Sep 5, 2012 | Human rights, International Justice, Passage au crible (English)
By Yves Poirmeur
Translation: Pierre Chabal
Passage au crible n°72
Pixabay, Sierra Leone
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was sentenced on May 30th, 2012, to 50 years imprisonment by the Special Court for Sierra Leone. He was found an accomplice to war crimes and crimes against humanity that were committed during the civil war that ravaged Sierra Leone for 11 years. Since the Second World War during which the Nuremberg Tribunal had imposed 10 years in prison on Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz – ephemeral “designated successor” of Hitler – this is the first time that a Head of state is condemned by an international court for crimes committed during his term in office. This judgment, which was appealed, is another step forward in the fight against impunity for international criminals. It demonstrates the concern of international justice to punish in an exemplary way the rulers who fuel civil war in another state and are accomplices to abuses using the conflict to serve their own interests.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
Leader of the NPFL (National Patriotic Front of Liberia), (1989-1997), who sought to overthrow the Liberian government of Samuel Kanyon Doe, he had undertaken, in 1991, to weaken its opponents abroad by supporting military operations of the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) of Foday Sankoh against the Sierra Leonean government. Elected president of Liberia in 1997, he continued to intervene in armed conflicts in neighboring countries (Guinea, The Ivory Coast) and to participate in atrocities in Sierra Leone, notably in the RUF attacks designed to take the cities of Kono (1998) and Freetown (1999). Under pressure from the opposition caused by his violent policy of repression, he had to resign in 2003 and was indicted by the Special Court for Sierra Leone (on 7th March 2003) on account of his support to the Sierra Leonean rebels and of crimes perpetrated during the civil war: war crimes (acts of terrorism, damages to personal dignity, cruel treatment, enlisting children to participate in the war and in looting) and crimes against humanity (murder, rape, sexual slavery and other inhumane acts). Nigeria, which granted him political asylum, then left him to be captured and handed him to the Special Court in 2006, at the request of the newly-formed Liberian government. He was thereafter tried in The Hague, not in Sierra Leone, so that his trial would not destabilize the region.
Theoretical framework
1. Transnationalisation of economic-political crime. In ‘failed’ or ‘collapsed’ States whose governments are opposed by military factions more or less established in the population, internal anarchy enables transnational criminal organizations to thrive. These develop their traffics by supplying warring factions with weapons. Their remuneration consisting in the violent seizure of the resources in the controlled territories, they do not hesitate, to do so, to commit the most serious international crimes. Peace is particularly difficult to restore when the leaders of a neighboring state are stakeholders of this trafficking. Indeed, in harmony with rebel groups from abroad, they are part of a cross-border criminal enterprise at the service of which they provide the means of their country; their positions thus compromising all the more the peace efforts deployed by the Security Council.
2. The abuse of governmental powers as an aggravating circumstance. While “the official position of the accused, whether as Head of State or as high-ranking officials,” is no longer considered “as absolving excuse, nor as a motive for reducing the sentence” by international criminal law (Statute of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, art. 7), a trend is emerging today in the jurisprudence of international criminal tribunals. The latter now consider the abuse of the exercise of their powers by rulers as an aggravating factor in determining their sentence. This repressive strategy is relevant to fight this form of transnational crime in which rulers are most often accomplice of crimes committed than their direct perpetrators.
Analysis
Triggered by the alliance between the Liberian and Sierra Leonean factions and of the NPF and RUF to take over power in their respective countries, the civil war in Sierra Leone has, as a main stake, the control of diamond fields and of the diamond market on which the Government of Sierra Leone was never able to establish its monopoly. This conflict then persisted due to the trafficking of these gems – the “blood diamonds” – for which Liberia had become the hub under the chairmanship of Taylor. Since it occupied the diamond region bordering Liberia, the RUF could easily obtain weapons from C. Taylor who, sheltered by his State position, could trade stones thus smuggled in. To put an end to a war thus maintained by such a criminal economy, the Security Council has used diverse instruments.
To dry out these traffics and deprive the rebellion of its resources, it first isolated the RUF by acting upon the neighboring States (Resolution 1171/1998), especially on Liberia. Then he ordered the country to stop giving any military or financial aid and took steps to freeze its assets. To circumscribe smuggling and increase the risk for “bleachers”, only imports of rough diamonds with a certificate of origin issued by the Government of Sierra Leone have been authorized (Resolution 1306/2000). To increase the effectiveness of this device, the Council eventually decided an embargo on diamonds from Liberia and arms deliveries to this country (Resolution 1343/2001). Moreover, since the process of transition and reconciliation launched under the aegis of the UN and ECOWAS (Economic Community of West Africa) in 1999 did not prevent the resumption of hostilities (500 peacekeepers were captured by the RUF in May 2000), the Security Council had to set up a peacekeeping operation (Resolution 1270/1999 creating UNAMSIL) on an exceptional scale: up to 17,500 troops.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone, created by an agreement between the UN and Sierra Leone (16 January 2002) to try “those who bear the heaviest responsibilities,” sentenced Taylor to an exemplary sentence that could contribute in the future to deter other governments to develop this particularly pernicious form of economic-political crime. Indeed, the Trial Chamber did not merely find him guilty of aiding, encouraging and planning war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone. The Chamber also considered that he had abused his position as president of Liberia, as that he held in Committee of Five of the ECOWAS mandated by the UN to help restore peace, in the committing of these crimes. Finally, the Chamber felt that he had personally benefited financially by fueling the conflict: all these elements being retained as aggravating circumstances.
This decision is in the exact extension of the jurisprudence of the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda). In this case, that court ruled in 1998 that the high ministerial functions held by Jean Kambanda, former Prime Minister of Rwanda accused of genocide, were “likely to definitively exclude all possibility of mitigation of punishment” (ICTR, 4 September 1998, Jean Kambanda).
References
Chataignier Jean-Marc, L’ONU dans la crise en Sierra Leone. Les méandres d’une négociation, Paris, Karthala, 2005.
Decaux Emmanuel, « Les gouvernants », in : Hervé Ascensio, Emmanuel Decaux, Alain Pellet (Éd.), Droit international pénal, Paris, Pedone, 2000.
Martineau Anne-Charlotte, Les juridictions pénales internationalisées, Paris, Pedone, 2007.
Strange Susan, The Retreat of the State, The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy, Cambridgge, Cambrdge University Press, 1996.
Aug 22, 2012 | Articles, Fil d'Ariane, Publications (English)
Par John Cash
This article was first published in Australian Feminist Law Journal, (30), 2009, and is republished here with permission of the editors of the AFLJ.
Dr. John Cash is a Fellow in the School of Philosophy, Anthropology and Social Inquiry at the University of Melbourne. He is also an editor of the Journal of Postcolonial Studies. His publications include Identity, Ideology and Conflict; the structuration of politics in Northern Ireland, Cambridge University Press, 1996 & 2010, and a series of articles and chapters that draw critically on social and psychoanalytic theory in order to develop novel approaches to the analysis of social relations, subjectivity and entrenched political and ethnic conflict. The most recent of these is “Squaring some vicious circles: transforming the political in Northern Ireland” in Consociational Theory, Routledge, 2009. His recent book, co-authored with Joy Damousi, is titled Footy Passions, UNSW Press, 2009. He is also co-editing, with Gabriele Schwab, a book titled The Postcolonial Unconscious. A longer-term project focuses on ‘Insecurity’.
Mailing address: School of Philosophy, Anthropology and Social Inquiry, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, 3010, Australia.
Télécharger l’article Negotiating Insecurity; Law, Psychoanalytic Social Theory and the Dilemmas of the World Risk Society
Jul 22, 2012 | Articles, Fil d'Ariane, Publications (English)
Par Philip G. Cerny
Review of International Studies (2009), 35, 421–449 Copyright _ British International Studies Association
doi:10.1017/S0260210509008584
Abstract
What has been traditionally conceptualised as ‘the international’ has been undergoing a fundamental transformation in recent decades, usually called ‘globalisation’. Globalisation is a highly contested concept, and even among those who accept that some sort of globalisation process is occurring, attempts to analyse it have focused on a range of structural explanations: the expansion of economic transactions; the development of transnational or global social bonds; and the emergence and consolidation of a range of semi-international, semi-global political institutions. In all of these explanations, the role of actors as agents strategically shaping change has been neglected. In this article I argue that structural variables alone do not determine specific outcomes. Indeed, structural changes are permissive and can be the source of a range of potential multiple equilibria. The interaction of structural constraints and actors’ strategic and tactical choices involves a process of ‘structuration’, leading to wider systemic outcomes. In understanding this process, the concepts of ‘pluralism’ and ‘neopluralism’ as used in traditional ‘domestic’-level Political Science can provide an insightful framework for analysis. This process, I argue, has developed in five interrelated, overlapping stages that involve the interaction of a diverse range of economic, social and political actors. Globalisation is still in the early stages of development, and depending on actors’ choices in a dynamic process of structuration, a range of alternative potential outcomes can be suggested.
Télécharger l’article Multi-Nodal Politics: Globalisation is What Actors Make of it
Jul 7, 2012 | environment, Global Public Goods, Multilaterism, Passage au crible (English)
By Clément Paule
Translation: Pierre Chabal
Passage au crible n°71
Source : Wikipedia
From 20 to 22 June 2012, the Brazilian metropolis of Rio de Janeiro hosted the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Involving more than 40,000 participants – representing multinational firms, farmers and indigenous peoples as well as local communities, NGOs, scientists and trade unions – the Summit is said to have attracted nearly 130 Heads of State and Government. Culmination of a long phase of negotiations started in 2010, this meeting was to table again environmental issues on the international agenda and define medium-term objectives for actors involved. Many themes were addressed, from the reduction of gases with greenhouse effect to the threats to biodiversity, deforestation and uncontrolled urbanization. The conference led to the publication of a text of 49 pages entitled The future we want – with 283 points clarifying perspectives and commitments – about 700 of them – of the signatories. In addition, the Secretary General of the UN was able to put forth a success heralding the union of the private sector and civil society in order to reconcile economic prosperity and the preservation of Global Public Goods.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
Note that these global meetings are held every ten years since the first United Nations Conference on Human Environment was held in Stockholm from 5 to 16 June 1972. This process of norm creation has indeed continued in Nairobi in 1982, Rio in 1992 and Johannesburg in 2002. These meetings, which yield mixed, have still made it possible to set up UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) in 1972 and the implementation of the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework on Climate Change) twenty years later. Therefore one ought to stress the achievements of the Earth Summit in 1992, described by its organizers as a historic moment for humanity, in the awareness of threats to the environment. The adoption of Agenda 21 and the signing of two binding conventions on the fight against global warming and the preservation of biodiversity bear testimony to this progress. In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol – which came into force in 2005 – aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse effect gases and confirmed the dynamic strengthening of international cooperation on this issue.
However, the fiasco of the fifteenth COP (Conference of Parties) in Copenhagen in 2009 was seen as a setback to the extent that the United States and China were able to block the talks. The following year, the Cancun summit has however given positive signs in terms of multilateralism, including the idea of a Green Fund to help developing countries become more involved. In this perspective, the Rio +20 Summit was managed as symbolic and decisive in the pursuit of efforts undertaken in 1992.
Theoretical framework
1. The expected wrecking of a fragmented governance. The skepticism put forth about the conference even prior to its opening shows the difficulty of negotiations in a meeting organized around the North-South gap, which seems to function a posteriori as a self-fulfilling prophecy weighing upon the actors’ expectations.
2. Green economy and the ‘commodification’ of GPGs. New avatar of sustainable development, green economy is one of the main proposals of the industrialized countries to combine environmental protection with the capitalist logic. However, this concept has been the subject of various stigmatizations from a heterogeneous coalition of protest participants.
Analysis
A few hours before the opening and the arrival of heads of state and government, negotiators completed drafting the final statement to avoid repeating the mistakes of Copenhagen. Note, however, that at the beginning of June 2012, delegates had approved only a quarter of the 283 paragraphs retained thereafter. This haste seems as much to have limited the horizon of possibilities offered by the meeting as the improvisation prevailing at the 15th COP at the end of 2009. Regarding the progress of the text, many commentators heralded the introduction of OSDs (Objectives for Sustainable Development), as environmental components of the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). However, the document was largely criticized for its shortcomings: firstly, the failure of the project of a WEO (World Environment Organization) is now obvious. Supported by the European Union, this initiative aimed at reforming the global governance of the environment, currently embodied by UNEP and the MEAs (Multilateral Environmental Agreements). Secondly, if the signatories claim the promotion of a green economy, the lack of a clear definition of this concept advocated by the North is evident. In other words, the outcome of months of negotiations proves disappointing for activists engaged in the defense of the environment.
For now, if it seems difficult to make a thorough assessment of the event, we note that the vast majority of actors had expressed skepticism in the weeks before the international conference. The unfolding of Rio +20 bears testimony in effect a diplomatic configuration stabilized around the North-South divide – the industrialized countries facing the Group of 77 and China which now has 132 members – within which Brazil has attempted to impose itself as a mediator and arbitrator. What is illustrated by this recurrent problem is the common but proportioned accountability which was again debated without clear progress. If an agreement was formalized in extremis under the auspice of the host-country, multilateralism without constraints – which had encumbered the meeting in Copenhagen late 2009 – is faced with a clear lack of leadership. In this perspective, the lengthy negotiations are more akin to a series of conflicts hastily resolved than to collaborative development of a device of a world scale. Crystallization of power relations seems to have been reinforced by the economic crisis – particularly in the euro zone – encouraging the status quo and reluctance towards any financial commitment in the medium term. Note in this respect the notable absence of Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and David Cameron, yet present on 18 and 19 June 2012 in Mexico for the G20. The interplay of the expectations of all participants takes on its full meaning, insofar as the announced failure of the Summit acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Clearly, the final consensus cannot be but a minima, thus formally stating the pursuit of the movement launched twenty years earlier and accrediting accusations of inaction.
Heralded by Greenpeace as an epic failure, Rio+20 has moreover stirred a number of protest rallies characterized by their heterogeneity. Thus, the petition launched by Hollywood artists and celebrities for the sanctuary of the North Pole has received extensive media coverage, with NGOs and environmental groups denouncing the predominance of economic logic in the process. In this regard, the oil producing countries, like Canada and Venezuela, have refused reducing subsidies to fossil fuels. Moreover, lobbying of multinationals was seen in the generalization of mercantile mechanisms as tools of environmental regulation, in line with the carbon markets created by the Kyoto Protocol. The concept of green economy then appears as an ambiguous compromise aiming at protecting the GCGs while making them profitable, that is to say by integrating them into the structures of domination. This critical stance has been defended by some actors in the South, foremost among them the presidents of Bolivia and Ecuador stigmatizing a disguised form of colonialism under the guise of environmental concerns. Mobilization of indigenous peoples – particularly visible in Brazil and South America, where their existence has often been threatened by development projects – have echoed this by exposing uncontrolled predation of resources to the detriment of local practices. Therefore, the preservation of GCGs is more than ever embedded in the economic order prevailing at the global level, in the absence of the reinvention of a pattern which has reached its limits.
References
Déclaration finale du sommet Rio+20 intitulée The Future We Want, to be consulted at http://www.uncsd2012.org [30 juin 2012].
Jacquet Pierre, Tubiana Laurence, Pachauri Rajendra K. (Éds.), Regards sur la Terre 2009. La gouvernance du développement durable, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2009. Coll. « Annuels ».
Site of IDDRI (Institut du Développement Durable et des Relations Internationales) : http://www.iddri.org [1er juillet 2012].
Uzenat Simon, « A Multilateralism without Constraints. The Commitments of the States within the Copenhagen Framework », Passage au crible, (15), Feb. 2010, to be consulted at http://www.chaos-international.org.
Jul 3, 2012 | Global Public Goods, North-South, Passage au crible (English)
By Armand Suicmez
Translation: Pierre Chabal
Passage au crible n°70
Pixabay, Yémen
On 23 May 2012, seven NGOs issued a press release informing of the current famine situation in Yemen. Against a backdrop of civil war and massive displacement of populations, nearly half of the population is affected by this crisis, among them a large majority of children. In this context, emergency assistance is deemed insufficient by the actors of development.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
Born in 1990 from the unification of the two Republics – Arab in the north and Democratic People’s in the south, ideologically Marxist –, Yemen, which is located southwest of the Arabian peninsula, still faces major problems opposing the former halves, northern and southern. However, the discovery of oil and gas deposits at the end of the 80s portended an upturn in the economy, even if the state is neither a member of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), nor of the OAPEC (Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries). However, if the export of energy raw materials accounts for 70% of the GDP, the lack of infrastructure does not allow efficient extraction operations.
In 2007-2008, the outbreak of the value of agricultural products led to many crises in the poorest regions of the world, but also among the industrialized countries. This situation, which is due to the reduction of arable land, mainly in Asia, to massive urbanization and to the increasing needs of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), then led the Chicago Board of Trade and other financial arenas to speculate on commodities such as grains and dairy products.
Yemen with a PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) of 2 500 dollars per capita a year, is classified by the UN World at the 173rd rank in terms of human development. Volatility of more than 70% on the price of basic commodities now requires Yemenis to spend about 80% of their daily wage to feed, in an area already considered as one of the poorest nations of the world.
In an area where 43% of the population is under 15 years old, the main victims are children that “mothers withdraw from school to go begging in the street” 1.NGOs such as Oxfam, Save the Children and Care denounce this absurd situation in which Yemen is, because food is still available in local markets. However, due to too high a rating, half of the population does not have enough money for food.
Conflicts and/or alliances between members of an independence movement, tribes and AQAP (Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) also force civilians in massive displacement, so that nearly 500,000 people are now living in exile. According to the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees), the multiplication of refugee camps exacerbates poverty Yemenis and greatly increases violence. Actors in the field denounce notably the lack of resources, especially when we know that out of the 447 million of dollars requested by the United Nations to provide humanitarian aid, only 43% of the amount reached their destination in donations.
Theoretical framework
1. Speculation on foodstuffs. Often associated with monetary transactions, bubbles form around the consumers’ goods, which cause higher prices. Investment risk, operated in key financial arenas, then results in a scarcity of products and in the worsening of famine in developing states.
2. The emergence of Islamic regionalism. Faces with containment by Western countries, the construction of an Islamic community as an alternative to the domination of the North, is confirmed. However, in this heterogeneous area, the leadership of this symbolic referent is disputed among emerging countries and more classic regional powers classics.
Analysis
As early as 2007, a global food crisis hit both the industrialized nations and some LDCs (Least Developed Countries) such as Yemen. Structural causes, due to societal changes, explain the increase in demand and a simultaneous decrease in supply. These effects are compounded by financial actors who see in it a renewed window of opportunity. This mutation leads to an increase in the benefits paid to shareholders.
Previously, the forward purchase (paper title) and storage of commodities have led to a surge in values, which increased the price of wheat from 145 to 230 dollars per ton. Such swelling rates are then all the more difficult to bear, in areas where low income forces people to devote their daily wage to consumption. This observation is established by NGOs that provide information monitoring in the field. According to them, such volatility seems clearly artificial because the products are not that scarce. However, their rates remain inadequate with the resources of the population.
This micro-macro mixing of actors, presents, shows a completely globalized conjuncture. Indeed, decisions taken within the frame of global finance induce a direct impact on the most remote villages in Yemen. However, this collateral damage is largely attributed by Islamist currents to the failures of the western system, the latter being widely repudiated in favor of the alternative model they seek to promote. This change in leadership mobilizes thus two capital parameters. On the one hand, it refers to the pact on Islamic traditions and is on the other inscribed within development aid. Regarding the case of Yemen, Saudi Arabia mobilizes these two levers in order to impose herself on this territory. For example, recall that recent UN discussions were held to raise funds and thus stem the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. However, of the four billion dollars released, 3.25 billion came from Saudi Arabia, against only 200 million dollars allocated by the European Union.
Finally, this situation reflects the complex interplay between religious, societal and economic data. It is clear that Yemen, home to 55% Sunni and 45% Shiite, is now an issue of dominance for regional powers. Among them Saudi Arabia – the traditional hegemon – tries to grant a role that is challenged by Turkey, already established in this part of the world.
References
Le.Monde.fr. Le Yémen touché par une grave crise alimentaire, http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2012/05/23/le-yemen-touche-par-une-grave-crise-alimentaire_1705873_3218.html, dernière consultation : le 11 juin 2012.
Oxfam, Yemen on Brink of Hunger Catastrophe Aid Agencies Warn, http://www.oxfam.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2012/05/yemen-on-brink-of-hunger-catastrophe-aid-agencies-warn.
Ravignan Antoine de, « Agriculture: pourquoi ça flambe? », Alternatives Économiques, (305), Sept.2009, p.52.
Piromallo-Gambaderlla Agata, “La communauté entre nostalgie et utopie,” Societés, (87), Jan. 2005, p. 65-73.
Béatrice Hibou, “Le réformisme, grand récit politique de la Tunisie contemporaine,” Revue d’histoire moderne contemporaine, (56), May 2009, p. 14-39.
James N. Rosenau, Turbulence in World Politics: a Theory of Change and Continuity, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1990.
1. Le Monde.fr, Le Yémen touché par une grave crise alimentaire, http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2012/05/23/le-yemen-touche-par-une-grave-crise-alimentaire_1705873_3218.html, dernière consultation : le 11 juin 2012
