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	Internationalism is about justice by Jean Grugel, Jonathan Glennie New Internationalist   Internationalism is about justice, by Jean Grugel.   In August 2013, a Singaporean employer was jailed for attacking her Filipina maid in an assault so severe it was described by the judge as ‘repugnant to all notions of a common humanity’. Recently, the plight of migrant workers employed in Qatar on construction projects for the 2022 World Cup has also been in the press. Forty-four Nepalese construction workers on World Cup sites died between June and August this year, from overwork and unsafe conditions.   Human rights abuses (sometimes) make global news headlines thanks in part to the work of activists, journalists and researchers. Because of their efforts, victories are sometimes being won that, though small, make a huge difference to the quality of people’s lives. But in the face of persistent – and deepening – global inequalities, there is still a very long way to go.   The Sheffield Institute for International Development has recently set out to reframe international development as global justice. Our starting point is that the daily absence of the building blocks for a decent life – respect, education, food security, acceptable housing, work and pay and so on – is not a failure of ‘development’ but a failure of justice. The failure is human not technical, and it is ‘addressable’ because it is not inevitable. Because it is addressable, we should have what Albert Hirschman, in his writing on Latin America, called ‘a bias for hope’.   Human rights are a vital tool for reframing international development in ways that set out our collective responsibilities to find a just global settlement. But to have traction, rights have to be understood as more than the traditional package of liberal rights. Other sorts of rights – social, economic, gendered, cultural – are also critical.   Action is needed much earlier in the life cycle of global injustice. It is not enough to protest once abuses are happening. Global justice means, above all, making arguments for urgent structural transformation to the global political economy. Why this matters is clear if we consider the abuse of migrant workers in Qatar. The inhuman conditions they currently endure were well known when the decision was taken to hold the 2022 World Cup in the state. Some 99 per cent of all workers employed in the private sector in Qatar are on temporary visas and are prevented by law from forming a trade union. FIFA cannot pretend that it was ignorant of this fact.   Events in Qatar suggest that although human rights arguments may be getting heard more than a generation ago, they are still getting heard too late. And they are certainly not shaping decision-making, whether in national or international settings. If international organizations and states do not take human rights seriously, the voices of activists will almost always be heard too late.   Framing international development as global justice means that our solidarities and our responsibilities are local as well as global. Internationalism is sometimes portrayed as caring for ‘distant others’ instead of those closer to home. Nothing could, or should, be further from the truth. Internationalism should be about challenging injustice everywhere. At home this means two things:   First, challenging simplistic and misleading dichotomies about ‘us’ and ‘them’ and countering racist views that seek to set out a view that some have more rights than others. Recent books such as David Goodhart’s The British Dream: Successes and Failures of Postwar Immigration are particularly worrying because they project an image of British people as having an innate primary ‘national’ identity based on race and culture that inevitably trumps our moral, emotional and human responsibilities to others. This ignores both the complexity of identity in Britain and the profound history of solidarity and support that Nick Dearden alludes to in his blog.   Second, it means taking seriously the injustices that happen close to home. Being an internationalist implies recognizing the immorality of welfare cuts that leave people to rely on food banks – as Oxfam does in its 2012 report ‘The Perfect Storm’, a stinging critique of the impact of the British coalition government’s budget cuts on the vulnerable and those on low incomes.   For rights to be made real, claims have to staked and arguments for justice made. Being an internationalist is about upholding those claims, engaging in debate and challenging injustice, whether on the street, in the classroom, in the press or simply among friends and family – sometimes the most difficult site of all. It is about reflecting on and prioritizing our ‘common humanity’. For an internationalist, the scales of justice must be simultaneously global and local.   * Jean Grugel is Professor of International Development at Sheffield University in Britain.   As the cuts bite, why bother with the global South, by Jonathan Glennie.   The twentieth century saw great strides for internationalism. Colonialism became history faster than the colonists ever imagined, and a communications revolution made real the concept of a global village. For the first time, we saw in real time the conditions in which billions of our brothers and sisters around the world sought to make the best of their lives.   Perhaps most powerfully of all, the evil of racism, for so long a guiding instinct of foreign and domestic policy, came to be considered entirely unacceptable in almost all fora, even if it remains a subtle demon in the souls of almost all of us.   This is progress, human progress, which we are right to celebrate.   But today, in 2013, we are faced with a serious risk that rather being cemented in our collective psyche, an internationalist vision will begin to be eroded. The wealthy countries of the last century are facing serious and long-term economic difficulties as poorer countries compete for jobs and investment. The ease with which largesse was promised from the bubble of growth, has been replaced by nagging stinginess. Rather than facing together the challenges of fairer shares in a resource-constrained world, powerful voices call on us to turn inwards.   This is not necessarily the pernicious nationalism of yesteryear, (although that may be a concern in some European countries) but a reinvigoration of the nation-centrism which has always dominated international relations.   The policies required to set the world on a sustainable and more equal path will be debated. But in my view the most important barriers remain in our minds. While heeding the rhetoric of international solidarity, we remain trapped in a state-centric philosophy incoherent with the reality of the world we inhabit and seek to improve.   Almost all political discussions are framed in terms of the national interest. Internationalist perspectives are an after-thought at best. It is considered absurd and embarrassing to suggest that things should be otherwise. And while this is understandable given the constituencies to which politicians must refer, it remains the major roadblock to decisions being made for the good of all.   We continue to elaborate arguments about inequality and justice based on geography, despite the obvious logical inconsistencies with our professed world views. Since 2007, for example, Britons have objected to bankers’ bonuses with reference to the hardships being faced nationally – joblessness and service cuts. But why does poverty 10 miles away matter more than poverty 1,000 or 10,000 miles away? If Zambia was located across the English Channel instead of France, how long would the British tolerate its extreme levels of poverty?   We know the answers to those questions, having posed them a thousand times. But we are miles away from a popular political discourse that follows them to their logical conclusion.   For example, the British Labour party criticizes the Conservatives for entrenching wealth in the hands of the few. But does Labour genuinely seek to spread the wealth of Britain with the rest of the world? Or is it also engaged in entrenching advantage? To suggest that living standards can no longer rise because of equality and sustainability considerations would be considered political suicide. Instead we hear the typical cross-party rhetoric of ‘competing in a world economy’.   Western political leaders have long professed a desire to see the poorer countries of the world catch up with western living standards, on the basis of human solidarity and also, supposedly, the idea that there would be greater trading opportunities. But now that they are finally doing so, the west seems to be caught off-guard, treating immensely poor countries like India as competitors. Do we want to bring those IT jobs back, causing unemployment in one of the world’s poorest countries? Or should we be boldly persuading our fellows that we already have it too good, and that it is time for radical redistribution of opportunities.   The call of one campaign group to ‘globalize resistance’ was always an exceptionally sensible one. It may have taken the banking crisis to jolt Westerners into realizing that. Only a truly international political platform has any kind of chance in a world of globalized capital in which the 0.001 per cent wield more power than ever. As a colleague at a major NGO told me thoughtfully, the development sector used to be more progressive than the western public, but may now be lagging behind peoples’ desire for structural change in the face of absurd inequalities.   In short, internationalism may be more palatable and persuasive than ever, just as it also faces one of its sternest tests.   The discussions about a post-2015 UN framework offer a chance to boost international cooperation – and to internationalize our minds.   I haven’t always agreed with Bob Geldof but I liked this quote from a speech earlier this month, ''We need to be a little more human. Less Irish, less British, less Cameroonian, less South African, less Russian, less Chinese and more human.’   That is the challenge. We hope that this blog series will offer some clues about how to achieve this greatest of aspirations. The first step, as always, is to listen. To develop empathy with people and peoples very different and often distant. The second step, is to allow our learning to radicalize policies, and not to be put off by the daunting obstacles. These changes will not happen over night. But while the internationalist vision will be viewed as impossible and unrealistic, it is in fact the only rational response to the world as we now experience it.   Perhaps internationalists will never win outright. But we can constantly mitigate the dangers of nationalism and coax the gradual birth of a genuinely humane humanity. It may sound radical now, and hard to see how to put into action, but concern for inequality across borders should be the basis of 21st century political ethics.   http://newint.org/blog/internationalists/ http://newint.org/blog/internationalists/2013/10/29/internationalism-justice-human-rights/ http://newint.org/blog/internationalists/2013/11/06/beyond-maps-beyond-nations/ http://newint.org/blog/internationalists/2013/10/17/as-cuts-bite-why-bother-with-global-south/ Visit the related web page
	Treat Papuan people better by ABC, Guardian News & agencies West Papua, East Timor   6 October 2013   Treat Papuan people better, by Markus Jerewon, Yuvensius Goo, Rofinus Yanggam.   In a open letter handed to the Australian consulate staff in Bali, West Papuans call for Indonesia to treat Papuans as "human beings".   Dear brothers and sisters,   We’re writing to inform you that we had entered the Australian Consulate in Bali to seek refuge and to deliver our message to the APEC leaders meeting in Bali.   We want these leaders to persuade the Indonesian government to treat Papuan people better.   Human rights abuses are our routine. Many of our colleagues protested and sought their political aspiration heard. But they ended up in prisons.   These political prisoners committed no crime. They are explicitly committed to non-violence. The Indonesian government arrested and jailed them for discussing their human rights beliefs.   We want the Indonesian government to lift the 50 year restriction it has imposed on West Papua. We want foreigners, including journalists, diplomats, observers and tourists to be able to visit West Papua freely without asking for special permits.   We need your help. We seek refuge and plead for our safety.   http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/06/west-papuans-australian-consulate-bali http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/11/west-papua-tony-abbott-australia   * Human rights lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, who has been working with West Papuan asylum seekers for ten years discusses why three West Papuans scaled the fence to the Australian Consulate in Bali over the weekend:   http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3864155.htm   Australian lawyers are calling on Indonesian authorities to investigate allegations of a massacre fifteen years ago in West Papua in which more than one hundred civilians were killed, raped or tortured.   http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3912701.htm   December 2013   Australia accused of spying on secret commercial gas dealings with East Timorese Government.   East Timor seeks to scrap oil treaty with Australia over spying allegations. (SMH)   East Timor’s government will not be deterred in pressing its case to scrap an oil treaty worth billions of dollars over claims of spying by Australia, an international negotiator says.   The country’s ambassador to London, Joaquim da Fonseca, was at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands on Thursday, in preliminary talks with Australia over a bitter spy row that has erupted over the past few days.   Representatives from East Timor and Australia spent seven hours locked in private talks at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands.   Mr da Fonseca said the talks, setting procedural guidelines for a dispute that could last almost a year, were held in a “very co-operative and amicable” environment.   “We had a very productive proceeding today, unfortunately we had to do this against the background of the events of the past 48 hours,” he said.   East Timor is seeking nullification of the 2006 treaty, known as CMATS (certain maritime arrangements in the Timor Sea). It was signed by then-foreign minister Alexander Downer and his East Timorese counterpart Jose Ramos-Horta, and came into force the next year.   CMATS divided revenue 50:50 between the two countries from the Greater Sunrise oil and gas field, where they both claim sovereign rights, about 150km south of East Timor and 450km north-west of Darwin. It contains an estimated $40 billion worth of oil and gas.   However, East Timor wants the deal to be wound back, after a whistleblower revealed that Australia"s spy agency ASIS planted microphones in the Timorese Cabinet room in 2004 while the deal was being negotiated.   East Timor says that Australia broke international law.   On Monday ASIO raided the Canberra office of former ACT attorney-general Bernard Collaery, a lawyer acting for East Timor in The Hague, and also raided the alleged whistleblower"s home. The whistleblower was detained for some hours, and his passport cancelled.   East Timor"s Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao said "Raiding the premises of a legal representative Mr Collaery of Timor-Leste and taking such aggressive action against a key witness is unconscionable and unacceptable conduct. It is behaviour that is not worthy of a close friend and neighbour or of a nation like Australia."   Mr da Fonseca said his team advised Australia’s representatives at The Hague that the raid was a “very unfortunate event” but “we are not going to be deterred by that event.”   “In spite of the events of the past 48 hours we are not deterred in proceeding in this case,” Mr da Fonseca said. He said he was “very very confident” that East Timor had a strong case.   * The revelations follow recent allegations Australia security services spied on senior Indonesian Ministers, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono"s wife, that has damaged bi-lateral relations between the two countries.   http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/04/timor-leste-spy-case-brandis-claims-ridiculous-says-ambassador http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=38614 http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2014-02-23/5267456 http://www.abc.net.au/news/abcnews24/programs/the-world/archive/
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