Stamps commemorating the UN Free and Equal Rights Campaign in defense of LGBTI rights, launched in 2016, which caused unrest in 54 African countries and Russia. Credit: UN Postal Administration

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Feb 10 2017 (IPS)

The first-ever independent UN expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, Thai lawyer Vivit Muntarbhorn, has already begun the process of open and transparent consultations with individuals, social organizations and States, although some of them still object to the mandate.

Muntarbhorn, an international law Professor at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University, has the mission of helping protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people (LGBTI), who are victims of violence, hatred and discrimination in many countries.The new U.N. expert hopes to "invite a broader understanding of human diversity."

The Thai jurist, a graduate from English University of Oxford and a collaborator of several UN agencies since 1990, is now part of the special procedures system of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council, which safeguards the civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights, and is made up of 57 experts, 43 thematic and 17 mandated by country.

Muntarbhorn began his work at the end of January, following a contentious vote in June 2016 at the UN Human Rights Council to set the mandate that world forum agencies and social organisations have been demanding for decades. Of the 47 States that make up the Council, 21 voted in favour, 18 against and six abstained.

The approved text “was watered down by a series of amendments led by regressive countries like Russia and members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation such as Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia,” said Pooja Patel, researcher at the Geneva-based International Human Rights Service.

At the end of 2016, the independent expert’s mandate overcame other obstacles posed by African countries before the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly, which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural issues.

On the other hand, Muntarbhorn received a strong support from social organisations as well as States, mainly from Latin America and Western Europe, as well as the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Thai jurist Vitit Muntarbhorn, the UN independent expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, begins his mandate in favour of the rights of LGBTI people with an emphasis on five interrelated areas. Credit: Jena Marc Ferré / UN

The European Union’s representative, Jérôme Bellion-Jourdan, emphasised the attitude of the seven Latin American countries -Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Uruguay– which presented the original resolution to create the mandate and defended it throughout harsh debates.

Following these discussions in the Council and in the General Assembly “the numbers and support for this mandate around the world has only grown,” said André du Plessis, an Advocacy Manager of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA)

Muntarbhorn acknowledged that the dissent among countries is important, but said he intends to establish consultations with all. “We are trying to strengthen and reinforce implementation of existing standards effectively,” he said in an interview with IPS.

The expert pointed out that the term “sexual orientation” is about “how we feel towards others and it’s an external dimension of what we are, while gender identity is the internal dimension of what we are, which may be different in terms of identity from the gender or sex assigned at birth. And this is very much to do with transgender persons.”

The new UN expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity faces problems such as the rejection of the African bloc, where in many countries LGBTI people suffer very harsh laws against their rights. Credit: Amy Fallon / IPS

All people have sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), he reminded, “But SOGI are part of everyone. And the sad fact is that everybody has SOGI, but those who have a different SOGI are persecuted for being different from the perceived rather strict heterosexual male/female binary norm,” Muntarbhorn noted.

“And that’s inviting a broader understanding of human diversity, which has to come from a young age. And this is one way of preventing misunderstandings and misconceptions which ultimately may lead to violence and discrimination,” he added.

The expert’s immediate agenda includes a presentation to the Human Rights Council during its next session, from Feb. 27 to Mar. 24, as well as his first evaluation visit to a country, Argentina, from Mar. 1 to 10.

In his work plan, Muntarbhorn will emphasise “five areas interrelated and mutually reinforcing that are instrumental in the protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

“These linchpins are: decriminalisation, destigmatization, legal recognition of gender Identity, cultural inclusion with gender and sexual diversity and empathization.”

On decriminalisation, the expert said, “I think that there are 70 countries now that still criminalize and five to seven that still give the death penalty. This is a major concern. We need to dialogue well with these countries. ”

A 2015 ILGA report shows “Same-sex sexual acts – death penalty (13 States [or parts of]), six per cent of United Nation States.”

“Death penalty for same-sex sexual behaviour codified under Sharia (Islamic law) and implemented countrywide (4): Africa: Sudan. Asia: Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen, and implemented provincially (2): 12 northern states in Nigeria and the southern parts of Somalia,” the report details.

The death penalty for same-sex sexual behaviour codified under Sharia but not known to be implemented for same-sex behaviour specifically (5): Africa: Mauritania. Asia: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Qatar and UAE.

Death penalty for same-sex sexual behaviour codified under Sharia implemented by local courts/vigilantes/non-State actors (2): Asia: Iraq and Daesh (ISIS / ISIL)-held territories in northern Iraq and northern Syria.

Muntarbhorn noted that “there are also cases of countries where there may be a law criminalizing same sex relationships, affecting particularly gays. The very same countries are also very open about transgender people. And this is the reality at local level.”

“It’s very important not to generalize too much, but to look at the specifics and to try to improve across the board with fully human rights guarantees comply with international standards,” he said.

Since the 1980s nearly 15 countries have decriminalized, “so it’s really possible. And even 10 years ago or two years ago I wouldn’t have thought that an independent expert on SOGI would be here,” Muntarbhorn said.

Regarding the destigmatization, the expert recalled that “until 1990s, even at the international level gays were classified as mentally ill, when in reality they are only part of the human biodiversity.” That year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) removed homosexuality from the list of mental diseases.

“But we still have this classification particularly as regards transgender persons and intersex persons. We want to find a way of moving forward respectful of people’s identity without stigmatizing them, without medicalizing the issue, without pathologizing the situation and classifying someone as mentally ill,” he said.

The legal recognition and gender identity is very much linked with trans persons as well as intersex persons to some extent, because trans persons want to have their identity recognized legally even though it may be a different identity from their sex at birth.

“So this also is very much linked to the compulsory surgery which is imposed on them if they wish to change their identity in several countries. But in other countries even the possibility of gender identity change is none at all,” Muntarbhorn said.

“Trans are being classified as males when they feel that they are female, they dress as female and encounter a lot of problems, including bullying, including stereotyping, including problems in bathrooms, problems going to immigration, and ultimately torture,” he said.

“A lot of transgender persons are killed even in countries that recognize transgender identity change,” he noted.

On cultural inclusion, “in the specific case of LGBTI, we have positive elements such as in some communities, transgender people are protected and valued, almost as gods and goddesses, in history,” the Thai jurist said. “But in other situations we have the negative traditional practices that kill, that harm, that persecute people who are different in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Muntarbhor found “that happens in many communities, including some application of certain interpretation of religious laws, as well as the remnants of colonial laws that used to criminalize these relationships.”

About the term of the “empathization,” the expert explained that he uses it “meaning nurturing empathy, a certain understanding, self-understanding, for other people so that we are humans.”

“And this means attitude, it means knowledge, it means mindset, and it’s to do with education, but more than education. It’s to do with socialization, it’s to do with linking up with families, communities, from a young age, so that we feel empathy, a certain understanding of those who are different from us in terms of gender and sexual diversity,” Muntarbhor concluded.

The post New Mandate for LGBTI Rights at the UN appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Atomic Bomb Dome serves as a memorial to the people who died in the Aug. 6, 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. The building was the only structure left standing near the bomb’s hypocentre. Credit: Courtesy of Barbara Dunlap-Berg, UMNS

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Aug 3 2015 (IPS)

The accounts of survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki will serve as inspiration for leaders of Christian churches grouped in the World Council of Churches (WCC), which advocates the elimination of nuclear weapons.

A delegation of members of churches from Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, South Korea and the United States are making a pilgrimage to the two Japanese cities annihilated by atomic bombs dropped by the United States on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945.

“The generation of survivors of the atomic bombings are in their eighties, those that survived. And this generation is passing,” said Peter Prove, director of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs of the Geneva-based WCC, the largest and most international ecumenical body.

“But these are the real witnesses, those who could give testimony about the human impact of atomic weapons. And I think that we need to capture that moment and to amplify it,” he told IPS.

Bishop Mary-Ann Swenson of the United Methodist Church of the United States said “We will be in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to remember the horror of the atomic bomb.”

“As we gather in places devastated by the deadliest of weapons 70 years ago, we are aware that 40 governments still rely on nuclear weapons,” said Swenson, who is heading the pilgrimage.

“Nine states possess nuclear arsenals and 31 other states are willing to have the United States use nuclear weapons on their behalf,” she added.

Prove explained that the members of the delegation were carefully selected.

“The members of this delegation for this programmed visit are very strategically chosen. They come from countries that are nuclear powers, either historic ones from the War World Two period (1939-1945), like the USA, or more recent ones, like Pakistan, from outside the NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) framework,” he said.

The rest of the delegations come from the group of 31 countries mentioned by Swenson: “…so-called ‘nuclear umbrella states’. States that are not nuclear armed themselves but who rely upon protection, if I can use that term, from other nuclear powers, in this case the U.S. especially,” Prove added.

The aim of the pilgrimage is for senior leaders of churches from the seven countries to experience the 70th anniversary of the bombings and to meet the Hibakushas, as the survivors are known.

On their return, “they will convey that message of human impact back to their own governments, back to their own communities, in the interest of trying to make the case for a legal ban on nuclear weapons,” Prove said.

The delegates will have to “point out that there is a legal gap, that all other major categories of weapons of mass destruction have a legal ban….which isn’t the case for nuclear weapons.”

“Churches are good networks for doing that, in their own communities and vis-à-vis their own governments in many countries,” said Prove.

The WCC delegation will meet with Hibakushas and with religious and social figures from Japan during the activities and ceremonies to mark the 70th anniversary, whose central events will be held Aug. 6 in Hiroshima and Aug. 9 in Nagasaki.

The U.S. atomic attack left around 66,000 dead and 69,000 injured in Hiroshima – a total of 135,000 victims. In Nagasaki there were 64,000 victims: 39,000 killed and 25,000 injured.

With respect to the second phase of the church mission to Japan – advocating a ban on nuclear weapons in the rest of the world – Prove said the WCC’s strength is primarily its network of member churches around the world, much more than the Secretariat in Geneva.

“We do represent one quarter of global Christianity, 500 million people in 120 countries. So the real activity will be the extent to which those church leaders and their churches follow up with their own governments,” he said.

“And that would vary from country to country. Obviously a Norwegian church leader potentially has much greater access to influence their government than let’s say, a Pakistani church leader might do relative to their government.

“The World Council of Churches is itself a product of the post War World II period. It’s precisely because of the shock of the atrocities of the destruction of War World II that the WCC really ultimately came into existence,” Prove said.

“So, it’s a reaction to the genocide, to the Holocaust, it’s a reaction to the atomic bombings, it’s a reaction to global war and conflict in general.”

“The WCC has had a long-term commitment to working with civil society partners for nuclear disarmament, for the elimination of nuclear weapons,” he said.

“The lack of success in that project is really a function of the dysfunctionality of the international architecture for those processes,” he maintained.

As an example, he pointed to the collapse of the NPT review conference – the main nuclear disarmament negotiations – held Apr. 27-May 22 at United Nations headquarters in New York.

“The mechanisms for controlling and eliminating nuclear weapons do not function because they are in the hands of those states with an interest in maintaining nuclear weapons,” said Prove.

The WCC supports the global majority of states – 113 – that have signed the humanitarian pledge calling for a legal ban on nuclear weapons.

“So we have achieved a majority of states in support of this ban and we want to encourage a negotiation process for a legal ban on nuclear weapons. And we are hoping that this majority of states will exert their majority in that process,” he added.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

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The human rights exam in Geneva complained that U.S. President Barack Obama has failed to keep his promise to close down the Guantánamo military base. Credit: Shane T. McCoy/U.S. Navy

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, May 12 2015 (IPS)

Without the emperor’s clothes, like in the Hans Christian Andersen story, the United States was forced to submit its human rights record to the scrutiny of the other 192 members of the United Nations on Monday.

Washington attended the country’s second universal periodic review (UPR) in the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council, which reviews each U.N. member country’s compliance with international human rights standards.
“So today was a demonstration of the no confidence vote that world opinion has made of the United States as a country that considers itself a human rights champion,” said Jamil Dakwar, director of the Human Rights Program (HRP) of the American Civil Liberties Union, a non-profit organisation that has worked to defend individual rights and liberties since 1920.

“I think that there was a clear message from today’s review that the United States needs to do much more to protect human rights and to bring its laws and policies in line with human rights standards,” he told IPS.

Although the UPR has come in for criticism because its conclusions are negotiated among governments, it is recognised for starkly revealing the abuses that states commit against their own citizens and those of other countries – and the Monday May 11 session was no exception.

One of the demands set forth by the 117 states taking part in the debate was for Washington to take measures to prevent acts of torture in areas outside the national territory under its effective control and prosecute perpetrators, and to ensure that victims of torture were afforded redress and assistance.

With respect to torture, among the positive achievements mentioned was the release of a report on abuses committed as part of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) interrogation practices.

The head of the 20-member U.S. delegation that flew over from Washington, acting legal adviser in the State Department Mary McLeod, gave an indication that the negotiations for the visit by Juan Méndez, U.N. special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay were not closed.

In March, Méndez, an Argentine lawyer who lives in the United States, complained that Washington did not intend to give him access during his visit to the more than 100 inmates in Guantanamo.

The country’s closest ally, the United Kingdom, congratulated the United States on its commitment to close Guantanamo, announced by President Barack Obama before his first term began in January 2009. But the British delegate said they would like to see it actually happen.

“The problem with Guantanamo is that it created a system of indefinite detention that we would like to see shut down with the facility,” Dakwar said. “It also created a flawed system of military commissions that provide a second system of justice. This system should also be shut down.”

Ejim Dike, executive director of the U.S. Human Rights Network, said the concerns brought to the attention of the U.S. delegation revolved around issues of poverty, criminalisation and violence.

“In the United States we have more money today than we ever had. We have the highest child poverty rate of any industrialised country. However, for the UPR no one from the government mentioned poverty,” Dike commented to IPS.

The Cuban delegates addressed the issue, urging the United States to guarantee the right of all residents to decent housing, food, healthcare and education, in order to reduce the poverty that affects 48 million of the country’s 319 million people.

A number of countries asked the United States to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in effect since 1976 and considered one of the pillars of the U.N. human rights system.

They also pointed out that the United States has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Nor has it ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Furthermore, it has not recognised the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, or the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) conventions on forced labour, minimum age for admission to employment, domestic workers, and discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

McLeod also said that her country is not currently considering the ratification of the Rome Statute, which created the International Criminal Court.

Dakwar said the debate in the UPR highlighted “the issue of the lack of a fair criminal justice system that is being demonstrated through the stops and frisks, racial profiling, racial studies in the death penalty. You see it in the police violence and killing of unarmed African-Americans with no accountability.

“Its inhuman and unfair system of immigration needs to again be brought in line with human rights…That means…no detention of migrants, and ending migrants’ family detention,” he added.

Another of the main recommendations to the United States is that it desist from targeted killings through drones.

“The United States continues to violate human rights in the name of national security and it needs to roll back these policies and bring them in line with the U.S. constitution and international law,” Dakwar argued.

“Also in the domestic system we have surveillance of Muslim communities. There is a guidance by the Department of Justice that they allow the use of informants within communities, particularly Muslim and Middle Eastern communities,” he added.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

The post U.S. Failings Exposed in U.N. Human Rights Review appeared first on Inter Press Service.

“Where are they? Our disappeared.” A protest march by the mothers of victims of forced disappearance in Mexico City. Credit: Daniela Pastrana/IPS

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Feb 16 2015 (IPS)

“The U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances is not a court, and I say this to avoid any misunderstanding,” German expert Rainer Huhle said while presenting the committee’s recommendations to the government of Mexico, where the problem has reached epidemic proportions.

Huhle, one of the 10 members of the committee, explained how the language and rhythms of international diplomacy work even in a pressing case like the tens of thousands of enforced disappearances reported in Mexico.

“The information received by the committee shows a context of generalised disappearances in a great part of the country, many of which could qualify as enforced disappearances,” says the report containing the committee’s concluding observations, presented Friday, Feb. 13.

It notes that disappearances were already occurring in December 2010, when the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance went into effect.

The text uses the conditional tense to urge the Mexican government to take action, in a tone of mild rebuke, repeating, for example, “the state party should…” in several of its recommendations – but without ignoring any of the most serious aspects of the crime of enforced disappearance.

“I think the analysis is very thorough,” María Guadalupe Fernández, whose son was disappeared, and who belongs to a group of victims’ relatives in the northeastern Mexican state of Coahuila – Fuerzas Unidas por Nuestros Desaparecidos en Coahuila y en México – told IPS.

The lawyer Michael Chamberlin, of the Fray Juan de Larios Diocesan Human Rights Centre in Coahuila, told IPS it was “positive that the committee recognised that disappearances are widespread, because it puts into perspective the magnitude of the phenomenon in Mexico.”

Chamberlin was also pleased that the committee “pointed to the lack of a precise registry of disappearances linked to efficient search mechanisms for recent and past disappearances, sensitive to gender, age and nationality.”

The lack of precise information on the number of disappeared was one of the points that was most emphasised by the committee, which demanded that the Mexican state resolve the issue over the next year.

According to a Mexican government figure cited by rights watchdog Amnesty International, some 22,600 people have gone missing in the last eight years.

“These figures have changed in magnitude several times,” Huhle told IPS. “We can’t trust these statistics because we don’t know how they get them.”

The committee considered the case of Mexico at a special hearing held Feb. 2-3 in Geneva.

“Within a year, we hope the authorities will tell us what they have managed to do. They should understand that this is a priority. Of course, we don’t expect everything to be perfect in one year, but by then they should have taken a few steps forward,” he added.

The committee also set a one-year deadline for Mexico to address the problem of missing migrants, most of whom come from Central America, and a smaller proportion from several South American countries, “who cross Mexico trying to reach the ‘paradise’ north of the Rio Grande,” Huhle said.

The committee was more emphatic in declaring its concern for missing migrants, “including children…among whom there are apparently cases of enforced disappearance,” say the concluding observations.

The third demand by the committee, also with a one-year deadline, is that Mexico “must redouble its efforts with a view to searching for, locating and freeing” people who have been disappeared.

Chamberlín also said it was positive for activists that the committee demanded that the legislation in Mexico’s different states be harmonised, and that it underlined the impunity surrounding forced disappearances and pointed out how the authorities avoid carrying out proper investigations by disguising disappearances as other crimes.

Fernández, the mother of José Antonio Robledo Fernández, an engineer who went missing in January 2009 at the age of 32, stressed that the committee “put a spotlight on a grave problem that has overwhelmed Mexico.”

It did this, she said, by demanding the implementation of mechanisms “that will not just be medium- to long-term plans but will be immediate, so the state will support the families who go around the country looking for our loved ones.”

But Fernández did not agree with the committee’s decision to give the Mexican state until 2018 to live up to its recommendations, with the exception of the three one-year deadlines regarding the registry of disappearances, migrants and the search for missing people.

“I really doubt that the state will live up to this and meet all of the recommendations of the committee in support of the indirect victims of this national emergency and that it will put an end to all of the human rights abuses and implement standards that should be immediate,” she said.

Among the gaps left by the committee, Chamberlin said it had failed to mention the lack of independence of the prosecutor’s office “as one of the main causes of the impunity in terms of disappearances.” It only mentioned this in the case of the military justice system, the lawyer said.

Nor did it refer to the lack of penalties for government officials or employees guilty of negligence or corruption, he added.

Chamberlin noted that the committee did not take into account the crisis of credibility suffered by the country’s justice system. He said it should have urged the state to fully cooperate with the group of experts on forced disappearance appointed by the Inter-American Committee on Human Rights (IACHR).

The experts will make several visits to different parts of the country this year, as part of the precautionary measures issued by the IACHR in the case of the 43 missing students from the Escuela Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa, a rural teachers college in the southern state of Guerrero, who were disappeared on Sep. 26.

The IACHR group of experts “will not only try to investigate and to overcome shortcomings in the investigation, but will also try to give certainties to the victims’ families,” said Chamberlin.

The human rights activist called for “a more proactive role by the committee and not only as an observer of the serious situation in Mexico….When it comes down to it, how many countries can you describe as having a ‘context of generalised disappearances’?”

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

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Julian Assange in one of his rare public appearances in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he has been in hiding since June 2012. Credit: Creative Commons

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Jan 30 2015 (IPS)

There is a window of hope, thanks to a U.N. human rights body, for a solution to the diplomatic asylum of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, holed up in the embassy of Ecuador in London for the past two and a half years.

Authorities in Sweden, which is seeking the Australian journalist’s extradition to face allegations of sexual assault, admitted there is a possibility that measures could be taken to jumpstart the stalled legal proceedings against Assange.

The head of Assange’s legal defence team, former Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, told IPS that in relation to this case “we have expressed satisfaction that the Swedish state“ has accepted the proposals of several countries.

The prominent Spanish lawyer and international jurist was referring to proposals set forth by Argentina, Cuba, Ecuador, Slovakia and Uruguay.

The final report by the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR), adopted Thursday Jan. 28 in Geneva, Switzerland, contains indications that a possible understanding among the different countries concerned might be on the horizon.

The UPR is a mechanism of the Geneva-based Human Rights Council to examine the human rights performance of all U.N. member states.

The situation of Assange, a journalist, computer programmer and activist born in Australia in 1971, was introduced in Sweden’s UPR by Ecuador, the country that granted him diplomatic asylum in its embassy in London, and by several European and Latin American nations.

The head of the Swedish delegation to the UPR, Annika Söder, state secretary for political affairs at Sweden’s foreign ministry, told IPS that “This is a very complex matter in which the government can only do a few things.”

Söder said that in Sweden, Assange is “suspected of crimes, rape, sexual molestation in accordance with Swedish law. And that’s why the prosecutor in Sweden wants to conduct the primary investigation.

“We are aware of Mr. Assange’s being in the embassy of Ecuador and we hope that there will be ways to deal with the legal process in one way or the other. But it is up to the legal authorities to respond,” she said.

Assange’s legal defence team complains that Sweden’s public prosecutor’s office is delaying the legal proceedings and refuses to question him by telephone, email, video link or in writing.

Garzón noted that parallel to the lack of action by the Swedish prosecutor’s office, there is a secret U.S. legal process against Assange and other members of Wikileaks, the organisation he created in 2006.

“The origin of the U.S. legal proceedings against Assange was the mass publication by Wikileaks of documents, in many cases sensitive ones, which affected the United States,” said Garzón.

Wikileaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and other classified U.S. documents revealed practices by Washington that put it in an awkward position with other governments.

Assange sought refuge in the embassy after exhausting options in British courts to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning related to allegations of rape and sexual molestation, of which he says he is innocent. He has not been charged with a crime in Sweden and is worried that if he is extradited to that country he will be sent to the United States, where he is under investigation for releasing secret government documents.

If the legal process in Sweden begins to move forward, there would be a possibility for him to be able to leave the Ecuadorean embassy, where he took refuge on Jun. 19, 2012, and give up the diplomatic asylum he was granted by the government of Rafael Correa on Aug. 16, 2012.

In the UPR report, Sweden promised to examine recommendations made by other countries and to provide a response before the next U.N. Human Rights Council session, which starts Jun. 15.

Garzón has urged the Swedish government to specify a timeframe for the legal action against Assange, as the delegation from Ecuador recommended in the UPR.

“The Human Rights Committee, another specialised U.N. body, stipulates that precise timeframes must be established for putting a detained person at the disposal of a judge,” he pointed out.

Söder told IPS that Sweden’s legal system does not set any deadline for the prosecutor to complete the pretrial examination phase, as reflected in the Assange case.

Garzón is also asking Sweden to introduce, as soon as possible, “measures to ensure that the legal proceedings are carried out in accordance with standards that guarantee the rights of individuals, concretely the right to effective judicial recourse and legal proceedings without undue delays.”

He also called for the adoption of administrative and judicial measures to make investigations before the courts more effective. With respect to this, he mentioned “the practice of measures of inquiry abroad, in line with international cooperation mechanisms.”

In addition, the international jurist demanded measures to ensure that people deprived of their freedom are provided with legal guarantees in accordance with international standards.

The Swedish delegation agreed to study a recommendation by Argentina to “take concrete measures to ensure that guarantees of non-extradition will be given to any person under the control of the Swedish authorities while they are considered refugees by a third country,” in this case Ecuador.

These should include legislative measures, if necessary.

This is important because Assange is facing the threat that the Swedish or British authorities could accept an extradition request from the United States for charges of espionage, which carry heavy penalties.

In his comments to IPS, Garzón said he was “disappointed” that the Swedish state has not accepted one of Ecuador’s recommendations.

He was referring to the request that Sweden streamline international cooperation mechanisms on the part of the judiciary and the prosecutor’s office in order to ensure the right to effective legal remedy, specifically in cases where the person is protected by the decision to grant asylum or refuge.

It was stressed in the UPR that the right to asylum or refuge is considered a fundamental right, and must be respected and taken into account, making it compatible with the right to legal defence.

The director-general of legal affairs in Sweden’s foreign ministry, Anders Rönquist, argued that there is no international convention on diplomatic asylum.

The only one referring to that issue is the inter-American convention, he said, adding that the International Court of Justice in The Hague does not require recognition of diplomatic asylum.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

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UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi in his office. Credit: UNCTAD

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Jun 13 2014 (IPS)

As it turns 50, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) finds itself engaged in an ongoing struggle to reduce economic and social inequalities in the world.

“Compared with 50 years ago, today inequality within countries has risen in a startling number of countries both rich and poor,” said UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi.

“Indeed, today some individuals are now as wealthy as entire countries,” the Kenyan economist told IPS in this interview at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva.

UNCTAD emerged through the efforts of countries of the developing South and for that reason within the concert of the United Nations it is known as the agency that represents poor countries.

When UNCTAD was created on Jun. 16, 1964, the member states agreed that “Economic development and social progress should be the common concern of the whole international community,” Kituyi said.

According to the U.N. General Assembly resolution that created UNCTAD, one of its principle functions is: “To formulate principles and policies on international trade and related problems of economic development.”

Kituyi said the resolution signaled “a move beyond the principles that had previously led to the establishment of the Bretton Woods institutions [the World Bank and the Institutional Monetary Fund] and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade [GATT – the predecessor to the World Trade Organisation].”

Its unique characteristics and its close ties to the developing South put UNCTAD in the sights of the countries of the industrialised North and the institutions that revolve around them. In its 50 years of life, the Conference has managed to overcome a number of offensives aimed at modifying its pro-South policies and cutting its budget.

Kituyi, who took over as UNCTAD chief in September 2013, discussed with IPS his vision of the social and economic context in which UNCTAD is operating.

Q: What would you say is society’s reaction to inequality today?

A: The unequal distribution of income and wealth has inflamed passions and spurred public debate in a manner unseen in more than a generation. Across the world, people with different cultural, religious, and political beliefs are increasingly in agreement that an unequal society is not only unjust, but also unproductive.

Q: Could you give an example?

A: Inequality has captured our imaginations, as evidenced by the recent surprise success of French economist Thomas Piketty’s book, “Capital in the Twenty-first Century”. Talk of global taxes [as proposed by Piketty] to reduce inequalities, unthinkable just a decade ago, has recently splashed across the headlines and across the airwaves of even the most ‘laissez-faire’ conservative news outlets.

Q: What conclusion do you take away from this bestseller, which has sparked widespread discussion and debate?

A: The popularity of Professor Picketty’s book is more a reflection of the broader realisation by society as a whole that unsustainable economic practices leading to the over-accumulation of wealth are not only unfair, but can bring crisis and stagnation, even conflict.

Q: How has the international community reacted?

A: At the United Nations in New York, diplomats from every corner of the world are now working to agree on Sustainable Development Goals that would pick up where the Millennium Development Goals leave off in 2015. Beyond obvious environmental concerns about climate change, economic and social sustainability are also central to these discussions.

Q: What is being considered with regard to the question of inequality?

A: A goal to reduce inequality within and among countries by 2030 is on the proposed list currently being considered by member states. This is a direct consequence of the growing consensus on inequality’s detrimental effects on lasting prosperity.

Q: What precedents are there in this respect?

A: Our newfound, heightened concern for reducing inequality and ensuring prosperity for all must build on the strong aversion for inequality, which has been at the heart of a half-century of United Nations work.

Q: And in the case of your organisation?

A: When UNCTAD was founded exactly fifty years ago, our member states specifically called for ‘the division of the world into areas of poverty and plenty to be banished and prosperity achieved by all.’

Q: What has happened in these five decades?

A: The key difference between today and fifty years ago is the nature of the inequalities we face. The new global economy has brought with it both immense hopes but equally immense inequities.

A half century after UNCTAD’s founding we have seen promising declines in inequality between countries, as a number of developing countries, notably the BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa] countries. But others as well have experienced significant growth performance and moderate success in transforming the structure of their economies from agriculture towards industry and services.

Q: What strategies have been followed?

A: Even 15 years ago, when we were formulating the Millennium Development Goals, the focus was still on reducing inequality between countries, by reducing extreme poverty through growth. Globalisation, which enabled poverty to be cut in half worldwide over the past 20 years, has acted as a double-edged sword, leaving behind the less well-off both in the poorest countries and in the advanced economies as well.

Q: What policies are needed now?

A: The role of the multilateral system in providing global public goods to help compensate those who have lost out from globalisation has never been more necessary.

That is why as we mark UNCTAD’s fiftieth anniversary, we know that while the world may have changed from when the organisation was created, the need for the inclusive space of dialogue which our conference provides is stronger than ever.

Q: And with respect to each specific area of the economy?

A: To help reduce inequalities in our member states trade must serve as an enabler not a disabler, finance must be constructive not destructive, and technological progress must serve the interests of all segments of society.

Q: How can all of this be put into practice?

A: Well thought-out national development strategies are needed to ensure this, particularly in the least developed countries and in Africa. These are all areas where UNCTAD expertise is unparalleled, and moving forward into our next half century we will bolster our work to serve both the developing and developed countries to support these critical areas.

The post Q&A: “Some Individuals Are Now as Wealthy as Entire Countries” appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A U.N. Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva. Credit: Jean-Marc Ferré/U.N.

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Mar 28 2014 (IPS)

The bloody events that marked the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war between government and Tamil separatist forces will be the focus of an independent international investigation, according to a United Nations Human Rights Council decision.

The serious human rights violations denounced by U.N. agencies are blamed on both sides. The inquiry will cover the abuses committed during the final period of the 1983-2009 war and after the government’s victory.

Juliette de Rivero, Geneva director of Human Rights Watch, told IPS that nearly five years on, the victims are still awaiting justice and for those responsible to be held to account.

“There are still no answers for the up to 40,000 civilian deaths for the last months of the fighting in Sri Lanka, nor for the 6,000 forcibly disappeared,” she said.

The Sri Lankan government rejected the Human Rights Council resolution adopted Thursday Mar. 27 on the argument that it erodes the sovereignty of the people of Sri Lanka and the core values of the U.N. Charter, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the basic principles of law that postulate equality among all people

The resolution was approved with a 23 to 12 vote, with 12 abstentions.

Tamil leaders following the debate in Geneva, where the Council is based, were not completely pleased with the resolution either.

One of the leaders, Visvalingam Manivannan, told IPS that “Our most pressing concern is that the High Commissioner’s (Navi Pillay) report or the resolution say nothing to halt the ongoing genocide against the Tamil nation.

“We are of the opinion that this can only be achieved through the establishment of a U.N.-sponsored transitional administration (in Sri Lanka) established through the aegis of the U.N. Security Council,” said Manivannan, who represents Vigneshvssu Vssu Vssu, an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the U.N. Economic and Social Council.

The case of Sri Lanka has been unusual in terms of the alignments it triggered among the Human Rights Council’s 47 member countries.

The resolution was sponsored by the United States and co-sponsored by the United Kingdom, Macedonia, Mauritius and Montenegro, with strong support from the European Union countries in the debates.

Alongside Sri Lanka, Pakistan took the lead in protesting the resolution, with outspoken support from China and Russia.

This time, Colombo lost the backing of three key Asian nations: India, Indonesia and Japan, which abstained from voting.

The North-South divide that persists in the Council, as in other multilateral bodies, was blurred in this case. Of the 13 African nations, three voted in favour of Sri Lanka, four voted for the U.S.-sponsored resolution and the remaining six abstained, including South Africa.

Among the Latin American members, there was no middle ground. Cuba and Venezuela voted against the resolution and defended the arguments set forth by the Sri Lankan ambassador.

Meanwhile, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico and Peru aligned with Washington. “We did it to end the impunity,” a diplomat from one of these countries told IPS.

Sri Lanka ambassador Ravinatha Arayasinha reached a different conclusion.

“A majority of the 47 members of the Human Rights Council -12 countries opposing and 12 other countries abstaining – has made it clear that they do not support the action taken by the United States, the UK and the co-sponsors of this resolution to impose an international inquiry mechanism concerning Sri Lanka.”

The resolution noted that in her report, the high commissioner had concluded that Sri Lanka’s national justice system and human rights mechanisms had systematically failed in their duty to discover the truth and deliver justice.

The Council thus accepted Pillay’s recommendation that an international inquiry be launched to carry out an in-depth investigation.

A leader of the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF), Gajendrakumar Ponnampalan, told IPS that “The remedy for violations at the level of gravity that occurred ultimately cannot be anything short of a credible international investigation and a judicial process through the ICC (International Criminal Court) or an Ad Hoc special tribunal.”

A group of experts appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon concluded that Sri Lankan government troops were involved in widespread abuses, including indiscriminate bombing of civilians, summary executions and rapes.

From 80,000 to 100,000 lives were claimed by the civil war between the Sri Lankan army and separatists demanding a Tamil state in the north of the island.

The conflict came to an end when the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Velupillai Prabhakaran, died in the fighting.

The U.N. experts accused the Tamil separatists of using civilians as human shields, recruiting child soldiers, and killing families trying to flee the fighting.

The U.N. Council resolution called on the Sri Lankan government to carry out a credible independent investigation of the allegations and to put an end to human rights abuses in the South Asian country.

Ponnampalan said “There is an ongoing genocide carried out by the Sri Lankan state, whose goal is the de-Tamilisation of Sri Lanka.

“Any reconciliation project has to include the Tamil nation – smaller in number on the island – and the Sinhala nation – a majority within the current configuration of the Sri Lankan state,” the TNPF leader said.

But “The Sinhala nation has no intention of ‘reconciling’ with the Tamil nation and wants it to assimilate into its vision of a Sinhala Buddhist Sri Lanka,” he maintained.

“Indeed, the only ‘remedy’ for the Tamil people in Sri Lanka is fleeing or assimilation,” he argued.

The post UN to Investigate War-Time Atrocities in Sri Lanka appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The Syrian independence flag flies over a large gathering of protesters in Idlib. Credit: Freedom House/cc by 2.0

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Jan 18 2014 (IPS)

The future of the complex armed conflict in Syria, which involves religious and ethnic factors as well as pressures from neighbouring countries and the strategic interests of global powers, will begin to take shape next week at a conference known as “Geneva 2.”

On Jan. 24 it will become apparent whether the warring parties in Syria will accept a negotiated solution to the three-year conflict that has already ended the lives of over 100,000 people and displaced 2.3 million from their homes, while some 9.3 million people are in extreme need of humanitarian aid.“Geneva 2 will not end the war. It can’t.” -- David Harland, the executive director of HD Centre

Representatives of the government of President Bashar al-Assad and delegations from the rebel forces that have been fighting against it since March 2011 are due to meet on that date in the Swiss city of Geneva.

So far, neither side has given a clear indication of its willingness to participate in the talks, in what are apparently delaying tactics aimed at strengthening their bargaining positions.

Prospects for the negotiations appeared to shift in recent weeks as infighting broke out among opposition forces.

A source who is well-informed about the internal situation in Syria told IPS that some opposition groups want freedom in order to combat other forces that are also opposed to Assad.

At the moment, “the more moderate groups are succeeding in military operations against the more radical Al Qaeda groups,” which are completely opposed to a ceasefire, the source said.

The Geneva 2 conference, organised by the United Nations, will open formally on Wednesday Jan. 22 in Montreux, on the northeastern shore of Lake Geneva, at the opposite end of the lake from Geneva itself.

The Montreux meeting will be attended by governments from 30 countries and delegates from international organisations, as well as U.N. representatives headed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Participants are likely to deliver exhortations for peace and to be largely critical of the Assad regime.

In the last few weeks the United States and Russia have intensified efforts to guide the negotiations towards two primary goals at this first stage: achieving a ceasefire and opening up corridors for aid to reach those most in need.

David Harland, the executive director of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD Centre), a prívate organisation based in Geneva, said the best solution for the difficult humanitarian situation is to deliver aid with the cooperation of the government and all parties.

“At the moment it’s not happening,” he said. “A lot of convoys have been blocked.”

Most convoys have been blocked because they have not received approval from the Damascus government, or because of fighting, or by criminal gangs or extremists, Harland said.

“It’s now very hard to carry out humanitarian operations in areas controlled by the opposition,” he said.

In the run-up to the conference, it is Harland’s view that a ceasefire may be very possible in areas where the opposition forces are surrounded, as in the Houla region and the city of Homs, in the western province of the same name.

A ceasefire will also be possible in areas where the government is holding out in enclaves within territory controlled by the opposition, as in Dar’a and Dayr az Zawr, in the northeast, and Idlib, in the north, he said.

While maintaining a low public profile, the HD Centre successfully offers mediation services and specialises in armed conflicts. In Syria, Harland, a former diplomat from New Zealand, has held meetings with Assad and with leaders of the armed opposition.

On the basis of these, Harland believes that “Geneva 2 will not end the war. It can’t,” he underlined.

The Geneva process has assumed that the U.S. and Russia have enough common ground on Syria to move things forward.

So far, over a period when over 100,000 people have died, this has not been the case, he said.

The problem is that the Geneva process has not found a way to give much voice to Syrians active in the opposition on the ground. “This will have to change if the peace process is to gain traction,” Harland said.

Geneva 2 will be a success “if it opens the door to a new type of peace process,” he said.

A successful peace process would have to be informed by the Syrian people themselves, but implemented with help from the outside.

“It would have to be a minuet: consultations with the Syrians on the ground, and then decisions taken by the U.N. Security Council on the basis of those decisions,” he said.

With respect to inviting Iran to attend the Montreux meeting, a move which Moscow backs but Washington opposes, Harland said Iran’s participation “could be very useful.”

“I think that we need a mechanism where all of the players who are shaping the reality inside Syria are present at the discussions and are held accountable,” he said.

In Harland’s view, the Syrian conflict resembles the 1992-1995 Bosnian War which resulted from the dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia.

Both Bosnia and Syria exhibited internal political issues and internal ethnic religious issues, he said.

Then there is a second circle of regional players which are supporting one ethnic religious community or another.

And finally, a third circle of global powers, mainly the U.S. and Russia, but not excluding China.

In this scenario, he said, the particular difficulty facing Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, who is coordinating the negotiations in his capacity as United Nations and Arab League Special Envoy to Syria, “is that some alignment of all three circles is necessary before there can be any serious prospect for peace.”

That is, there must be some basic accord among the Syrian parties, some basic accord among the regional parties and some basic accord among the U.S. and Russia and the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

Harland acknowledged that the pacification of Bosnia came about after intense bombing of Serbian targets by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) air squadrons.

“In the case of Syria, I think it’s extremely unlikely that there would be a decisive external intervention,” he said.

For one thing, there is a difference of scale: Bosnia is a country of four million people that is very close to Europe and the West, both geographically and in term of interests.  Syria has six times that population, and is rather further away, Harland said.

Another difference is that the relative power of the United States in 2013 is “less than it was in 1995, when the U.S. intervened militarily in Bosnia,” Harland concluded.

The post Thorny Path Toward Syrian Peace Process appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The U.N. declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas would protect farmers like this woman weeding a field in South Sudan's Eastern Equatoria state. Credit: Charlton Doki/IPS

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Jul 27 2013 (IPS)

Staunch opposition by the U.S. delegation and, to one extent or another, by European countries has blocked the approval this year of a draft multilateral declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas, which is backed by the developing world.

Bolivian diplomat Angélica Navarro, chair of the intergovernmental working group tasked with drafting the declaration, recommended that it meet again in mid-2014.

Navarro said that in the meantime, she would hold consultations with representatives of governments, civil society and the United Nations, which is promoting the initiative through its Human Rights Council.

“From the start we knew the process would be difficult, because the positions of some countries clashed with certain provisions in the declaration,” said Malik Özden, representative of the Europe-Third World Centre (CETIM), a Geneva-based NGO that is behind the draft declaration.

Özden told IPS that industrialised nations critical of the draft document wanted to remove some fundamental elements from the text, such as references to land grabbing and intellectual property rights over agricultural technologies and inputs, especially seeds.

The draft declaration seeks to protect peasants who work the land themselves and rely above all on family labour in agriculture, cattle-raising, pastoralism, and handicrafts-related to agriculture.

The term peasant also applies to landless people in rural areas engaged in various activities such as fishing, making crafts for the local market, or providing services.

Besides the human rights and fundamental freedoms of peasants, the document recognises their right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, as well as their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.

The declaration also upholds their right to land and territory and to benefit from land reform, as well as their right to determine the varieties of seeds they want to plant and to reject varieties of plants which they consider to be dangerous economically, ecologically and culturally – aspects that collide with the interests of transnational agribusiness corporations.

Christophe Golay, from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, said the draft declaration guarantees individual rights that can be collectively exercised.

But in the case of seeds and ecological diversity, the document includes completely new rights, he told IPS.

However, Golay pointed to a few gaps in the draft declaration, such as the lack of references to social security for peasants and to their protection in conflict zones.

The working group, which met Jul. 15-19 in Geneva, heard reports from experts, academics and delegates of peasant organisations.

In the meeting, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food Olivier de Schutter and his predecessor Jean Ziegler (2000-2008) did not hesitate to support the draft declaration.

But the United States raised jurisdictional objections, arguing that the Human Rights Council and its subsidiary bodies were not the right forum for discussing many of the issues proposed by the declaration.

A U.S. delegate even noted that the Council’s Advisory Committee, where the peasants’ right initiative first emerged, frequently mentioned the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in its report.

For that reason, he maintained, many of these debates should also take place in the FAO Food Security World Committee.

“The Advisory Committee final study admits that the draft declaration enumerates new rights, but many of these proposed new rights are not human rights,” the U.S. delegate said. “That is, they are not universal rights, held and enjoyed by individuals and that every individual may demand from his or her own government.”

He also said the draft declaration proposed to afford peasants collective human rights. But “we believe that efforts to create human rights for groups instead of for individuals are inconsistent with international human rights law,” he said, adding that “I want to be clear that we are not prepared to negotiate a draft declaration on the rights of peasants.”

The European Union also criticised the Council’s creation of the working group, and said it would not participate in negotiations of the draft declaration, although it left open the possibility of discussing improvements in the conditions of peasants in other forums.

The developing countries said they would continue backing the draft declaration, but conceded that certain points could be modified in order to reach a consensus.

Navarro told IPS that the working group was authorised by the Human Rights Council to hold sessions for three years in a row, and mentioned the possibility of the negotiations dragging on, even for decades, as has occurred in the case of international treaties in other areas.

But Özden was optimistic, even though he agreed with Navarro that the process could take years. “We hope the representatives of the states will be sensitive to the arguments of citizens and not just those of transnational corporations,” he said.

The number of peasants worldwide has not been stated in the documents presented to the working group.

In 2010, FAO estimated the number of people involved in agriculture at 1.394 billion, 1.357 billion of whom were in the developing world.

The U.N. agency noted that since 1950, the proportion of people dedicated to farming had steadily gone down, as the percentage of people involved in other economic activities had grown.

The post U.S. and EU Frustrate Peasants’ Rights Declaration appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Brazilian diplomat Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo was named the new director general of the WTO with broad support from the developing world, beating out his Mexican rival Herminio Blanco, who was backed by the industrialised nations.

“The results of the selection process reveal that most members of the WTO (World Trade Organisation), the majority of whom are developing countries, are dissatisfied with the current status quo – which Blanco represented,” Deborah James, coordinator of the Our World Is Not For Sale (OWINFS) network of dozens of organisations, activists and social movements worldwide, told IPS.

She said the countries were frustrated “in terms of continuing the current failed model of corporate globalisation, based on liberalisation and deregulation – that the WTO consolidates globally – without regard for the negative impacts of these policies on workers, farmers, and the environment.”

WTO director general-designate Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo. Credit: WTO/CC BY SA-2.0

Azevêdo’s formal appointment on Tuesday May 14 was seen as a breath of fresh air in the rarefied climate which has numbed the WTO – headed over the last eight years by French economist Pascal Lamy – for at least a decade.

In its statement before the WTO General Council, which endorsed the appointment of Azevêdo to a four-year term starting Sept. 1, the South Africa delegation said “we celebrate a triple victory: it is a victory for the principle of diversity, it is also a victory for the principle of consensus, and it is a victory for the principle of multilateralism.”

It also urged the WTO to guarantee that its leadership reflected the diversity of its 159-nation membership, representing all of the world’s regions.

“Today we succeeded in ensuring that Latin America is represented in the leadership of the WTO for the first time,” the delegation said, adding that it would soon be Africa’s turn to contribute its rich leadership to the global trade body.

The WTO and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), have been governed by representatives of industrialised nations with the exception of the period 2002-2005, when the organisation was led by Supachai Panitchpakdi of Thailand.

James said “Now it will be up to the new Director General Azevêdo to respond to the obvious need that global civil society (through the OWINFS network) has been highlighting: for the transformation of the existing system, to ensure that it can provide countries sufficient policy space to pursue a positive agenda for development and job creation, and so that trade rules can facilitate, rather than hinder, global efforts to ensure true food security, sustainable economic development, global access to health and medicines, and global financial stability.”

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) urged Azevêdo to put a priority on access to medicine.

MSF Director of Policy and Analysis Rohit Malpani said “Mr. Azevedo’s appointment comes as least developed countries (LDCs) member states have requested to remain exempt from implementing the TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement until they are no longer classified as LDCs.

“The request for extension would allow these countries to avoid monopoly protection for medicines, diagnostics and medical devices,” he added.

This request and other demands by the LDCs, along with the questions of agriculture and trade facilitation, are among the issues likely to be on the agenda of the WTO ministerial conference slated for Dec. 3-6 in Bali, Indonesia.

Azevêdo has avoided making clear statements on the WTO’s future because he is merely director general-designate until September.

However, in an acknowledgement of the difficulties facing the negotiations in Bali, the Brazilian diplomat warned that if the meeting is “not successful, it will make the road a lot more difficult ahead.

“We need to move the WTO from where we are today to an organisation that is again meaningful, that again delivers negotiated outcomes that the world hopes and expects from us.”

But the differences among the negotiators are not the only threat to the conference in Bali. The Asian Peasant Coalition (APC) announced that “We will register our strong resistance against the WTO in its 9th ministerial meeting.”

The APC will hold a series of coordinated activities against the WTO meeting, in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, said the organisation’s deputy secretary general, Rahmat Ajiguna.

The WTO accords in agriculture “resulted in massive displacement, destruction of local industry, and increasing land and resources grabs,” the APC added.

The post WTO Chooses New Latin American Chief to Mark a Change in Course appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo (left) and Herminio Blanco are the two finalists in the race for WTO director-general. Credit: WTO and Pepe Ocadiz CC BY-SA 3.0

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Apr 30 2013 (IPS)

The complicated challenge of invigorating the debilitated World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the multilateral trade system that it governs will fall, for the next four years and for the first time ever, to a Latin American.

The 159 member states of the WTO will choose between Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo of Brazil and Herminio Blanco of Mexico, the two candidates for the post of director-general of the organisation who have weathered the complex selection process that began Dec. 1.

The decision between Azevêdo and Blanco will be known on May 8, but will not be formally announced until May 31. The current director-general, Pascal Lamy of France, will conclude his two consecutive terms of office that began in 2005, on Aug. 31, and his successor will take up the post on Sept. 1.

Lamy will be leaving unfinished the Doha Round of talks which he was instrumental in promoting in 2001, as EU Commissioner for Trade.

After eight years of leadership by Lamy, the multilateral system appears debilitated by the proliferation of bilateral and plurilateral trade agreements, encouraged mostly by industrialised nations.

Behind these failures in achieving a balanced opening of international trade flows is the reluctance of countries of the North to attend to the development needs of the countries of the South, a constant feature since the creation of the WTO in 1995.

The extent of the discord is clear at the present WTO negotiations aimed at achieving a modest agreement to keep up appearances at its next ministerial conference, to be held in Bali, Indonesia Dec. 3-6.

Industrialised countries are pushing for trade facilitation, such as increased speed and efficiency of border controls for trade goods. Developing nations fear that such an agreement will only increase their imports without benefiting their exports.

Longstanding demands, such as differential treatment for developing countries, a special trade regime for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and arrangements to mitigate the effects of the food crisis, have again fallen foul of stumbling blocks in the discussions on the draft Bali agreement.

The difficulties tripping up the trade negotiations have apparently not been reflected so far in the process of designating the new WTO director-general.

Seven other candidates from different countries were eliminated in earlier stages of the selection process. In the first phase, Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen of Ghana, Anabel González of Costa Rica, Amina Mohamed of Kenya and Ahmad Hindawi of Jordan were deemed unlikely to command a consensus.

In the second stage, concluding Apr. 24, Mari Pangestu of Indonesia, Tim Groser of New Zealand and Taeho Bark of South Korea were held to have insufficient support.

But the two remaining candidates for heading up the WTO, Blanco and Azevêdo, are backed by two blocs, the industrialised and the developing countries, respectively, with opposing trade interests.

Blanco was educated at the University of Chicago, associated with the neoliberal economic ideas that predominated in a large part of the globe in the last few decades of the 20th century. He was part of the nucleus of this school of thought which governed the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and therefore Mexico, from 1985 to 2000.

But his most significant feature is his participation as chief negotiator, between 1990 and 1993, of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which came into effect Jan. 1, 1994.

Although he has no practical experience of WTO affairs, it is taken for granted that Blanco’s candidacy has the support of his NAFTA partners, the United States and Canada, and will benefit from the influence they can exert on the rest of the world.

For his part, Azevêdo has demonstrated his negotiating skills at the WTO, where he heads the Group of 20 developing nations, a coalition proposing the reversal of protectionist policies in agriculture applied by industrialised countries.

He won resounding victories for his country in two disputes before the WTO, one against U.S. cotton subsidies, and one against the EU for similar protectionism for sugar growers.

But above all, Azevêdo’s candidacy rests on Brazil’s foreign policy over the past decade, as an emerging nation together with Russia, India, China and South Africa in the BRICS bloc, and its openness to offering a helping hand to other developing countries on every continent.

Whoever is appointed will find a paralysed WTO, riven with dissensions that obstruct the reaching of understandings.

For instance, on Apr. 24 a panel of experts presented the report “The Future of Trade: The Challenges of Convergence”. The make-up of the panel, decided exclusively by Lamy, had been questioned by governments and NGOs.

During the presentation, Deborah James, of the Our World Is Not for Sale (OWINFS) network, objected that in spite of their WTO membership, there were not any representatives of LDCs on the panel, and only one African and one Latin American. The rest were almost all from developed countries and the business sector, while there was only one workers’ representative, she said.

“It seems that this report was actually drafted in large part by the Secretariat, and according to several panelists many of their comments were not well reflected” in the final text, James complained.

Sanya Reid Smith, also of the OWINFS network of NGOs and social movements, observed that “the report says that trade is a means, not an end, so presumably for developing countries, development is the end goal.

“So it is interesting then that the report explicitly says in a number of places that there should be ‘convergence of trade regimes,’ but it does not mention convergence of levels of development,” the activist said.

Jürgen Thumann, the president of BUSINESSEUROPE, an organisation representing 20 million companies in 35 countries, was annoyed by the interventions from the OWINFS representatives.

“These two young ladies – with blonde and black hair, I see from here – I would like to ask you to be a little bit more tolerant in the future and show a little bit more respect,” Thumann said.

James told IPS that Thumann’s comment showed BUSINESSEUROPE is intolerant of input from the public, as well as being sexist and ageist.

“His insulting tone epitomised the panel’s lack of transparency and non-inclusiveness,” she maintained.

The post WTO, Dubious Prize for a Latin American? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Néstor Osorio: “Young people are and always have been involved in the origins of the biggest innovations.” Credit: UN Photo

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Apr 15 2013 (IPS)

Innovation, as the fruit of science and technology, will play a fundamental role in the Sustainable Development Goals that could go into effect in 2015, says Néstor Osorio, president of the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

In its next session, in September, the U.N. General Assembly will receive the first draft of the SDGs currently being drawn up with the input of governments, scientists and social organisations.

The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is also taking part in the drafting process, and will discuss the question in its Annual Ministerial Review in Geneva, next July.

If they are approved, the SDGs will build upon the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were adopted by the international community in 2000 in New York with a 2015 deadline.

Using 1990 as a baseline, the governments committed themselves to halve the proportion of people who experience hunger and live in extreme poverty, reduce infant and maternal mortality by two-thirds, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other major diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and achieve a global partnership for development.

Osorio, Colombia’s permanent representative to the U.N., explained some aspects of the SDGs in an interview given to IPS during a recent visit to Geneva.

Q: Do you think innovation should be one of the goals for this millennium?

A: I believe it is a cross-cutting issue within many of the objectives for the post-2015 period. We’re talking about the SDGs – that is, how to do something beyond the MDGs and bring together industrialised and developing countries in an ongoing process of irreversible compliance with fundamental goals for integral sustainability.

Q: In other words…

A: We’re talking about water conservation, more liveable cities, food security, infrastructure and curtailing (greenhouse) gas emissions. We have to decarbonise the planet. And all of this forms part of innovation.

Q: Who would be the actors involved in this task?

A: Those who can participate in a very efficient manner, as we have seen, are young people.

Young people are and always have been involved in the origins of the biggest innovations. Microsoft, Facebook and others have been created, innovated, by 20 or 25-year-old kids.

So there’s a very important link here: how innovation and connection and preparation of future work go together. And when it comes to gender equality, we’re talking about the same thing. In other words, it’s a cross-cutting issue.

Q: How could developing countries foment innovation?

A: I think they could do it with a fundamental commitment by governments, which translates into budget allocations.

The partnership between government and private sector is also essential throughout this process. I’ll cite an example of what we have done in Colombia: the policy of President Juan Manuel Santos has been to earmark – and a law was approved to this end – a portion of oil and mining industry royalties to the Institute of Sciences and Technology.

Q: And with respect to the private sector?

A: Companies gradually discover what their needs are and how they have to adapt to the requirements of sustainability.

(For example), there can’t be investment in projects that use huge quantities of water, because that is wasteful. Companies have to adapt to the requirements that the world presents.

Q: And with regard to the state?

A: The public sector must be aware of the importance and significance of science, technology, culture – and what they bring in terms of innovation – for the development of society. For the improvement of infrastructure, cities, transportation, and for providing better living conditions for men and women.

That’s why it is very important for it to translate into legal instruments, budget allocations and government plans.

Q: What can be expected of the ECOSOC sessions in July?

A: The debate in the High Level Segment, as it’s called, will be the culmination of the ministerial meeting.

Science, technology and culture is the theme this year for ECOSOC. But the question of financing will also be discussed.

The economic situation in the industrialised world is very serious because it has consequences, what I call collateral damages, because as incomes and economic conditions have declined in those countries, there is less money for financing development and a lower propensity for technology transfer.

I hope that very concrete policy recommendations will come out of July’s sessions.

Q: What is the climate ahead of the meeting?

A: Two weeks ago I was in Tanzania with all of the African ministers, and I was surprised to see that there is real awareness and interest in giving science and technology a predominant place in government priorities.

Q: Do you have an overview of innovation in developing countries?

A: In agriculture, immense progress has been made to increase productivity and fight pests and diseases. This is already common in coffee, cacao and cereals.

Research in India for boosting the productivity of grains and guaranteeing food security has been extraordinary. In Brazil, the new coffee-growing techniques, on 100-hectare plantations with permanent irrigation and fertilisation, have multiplied productivity 30- or 40-fold.

Q: And what about innovations with environmental effects?

A: Yes, those too, especially in different areas of agriculture, with improvements of rural conditions. For example, one concrete innovation is harnessing small waterfalls to produce energy.

I’ve seen how small turbines have been created to use a waterfall just one metre high to provide lighting in the home of a small farmer.

It’s not rocket science – or CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research) science – but simple things. It’s about creating grinding machines that don’t waste water. For example, in Colombia, a coffee pulping machine was developed that takes the beans and processes them with a minimum amount of water, which is later recycled and does not end up causing pollution.

The post Q&A: Innovation Key to Sustainable Development Goals appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Apr 5 2013 (IPS)

India’s refusal to grant patent protection for the anti-cancer drug Glivec, developed by Swiss drugmaker Novartis, is a victory for the developing world, which depends on low-cost exports of generic medicines from the Asian giant, said public health specialist Germán Velásquez.

The triumph celebrated by the Colombian expert, who is a special adviser for health and development at the South Centre, was a landmark ruling against Novartis handed down Monday Apr. 1 by India’s Supreme Court.

The Geneva-based South Centre is an intergovernmental organisation of more than 50 developing countries that functions as an independent policy think tank.

Velásquez, who worked for over 20 years in the World Health Organization, explains in this interview with IPS his point of view on the legal battle in the courts in New Delhi and its consequences for developing countries.

Q: How do you interpret the ruling by the Supreme Court of India?

A: There are problems with the information that is being reported. Nearly everyone says that India rejected the patent for Glivec. That’s true, but it’s not all the verdict says.

Q: Could you explain?

A: At the heart of the verdict is the ratification of the criteria set by the Indian law for the approval of drug patents. That is, whether or not it meets the requisite of containing a genuine innovation.

Q: Could you describe the legal battle?

A: It all starts with the adoption of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), one of the treaties established at the same time the WHO was born, in 1995.

India was the only developing country to use the (entire 10-year) transition period to enforce TRIPS, in 2005, when it passed the patent act.

Q: What happened to the patent applications presented during that decade-long transition?

A: They accumulated, until there were around 10,000 applications, and it was not until 2005 that the patent office began to examine them. They included the application for the Glivec patent.

But the new standards turned out to be stricter, such as the one that indicates that the innovation can’t be just a small change to a molecule, but has to be something substantial. In short, the patent for local sales of Glivec was denied in 2006.

Q: How does the story continue from there?

A: Novartis challenged that decision and brought a lawsuit in a court in the city of Madras (the capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu; the city was renamed Chennai in 1996.) But the High Court of that city, three years later, also rejected the application. That year, 2009, the company appealed the decision – and lost again.

Q: What options are left to the company?

A: This is the aspect that hasn’t been sufficiently reported. In a cynical, perverse and very serious move, Novartis says (prior to the ruling): “If they didn’t give me the patent, I’ll go to the Supreme Court, but to ask this time for the elimination of the strict criterion established in article 3 of the patent act.”

“If more flexible, lower standards are set, then my medicine will be in,” was its reasoning.

Q: So the dispute took on this other face?

A: Yes, because with the intention of introducing its drug by force, the transnational corporation was trying to modify the law of a country – and of a country like India. I think that its executives were being short-sighted when they made that decision. This has been very costly for them in terms of their image.

Q: How do you reach that conclusion?

A: It is clear that it was a misstep to denounce India’s patent law, with the risk of losing. The transnational industry in general had suffered a blunder in South Africa, when it was forced in 2001 to back down from legal action against a law that authorised the patenting of lower-price imported medicines in order to address the AIDS epidemic.

You could suppose that “Big Pharma”, as the major pharmaceutical companies are called, had learned the lesson. Especially knowing that Glivec was patented in 40 countries, including the United States, China and Russia.

Q: Are you insinuating that there may be a domino effect?

A: If Novartis loses in India, as it did on Monday, any of the governments of the 40 countries could ask themselves: “Why don’t I review that patent and revoke it?” That authority is granted by the legislation of all of those countries.

Q: What standing do those 40 countries that recognise the Glivec patent have?

A: Most of them are industrialised states, large markets. But they also include some that are currently experiencing severe economic difficulties, like Greece or Spain, whose authorities could ask themselves why they should pay 2,500 dollars a month per person for a treatment against cancer. They could say: “Why don’t I just have it produced as a generic drug, and invalidate this patent.”

I think the Novartis executives did not take that into account when they launched this legal battle. Obviously, after the first impetus, they continued on to the end, and today they’re going to see repercussions.

Q: What could those consequences be?

A: It should be a lesson for the rest of the countries of the developing South. They should try to follow India’s example and introduce in their legislation clauses like the ones contained in article 3d, which restricts and sets criteria with respect to what amounts to innovation, which is necessary in order to grant a patent. That there can’t just be a small change, which is sometimes merely cosmetic, to a molecule in the medication.

Q: What prospect is there for the spread of that criterion?

A: In India, the Philippines and Argentina, that prohibition already exists, while others are introducing it through alternative routes.

Q: And other consequences?

A: India will be able to continue to make generic versions of all new medicines that are not truly original, and it will continue exporting them without any problem. It’s necessary to take into account the fact that 95 percent of the antiretrovirals consumed in Africa come from that Asian country.

So that means the Indian Court’s ruling is extremely important, with very concrete repercussions for that medicine and some 10,000 others that are on the waiting list in the patent office in New Delhi.

Q: What percentage of those could get patents?

A: In 2010, Argentina approved 2,000 pharmaceutical patents, and China 4,000. But actually, just 40 or 50 products a year are true innovations.

Q: Why that enormous difference between patents that are granted and truly innovative products?

A: The pharmaceutical industry is facing huge difficulties in coming up with innovations.

So it clings to a very short-sighted way of thinking, very short-term, but enormously profitable. This consists of launching incremental innovations, as they are called – in other words, a small product with just a gradual change, but accompanied by a major marketing campaign.

The post Q&A: A Healthy Verdict from India appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Jan 21 2013 (IPS)

The international community has adopted a binding treaty for reducing emissions of mercury, a poisonous heavy metal that harms human health and the ecosystems on which life depends.

Uruguayan diplomat Fernando Lugris chairing the Minamata Convention on Mercury negotiations. Credit: Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Uruguay

The Minamata Convention on Mercury, which sets out to control and reduce products and processes using the metal, was approved on Saturday Jan. 19 by representatives of over 140 governments. It will be signed in Japan in September and will enter into force once 50 countries or more have ratified it.

Mercury is a neurotoxin affecting the central nervous system and the brain. It also damages the kidneys and other body systems such as the respiratory, gastrointestinal, haematological, immunological and reproductive systems.

The provisions of the treaty agreed in Geneva prohibit production, export and import of some products containing mercury with effect from 2020, including certain types of batteries, fluorescent lamps, soaps and cosmetics, and non-electronic medical instruments like thermometers and blood pressure monitors.

The convention does not ban elements for which mercury-free substitutes are so far not available, like vaccines where mercury is used for preservation, and uses of mercury in religious or traditional activities.

The negotiations for the Minamata Convention on Mercury, named after a city in Japan where serious health and environmental damage occurred as a result of mercury pollution in the 20th century, were chaired by Uruguayan diplomat Fernando Lugris, backed by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner and UNEP experts.

In an interview following the adoption of the treaty, Lugris, who brought four years of negotiations to a successful conclusion, told IPS he was very satisfied by the agreement.

Q: How would you sum up the progress that has been made?

A: I think we have reached a high level of ambition in which regulatory measures, especially to limit mercury emissions (in) to the air, soil and water, are really ambitious. We will be able to achieve very significant global reductions.

Q: What kinds of emissions are specified in the text?

A: The treaty does not seek to reduce natural emissions, because mercury is an element that exists naturally on our planet. Instead, we are trying to limit anthropogenic emissions generated by the use of mercury in man-made products or processes, and we are seeking substitutes to replace it.

Q: Will the convention affect countries’ economic situations?

A: Basically, the treaty seeks not to impose limits on (individual countries’ economic) development, but to orient them towards sustainable development so that, in the future, processes and products will be free of mercury; that is, we seek sustainable substitutes for it.

Q: Representatives of NGOs have criticised the text of the treaty. In their view the measures do not go far enough to reduce global emissions of mercury, and might even produce an increase in mercury pollution.

A: I believe civil society has to raise its voice and demand that governments make greater efforts, and this convention is an important starting point. Yesterday, there was no binding treaty for the international community. Now we have one.

However, this effort could be strengthened by future actions, through the evolution of the convention itself at the conferences of its parties.

Q: During the negotiations, did you have difficulties with the North-South division that is a feature of most multilateral debates?

A: For some issues, the North-South divide continues to exist. However, in other aspects, we perceive the world is already changing. Atmospheric emissions are a clear example, where countries like China and India are the biggest emitters because of their use of coal-fired power plants (the top source of mercury emissions).

But the United States and the European Union are big emitters too. And it was very clear that in the discussions over air pollution reduction, the negotiated package gradually took shape between the big polluters.

Q: Were you aware of any other grouping of countries during the negotiations?

A: Yes. In discussing release of mercury into water, we found the developing countries, especially in Africa and Latin America, had clearly similar realities, and their greatest need is to seek cooperation and to help vulnerable populations.

Q: How did the group of countries from Latin America and the Caribbean fare with their initiative on health?

A: The GRULAC (Latin American and Caribbean Group) clearly sought to introduce health as an issue throughout the convention, and the agreed text basically contains many measures for health protection.

The group also insisted on the need to include a specific article on health. In principle, the industrialised countries felt that an article on health was irrelevant in an environmental agreement.

However, Latin America’s persistence and its clear interest in protecting human health succeeded in getting the final session of the plenary to agree on an article specifically about health.

Q: Does the approved text provide for funding for the protection of human health?

A: As the convention will have a financing body to support its implementation, clearly the measures taken will have a positive effect on the protection of human health.

Above all it should be underlined that human health, in relation to mercury pollution, is not protected solely through the enforcement of specific measures to that end, but control of atmospheric emissions (in general) is the most important action to preserve human life.

Q: At the last minute countries like Canada, France and the United Kingdom rejected a proposal from Bolivia to include a reference to indigenous populations in the text. How did that debate go?

A: The international community has clearly formulated this issue through the (U.N.) Declaration on (the Rights of) Indigenous Peoples, which is a non-binding agreement, but unfortunately at the level of binding agreements there are still some countries that oppose making specific reference to native peoples . This is not the case in Latin America.

Q: What is your opinion on this?

A: Latin America supports the declaration on indigenous peoples and makes clear reference to the collective rights that were recognised in this declaration, which was in fact adopted in Geneva, having been introduced in the General Assembly session by the representatives of Peru, with the support of Uruguay.

The post Q&A: New Binding Treaty on Mercury Emissions is “Ambitious” appeared first on Inter Press Service.

U.N. Human Rights Council president Laura Dupuy. Credit: United Nations

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Dec 14 2012 (IPS)

The first woman to preside over the United Nations Human Rights Council, Uruguayan diplomat Laura Dupuy, has made it with flying colours through one of the periods of greatest tension and conflict since the council replaced the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in 2006.

It has fallen to Dupuy to preside over regular and special sessions this year with heated debates over the dramatic events in Arab countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and especially Syria.

The Permanent Representative of Uruguay to the United Nations Office at Geneva has won recognition from her colleagues and from non-governmental organisations for getting occasionally stormy sessions back on track.

Dupuy told IPS that being a woman was not an obstacle to fulfilling her role, which concludes Dec. 31. “Luckily I did not encounter hurdles,” she said. “In fact, I think that countries that could have put difficulties in my way were very careful not to do so.”

Q: What reactions have you observed since the annual sessions commenced last March?

A: It’s possible that some people had doubts about what might happen with a president they did not know. But they soon saw that I stuck to the rules and was firm. After that they respected me.

Q: But did you run across any stumbling blocks because you are a woman?

A: I had some problems, but…I don’t think they were very serious. The most difficult moment was when we discussed the case of Bahrain, because there were protests about my intervention and complaints about the intimidation being suffered there by human rights defenders who attended the debate in Geneva for the Universal Periodic Review on the situation in that Arab country.

Q: Were there any other tough times?

A: Yes, but they weren’t personal. What I have unfortunately seen in the chamber is that some countries, basically the Islamic nations, still have a fairly retrograde discourse. In fact, I am worried that there may be a regression with respect to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved in 1948.

I am also concerned that something similar may happen among the Islamic states in regard to the Vienna Declaration, adopted in 1993 by the World Conference on Human Rights, which reaffirmed that women’s rights are human rights.

Q: Have you noted this regressive tendency at any other time?

A: We see it when they continue to question or attempt to limit the scope of the new Working Group on Discrimination against Women in law and in practice. The fact that, although they did not vote against it, they expressed discontent with the new mandate, is an indication of the situation.

Q: Do you think this bias still persists?

A: It does. Unfortunately, it is being confirmed. For instance, in Egypt now, with the draft constitution. The Egyptian expert has just told me that the paragraph referring to non-discrimination for any reason, including gender, has been eliminated from the draft. This is serious. It is a central principle of human rights.

Q: Is this issue restricted to a single region?

A: No, it also arises in the declaration of human rights approved in November by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The text was negotiated merely between governments, without consulting civil society, and there was a major problem with women’s rights in the drafting of the text.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay was not satisfied. But after the ASEAN declaration was approved, another resolution was added, saying that the declaration would be implemented in accordance with the 1948 Universal Declaration.

We hope that this will be the case, and that as matters develop they will comply with this aspect. To sum up, from the point of view of women’s rights, I think there is still much that remains to be done.

Q: What have been the highlights of your presidency of the Council?

A: The period has been marked, unfortunately, by all the serious and urgent human rights situations that the Council has examined, with the willingness to listen to all the parties, including the voices that are often silenced, such as the victims of rights abuses.

In future periods, the U.N. Human Rights Council will have to discuss the best ways to tackle these crises, and ways to prevent them.

Q: Are there any indications of how the Council can deal with the problem?

A: When the Council reviewed its work and operations in 2011, among other issues it addressed the ways in which it can deal with serious cases of human rights violations.

Among other proposals, the draft suggested establishing mechanisms that would act as external, objective and independent triggers, in the case of urgent situations. The initiative was discarded, and as a result the Council continues to face critical situations mainly through the means of holding special sessions of its members.

Q: What results have these special sessions had?

A: To an extent, the special sessions have proved quite successful at dealing with urgent situations. We have always managed to reach the minimum number of 16 member states to sign the request to convene such a session, as seen by the 19 special sessions held so far.

However, it must be acknowledged that the results of these sessions always depend on negotiations.

Q: This year, what stands out is that the situation in Syria called for four special sessions of the Council.

A: Some people may think that holding four special sessions did not really help to improve the situation on the ground in Syria.

However, by holding so many special sessions as well as an urgent debate, the Council has fulfilled its political responsibilities, keeping a close watch on events and sending a commission of inquiry charged with gathering information and evidence, with a view to potential future criminal proceedings in respect to the current conflict.

Q: What are your conclusions about this case?

A: After many months of crisis and armed conflict, there is mounting pressure not only to come up with political solutions, but also to hold accountable those responsible for crimes against human rights and against international humanitarian law.

As a consequence, the priority that emerges is a political solution with peace, justice and an end to impunity.

The post Q&A: “Syria Needs a Political Solution with Peace, Justice and an End to Impunity” appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A dalit girl in India explains in the short film that her teachers stopped hitting the children with canes as a result of the human rights training.

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Sep 20 2012 (IPS)

The impact of human rights education, a rising star, is highlighted in a short documentary sponsored by United Nations experts and civil society.

The short film presented Wednesday, “A Path to Dignity – The Power of Human Rights Education”, shows how human rights teaching and training can bring about major transformations in victims and potential perpetrators of abuses.

Dalit (formerly “untouchable”) children in India, a Turkish woman abused by her husband since she was married off as an adolescent, and police in the southern Australian state of Victoria describe in the film how their lives changed radically thanks to human rights education.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says at the start of the film that “Full realisation of human rights requires all human beings to be aware of their and other people’s rights and of the means to ensure their protection.”

“The message of this DVD says that everything starts from a single person,” Kimiaki Kawai, programme director for Peace Affairs at Soka Gakkai International (SGI), told IPS.

“If the single person stands strongly, determined, then something can happen with an impact to the society. So, in that sense education is something like empowerment – to giving knowledge, giving understanding, to sharing wisdom. So that somebody can stand firm to contribute to society,” said Kawai

The film was produced by the SGI, a Japan-based lay Buddhist movement, the international movement Human Rights Education Associates, and Pillay’s office.

Dalit children received training on human rights from non-governmental organisations in India, which enabled them to fight and overcome some of the most degrading effects of the discrimination that they suffer as a result of the Hindu caste system.

And the woman in eastern Turkey, who was hunted by her own family after she decided to leave her abusive husband, found comprehension and support from an association of Turkish women, and eventually managed to free herself from her arranged marriage and change her name.

Police in the Australian state of Victoria, meanwhile, were given human rights training from their superiors and from specialised organisations, which brought down the number of complaints of human rights abuses committed in the course of their policing work.

“A Path…” brings hope that human rights education can be deepened and expanded, Christian Guillermet-Fernández, Costa Rica’s representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council, told IPS.

At the presentation of the short film in the Palais des Nations in Geneva, the diplomat pointed out that his country had abolished its army in the 1940s and then decided to invest in education and health the funds that previously went to the military.

Hedwig Jöhl, a representative of the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, said a country without an army is a good example for human rights education.

Guillermet-Fernández said the 28-minute documentary, directed by filmmaker and international relief worker Ellen Bruno, was a tool that could have a lot of impact in the field of human rights.

“But human rights education must still overcome many challenges,” the Costa Rican diplomat said. “We need to be innovative, creative and do things like this (film).”

Furthermore, he said, governments and civil society must work to keep the question of human rights education on the agenda of international organisations, in the Human Rights Council but also in the work of the General Assembly – two of the highest-level U.N. bodies.

One of the biggest challenges is to educate national authorities and politicians, Guillermet-Fernández said.

Kawai stressed that “Education is not a process to give some knowledge to other people. Interaction should be the core of education…Education is to inspire somebody to think by themselves and stand up, which also influences me.”

Referring to the case of the young Turkish woman shown in the film, who expressed a discrepancy between traditions and human rights values, Kawai told IPS that such differences could be overcome with “balance.”

“And balance comes from talks, not from silence,” he said. Differences of opinion arise in interactions between people, and “how can we solve the differences, the discrepancies…dialogue should come first, not violence,” he underlined.

The post Human Rights Education Shows Its Potential appeared first on Inter Press Service.

An expert body of the United Nations has warned the Spanish government that the severe budget cutbacks it is applying must not undermine its commitment to upholding the economic, social and cultural rights of the country’s people.

Demonstrators in southern Spanish city of Málaga protesting cuts in health and education. Credit: Inés Benítez/IPS

Austerity measures imposed by the government of centre-right Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy could have “a negative and disproportionate impact on the enjoyment of those rights,” said the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR).

Committee Chairperson Ariranga Govindasamy Pillay, a native of Mauritius, said these concerns will definitely appear in the final conclusions of its review of Spain’s compliance with the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to be released on May 18.

The Committee, made up of 18 independent experts from different regions of the world, monitors observance of the Covenant by the 160 states that have ratified it since its adoption in 1966 and its entry into force in 1976.

Two particular events mark the case of Spain, which was discussed this week, said expert Jaime Marchán of Ecuador, the Committee’s rapporteur on the report presented by Spain.

One was the elections in November last year, won by the People’s Party, which replaced the government of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) led by former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, in power since 2004.

The second feature mentioned by Marchán was “the persistence of a very severe economic crisis whose direct negative and devastating impacts have often interfered with maintenance of basic levels of protection for economic, social and cultural rights.”

In his assessment of Spain’s compliance, the rapporteur recalled that since 2004 the country has taken measures to promote economic, social and cultural rights, adopting many of the recommendations issued by the U.N. Committee in their review of Spain that year. Marchán mentioned the action plan for development of the Roma, or gypsy, population in 2010-2012 and the new 2012-2020 strategy for integration of Roma communities.

However, lawyer Carlos Villán, president of the Spanish Society for International Human Rights Law (AEDIDH), told IPS that in his country, gypsies “continue to be victims of racism and rejection by a segment of the majority population.”

A member of the Spanish government delegation told the Committee that 52 percent of respondents in a survey said they had “no or little” empathy for the Roma population. “We have a lot of work to do,” the delegate admitted.

On the positive side, Marchán noted that Spain had passed legislation on effective equality between men and women and comprehensive protection measures against gender-based violence, and had adopted measures to fight trafficking in persons.

But any favourable impression was undermined by the Spanish government’s responses to questions from Committee experts, and the latest available data.

“The measures adopted so far (by the present government) seem insufficient in the context of the economic crisis to adequately address the provisions of the Covenant for protecting economic, social and cultural rights, particularly for the most vulnerable groups,” the rapporteur said.

Even more worrying was the finding that, as a result of the severe fiscal austerity policies, many of the affirmative measures previously adopted in Spain “have been reduced or completely eliminated,” Marchán said.

This has led to backsliding in the protection measures concerning the areas covered by the Covenant, he said.

The U.N. Committee experts expressed disappointment at the reduction of the Spanish government’s official development assistance, and the rise in unemployment to the unprecedented level of over 24 percent, with youth unemployment at 55 percent.

They also noted the insufficiency of the minimum salary, coupled with cuts in health, education, and social security that have left some groups, such as undocumented immigrants, without any social coverage.

In addition, immigrants are subject to “xenophobic discourse exacerbated by the crisis,” said Villán.

Marchán pointed to the lack of a specific national plan to combat “rising levels of poverty, which already affects 22 percent of Spanish households.”

The rapporteur referred in his report to the pernicious effects of the housing bubble, which has increased the number of homeless people.

Villán told IPS that gypsies and immigrants seeking access to housing face many hurdles.

Another expert, Álvaro Tirado from Colombia, referring to the economic and financial crisis rocking Spain and other European countries, complained that when there is an economic bonanza, distribution favours the rich, while in a crisis the burden falls disproportionately on the poor.

Spain is one of the most unequal countries in the European Union in terms of income distribution, he said.

In response to these criticisms, Rafael Barberá of the Spanish employment and social security ministry said his government does not believe the poor should pay for the crisis.

“No one intends that they should bear the burden of the adjustment policies,” he said, going on to defend Rajoy’s economic measures on the grounds that “fiscal consolidation is neither a whim nor an obsession; it is the way forward to ensure that in the near future Spain can begin the process of recovery.”

“Spain does not want the poor to pay the cost of economic adjustment, nor does it want to limit anyone’s economic, social and cultural rights. On the contrary, we are convinced that those rights are an important element of development and have a positive long-term impact on growth,” Barberá said.

Committee experts expressed regret that the Rajoy government did not consult Spain’s ombudsman when drawing up the report it presented at the current session.

Tirado said they had heard the same complaint from representatives of Spanish NGOs. The NGO representatives said they were confident that the Committee would make stringent recommendations to the Spanish government.

The post U.N. Warns of Social Fall-Out from Spain’s Austerity Plan appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Profound discord between industrialised nations and developing countries is threatening to ruin the UNCTAD meeting being held this week in Doha, and may even endanger the survival of this United Nations body that defends the interests of the developing nations of the South.

If there is failure to reach agreement, it will be perceived as the end of the debate on development and also the end of this body itself, warned the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi, a Thai economist and politician.

Disagreements between the blocs, broadly identified as countries of the North and of the South, arise mainly from differing views of UNCTAD’s mandate and different visions of development and how it relates to social, environmental, economic and financial variables.

For example, industrialised countries have rejected out of hand giving UNCTAD a remit to investigate the current global financial crisis and its effects on the real economy, diplomatic sources in the capital of Qatar who requested anonymity told IPS.

On Saturday Apr. 21 at the conference’s inaugural session, 37 international and 137 national NGOs sent a message to participating governments, titled “Strengthen, don’t weaken, UNCTAD’s role in global governance” , highlighting the important role played by UNCTAD “in identifying the key causes” of the global crisis originating in 2008.

UNCTAD has assisted developing countries in seeking solutions to the impacts of the crisis, and has advocated the reform of global economic and finance policies in order to prevent similar crises from recurring, the NGOs said.

“UNCTAD is well known for having predicted the crisis in advance, a fact that is to be commended, particularly given its paucity of resources compared to institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which failed to do so,” the message says.

Signatories of the message to the governments at the UNCTAD meeting include ActionAid International, the African Trade Network, the Arab NGO Network for Development, CIDSE – an international alliance of 16 Catholic development agencies – , the European Network on Debt and Development, and Friends of the Earth International.

The Hemispheric Social Alliance, the International Trade Union Confederation, Oxfam International, Public Services International, the Third World Network, the Transnational Institute and the World Council of Churches also signed the declaration.

In the negotiations of the conference’s outcome document, UNCTAD’s role is being defended by China and the Group of 77 (G77), the developing world bloc that came into being as a result of the first UNCTAD conference, held in Geneva in 1964, and today is made up of 132 member countries.

The G77 maintained that UNCTAD was established in response to the current and emerging challenges faced by developing countries, and underscored the need to strengthen the role of the U.N. in international economic and financial governance.

In contrast, the European Union has attempted to eliminate a paragraph from the outcome document that refers to UNCTAD’s role in contributing to U.N. investigations of the causes and effects of the global economic crisis.

In addition to the EU, industrialised countries at the Doha conference are represented by the JUSCANZ (JZ) group, made up of Japan, the United States, Switzerland, South Korea, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Liechtenstein.

Both the EU and JZ are demanding the elimination of two paragraphs from the draft text, one on the global crisis and one on the link between the financial sector and the real economy.

They are also opposed to a reference to the need to regulate financial markets and to adopt mechanisms to prevent and overcome crises.

Supachai’s view clashed with that of the industrialised country groups, as his report, presented to the conference on Saturday, warned against the dangers of globalisation and development processes driven by international finance.

The disagreements between developing and industrialised countries are even more acute in the debate about the accords reached at the previous UNCTAD session four years ago, held in Accra, Ghana.

The G77 wants to reaffirm and strengthen the Accra Accord, so that UNCTAD can continue with its present work, following the direction laid down by its secretariat.

But the JZ wants all reference to reaffirming the Accra agreement eliminated from the outcome document, and proposes that the accord be reviewed.

The industrialised countries also reject paragraphs about the management and resolution of national debts, the responsibilities of lenders and borrowers, and an orderly solution to the debt crisis.

The JZ group opposed a section of text ratifying the continuance of UNCTAD services for the Global System of Trade Preferences Among Developing Countries (GSTP), the first scheme of preferential trade between nations of the South.

The GSTP was created in 1988 and comprises 42 countries and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, which are also individual members of the global system.

The industrialised countries are also questioning the assistance UNCTAD provides developing nations on the negotiation of regional trade agreements and their consequences.

The JZ group wants to delete reference in the outcome document to the role of industrialisation policies in development processes.

It also wants to alter text saying foreign direct investment should contribute to development according to the priorities and laws of recipient countries, insisting that it simply state that developing nations need to attract investment.

The sources at the Doha meeting said the industrialised world’s initiatives would deprive UNCTAD of any participation on trade and environment issues, as well as in the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June, and on work in the area of the green economy and research on climate and development.

On intellectual property rights in relation to development, the EU and JZ requested the deletion of a reference to UNCTAD’s role in research into benefit sharing in the areas of traditional knowledge and genetic resources.

The industrialised countries are making extremely high demands, and they will not accept leaving Doha empty-handed on Thursday Apr. 26 when the 13th UNCTAD session ends, the sources said.

Therefore, Supachai’s fears about the possible fate of UNCTAD may not be exaggerated, they said.

The post Future of UNCTAD in Balance at Doha appeared first on Inter Press Service.

The reason the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is under attack is that rich countries do not want an organisation that carries out independent analysis, Rubens Ricupero, UNCTAD secretary general from 1995 to 2004, told IPS.

Credit: UNCTAD

In recent weeks UNCTAD has come under fire from powerful industrialised countries that wish to modify its mandate, which since its creation in 1964 has been the defence of the interests of poor nations.

According to officials in countries of the global South, the nations of the industrialised North see the agency’s advice on finances, the environment, food security, intellectual property and development as running counter to their own free market and free trade agenda.

Around 50 former senior UNCTAD staff members, including Ricupero, issued a statement Wednesday Apr. 11 in Geneva at a meeting with five journalists, including IPS, denouncing efforts to silence the United Nations agency.

Turkish researcher Yilmaz Akyuz, one of the signatories of the statement titled “Silencing the message or the messenger … or both?”, attributed the attempt to gag UNCTAD to leading countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), known as the “rich nations club”.

The endeavour to stifle UNCTAD is happening just when a broadly participative debate on the governance of international finance and of the entire world economy is desperately needed, said Akyuz, a former chief economist at UNCTAD and now chief economist at the South Centre, an organisation of developing countries based in Geneva.

The collective statement says that UNCTAD’s analyses of global macroeconomic issues with a development perspective have for years “provided an alternative view to that offered by the World Bank and the IMF controlled by the West.”

UNCTAD was “ahead of the curve in its warnings of how global finance was trumping the real economy”: it forecast the 1994-1995 Mexican crisis, the East Asian crisis of 1997 and the late 2001 financial and economic collapse in Argentina, the document says.

“No organisation correctly foresaw the current crisis, and no organisation has a magic wand to deal with present difficulties,” the communiqué says. “But it is unquestionable that the crisis originated in and is widespread among the countries that now wish to stifle debate about global economic policies, despite their own manifest failings in this area.”

John Burley, who worked for UNCTAD for 17 years in senior positions, and who coordinated the letter, said the attack by rich countries is aimed at important principles, such as the plurality of viewpoints in the international system, and freedom of speech in the organisation.

The attack, which will be debated at the 13th session of UNCTAD to be held in Doha, the capital of Qatar, Apr. 21-26, is not the first onslaught the organisation has had to contend with, said Burley.

Ricupero’s experience is illustrative. “When I arrived at UNCTAD in 1995 there was already a conspiracy afoot by ‘the usual suspects,’ the rich countries – not to change the mandate as they want to now, but to simply suppress the organisation they have never accepted since its inception,” he told IPS in an interview Tuesday Apr. 10.

The pretext then was the creation, a few months earlier, of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which supposedly would make UNCTAD superfluous.

“A clear indication of what I am saying is that the post of secretary general had been left vacant for nearly a year, something that had never happened before and has never happened since,” he said.

That threat was overcome by means of a vigorous reaction that “we launched with the backing of many developing countries,” Ricupero said.

The Brazilian politician and diplomat particularly mentioned the support from South Africa, which was then at the height of its international prestige under the presidency of Nelson Mandela (1994-1999).

The holding of the 9th session of UNCTAD in the northern South African city of Midrand in 1996 thwarted the conspiracy for a time, Ricupero said.

But the attacks were repeated later under a different guise, nearly always with the goal of limiting the agency’s mandate, he said.

“It is an open secret that over the past few decades, UNCTAD was deprived of the opportunity to work on areas that had been its original raison d’être, like commodities,” said Ricupero.

The pretexts for the rich countries’ attacks have varied over time, he said. They tend to be dressed up in false arguments such as the inefficiency of the secretariat, or the duplication of efforts with other organisations.

But in Ricupero’s view, the true motive is very different. “The rich countries don’t like an organisation that is outside their control, and has the capacity for independent analysis, giving advice to African countries, for instance, against the neocolonialist intentions of France and of European countries in general,” he said.

“The more the facts prove UNCTAD right in its forecasts, about the risks of finance-driven globalisation, for example, the more those who side with the powers responsible for the lamentable state of anarchy of the international monetary and financial system will try to silence it,” he said.

Against this continuing danger, there is only one weapon, “unity and vigorous reaction from developing countries,” he said.

Unfortunately, every time the rich countries have succeeded in cutting back UNCTAD’s powers, it has mainly been due to “the relative lack of interest, or qualifications, or the inefficiency, or lack of courage” of those who should be the first to defend “the organisation that exists to serve the world’s defenceless poor,” he concluded.

The post Speaking Out in Defence of UNCTAD appeared first on Inter Press Service.

By Gustavo Capdevila
GENEVA, Mar 7 2012 (IPS)

Social unrest and demands for change are not a negative thing during times of crisis like today, says Rubens Ricupero, a prominent Brazilian diplomat and intellectual.

Full recovery of the global economy will take at least four or five years, says former head of UNCTAD Rubens Ricupero. Credit: UNCTAD

Ricupero, who has a long and distinguished diplomatic career in Brazil, where he has held several ministerial posts as well, also says numerous multilateral negotiations, like the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Doha Round of talks, will remain stalled.

The deadlock, he says, is related to an ongoing phenomenon: a shift in global power from the North Atlantic to the Asia-Pacific region.

In these circumstances, it is difficult to reach a consensus on deeper issues in multilateral talks, Ricupero told IPS in this exclusive interview.

Q: What is your assessment of the global situation? A: In the industrialised countries, I don’t think there can be much hope of short-term recovery. The Europeans do not even have a strategy to cope with the problems of the highly indebted countries. It will take quite a lot of suffering before any solution is reached.

Growth has practically disappeared in Germany, the country that matters. In others, like Italy and the Netherlands, there is recession. It looks like this will be another lost year for Europe.

Q: And in the United States? A: A lot will depend on the presidential elections in November. It’s not possible to predict the outcome, but I would venture to say President Barack Obama will be reelected.

The U.S. economy is starting to show signs of recovery, albeit slow and insufficient in terms of job creation, but the pace should pick up somewhat over the next few years.

Q: So the outlook is discouraging. A: This year and the next we won’t see major differences with respect to the dichotomy we have experienced in recent times. The economies of the developing South continue to grow, particularly China, India and other Asian countries, and as a result countries of Latin America and the Middle East are growing as well. I don’t see on the horizon either a major threat of a catastrophe like the collapse of the Lehman Brothers in 2008 or a promising recovery.

Q: Will it be a long wait? A: Like in the 1930s, recovery will take a while. Full recovery of the global economy as a whole won’t be seen for at least four or five years.

Q: Does that go for Latin America as well? A: No. That doesn’t mean other regions won’t be able to recover earlier. You have to keep in mind that in the 1930s, with a few exceptions, like Argentina, which suffered more because of its dependence on exports to Great Britain and its decision to try to pay off its debt, the rest of the countries of Latin America were in a good position, like Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Mexico.

Q: Is the outlook similar today? A: I see two differences in our favour. First, in 1930 we didn’t have the current phenomenon of the economic growth in China, India and other Asian countries. The world basically depended on the industrialised countries.

The second difference is that in the 1930s, the countries of Latin America were already crushed by heavy foreign debt, and the great majority of countries in the region were unable to meet their payments.

This time we are starting out the decade in an incomparably better situation, with strong reserves, a low level of debt, and a more favourable internal situation in terms of growth, employment and improved social indices.

I’m talking about the situation in countries like Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Peru, not so much about those that depend more directly on the U.S. market – the countries in the northern part of the region.

Q: International negotiations are running up against serious difficulties in questions like disarmament, trade and the environment. What is your impression of the multilateral system? A: Things are not going well because there is a deadlock on nearly all of the major issues.

Q: What would you say are the reasons for that? A: There are two overlapping phenomena. One is circumstantial: the economic crisis that sooner or later will have to come to an end. Another runs deeper: for years we have been seeing a shift in the world’s centre of economic and demographic gravity from the North Atlantic to the Asia-Pacific region.

This is a phenomenon that the great French historian Fernand Braudel (1902-1985) would have called a very long-term secular tendency, such as in the case of the shift in the centre of world trade from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic in the 16th century, at the time of the big discoveries.

Q: Is that shift in power irreversible? A: It won’t stop happening. On the contrary, the short-term crises are fuelling it, reinforcing it. As the United States gets weaker economically, this obviously greatly favours the accumulation of reserves and financial power in countries like China.

It is at those rare times in history, which occur once every two or three centuries, that there is a change in global distribution. And at those times a consensus on how to cope with the deeper underlying issues is less likely to be reached in the multilateral bodies.

Q: Give me more details about this phenomenon. A: Until recently, the United States was an arbiter making the decisions in the world. It was the hegemonic power that guaranteed the liberal economic order.

It played that role since the end of World War II, with the reorganisation of the economic and financial system – the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the predecessor of the WTO, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) – and of the political system by means of the United Nations charter.

Throughout the long Cold War, the United States continued to be the country that guaranteed the production of results in the major conferences that gave rise to the so-called international regimes. That was so much the case that when the United States abstained, as in the case of law of the sea, things did not move forward.

Q: What is the new reality? A: Today the United States is starting to reassess its positions, to feel a stronger need to focus on its domestic problems, to change its military strategy. It is shifting the focus away from the Middle East and Islamic issues to Asia. And it is starting to realise that the big strategic adversary, in the long run, is China, not Al Qaeda or the Islamists.

So in this process no one is appearing to play the role of arbiter. That’s what is being seen in the incidents involving Syria in the U.N. Security Council, and also in the other major international negotiations.

Q: Are we looking at an imminent shift in power? A: No, I don’t see the possibility of a change in the short term. If Obama is reelected, he will pay more attention to big domestic problems, like he has been doing. And China and India are still facing huge challenges. They are not ready, nor do they want, to assume the weight of that responsibility.

It is a very difficult moment, which fits the great Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci’s (1891-1937) definition of crisis. Gramsci said crisis is the moment when the old world is dying away, and the new world is struggling to come forth, and in that interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.

That is what we are experiencing now. Also the fact that even the industrialised countries have started to discuss the crisis of capitalism. But they can’t come up with a solution because the same people who created the crisis are still dealing the cards.

Q: Do you think there will be some kind of reaction? A: Things are going to be very agitated over the next few years. Not in the sense of a global conflict, but in this kind of thing we are seeing: dissatisfaction, indignation, unrest, a desire for change. Which isn’t negative, because we must not ever lose sight of the fact that history is driven by times of difficulty.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say, like the Marxists, that violence drives history. But dissatisfaction does. It is at the root of the big global changes, like the French Revolution, the Protestant Reformation, the Rennaissance. During those times people were dissatisfied with how they were living.

Q: And today? A: That social unrest can be a highly creative force. It is upsetting for those who live during those periods, because it questions all values, all habits, but it is creative.

I don’t think it’s bad for people not to feel satisfied with a system that is based to such an extent on injustice and the lack of equality. People have to rebel against what the bankers have done, and are still doing.

That is why I have said: more power to the men and women who fight for an economy with greater equity, justice and balance. People must not resign themselves to this.

Q: Could the crisis affect the survival of the multilateral bodies? A: The U.N. in particular has demonstrated great flexibility. I’ll mention two episodes: In 1971, when communist China was admitted to and became a permanent member of the Security Council, it was said at the time, in the period following the Cultural Revolution, that it would cause great instability in the world. And that did not happen.

And the second: the end of communism brought about a total change in the map of the world. The Soviet Union fell apart into I don’t know how many pieces. The Yugoslav federation did too. And all of that happened with a relatively contained degree of violence, except in the case of the Yugoslavians, for other reasons.

At both times, what happened was that the organisations, particularly those of the U.N., managed to adapt to the changes. What is bad is when an organisation is so rigid that it cannot adapt, and it perishes.

The U.N. has that flexibility, which at times causes a great deal of perplexity and dissatisfaction.

Q: Do you believe the financial organisations, like the IMF, World Bank and WTO, will survive intact? A: No. I hope this movement demanding change will modify not only the internal economies of countries, in the sense of moving away from that market fundamentalism, but that it will also change the institutions that have represented that fundamentalist spirit.

And in order for that to happen, the central role has to be played by people around the world – not only in the (developing) South – who are aware of the problem, that it is not possible to continue with an organisation that foments the growth of inequality.

The post Q&A: “Social Unrest Can Be a Creative Force” appeared first on Inter Press Service.