Africa

Former Guinea international defender Mohamed 'Ofei' Sylla dies at the age of 44 after a short illness.

Hearts manager Craig Levein confirms that contract offers have been made to Steven Naismith and Arnaud Djoum.

By Chakravarthi Raghavan and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
GENEVA and KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 5 2019 (IPS)

In Davos in late January, several powerful governments and their allies announced their intention to launch new negotiations on e-commerce. Unusually, the intention is to launch the plurilateral negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO), an ostensibly multilateral organization, setting problematic precedents for the future of multilateral negotiations.

Chakravarthi Raghavan

Any resulting WTO agreement, especially one to make e-commerce tax- and tariff-free, will require amendments to its existing goods agreements, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreements. If it is not an unconditional agreement in the WTO, it will violate WTO ‘most favoured nation’ (MFN) principles.

This will be worse than the old, and ostensibly extinct ‘Green Room’ processes — of a few major powers negotiating among themselves, and then imposing their deal on the rest of the membership. Thus, the proposed e-commerce rules may be ‘WTO illegal’ — unless legitimized by the amendment processes and procedures in Article X of the WTO treaty.

Any effort to ‘smuggle’ it into the WTO, e.g., by including it in Annex IV to the WTO treaty (Plurilateral Trade Agreements), will need, after requisite notice, a consensus decision at Ministerial Conference (Art X:9 of treaty) . It may still be illegal since the subjects are already covered by agreements in Annexes 1A, 1B and 1C of the WTO treaty.

Consolidating power of the giants
Powerful technology transnational corporations (TNCs) are trying to rewrite international rules to advance their business interests by: gaining access to new foreign markets, securing free access to others’ data, accelerating deregulation, casualizing labour markets, and minimizing tax liabilities.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

While digital technology and trade, including electronic or e-commerce, can accelerate development and create jobs, if appropriate policies and arrangements are in place, e-commerce rhetoric exaggerates opportunities for developing country, especially small and medium enterprises. Instead, the negotiations are intended to diminish the right of national authorities to require ‘local presence’, a prerequisite for the consumer and public to sue a supplier.

The e-commerce proposals are expected to strengthen the dominant TNCs, enabling them to further dominate digital trade as the reform proposals are likely to strengthen their discretionary powers while limiting public oversight over corporate behaviour in the digital economy.

Developing countries must be vigilant
If digital commerce grows without developing countries first increasing value captured from production — by improving productive capacities in developing countries, closing the digital divide by improving infrastructure and interconnectivity, and protecting privacy and data — they will have to open their economies even more to foreign imports.

Further digital liberalization without needed investments to improve productive capacities, will destroy some jobs, casualize others, squeeze existing enterprises and limit future development. Such threats, due to accelerated digital liberalization, will increase if the fast-changing digital economic space is shaped by new regulations influenced by TNCs.

Diverting business through e-commerce platforms will not only reduce domestic market shares, as existing digital trade is currently dominated by a few TNCs from the United States and China, but also reduce sales tax revenue which governments increasingly rely upon with the earlier shift from direct to indirect taxation.

Developing countries must quickly organize themselves to advance their own agenda for developmental digitization. Meanwhile, concerned civil society organizations and others are proposing new approaches to issues such as data governance, anti-trust regulation, smaller enterprises, jobs, taxation, consumer protection, and trade facilitation.

New approach needed
A development-focused and jobs-enhancing digitization strategy is needed instead. Effective national policies require sufficient policy space, stakeholder participation and regional consultation, but the initiative seeks to limit that space. Developing countries should have the policy space to drive their developmental digitization agendas. Development partners, especially donors, should support, not drive this agenda.

Developmental digitization will require investment in countries’ technical, legal and economic infrastructure, and policies to: bridge the digital divide; develop domestic digital platforms, businesses and capacities to use data in the public interest; strategically promote national enterprises, e.g., through national data use frameworks; ensure digitization conducive to full employment policies; advance the public interest, consumer protection, healthy competition and sustainable development.

Pro-active measures needed
Following decades of economic liberalization and growing inequality, and the increasing clout of digital platforms, international institutions should support developmental digitization for national progress, rather than digital liberalization. Developing country governments must be vigilant about such e-commerce negotiations, and instead undertake pro-active measures such as:

Data governance infrastructure: Developing countries must be vigilant of the dangers of digital colonialism and the digital divide. Most people do not properly value data, while governments too easily allow data transfers to big data corporations without adequate protection for their citizens. TNC rights to free data flows should be challenged.

Enterprise competition: Developing countries still need to promote national enterprises, including through pro-active policies. International rules have enabled wealth transfers from the global South to TNCs holding well protected patents. National systems of innovation can only succeed if intellectual property monopolies are weakened. Strengthening property rights enhances TNC powers at the expense of developing country enterprises.

Employment: Developmental digitization must create decent jobs and livelihoods. Labour’s share of value created has declining in favour of capital, which has influenced rule-making to its advantage.

Taxation: The new e-commerce proposals seek to ban not only appropriate taxation, but also national presence requirements where they operate to avoid taxes at the expense of competitors paying taxes in compliance with the law. Tax rules allowing digital TNCs to reduce taxable income or shift profits to low-tax jurisdictions should be addressed.

Consumer protection: Strong policies for consumer protection are needed as the proposals would put privacy and data protection at risk. Besides citizens’ rights to privacy, consumers must have rights to data protection and against TNC and other abuse of human rights.

Competition: Digital platforms must be better regulated at both national and international level. Policies are needed to weaken digital economic monopolies and to support citizens, consumers and workers in relating to major digital TNCs.

Trade facilitation: Recent trade facilitation in developing countries, largely funded by donors, has focused on facilitating imports, rather than supply side constraints. Recent support for digital liberalization similarly encourages developing countries to import more instead of developing needed new infrastructure to close digital divides.

Urgent measures needed
‘E-commerce’ has become the new front for further economic liberalization and extension of property rights by removing tariffs (on IT products), liberalizing imports of various services, stronger IP protection, ending technology transfer requirements, and liberalizing government procurement.

Developing countries must instead develop their own developmental digitization agendas, let alone simply copy, or worse, promote e-commerce rules developed by TNCs to open markets, secure data, as well as constrain regulatory and developmental governments.

Chakravarthi Raghavan, Editor-emeritus of South-North Development Monitor SUNS, is based in Geneva and has been monitoring and reporting on the WTO and its predecessor GATT since 1978; he is author of several books on trade issues.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram is Senior Adviser with the Khazanah Research Institute. He was an economics professor and United Nations Assistant Secretary General for Economic Development.

The post Beware Proposed E-commerce Rules appeared first on Inter Press Service.

A fisher in Barbados. The Caribbean’s fish stocks have been affected by climate change. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Desmond Brown
GEORGETOWN, Feb 5 2019 (IPS)

In recent years Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries have experienced escalated climate change impacts from hurricanes, tropical storms and other weather-related events thanks to global warming of 1.0 ° Celsius (C) above pre-industrial levels. And it has had adverse effects on particularly vulnerable countries and communities.

CARICOM countries and other small island and low-lying coastal developing states have long been calling for limiting the increase in average global temperatures to below 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century in order to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Regional countries have also noted with grave concern the findings of the  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C. The report noted that climate-related risks for natural and human systems including health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security and economic growth are significantly higher at an increased global warming of 1.5 °C than at the present warming levels of 1 °C above pre-industrial levels.

Particularly worrisome for small island developing states (SIDS) is the finding that 70 to 90 percent of tropical coral reefs will be lost at a 1.5 °C temperature increase and 99 percent of tropical coral reefs will be lost at a 2 °C temperature increase.

Dr. Douglas Slater, Assistant Secretary General at the CARICOM Secretariat, told IPS that they have been working closely with the Alliance of Small Island States grouping. “The CARICOM SIDS grouping is considered a very important link and we are really leaders in the SIDS movement,” he said.

He said that at last year’s 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the region had been able to ensure, to some extent, that the procedures for the implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement were clearly outlined.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Dr. Douglas Slater, Assistant Secretary General at the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, says the region needs to recognise the importance of implementing some of the measures as recommended by technical institutions that will help to build climate resilience. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

Inter Press Service (IPS): How is the CARICOM region doing with its climate change fight?

DS: Starting from COP21 in France, certain decisions were made. The region thought that [at COP24] we needed to ensure that the procedures for the implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement and the modalities were clearly elucidated and outlined. To some extent I would say that that was achieved.

Another issue that we took [to COP24] and lobbied hard for, was a response to the IPCC 1.5 study.

The world is already looking to limit global warming to below 2 °C. We insisted that it should be no more than 1.5°C. Now, it might sound like they are close, but the differences are so significant, especially as it relates to us.

I must say that we had a hard task convincing them to accept the language of the findings of the IPCC. In fact, majority of the parties supported the findings and the actions to respond to it. But there were some major players [who did not] and because we work on consensus, it couldn’t find its way into the outcome document in a forceful way that was supportive of what we wanted.

There were four main countries, some real heavy rollers—the United States, Russia, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia—who resisted that. We will continue and there will be other opportunities. In fact, there is a meeting in May of this year where we’ll continue to push.

IPS: Were there any other tangible outcomes?

DS: We did get some language that will encourage parties to work towards what we want. There is also the issue of the Talanoa Dialogue, which was decided from the previous COP Presidency—Fiji. The word suggests working together in an inclusive cooperative way to ensure that a lot of issues, including the Nationally Determined Contributions, are adjusted to meet the times. That had some challenges being accepted wholesale too, but I think it is correct to say that Parties acknowledged what was happening and gave some commitment to increase the ambition to reduce greenhouse gases.

But it is a continuing struggle and we have to keep sounding our small but powerful voices because climate change is existential to us. Already, coming out of the hurricane season in 2017, we have had first-hand experience of what can happen to us and we don’t want a repeat of that.

IPS: Given the political cycle in the Caribbean where you could have a change in administration every five years or less, do you find that when an administration changes the drive and level of attention to climate change also changes?

DS: It is my feeling, based on my observation over the years, that the political parties in the region understand the impact that climate change can cause on us and in general are strongly supportive. So, it’s not a major issue. It might just be degrees of emphasis or so, but I don’t think there’s a challenge there. I think it is clear to all of our political leaders that climate change is a reality and it can devastate our sustainability, especially economic sustainability.

In my opinion, it doesn’t matter which administration is there, the policy should be aimed at addressing resilience to climate change and I think by and large that has been happening.

IPS: What major challenges remain for individual countries in the region or as a collective of SIDS? 

DS: I think we need to recognise the importance of implementing some of the measures as recommended by our technical institutions that will help to build resilience. Let us take hurricanes, for example. One of the reasons why you get significant damage is that the building codes that we have been using need updating. I think if we do that it will build a more resilient region. I think the message is there, but the implementation takes some time due to a lack of resources.

We have been working on that.

I know Dominica, especially post Hurricane Maria, are really working assiduously to build the first climate-resilient country probably in the world. That augers well for the region. We are hoping whatever we can gain from that experience can be disseminated in the entire region.

I am particularly concerned about some individual member states of CARICOM. Such as, for example, Haiti. I [bring up] Haiti because of land degradation and its impact, which we are dealing with now. We hope that Haiti can adjust to understanding the need for reforestation because that is a resilience measure.

I think if our individual member states can work with the various ministries and the regional institutions and we can mobilise the resources, that is the big challenge.

We know in general what we need to do. There’s a willingness to do it, the challenge is having the resources to.

We have some excellent institutions like CDEMA [Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency] which really is on the ball, but they need resources sometimes to respond to some of the challenges.

We are working with some international organisations and some other international development partners to see how we can pull that together. But it’s a work in progress.

*Interview edited for clarity.

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The post Q&A: Continuous Struggle for the Caribbean to be Heard in Climate Change Discussions appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

IPS correspondent Desmond Brown interviews DOUGLAS SLATER, Assistant Secretary General at the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat.

The post Q&A: Continuous Struggle for the Caribbean to be Heard in Climate Change Discussions appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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By Jan Lundius
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Feb 4 2019 (IPS)

Is there a connection between sex education, gender equality and promiscuity? On this website, Fabiana Fraysinnet recently denounced a Brazilian crusade against sex education conducted by conservative and religious sectors. Such initiatives are common in several other countries, where politicians and religious leaders accuse sexual education of blurring boundaries between male and female and thus foment homosexuality and transsexualism, as well as a moral relativism undermining family structures and adherence to religious guidance and dogma.

An opposite position is reflected by the personal motto of the Norwegian-Swedish journalist and socialist agitator Elise Ottosen-Jensen, who in 1933, together with a number of radical medical doctors founded the Swedish Association for Sexualiity Education (RFSU):

I dream of the day when every new born child is welcome, when men and women are equal, and when sexuality is an expression of intimacy, joy and tenderness.

Through her work as a journalist Elise Ottosen-Jensen had gained insights into the everyday life of working-class women. Scarce resources, hard work and domestic violence were common problems. Her conviction that the many unwanted pregnancies were a problem for several families and also a threat to women´s health and well-being turned her into an outspoken promotor of contraceptives and an agitator against the so-called sex laws, which prohibited use of contraceptives and penalized homosexuality. Until 1938 Swedish laws forbade the use of, information about, as well as distribution and marketing of contraceptives and it was not until 1944 that homosexuality was decriminalized. In 1955, sexual education was made compulsory in Swedish schools.

While I studied pedagogy in the 1970s the Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire´s Pedagogy of the Oppressed was obligatory reading for all future Swedish teachers. Freire stated that pupils simply memorized “facts” transmitted by their teachers, maintaining that all education instead ought to problematize what appears to be simple truths and provoke students to “self-determination”. I was taught that the Swedish school was supposed to support the ”development of critically thinking individuals,” able to dispute generally accepted dogmas and opinions.

Sexual education was part of that agenda and connected to gender equality. It was emphasized that all over the world girls and women are facing social, economic and cultural barriers impeding their education and livelihoods and that even more lack comprehensive sexuality education, which serves as a tool for women to take control of their bodies, to plan their future and avoid unintended pregnancy, child-, early- and forced marriages.

Some educators soon developed Freire´s theories into something they labelled as “anti-oppressive education”, i.e. a commitment to empower youngsters from minority groups by making them question norms that determine people’s perceptions of what is “normal”. Such views have increasingly come to influence the current Swedish debate about the rights of people who identify themselves as LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer).

Swedish radicals have recommended that children are given “gender neutral names”, while children´s books address norm changing themes, for example Kalle som Lucia, “Kalle as Lucia”. This particular story is about a boy who wants to be Lucia. In all Swedish schools winter solstice is celebrated by processions headed by a beautiful girl chosen by the pupils to be Lucia, Bringer of Light. While connecting traditional gender roles to normative change, books like Kalle as Lucia are supposed to teach kids that it is OK to be different.

Another Swedish norm changing initiative has been the replacement of the Swedish words for she and he with the neutral hen (from the Finnish gender neutral hän). Such efforts have been criticized as “ridiculous”, or even worse – as a Government supported scheme to blur the difference between the sexes, described as an integrated part of efforts to secure gender equality, which in reality is an entirely different endeavour. Gender equality aims at fomenting equal access to resources and opportunities for people of different sex, it does not at all seek to abolish biologically conditioned differences between women and men.

People who use bio-determinism as an argument against gender equality, claiming that promoting equal rights for women and men is a violation of religious and natural laws, ignore the fact people are able to change. John Stuart Mill, the 19th century economist and promoter of women’s emancipation, emphasized the dangers of bio-determinism:

Of all the vulgar modes of escaping from the consideration of the effect of social and moral influences upon the human mind, the most vulgar is that of attributing the diversities of conduct and character to inherent natural differences. 1

We have over time developed social patterns that resist aggression and selfish behaviour. While living close together, humans have used their superior brains to comprehend how violence and excessive dominant behaviour are intrinsically bad for the survival of our specie. Humans are able to change their habitats, instead of exclusively adapting to them, something that is due to the fact that human beings are genetically programmed to make use of reason, culture and free will, an endeavour supported by education aimed at promoting openness, mutual support and compassion.

Ignorance about reproductive health is currently threatening to increase rates of teen pregnancy, communicable diseases, misogyny and abuse of girls and adolescents. Attacking gender equality and sex education in the guise of opposition to norm criticism may prove to be harmful to the entire society and not the least the wellbeing of women, whose health is threatened by the bigotry of religious leaders, harmful traditions and prejudiced politics.

Some years ago, I visited Andean communities, interviewing women about their life situation. I had previously found that as a foreign man one of the best ways of approaching reticent women in rural settings had been to do so in the company of a local midwife. What worried me during my encounters with Andean women was their often poor state of health and I assumed it was the midwife´s presence that made them reveal their pains.

Several suffered from vaginal prolapse and other conditions affecting the female reproductive system. Ailments caused by congenital malformations, or difficulties during pregnancies that came too early in life and often had been far too frequent. Women´s suffering could also have been a consequence of difficult deliveries, poor hygiene, deficient preventive healthcare, hard work, badly treated infections and venereal diseases. Disease affecting productive organs were generally suffered in silence, considered to be shameful since everything connected with female bodies was burdened by prejudices, chauvinism and religious narrow-mindedness. My meeting with these women made me realize that gender equality is not only an issue of equity between men and women, but physical differences between males and females have to be addressed as well.

We are able to change our destiny for the better by liberating ourselves from shackles of intolerance supported by murky traditions and misinterpreted biological determinism. This is one reason to why gender equality, and not the least – unrestricted access to healthcare and sex education for both women and men, benefit the entire mankind. Fear of male power loss and an assumed spread of homosexuality cannot be allowed to forbid sex education and become an obstacle to women´s health and wellbeing.

1Collected Works of John Stuart Mill: Principles of political economy. University of Toronto Press. p. 319

Jan Lundius holds a PhD. on History of Religion from Lund University and has served as a development expert, researcher and advisor at SIDA, UNESCO, FAO and other international organisations.

The post Sex Education and Women´s Health appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Photo: Sheikh Nasir

By Quamrul Chowdhury
Feb 4 2019 (IPS-Partners)

(The Daily Star) – Every year on February 2, nations have been celebrating the World Wetlands Day since 1997. But unfortunately, despite national and international efforts, wetlands are still treated as revenue-generating machines or wastelands in many countries including Bangladesh. Apparently, nobody would like to think of wetlands as a natural solution in adapting to the global climate change.

Many people don’t even bother to think that these ecosystems play a significant role in mitigating the adverse impacts of climatic change. Hence, many wetlands have already been encroached, degraded or polluted. The theme of this year’s Wetlands Day is “Wetlands and Climate Change”—and it has been chosen to highlight the important role played by wetlands, as a natural solution, in terms of adapting to and mitigating the impacts of climate change.

Many developing and developed countries as well as their economies and natural ecosystems have been battling with an unprecedented degree of climatic change in recent years. Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP), prepared in 2008 and revised in 2009, identified that water security, food security, energy security, health security and livelihood security are being threatened by the adverse impacts of climate change.

As one of the lead authors of BCCSAP, I know that many of the 45 programmes included in this plan couldn’t be implemented because of resource constraints, deficits in programme preparations and planning problems. This is quite unfortunate.

It should be noted that wetland ecosystems are severely affected, for example, by sea-level rise, coral bleaching, hydrological effects, changes in water temperature, and alterations in water availability and quality. Wetlands in Bangladesh, like in many other developing countries, are particularly affected by socio-economic pressures and the climate change, which result in the degradation of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and a concomitant negative impact on human communities, especially those on the coast.

The adverse impacts of climate change are particularly significant in our country and will decrease ecosystem resilience. Different reports suggest that around 90 percent of the wetlands, hosting more than 70,000 water birds, are in the coastal region and under threat of submersion following a sea-level rise.

Many of our coastal, haor, dry and upland regions are likely to lose large numbers of wetland species as a result of climate change. Wetlands, particularly coastal and haor wetlands, are important in the process to mitigate climate change because they help to manage extreme weather events through the multiple services that they provide. Important wetland functions include water storage, groundwater recharge, storm protection, flood mitigation, shoreline stabilisation, erosion control, and retention of carbon, nutrients, sediments and pollutants (Dugan 1990).

Experts say that wetlands are also significant carbon stores. According to the Ramsar Convention, it has been estimated that peatlands contain at least 550 Gt of carbon, which is almost double the amount stored in the world’s forests. Although they cover only 3 percent of the world’s landmass, they contain 30 percent of its soil carbon (Parish et al, 2008; FAO, 2012b). Wetlands such as mangroves like The Sundarbans, saltmarshes, haors and coral reefs play crucial roles in controlling flood peaks and spreading the water table. Thanks to their vegetation, such as trees and root mats, wetlands act as permeable barriers that slow waves, reduce flooding, and offer natural protection for coastlines against destructive weather events.

Wetlands are an important source of water everywhere, including in places where resources are scarce. Local populations and animal and plant species benefit from wetlands as providers of water. Wetlands allow water to reach the underground water table, making the resource available in dry periods.

Thus, wetlands are key for groundwater recharge and allow ecosystems to cope with drought in places like Barind Track. By the same process, by releasing underground water, wetlands help to maintain the flow of rivers when precipitations diminish. These enormously valuable natural bodies also offer solid evidence that investing in natural solutions is a cost-effective way to enhance resilience to climate change in vulnerable coastal areas and communities.

But with the degradation or encroachment of wetlands, human well-being is being compromised. It is raising the risk of flooding of houses and infrastructure, and increasing the risk of exposure to water shortages and drought. Against these threats, initiatives to conserve wetlands can make a difference and benefit the well-being of the future generations of people and wildlife.

I think our policymakers should help raise public awareness of the importance of wetlands. They should ensure stakeholder participation in wetland management to maintain human well-being including livelihood. Strengthening national legal and policy arrangements to conserve all wetlands is an urgent task and that should be an integral part of Bangladesh’s National Adaptation Plan (NAP) which should be prepared without any further delay.

I would also suggest developing and implementing NAP as per the NAP Roadmap prepared in 2015 and it should be our high priority along with revisiting Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100. Coastal, haor and unprotected wetlands are expected to be most severely impacted by climate change, but conserving and restoring the wetlands is an effective way to mitigate climate change impacts for people and biodiversity. Revisiting the Delta Plan is essential before it enters its implementation phase to ensure people’s participation in the formulation and implementation of this long-term plan, with more adequate public consultations.

Quamrul Chowdhury is a climate, water and sustainable development specialist, a former Chair of UN Kyoto Protocol Joint Implementation Committee, former member of UN Climate Adaptation Committee, and member of World Water Scenario Group.
E-mail: quamrul2030@gmail.com

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Conserving wetlands to tackle climate change appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Thore Vestby, Vice-President of Mayors for Peace, speaking at the European regional meeting of parliamentarians and city leaders in Basel, Switzerland, Jan 15, 2019

By Christine Muttonen, Jacqueline Cabasso & Alyn Ware
BASEL, Switzerland, Feb 4 2019 (IPS)

The United States last week officially announced it is walking away from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, an agreement made between the USA and the Soviet Union in 1987 to eliminate a whole class of nuclear weapons that had been deployed in Europe and had put the continent on a trip-wire to nuclear war.

This follows US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an agreement which currently prevents Iran from building or acquiring nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile the START treaty, which limits the number of US and Russian strategic nuclear weapons, is set to expire soon, with no renewal in sight.

Russia and the USA appear to be intentionally reversing the arms control agendas of the early post-Cold War era, and are instead enhancing and expanding their nuclear arsenals. Other nuclear-armed states are following close behind.

This goes against public opinion, which is overwhelmingly opposed to a nuclear arms race, and to nuclear sabre rattling and threats, whether open or veiled, from Presidents Putin and Trump. Despite this, it’s extremely difficult for civil society to directly influence Russian or US nuclear policy.

That points to a deficit of democracy in both countries. It also points up the need for direct actions parliaments, cities and citizens can take to stop the assault on arms control treaties and prevent a new nuclear arms race.

To that end, mayors, parliamentarians and representatives of civil society organizations from 40 countries – mostly Europe and North America, including the mayors of 18 US cities– sent a joint appeal to Presidents Trump and Putin, calling on them to preserve the INF Treaty and resolve nuclear-weapons and security related conflicts through dialogue rather than through military provocation.

Will it change their minds? Not likely. But the appeal was also sent to the leaders of US congressional and Russian parliamentary committees in charge of armed forces (defense) and foreign relations.

It calls on them to refuse to authorize or allocate funding for nuclear weapons systems which the INF Treaty bans, for example ground-based intermediate range nuclear missiles, or weapons systems which could provide similar capability and be similarly destabilizing, such as air or sea launched nuclear-armed cruise missiles.

This could be the key to preserving the arms control measures of the INF Treaty even if it collapses. If the relevant committees refuse to authorize funds for these nuclear weapons systems, it makes it next to impossible for them to be developed.

The appeal also outlines a commitment by the endorsing mayors and parliamentarians to build support from cities and parliaments in nuclear-armed and allied States (which includes NATO countries) for nuclear risk reduction measures such as “no first use” policies.

Resolutions reflecting these calls have already been introduced in the US Senate and House of Representatives, for example the Prevention of Arms Race Act of 2018 (S.3667), and the No First-Use Act introduced last week by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Adam Smith, Chair of the House Armed Services Committee.

Similar resolutions have been adopted by the California State Assembly and at least three US cities, and more are pending in eight other US state assemblies.

This power-from-below approach – taking concerted action on nuclear risk-reduction and disarmament in federal, state and city legislatures – is just beginning.

It’s analogous to actions by over 700 U.S. governors and mayors who committed to implementing the Paris climate accord, despite the Trump administration withdrawing from it. In both cases, state and municipal officials have power to influence the global outcome.

In the US, action on nuclear disarmament by city governments is being advanced by the U.S. section of Mayors for Peace, a global network of over 7,000 cities, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM), a network of over 1400 major U.S. cities.

It has repeatedly urged Washington to show leadership in preventing nuclear war. For example, in June 2018 USCM unanimously adopted a resolution submitted by Frank Cownie, Mayor of Des Moines, Iowa and vice president of Mayors for Peace, with 25 co-sponsors, calling on the U.S. administration and congress to reduce nuclear tension with Russia, reaffirm the INF, adopt “no first use” and redirect nuclear weapons funding to meet human needs and protect the environment.

In Europe, cooperation between parliaments to advance nuclear risk-reduction, arms control and disarmament measures are advancing through the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE PA).

The parliaments of all European countries are part of it, along with the US, Canada, Russia and all former Soviet countries. A vital forum for dialogue between legislators from Russia and the West, the OSCE PA has succeeded in building consensus to support nuclear risk reduction including “no first use.”

Parliamentarians/legislators, cities and civil society activists can also slow the nuclear arms race by working to cut nuclear weapons budgets and to end investments in the nuclear weapons industry.

Corporations that make nuclear weapons and their delivery systems have a vested interest in stoking the nuclear arms race, so they lobby governments accordingly.

But parliaments, state governments and cities can influence their behavior by divesting from them, analogous to the way some major cities are divesting from fossil fuel companies to fight climate change.

So far only a handful of cities and non-nuclear governments have divested from nuclear manufacturers, but in 2017 the United Nations adopted a Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which could lead to a wider global divestment movement.

So, it may not be all up to Trump and Putin. There are powerful levers parliaments, cities and civil society can use to stop the unraveling of the arms control regime and prevent an arms race, and increasingly, they will use them.

As U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower said, “People want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.”

The post As Treaties Collapse, Can We Still Prevent a Nuclear Arms Race? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Christine Muttonen is a former Austrian parliamentarian who served as the President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly from 2016-2017. Jacqueline Cabasso is the Executive Director of Western States Legal Foundation and the North America Coordinator for Mayors for Peace. Alyn Ware is Global Coordinator for Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament and Disarmament Program Director for the World Future Council.

The post As Treaties Collapse, Can We Still Prevent a Nuclear Arms Race? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Grazing rhino picks out grass from thorny, pink-flowered mimosa weed. The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is collecting perspectives from science to indigenous knowledge in a new assessment on the many values of nature. Credit:Ranjita Biswas/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 4 2019 (IPS)

Humans have long had a varied and complicated relationship with nature—from its aesthetic value to its economic value to its protective value. What if you could measure and analyse these values? One group is trying to do just that.

Over 150 years ago, philosopher Henry David Thoreau highlighted humankind’s responsibility to respect and care for nature.

“Every creature is better alive than dead; men, moose, and pine-trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it,” he wrote in an essay.

At that very same moment in history, the Second Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution were at its peak in Europe and the United States, contributing to the depletion of natural resources and pollution that societies are dealing with today.

Now, rates of environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, and greenhouse gas emissions have dramatically increased, threatening the future of societies.

According to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), desertification, caused by the degradation of soil and land, is affecting one-third of the Earth’s land surface. The issue already affects 250 million people across the world, and it threatens an additional one billion people who depend on land for their needs.

The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) aims to bring these vast, and sometimes seemingly conflicting, perspectives from science to indigenous knowledge in a new assessment on the many values of nature, helping create a vision on how to work towards a more prosperous, sustainable future.

IPS spoke to Unai Pascual, one of the co-chairs of IPBES’ new assessment, on the importance of understanding the complex issue.

IPS (Inter Press Service): What exactly are the values of nature?

Unai Pascual (UP): There are many values because people understand values in different ways. If you talk to a philosopher, they would tell you what values are from a philosophical standpoint like moral and ethical values. If you talk to an economist, they would talk to you about economic values and the values of things reflected in the market.

One of the objectives of the assessment is to provide a clear framework that can conceptually guide anything related to how people measure and articulate those values and… how those values influence decision making and policies, and governance in general.

How we take care of nature and how we exploit it have to do with the underlying values that we have about nature and the meaning we provide to these values in every day life.

IPS: Why was this issue chosen as part of the assessment, and why is it important to examine these values?

UP: We need this assessment to understand the connection between how we perceive nature, the way we interact with it, and the quality of life of people.

Those policies, norms, and habits of people are based on the underlying values that we all hold as individuals and as a society. We need to understand those values in order to understand how we set up those institutions which, at the end of the day, are the ones which are going to determine the fate of nature and how we perceive how nature affects our quality of life.

Understanding the role of these social norms and policies are at the heart of what IPBES is about. IPBES recognises that we need to understand those in order to really connect the dots—connect nature and human well-being.

It is necessary to connect the way we value nature with the future of nature and therefore the future of human wellbeing.

IPS: 2018 saw a number of big reports on climate change and land degradation from IPCC, UNEP, and even IPBES. Will this new assessment be similar, and supplement these reports?

UP: Yes, the values assessment is a methodological one in spirit. The idea is that any assessment that will follow after the values assessment will be able to reflect on issues around values in ways that has not been possible before.

And so far, IPBES has tried to provide coherence around values since its inception. The assessment of values provides a great opportunity for IPBES and other platforms to see the importance of recognising different types of values about nature and ways to bring them into decision making.

This is a sort of conceptual and methodological pillar which will inform many scientific efforts within IPBES and outside IPBES as well.

IPS: What do you expect to find, and how will the research be undertaken? Does this involve talking to communities around the world, including indigenous communities?

UP: We are going to find a way to integrate and provide a coherent picture around the different understandings about values. This is of critical importance because otherwise the scientific community will continue talking about values but each community will understand that in a different way.

If we don’t have coherence, we are not going to be able to move forward and to design policies that respect those different ways of valuing nature.

We will [also] find the connections that have not been explicitly addressed by the scientific community about how values explicitly or implicitly affect decision making with regards to nature be it through policy, consumption choices by consumers, production means by producers… that is, connecting values with governance and human behaviour.

Those values are dynamic, they change over time…Those can affect policies and goals of society and individuals and therefore change how we use nature or how we connect to issues such as climate change and land degradation.

What we are going to try to portray as well is how the future of humankind, of different societies’ institutions and governments, would have to be transformed with regard to the values and how we put them in practice in changing people’s behaviour towards more sustainable and just futures.
We need to build the capacity of the scientific community and the public at large to connect our diversity of values and the sustainability challenges of humankind.

Another knowledge system which is at the heart of IPBES is that of indigenous and local communities. It is very important to understand how they perceive and relate with nature. Their approach to connecting to nature is fundamentally different from many Western societies. We know that much of the biodiversity that underpins the health of the planet is taken care of and managed by indigenous communities.

It is critical to bring their perspectives, knowledge systems, and values into the assessment.

This is a big challenge on how to bridge both the scientific and the indigenous knowledge systems and bring them in a way that both are recognised as being vital for understanding the role of values in society and how this can impact the future of the planet.

Q: How could the international community use this assessment once completed?

UP: This could be a resource for many years to come. I hope that it will clarify the different types of values that exist in society so that different perspectives on values are recognised and accepted as being legitimate.

As scientists, we provide information and knowledge about how nature and human well-being are connected. We should take into consideration that there are different pathways and different perspectives on those connections because there are different ways of relating to nature. Such diversity is important to be respected and nurtured in the quest for sustainability.

That’s a call for the scientific community whenever we do assessments or systemise knowledge to connect the state of the planet in terms of its various environmental dimensions from climate change to land degradation to biodiversity loss…when they try to connect this to human beings, the vector that connects them are values.

We hope that policymakers or decision makers can make better decisions in the quest for sustainability by taking into account these different, legitimate perspectives on the values of and about nature.

*Interview was edited for clarity and length

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The post Q&A: The Nature of Value vs the Value of Nature appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

IPS Correspondent Tharanga Yakupitiyage interviews UNAI PASCUAL Pascual, one of the co-chairs of Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)

The post Q&A: The Nature of Value vs the Value of Nature appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Idriss Jazairy Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council on the Adverse Impact of Unilateral Coercive Measures

By Idriss Jazairy
GENEVA, Feb 4 2019 (IPS)

The count down towards a tragic outcome in Venezuela has started. All outside powers express what they say is a shared concern for its peace-loving people that has the misfortune of sitting on what is maybe the largest oil reserves in the world. The problem is that geopolitics lead groups of foreign countries to express different, not to say opposed recipes as to how democracy can be restored and happiness pursued in Venezuela and want to make their own views prevail.

In this divided country. Divided the country has been indeed for quite some time. Of course circumstances have not been clement, both political and economic, what with institutional breakdown, the collapse in oil prices and the increasingly stiflling unilateral sanctions which have targeted Caracas.

But governance has also been found badly wanting, in a context of increasing violence on all sides. Incidentally, recent debates seem to imply there are three sides to the domestic dispute and forget the fourth, the millions of Chavistas themselves who can only be ignored at the peril of peace.

Idriss Jazairy. Credit: UN Photo

When stakes and passions are high, it’s hard for independent well-wishers to find Ariadne’s threat to safety. Of course, states are not entitled in international law to inflict unilateral sanctions to bring about regime change in other states.

Change must be the outcome of an internal process and preferably a peaceful one. The UN Secretary General has offered to facilitate such a process. Let not sabre-rattling dim this voice of wisdom. Let the international community forget about its polemics.

Yes the socio-economic situation in Venezuela is in shambles but let’s not make it worse by seeking an outright win like in a boxing match. True the use of overwhelming military power may achieve knock-out. But then pile up, as has been the case in Iraq, Syria or Libya, low-level conflict …and durable high level agony.

I appeal to all outside powers to give peace a chance by showing statesmanship at the Security Council through unanimously providing the Secretary General with this body’s full backing in the pursuit of the mission he expressed readiness to undertake to facilitate the internal change process. It may look less radical in the short term but it will spare lives and livelihoods in the medium term.

My appeal may be inspired by wishful thinking. It may already be a case of « Alea jacta ». It’s a familiar case. We’ve all seen it happen before.

Idriss Jazairy is quoted in a New York Times article titled “Venezuela’s Guaido Courts Russia; Powers Divided on Maduro”

 

The post Venezuela
 
Alea Jacta ! appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Idriss Jazairy Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council on the Adverse Impact of Unilateral Coercive Measures

The post Venezuela
 
Alea Jacta ! appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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