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	Human rights conference echoes concerns on finance rules by Aldo Caliari Righting Finance   October 2013   Twenty years after the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights and its Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action were adopted, more than 140 civil society representatives from around the world gathered at Vienna to commemorate the occasion. The 2013 conference, convened under the theme “Strengthening the Human Rights Movement Globally: Vienna +20,” was held in Vienna on June 26-27, and agreed on an Outcome Document that was presented by civil society at a High Level Conference on Vienna +20 hosted in the same city by the Austrian government.   The 1993 Vienna Conference on Human Rights was groundbreaking in several respects. To a new generation of human rights advocates, it may be difficult to appreciate how many of the achievements that today are taken for granted were product of hard debate and negotiations that took place in the lead up to that historic gathering. One of them was overcoming the artificial divide that prevailed during the Cold War times between civil and political rights on the one hand and economic, social and cultural rights on the other. The Conference consecrated the principles of interdependence and indivisibility of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural, a characterization that has become commonly accepted today.   Just as the commemoration of Vienna + 20 allowed a look at the achievements of the conference playing over two decades, it allowed a look at the changes in the world and debate on the responses they merit. Noticeably, the concerns that groups such as RightingFinance have been voicing about the role that financial regulation and macroeconomic policies play in the respect, protection and fulfillment of rights are echoed and broadly supported in the Outcome Document approved by the participants. The Outcome Document states that “When governments choose to service financial debts over social ones, and when financial regulation is in the interest of finance rather than people, the most marginalized suffer, while those who profited from financial speculation enjoy impunity.”   Since economic policies are an exercise of state power, it is logical to infer that “human rights norms and standards must guide all stages of the design, implementation and monitoring of national and global economic policies.”   Adding its voice to the growing chorus of human rights criticisms of contractionary economic policies (“austerity”) as a response to fiscal and debt crises, the document asserts that “counter-cyclical, rather than pro-cyclical, macroeconomic policies – subject to ex ante and ex post facto human rights impact assessments – have been the bets safeguard against disproportionate human rights backsliding in changing economic conditions.” It also reminds governments of the duty of States to use any tools – including budget, tax, monetary, deficit financing, debt resolution and financial regulation—to maximize all available resources to fully realize economic and social rights.   The Vienna + 20 Outcome also incorporates advances in the development of extraterritorial obligations on human rights. The document decries that “The approach of limiting human rights obligations territorially has led to substantial gaps in human rights protection that have become more severe in the context of globalization over the past 20 years.”   Extraterritorial human rights obligations are not new. They were already a feature of the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights, according to which every individual “is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.”   But legal and scholarly efforts to better define the contours of these obligations have received special impulse in the last decade. In fact, a number of UN Special Rapporteurs upheld the extraterritoriality of human rights obligations from the vantage point of their different mandates, lending their support to guidelines on the subject that had been produced by leading experts in 2011.   Among other things, the Outcome says that States are obliged to shape, regulate and tax any cross-border financial flows in rights-realizing ways” and “ensure that universal human rights standards . . . take primacy over trade, investment, debt, tax or finance commitments.” Since many of the fiscal and monetary measures that States could take are conditioned on the international monetary system, it is good that the document also makes reform of the international monetary system part and parcel of the obligations of cooperation for the protection of human rights that all States hold.   The Outcome also provides useful insights into the limitations of the current system to treat human rights abuses by companies with a transnational presence. The demand for States to develop a new international legal body complementary to national jurisdictions was, barely a few weeks after the conference, picked up by a coalition of more than 80 governments that tabled it as a proposal before the Human Rights Council.   The risk of inadequate financial regulation undermining enjoyment of human rights is raised in the Outcome Document: “Human rights-centered financial regulation is essential to protect the public, especially the most marginalized, from financial sector abuses and the threat of global financial systemic collapse which gave pretext for austerity. . . . This implies restoring the public role in effectively regulation financial markets and banking system.”   Recognizing the key connection between the budget shortfalls that are affecting governments in the post-crisis period and the unexpected bailouts of financial firms that were justified as a necessity during the 2008 Great Recession, the document calls for firewalls “to prevent any resolution of failing financial institutions from relying on public funding.” It also says that “Governments must ensure that no one is above the law by breaking up “too-big-to-fail/jail” financial institutions…”   At the same time, the document also made justice to the uneven weight that different States have on the mechanisms that could control financial flows by mentioning that “States with greater capacities in global economic policy-making have greater responsibilities to protect human rights.”   Another important issue, in line with the indivisibility of human rights, is the important role of civil and political rights for human rights-based in finance that the document acknowledges: “People’s rights of transparency, access to information and participation must be embedded in how economic policies are formulated, decisions are made and policies implemented.” Indeed, nothing better to drive home the concept of indivisibility of rights than the practical difficulties faced by vulnerable and discriminated groups trying to demand inclusion in financial policy-making processes. Shrouded by the alleged “technical” nature of such processes, the limited participation in them serves often as a ploy functional to the interests of small minorities that enjoy the economic benefits of the chosen policies.   The 2013 Outcome Document, like its 1993 predecessor, is full of notions that, while not a departure from human rights principles, develop them in light of new realities. Even if not the product of governments, the document can be predicted to have an equally bright future as a tool for a new generation of human rights advocates.   * Access the Civil Society Declaration: http://www.escr-net.org/node/365234 Visit the related web page
	Peace Pays for Itself by Steve Killelea, Richard Schiffman Policy Innovations   October 2013   Peace Pays for Itself, by Steve Killelea. (Institute for Economics and Peace).   A completely peaceful world is indeed utopian. Yet we would add about $2.4 trillion in global economic activity if we made our world 25 percent less violent.   That amount would make a substantial difference. $2.4 trillion is enough to cover the cost of the Millennium Development Goals; eliminate the public debt of Greece, Portugal, and Ireland; help cover the costs of rebuilding after the most expensive natural disaster in history, the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan—and still leave money for other forms of investment.   Yet currently we are constricting global economic development. The global economic impact of violence in 2012 was estimated to be $9.5 trillion, or roughly 11 percent of global GDP.   The Institute for Economics and Peace calculated this figure by totaling economic activity related to the prevention and consequences of violence—such as the cost of homicides, violent crime, and national defense and security services expenditures across 151 countries—using 10 of the 22 qualitative and quantitative indicators employed in the Global Peace Index.   Even with a more cautious target of decreasing violence by 10 percent the world would save $473 billion, which could further spur economic growth and be directed toward infrastructure, health, and educational services.   Keep in mind these are conservative estimates. One of the indicators used to calculate the economic impact of violence is military expenditure, which constitutes 51 percent of costs related to violence around the world. Another indicator is the cost of homicides, accounting for 15 percent or $1.43 trillion of the total. Indicators such as the costs related to property crime, burglary, vehicle theft, domestic violence, surveillance equipment, lost wages, and lower productivity were not included simply because accurate data are not available.   And context is key. Just as economic development takes place within a context of greater peace, peace tends to manifest when there is external and internal economic development. External economic stresses, such as sudden increases or decreases in food prices, especially in conjunction with insufficient social safety nets, can heighten community tension and potentially lead to conflict.   Such was the case in Colombia during the 1990s when it experienced a drop in coffee prices that lowered wages and simultaneously intensified conflict in coffee-producing regions. Oeindrila Dube and Juan Vargas documented this in "Commodity price shocks and civil conflict: Evidence from Colombia."   On the level of internal economic development, employment is crucial to lessening the risk of conflict because it decreases the attractiveness of joining organized criminal networks or rebel groups. Indeed, as the World Bank showed in its 2011 report on "Conflict, Security, and Development," youths in conflict-affected countries cited unemployment and idleness as the most compelling reasons for joining rebel groups and gangs.   We Need a Full-cost Accounting of Violence   Governments could nurture economic development by conducting thorough analyses into the effectiveness of expenditures related to violence. For example, in the United States in 2012 it cost approximately $44,000 per year to keep someone in jail.   A key challenge to understanding how much of a society''s economic resources are burdened by violence is the lack of data. The great majority of expenditures for the prevention and consequences of violence are not accounted for by national statistical offices. For instance, the North American Industry Classification System has very detailed industry breakdowns for warehousing, health care, and social assistance spending—but not violence containment. The Institute for Economics and Peace methodology is a significant first step in developing an accounting system to ensure better budget analysis and economic understanding of unproductive expenditures.   While the health care debate in the United States revolves around how to reduce costs while improving outcomes, there could be a similar public debate to determine the effectiveness of violence prevention and recovery programs, especially given that 37 percent of the 2010 federal budget, or more than $1 out of every $7 spent in the United States, went to dealing with the consequences of violence.   If we could instead redirect spending toward development pursuits, we would ultimately improve productivity and well-being around the world. And as the well-being of a society improves, the foundation for future prosperity is built.   This virtuous cycle of peace is illuminated through budgeting for better educational institutions. Education boosts the skills, knowledge, and behavior of citizens so that they can contribute to economic productivity, which in turn fosters stability and community cohesion. With cohesion comes better resilience to economic, geopolitical, and natural disasters. The more peaceful and prosperous nations of Scandinavia, which have high education levels as indicated by the 2013 Human Development Index, are a case in point.   On the other hand, if we look at the economic downturn and austerity measures in Greece, we can see how economic pressure drove violent demonstrations.   When reviewing the economic performance of Afghanistan, the Institute for Economics and Peace calculated its 2010 per capita income as approximately $1,000, the same amount as in 1970 before the Afghan Civil War began. This would suggest that lasting conflict in Afghanistan has resulted in 40 years of economic stagnation instead of what could have been $39 billion in growth.   We see how a vicious cycle between economics and peace can perpetuate itself. Yet, if peace and economics can also reinforce each other in a virtuous cycle, then the potential benefit for global well-being is worth embracing.   * Steve Killelea is executive chairman of the Institute for Economics and Peace.   http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/commentary/data/000267   Hunger, Food Security, and the African Land Grab, by Richard Schiffman.   If you were organizing dinner parties for the world, you would need to put out 219,000 more place settings every night than you had the night before. That is how fast the Earth''s population is growing. But global agricultural production is currently failing to keep pace. A June 2012 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) sees trouble looming ahead, warning that "land and water resources are now much more stressed than in the past and are becoming scarcer."   Many global analysts predict that the biggest security threats in the twenty-first century may center on disputes over water and the food that Earth''s dwindling water supply is able to produce. The greatest threat to our common future, writes Lester Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute, "is no longer conflict between heavily armed superpowers, but rather spreading food shortages and rising food prices—and the political turmoil this would lead to."   Hunger, of course, has been a perennial cause of political instability. Food riots were a contributing cause of the French Revolution and countless other upheavals throughout history. More recently, the increasing globalization of the world''s volatile food market has led to new threats to the global poor. Inflation in the price of wheat, rice, and soy during the world food crisis of 2007–2008 doubled the cost of these staples, in some cases virtually overnight. This was due only in part to actual food shortages. A lot of the "agriflation" was driven by commodity speculators—investors in hedge funds, pension funds, and other financial institutions betting on future food prices.   Michael Greenberger in the George Washington Law Review calls this kind of speculation "gambling," and argues that it distorts commodity prices by decoupling them from real-world market forces like supply and demand.   Commodity speculation in food staples has created huge profits for companies such as the American investment firm Goldman Sachs, which is regarded as one of the world''s leaders in the trading of crop futures. Many other international banks are also heavily involved. The United Kingdom–based public interest group World Development Movement (WDM) estimates that Barclays for example, has made up to £340 million a year from speculating on food prices. In February, bowing to public pressure, Barclays followed the lead of several German, Austrian, and Scandinavian banks in severely reducing its involvement in the food futures market.   Yet, despite these voluntary withdrawals by a few big players, the food futures market continues to expand. In a 2010 report, "The Great Hunger Lottery," the WDM found that financial speculation on food had nearly doubled in the preceding five years, from $65 billion a year to $126 billion a year worldwide. This spike in investment has resulted in a highly volatile market where prices for farmers and consumers alike are no longer dependable. Since 2007, global food prices have surged twice—in both cases leading to rises of more than 50 percent in the cost of wheat, to name one commodity, in less than a year.   Another factor that is contributing to local food shortages in some areas is the shift from growing food crops to the production of biofuel—mostly for export—in regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Oil palms, jatropha, and sugar cane are being grown in the Philippines, Indonesia, Guinea, and elsewhere to feed Europe''s appetite for a cheap and sustainable replacement for gasoline (and to a lesser extent the United States).   But in places like Sumatra—where Asia''s last great rainforest is being razed to make way for massive oil palm plantations—the current biofuels boom is anything but sustainable. Nor is it sustainable for the Guarani of Brazil, who are fighting a losing battle to maintain their tribal lands against the U.S. food giant Bunge, which is buying great tracts to produce ethanol from sugar cane.   Biofuels production has been a cash cow for many developing countries. But its effect on the poor has been more problematic. In a report published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Indur Goklany estimates that the increase in biofuels production may be responsible for as many as 200,000 deaths per year from hunger and hunger-related illnesses. He argues that this massive shift in land use has decreased the amount of food available for human consumption, and consequently raised the prices of vital staples. There are now millions who can no longer afford to buy these staples in sufficient quantities.   The debate over the ethics of biofuel production underscores the fact that decisions made in wealthy countries often have unintended consequences in the global South. In a world of limited and in many cases diminishing natural resources, how do we ensure that these resources are equitably distributed? Nowhere is this question more urgent than when it comes to food.   Many international bodies and philanthropic organizations have recognized the critical need to help poor countries enhance their food security, but there is considerable debate over how to achieve these goals. When large international agencies talk about eliminating hunger in the developing world, the discussion usually turns to boosting production through the spread of industrial agriculture, with its efficiencies of scale and high-yield genetically modified seeds. This has been the thinking of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, which have joined forces to create the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), which has largely taken a technology-based approach.   Some food activists, however, counter that increasing agricultural efficiency is less important than supporting sustainable local agriculture and indigenous food markets. The crucial questions, they say, are what kinds of crops are being grown, who is growing them, and for whom are they being produced. The rapid expansion of biofuels plantations and cattle ranching in the global South has been a boon for agribusinesses and their wealthy customers in the developed world. But it has also siphoned valuable land and water resources away from producing food for the people who need it the most.   Ironically, three-quarters of the world''s hungry live in farming areas. Many are former small farmers who have been pushed off their land by a variety of economic forces. According to Olivier de Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, "small-scale family agriculture, on which most of the world''s rural poor still depend, is threatened by large-scale plantations, export-led agriculture, and the production not of food but commodities."   The consequences of this process have been profound, and have threatened millions with starvation. Some development experts have argued that the spread of large-scale industrial agriculture in Africa and across the global South will ultimately lower food costs and benefit the poor. But recent price increases call this view into question. When local food prices become locked into highly unstable global commodity prices, it is often the people at the bottom of the economic ladder who are the first to feel the pain. The poor, many of whom already spend upwards of half their income on food, can ill afford to pay more for staple goods.   There is a debate about whether the number of hungry people has actually increased over the past decade or essentially remained stable as a percentage of the global population. (The FAO puts the current figure at 870 million—more than the combined population of the United States, Europe, and Canada.) Nobody disputes that the recent downturn in the world economy and the rise in food prices have hit the poor hard. The slowdown in progress in lifting people out of hunger over the past five years should "sound alarm bells around the globe," says the activist group Oxfam.   This slowdown effectively reverses the trend initiated by the so-called Green Revolution, which introduced to the developing world high-yield grain varieties and such industrial farming techniques as mechanical irrigation, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. During the second half of the twentieth century agricultural yields grew, and hunger diminished in many parts of the globe. But much has changed over the intervening years, and today some agricultural scientists fear that we are entering a period of growing food insecurity during which demand for food will outstrip supply.   One fear is that rapid population growth will outpace the projected increases in production. Another is the earlier-than-predicted impact of climate change, which is blamed for an increase in extreme weather events, such as flooding, drought, record heat waves, and the spread of destructive insect infestation into new areas. In the summer of 2012, drought in the bread baskets of the United States, Ukraine, and Russia, and crop-wilting heat waves in Europe, Australia, and other regions cut world wheat production significantly. In the U.S. Midwest a heat wave combined with the worst drought in over a quarter-century to depress grain production to its lowest levels in decades, raising food prices steeply for American consumers.   The consensus among most scientists is that global climate change will disrupt rainfall patterns and dry out many agriculturally productive areas, especially in the global South.   These assessments, however, are now widely acknowledged to have been overly optimistic. The growing instability in the climate system has already dramatically cut crop yields in many areas. According to Lester Brown, "for every 1 degree Celsius rise in temperature above the optimum during the growing season, we can expect a 10 percent decline in grain yields."   These declines have far-reaching political consequences. Not coincidentally, the Arab Spring occurred at a time when grain prices were soaring. With the disappointing wheat harvest in the summer of 2012, the price of wheat rose to nine dollars a bushel on the global market—an all-time-high—leading some to predict renewed trouble in the region in the coming months and years. Domestic wheat production in Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iraq has been in a free fall in recent years, as aquifers in these desert regions are becoming exhausted, making such countries increasingly dependent on expensive imports to feed their populations. Bread riots in 2010 and 2011 in the Middle East may have been a harbinger of worse unrest to come.   Turning to Africa for Food Security   To prevent the trouble that many see looming on the horizon, several countries are buying up vast tracts in other states to feed their own burgeoning populations. Both India and China—which face the prospect of severe water shortages in the years ahead—are purchasing prime agricultural land in already food-stressed areas in Africa to ensure their own futre.   * Visit the link below to access the full essay. http://www.ethicsandinternationalaffairs.org/2013/hunger-food-security-and-the-african-land-grab-full-text/
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