Latest Developments, January 26

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Tax breaks
Reuters reports that iron ore exports could propel Sierra Leone to 51.4 percent GDP growth in 2012, but the extent to which the country’s people will benefit may depend as much on two UK-based companies as on the government.
“Sierra Leone adopted a new mining law in 2009 designed to improve the state share of the country’s resource wealth by raising royalty rates. Previous legislation also established a tax rate of 37.5 percent for mining companies.
Both London Mining and African Minerals obtained substantial tax discounts in their contracts and are paying well below the percentages outlined, even after London Mining’s accord was renegotiated.
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‘The limited tax contribution from the mining companies has huge implications for poor people in Sierra Leone,’ Danish watchdog DanWatch said in a recent report.”

Mining denial
The National Post is the first Canadian newspaper to report on last week’s death of a Mexican protester near a Canadian-owned mine, which Fortuna Silver says had nothing to do with its operations.
“A spokeswoman for the Canadian group MiningWatch criticized the company’s position.
‘There has been conflict over this project and worries over potential impacts on local water supplies for several years,’ said Jen Moore.
‘Instead of trying to deny any responsibility, the company should work to help diminish tensions.’ ”

Human-free bombing
The Los Angeles Times reports that the US Navy is testing a new drone that “has no pilot anywhere,” a development that raises a number of ethical questions.
“ ‘Lethal actions should have a clear chain of accountability,’ said Noel Sharkey, a computer scientist and robotics expert. ‘This is difficult with a robot weapon. The robot cannot be held accountable. So is it the commander who used it? The politician who authorized it? The military’s acquisition process? The manufacturer, for faulty equipment?’
Sharkey and others believe that autonomous armed robots should force the kind of dialogue that followed the introduction of mustard gas in World War I and the development of atomic weapons in World War II. The International Committee of the Red Cross, the group tasked by the Geneva Conventions to protect victims in armed conflict, is already examining the issue.”

Chevron lawyers up
The Am Law Daily reports oil giant Chevron has disclosed that it is employing “no fewer than 39 law firms” to defend itself against a multi-billion dollar lawsuit over pollution in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
“By the Ecuadorian plaintiffs’ count (which we did not verify), Chevron employs close to 500 outside lawyers or paralegals to counter their claims.
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According to the plaintiffs’ unverified count, Chevron lists 60 lawyers from Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher alone. The plaintiffs estimate that Gibson Dunn charged Chevron $250 million in 2010, and the same amount again in 2011, but they don’t explain their calculations. This number seems at least two times too high, since according to The American Lawyer‘s published figures Gibson Dunn’s total litigation billings in 2010 were approximately $595 million.”

Genocide denial
In the wake of the recent report by a French judge on the events that triggered the Rwandan genocide, freelance journalist Julie Owono calls for France to re-examine its role in “the first genocide in Africa of the 20th century” perpetrated against the Bamileke people of western Cameroon in the early 1960s.
“Much less about this is known however, since the archives detailing direct French involvement remain under the seal of secrecy by the French state. The recent publication of a journalistic and historical thesis by two French journalists and a Cameroonian historian, recounts in detail the war by France on the edge of the independence of Cameroon to impose the first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, to a population which in a majority supported the Cameroonian Independence Party, testimony in support of survivors of the massacres and actors, as well as the paradoxically more accessible archives of the Cameroonian army, and has gradually begun to open the wall of silence in which the French authorities had sealed the question of this genocide.
The answer given by French Prime Minister François during his official visit in Yaounde in 2009 might therefore attest the same memoricide will: ‘I absolutely deny that the French forces were involved in anything related to murder in Cameroon. All this is pure invention.’ ”

Counterintuitive capital movements
The London School of Economics’ Keyu Jin wonders why it is that “capital-scarce (and young) developing countries” are exporting rather than importing capital that they need for consumption and investment.
“China is a case in point. With its current-account surplus averaging 5.5% of GDP in 2000-2008, China has become one of the world’s largest lenders. Despite its rapid growth and promising investment opportunities, the country has persistently been sending a significant portion of its savings overseas.
And China is not alone. Other emerging markets – including Brazil, Russia, India, Mexico, Argentina, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Middle Eastern oil exporters – have all increased their current-account surpluses significantly since the early 1990’s. Collectively, capital-scarce developing countries are lending to capital-abundant advanced economies.”

Disputed hunger figures
The Guardian’s Claire Provost looks critically at the Food and Agriculture Organization’s oft repeated estimate that there a billion hungry people in the world, a figure from which even the UN body is distancing itself.
“Unfortunately, little of the uncertainty surrounding global hunger estimates is ever reported alongside the emotive, top-line figures.
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While the FAO hunger indicator has long dominated discussions, it is not the only way to measure food insecurity. Over the years, it has been criticised on many fronts: for the poor quality of underlying data; for the focus on calorie intake, without consideration of proteins, vitamins and minerals; and for the emphasis on availability – rather than affordability, accessibility or actual use – of food. Some say we’d be better off focusing on improving household consumption surveys, opinion polls, and direct measures of height and body weight.”

Latest Developments, January 25

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Business rules
Amnesty International is calling on governments to take on the global lack of corporate regulation it says is having a “devastating impact” on the world’s most vulnerable populations.
“Governments are legally bound to consider how the policies and programs they implement affect human rights. In reality, many governments do not conduct even rudimentary assessments of the potential impact of their economic policies on rights.
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Governments are consistently failing to regulate the corporate sector, trusting in their false promises of self-regulation, creating a toxic environment that is showing signs of boiling over as people take to the streets demanding an end to corruption, corporate greed and injustice.”

Trade imbalances
World leaders gathered in Davos for the World Economic Forum must focus less on “the imbalances in developed countries’ debt-to-GDP ratios” and more on “the wider imbalances generated by unfettered globalization,” according to UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter.
“Trade and investment agreements are the gateways through which globalization passes on its way to redefining a country’s economic landscape, and they are increasing at an impressive pace. There are 6,092 bilateral investment agreements currently in force, with 56 concluded in 2010 alone.
That growth reflects the flawed economic model of the pre-crisis years, which relied on indifference to where growth came from, how sustainable it was, and who was benefiting from it. If we are to learn anything from the ongoing crisis, it must be to start asking the right questions.”

Coal black box
A new report by the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) argues electricity companies operating in the Netherlands are not coming clean about the source of the coal they use.
“None of the energy companies analysed in the report – E.ON, Vattenfall/Nuon, GDF Suez/Electrabel, RWE/Essent, DONG Energy and EPZ (DELTA) – are transparent about the specific mines where their coal comes from. ‘If companies are open about the coal chain, human rights violations and pollution in the coal chain can be prevented. But the electricity companies refuse to publish this information and as a result are not following recommendations laid out in international standards for supply chain transparency such as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Companies’, says Joseph Wilde-Ramsing, Senior Researcher at SOMO.”

Press freedom
Reporters Without Borders has released its latest Press Freedom Index, which ranks nine African countries ahead of the US following the “crackdown” on the Occupy movement.
“The worldwide wave of protests in 2011 also swept through the New World. It dragged the United States (47th) and Chile (80th) down the index, costing them 27 and 47 places respectively. The crackdown on protest movements and the accompanying excesses took their toll on journalists. In the space of two months in the United States, more than 25 were subjected to arrests and beatings at the hands of police who were quick to issue indictments for inappropriate behaviour, public nuisance or even lack of accreditation ”

Circumcision silence
Paris Descartes University’s Patrick Pognant decries the lack of debate over the UN’s advocacy of mass circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa as a means of reducing the spread of HIV.
“At the very least, those who are to be circumcised ought to be informed objectively of the irremediable effects of this surgical act, which they have the right to expect from humanitarian organizations that are meant to protect them and improve their living conditions. If we celebrate progress in the field of medicine, we must also remember that it can make mistakes and it harbours extremists and ideologues, overcome, in this case, by a passion for surgery (just as their predecessors from earlier centuries, bistoury in hand, ravaged large populations, especially male ones). The time will come, one hopes, when international authorities will condemn all forms of physical mutilation committed without proper consent, whether the motivation be medical, moral or religious.” (Translated from the French.)

Strange bedfellows
War Child’s Samantha Nutt asks if new partnerships between international NGOs and Canadian mining companies will “nudge along good practice” or “buy silence in the case of bad practice.”
“Under the deal, World University Services Canada, Plan Canada and World Vision Canada will receive CIDA funding totalling $6.7-million for projects with Rio Tinto Alcan, Iamgold and Barrick Gold, respectively. The largest share was for the Plan Canada-Iamgold project, which will take all but $1-million of the CIDA funding over the next five years. For their part, the three mining companies will contribute additional support just shy of $2-million. The combined annual net profit for these firms is more than $4-billion.
…
Two of the participating mining firms have recently been involved in labour and human-rights disputes related to their operations abroad.”

Arming the Middle East
The Buck Institute for Research on Aging’s Raja Kamal takes issue with recent American and British arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
“These deals have been presented as useful arrangements to promote stability in a Middle East, allegedly threatened by Iran’s ambitions. However, seen through a different lens, it appears that arms-producing nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom are using Saudi Arabia as an automated teller machine, from which billions of dollars can be secured to bolster their troubled economies.
It is unfortunate that the U.S. Congress did not seize the opportunity to block the F-15 sale on the grounds that arming the Arab world is in the best interests neither of the region nor of the U.S. or the West in the long run.”

Negotiating change
Panteion University’s Alexios Arvanitis calls for negotiators at international talks to bring more than the pursuit of national interests to the table.
“In casting his veto at the European Union’s December summit in Brussels, British Prime Minister David Cameron said, ‘What is on offer isn’t in Britain’s interests, so I didn’t agree to it,’ as if agreement solely depended upon whether or not interests were satisfied.
Then again, reaching an agreement might never have been Cameron’s goal. While so-called “win-win” outcomes are increasingly considered to be the ultimate purpose of every negotiation, what if the negotiating parties contemplate a win-win outcome that actually harms non-participants to the talks, or is against the law? What if the outcome is beneficial but contrary to the principles of the negotiating parties?”

Latest Developments, January 23

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Spring cleaning
Human Rights Watch has released the latest edition of its “annual review of human rights practices around the globe” which this year has a special focus on the Arab Spring.
“The United States and some European allies could make an enormous contribution to ending torture in the Arab world by coming clean about their own records of complicity in torture as part of their fight against terrorism. Western governments should punish those responsible for ordering or facilitating torture and end the use of diplomatic assurances as a fig leaf to justify sending suspects to countries where they risk torture.”

Deadly mining protest
The Oaxaca Study Action Group reports that two people were shot, one of them fatally, in the course of a protest against a Canadian-owned mine in southern Mexico.
“San José del Progreso, located 50 km south of Oaxaca City, has been a flash point for violence since an alliance of local environmentalists and farmers occupied the gold and silver mine in early 2009. Despite widespread resistance and an ongoing conflict that already claimed the lives of two people in summer 2010, Fortuna Silver began commercial operation of the mine last September. As the installations are located in an arid valley, smooth operation is heavily dependent on water access to process the ore. The contamination of the scarce resource is among the main concerns of the mining opponents, many of whom grow vegetables for a living and rely on clean water for irrigation.”

Rubik on life support
The Tax Justice Network gleefully reports that Switzerland’s Rubik plan to preserve its famous banking secrecy is on the verge of collapsing as EU objections to Swiss tax deals with Britain and Germany intensify.
“TJN’s position is unambiguous: these deals are weak, immoral, and even silly – and they undermine international attempts to tackle tax evasion. Both Germany and Britain should swallow their pride, withdraw from the deals, and put their diplomatic effort into pushing through the EU’s enhanced Savings Tax Directive – suitably extended to Switzerland.”

Maximum wage
The Guardian’s George Monbiot calls for a nationwide UK maximum wage to rein in corporate executive pay, which he describes as “a form of institutionalised theft, arranged by a kleptocratic class for the benefit of its members.”
“I’m not talking about ratios or relative earnings. Various bodies have proposed that there should be a fixed ratio of the top earnings within a company to either the median or lowest salaries. But as a report on this issue by the New Economics Foundation shows, the first measurement quickly becomes complex and opaque, the second creates an incentive to contract out the lowest paid work. I’m talking about an absolute maximum, applied nationwide.”

Drones and America
The Brookings Institution’s Peter Singer looks at the impact that America’s increasing reliance on drone strikes is having on its own democracy, quite apart from any death and destruction caused in distant countries.
“We must now accept that technologies that remove humans from the battlefield, from unmanned systems like the Predator to cyberweapons like the Stuxnet computer worm, are becoming the new normal in war.
And like it or not, the new standard we’ve established for them is that presidents need to seek approval only for operations that send people into harm’s way — not for those that involve waging war by other means.
Without any actual political debate, we have set an enormous precedent, blurring the civilian and military roles in war and circumventing the Constitution’s mandate for authorizing it.”

Drones and Pakistan
News Pakistan reports on Pakistani cricketer turned politician Imran Khan’s take on the impact US drone strikes are having on the ground in his country.
“Imran Khan, the chief of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has urged the United States to stop drone strikes in Pakistan, claiming that they were killing many innocent people.
He observed that each bomb that killed terrorists also killed many people who might be related to the terrorists but were not involved in militancy.
In his view this collateral damage creates more Jihadis than it kills, he said this while interviewing with CNN.”

Proceed with caution
New York University’s Alex Evans and David Steven argue that despite growing enthusiasm for Sustainable Development Goals ahead of the Rio+20 summit, there is a lack of clarity regarding their contours and timeframe.
“The question of which countries would be covered by SDGs is a minefield. With any set of SDGs likely to be universal rather than applicable only to developing countries, major political challenges would arise. The MDGs demanded relatively little of OECD governments: all that was asked of them was aid, and relatively small amounts of it at that. A more comprehensive set of post-2015 Goals, on the other hand, would need to look ‘beyond aid’ – entailing changes to domestic policies in sensitive areas like migration, trade, intellectual property, or energy policy. The vexed issue of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ would certainly arise along the way – perhaps bedevilling post-2015 discussions as it already has the Doha round and the UNFCCC climate process (though an optimist might argue that a universal approach could help debate to move past the rigid and outdated typology of ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries).”

Migrant myths
The Observer’s Barbara Ellen writes that new statistics undermine traditional narratives about immigrants and “benefits tourism.”
“This could be a chance to start a new kind of immigration debate, one that doesn’t centre on: ‘What are they taking from us?’ Rather, it might ask: ‘What are they giving us?’ Even: ‘Do we expect too much, too soon, of migrants? Should we break the habit of a lifetime and get off their backs?’
For too long, there’s been a bizarre cultural climate of putting migrants under unfair pressure to perform instantly. It’s as if they’re expected to be supermen and women, breezily starting multinational companies the moment they arrive… in a foreign country, sometimes homeless, and with a new language to master.”

Latest Developments, January 20

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The value of nature
The Guardian reports on a new study that argues some of the world’s poorest people should be paid $500 billion a year for the service they provide by preserving natural habitats.
“Many of the benefits of conservation, so-called ‘ecosystem services’, are invisible – for instance, maintaining wooded land can help to prevent mudslides during heavy rainfall, and provides valuable watersheds that keep rivers healthy and provide clean drinking water, as well as absorbing carbon dioxide from the air. These benefits are not assigned an economic value, however, so that chopping down trees or destroying habitats appears to deliver an instant economic return, when in fact it is leading to economic losses that are only obvious when it is too late.”

Hunger games
The World Development Movement’s Innocent Sithole writes about a new report on the role of European banks and private finance in food speculation and “land grabbing.”
“Our report identifies the biggest culprits in food speculation as Deutsche Bank, Barclays, the Dutch pension fund ABP, the German financial services group Allianz and French banking group BNP Paribas. We have since nominated Barclays for the 2012 Public Eye ‘shame’ awards for its financial speculation in food prices. Barclays is estimated to make up to £340 million a year from speculating in food ‘futures’ markets, making it the biggest UK player in the markets.”

Politics of xenophobia
Yahoo! News reports on the “hard line” taken by Republican presidential hopefuls on both legal and illegal immigration in the lead-up to the South Carolina primary.
“In talking about reducing legal immigration, Santorum–intentionally or not–aligned himself with the group NumbersUSA, which is spending up to $150,000 in South Carolina to run TV ads that criticize the federal government for admitting what the group considers to be too many legal immigrants each year.
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Both legal and illegal immigration streams to America have fallen sharply since the recession began in 2008, even as state legislatures have increasingly passed immigration-related laws over the same period.”

Lethal policy
The University of Notre Dame’s Mary Ellen O’Connell argues America’s increasing use of “targeted killings” – a tactic it publicly opposed in the early years of the George W. Bush administration  – runs counter to its stated goal of promoting a “just and sustainable international order where the rights and responsibilities of nations and peoples are upheld, especially the fundamental rights of every human being.”
“The US did not support such killing for fundamental reasons of law and morality. Fundamental principles of law protect the human right to life and due process of law. Unlike torture, which is never permitted, states are permitted to allow designated authorities to carry out the use of lethal force in certain limited situations. In situations of armed conflict hostilities, lawful combatants will not be prosecuted for killing that complies with international humanitarian law. Today, under the international legal definition of armed conflict, the United States is involved in such hostilities in one country only: Afghanistan.
Beyond Afghanistan, any use of lethal force by designated authorities of the United States must follow the normal human rights limits on peacetime resort to lethal force. Authorities may engage in lethal force when necessary to save a human life immediately, if there is no alternative. In other cases, an attempt to arrest is required, followed by a fair trial within a reasonable period.”

Green growth
Oxfam’s Kate Raworth looks into the extent to which G20 countries have succeeded in decoupling economic growth and resource use.
“The vast majority of high-income countries in the G20 have so far provided no evidence that they can make economic growth environmentally sustainable. Of course, most have barely started to put in place the policies required to make it happen – but delay will only make it harder. So what does the G20 evidence show? That absolute decoupling is possible (we’ve seen it!), at least for some of the countries, for some resources, for some of the time. But that’s a far cry from believing that environmentally sustainable GDP growth is possible everywhere, all the time, indefinitely.”

OccupyLSX
The Institute of Development Studies’ Alex Shankland writes about the “subversive ruliness” of Occupy the London Stock Exchange.
“The Occupiers are fully committed to non-violence, but also to using direct action and surprise tactics that may or may not involve breaking the law.
So far, so unruly. But I would argue that paradoxically the real significance of the model of contestation provided by the camp lies not in law-breaking, but in rule-making. Transparent, rule-bound behaviour is absolutely central to the political practices that characterise OccupyLSX. This, in turn, is central to the unique power of the challenge that it poses to the intermingled political and financial interests whose unruly, untransparent and often downright illegal practices have left their disastrous mark both on London and on communities across the world.”

Ecuadorean example
Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Jayati Ghosh argues that in the space of a few short years, Ecuador has gone from a “basket case” to a development example for the world.
“All this may sound too good to be true, and certainly the process of transformation has only just begun. There are bound to be conflicts with those whose profits and power are threatened, as well as other hurdles along the way. But for those who believe that we are not condemned to the gloomy status quo, and that societies can do things differently, what is happening in Ecuador provides inspiration and even guidance. The rest of the world has much to learn from this ongoing radical experiment.”

Fear of debt
Robert Skidelsky, a member of the British House of Lords, argues there are a number of logical flaws to the prevailing thinking that debt reduction through “fiscal consolidation” is necessary for countries to enjoy healthy, sustainable economies.
“Third, the national debt is not a net burden on future generations. Even if it gives rise to future tax liabilities (and some of it will), these will be transfers from taxpayers to bond holders. This may have disagreeable distributional consequences. But trying to reduce it now will be a net burden on future generations: income will be lowered immediately, profits will fall, pension funds will be diminished, investment projects will be canceled or postponed, and houses, hospitals, and schools will not be built. Future generations will be worse off, having been deprived of assets that they might otherwise have had.”

Latest Developments, January 19

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Politics of inequality
Oxfam’s Caroline Pearce writes about the NGO’s new report that suggests inequality is on the rise in the majority of G20 countries.
“Crucially, what the report does not find is any link between particular stages of development and levels of or changes in inequality, casting doubt on those who argue that inequality is an inevitable stage along the way to development. Rather, inequality is a matter of political choices, and now the onus is on the G20 to make the right ones. According to new data from the new Standardized World Income Inequality Database, just four G20 countries (Korea, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina) have reduced income inequality in the last 20 years (see chart), and some with only modest levels of growth. Even these are not unambiguous success stories: in three, initial inequality was so high that decades’ more progress would still be necessary to bring them to levels seen in, for example, Pakistan, let alone in a country like Sweden. The exception is Korea, which grew to high-income status while reducing already comparatively low levels of income inequality. The others, along with the rest of the G20 club, face serious challenges in living up to G20 promises about ‘inclusive growth’.”

Millennium Consumption Goals
The UK Youth Climate Coalition’s Casper ter Kuile wonders how the world’s power brokers, who are about to hold their annual get-together in Davos, will respond to the new inequality data.
“The data also reveals that unlike the G20, in most low-income countries, inequality is falling, and levels of inequality are converging towards those of the G20. Perhaps time to revisit that idea of Millennium Consumption Goals? Or set up The Spirit Level reading groups in the Swiss mountains?”

Hedge fund human rights
The Independent reports hedge funds holding large amounts of Greek debt are going to try to protect their finances via the European Court of Human Rights.
“The funds have baulked at the idea of negotiating a settlement with the indebted country. Now, in a move likely to anger millions of Greeks facing austerity measures, fund managers are considering a fight against what they believe would be a violation of human rights law, arguing that their rights to property would be infringed by a write-down of Greek debt.”

Aboriginal rights
The Globe and Mail reports a prominent First Nations leader is calling for constitutional clarification on the rights of Canada’s indigenous people in the wake of the recent Attawapiskat crisis that drew attention to water and housing issues in Aboriginal communities.
“Many first nations leaders say the key to resolving all of these matters is an equitable sharing of resource rights, not just on reserves, but across all of their traditional lands. And, for the most part, the provinces and territories have control over those resources, whether it is diamonds in Ontario, oil in Alberta or minerals in Manitoba.”

Economics of place
On the heels of the US government’s announcement that Haitians will now be eligible to apply for temporary H-2 work visas, the Center for Global Development’s Michael Clemens writes about his first encounter with the economic significance of one’s place of birth.
“My interest in labor mobility as a poverty reduction tool dates to my boyhood, when I spent a summer in Mexico. I was astonished to discover that the man who fixed our toilet in Mexico City earned just a small fraction of what a man doing an identical job in the United States would earn. How could that be? How could location matter so much more than talent, effort, or character?”

Credit inequality
PIMCO’s Mohamed El-Erian argues the world economy has “a nasty plumbing problem” which is leading to dangerous inequality in access to credit.
“From every angle, the extremity of this state of affairs – in which those with access to credit do not need it, and those who do cannot get it – is highly problematic. If left unattended, it leads to a gradual, and then accelerated, renewed deleveraging of the economic system, with the highest first-round costs – a longer unemployment and growth crisis – borne disproportionately by those least able to suffer them. In the next round, as the system slowly implodes, even those with healthy balance sheets would be impacted, accelerating their disengagement from a deleveraging world economy.
All of this slows social mobility, tears already-stretched safety nets, worsens inequality, and accentuates genuine concerns about the functioning and sustainability of today’s global economic system.”

Responsible capitalism
Ekklesia’s Jonathan Bartley argues the changes to the economic system being advocated by political leaders fall well short of the “fundamental” reforms that are needed.
“Responsible capitalism is an oxymoron akin to ‘well-mannered war’ or ‘friendly famine’. But to begin to acknowledge that, the values of the system itself must be questioned not just the ethical or regulatory framework in which it operates.”

Horizontal accountability
¥OURWORLD’s Reinier van Hoffen offers his thoughts on how to improve democracy, using as his starting point a recent Beyond Aid article that argued finding serious solutions to global problems such as climate change and world hunger will require a system of democratic governance that transcends states.
“However, he also acknowledges that such a centralization of power will have some repercussions and challenges that he does not dwell on in his article. I want to take it from there and while agreeing with his analysis about the state in its current shape, I have a sense that the solutions are to be found in the opposite direction and not necessarily require a replacement of the political representation model that underpins the state. It rather requires a transformation of it, renewing the social contract it requires to function properly. Firstly the focus should not be on the power structure but rather on the power base. Secondly, the means by which a new form of governance has to come into existence is by a transformation of the current governance structure.”