Jan 20, 2011 | European Union, Human rights, Passage au crible (English)
By Catherine Wihtol de Wenden
Translation: Melissa Okabe
Passage au crible n°33
During the summer of 2010, the French government decided to redirect towards their country of origin – for the most part to Romania – the Roma camping in illegal zones in France. In return, the French government proposed provisions of 300 euros to those who volunteered to leave. The following argument, in which the Roma should be criminally responsible for their camps established in non-authorized zones, has been the main topic of discussion in European countries, the matter even reaching Brussels. In fact, the majority of those in question – with the exception of Ex-Yugoslavia – are citizens of European Union member states (including Romania and Bulgaria since 2007) and, as such, benefit from the freedom of passage among fellow EU countries.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
According to sources, the Roma population is composed of 9 to 12 million people. Originally, the Roma came from Indian populations who took flight over one thousand years ago. They crossed through Persia, then the Byzantine Empire and Central and Eastern Europe, before growing in Southern Europe, most notably in Spain. In other words, they have been part of European history since the Middle Ages. Henceforth, they are counted to be around 2.4 million in Romania (being 10% of the nation), 800.000 in Bulgaria (being 10% of the population), 800.000 in Spain, 600,000 in Russia, 600,000 in Hungary, 500,000 in Turkey, 400,000 in France, and 150,000 in the United Kingdom (according to given figures provided by La Croix in 2008).
Their presence has been equally large in the United States and Canada since the 19th century, as well as in Israel in the past 20 years. Similarly, Roma are noted to be present in Germany, and in Portugal which deported them toward its African colonies and towards Brazil since the 17th century. However they are especially numerous in Central and Eastern Europe where they form a non-negligible component of the population, between 5-10%. The majority has become sedentary, while others remain nomadic. In France, members of this latter group are called gypsies like the other non-Roma nomads. We emphasize that not all Roma are nomads nor are all gypsies Roma. Also, for example, certain French people have had mobile occupations – traders, traveling acts, the circus – for generations, without being considered Roma.
Theoretical framework
Let’s keep two main elements in mind:
1. The question of State control over its borders: France intervened in a European context where freedom of passage by Europeans within the EU is represented among the essential rights of European citizens.
2. The sovereignty of a European state on a largely Europeanized matter: This means that the management of migratory flows cannot rise from the sole competence or sovereign authority of a member state. The member state must evaluate and compromise with the authorities in Brussels.
Analysis
Certainly, the French government can infringe penal sanctions on the Roma and other nomads for illegal camps. However, a number of districts do not always respect the legislation enjoining them to make provisions for a stationing place if their population exceeds a certain number of habitants. Moreover, for all of this they cannot deport Europeans as they do with simple non-European migrants in irregular situations, even with the 300 euro compensation. The second problematic point remains that of ethnic targeting: how does one decide that it is the Roma if France does not have any official ethnic statistics? And yet, the August 5, 2010 bill coming from the Minister of the Interior, Brice Hortefeux, notably pointed them out, before quickly retracting it in the face of media reactions and in part by public opinion. Numerous ethical outrages of security by police forces have been brought to the forefront due to the Roma people. Obviously, the operation seems to be solely concerned to seduce a certain margin of the public opinion – more marked by the right – in the face of failure of the other enactments, such as the debate over national identity. This policy has without doubt appeared more legitimate to French authorities as much as France does not seem to be alone in this file. In Italy, for example, the capital was lost by the socialists of the far left in the last municipal elections over the theme of insecurity; the right had criminalized the Romani question after having successfully carried it to the heart of the electoral campaign.
On October 15, 2010, this redirecting of the Roma to the borders was condemned by recommendation of the European Parliament. This recommendation was followed by an intervention by the Commissioner for Justice, Viviane Reding, who compared the current period to that of the 1940s. At that time, a stance taken by the European Commission similarly went in this direction. The French policy was therefore discredited by Brussels and the case largely publicized in other countries. Indeed, the Roma represent a population who has already been the victim of persecution on many occasions. They have thereby been isolated for many centuries in Western and Eastern Europe before being gravely persecuted under Nazism. We recall that in Romania, they were subjugated to serfdom until 1865, then forced to settle under communism, they were treated likewise in other Central and Eastern European countries. Strongly discriminated against and deprived of their social benefits since the fall of the Berlin Wall, some of them became nomads once again, like their non-Roma compatriots from Romania and Bulgaria, their nomadic actions anticipating the legal freedom of movement from the start of 1990s. Finally, they have respectively acquired this freedom of passage in 2000 (Bulgaria) and in 2001 (Romania). And yet, they will not benefit from the right to work and to settle until 2014.
During the summer of 2010, the Roma affair appeared to reveal France’s improvised and unilateral treatment of this European question. France provoked the reaction of the Romanian government, with which the French officials have held many bilateral meetings dealing with this subject over the course of the past five years. Bucharest lamented that a confusion between Roma and Romanians could integrate into the minds of the general public. However, Romania has once more showed that Europe exists, as the guarantor and defender of Human Rights, when the limits of respecting these rights are found to be exceeded. In this respect, the response of the European parliament, jointly with that of the European Commissioner for Justice, and the outburst from the European Council in October 2010 reminds that Brussels remains vigilant when European rights are threatened.
References
About Roma in Europe: La Croix, 10 Août 2010
About Roma in general: Études tziganes series
Alain Reyniers (ULB) : http://www.iiac.cnrs.fr/lau/spip.php?article129
Jan 7, 2011 | Financial crisis, International Finance, Passage au crible (English)
By André Cartapanis
Translation: Davina Durgana
Passage au crible n°32
The G20 summit that was held in Seoul from November 11th-12th 2010, was made the object of discussion, if somewhat disillusioned. After the meeting in Washington (November 15th, 2008), which ambitioned to restructure Capitalism and prepare a new Bretton Woods, a greater mastery of distortions in exchange rates, often described as currency wars was expected. Lastly, one also hoped for new rules in monetary matters. Additionally, in this plan, the balance sheet of the G20 seems extremely disappointing. However, the heads of State or the government have, all the same, approved the outlines of a reform of the financial regulations that have proven to be ambitious. Yet, their application will not be effective overall in 2009.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
Since the onset of the systematic crisis, in autumn of 2008, the heads of State or government have quickly initiated collective action in adopting a vast plan of strengthening financial systems to avoid such a scenario being repeated in the future. The G20 of Washington has thus approved of a Plan of action that resembles a program of extension and deepening the regulations applied to financial intermediaries. On April 2nd, 2009, this roadmap was elaborated from the time of the Summit of the G20 in London, in order to render operational the options retained in Washington. The Summits of Pittsburgh, from September 24th-25th, 2009, and in Toronto, June 26th-27th, 2010 have followed this task, without major change on the terms of financial targets. At the same time, they have expanded the discussions to the governance of international institutions – the IMF in particular – and to the coordination of macroeconomic policies and exchange rate policies. Most recently, the Seoul Summit drew up a new Declaration including a Plan of action sustained by increased coordination of monetary policies and exchange rates. This text agrees with the propositions of the Counsel of Financial Stability and of the Basel Committee under the guise of a new set of macro-prudential standards – from this point forward named Basel III – that must be applied to banks.
Theoretical framework
1. Global Imbalance and currency wars. The financial crisis is in part tied to global imbalances in balance of payments that have accumulated since the 2000’s between emerging countries (China, Russia, OPEC) and the American economy. In fact, the accumulation of official reserves in Dollars made possible a very lively expansion of international liquidity. This was also accompanied by distortions in rates of exchange, certain currencies were devaluated – such as the Yuan – while the Dollar remained in a situation of heavy over-evaluation due to American competition. As for the Euro, it has maintained the same situation from before the crisis. This configuration has attributed to the Chinese policy of exchange because this was seen effectively as an anchoring of the Yuan to Dollar that favors a process of growth derived by exportation. And yet, one finds today comparable distortions, certain countries – China, Germany, Japan – continue to register very significant excesses in common balance of payments that feed massive transfers of capital and supports the over-evaluation of certain currencies in Asia and in Latin America. This causes in these economies new speculative spheres in the markets of financial assets or in real estate. Hence the idea of limiting global imbalances in a cooperative framework, for example according to the proposition of the American Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner. In this instance, he suggests the imposing of an adjustment of macroeconomic policies as soon as the imbalance exceeds the line of 4% of GDP, in a situation of excess or of deficit of current payments. Another option consists of leaving the rate of exchange to adjust in response to the market forces in order to neutralize the risks of currency wars and manipulation of exchange rates.
2. Macro-prudential Regulation. The prudential regulation that is applied to banks functions to control risk behaviors and to minimize the probability of crisis has in view two objectives. It must contribute to the security of each intermediary bank in order to protect the depositors or the investors, in face of individual failures. Such is the traditional dimension of prudential arrangements – qualified by micro-prudential regulations and called Basel I or Basel II – which seek to limit the risk of financial distress for individual institutions independently of their impact on the rest of the economy. However, the banking regulations must also stabilize the monetary system and financial system in its overall architecture, considering macroeconomic responsibilities. In other words, it has as its goal to contain the systemic risk. It is therefore clear that the finality of such a macro-prudential approach consists of ensuring the stability and the continuity of exchanges in the heart of the financial sphere, even if it also implicates limiting the sources of excessive debt. Finally, it aims to curb all risks of financial distress which induce significant losses in terms of growth, just as was the case, for example, with the systemic crisis of 2008-2009.
Analysis
In the domain of the coordination of monetary policies or exchange policies, the Seoul Summit constitutes a failure. In fact, no political agreement was possible; China had been opposed as well on the reduction of global imbalances, on the global governance of monetary system and policies of exchange. Rather than adopting the new rules, the participants are just modestly content to trust the IMF with the task of furthering the reflection on the global compatibility of macroeconomic policies. In return, on that which concerns prudential regulation, the G20 of Seoul marks real progress, which has been underemphasized. The new micro-prudential system, which has already been named Basel III, anticipates significantly increasing provisions in equity banks and introducing new ratios – of liquidity and leverage – that they must imperatively respect. As much as measures that are of a nature to limit the risk-taking – illiquidity, insolvability, maturity transformations – of banks. As for risks of contagion and series of bank failures many action lines have been stopped: 1) to reduce the systemic importance of certain establishments in capping their size or in restricting the range of their operations in active markets; 2) strengthening the provisioning in capital stock, contingent on systemic risk carried by an establishment; 3) widening the perimeter of the prudential regulation of these establishments – such as Hedge Funds – or financial products such as derivatives – which we get away from here. In the future, contingent on their contribution to systemic risk, certain banks –qualified as too big to fail – must then be subject to the elevated provisions in equity capital than other more modest banking institutions. If all these measures are certainly in the right direction and mark a major change in the growth of financial deregulation, one would regret then that the calendar of application of these measures extend only until 2019. Finally, emphasized by the operational rearrangement of the basics, Basel III stays subject to the agreement of governments.
References
Cartapanis André, La Crise financière et les politiques macroprudentielles : inflexion réglementaire ou nouveau paradigme ?, Conférence présidentielle, 59e Congrès de l’AFSE, Université de Paris-Ouest-Nanterre-La Défense, 10 septembre 2010 : http://www.touteconomie.org/index.php?arc=v25. G20, The Seoul Summit Leader’s Declaration November 11-12, 2010: http://media.seoulsummit.kr/contents/dlobo/E1._Seoul_Summit_Leaders_Declaration.pdf
Cartapanis André, « Les architectes de la crise financière », in : Josepha Laroche (Éd.) Un monde en sursis, dérives financières, régulations politiques et exigences éthiques, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2010, coll. Chaos International, pp. 41-52.
Dec 15, 2010 | Human rights, Nobel Peace Prize, Non-state diplomacy, Passage au crible (English), Peace
By Josepha Laroche
Translation: Davina Durgana
Passage au crible n°31
Source: Wikipedia
This past 10th of December, during the award ceremony of the Nobel Peace Prize, the winner – Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo – was absent because he is currently in his country serving a prison sentence of eleven years for “subversive activities”. Despite the pressure exerted on Peking, he has been considered for over a year as one of the main players. Finally, the Nobel committee has awarded him this prize on October 7th, 2010 “for his enduring non-violent efforts in support of human rights in China”, an award described as an “obscenity” by Chinese authorities.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize award ceremony has occurred every year on December 10th. This day marks exactly the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), the founder of this prize system. Inventor, industrialist, financier, literary man, and additionally a pacifist, this Swedish philanthropist at the head of one of the first transnational firms, decided through his will on November 27th, 1985 to devote his immense fortune to the creation of five annual prizes, of which four would be awarded in Stockholm1: physics, physiology or medicine, and literature. As for the Peace Prize, Nobel expressly requested that the award would be granted within the Norwegian Parliament, the Storting. At that time, the chamber in Oslo represented, in effect, one of the rare assemblies in Europe, truly democratic. Additionally, an activity that has already been deployed in favor of peace seemed to Alfred Nobel more decisive than the Swedish-Norwegian conflict, but then very contested. The entrepreneur designated from the Norwegian Chamber in order to ensure the management of the prize selection, considered who was the most qualified and the most legitimate. As Nobel did not share the utopian views of his pacifist friends, he looked to promote a new pacifist technology to form a device both new and original. In order to do this, he conceived a symbolic tool branding the mark of humanitarianism, of science, and of ideological meritocracy. Therefore, what has taken form from over a century is a system of international gratifications that honors individuals and transcends State borders, while refusing the nationalism that its founder detested.
Recall that the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo has played a central role in the drafting of the Charter 08, a manifest published by intellectuals and militants reclaiming freedom of expression and pluralist elections in China. This former professor of literature had equally been one of the leaders of the student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989, events through the course of which he had notably led a hunger strike. In the matter of his absence from the ceremony, it must be noted that this is not the first time that a Nobel laureate has been unable to receive their prize. This interdiction has followed many similar decisions. In 1958, for example, Soviet writer Boris Pasternak, was not able to go to Stockholm to receive his Nobel Prize in Literature and the same occurred in 1970 for the novelist, Alexandre Soljenitsyne. More recently, in 1975, the academic and physicist, Andrei Sakharov, did not have the opportunity to obtain his visa from Soviet authorities to receive his Nobel Peace Prize. Finally, in the same fashion, the dissident opposing the Burmese Junta, Aung San Suu Kyi, was not permitted to go to Oslo in 1991.
Theoretical framework
A non-state diplomacy. The allocation of the Nobel prizes – which has been mentioned – has instituted as time has gone by, a diplomacy – the Nobel diplomacy – which is characterized by a strong global cohesion and a constant determination to prevail the Nobel glory in facing State actors. This is why, this process of Nobelization often has the finality of contradiction – that is to say condemn – the politics of one or many against each other.
A moral diplomacy. The Nobel Institution stands as a universal conscience and moral entrepreneur. In this aspect, it means to embody values such as liberty, knowledge and impartiality. It can be considered to this end as the most solid defender of human rights opposing the national interests of States. Through its laureates, the Nobel institution represents an elite militant, a true international ministry that grants a right of interference in the internal affairs of States in the name of the universality of human rights and the preservation of world peace.
Analysis
Regarding the radicalism of the Nobel diplomacy, Chinese authorities have been engaged in a vast diplomatic offensive from the beginning to attempt for the first time to modify the decision of the Committee and to prevent any distinction from being accorded to Liu Xiaobo. However, the proclamation on October 7th sounded like the first failure and stigmatization of their politics. For their part, the Chinese have intervened in gaining support from foreign chancelleries in order to have a massive boycott of the ceremony. However, despite their repetitive pressures, only twenty countries – among them, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Sri Lanka and Venezuela – have finally declined the invitation from the Nobel Institute. In return, the sixty-five countries, which have arranged for diplomatic representation at Oslo have decided that it is essential to be present. Among those who were present, we must quote for example, the United States, Germany, France, United Kingdom and Brazil which have decided not to give in to the warning and threats that have been significant by Peking.
The choice of Liu Xiaobo heralds a diplomatic line, which demonstrates that the Nobel diplomacy towards China has remained constant over time. In effect, one should not forget that in 1989, the jury of Oslo awarded the Prize to the spiritual leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, only four months after the Spring of Peking and thirty years after the uprising of Lhassa. At this time, this decision offered, in a very significant manner, international recognition to the Tibetan cause, which opened the Chinese to criticism as already encouraging spinelessness. In effect, if the living God has been attempting to obtain self-determination of Tibet through Pacifist means, he will yet stay that way until diplomacy is isolated. Many times it has been proposed to Peking to undertake very moderate compromises; suggesting for example, that Tibet would have a status similar to Hong Kong, in virtue of the principle of one country, two systems. In the designation of Xiaobo, the Jury of Oslo holds an emphasis on how the laureate was “systematically opposed to the recourse to violence”. In other words, this Prize represents all at once a condemnation of Chinese politics and an invitation directed at its leaders for the negotiation and settlement of the Tibetan question with the new laureate.
As China is not yet open to democracy, it has not stopped for over twenty years to reinforce their power on the global scene towards the end of becoming today the main rising challenger facing the American hegemon. In certain respects, does China not constitute from this point forward with this latest conflict, a world director, the G2? However, despite this new order, the Nobel line remains rigorously the same: it vacillates between moral condemnation and the incitement of dialogue. That is to say that when they decided to honor the fight of a Chinese citizen for peace, democracy and human rights, the Nobel Committee radically refused – whereas some States accepted – to recant their decision when faced with Chinese reproaches.
References
Laroche Josepha, Les Prix Nobel, Paris, PUF, 1995, the book will be soon republished.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_organizations/
http://fr.rsf.org/chine-liu-xiaobo-biographie-28-10-2010,38695.html
http://fr.globalvoicesonline.org/2010/10/12/46516/
1. The Economics Prize was not created until 1968 by the Swedish Bank, on the occasion of its tercentennial and dedicated to the memory of Alfred Nobel.
Nov 13, 2010 | Humanitarian, North-South, Passage au crible (English)
By Clément Paule
Translation: Davina Durgana
Passage au crible n°30
On October 29th, 2010, many spokespeople for the humanitarian agencies of the United Nations have reaffirmed their worries regarding the fragile situation of millions of displaced Pakistanis. These alarming statements emphasize the lack of shelter and food with the approach of winter, three months after the downfall of torrential rain that have ravaged Pakistan. Since the 26th of July 2010, the massive floods have in effect reached almost a fifth of the country, from the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – located in the Northwest – all the way to the Southern region of Sindh. For now, the human death toll has risen to nearly 1800 deaths and around 14 million victims. According to the material damages, it can be estimated that 43 million dollars from the agriculture sector – crucial to the national economy – has been deeply affected. According to U.N. officials, this could be the worst catastrophe in the history of Pakistan. Henceforth, many analysts have brought up the uncertain future of a destabilized State that will intensify the internal conflict of opposition to the authorities by Islamist groups.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
In the first place, it must be emphasized that Pakistan – the 6th most populated country in the world – is particularly vulnerable to natural risks, above all seismic and hydrological. Since the beginning of the 1990s, many significant floods have struck this territory equally vulnerable to earthquakes. Recall for example the 6 million people that were affected – including more than 1300 deaths – by the strong rains accompanying the monsoon of the winter of 1992. The Emergency Events Database of the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters has accounted for dozens of similar phenomena since 1900. For now, the rising numbers as well as the socio-economic costs tied to this type of disaster appear to have much greater of an impact than large earthquakes as well as incurring more deaths.
Then, it is important to recall certain historical precedents establishing a structural link between the management of catastrophes and the political situation. In this respect, the cyclone of Bhola that hit Eastern Pakistan – currently Bangladesh – in November 1970 seemed to reveal this interdependence. The passivity of the Federal Government had them stigmatized by the separatist opposition – The Awami League – allowing them at the last moment to win the provincial elections a month later and to proclaim the Bengali secession. If the success of this secession had a lot to do with the Indian involvement in the conflict, it was not less so than this natural disaster that was strongly exploited by political actors. Finally, the recent earthquake of October 2005 – which occurred in the disputed region of Kashmir – has equally evoked a powerful transnational mobilization. However, there are many tensions due to those opposed to Western non-governmental organizations and the Pakistani army critical of their supervision, minimize their assistance. Ultimately, the national agency, the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority that had been put in place by the authorities to centralize aid flows, were accused of corruption and massive embezzlement.
Theoretical framework
1. Internationalization of the Catastrophe. It is important to recall here that disaster is inscribed in a system of historical, political and strategic pressures. With this logic, the international dynamics of humanitarian intervention must be analyzed with a perspective to these regional issues.
2. Concurrent Aid Management. Obviously, there are many divides that pervade the space of the aid operators and determine the distribution of scarce resources and its terms. In other words, the dispersion of strategies – and of objectives – transforms aid into an object of competition, extending diplomatically to the heart of the Pakistani State.
Analysis
Clearly, in the first place, certain characteristics of this catastrophe present a slow process – contrary to the tsunami of 2004 or the Haitian earthquake – where the impact manifested in the mid-term. In this instance, the damages incurred by the floods are decreased by the economic crisis that has clamped down on this country that has recently called to the International Monetary Fund. Emphasized by the four million hectares of arable land that were submerged, Pakistan is restricted to the importation of foodstuffs to attempt to prevent a probable soaring in prices. And yet, this leaves the prediction of a rise in social tensions in a State already profoundly divided by ethnic conflicts – tied to a contested centralization – religious and overall political. In this regard, it is important to recall the specific role of military that took power from 1999 to 2008 with General Musharraf, and their ambivalent relations to the current civil government. In addition to this view, the national authorities – traditionally allied with the United States – have been facing for a decade an insurrection of armed groups tied to the Afghan Taliban. This complex configuration of opposing interests has been re-transcribed in the post-disaster crisis. Additionally, the management of the disaster seems to be a way of changing the existing relationships of power, for both local and international actors.
Behind the consensual rhetoric of the global solidarity demonstrates, in effect, a true catastrophe of diplomacy formed by the strategic objectives of donors. To this end, it must be mentioned that American aid has risen to almost a half-million dollars. If this commitment could permit the ameliorating of the image of Washington – marred by the mistakes in the war in Afghanistan – they could sustain overall a traditional and indispensible ally for their regional establishment. This imperative of national security, according to the expression of Senator John Kerry, has been confirmed by the recent announcement of military assistance of two million dollars in five years. In this same logic, the considerable mobilization of the Muslim world can hardly be reduced to a simple expression of mutual aid. Additionally, the Saudi contributions – 365 million dollars – and Iranian – 100 million – evokes their influence as an approach of soft power aiming to affirm their presence in the disaster-struck region. In the same manner, their Chinese neighbors, emergent donors, have promised nearly 250 million the 23rd of September 2010. In addition, the entanglement of symbolic and political dimensions is expressed in the refusal of the Pakistani Government to accept direct aid from its Indian rival.
Remarking equally on the process of the appeal of the United Nations – in requesting from this point forward 1.9 million dollars – have not assembled to this day, but 39% of the solicited sum. After the world crisis, the forms of financing allowed the explanation of this shortcoming: Muslim countries and China seemed to give priority to bilateral aid, while the Western donors do not trust them and attribute all of their funds to the United Nations System, to non-governmental organizations, or also to the International Movement of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Movement. For now, the Pakistani authorities have recently attempted to affirm their leadership on the reconstruction plan in refusing the direct control of projects by external actors. This demand for control of aid seems to be vital for a weakened government, which was very criticized for its inefficiency, notably for their regional officials. Moreover, according to certain analysts, the strong mobilization of the army – 60,000 soldiers were deployed at the end of August – has eclipsed civil power and has made possible a coup d’État similar to that of 1999. Finally, other commentators have emphasized the growing role of Islamist organizations – such as Jamaat-ud-Dawa or Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat – in the assistance, likely to accentuate the delegitimizing of a regime allied with Americans. This extreme fragility of the Pakistani state, especially on their borders, reinforces the necessity of international aid where the donor’s local mastery is not crucial.
References
Jaffrelot Christophe (Éd.), Le Pakistan, carrefour de tensions régionales, Bruxelles, Complexe, 2002.
OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), FTS (Financial Tracking Service), Table A: List of All Commitments/Contributions and Pledges as of 02 November 2010, 2 Nov. 2010, consultation on the website: http://www.reliefweb.int/fts [Nov. 2 2010].
Questions internationales, « Les catastrophes naturelles », (19), May-June 2006.
Website of the pakistani agency NDMA (National Disaster Management Authority): http://www.ndma.gov.pk/.
Nov 12, 2010 | Human rights, International Justice, Passage au crible (English), Public international law
By Yves Poirmeur
Translation: Davina Durgana
Passage au crible n°29
On October 11th, 2010 French authorities arrested Callixte Mbarushimana, Executive Secretary of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda- Combatant forces Abacunguzi, endorsed by an arrest warrant by the ICC (International Criminal Court) for war crimes and crimes against humanity that he is presumed to have committed, in 2009, in the provinces of Kivu, in the East of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This arrest by a Rwandan national who has been living in France since 2002, with the status of political refugee, shows the advances in the fight against impunity rendered possible by the creation of the ICC where France was one of the first European countries to ratify the Rome Statute (June 9th, 2000). France was able to make this arrest because she had adapted since 2002 (Law of February 26th, 2002) her penal procedure to respond to investigative requests and the arrest of imminent suspects of the ICC due to the differences in less collaborative states. However, the French legislation still leaves substantial space for impunity. In fact, the recent law of August 10th, 2010 that completes “the criminal law adaptation to the institution of the ICC” carries out a very restrictive synchronization of internal criminal law with the definition of incrimination retained by the Rome Statute. Furthermore, she maintains a very narrow conception of universal competency. This permits in consequence, for certain international criminals present on French territory to escape prosecution.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
The international repression of international crimes is difficult to institutionalize, throughout the 20th century, in an international society constituted of sovereign states saw all international undertakings on criminal responsibility of their rulers and soldiers as an unacceptable attack on their sovereignty. Appearing for the first time under the form of the ad hoc Tribunals of Nuremberg (1945) and of Tokyo (1946), the international criminal justice had known then a long eclipse bound to the East-West conflict. Then, international criminal justice took the form of special jurisdictions created by the Security Council of the United Nations to adjudicate the people responsible for violations of international humanitarian law in Yugoslavia – ICTY (1993) – and of the genocide in Rwanda – ICTR (1994). Finally, international criminal justice was allocated permanent jurisdiction by the Rome Convention (1998) in instituting the ICC with the mission of prosecuting and punishing war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression for which the definition is still not clear. The open investigations for this jurisdiction, very recently are, for now, still very few in number, all as arrest warrants and the citations to appear before the court that are delivered. These investigations concern the Central African Republic, Darfur, Uganda, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as other situations certainly justifying investigations such as in the Ivory Coast, Guinea, Columbia and Palestine.
In the fight against impunity, the international criminal justice system is confronted with two main obstacles. The most obvious issue is that with only the 113 states that have, for now, ratified the Rome Statute, international criminals can then find refuge on the territory of countries that have not signed. The second obstacle resides in the fear of states to conserve their independence and notably, the prevailing of their idea of criminal law to ensure the impunity of certain crimes in the case that they are ever eventually potentially implicated. There is also the fault in the synchronization of incrimination of penal law by states parties with those of international penal law with the lack of adaptation in their criminal procedures to respond to the investigation requests and arrests of the ICC. Finally, it is equally overdue for overly restrictive definitions of their universal competence that leave legal shortcomings to allow each person suspected of an international crime of extreme gravity to escape all pursuit, both before national jurisdictions and before the ICC.
Theoretical framework
1. The principle of complementarity. The structure of the international criminal justice system, restrained by the Rome Statute (Article 1) to maintain a principle of complementarity giving the competency of national jurisdictions the priority to judge international crimes. It is only this subsidiary title – in the hypothesis where states are inefficient and do not exercise any pursuit – that the ICC’s competence is limitedly restricted to “the most serious crimes that affect the international community as a whole” (Article 5).
2. Universal competence. The operation of the Rome Statute demands that the state parties plainly exercise the universal competence that it internationally recognized to suppress the infractions committed by people to foreign countries, even in cases where the perpetrator or the victims are not citizens. In order to make legitimate – without incurring reproach for interfering in the affairs of another State or of exploiting justice for political means – it is necessary that these infractions under domestic penal law are conformed to those of international political law and incidentally that the judicial procedure – investigations, sentencing, trials – respect the principles of law in an equitable trail that offers similar guarantees to those of the ICC.
Analysis
In the same time that the ICC took the initiative of investigation and prosecution, the Code of Criminal Proceedings (Article 627-4 through 627-15) allowed France to efficiently collaborate with the ICC to insure impunity. In return, the Law of August 10th, 2010 brought into action universal competence for the crimes relevant to the Rome Statute the strong requirements that are exercised by the French courts that are potentially fully exceptional, also allow international criminals to slip between their repressive mesh nets. Additionally, this extraterritorial competence of jurisdictions is subordinate to four cumulative conditions: 1) the presumed perpetrator of these crimes must have a usual residence on the territory of the Republic; 2) the incrimination of these crimes by criminal legislation of the state or in the state where these crimes were committed or fall under the ratification by the state or by the state of which the perpetrator is a national according to the Rome Convention; 3) the prosecution of these crimes can not take place at the request of the public prosecutor; and finally 4) there is no international or domestic jurisdiction that can demand the return or the extradition of the perpetrator of these crimes, which the public prosecutor must ensure and notably verify that the ICC “expressly declines their competence” (Code of Criminal Proceedings, Article 689-11). The criterion of the usual residence overall just requires the simple presence of the alleged perpetrator of serious crimes on the national territory, which will be saved for France – to the great displeasure of human rights organizations – to require the judgment of many alleged perpetrators of international crimes passage to their own land, who could without great risk of continuing to make simple requests. As for the principle of complementarity, secured by the Rome Statute and giving the priority of prosecution to domestic jurisdiction, it seems to be the opposite of the subordination of their commitment to the condition that the ICC declined their competence beforehand. This is also a residual conception of universal competence for the most serious crimes that are founded on the idea that the legislators have a pretext of wanting to avoid the improbable concurrence between international and domestic jurisdictions. The law of 2010 then adapted the criminal code to the definitions of crimes according to the Rome Statute of the ICC, and have inserted there a new text dedicated to the repression of war crimes including the new incriminations – rape, murder… – and have completed the list of what constitutively makes a crime against humanity – voluntary attacks on life, attacks on liberty or the violence against people in all of its forms within the framework of a deliberate plan against a group of a civil population – and have precisely outlined the responsibilities of perpetrators of genocides, or the public incitement to commit genocide, and the order or committing of a genocide that was already sanctioned. If the repressive arsenal is happily reinforced today and the important gaps are crossed, the synchronization that has remained far off will be achieved. It is important that states recognize and observe soon that the instructions of war crimes established by the Criminal Code is a delay of 30 years, so that the Rome Statute retains the limitations of war crimes relevant to the competence of the Court (Article 29). In return, France participates efficiently and without risk in plainly cooperating with the ICC. It is less for the gaps of translating international crimes into domestic law than the restrictive concept of universal competence, that induce domestic governments to avoid political complications and diplomatic disagreements, that France expanded their direct services to the fight against impunity, committing as well to prosecution. It was the 3rd of November 2010 that the Court of Appeals of Paris ordered the placement of Mr. Mbarushimana to the Court at The Hague.
References
Florence Bussy, Yves Poirmeur, La Justice politique en mutation, Paris, LGDJ, 2010.
Xavier Philippe, Anne Desmarest, « Le projet de loi portant adaptation du droit pénal français à la Cour Pénale Internationale », Revue française de droit constitutionnel, (81), janvier 2010, pp. 41-65.
Jul 22, 2010 | environment, Global Public Goods, Passage au crible (English)
By Clément Paule
Translation: Brad Pizzimenti
Passage au crible n°28
On July 15th 2010, the engineers of the petroleum company BP (formerly British Petroleum) would be able to contain the leak of the Macondo wellhead 1500 meters below the ocean surface. Three months after the explosion and subsequent sinking of the Deepwater Horizon platform, the spilling of oil into the Gulf of Mexico appeared to be temporarily contained. According to the estimates of the IEA (the International Energy Agency), between 2.3 and 3.5 barrels of oil – between 365 and 715 million liters – had escaped into the sea after the accident. In addition, BP – who used offshore infrastructure and managed the resulting crisis alongside American authorities – had spent more than 4 billion dollars to mitigate the crisis. However, the final bill would be more than 37 billion, according to Credit Suisse Group. Other financial challenges, the petrol group had been made the object of myriad critiques brought by its incapacity to quickly contain the disaster.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
Formed at the outset of the 20th century in Iran, the APOC (Anglo-Persian Oil Company) was established as one of the major actors of a young industry. Nevertheless, the company, rebranded BP in 1954, was confronted in the 1960s with nationalizations occurring under Middle Eastern governments. At that time, the firm internationalized in order to explore new oil deposits, in particular in Alaska and the North Sea. Twenty years later, it was operating in more than one hundred countries and employed more than 100.000 people. Under its name, it was one of six oil super majors alongside Exxon Mobil, Chevron Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Total. Appearing at the end of the 1990s these conglomerates resulted from concentration of the industry, following price volatilities. It is within this context that BP invested massively in the American market and purchased successively the companies Sohio (Standard Oil of Ohio) in 1987, then Amoco (formerly Standard Oil of Indiana) and Arco (Atlantic Richfield Company) between 1998 and 2000. In this instance, this establishment, decided by Lord Brown, is embedded in a strategy based on innovation and, CEO between 1995 and 2007. The energy giant was then distinguished by its taking of several and varied risks: notably, for example, the series of ambitious accords signed in Russia or the promotion of alternative energy.
Under this logic, the development of offshore drilling is central to the concerns of the super major as the most accessible oil deposits are controlled by national companies. As it turns out, a fifth of global petroleum reserves are found in the ocean depths. A pioneer of this extraction technique, BP remains the number one oil producer in the Gulf of Mexico. This orientation has withstood successive US administrations – including the Obama administration – which has reduced restrictions on domestic drilling. In this regard, American power has tried to limit energy dependence, in particular in facing OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries). The group was able to utilize reserves like Tiber – where the only announcement caused the 4% increase in the worth of the company in 2009 – for opening a new energy era.
Nevertheless, we can see that this technique could cause accidents having led to oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico. Witnessed in 1979 was the destruction of the Ixtoc I wells run by the Mexican state oil firm Pemex (Petroleos Mexicanos). More generally, the installations of BP in the United States were not spared these hazards. We see in 2006 the spill in Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, as well as the explosion of a refinery in Texas the previous year, rousing the attention of authorities and of American public opinion.
Theoretical framework
1. Stigmatization of a deviant actor. Inspired by the symbolic interactionism of Howard Baker, certain notions permit the rendering of delegitimization encountered by the petroleum group after the accident. Concentrating the criticism, BP made the object of a stigmatized, ambivalent work as much the part of its peers as the Obama administration.
2. The image and reputation of a transnational firm. The subject here evokes the intrication between the perception of the super major and its economic performance. Opposite states that suffer less – according to Jonathan Mercer – “reputation factor”, private operators are not disposed to objective legitimacy. There are thus more sensitive than state actors to changes in their image that can affect their survival.
Analysis
In the first place, it is suitable to recall disappointments of BP in the face of disaster. We mention the reverse subjected by its experts over the technical plan, with ineffective solutions and outmoded emergency plans. As well, the top kill procedure failed to stop the leak on 26 May; the organizational practices of the group appear, therefore, ineffective. These ineffective practices are combined with setbacks of unskilled communication. Tony Hayward, CEO of BP notably provoked several scandals related to minimization of the environmental impact of the incident. In fact, the company wasn’t able to put in place a crisis technology that was socially acceptable. That is what created a dissonance with an entrepreneurial image composed fundamentally of expertise and superior technology. And yet, this symbolic failure produced an economic and financial impact that caused the breakdown of the firm’s stock value. In fact, this was elevated by about 170 billion dollars in April 2010, according to the Forbes Global 2000 list where BP occupied 10th place. At the end of June, the result was divided in two, and the international rating agency, Fitch Ratings, had then downgraded the energy giant anticipating the accumulation of immense costs.
Moreover, the incapacity of BP to have an authoritative discourse over the handling of the crisis drew the development of sociotechnical controversies characterized by great uncertainty. Citing the increase of the estimations of the volume of the leak, initially 1000 barrels a day, reached today the figure of 60.000. Outside of this consideration, the competence of the petroleum company is disparaged equally by its competitors as by the American government. These final stakeholders are implicated in diverse degrees in the bleak handling and subsequent consequences of successive failures. In this environment, the market value of Exxon Mobil and of Total declined 15% because of the discrediting of BP. The tactics of stigmatization and of demarcation to highlight the deficiencies of a firm presented as adventurous and negligent of risks. We mention in this sense the hearing of 15 June before the American Congress, directors of ConnocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell who described an isolated incident attributable solely to the errors of BP. As for the American authorities, they have adopted a posture of moral entrepreneurs; the oil slick could become a political test 5 years after Katrina. Finally, the administration of the catastrophe came to be a game of survival of the company itself. Anyway, let us remember that the brutal fall of the company’s share price put BP under the menace of a hostile takeover bid in the face of bankruptcy. The group could certainly lean heavily on its consolidated resources in 2009 with 17 billion dollars of net gain. But it is also constrained to strategies of extraversion, soliciting Goldman Sachs for financial aid in the form of sovereign wealth funds – Qatari or Libyan – in light of a strategic association. Notwithstanding that, the impact of its position became permanently limited in the measure where the other super majors stretched to evade a hostile takeover described by the CEO of Total as an unethical operation. This ambivalent position can explain the fear shattering the already unstable economic order. It appears even more to raise common reaction against all tendencies of external regulation begun by the moratorium instituted by the Obama administration on all offshore drilling. This evokes again the question of regulation – pragmatic or normative – susceptible to define and sanction the deviance of private actors on the world stage.
References
Becker Howard, Outsiders. Sociologie de la déviance, (1963), trad. Métailié, Paris, 1985.
Crooks Ed, “BP – Anatomy of a Disaster – Part I, Cover Story” The financial Times, July 3 2010
Dobry Michel, Sociologie des crises politiques, La dynamique des mobilisations multisectorielles, 3e éd. Paris, Presses de la FNSP, 2009.
Mercer Jonathan, Reputation in International Politics, Ithaca, Cornell University Press 1996
Jul 3, 2010 | Cold War, Constructivism, Passage au crible (English)
By Daniel Bourmaud
Translation: Brad Pizzimenti
Passage au crible n°27
Pixabay
The tension observed on the Korean peninsula since the beginning of 2010 has seen a brutal resurgence with the sinking of a South Korean warship resulting in 46 deaths on the 26th of March 2010. In this case, Seoul accused Pyongyang of having deliberately torpedoed its warship, the Cheonan. The result has been economic and commercial sanctions brandished by the South Korean president, to which North Korea responded in breaking all relations with its southern neighbor, carrying out new military maneuvers, and reinforcing its nuclear arsenal since the end of June.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
This tension is part of a long history spanning more than a half-century. The Korean War had officialized the split between the two territories situated on either side of the 38th parallel. After three years of fighting between 1950 and 1953 – the most deadly of the 20th century with the exception of the two world wars – the conflict ended with the signature not of a peace treaty but an armistice, singed in Pan-Munjon.
After being labeled essential for the status quo during the Cold War, inter-Korean relations have entered a new phase with their admission to the United Nations in 1991, and the conclusion of a non-aggression pact. This marked the beginning of an era of rapprochement, of the sunshine policy – symbolized notably by the implementation of liaison offices, an economic aid program for the north from the south, and meetings between separated families – whose crowning achievement is the opening of the special economic zone in Kaesong. Nevertheless, the decision of President Bush to register, in 2002, North Korea in the Axis of Evil served to reinforce its siege mentality. Its original acceptance of multiparty talks within the framework of the group of six – United States, China, the two Koreas, Japan, and Russia – and the return of the nuclear menace illustrated by the end of the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty), had thereafter changed to an isolationist strategy.
Theoretical framework
The constructivist theory appears particularly appropriate for capturing the political and social dynamics, because, according to Alexander Wendt, the identity of actors constitutes a powerfully explicative variable. A psychological approach to the political permits, as well, a better apprehension of the manners in which a conflict is interwoven and informs the representations that actors have of their own interests.
Two configurations permit restoring the complexity of these processes. Firstly, low self-esteem may be experienced as a humiliation, which must be shed by a counter action. But the protagonist may also, as Philippe Braud writes “make use of certain attacks on its dignity”. To assume the posture of the victim and “allow for actions of legitimate defense that are, in reality, belligerent”.
Analysis
With a westernized reordering of roles, Pyongyang incarnates marvelously the villain. In effect, the western countries see in North Korea the quintessential duplicity. Its procrastinations and delay tactics are felt as brutally as its explicit claim to the right to the ultimate weapon, the nuclear bomb. This behavioral orientation has a blind spot however: in masking the vision that North Korea makes itself and thereby the way it designs its behavior towards others.
An identity threatened and wounded North Korea‘s pride of identity has roots in the ancient and glorious history of Kokouryo (277 BCE – 676 CE) that extended into China with Pyongyang as its capital. Today, once again, it claims the heritage of this state that unified Korea from the 10th to the 14th centuries. As a source of pride, this glorious state was threatened in the XIXth century by western states, Japanese colonization from 1905 to 1945 and as well by the imperial domination of the United States through the Korean War.
To qualify this country as the “last Stalinist state on the planet” comforts it in its siege mentality. Safeguards with respect to North Korea have never proven useful, but their absence turns out to be counterproductive. In calling it a delinquent state, the United States, which appeals to, in reality, moral categories, afflicts an even greater blow than its presence in South Korea. The need of Pyongyang to no longer be on this list, seen as slanderous, aims at escaping resulting sanctions but also to regain a lost pride.
An identity used. For the North Korean leadership, a posture of victimization is evidenced as a powerful instrument of mobilization and consolidation. In this spade, the recurrence of physical violence comes as a response to a symbolic violence that is felt by victims.
Such an analysis certainly departs from common approaches. It may also appear as a provocation, such that the North Korean regime appears to take on the properties of a dangerous power with a character as dictatorial as fantastic, as well as containing systematized coercion. Finally, the identity dimension remains in fine determinate. We better understand why Andrei Lankov – one of the most informed specialists on the Korean question – begins to advocate not just sanctions, that is to say, force, but the slow task of changing North Korean opinion.
References
Braud Philippe, L’Émotion en politique, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 1996.
Braud Philippe, « La Violence symbolique dans les relations internationales », Association Française de Science Politique, Congrès de Toulouse, Table ronde 6, 2007.
Lankov Andrei, “Changing North Korea, An information Campaign can Beat the Regime”, Foreign Affairs, 88 (6), Nov.-Dec. 2009, pp. 95-105.
Lindemann Thomas, Sauver la face, sauver la paix. Sociologie constructiviste des crises internationales, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2010. Coll. Chaos International.
Wendt Alexander, Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Jun 23, 2010 | Globalization, Passage au crible (English), Transportation
By Yves Poirmeur
Translation: Melissa Okabe
Passage au crible n°26
On April 14, 2010, the Eyjafjallajökull Icelandic volcano burst into eruption. A cloud of abrasive ashes posed a threat to the functioning of airline jet engines, as it slowly formed and descended little by little over Europe. To remove all risk of accidents, British and Irish aviation authorities, followed by the Norwegian, Swedish, Belgian, Dutch, Luxembourgian, German, and French authorities, interrupted the airline traffic over all or part of their territory. During the week of paralysis, 100000 flights were cancelled, stranding 8 million passengers as well as airline freight. The world economy will have suffered costs of 5 billion dollars, 2.6 million affecting Europe, and notably costing 260 million dollars for France alone. Concerning the airline companies, they will have lost 188 million dollars. Concerning the tour operators and the tourist agencies, their losses will have risen respectively to 31 and 40 million dollars.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
Is precaution or prevention essential? The danger of volcanic ash clouds to aircrafts is well known. This knowledge is based on two cases of tremendous aircraft failure in passing through the ash clouds discharged over Indonesia by Mount Gallunggung (British Airways plane in 1982) and Alaska’s Mount Redoubt volcano (The 1989 KLM plane with 500 passengers on board where luckily the engines were able to restart), along with the damages suffered by about twenty other devices, of which the cost of repairing was numbered in millions of dollars, as the norms of aviation security exclude any risk-taking. Following the direction produced by the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center in conjunction with the meteorological services (in Europe, the VAAC (Volcanic Ash Advisory Center) in London, and the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center in Toulouse), airlines must by-pass the ash clouds and must be diverted toward another airport when their destination airport has become inaccessible. For the first time, this rule was applied to one of the most dense zones of airline circulation in the world – the London-Heathrow airport receives 1300 flights daily, the Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport welcomes 83 thousand passengers per year – showing evidence of the globalization of the precautionary and prevention principles and also its limits. The resulting crisis, also stands as an assessment of the increasing contradictions between the economic trans-nationalization and the political fragmentation of the world.
Theoretical framework
1. Globalization of the precautionary/ preventative principle. Rather than the precautionary principle commonly called upon in event of a crisis, in reality, it is instead the prevention principle which was in fact applied. In effect, the precautionary principle applies itself to hypotheses in which the actualization of a serious and irreversible danger – although uncertain in the state of scientific knowledge – can intervene. This principle demands the putting in place of the risk evaluation procedures and the adoption of provisionary and proportionality measures, in order to prepare for the actualization of damages. In this circumstance, the risks were confirmed by previous events, such as accidents due to lack of accuracy, high costs for repairing, or damages subjected on the apparatus in entering into such clouds. The interruption of air traffic, decided upon by the authorities therefore reveal prevention, but it also concerns the avoidance of engaging in a course of real danger for the passengers.
2. Economic Transnationalization and Political Fragmentation. This crisis was not only the result of a natural phenomenon. It was also encouraged by the political rupture of air traffic control. In the same manner, the crisis was also amplified by the economic logistics of corporations in the airline sector and even more by the internationalization of trade, which in unifying the world, also causes the economy to be extremely dependent on the smooth functioning of transport and communication systems.
Analysis
In this matter, many concurrent elements together close in on the principles of caution and prevention: on one hand, there is the uncertainty of the exact location of the cloud displaced by the wind, on the other hand, the insufficiency of scientific knowledge concerning the entryway of the concentration of ashes by which the security of the airlines would be threatened; finally, the absence of efficient instruments able to measure these concentrations in the different aerial zones. To limit the economic consequences of the closing of airline traffic, it was necessary to analyze the cartographic risks available by using the meteorologists’ mathematic model. However this hardly gives information on the density of the cloud. In this instance, it is in a simply empirical fashion – sent by trial planes in the different aviation pathways – that the severity and the variability of risk was tested by the airline companies, in conjunction with the regulatory authority. The suggestions by the ministers of European transport have finally distinguished three zones of risk in function of the concentration of ashes in the air: 1) in the high risk zone, the traffic was banned, 2) in the medium risk zone, traffic could be authorized by each state, 3) in the low risk zone, traffic remained opened. In such a configuration of actors, void of certain interest – to start by the airline companies and regulators – to risk the sight of plane damage or even a simple incident, considers the generalized mistrust by the air transport which it would have provoked. However the review of security recommendations, intervening without a new technical system of the evaluation of risks being put in place, reveals the weakness of the demand of prudence in a sector of activity, essential to the functioning of societies and economic interdependence.
Many factors contributed to aggravating the crisis and complicating its resolution. First off, the “Modes of Regulation” of the European Airspace appear largely irrational. In effect, instead of being carved into functional zones, it was divided into national zones determined by state borders, which all the more so complicate the airline circulation in this dense traffic zone, and in doing so multiplies the constriction of narrow sections in this area. Moreover, in place of being entrusted to an exclusive European supervisor as to optimize the airline traffic, the control is carried out by national organizations which juxtapose the European regulator, Eurocontrol. Secondly the economic models adopted by the airline companies and the airport societies heighten the consequences of all closure, even partial closure, of the airspace. Organized in networks centralizing the airline traffic in a few hubs by which they optimize the filling of their planes, the large companies find themselves very affected by any blocking of these platforms. Concerning the low cost businesses, those which the profitability/ return rest on the continual rotation of their planes starting from the small airports that they connect in, all risks of circuit interruption drives them to prefer the preventative annulations of all of their flights, rather than to suffer the financial consequences of guardianship for stranded passengers. Finally, division of labor and international specialization, along with the development of transnational flows – of merchandise, services, and tourists – rapidly increase the economic consequences of all unexpected stops of airline traffic in a dense traffic zone. Certainly, the more globalization intensifies, the more national regulation shows itself to be maladjusted, and more so, the pressures are therefore strong in strategic sectors securing the circulation of flow, to limit the application of the principle of prevention to those cases where it would be strictly necessary.
References
Gérald Bronner, Étienne Géhin, L’Inquiétant principe de précaution, Paris, PUF, 2010.
Marie-Anne Frison-Roche (Éd.), Les Risques de régulation, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po et Dalloz, 2005.
Philippe Kourilsky, Geneviève Viney, Le Principe de précaution : rapport au premier ministre, Odile Jacob, La Documentation française, 2000.
Daniel Gaïa, Pascal Nouvel, Sécurité et compagnies aériennes, Éditions du Puits Fleuri, 2006.
Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin), LATMOS, « Suivi des émissions de cendres du volcan islandais Eyjafjöll » 20/04/2010. Site Internet easa.europa.eu.
Jun 12, 2010 | European Union, Passage au crible (English)
By André Cartapanis
Translation by: Davina Durgana
Passage au crible n°25
Since the onset of the Greek Financial Crisis, controversy has multiplied in Europe. A policy of financial solidarity must be implemented to the benefit of the misbehaving members of the European Union, under the form of a rescue plan to the order of 750 million Euros. This arrangement coupled with an adjustment policy of considerable size is taking place in Greece, but is influencing the entire Euro Zone. From this point forward, must we introduce the most Draconian budgetary rules to avoid repeating such a catastrophic scenario, or on the contrary, must we begin the dissolution of the Monetary Union?
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
In 1999, the creation of the single currency (Euro) initially had the ambition to put an end to the repetitive crises that struck the European economy and impeded its growth. So long as the liberalization of capital controls had taken place in the heart of the European Union and the fixed exchange-rates governed the common European market, the multiplicity of monetary policies had become impossible, due to its tendency to provoke repetitive exchange rate crises. The creation of the Euro was intended to guarantee a greater degree of efficiency in monetary policy as far as the fight against inflation, thanks to the credibility of an independent Central European Bank (BCE). This institution was responsible for price stability, respecting the Pact of Stability and supporting growth in the domain of budgetary deficits and the public debt. In addition, the Euro was to give increasingly flexible margins in decreasing the restrictions on balance of payments and the distortions of exchange rates within the Euro Zone. This new currency was meant to equally reduce the sensitivity to fluctuations in exchange rates in relation to other currencies, the U.S. Dollar in particular. However, the difficulties of macroeconomic convergence were underestimated when the single currency had to enter the heart of an excessively heterogeneous European community. Due to this, the Economic and Monetary Union did not constitute an optimal monetary zone.
Theoretical framework
1. Optimal Monetary Zone: In order to properly function, a Monetary Union must theoretically meet a series of macroeconomic criteria- complete factor mobility; of wage labor in particular, budgetary federalism and nominal convergence, so that it can support asymmetrical shocks. Asymmetrical shocks refer to specific shocks affecting respectively each member of the Monetary Union, while all holding a single monetary policy, and rendering impossible intra-European adjustments to the exchange rate. Faced by worries of those with a strict respect for the criteria ex ante of joining an Optimal Monetary Zone, some have kept their focus on the risk of recurrence that could follow adherence to a Euro Zone on the characteristics of each member-state, facilitating as well, ex post, the macroeconomic functioning of the Zone.
The development of intra-European commerce and financial integration depends on monetary integration to drive an increased synchronization of cycles and a stabilizing of levels of consumption by depending on a strengthening of the intra-European allocation to the reserves. However, the situation presently appears to be too optimistic. To the contrary, the decade from 2000-2010 was characterized by a very clear differentiation of growth trajectories seen in many economies of the Euro Zone. In this way, the heterogeneity of the member-states was further augmented by the creation of the Euro.
2. Heterogeneity of the Euro Zone: The overall persistence of the distinct heterogeneities of the Euro Zone member-countries, such as; systems of growth more or less tied to State or consumer debt, fiscal distortions, differentiation of social systems and types of international specialization, do not represent an overall obstacle to the efficient functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union. The fact remains that wage labor differentiations or the differences regarding modes of specialization seem, to the contrary, likely to introduce increasing efficiency in the allocation of factors of production. However, that assumes that those differentiations do not accompany lasting macroeconomic imbalances – in growth, unemployment and debt – that render this configuration unsustainable. And yet, for the last ten years, the monetary policy of the Central European Bank and the domestic coordination of budgetary policies, imposed by the Pact of Stability, have been unable to respond to the specific trajectories of the economies of the Euro Zone. Furthermore, individual economies are not punished for the recurrent macroeconomic imbalances of the member-states. Finally, the Euro Zone was weakened by a mediocrity in global performance, in terms of growth and employment. Naturally, the global crisis aggravated such a process.
Analysis
Since the middle of 2000, the heterogeneity of the Euro Zone had manifested with strong and divergent exports, the effects of which, were apparent in the domestic markets of the European Union. This was evident in the evolution of wage labor differentiations and increases in rates of individual consumer debt as well as States’ debt. Coupled with preexisting heterogeneity, shocks of supply and demand accentuated internal distortions, with which, the adjustment policies could not be applied to the whole European Union. The rules and institutions of economic governance of the Euro Zone, have certainly adapted to cyclical shocks of weak magnitude on the Union. Consequently, these institutions cannot respond effectively to macroeconomic dynamics and divergent structures. Above all, this is evident when faced with the German policy of wage restriction.
With the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Amsterdam, the European governments have stayed at the crossroads of monetary policy. They have come very far, in creating a single currency within an economic space that is almost exclusively dedicated to the objective of monetary stability, but they have not come far enough on the road to integration of economic policies of the member-countries of the Euro Zone.
It is important to understand that the Monetary Union cannot limit itself to a basic technique that optimizes the use of economic policy instruments and reduces dysfunction originating from the instability of the exchange rate. For many – such as Jacques Delors –the Economic and Monetary Union represents a political project that is aiming toward an improvement in the economic and political integration of Europe. Yet, the crisis of the Euro Zone and the destabilizing effects of globalization will necessitate a new form of the Euro Zone. Therefore, it is urgent to construct a new model of the European Monetary Union.
References
Beetsma Roel, Massimo Giuliodori, « The Macroeconomic Costs and Benefits of the EMU and other Monetary Unions : An Overview of Recent Research », Journal of Economic Literature, 2010, (forthcoming).
Cartapanis André (Éd.), « Les enseignements d’une décennie d’euro », Numéro spécial de la Revue d’Économie Politique, 120(2), mars-avril 2010.
European Commission, « EMU@10: Successes and Challenges after 10 Years of Economic and Monetary Union », European Economy, (2), 2008.
Mackowiak Bartosz,Francesco Paolo Mongelli, Gilles Noblet, Frank Smets, (Ed.), The Euro at Ten- Lessons and Challenges, European Central Bank, Frankfurt, 2009.
May 26, 2010 | Global Public Health, North-South, Passage au crible (English)
By Clément Paule
Translation: Brad Pizzimenti
Passage au crible n°24
Instituted in May 2007 by the World Health Assembly, Malaria Awareness Day was celebrated on the 25th of April, 2010. This event united together the actors involved in the struggle against parasitic disease that infects more than 250 million people and kills a million every year. This scourge remains endemic in hundreds of countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa – where 85% of its mortality is concentrated – and in a number of regions in Asia and Latin America. Nevertheless, the latest statistics from the WHO (World Health Organisation) show a retreat of reported cases in 27 states, including Zambia, Rwanda, and Eritrea. Also, international funding for treatments has increased six fold since 2003 to reach 1.7 billion dollars in 2009. A situation so encouraging could not help but rekindle hope of eradicating this deadly zoonosis.
> Historical background
> Theoretical framework
> Analysis
> References
Historical background
The parasite at the origin of the disease – Plasmodium – and its mode of transmission – anopheles mosquitos– were discovered at the end of the 19th century. But the interstatal cooperation remained limited to a commission created in 1924 under the League of Nations. Throughout the first part of the 20th century, numerous initiatives led to the international plan against this parasitosis from the philanthropic sector. The Rockefeller Foundation, for example, put into place a program of specific research in the 1930s, contributing in such a way to the elimination of malarial vectors on the American continent and in Europe. In addition, malaria had disappeared from western countries after 1946, the date of the creation of the WHO, which took charge of global epidemics. From this perspective, the 8th World Health Assembly launched in 1955 the Program for the Eradication of Malaria upon the basis of two methods: chloroquine – the first synthetic antimalarial – and the pesticide DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane). However, the technological orientation and vertical movement has neglected local realities. Finally, the growing resistances developed by plasmodium and mosquitoes have heightened financial and organizational difficulties of the program that has come to be known as a flagrant failure and admonished publicly by the World Health Assembly in 1969.
From then on, the disease seemed to disappear from the international agenda until the 1990s, before which a series of initiatives had not permitted redeployment of antimalarial programs. Cited in this respect is the Conference of Amsterdam, organized by the WHO in 1992 where the elimination of parasitosis has been written into the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). Furthermore, the declaration of Abuja in 2000 enlisted African heads of state to halve malaria-related mortality within 10 years. In parallel, a new system of cooperation was established, from which certain private actors – such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – occupy a pivotal role. These conditions favored bridge building with transnational firms particularly pharmaceutical companies. Within this space, mixed alliances were formed as public-private partnerships including RBM (Roll Back Malaria), MMV (Medicines for Malaria Venture), as well as MVI (Malaria Vaccine Initiative), which were formed between 1997 and 1999. This evolution concerns equally the modes of finance – with the creation of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria in January 2002 – whose volume has increased considerably. The combined efforts of the Gates Foundation, the Malaria Booster Program, the World Bank, and the PMI (United States President’s Malaria Initiative) are able to reach the objective of 5 billion dollars a year. Henceforth, the global plan of action against malaria – proposed by the RBM in 2008 – serves as a roadmap for the majority of interventions.
Theoretical framework
1. Window of Opportunity (Policy Window). Laid out by John Kingdom, this concept returns the problem to the agenda of decision makers. In that capacity, World Malaria Day maintains concurrent international action aimed against the parasite.
2. “Technicalising” Instruments. The antimalarial strategies are facilitated by a technological orientation rationalizing its tools in the name of profitability and effectiveness. As such, this economic logic neglects social outcomes of these measures and risks establishing miracle solutions in the short term.
Analysis
The protests of 25 April 2010 involved first of all the intensification of a mobilization launched in the late 90s. As it turned out, the event took on a symbolic dimension, since the Decade of the Struggle Against Malaria – instituted by the resolution 55/284 in the General Assembly of the United Nations – has come to achieve. In addition to this consideration, a conference of financial backers will take place in October 2010 in New York to finally determine their obligations up to 2013. This day, for which scientific gatherings multiply in number, sporting events, and commemorations across the entire world – represent as a result a window of opportunity for actors combatting this disease. And yet, this third effort distinguished by the slogan Counting Malaria Out that evokes specifically the ideal of eradication rekindled by Bill Gates in 2007. This objective – pushed forward by the WHO since the fiasco of 1969 – marks a symbolic rupture with these past failures and appears to pose the basis for a consensus around renewing the effectiveness of new modes of action.
However, if the statistical reports appear encouraging, there are discordant voices denouncing an unjustified optimism. The parasite, as of now, will become resistant to artemisinin – the antimalarial at the forefront since the 1960s – as well as insecticides like the pyrethrins. On the other hand, recent research shows the presence of a pathogen within many monkeys that brings into question the closed system between mosquitoes and humans. The global campaign against malaria will be seen as finished in the mid-term. These added technical objections to critiques of international health policy have not involved local actors. From this perspective, the objective of eradication will be brought up, within a short timeframe, and will not presuppose any hard obligation. Once again, the Gates Foundation is accused of technological bias for the PEP, in supporting solutions judged profitable, such as general immunization. And yet, the scientific success based on the focus upon a malaria vaccine does not equally guarantee its social effectiveness, that is to say its effective usage by the population as a whole. In witnessing the example of H1N1 influenza, that caused us to qualify the idea by itself that the complexity of plasmodium will hinder research for more than twenty years.
To reduce the instruments of the fight against malaria to simple technical tools hides the ever-present divide between North and South. In effect, Malaria kills children and pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa. Put simply, pharmaceutical companies cannot wait for return on investment while the costs tied up in innovation are always going up. However, certain initiatives have been made full use of, like the African Malaria Partnership of Glaxo Smith Kline – currently testing the RTS,S vaccine candidate – or the Impact Malaria project of Sanofi-Aventis. But if the public-private partnerships are permitted to mobilize a part of the private sector against the disease, this rapprochement is not without its ambiguities. The WHO has repeatedly condemned 37 pharmaceutical companies that persist in commercializing artemisinin monotherapies whose use causes the development of drug-resistant parasites. The victory against malaria from here forward appears that it will be played out as much in scientific advances as within the acknowledgement of the social dynamic of global public health.
References
“Malaria 2010: More Ambition and Accountability Please”, The Lancet, 375 (9724) 24 April 2010, p. 1407
Guilbaud Auriane, Le Paludisme. La lutte mondiale conte un parasite résistant, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2008. Coll. Chaos International
Kingdom John W., Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies, 2e ed. New York, Harper Collins, 1995.
Shah Sonia, “Une autre approche contre le paludisme”, Le Monde diplomatique, (674), May 2010, p. 10
Website: World malaria day: http://www.worldmalariaday.org
WHO (World Health Organization), World Malaria Report 2009, 2009, available on the WHO website http:// www.who.int 24 May 2010
