INTERVIEW WITH FERNANDO SAVATER: “THE WORLD, HOW MUCH MORE JUST, HOW MUCH SAFER?”

Basque writer and philosopher Fernando Savater gave this interview shortly before the anniversary of the March 11, 2004, bomb attacks on three passenger trains in Madrid, Spain, which killed 192 people and wounded two thousand. Savater (born in San Sebastian, 1947) is a philosophy professor and the author of numerous essays, which have been translated into a dozen languages. He leads the Basta Ya movement, which represents the victims of terrorism in the Basque Country. The previous Spanish government, of Jose Maria Aznar, stated that there should be no discussion of the causes of terrorism because there could be no possible justification. What is certain is that there is still no internationally-accepted definition of terrorism today. Why is this important? I think there is a mistaken notion that all terrorism is equal. This is the same as saying that all fatal diseases are equal. But cancer is not the same as AIDS. They may both kill you, but they are not the same. Their causes must be understood for them to be treated. Similarly, and with no intention of justifying terrorism, the causes of terrorism must be understood. Ethnic terrorism is not the same as religious terrorism, or the terrorism of the poor against the rich.

PORTUGAL: THE CARNATIONS ARE BLOOMING AGAIN

When the Portuguese Socialist Party and its leader, Jose Socrates, take office on March 12, they will assume a tremendous burden of responsibilities.The country\'s crisis is profound, has many different ramifications, and cannot be resolved magically by a fortunate election, writes Mario Soares, former president of Portugal. I expect that the new prime minister will take advantage of his first days in office to make a clear break with the past, giving clear signs that he grasps the hopes and expectations of the voters. He must make it understood in word and deed that Portugal will be ruled by the government selected by popular vote and backed by the majority of the Assembly of the Republic -- and not by the main economic powers or corporations or lobbies which seek only to use the government for their own ends.

THE ROAD TO DEVELOPMENT PASSES THROUGH TRADE AND SO THE WTO

Only the WTO can improve global rules for the conduct of trade, which is so necessary to complement development and poverty-reduction strategies, writes Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General of the World Trade Organisation. The WTO\'s Doha Development Agenda is a single undertaking which we will not be able to conclude unless we make progress across the board, the author writes in this analysis. We cannot afford to wait for results in agriculture before making further advances in tariffs on industrial products, services, rules, and the other areas. With respect to agriculture, while far-reaching commitments were agreed on domestic support, export competition, and market access, there remain a number of gaps to be filled and thorny issues to be resolved. On export competition, despite the important commitment to eliminating export subsidies, we still need to fix an end date. With respect to domestic support,the actual level of commitments still needs to be carefully negotiated. On market access, we still need to negotiate the actual percentage of reductions. We also need to establish which products can be designated \"sensitive\" and \"special\" and agree on disciplines to ensure that flexibility in this area is not used to circumvent market access commitments. The road ahead could still be a rough one. The DDA is still behind schedule and every new delay weakens its credibility and value. We need to approach our work over the coming months with a sense of urgency and determination.

DIGITAL DEBRIS: ELECTRONIC WASTE AND THE HAZARDS OF COMPUTER RECYCLING

Electronic waste is the fastest growing disposal problem in the world. From the industrial backwaters of mainland China to rapidly industrialising regions of India and Pakistan, a wide range of electronic devices and appliances are being received and recycled in conditions that imperil the health of the recyclers, their communities, and their environments, writes Mark Sommer, who directs the US-based Mainstream Media Project and hosts \"A World of Possibilities\", an award-winning internationally-syndicated radio programme, where a three-part series on electronic waste can be accessed and downloaded.. In this article, Sommer writes that most of the components in these devices are recovered by poor, often migrant scavengers and sold for reuse. But in the process they and the environments around them are exposed to heavy metals like mercury, lead, beryllium, cadmium, and brominated flame retardants that leave lethal residues in bodies, soils, and watercourses. Governments and electronics firms have long known about the hazardous effects of this \"effluent of the affluent\" and as early as 1989 drafted the Basel Convention, an international treaty dealing with the global trade in toxic wastes. In 1994 it was strengthened to ban the export of all hazardous wastes from rich to poor countries, even for the purpose of recycling. Alone among developed countries, the US has refused to ratify the Basel Convention and has consistently sought to undermine its implementation. Yet as with so many other global agreements, the rest of the world has ceased waiting for the US to lead and has instead taken the initiative itself. The EU has already implemented the Basel Convention, banning the export of all hazardous wastes to developing countries for any reason, while readying a comprehensive set of regulations that will require electronics manufacturers selling to its 25 member countries to bear the responsibility for the entire life cycle of their products, taking them back at the end of their useful life and phasing out their toxic components.

IRAQ: THE MOTHER OF ALL CORRUPTION SCANDALS?

When the new Iraqi government takes office in the coming weeks it will face the daunting task of reversing decades of state-sponsored looting, writes Peter Eigen, Chairman of Transparency International, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the fight against corruption. Transparency International\'s Global Corruption Report 2005 (www.globalcorruptionreport.org), released March 16, features a special section on post-war reconstruction. In this article, the author writes that infrastructure development has suffered greatly at the whims of dictatorship, the scheming of the Oil-for-Food programme, and the opaque contracts of the Coalition Provisional Authority, which doled out billions of dollars worth of construction and engineering contracts at break-neck speed in the aftermath of the war. The potential for abuse remains immense. The safety and prosperity of future generations, and by extension the success of peace and democracy, will rest, literally, on the foundations built today. It is indispensable that Iraqis see the new government as legitimate and accountable. The scene unfolding, however, does not bode well. The government should decentralise aid and reconstruction projects where possible, shortening reporting lines and strengthening a sense of ownership. A strong and independent local media is also vital to keep a watchful eye on those in power. Competitive and transparent bidding must be ensured. With unprecedented sums earmarked by the US government for Iraqi reconstruction and an oil industry and infrastructure still in tatters, the opportunities and the risks are immense. If urgent steps are not taken, Iraq will not become the emblem of democracy that many of us hope for; it will become the mother of all corruption scandals.

BEYOND IDEOLOGY: US “SILENT MAJORITY” SEEKS NEW POLITICS

Domestic divisiveness within the United States represents a far greater danger to the American democratic republic than any threat from foreign terrorists, writes Mark Sommer, host of the award-wining internationally syndicated radio programme, \"A World of Possibilities\" and co-creator, with William Ury, of BothAnd (www.bothand.org). In this article, Sommer argues that as currently framed, the war on terror is the ultimate either/or paradigm: \"You\'re either with us or against us.\" But this frame has divided Americans both from one another and the rest of the world in ways that could prove fatal to the country\'s future if it does not soon reframe the struggle in more inclusive ways. A different kind of Middle America - both principled and pragmatic, strengthened rather than weakened by its differences -- could bring fresh energy to a paralysed body politic by creating a vibrant new process outside the dead zones that are the White House and Congress today. By combining the best of many perspectives into creative, effective syntheses, they may yet produce hybrid solutions with the vigour to withstand our all-too- human fractiousness.

INTERVIEW WITH BALTASAR GARZON: “WE ARE CLOSING THE SPACE OF IMPUNITY.”

Any attack or act of aggression against a civilian population, whether by civilian groups, insurgents, terrorists, or regular armed forces is an act of terrorism, asserts Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, who won international renown for his prosecution of the ex-dictator of Chile Augusto Pinochet (London 1998) as well as of socialist functionaries for the \"dirty war\" (1983-1986), Spanish and foreign drug traffickers, and the Basque terrorist group Eta and its press and political organs.

POVERTY, WATER, AND GLOBALISATION

On March 22, World Water Day, the UN will launch the second International Decade for Action \"Water for Life\" (2005-2015), writes Riccardo Petrella, a professor at the Catholic University of Louvain. In this article, Petrella writes that the goal of first decade (1981-1991) was to assure access to potable water to all inhabitants of the planet by 2000. As we know, this goal was not achieved - far from it. This failure was due primarily to the fact that the leaders of the rich and powerful countries did not implement the measures that they themselves considered essential, particularly allocating 0.7 percent of GDP per year for aid to underdeveloped countries. Instead, between 1975-2000, they provided on average 0.23 percent, or less than a third of what they had promised. With the ascendance of the vision of today\'s financial globalisation, the eradication of poverty came to be considered impossible. Were it to happen, it would be achieved not through public will but by market mechanisms. Creativity, life, identity, and even individual survival are all vetted in the arenas of the global competitive markets, whose specific function is to select the \"best\" products and services, the more \"profitable\" places for investment, production, and consumption, promising the most \"competitive\" success. The fundamental question, Petrella writes, is whether the right to life of billions of human beings can be squared with the prolongation of the present human disaster by another ten years. I do not believe that the majority of Europeans, Africans, Asians, and North and South Americans think so.

10 YEARS AFTER THE COPENHAGEN SOCIAL SUMMIT: TIME TO BRIDGE THE GAP BETWEEN WORDS AND DEEDS

Economic growth is essential for the world to meet the social agenda spelled out 10 years ago in Copenhagen and the objective of reducing global poverty by 50 percent by 2015, writes Steen Jorgensen, Director of Social Development at the World Bank. In this article, Jorgensen writes that growth needs to be socially balanced and therefore development efforts must generate institutions that promote an inclusive approach to economic development, sound governance structures by which authorities are accountable to regular citizens, and a decision-making process that favours consensus-building instead of division and exclusion, which lead to conflict and marginalisation. There is now empirical evidence that social progress is, in many cases, not only a key factor but even a precondition to sustained economic growth. Social investments during good times paid off during crisis and enabled communities to bounce back faster. Decades of development experience have shown that when societies are guided by the key principles of inclusion, cohesion, and accountability, development efforts are more successful and lasting.

ECONOMISTS AS ADVOCATES

At last, the public debate over corporate social responsibility has been fully joined by the mainstream financial press. However, to properly context this debate, the enduring myth that economics is a science must be dispelled, writes Hazel Henderson, economist and author of Beyond Globalization and other books. In this article, Henderson writes that in truth, economics is a profession -- one with rather poor quality control. Economists are advocates, not scientists. In 1969 the Central Bank of Sweden, put up USD 1 million to create a prize to confer scientific status and legitimacy on the academic discipline and policy advocacy of the economics profession. Economists need not be embarrassed by this unmasking of their field as a profession rather than a science. Economists have always been advocates of various government policies, regulations or deregulation, and of the interests of their clients (most often bankers, financial firms and corporations in general). All that is necessary is clarity on the part of these professionals and all other advocates - so that the public is fully informed - and the issues are argued honestly.

SILENCE IN NEPAL

Every time we in Nepal think things can\'t get any worse, they do, writes Kunda Dixit, editor of the weekly Nepali Times. Last week, King Gyanendra sacked his prime minister, declared a state of emergency, and suspended civil liberties. Nepal\'s 15-year experiment with democracy now seems over. With complete press censorship, one of the last remaining freedoms from the 1990 People\'s Movement is gone. King Gyanendra\'s move has been welcomed by many Nepalis disenchanted by the instability caused by fractious and corrupt parliamentary leaders and by an insurgency which has cost 12,000 lives in nine years. If this is what the king had to do to restore peace, they say, so be it. In the long run, however, the answer to Maoist totalitarianism is greater and more inclusive democracy, a vibrant free press, and civil liberties. Curtailing freedom polarises society between two radicalisms and wipes out the middle ground. And even as a strategy against the Maoists it could be counterproductive.

DON QUIXOTE OF THE PARADOXES

It was in prison that this adventure in freedom was born. In the jail of Seville, \'\'where every discomfort has its place and every sad sound its home\'\', Don Quixote of La Mancha was engendered, writes Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan writer and journalist, and author of \"The Open Veins of Latin America\" and \"Memories of Fire\". In this article, Galeano writes that every person contains other possible people, and each world contains its anti-world. This hidden promise, the world that we need, is no less real than the world we know and suffer. This truth is well-known, and fully lived, by the beaten down who still practice the madness of returning to the path, time and time again, because they continue to believe that the path is a challenge that awaits them, and because they continue to believe that righting wrongs is a worthy folly. The impossible helps the possible come to pass. To put it in terms of Don Quixote\'s pharmacy: the magic of this balm of Fierabras is so powerful that at times it saves us from the curse of fatalism and the plague of despair. Isn\'t this, in the end, the great paradox of the human voyage on this earth, that the navigator steers by the stars though he knows he will never reach them?

THE U.N. SHOULD MOVE ITS HEADQUARTERS TO A FRIENDLY LOCATION

Worldwide there is an undercurrent of opinion that as part of UN reform and revitalization, its headquarters should be relocated from New York to another city and host country. This view needs to be argued and articulated in the multilateral arena. It needs to be brought to the attention of the world public opinion and policy makers, writes Roberto Savio, founder and president emeritus of IPS, and member of the WSF International Committee. In an international community composed of almost 200 states, striving for a genuine, democratic international system, the heart and brain of such a system embodied in the UN, should not be located in a country with hegemonic pretensions, which is systematically trying to make the UN into a docile instrument for the pursuit and attainment of its national goals, while neutralizing any of its roles, functions or actions that it deems contrary to its national interest. The UN cannot feel at ease or function normally in a setting where an important part of the political establishment and of public opinion is openly hostile to it, and in a micro-environment where its presence has become a daily irritant to many and where it is subjected to consistently negative media coverage.

RECONSTRUCTION AFTER TSUNAMI MUST BEGIN QUICKLY

Reconstruction should begin quickly, the author writes in this analysis. This stage is not just a matter of financial resources and physical infrastructure but also human beliefs and emotional pressures. It is rebuilding the individual lives of real people. As we move from relief to rebuilding, it is critical that we work to break the cycle of poverty and create a better, more hopeful future for the peoples of the region and not recreate the circumstances that made them vulnerable to the disaster. There is an increasing concern that the overall level of assistance to help all these poor countries including the tsunami-stricken nations won\'t actually increase but will merely come from shifting existing funds. This is not the answer. We simply cannot divert resources from other essential development projects to one emergency after another.

20 YEARS AFTER BHOPAL: MULTINATIONALS AND HUMAN RIGHTS-FREE ZONES

To mark the twentieth anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, Amnesty International published a report that documented the continuing plight of people who continue to suffer chronic and debilitating illnesses for which treatment is largely ineffective, writes Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International. In this article, Khan writes that the Bhopal disaster is a prime case of the failure of international and national law to hold corporations accountable for human rights abuses. Notwithstanding the far-reaching impact of companies on human rights, most companies oppose any move towards binding regulations. Instead, following several high-profile cases and public pressure, some business sectors have drawn up voluntary codes of conduct, but these have failed to reduce the negative consequences of corporate behaviour on human rights. Under the current state of law, national systems are effectively unwilling or unable to hold companies operating in their countries accountable. Governments are afraid that, in a globalised economy, if they exercise strict control over businesses, foreign investors will go elsewhere. Companies must be brought within the framework of international human rights law. Yet global rules governing trade and investment are being drawn up without regard to their human rights impact. Amnesty International believes that the United Nations Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights (UN Norms) are the logical next step in a strategy to develop corporate legal accountability This column is part of the series on Globalisation and Human Rights, a joint project of Dignity International and IPS Columnist Service (http://www.dignityinternational.org).

THE MIRAGE OF DEVELOPMENT THROUGH TRADE

A new report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) concludes that the last 40 years of international trade in agriculture have not benefited the developing countries, above all the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), write Frederic Mousseau, Senior Fellow at the Oakland Institute and internationally-renowned food security consultant, and Anuradha Mittal, the founder and director of the Oakland Institute. In this analysis, the authors write that according to the report, trade actually marginalises the poorest countries and their small farmers and mainly benefits large-scale producers and corporations from developed countries. In the last few decades, transnational corporations have increased control over production and trade in developing countries. While it denounces market distortions caused by developed countries, the report does not question the policies that harm agriculture in the developing countries and undermine the livelihoods of their farmers. Instead it recommends measures to make developing countries and their farmers more competitive in an open global economy, suggesting that the trade and market liberalisation are the only chances that poorest nations have to get out of poverty. The authors argue for the adoption of food sovereignty as a national policy for developing countries, including the right to protect their production and markets from an inequitable system.

SHAPING THE FUTURE: THE WORK OF SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS

As the World Economic Forum and the World Social Forum convene in Davos and Porto Alegre, respectively, there is the sense that deep forces we can barely discern are reshaping the world and that the national and global institutions we have always counted are inadequate, write Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, and the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, and Pamela Hartigan, Managing Director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. Yet we are optimists, the authors write: for the past four years we have worked closely with the world\'s leading social entrepreneurs whose inspired pragmatism banishes pessimism. While we cannot reformulate our institutional systems overnight, we are convinced that we can do it in the long run because we witness the current work of social entrepreneurs who are now creating different types of institutions that combine public and private sector approaches to achieve economic and social transformation. Governments and aid agencies no longer can be the sole actors in addressing injustice and inequity. The private sector can no longer see itself as simply in the business of making business. And the philanthropic sector cannot be expected to fill in the gaps. We need a hybrid organisation that does all of these things. This column is a part of the special series on \"Globalisation & Human Rights\", a joint effort of Dignity International (http://www.dignityinternational.org) and the IPS Columnist Service.

SPECIAL IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE COVERAGE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM PORTO ALEGRE JANUARY 26-31, 2005: HUMAN RIGHTS IS BEST STRATEGY TO END POVERTY

Will 2005 be a year of breakthrough which moves us closer to realizing the World Social Forum\'s conviction that another world is possible? Or will it be yet another year in which the divides in our world continue to grow? The answer, of course, depends on the choices we make and the values we uphold, writes Mary Robinson, Executive Director of The Ethical Globalisation Initiative and Honorary President of Oxfam International. In this article, the author writes that commitments that should be front and center during 2005 are those that governments made at the start of the 21st century. Five years after the largest gathering ever of heads of state and government solemnly vowed in the 2000 UN Millennium Declaration to spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, it is clear that many countries in the world are falling desperately short of the progress needed to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. In our search for a more ethical globalization, the time has come to return to the values and principles reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The universality of human rights, their focus on human dignity, and their concern for accountability, make them uniquely appropriate for re-shaping development cooperation, fostering good governance, and combating discrimination, disease, and despair.

AN INDIVISIBLE DESTINY

The new geopolitics of human existence demonstrates an unprecedented capacity to fight for large collective interests and to demand solutions that are coordinated and solidary, writes Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil. In this article, Lula writes that while debts must be honored, payment must not mean the euthanasia of the debtor. The holders of the surplus of financial wealth must consider the social deficit afflicting three-quarters of humanity. This cannot be done simply by applying some automatic accounting formula. Rather, it is a matter of bringing about the transformation of social justice into the new border of sovereignty. The author calls for the reform of the hierarchy of the multilateral institutions. If poor countries are to be able to make the fight for development a priority of the global agenda, democracy must be deepened at the center of power. The reform of the UN and particularly the Security Council is part of this agenda. But the line of inequality will not shift as long as political power remains locked in place by a financial system that perpetuates current relationships: 45 percent of the decision-making of the World Bank is assigned to the seven richest countries. Five central economies hold 40 percent of the votes in the International Monetary Fund, while 23 African nations prostrated by hunger have one percent. This column is part of the series on Globalisation and Human Rights, a joint project of Dignity International and IPS Columnist Service (http://www.dignityinternational.org).

TSUNAMI: SIMPLE STEPS THAT COULD SAVE THOUSANDS OF LIVES

In a January 2 interview on CNN, the head of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was asked, Why was no warning issued to the countries hit by a tsunami after NOAA detected the earthquake on 26 December? He responded that, first, there was no warning system in place; and second, that NOAA lacked a precise model of the tsunami and could not have known how many people would need to evacuate, writes Dietrich Fischer, Academic Director of the European University Center for Peace Studies in Stadtschlaining, Austria, and Co-director of TRANSCEND, a global peace and development network. In this article, Fischer writes that even if the job description of the scientists who detected the earthquake did not include warning those whose lives were in danger, it was their moral responsibility to do so. They may not have had phone numbers of the relevant government agencies in the affected countries. But if they had informed people who could pass on the warning, even at night, they might have been able to reach some people in the affected areas who could have forwarded the information to others. And the US State Department could have contacted foreign governments and its embassies in the region directly. It took the tsunami 3 hours and 52 minutes to reach Sri Lanka, less for Thailand, but plenty of time for a warning.

GLOBALISE HUMAN RIGHTS

The challenge before us today is to use the many opportunities globalisation offers to deliver human dignity for all, writes Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In this article, the author writes that the power of human rights lies not just in their expression of an aspiration but in their articulation of a legal framework which binds us all. In this age of rapid globalisation, decisions that directly affect people\'s lives are taken beyond national borders; accordingly, it is crucial that we strengthen the capacity of states to defend human rights and the rule of law and to resist policies that will have negative consequences on human rights of their people. The protection of human rights at the country level is critical if international standards, norms, and laws are to have practical effects on the ground. Only when national laws, institutions and procedures effectively work in this direction can the protection of human rights be ensured. This column is part of the special series on \"Globalisation & Human Rights\", a joint effort of Dignity International (http://www.dignityinternational.org) and the IPS Columnist Service.