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Can existing institutions address globalisation and poverty?

By Trevor Rogers - posted Monday, 15 October 2001


There are valiant attempts to promote the United Nations and other international bodies as the hope of the poor against the onslaught of globalisation. We have been provided with a set of such views by Janet Hunt, from the Australian Council for Overseas Aid, James Ensor, from Oxfam Community Aid Abroad, and John Braithwaite from the Australian National University (On Line Opinion, September 2001). They provide many pertinent observations, and I sympathise with their approaches, but ultimately these articles simply reinforce the need for a totally new, independent institution.

Hunt summarises as follows:

"The main point I want to make about aid, NGOs, and long-term development is that to regulate globalisation, and transform it to a globalisation which fosters human development, we need to have a countervailing force. That force is the UN human rights system and the development agreements made in the UN system ... These present an alternative framework for globalisation which NGOs and aid should be supporting and promoting. … not all aid currently contributes to these goals, and NGOs must support those elements of aid which do, but critique those which contribute to the neo-liberal economic approach."

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I agree with this, more or less, except the UN is not the required countervailing force.

"To conclude," says Hunt, "to regulate globalisation … we can use various elements of the UN system which are already there. We do not have to invent something new."

To this, I couldn't agree less. The problem is the actual delivery of human rights services.

Hunt appears to restrict the roles for human rights NGOs to:

  • advocacy, and promoting respect for human rights,
  • modelling approaches to leverage action and support,
  • research on what aid is actually doing,
  • assisting the development and monitoring of codes for corporate behaviour in developing countries, and
  • acting as watch dogs.

In her article at least Hunt apparently does not anticipate NGOs as deliverers of any real service, much less human rights support services, or having any clout in the commercial world.

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Hunt supports more of the UN, IMF, World Bank and other forms of government aid - "but the emphasis must be on how aid dollars are used", and on "what part the aid is playing in supporting the neo-liberal agenda".

The UN is not - and cannot be - the countervailing force that Hunt advocates, even though much of the aid provided by the UN and NGOs is impressive. The dominant states of the UN are those that benefit most from globalisation and they will insist that the "neo liberal agenda" Hunt decries is central to any aid.

Hunt herself provides some ammunition against the World Bank and the IMF. The IMF has recently cut off loans to Zimbabwe, including a loan intended to help tackle its poverty problems, because it fell into arrears in February. This may marginally upset some government leaders in Zimbabwe, but it doesn't help the poor who live there.

Braithwaite confirms the draft UN Code of Conduct for Trans-national Corporations, which would have imposed a large set of ethical obligations on multinational corporations and had been under development since the mid-1970s, was killed by the US in 1995. The developed nations subsequently tried to secretly negotiate the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, which benefited the multinationals, but the NGOs and developing countries killed it in 1998.

The UN human rights system sets some standards which are admirable. These standards have been reached as a result of various political compromises, and as we have seen above, and in the recent meeting on Conference on Racial Discrimination in Durban, national interests usually dominate these proceedings.

Braithwaite points out that we still need, in addition to the "rights" conventions, an enforceable Code of Conduct for Multinational Corporations, but does not explore the nature of the enforcement. He does say it is possible for NGOs to use strategic trade thinking to divide and conquer American and European business - to assist firms that have upgraded their green standards early by the NGOs promoting improved standards in their other markets. But Braithwaite also found that NGOs are mostly weak players in debates over global business regulation, and such methods are hardly "enforcement".

On the other hand, in the national government arena, Braithwaite admits there is also "a world system dynamic that creates a competitive race to the bottom with regulatory standards over matters such as the environment". It is possible there may be progress, but it seems it could be slow.

Given their genesis, it is surprising that some of the UN conventions are so good. Given their genesis, they can claim to have fairly widespread support. Given their genesis, it is not surprising they are incomplete.

Truth and justice are not concepts determined by popular vote, political compromises, or international consensus. Those of us interested in human rights know what they are (especially if they are being violated) even if we can debate how they can be most appropriately worded.

Hunt accepts "The UN system is increasingly placing greater emphasis on economic, social and cultural rights, but the difficulty is that there is no effective mechanism for enforcement of these rights". There is no effective mechanism under the UN to enforce any rights. Not one individual is guaranteed a single right by the UN or any of its agencies or any other similar international body. There is simply no enforcement mechanism. All UN actions require the support of the local national government - or America. If the abuse is caused by the local national government, the UN is useless. Consider Kosovo, East Timor, Rwanda.

We flounder to reform the UN, to provide it with some enforcement powers, to establish a real International Criminal Court, or set up a standing army of the UN, largely because of reservations in America and Europe.

Ensor promotes what I see as a vain hope that Oxfam/CAA and concerned individuals can sufficiently influence Australian politics so that our foreign policy is more aligned with certain key principles. In the context of the public reaction to the Tampa refugee "crisis" and war mongering after the attack on the World Trade Centre, I hold little hope that such reasoned and compassionate arguments will be heeded by the electorate at large. And even if the Australian government did suddenly become enlightened, we still need to persuade the real powers in Europe and North America. Experience tells us that progress will be slow, and as Ensor reminds us, "Despite the progress made in recent decades, poverty and inequality remain worldwide, and they’re getting worse".

Hunt suggests "Aid programs and projects should themselves enhance peoples’ human rights, especially the rights of women and children." But the aid programs themselves, approved and initiated by distant, well meaning managers do not grant the aid recipients the right to participate in decisions of when, where and how the aid is applied. Sometimes the need is so obvious that it would be an affront to ask, but for the long term development aid that is the focus of Hunt's article, surely the recipients should be involved in the decision making.

Hunt cites a World Bank study which identified four systemic and pervasive problems as:

  • corruption,
  • violence and crime,
  • a chance to participate; and
  • livelihoods being less secure.

Ensor outlines similar "key principles" that "should guide Australian policy-makers to ensure that more people throughout the world can be able to enjoy their basic rights to shelter, education, food, water, health care, a say in their future, a safe and sustainable environment and freedom from violence."

The UN and the NGOs that Hunt and Ensor support do not provide the participatory democracy that they advocate. They do not provide human right services on any long term contractual basis. The UN and the current NGOs do not provide much protection against the precariousness of their livelihoods that the poor apparently seek, or the kinds of insurance like cover - for income protection, home, medical - that we "normal" affluent Westerners expect. They do not provide reliable security services: when the going gets tough, the UN and the NGOs, and even the US Army, sadly, go home - and who can blame them?.

Hunt laments that "a growing proportion of aid budgets is going on crises responses, rather than long-term development". The crises may in some respects be seen to arise from long term neglect of inadequate social structures. This might be expected when there is no long term commitment to particular individuals in one region while other crises arise elsewhere.

Hunt may not wish to discuss openly whether all recipients of aid are deserving, but if it is fair to expect that those receiving aid provide some commitment to return the favour, if and when they are able, then we need a formal mechanism to handle this, which the UN and current NGO models do not provide.

Despite her claim to the contrary, we need to explore whether a new institution would better address globalisation in the way that Hunt requires. The concept outlined in the "Global Obligations" web site, and summarised in the On Line Opinion Feature in August 2001, which includes my previous article, addresses all of these issues. It proposes a democratic forum, for donors and recipients, with a long term, rights based, contractual commitment.

Even if the UN and the other agencies could lift their game so that all the goals indicated by Braithwaite, Ensor and Hunt were realised, we would still advocate that there is a need for an alternative institution as a genuine countervailing force against big government and big business. The UN, IMF, World Bank and other international bodies are seen by many to be part of problem, not the solution. They are not sufficiently independent of the dominant donor nations, and in the past have ensured that their vested interests are not harmed by these organisations.

The alternative institution must be financially viable, with a reliable income stream, and it must have some economic and commercial leverage. Although it would ideally be able to influence the behaviour of corporations and governments, any well-motivated, democratic politician or quality multinational’s CEO should not fear an institution that promotes freedom, democracy and equality. Even the US President says he supports freedom and democracy!

We need to move on from the notion that geography is somehow linked to our entitlement to human rights. All approaches that are founded on the cooperation of national governments, like the approach supported by Hunt, are rooted in geography and parochial vested interests, and thereby in the long term are flawed. Human rights support should not be dependent on the benevolence of the NGOs or the UN, or upon having the luck to stand in the right queue. Perhaps it should depend on your willingness to contribute.

The globalised world has moved not just trade beyond national boundaries. Terrorism is becoming acknowledged as being beyond national borders. Human rights must now be based on direct, voluntary, committed, equity based, reciprocal relationships. It is in the interests of liberal national governments and large corporations as well as individuals to promote such relationships so that we can avoid the chaotic or protectionist alternatives.

Such relationships should be the basis of a new institution which can really deliver on our global obligations.

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About the Author

Trevor J. Rogers is Trustee of the Global Obligations Establishment Trust.

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