed to a threat: “she will be locked in a subtle, yet intensifying, competition among opposition forces. The continued fragmentation of the opposition would in turn strengthen the power interests of the new regime.” For the exile journal The Irrawaddy, these personalities may even try to sabotage her return to politics [...]. The battle that awaits opponent is complex: “how to rebuild and reinvent herself in the new Burmese political environment?”

Besides, Libération asks: “Freedom, so what?”, pointing that Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi “will have to learn again to know her country” where, as “female symbol” in the words of La Repubblica. “Daughter of the hero of independence, General Aung San, [she] is the bête noire of the military junta,” brings Radio Canada. And it will not probably be enough that the Lady of Rangoon calls Burma’s generals for dialogue “, writes Le Devoir in Montreal. “Behind this joy oh so legitimate,” says L’Express, emerge “power relations which remain very tense.”

This “icon of freedom can do nothing against the junta. Her freedom is a sham. Her release is a [marketing] operation. By maintaining the suspense until the last minute, the Burmese junta has made a huge publicity for the event, ensuring the headlines of international media.” (Slate). Anyway, the military do not think much of the international opinion, even if they may have calculated that her release overshadow the electoral masquerade. In addition, Mrs. Suu Kyi is weak enough to be kept away from public life.

Same analysis backed by Eurotopics: “The main concern of the generals who have ruled the country for 50 years is an end to the unpleasant foreign sanctions.”And above all, “the junta wants to test whether the opposition is strong and whether it can manage to divide it into those who play along with the new parliament’s game and those who could potentially be isolated. But this game of poker is an unequal contest, for the generals can imprison the freshly released dissident whenever they want.”

If The New York Times called it junta’s latest “ruse” and FrankFurter Allgemeine “a gift in exchange for her political abstinence”, El País says she has “hands cut off,” that is to say, she is literally muzzled in a context where it is still far “from the darkness to the light.” Even so, if the opponent said on Sunday (Le Soir, in Brussels), “she would be willing to meet General Than Shwe, the junta’s strongman,” we know well that he “royally hates her [...] and is similarly reluctant to pronounce her name.”

Dialogue is not looking promising…. The New Light of Myanmar, the dictatorship official press organ, indeed barely mentions the events of the weekend.

Related Posts:
· A Shout to Nothing
· The Burmese Junta Steps Back from Aung San Suu Kyi’s Unconditional Release

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Lament for a woman and frivolity of the chorus of nations

“They’ll kill me for being a woman in a country that can do what it wants with women” (Sakineh Ashtiani)

We knew they were going to kill her. When the government of Iran announced it had halted the stoning, the Nobel Prize Shirin Ebadi said: “I do not trust them. They’ll execute her.” And so it was; the Iranian regime confirmed she wouldn’t be stoned, just  hanged. Given that Sakineh Ashtiani was asking not to be stoned in front of their children, the ruling is a step forward.

Of course the regime has assembled a legal corpus to sustain the conviction, but the chronicle of tragedy gives us a measure of the devious perversity of this tyranny. Sakineh is an Iranian Azeri of Azerbaijan hardly speaking Persian. When sentenced to death, she did not even understand the Arabic word used by the Iranian penal code for stoning: Rajam. Her jailers told her she had been sentenced to die under the rocks. Throughout the process, her lawyer was persecuted, harassed and  prevented from being with Sakineh and finally, after many risks for his family, he was able to flee from Iran. Five hours on foot through the mountains and the rest on horseback, to get Turkey, where Amnesty International helped him to obtain asylum in Norway.

In an interview with Bernard-Henry Levy, Sakineh’s lawyer Mohammad Mostafaei defined her as follows: “she’s just a woman, a simple woman, just a woman.” The court that sentenced her to death found no evidence at all, but three out of the five members were radical clerics that condemned her, through their “intimate conviction”, as an adulteress. As Sakineh said: “they will kill me for being a woman in a country that believes it can do what it wants with women.” After an international campaign to save her life, the system charged her with murder (and forced her to confess). Everything else is well known. Gallows will be her fate.

In the prison in Tabriz, two more women await stoning. Azar Baghri is 24 years old, 10 of which in prison. Married at 14, she was accused of adultery and since then she’s waiting to be stoned. For fun, her jailers have done two stoning shams. Maryam Ghobaranzadeh, 25, dreams only to be hanged instead of stoned. She was 6 months pregnant and forced to abort … In Iran women are considered sexually mature at the age of 9 and can therefore be married and adulterous. Nobody knows how many have been stoned to death without having been made it public. The courageous Iranian dissidence speaks of many.

I know this article will not have any effect, just a shout. But it serves at least as a reminder that not everyone is accomplice to the silence which Iran is covering its crimes. This silence is resounding in Europe, not in vain we are not interested in unprofitable victims: Iran does not fit into the phobias of political correctness. Nor its victims. Many countries, organizations or individuals are accomplices to the barbarism that characterizes the government in that country — a country of ancient culture, now led by a pack of male fanatics. The same government of macho fanatics who criticized the U.S. during the 9th session of the UPR in Geneva on 5 November!

By the way, what about Teresa Lewis, the woman mentally retarded who was put to death last October in Virginia? Isn’t there as well a deafening silence? (See the article by Anna North Is Teresa Lewis’s Execution A Gender Issue?)

The very problem is that there is no real respect for women, neither in our western latitudes, nor in many Arab countries where women have their rights, their freedom, their dignity, violated –just for being women.

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U.S. faces criticism from HR abusers at Universal Periodic Review

The detention center at Guantanamo, the death penalty or the non-ratification of treaties deserved strong criticism to the United States on Friday in Geneva at the UPR 9th session (1st to 12th November 2010). For the first time, the U.S. administration backed its record on human rights at the UN.

The UPR is a Council’s major innovation. The Human Rights Council was born in 2006 from the ashes of the Commission on Human Rights – which was criticized for its inability to enforce the fundamental values of the UN. The Council allows the systematic and regular review of the situation on Human Rights in all 192 UN member countries in order to avoid the accusation of selectivity.

Friday 5 November, The United States upheld its record on human rights before the UNHRC – under intense criticism, particularly concerning the detention center at Guantanamo, the death penalty or the non-ratification of treaties.

Opening the meeting, Esther Brimmer, the U.S. Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs, assured that the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) – that the United States faces for the first time before its peers – “represents a milestone in our long commitment to promote human rights.”

Another senior official of the substantial U.S. delegation in Geneva, Michael H. Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, focused on ongoing improving health systems and education.

“We’re not satisfied with the status quo. We will continue to improve our laws,” he said.

Being the first country to confront the U.S., Cuba requested the end of “the blockade against Cuba,” which it described as a “crime of genocide”– and the release of five Cuban activists in US custody considered “prisoners of war” by Havana.

Venezuela went further, calling on Washington to ratify the UN conventions even now unsigned, to close the U.S. base at Guantanamo, to abolish the death penalty and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, among others.

Iran condemned the U.S. and expressed its deep concern over the “extensive and systematic violation [of human rights] by the U.S. government at both national and international levels.”

China expressed concern over “gaps” in U.S. law preventing full protection of human rights and the failure of the U.S. to ratify all human rights treaties. It expressly condemned the tendency toward “excessive use of force” by U.S. law enforcement and widespread discrimination against minorities and immigrants.

Russia congratulated the Obama Administration for efforts taken to eliminate “some of the most odious violations of human rights which were committed in the war on terrorism” and bring those responsible for torture in secret detention centers and Guantanamo to justice and pay compensation to the victims. It also demanded that the U.S. prohibit the death penalty.

Several countries have denounced the conditions of migrants in the United States, including Brazil, which has appealed  “to consider alternatives” to their detention.

The audacity of some of the aforementioned countries in accusing the U.S. of human rights violations is stunning. While the U.S. is not perfect, it is as respectful and observant of human rights as any state sitting on the HRC and far superior to these countries that perpetrate serious, widespread violations of human rights daily. But to hear comments during the UPR, one would think that the U.S. was the worst human rights abuser on the planet.

Related Posts:
· Universal Periodic Review, A Lukewarm Success
· The United States and the Human Rights Council

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The Horn of Africa – An everlasting battleground

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An exciting but ruined region.
Ethiopia always surrounded by conflict neighboring or at least unstable; landlocked since Eritrea’s independence back in 1993. The situation is worse in the periphery: Somalia is today a state that has collapsed, we can even speak of “three Somalias” having witnessed several foreign military interventions, among which a recent American-Ethiopian. The young Eritrea has managed to generate disagreements and disputes of any kind with almost all its neighbors – a severe armed conflict with Ethiopia in the late 90′s. Kenya has been the scene of violent riots. Uganda is involved in local and ethnic instability. As for Sudan, if the date of the referendum on the secession of southern Sudan remains to January 2011, the way out each day looks like a new civil conflict – in the opinion of most analysts, including Mrs. Clinton glimpse the possibility that a war occurs according to a US-Sudan agreement in 2005.

The impression is that this is a real battleground.
Relations have always been uptight between Ethiopia and Eritrea: despite the recognition of the independence of Eritrea by Ethiopia in 1993, there were clashes from 1998 to 2000, not to mention a proxy war in Somalia. However, the risk of confrontation or open conflict between the two countries appears small, the main risk is the collapse of the Eritrean regime to a scenario of separation between government and the population – and a loss of support of the military at first.

The role of Ethiopia in Somalia: Ethiopian forces tried to crush the Islamic courts between 2006 and 2009 and found a situation evolving for over 20 years. The balance of such intervention leads to finding a complete admission of failure because ultimately the intervention has strengthened the extremist militia of al-Chebab –  the most radical Islamists, fanatical enemies of the Somali transitional government. The withdrawal of Ethiopian troops allowed the installation of the AMISOM international force – African Union Mission in Somalia, a regional peacekeeping mission operated by the African Union – but not allowed to settle peace, unlike since the AMISOM is parked in a few districts of the capital Mogadishu and is both a conflict hostage. Two countries participate in the AU mission, Uganda (3,500 men) and Burundi (2,500). In July 2010, when attacks in Kampala, two other countries that committed to the mission, Nigeria and Malawi, preferred not to interfere.

Three Somalias: one of which is Somaliland (former British colony), which proclaimed its independence in May 1991. This is a mono-ethnic country whose sole ethnic group overflows in neighboring countries such as Djibouti and Ethiopia. Oddly, ethnic reasons are not the root of its collapse as state. While the collapse has regional implications: the radical Islamist militia al-Chebab of Somaliland, who claimed responsibility for the attacks in Kampala, shows the willingness to go beyond the borders of Somalia. This is a scene of violence with regional deleterious interactions that will increase if nothing impeaches the chaos going forward in Somalia.

The partition of Sudan: an agreement between the parties on the partition of the Sudanese state was signed under the auspices of the U.S. in 2005 – referendum for January 2011. Today we are witnessing a backdrop of fratricidal confrontation and a more than likely disaster… by all indications, the secession of South Sudan is beyond doubt; and  on the other hand Khartoum takes time, it does not attempt to simplify the referendum organization, and on the contrary it spurs Southern authorities hoping they make the mistake of declaring independence unilaterally thus giving rise to military intervention. The conflict with the south has also evident regional and international implications (1): the stage is located in the valley of the Nile, Khartoum, the capital, is located at the confluence of the White Nile and Blue Nile, there are much coveted oil fields; the area is the Egypt’s “backyard”, Sudan and the Darfur conflict is not far and spills all over central Africa, especially Chad … just look at the map lines and pin down the points of conflict to be horrifyed by such a Battle field in the Horn of Africa.

Related Posts:   The Horn of Africa, a recurring scenario of drought and famine

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(1) i.e. China would negotiate –  if not already done so – with the authorities of South Sudan to export oil from the region without having to go through the north of Sudan – a pipeline that would lead to the ports of the Red Sea.

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WikiLeaks reveals essentials of the ‘dirty war’ in Iraq

The disapproval coming out of Washington and Baghdad aimed at the publication by WikiLeaks of secret Iraq war documents is hypocritical.

Actually, the secret files made public by WikiLeaks offer little new information. At the very latest, since Abu Ghraib, the international community had come to the realization that the war in Iraq was a ‘dirty war’. There were killings. There was torture. Mercenaries operated as brutal aggressors. Shiites and Sunnis took turns massacring each other.

That one of the most barbarous dictators was overthrown in the process has practically been forgotten.

Instead, the image of a dirty war has now been even more enduringly anchored in our collective consciousness. Thanks to the revelations made by WikiLeaks, we have possibly been given a more accurate insight into the course of events and a more precise figure on the brutal human rights violations and number of deaths.

According to the files, more than 150,000 people were killed in Iraq between 2004 and 2009, if we can believe the documents from US military sources.

Documents appear to be credible
Can we believe them? Yes, we can. The documents appear, in principle, to be credible. However, it is important to consider them for what they are: one source among many, and a one-sided one at that, originally intended for internal, domestic consumption.

Not everything in these documents can be characterized as a bitter truth intended to be camouflaged from public view.

This or that bit of information could be a half truth or ‘pseudo-fact’; for example, when the person reporting draws the wrong conclusions due to their subjective perspective, or wishes to hide personal lapses or errors from superiors.

Few things in life are more regularly “air brushed” or openly manipulated than reports to supervising superiors, and this is very probably no different for the US Army in Iraq.

WikiLeaks also needs monitoring
Critical questions, therefore, are certainly permissible: Did WikiLeaks do everything possible when checking the documents to ensure that no human lives will be put at risk? We can only hope and wait.

And, by the way: where are the checks and balances on WikiLeaks?

The group is going to have to accept questions like these – just as traditional mass media or outlets like Facebook and Youtube have done – in view of the fact that its political influence has much grown.

They all bear a major responsibility, without ever having been elected. Of course, it also depends on who is asking the question and with what motive.

The criticism of WikiLeaks, expressed by Washington and Baghdad, is hypocritical, as described above.

Both are concerned about their reputations. US President Barack Obama only appears to be in a comfortable position. He cannot really sit back and claim that all the missteps and consequences are the fault of his predecessor, George W. Bush. In the selective perceptions of many people – and not just in the Arab world – the United States is once again on the pillory.

Risky files for Iraqi leader
The publication of the documents, conversely, is just as much of a blow to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He now stands there in public as a political leader who condones torture, including the abuse of supporters of political and religious groups, whom, for the last seven months, he has been trying to win over as coalition partners in a new government.

Not surprisingly, al-Maliki suspects intrigue behind the WikiLeak revelations. He knows that the publication of new, shocking details could cost him his political career.

In as far as the documents are not proven to be fake or seriously inconsistent – for which there is no evidence at the moment – then the blame for them lies with him and George W. Bush – and not with WikiLeaks.

As with Vietnam decades ago, the same holds true for the war in Iraq today: Dirty details need to be thoroughly evaluated and dirty truths brought to light with no holds barred. The people of Iraq, in particular, deserve nothing less.

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Humanity devours the equivalent of a planet and a half

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Ecological footprint of humankind has doubled since 1966. According to the WWF environmental group report “Living Planet 2010“, released Wednesday October 13, human race now uses the equivalent of a planet and a half to meet its needs, mainly due to “overuse” of the richest countries .

The ecological footprint of humanity – in other words the land surface and the volume of water required to produce renewable resources used by the population over a year – has doubled since 1966. In addition, if nothing changes in our patterns of consumption, humankind will need “two planets per year” in 2030, warns the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

North Countries in the hot seat

WWF stresses the role of the richest countries in this development by noting down that – always on data from 2007 – OECD member countries, whose economies are among the richest in the world “accounted for 37 per cent of humanity’s Ecological Footprint.”

“If everyone in the world lived like an average resident of the United States or the United Arab Emirates, then a biocapacity equivalent to more than 4.5 Earths would be required to keep up with humanity’s consumption and CO2 emissions”,

In contrast,

“if everyone lived like the average resident of India, humanity would be using less than half the planet’s biocapacity.”

The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Denmark, Belgium, the United States, Estonia, Canada, Australia, Kuwait and Ireland share the distinction of having “the biggest Ecological Footprint per person.” Hence, the overuse of the North is on the credit resources of the South — from which the formers take the profits. The report also highlights “an alarming rate of biodiversity loss in low-income countries.” The WWF report depicts an overall decline of biodiversity by 30% between 1970 and 2007. In the tropics, this decrease reached 60%.

The 2010 report looked at the future with this statement in mind:

“Humanity is currently consuming renewable resources at a faster rate than ecosystems can regenerate them and continuing to release more CO2 than ecosystems can absorb.”

Using a new tool called the Footprint Scenario Calculator, which was developed by the Global Footprint Network, the forecast showed that if the world proceeds with “business as usual,”

“… by 2030 humanity will need the capacity of two Earths to absorb CO2 waste and keep up with natural resource consumption.”

The World Wildlife Fund has posted an interactive graphic that shows the changes in biodiversity over the past 36 years.

2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, as declared by the United Nations.

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Millennium Development Goals: Fragile states claim summit outcome off-target

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From September 20 to the 22nd, world leaders gathered at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to assess progress and challenges in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Adopted at the Millennium Summit in 2000, the eight goals represent a global commitment to reducing poverty and improving the lives of citizens in poor countries including through improved education and health.

What are the Millennium Development Goals?

* Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
* Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
* Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
* Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
* Goal 5: Improve maternal health
* Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
* Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
* Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

The eight MDGs break down into 21 quantifiable targets that are measured by 60 indicators.

These goals are unique – unlike many summits and partnerships, they committed governments to specific and clear targets to be achieved by 2015. However, in the lead-up to the Summit it became clear that many of the identified targets would not be met in the next five years, despite real progress in several areas. Of particular concern is the group furthest from achieving the MDGs, fragile and post-conflict countries.

What distinguishes so-called fragile states from other low-income countries? These are the countries struggling with the legacy of conflict, and hampered by weak government legitimacy in addition to chronic poverty, particularly persistent in fragile states. According to the World Bank, 54 percent of the population in fragile countries lives in poverty, compared to an average of 22 percent for all low-income countries. A recent report by the Center on Global Development identifies the ‘MDG laggards,’ those furthest from achieving the goals. As the report notes, “Not surprisingly, the list of MDG laggards consists mainly of post-conflict countries or fragile states.” Eight of the twelve currently have UN peacekeeping operations, one of the clearest signs of fragility.

This is no surprise. Shaken by customary cyclical violence, the institutions of government and their ability to deliver services are often severely weakened or shattered. Limited infrastructure and, frequently, corruption and poor governance breed significant obstacles to the realization of the MDGs, as the basic foundations for development are missing.

In fact, the preeminence of the MDGs as a guide for aid to fragile and post-conflict countries is questionable. In the group of fragile states, not one has achieved even a single MDG. The emphasis by international aid and development institutions on achievement of the MDGs has also shifted attention – and financing – away from other, urgent needs in fragile states. This reality challenges long-held assumption about development, raising the question of whether these are the right – or the only – global goals for this set of particularly vulnerable countries.

Recognition of this incongruence has led to efforts to enhance the MDGs with specific goals for post-conflict countries. In Afghanistan, a ninth goal – security – was adopted after Afghan citizens identified insecurity as their greatest challenge, emphasizing that basic security is a prerequisite for achieving the MDGs. In 2010, the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding, which brings together representatives from fragile states, donors, and international aid and development organizations, identified a set of goals for post-conflict countries “as stepping stones to achieve progress on development” that could serve as the foundation for further articulation of peacebuilding and statebuilding goals. As the Minister of Finance in Timor-Leste, Emilia Pires, recently noted at a side event to the MDG Summit on fragile states, “Aid is given based on MDG criteria, and from our experience we have found out that before we can get the MDGs, we have to do a few things first. We have to have peace and stability.”

Debates in the overture of Summit saw a split between those advocating for a particular focus on the least developed countries and those in favor of additional focus on middle-income countries that have demonstrated progress towards the MDG. Institutional support has either sought to focus on those areas that have demonstrated results, or those that are most in need. However, these distinctions fail to depict the specific needs of fragile states, identified in the Outcome Document of the Summit, which recognizes “the specific development challenges related to peacebuilding and early recovery in countries affected by conflict and the effect of these challenges on their efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.”

As leaders return from the Summit, reflecting on progress made and challenges ahead, it is critical that they stop to assess current efforts in fragile and post-conflict states. These countries are furthest from achieving the MDGs, the most in need, and those most at risk of setback to conflict or failing – presenting real security challenges both regionally and globally. Any action plan moving forward requires a specific focus on the MDG ‘laggards’ to ensure that they are not left out of any ‘big push’ for the achievement of the MDGs over the next five years.

Related posts:

· The African Governance Crisis (1/4) · A sift inventory of Africa’s development problems
· The African Governance Crisis (2/4) · The Consequences of Reforms on the African Civil Service
· The African Governance Crisis (3/4) · Rehabilitating the African Civil Service
· The African Governance Crisis (4/4) · Do Reforms Inhibit or Support African Development?

Sources:

· Together for a Better Peace
· Center for Global Development
· UNDP
· Eurostep
· Sustainable Public Financial Management
· IPS
· Guardian Development Network

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Economics of Happiness – An Alternative to the Crisis?

University of Leicester first ever World Map of Happiness

The US Declaration of Independence of 1776 states that “the pursuit of happiness” is an “inalienable right”. The economics of happiness aims to reconsider the traditional measurements of well-being, by identifying the variables influencing private well-being in order to implement public policies more susceptible to satisfy the aspirations of citizens. The macroeconomics of happiness reveals that from a certain level of attained degree of development, the possession of capital does not intrinsically entail happiness. Therefore, a reduction of marginal utility occurs. Similarly, the microeconomics of happiness reveals that social and environmental quality has an increasing impact on the durability of human satisfaction.

Public policies derived from the economics of happiness currently encourage the debate for a new remedy to the ongoing crisis, characterized by an economic crisis and a democratic deficit of representation. This new debate sustains the need for greater state intervention and for considering social problems as constitutive of the concern of the political sphere. The state must implement institutions and rules able to form a legal frame in which intense competition is less valued, because of its alienating and destructive long-term effects on the community’s organic character. Policies able to act in a transformative approach upon human nature are valued. For instance, policies instituting a progressive consumption tax or a progressive income tax, should allow individuals to pay less attention to the issue of capital accumulation. This would benefit both the state (higher fiscal income) and the individual (more cooperative and altruistic).

In conjunction with it, the economics of happiness provides an answer for the macroeconomic orientation states should take with regard to the unemployment/inflation issue. Empirical studies highlight that unemployment is worse than inflation for the degree of happiness. Employment provides essential intrinsic satisfaction. Because the current crisis is all-embracing an economic and democratic crisis, states should be aware of the importance of intrinsic satisfaction when implementing policies, provided by the realization of personal aims and perseverance (Spinozian conatus). States should increase the number of subsidized jobs and offer aid for structuring the unemployed free time.

In the end, the positive school of psychology put the accent on the importance of procedures and norms in the achievement of happiness. The utility of procedures appears as a key for the achievement of subjective well-being. It follows that the answer, for lightening the democratic deficit of representation, is the increase in the participation inside the political sphere. The increasing accountability and transparency of political institutions is therefore expected to revitalize citizenship, by empowering it. Hence, new public policies should implement a new agora for a vox populi, within which hierarchical relationships between semi-opaque state institutions and politically powerless citizens, dissolves into a comprehensive and participatory arena.

However, the implementation of this new type of policies does not consider the very nature of preferences, by not capturing the preference satisfaction in a given situation: there is no characteristic or appropriate purpose (i.e. contextualization). These policies pass over the fact the preferences are mostly adaptive, external and contingent, influenced by socialization. Owing that adaptation might be a form of resignation, if the current crisis persists – as it seems to occur – and reformative policies are not implemented, citizens might tend to have decreasing expectations and a less critical attitude towards the state. Hence, if policies derived from the economics of happiness were applied, they would provide citizens with only a minimum minimorum of happiness satisfaction. Another objection is that such public policies are unable to capture the variety of subjective preferences determining happiness. Without presenting a Huxleyan totalitarian risk, these public policies still do impose a universal regularity careless of particularities. These policies are by their very nature ethnocentric and impose some sort of paternalism. Indeed, as earlier mentioned preferences are adaptive, furthermore, in the case of the economics of happiness, preferences are no longer part of the private sphere. As politicians try to modify citizens’ preferences, they interfere in a more insidious manner with the traditional private sphere.

In conclusion, public policies derived from the economics of happiness – by being founded on realist grounds – provide elements of answer to the global crisis. However, in order to soften the effects of the crisis, such policies should have a more eudemonist dimension (1). They should focus more on the utility of the moment and not on the overall retrospective satisfaction.

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(1) Eudemonism, theory that states the highest ethical goal is happiness and personal well-being

Related Posts:
· The Ideology of Economic Growth
· The myth of GDP – 1. GDP questioned
· The myth of GDP – 2. Measuring progress
· Economics in the nude

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Obama gives way to recognition of a Palestinian state

Impressive Speech from Barack Obama at the UN on the Israeli-Palestinian issue: either we act as in the past – great speeches without changing anything – or everyone rolls up his sleeves. The whole meanwhile, bearing in mind that in 2011 the UN General Assembly might welcome a new member: the Palestinian state.

“The conflict between Israelis and Arabs is as old as this institution. And we can come back here next year, as we have for the last 60 years, and make long speeches about it. We can read familiar lists of grievances. We can table the same resolutions. We can further empower the forces of rejectionism and hate. And we can waste more time by carrying forward an argument that will not help a single Israeli or Palestinian child achieve a better life. We can do that.

Or, we can say that this time will be different — that this time we will not let terror, or turbulence, or posturing, or petty politics stand in the way. This time, we will think not of ourselves, but of the young girl in Gaza who wants to have no ceiling on her dreams, or the young boy in Sderot who wants to sleep without the nightmare of rocket fire.

This time, we should draw upon the teachings of tolerance that lie at the heart of three great religions that see Jerusalem’s soil as sacred. This time we should reach for what’s best within ourselves. If we do, when we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations — an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.”

Palestine at the UN – where Palestinians have just now an observer status – new idea or recycling? This wish of President Obama reminds a provision in the “roadmap“, the peace plan finally endorsed (with reservations) by Israel and the Palestinians. The plan, which would lead to a Palestinian state by December 2005, included in the transition phase (June-December 2003) the following measure:

“Quartet members promote international recognition of Palestinian state, including possible UN membership.”

Then it was about recognition of Palestine in temporary borders, but 2003 passed as 2004 and 2005, and nothing happened. Suffice to say that the wish of the President of the United States, which coincides with the publication in France of a book under a deliberately provocative title – There will be no Palestinian state, Ziyad Clot, Ed. Max Milo – will no doubt be greeted with caution by those most affected.

Related Posts: The Impossible Palestinian State

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May God descend from Heaven and see

Religion is not a superstitious madness in decline, as apostles of secularization prophesied for decades. Far from being so, we go through a time where God is on everyone’s lips. Even charlatans. Some wield the Old Testament, others the Quran and even some the big bang. The minister of a small Protestant sect in Florida — whose parishioners are counted on one’s hand fingers — has turned into a macho man threatening to reduce to ashes the holy book of Islam.

Instead of being treated like an alien landed on a pink sausage TV program (not to be confused with the Bologna mortadella), the crazy ideas of this Terry Jones dude have received global coverage in a way that it could spark Muslim anger — and those who have nothing else to do than listening to the nonsense of a disturbed infidel. Barack Obama has even mediated the outrageous mess after David Petraeus (the commanding general of the crusaders in Afghanistan) did the same. Seeing is believing, Saint Thomas would say. As if the Pentecostal sheepdog’s daunting feat was not quite enough, Stephen Hawking has turned into a shaman of astrophysics.

The British scientist has ruled that there is no need to seek God in the origin of the explosion that gave birth to the universe. Skip the rhetoric intelligent design, exit the pretension of celestial laboratories. The world was born by spontaneous generation. The synthesized voice of the Oxford genius will encourage more than one atheist missionary, but it will not be heard either by the pastor Jones nor his competitors in islamic madrasas. And, far from it, by aliens. Those entities which Hawking advises not to contact with under risk of being colonized.

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