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Latest Developments, March 25

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In the latest news and analysis…

World Bank nomination
Boston University’s Muhammad Zaman praises the Obama administration’s choice of nominee for World Bank president – a position held exclusively by US citizens since the institution’s foundation – though not because of Jim Yong Kim’s Korean birth.
“The argument about him being a great choice because of the country of his birth, a developing Korea of the 1960s, is not particularly strong. He was fortunate to be raised by highly educated parents in the U.S. and went to some of the best institutions in the country for his training. To me, it was what he did with that training is the most interesting and exciting part. It is his deep conviction to change the status quo in global health, and his innovations in both research and practice that set him apart. From ‘Partners in Health,’ a paradigm shift in global health practice, to WHO, Harvard and then leadership at Dartmouth map the course of a man who has the necessary intellect to create bold and transformative changes for some of the most pressing problems of our time.”

Nuclear morality
United Press International reports that US President Barack Obama has said his country has a “moral obligation” to reduce its nuclear arsenal.
“ ‘I believe the United States has a unique responsibility to act — indeed, we have a moral obligation,’ Obama told students at South Korea’s Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
‘I say this as president of the only nation ever to use nuclear weapons,’ Obama said. ‘I say it as a commander in chief who knows that our nuclear codes are never far from my side. Most of all, I say it as a father, who wants my two young daughters to grow up in a world where everything they know and love can’t be instantly wiped out.’ ”

Floating armouries
The Associated Press reports that private security companies are maintaining “floating armories” in international waters off Africa’s east coast so as to skirt laws governing the movement of weapons.
“Floating armories have become a viable business in the wake of increased security practices by the maritime industry, which has struggled for years to combat attacks by Somali pirates. But those in the industry say the standards vary widely.
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There are between 10 and 12 ships operating as floating armories at any one time. About half a dozen are located in the Red Sea, three off the United Arab Emirates and a couple off the island nation of Madagascar, said Thomas Jakobsson of Sea Marshals Ltd.”

Shell mega-suit
Agence France-Presse reports British lawyers representing over 11,000 Nigerian plaintiffs have launched a lawsuit against oil giant Shell over spills in the Niger Delta.
“Shell’s Nigerian unit, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), has admitted liability for two spills of a total of about 4,000 barrels, after the spills were independently verified.
But Shell strongly contests the claims of London-based lawyers Leigh Day that some 500,000 barrels were spilled, arguing that the majority of spills are caused by illegal attempts to tap into pipelines.
Most of the claims were brought by people who claim their livelihood as fishermen has been destroyed.”

New UN expert
The Center for International Environmental Law reports that the UN Human Rights Council has agreed to appoint an independent expert on human rights and the environment.
“The Council’s resolution establishes an institutional vehicle to advance the linkages between Human Rights and the Environment.  It is expected that this new Special Procedure will lay the basis for the Council’s recognition of a universal right to a healthy environment.  In addition the new Independent Expert is tasked with identifying and promoting best practices relating to the use of human rights obligations to strengthen environmental protection.”

Pax ethnica
Queen’s University’s Will Kymlicka reviews a book that aims to “resuscitate the dream” of multiculturalism by showcasing five examples of ethnic harmony from around the world.
“And yet I worry about the strategy of invoking ‘unsung exceptions.’ After all, the very idea that these are exceptions implies that ethnic conflict is the norm. And, indeed, the authors describe these five cases as ‘harbingers of multiethnic peace in an otherwise feral world,’ which have overcome ‘history’s most pernicious quandary’ and ‘most intractable problem.’
Yet this, too, is a myth that must be challenged. There is nothing normal about ethnic violence. Many people think that Africa is being torn asunder by ethnic conflicts, but studies have shown that if you randomly pick any two neighbouring ethnic groups in Africa, the likelihood that they are involved in violent conflict is infinitesimally small. In describing their five cases as exceptions, Meyer and Brysac may unintentionally be reproducing the myth that ethnic diversity is prone to violence. I would have preferred a more direct attack on the claim that ethnic diversity creates a ‘pernicious quandary,’ rather than trying to identify ‘exceptions’ to the alleged quandary.”

Race to the bottom
In a Q&A with TrustLaw, Tanzanian bishop Stephen Munga rejects the argument that increased government regulation puts a country’s mining industry at a competitive disadvantage.
“That is really one-sided thinking. Across Africa there is a big discussion on mine nationalisation. And that is coming up because we don’t see good bills. It’s not a question of who is going to have the lowest figures, it’s a question of who’s going to deliver so that local communities can benefit.
For African governments now, since they’re getting a lot of pressure from civil society, whoever comes up with a good bill, is the one who’s going to win. Otherwise, you already have about five countries that are discussing mining nationalisation.”

RIP world music
Ian Birrell writes on the Guardian’s music blog that the term “world music” has become “outdated and increasingly offensive.”
“For a start, it implies cultural superiority. Artists from America and Europe tend not to get stuck in the world section, just those that don’t speak English or come from “exotic” parts of the world. They can be consigned safely to the world music ghetto, ignored by the mainstream and drooled over by those who approach music as an offshoot of anthropology.”

Latest Developments, February 21

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Perpetual growth
The Guardian reports on a new UN-commissioned study that argues the international community needs to take “dramatic action” if it wants to “avert a collapse of civilisation.”
“ ‘The rapidly deteriorating biophysical situation is more than bad enough, but it is barely recognised by a global society infected by the irrational belief that physical economies can grow forever and disregarding the facts that the rich in developed and developing countries get richer and the poor are left behind.
‘The perpetual growth myth … promotes the impossible idea that indiscriminate economic growth is the cure for all the world’s problems, while it is actually the disease that is at the root cause of our unsustainable global practices’, [the authors] say.”

Plundering Somalia
Inter Press Service reports on a new paper criticizing international policy towards Somalia, with one of the authors suggesting this week’s London summit on the country’s future “seeks mainly to rally public opinion around more violence, more intervention, and more counterterrorism options” rather than promoting a holistic approach to problem solving.
“[Global Policy Forum’s James] Paul said the violence-prone naval approach [to halting piracy] has not worked, because it ignores the illegal foreign fishing and toxic waste dumping that is taking place off the Somali coast.
The fishing and dumping provokes the piracy and has led ordinary Somalis to approve the piracy as a legitimate form of national defence.
But powerful members of the Security Council, notably the U.S. and the UK, have blocked any action on fishing and dumping.
‘They pretend that there is no information about the matter, even while their naval fleets are closely monitoring the movement of all ships in Somali waters,’ Paul said. ‘So much for root causes and holistic approaches. Violence is virtually the only option allowed onto the table in London.’ ”

UN responsibility
The New Media Advocacy Project’s Abby Goldberg writes about a legal petition that calls on the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti to compensate and apologize to victims of a deadly cholera outbreak thought to have been caused by UN personnel.
“If the petition is successful, it will be the first case in history in which the UN takes legal responsibility for harm caused by their personnel.
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The UN must consider the legal request and how to respond, not only for Haitians, but also for the success of peacekeeping operations globally. This case is about Haiti, but it is also about the UN and a changing world. As one of the lawyers who filed the case said, ‘there is a difference between immunity and impunity. Impunity cannot be tolerated.’ The UN can, and must, do better.”

Emission friction
Oxfam’s Duncan Green is baffled by widespread international opposition to the EU’s plan to charge airlines flying in and out of Europe for their carbon emissions, given that three-quarters of the greenhouse gases taxed would come from European and American carriers.
“The main objection to the EU’s policy is that it applies to air-miles clocked up outside European airspace. But the vast majority of emissions captured by the EU [Emission Trading Scheme] scope are from EU and US operators.  By implication, if India and others genuinely want developed countries to act to cut GHG emissions it would seem against their own interest to try to block the EU ETS, because obviously the EU would never apply it just to its own carriers – so if they were to be successful they’d also prevent us doing something about the large majority of emissions from EU/US carriers.”

Re-inventing the World Bank
Former World Bank executive Ana Palacio says the debate over the US monopoly on the institution’s presidency is “legitimate,” but thinks the organization requires far more significant reforms.
“Just as reconstruction finance gave way to development lending over the course of the Bank’s history, its current focus on banking operations should be reconsidered, as the organization’s main source of added value now lies in its formidable potential as a center of knowledge and a coordinator of international policies.
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Today, the international community should look for a World Bank president who is attuned to ordinary people’s growing refusal to tolerate glaring global inequalities, and who understands that development is more than GDP growth. Such a leader, regardless of his or her country of origin, will reinvent the World Bank for the century ahead.”

Universal energy
The Steps Centre’s Rob Byrne and Jim Watson highlight the argument that the world’s poor should not be required to take a low-carbon approach to achieving universal energy access.
“[Practical Action’s Teodoro] Sanchez estimates that half the world’s energy-poor could switch to cooking on sustainable biomass and half to liquefied petroleum gas. Furthermore, half could access electricity from diesel generators while the other half do so from renewable sources. If these plans were implemented, he argues, the increase in global CO2 emissions would be less than 2% above 2005 levels.
If the world takes climate change seriously, this increase could easily be absorbed by cuts in industrialised country emissions and further action to slow emissions growth in the rapidly developing countries (especially China). The cost of this up to 2030 would be about $570bn (including capacity building and institutional costs); less than 3% of the estimated global energy investments needed during the same period.”

Questioning development
And, finally, a piece from last week by the Latin American Center of Social Ecology’s Eduardo Gudynas who argues sustainability will require a profound questioning of the concept of development and a recognition of the rights of nature. 
“The social and environmental crisis is so serious that it is now time to put aside minor adjustments and reforms, and instead address the root causes of resistance to the idea of development. We must adopt an approach whereby the term ‘sustainable development’ no longer requires the suffix ‘development’. The civil society programme in Rio+20 should not focus simply on fixing the superficial problems of development: it is necessary to look for alternatives to the entire body of ideas about development.
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If sustainable development strengthens its demands for change, it must abandon the traditional idea of development and thus break with the anthropocentric ethics that are characteristic of Western cultural tradition.”

Latest Developments, August 11

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British Prime Minister David Cameron has said he would consider limiting social networking services such as Twitter and Blackberry Messenger in situations like the recent riots, a measure, as Reuters puts it, “widely condemned as repressive when used by other countries.” The Globe and Mail’s Ivor Tossell conveys a similar sentiment: “Cracking down on citizens’ communications in times of crisis would put Mr. Cameron in the company of a large and unsavoury bunch of autocrats.” Earlier this year, the UN’s top expert on freedom of expression, Frank La Rue called for “as little restriction as possible to the flow of information via the Internet” but warned: “Governments are using increasingly sophisticated technologies to block content, and to monitor and identify activists and critics.”

In other technology news, the US military test launched its Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2). The unmanned manoeuvrable aircraft, built to travel at 20 times the speed of sound, is part of the Pentagon’s Prompt Global Strike efforts that have involved “working for nearly a decade on an audacious plan to strike anywhere on the planet in less than an hour.” But for the second time this year, the device lost contact with ground stations and disappeared into the Pacific, a result described by the program manager as “vexing.”

Piracy is reportedly starting to become an issue off the west coast of Africa: “Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea has over the last eight months escalated from low-level armed robberies to hijackings, cargo thefts and large-scale robberies,” the Associated Press reports, citing Denmark’s Risk Intelligence. Over on the continent’s east side, piracy is old news but the Guardian’s Mark Tran reports it has become another factor complicating aid delivery to those affected by the Horn of Africa’s food shortage. To recap then, the list of problems cited since a state of famine was declared in parts of Somalia include lack of money (less than half of what the UN says it needs), lack of organization, uncooperative rebels, a government/AU offensive against said rebels, high food prices, draconian US anti-terrorism laws and a weak dollar. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced an additional $17 million in emergency funding, of which $12 million will go to Somalia. Also heading from the US to Somalia is Richard “Colonel Sanders” Rouget, whom Wired describes as a “mercenary with a criminal record and possible ties to several African coups and at least one murder.” In the name of counterinsurgency, “America has endorsed, however indirectly, a man who for years has allegedly fought against stability, justice and self-governance in Africa,” according to Wired’s David Axe.

Fifteen years after Pfizer drug trials during the course of which 11 Nigerian children died, the first compensation cheques have been issued, with the families of four of the deceased each receiving $175,000. A Wikileaks document revealed Pfizer tried to dig up dirt on the attorney general in order to make him drop the case before finally agreeing in 2009 to a $75 million settlement.

The US Supreme Court may examine the question of corporate liability for overseas human rights abuses later this year in light of recent contradictory interpretations of the Alien Tort Statute by federal appeals court judges. Human rights lawyers say the majority of the rulings support their position, but US Chamber of Commerce lawyers argue international law “establishes liability for states and individuals, and not for corporations.”

Oxfam’s Emily Greenspan writes about the new social and environmental policies of the International Finance Corporation, which is “the private sector lending arm of the World Bank Group.” The new rules include a “precedent-setting requirement” that corporations looking to work on indigenous lands obtain “free prior and informed consent” from local communites, and an obligation for oil, gas and mining companies to disclose their contracts with host governments. It does not appear, however, that companies have to reveal their profits, as called for by Christian Aid’s Joseph Stead in order to discourage corporate tax avoidance as well as government corruption. Nevertheless, Greenspan hopes the new requirements “will set in motion a ripple effect among other international financial institutions, export credit agencies, companies, and governments, helping to reduce social conflict and increase transparency around large-scale development projects globally.”

Over the last week or so, there have been a number of articles describing last year’s passage of the Dodd-Frank Act – a piece of American legislation that includes a requirement for companies to prove the minerals they use have not exacerbated conflict in their country of origin – as a disaster  for the Democratic Republic of Congo, the very place it was ostensibly meant to help. A Businessweek article talks of a 90 percent drop in legal mineral exports over the last year and a David Aronson op-ed in the New York Times says: “Rarely do local miners, high-level traders, mining companies and civil society leaders agree on an issue. But in eastern Congo, they were unanimous in condemning Dodd-Frank.” But the Institute of Human Rights and Business’s Salil Tripathi calls these arguments “simplistic and wrong.” He says those who pushed for the kinds of measures contained in Dodd-Frank realized there would be some adverse short-term economic impacts but they see ending a protracted conflict as the ultimate goal: “Restrictions on conflict minerals alone won’t end unrest in the DRC. But not having any restrictions on products known to fuel conflict, ostensibly to preserve livelihoods for the country’s people, won’t make matters better, either.”

Given the current economic crises on both sides of the North Atlantic, UC Berkeley economist Barry Eichengreen asks: “Isn’t this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to move away from a world where the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank hold the supply of international liquidity in thrall?” He proposes “a global-GDP-linked bond, the returns on which would vary with global growth rates.”