May 24, 2010 | Defense, Passage au crible (English), Security, Terrorism
By Jean Jacques Roche
Translation: Melissa Okabe
Passage au crible n°23
On April 12-13 2010, United States President Barack Obama welcomed 47 heads of State and government to the Washington Summit on Nuclear Terrorism. This summit took place prior to the conference examining the Treaty of Non-Proliferation, which was held on May 3-28, 2010 in New York.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
Terrorism has long been considered a weapon of the poor. It is historically noted that throughout the Cold War terrorist threats were used to cut Western means of communication, thus, subduing this type of threat became a concern unique to Occidental Nations. In this respect, it is important to mention the 1979 Convention against the taking of hostages, the 1988 Convention organized against maritime piracy, and finally the Protocol to the 1988 Rome Convention, concerning the security of platforms situated on the continental shelf. With the bipolar international political environment coming to an end, there has been a renewal in the method of approach toward assessing the major stakes in international relations. At the dawn of the early 1990’s this change allowed in particular for the raising of opposition of developing countries. A declaratory resolution made by the UN General Assembly concerning “the measures looking to eliminate international terrorism” was passed on December 9, 1994. This text prefigured the official January 12, 1998 adoption of the “Suppression of Terrorist Bombings” Amendment.
Nuclear armaments have existed since 1945, however at present, only 9 countries have retained official or non-official possession; these countries include China, North Korea, the USA, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, the UK, and Russia. It is now routine that disarmament diplomacy resides under state control, as determined by the eight conferences examining the Treaty of Non-Proliferation (signed in 1968 and renewed sine die in 1995), and the 4 START treaties focusing on the reduction of nuclear armaments, (a new version entitled START follow-on was agreed upon and signed by President Medvedev of Russia and President Obama of the United States on April 8th, 2010 in Prague). Finally the CTBT (The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty) was adopted in 1996. However, at present this last treaty has not been put into full effect- this is due to a lack of sufficient number of ratifications and additional threats by the Iranian Government to undermine the entire process of denuclearization.
In this context, the Washington Conference has insisted on the risk surrounding the nuclear sector, and how it has weighed heavily on world security. In effect, it is no longer sufficient to just take into account nuclear warheads and their vectors; matters of security must also assess the totality of physical property which can be used to construct a dirty bomb. Present in civil power plants or in nuclear powered ships as in warheads/ nose cones accumulation, – sometimes with low security warehouses – more than 1600 tons of uranium and 500 tons of plutonium, are disseminated, in this instance, within close to 60 countries across the globe.
Theoretical framework
1. Global security: this concept was first appeared in 1983, introduced by Richard Ullman’s article entitled “Redefining Security”. Accredited as the founder of global security, his works were further developed by Barry Buzan in People, States and Fear published later that same year. It was then a question of completing the traditional security approach in diplomatic-strategic terms by organizing the material in four sectors: 1) the economy, 2) the rights of man, 3) values, and 4) the environment. Originally developed under a constructivist perspective by the Copenhagen School, the concept of global security has now been imposed as an operational framework on states and international organizations, all the while being the object of intense re-appropriation.
2. Modeling crises: Following the works of Brubacker et Laitin, the model has since disassociated crisis from violence, as situations of tension do not necessarily entail violence. With Kenneth Waltz’s publication of Man, the State, and War (1959), further research began to make clear distinctions among the following three levels: 1) man or the individual, 2) political institutions namely the state, and 3) international structure or the system of states at the international level. It is henceforth important to recombine the three categories in the same frame of analysis, by doing so one can try to understand the crucial interplay of individual actions and their consequences, relating to both the internal and international model.
Analysis
The Washington Summit leads us to question the aptitude of the secure bureaucracy in the face of nuclear terrorism. The apocalyptic character of the nuclear threat indeed implies the need for a considerable investment by various services, and makes international cooperation absolutely indispensable. If the danger as stated above results from dirty bombs, one must also know that these bombs leave traces everywhere and are at least easily located. If the alert signals are transmitted in time, the efficiency of counter-intelligence services and the police can effectively reduce the possibility of a successful (latent) terrorist attack. As such, strategies to assemble special services at the heart of the unitary structure (e.g. Homeland Security in the USA, and DCRI in France) allow for a more accurate analysis and treatment of terrorist information while reducing intra and inter institutional competition.
Inversely, the problem of dirty bombs- (exposing death to those who decide to resort to it) highlights the failure of the public structure to act effectively when confronted with such individual decisions. Moreover, national administrations have been slow in adapting to the concept of global security, which no longer requires focusing on the state as the principle designatory, but rather emphasizes the importance and concern of the human community in general. This likens to the fact that the threats no longer arise from the interstate agenda, but rather prove to be transnational in form. The French Government’s White Books (Livres Blancs) are an example of the difficulty in adjusting to the new world outlook. While the concept of global security has appeared in academic literature since the early 1980’s, the 1994 White Book does not make any reference to it. In fact, it is not until the 2008 White Book that the notion of global security finally became central to public authorities, at the very moment when the 1994 writer had become a president of the committee in charge of the 2008 document. With this approach, global security contributes to the “stressful perversion of strategic speech” – according to the expression made by Jean Dufourqc – in heightening the emotion of insecurity with the dilution of danger. As all other exercises of the same style, the French White Book reveals the mental representations its’ writers, without shedding even the slightest light on a path which could be used to anticipate future processes of destabilization. In other words, the current reflection led by political-administrative authorities seems to be adapted to filling today’s informational gaps by updating the attacks of the past. On the other hand, this reflection proves to be totally incapable of anticipating the operating modes of future acts of terrorism based on individual decisions.
References
Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: The National Security Problem in International Relations, Brighton, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1983. Rogers Brubaker, “David Laitin, Ethnic and Nationalist Violence”, Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 1998, pp. 423-452. Jean-Jacques Roche, “Épistémologie de la Prospective Sécuritaire”, Défense Nationale, juillet-août 2009, pp. 166-185. Richard Ullman, “Redefining Security”, International Security, 8 (1), Summer 1983, pp. 129-153.
May 22, 2010 | International commerce, Passage au crible (English)
By Alexandre Bohas
Passage au crible n°22
After secret negotiations, the European Union, the United States and Japan, joined by a dozen of other states elaborated in April 2010 a treaty entitled ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). The aim was to impose more restrictive norms in the field of intellectual property.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
With the globalisation of economic-cultural exchanges and the rise of new information technologies, developed countries – strongly supported by transnational firms – have encouraged the international recognition of intellectual rights. Accordingly, the TRIPS agreement (Trade-Related Issues of Intellectual Property) was concluded in 1994 in the framework of the WTO (World Trade Organisation). It was then transposed in state-members’ legislations with the assistance of international organisations, advocacy networks and firms. However, this transposition generated strong reactions – in Brazil and South Africa – notably in the pharmaceutical sector about the AIDS treatment.
After 2007, while the United States encountered difficulties during the Doha Cycle, it led secret talks on the subjects of counterfeiting with the European Union, Switzerland and Japan joined by Australia, Canada, South Korea, Jordan, Morocco, Mexico, New Zealand and Singapore. In April 2010, the draft of the treaty has been finally released.
Theoretical framework
1. The legal and political structuration of capitalism.In a market economy, the capital accumulation lies in legal and political structures. Assisted by industrialised states, major corporations, owners of brand, copyrights and patents, have undertaken to widen and deepen their stranglehold in privatising more and more intellectual property goods. Whereas the latter are non-rival – their actual use not endangering future uses – firms wish to receive a fee per every purchase. In doing so, they « build scarcity » according to the phrase of Christopher May, and assure substantial income.
2. An unequal access to intellectual property governance. In a globalised world, this regulation mechanism is often regarded as respecting all the stakeholders. In this respect, it continues to nourish projects of cosmopolitan democracy on a global scale. Yet, this is not the case. To the contrary it confirms the domination of transnational firms and Western governments in a domain which involves civil society, consumers, and developing countries.
Analysis
Described as a modest effort of customs coordination, ACTA marks actually a major turning point. It proposes firstly a reinforcement of cooperation in the matters of data-sharing on counterfeiting acts particularly perpetrated on the internet. In addition, it reinforces the 61 article of TRIPS since it criminalises non-commercial individual behaviour such as Peer-To-Peer activities. Fundamentally, it harmonises legislations according to a strong approach of intellectual property protection by generalising the harshest practices and doctrines put in place fragmentarily and partially in national legislations. Let’s note that its formulation remains particularly vague concerning its mandatory nature and its enforcing domains, which hides asymmetrical power struggles between states, firms and civil societies. Once signed then ratified, it will support in each nation proponents of an always higher intellectual property protection. The latter supporters now press Western governments to assure a lego-political structuration of the world economy which is likely to assure a situation rent and a long-term prosperity to intellectual property companies.
Dealing with controversial questions, stakeholders of ACTA wished to come with an agreement at the margins of the world scene. Yet, this way of doing goes against new power struggles, notably the determining presence of emerging powers such as the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) whose development implies the purchase and import of intellectual rights. For all that these countries have been excluded from talks while they have already provided important efforts in the domain of copyright and patent protection with TRIPS. This method of negotiation shows the wish to impose brutally international norms once they are already negotiated, which reduces all the more possible contestations. In the same logic, it reduces to silence governmental and non-governmental organisations which could have reacted and mobilised public opinions. In this sense, the internal logic belongs more to the « raison d’Etat » than the « raison du monde » notion that Philip Cerny coined.
Talks of the ACTA project belongs to a politics of fait accompli. In doing this, they contradict the world diffusion of political authority which characterized now international relations. In fact, the number of issue-areas to deal with as much as the dispersion of legitimacy oblige now international policymakers to take into account developing countries and non state actors, and in the framework of multilateralism to take decisions by consensus. Consequently it is not surprising that these procedures provoke hostile reactions from developing countries and civil societies.
References
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Public Predecisional/Deliberative Draft, April 2010, available on: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2010/april/tradoc_146029.pdf.
Bohas Alexandre, Disney. Un capitalisme mondial du rêve, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2010.
Cerny Philip G., Rethinking World Politics. A Theory of Transnational Pluralism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010.
EFF, « Preliminary Analysis of the Officially Released ACTA Text », April 2010, available on: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/eff-analysis-officially-released-acta-text.
FFII, « Analysis Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement », April 2010, available on: http://action.ffii.org/acta
/Analysis#Executive_Summary.
May Christopher, The Global Political Economy of Intellectual Property Rights: The New Enclosures, 2nd Ed., London, Routledge, 2010.
Sell Susan, Private Power, Public Law: The Globalization of Intellectual Property Rights, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
May 10, 2010 | China, Passage au crible (English), Symbolic politics
By Jenna Rimasson
Passage au crible n°21
On 30th April 2010, the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, inaugurated the Shanghai world’s fair which will remain open until 31st October 2010. After the inauguration of the Olympic Games in August 2008, the eyes of the world are once again directed at the People’s Republic of China. Nearly 72,000 volunteers on the exhibition site and 100,000 more across the city will welcome the Chinese and foreign visitors during the event. With 182 countries and 57 international organizations represented, Shanghai has launched the most expensive world fair ever, with a budget of 4.2 billion dollars, or 50 billion if we take into consideration the expenditure on city development.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
With the Industrial Revolution in full swing, the first world’s fair was organized in London in 1851 with the objective of presenting technological innovations and the different participating states. In Paris on 22nd November 1928, 31 countries signed an agreement which created the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) to regulate the organization of these events. It was subsequently modified by various protocols and amendments, the latest of which was enacted in 1988. At present 157 states are signatories; these do not however include the United States. With its headquarters in Paris, the BIE is entrusted with promoting confidence and solidarity between the cultures of the world through two types of exhibition: international (specialized) exhibitions or recognized international exhibitions, and world’s fairs or registered international exhibitions.
Bringing together representatives of states, international organizations, as well as those of civil society, these exhibitions represent privileged showcases for their comparative advantages within the framework of peaceful competition. In the past, they have also highlighted colonial conquests before bearing witness to the Cold War, particularly in the 1958 Brussels world’s fair. Initially the participants were housed in a central construction. Nowadays they build their own pavilions and thus compete in the architectural domain – the Eiffel Tower in Paris (1900), the Atomium in Brussels (1958), the Space Needle in Seattle (1962), or the Biosphere in Montreal (1967) provide emblematic examples.
Theoretical framework
1. Structural power. Distinct from the relational power of the realist school, this concept, created by Susan Strange, refers to the capacity of certain actors to shape international policy. It includes structures of security, production, knowledge and finance. Here, only the last three are important. The participants provide visibility for certain of their national products which demand specialized knowledge and know-how – illustrating the Foucauldian principle according to which knowledge constitutes power – involving the mobilization of public and private funds.
2. Soft power. Far from being reduced to influence and persuasion, this concept characterizes a process of cultural and ideological attraction which distinguishes itself from traditional power of military and economic nature.
Analysis
This world’s fair enables China to deploy all its magnificence. This is illustrated by the Chinese pavilion which dominates the entire exhibition park with its height of 49 metres, a height the Chinese prohibited other participants from exceeding. With this splendour and ostentation China exerts symbolic violence towards the other nations. After remaining at the margins of the world-system until the 1980s, then becoming just a workshop of the world economy, China is no longer content with undergoing globalization. On the contrary, from now on, it intends to be one of its principal movers. This ambition to reconfigure the world order is above all based on the diffusion of soft power, the force of the globalized projection of conquering Chinese influence. This shows the extent to which the performances organized by China during this exhibition are far from insignificant. This can be exemplified by the martial arts performances of Wudang and Shaolin which attract an international audience, especially after the worldwide success of the film, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The performances of the tea ceremony and those of puppet and shadow theatre – aimed at a younger audience – also belong to this double logic of affirmation and seduction.
The Chinese authorities systematically emphasize these cultural specificities in order to reinforce the cohesion with the Chinese diaspora and, more widely, with all Asian countries on behalf of which China intends to speak. In this respect, it should be remembered that the Shanghai world’s fair mascot, Haibo, has been drawn from the Chinese sign: (ren: Man), just as the logo for the Shanghai world’s fair has been drawn from the sign: (shi: world). While English is progressively replacing other languages as the Esperanto of commerce and diplomacy, the Chinese language, on the contrary, is envisaged as the privileged vector of a strategy of resistance or even of a linguistic and cultural counter-offensive.
In accordance with the BIE regulations which demand a specific theme for each world’s fair, the Chinese authorities have chosen “Better City, Better Life”. The aim is to turn China into an unavoidable actor in the dynamics of modernity (urbanization, sustainable development, international solidarity). In this respect, the economic aid granted by China to African countries to finance their participation confirms its ambition of future hegemony coinciding with the opening of the 20th World Economic Forum on Africa in Dar es-Salaam (Tanzania), an event aimed at “rethinking Africa’s growth strategy”. Moreover, the erection of the world’s tallest thermometer (165 m) within the exhibition park also bears witness to China’s proclaimed interest in environmental issues while the country now holds the world record – in absolute terms – for greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, confronted with international condemnations for violations of intellectual property rights, the Chinese authorities have chosen to use the Shanghais exhibition to launch a vast campaign against piracy and imitations.
Despite the record cost of the organizing the world’s fair which has been underlined by numerous observers, the potentialities for a return on the investment should be taken into account. It contributes to facilitating the negotiation or even the conclusion of major commercial contracts, especially with the twenty foreign heads of state present at the inauguration ceremony. In this vein, Nicolas Sarkozy, for example, secured the contract for providing a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant.
In spite of the current crisis in world finance, China, which on 25th April 2010 became the third shareholder in the World Bank, displays an insolent image of prosperity. By hosting an event based on technological innovations and serving economic growth, China demonstrates its capacity to further advance the decentring movement of the world economy.
References
Kita Julien, La Chine, nouvel acteur du système multilatéral, Minutes of the seminar: China: a New Player in the Multilateral System, 18th April 2008, IFRI, Paris, 18th July 2008.
Kurlantzick Joshua, Charm Offensive, How China’s Soft Power is Transforming the World, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2007.
Official website of the Bureau International des Expositions available at: http://www.bieparis.org/site/fr.html [5th May 2010]
Official website of the Expo 2010 Shanghai world’s fair, available at: http://fr.expo2010.cn/ [5th May 2010]
Apr 21, 2010 | Humanitarian, North-South, Passage au crible (English)
By Clément Paule
Translation: Davina Durgana
Passage au crible n°20
The International Conference of Donors for Haiti has taken place on March 31st, 2010 in New York. 9.9 billion dollars have been promised, mid-term, for the reconstruction of this Caribbean state. While the damages caused by the earthquake on January 12th have been valued at 7.9 billion dollars, which is 120% of the Haitian GDP (Gross Domestic Product), this diplomatic event has been considered a great success. Commentators have first of all emphasized the success of the financial mobilization, much better than was anticipated, and which covers the bulk of the estimated needs by the Préval Government. Many analyses have brought to the foreground the participative aspects of a process that equally implicates bilateral and multilateral donors as well as NGOs (non-governmental organizations), the Diaspora, the private sector and local authorities. From this point forward, the issue resides in the effective use of the assembled resources and the coordination of the multitude of actors implicated at varying degrees in the reconstruction of the country. Hence, the creation of institutional mechanisms is necessary in order to guarantee transparency and responsibility – accountability – in the use of international funds.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
Over the last few decades, Haiti has seen many catastrophes of large magnitude, provoked above all by the combination of hydrological and meteorological phenomena. Among the most recent catastrophes, cyclone Jeanne caused thousands of deaths in 2004, notably in the region of Gonaïves – a town situated 150 kilometers north of Port-au-Prince. This same zone was devastated by four successive hurricanes in August and September of 2008, which caused about 800 deaths. These drawbacks have affected more than 800,000 people and have caused considerable damages, valued at over 1 billion dollars in damages.
The country was brought under international attention because it is considered to be a fragile state, truly failing – failing State – which could potentially destabilize the Caribbean region. The tense relations between Haiti and its Dominican neighbor, the question of migration – the Haitian Diaspora is estimated to have almost 2 million people – and environmental questions comprise recurring concerns. The persistent precarious nature of Haitian socio-economic indicators, combined with fluctuating and unequal international aid that is situation-dependent has driven donors to diagnose the failure of their successive development programs. These last years, bilateral and multilateral actors have met many times to coordinate their strategies towards Haiti, occasionally of political crises – the military coup of 1990, the ousting of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004 – as well as natural disasters. Therefore, a conference of donors to Haiti was held on April 14th 2009 in Washington, a little after the hurricanes and the hunger riots of 2008.
Theoretical framework
1. Diplomacy of catastrophes. The occurrence of natural disasters and technical incidents of great magnitude has historically made Haiti the object of mobilizations of international solidarity towards its disaster victims. It seems as though states and intergovernmental organizations invest more and more in the field of action that provides a lot of visibility – truthfully, to make a scene – of their interventions in consistently in the most publicized disasters.
2. Rationalization of aid systems. The reconstruction of Haiti has revived many debates on the best practices of bilateral and multilateral donors. In this case, the instruments and institutions that are in place tend to complicate rather than resolve difficulties that seem political, but they have been identified as simple technical problems, such as coordination or effectiveness of these programs.
Analysis
Certain actors, among which are local and international non-governmental organizations, have criticized the omnipresence of the United States on the ground nearly 20,000 American military members have been deployed – as well as in diplomatic negotiations. The location of the donor meeting and the roles played by the Clinton couple appeared to have been an example of the symbolic illustration of this investment. The fact that the American Secretary of State co-chairs all of the successive sessions – at the side of President René Préval and of the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon – translates into their narrow control on the unfolding of the conference. This is what has incited criticism, such as the New York Times notably reporting that a European diplomat ironically referred to this event as the Bill and Hillary Show. To this end, however, one must recall that former President Clinton intervened in his capacity as the Special Envoy of the United Nations in Haiti – a position that he has held since May 2009 – after having been an actor in the reconstruction of South-East Asia following the tsunami. However, the modalities of aid have created behind-the-scenes tension, the Haitian government worries about being sidelined in the State Department projects that have been put into action unilaterally.
The organization of the conference also revealed the contradictions and the inconsistency of European Diplomacy. In effect, the European Union has provided the most important contribution to the reconstruction, currently almost 1.6 billion dollars – of which 243 million dollars are promised by France. This figure is clearly superior to American aid – 1.15 billion – or Canadian – 390 million. And yet, the European representatives do not seem to exercise a proportional impact to this amount, far from it, in fact. On this subject, it is important to recall that Catherine Ashton – the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs – was very criticized at the time of the catastrophe ; the diplomat did not show up in Haiti immediately after the earthquake, unlike her American counterpart, Hillary Clinton. Since January 19th, Michèle Striffler, European deputy and permanent rapporteur for humanitarian aid, deplored the less visible action of the European Union, with regard to the ostentatious intervention of the United States. Additionally, Ashton, disparaged for her diplomatic inexperience, had to face the competition of the Spanish President of the Union, who is very active in Haiti. The High Representative must be equally composed in light of unilateral announcements, such as the unexpected actions of certain member-states, such as when France proposed for example an international conference on January 14th. The European countries can seem scattered and sometimes divided in their aid efforts, notably where they had to send many hundreds of police officers to reinforce the MINUSTAH or Mission of the United Nations for Stabilization in Haiti at the end of January 2010. Even more, if France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands accept to provide personnel, Germany and the United Kingdom will, in return, refuse to join the operation. Finally, it seems however to qualify this dysfunction in the measure where Haiti does not represent the same stake for the European Union that it does for countries that are concentrated with a strong Haitian Diaspora such as the United States or still Canada.
More generally, the conference is marked by the interest that the participants are accorded for good use aid that will henceforth be efficient, coordinated and transparent. The victimized State must first be placed at the center of this system that will be requested in vain by successive Haitian governments. And yet, this aspect tends to reverse the persistent tendency of donors to channel assistance funds by non-governmental organizations – since the middle of the 1980’s – in order to by-pass a State actor that has been determined corrupt and incapable. In this instance, they are equally permitted to exercise their pressure on recalcitrant governments: such as the embargo decided upon by the United States in 1991, after the coup against President Aristide, which forbade all assistance. But the new Interim Commission for the Reconstruction – Interim Haiti Recovery Commission – is co-presided by the Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and the Special Envoy of the United Nations, Bill Clinton. The opening towards Haitian actors stays therefore limited and full of suspicion. As for local associations, some consider themselves excluded from the process. Finally, the international funds administered by the World Bank must gather the contributions of multiple donors. This upcoming coordination is presented as the key to good governance that must be applied to the aid system. In this way, it is clear that this rationalization looks to counterbalance the heterogeneity of the international public action already, which from now on is ongoing. These initiatives risk nevertheless a clash of realities put in place and again towards the existing competition between the different international actors, competition, which has already impeded the reform of the United Nations for many decades. In many ways, the reconstruction of Haiti could consequentially soon seem to the world plane as a test, in terms of collective action.
References
Buss Terry, Gardner Adam, Haiti in the Balance: Why Foreign Aid Has Failed and What We Can Do About It, Washington D.C., Brookings Institution, 2008.
MacFarquhar Neil, “Haiti Frets Over Aid and Control of Rebuilding”, The New York Times, March 31, 2010.
Maguire Robert, “Haiti: Towards and Beyond the Donors’ Conference”, USIP (United States Institute of Peace) Peace Brief, USIP, (17), April 8, 2010.
Apr 20, 2010 | Humanitarian, Passage au crible (English)
By Philippe Ryfman
Passage au crible n°19
Measuring 7.0 to 7.3, the earthquake that occurred in Haiti on 12th January 2010 already appears to be one of the most severe in the last twenty-five years. The human toll has reached at least 230,000 dead, 300,000 wounded and 1.2 million homeless in the capital and neighbouring towns. Moreover, there are some 750,000 displaced persons in the provinces. As for material damage, it could reach 120% of the GDP. Confronted with a catastrophe of this extent, the deployment of relief agencies on the island has been massive. However, the saturation of the Port-au-Prince airport, the blocking of the port, the destruction of infrastructures and the intervention of an inefficient administration all had to be contended with.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
The international system of humanitarian aid has been characterized since the 1990s by a wide diversity of actors including NGOs, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and UN and state agencies.
Contrary to received wisdom, a natural catastrophe always has an eminently political dimension. It underlines the greater or lesser ability of a country to cope, the ability of the state apparatus or its civil society. The earthquake which occurred in Chile on 27th February demonstrated this with an opposite example. On a regional level, in the case of Haiti, the considerable effort of the Dominican Republic should be noted given the traditionally poor state of relations between the two states. The role played by Brazil should also be noted in contrast to the near total absence of Mexico, which, nevertheless, is geographically nearer. Finally at the crossroads of the regional and international levels, the massive intervention of the United States remains the striking element. However, the positioning of certain actors of the system of aid, the context and the sequence of events of this crisis induce the major risk of seeing humanitarian action reconfigured in the future.
Theoretical framework
1. Private transnational actors – NGOs and the International Red Cross Movement – or public transnational actors – UN agencies, the European Union – have long occupied essential places in the humanitarian field. After the tsunami of December 2004, despite the usual interactions and partnerships, the idea of a reinforced and rationalized coordination between the different humanitarian actors has progressively imposed itself. This measure would indeed enable aid responses to be more appropriately dimensioned while avoiding a duplication of interventions and optimizing their coverage.
2. This beginning of world governance of relief has been realized under the aegis of the United Nations, entrusted with the management of the entire international structure.
Analysis
From 2005, a reconfiguration by key sectors – or clusters – corresponding to major operational or transversal areas was promoted. A second effort focused on the reorganization of funding, with the creation of a financial structure, the CERF (Central Emergency Response Fund) which aims at replacing the system of appeals, specific to each UN agency. Moreover, the General Secretariat – with its Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – is empowered to supervise the whole.
In Haiti, however, these coordination mechanisms experienced serious deficiencies, as the Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, john Holmes, admitted. Furthermore, they were immediately in competition with, even ousted by the humanitarian action of states, particularly the United States – all the more so as this was deployed around a military-humanitarian axis. This American choice appears to provide cause for concern. In the first place, because this formula had already been tested in the early 1990s and rapidly abandoned for practical reasons; a series of failures – from Somalia to Rwanda – had demonstrated its inefficiency. It also induced a calling into question of the foundations and principles governing humanitarian action. What has subsisted of this approach – in Afghanistan, particularly since 2001 with the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) — has confirmed this questionable nature. Secondly, this military-humanitarian presence is not that of the knight in shining armour landing on virgin territory devoid of all aid. Indeed, before its deployment, Haitian or international NGOS such as MSF, ACF and CARE had already come to the aid of the population alongside the IRCC (International Red Cross Committee) and several national Red Crosses. For example, the French arm of MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières), alone deployed in several days four hospitals in containers or inflated structures and treated, from January, several tens of thousand wounded. As for ACF, it daily assists 100,000 people with its water and sanitation (WASH) programs. Finally, Solidarités, Oxfam, CARE, the French Red Cross and various UN agencies played and still play key roles for the homeless and the displaced.
The speed with which the Americans discussed the reconstruction at the international level – during the conference held at New York on 31st March 2010 – seems to substantiate the idea that the humanitarian crisis is over. On the contrary, however, it continues since the post-emergency context cannot be reduced to mere technical factors – the number of the homeless, the wounded, persons displaced to other towns and the countryside, or destroyed buildings – and to a time-scale of several weeks. The crisis will persist for months, even a year or two. The short-term humanitarian needs are still considerable and the present priority consists in foreseeing and budgeting for the funding, as well as the requisite human and material resources. There is a real risk of the rainy season, tropical storms or cyclones constituting factors of deterioration. Needless to say, the reconstruction of Haiti supposes not only the implication of the entire civil society through the NGOs, but also that of the associations of the diaspora and the civil societies of the international partners.
Ultimately, this earthquake has pointed the spotlight at a long-underestimated element, which should henceforth be at the top of the international agenda. On a more and more urbanized planet – 25 cities with more than 10 million inhabitants in 2025, 10 of which exceeding 20 million – with an ever-increasing population, over the coming decades, this sort of catastrophe will provoke considerable human and material losses, particularly in the poor countries. In this respect, Haiti has demonstrated that the more a population lives precariously, the more its vulnerability to catastrophes increases almost mechanically. Consequently, the issue of the coordination of all the participants is all the more acutely raised. Yet, although the control of the world governance of humanitarian action had just de facto passed into the hands of the states, the pivotal role played by non-governmental actors and UN agencies would be the one called into question. The optimum level of aid and assistance to the victims would then be subordinated to political considerations, with the possible risk of aid being split and drastically diminished.
References
Action Aid, The Evolving UN Cluster Approach in the Aftermath of the Pakistan Earthquake: An NGO Perspective, London, Action Aid International, 2006.
Adinolfi Costanza, Bassiouni David, Lauritzsen Halvor, Williams Roy, Humanitarian Response Review, OCHA, New York, Geneva, 2005.
Chevallier Éric, “Politique et catastrophes naturelles”, Questions internationales, 2006.
FICR, Rapport sur les catastrophes dans le monde, Geneva, HCR, 2009.
Makki Sami, Militarisation de l’humanitaire, privatisation du militaire, Paris, CIRPES. Coll. Cahiers, 2004.
Ryfman Philippe, Une Histoire de l’humanitaire, Paris, La Découverte. Coll. Repères, 2008.
