Deconstructing CEDAW’s Article 14: Naming and Explaining Rural Difference

(We are delighted to welcome back alumna Lisa R. Pruitt, who today joins us as a permanent IntLawGrrls voice. We look forward to future posts from Lisa on legal ruralism and CEDAW, among other topics!)

A couple of years ago, I had the pleasure of writing this guest post for IntLawGrrls about my first article regarding CEDAW’s Article 14 and the rights it enumerates for rural women. Since then, I have published a second essay about Article 14, this one called Deconstructing CEDAW’s Article 14: Naming and Explaining Rural Difference.
In this second piece, which has recently been published by the William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law in a symposium issue on women in international law, I examine the Convention’s Travaux Préparatoires to better understand the forces and considerations that led to the inclusion of Article 14 and its recognition of rural people and places. I also assess Article 14’s particular mandates in light of both that drafting history and CEDAW’s other provisions, and I consider the assumptions implicit in the Convention’s embrace of rural exceptionalism.
In addition, I offer some thoughts on the expressive significance of the particular rights accorded to rural women, as well as of the explicit acknowledgment of this group – and, by extension, rural populations in their entirety – in this widely ratified treaty. I thus discuss what CEDAW implies about the character of rurality and rural-urban difference, and I consider how CEDAW has influenced subsequent human rights treaties’ handling of rural difference.
Finally, I argue that CEDAW provides a framework for spatial equality, in addition to the more obvious and comprehensive one for gender equality. This essay therefore fills a void in the legal scholarship on CEDAW, which often mentions Article 14 in inventories of the Convention’s provisions, but which has largely ignored both its meaning and significance—particularly for the half of the world’s population who live in rural places, most of them in the developing world.

(credit for photo)

On December 27

On this day in ...
... 1945 (65 years ago today), the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development Articles of Agreement, drafted the previous summer at the U.N. Monetary and Financial Conference at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, took effect. The Articles established what's come to be known as the World Bank, an international organization that provides loans to developing countries. Headquartered in Washington, D.C. (left) (photo credit), it now has 187 states parties.

(Prior December 27 posts are here, here, and here.)

Human Rights & Business: Beyond Corporate Social Responsibility

(Delighted to welcome back alumna Nadia Bernaz, who contributes this guest post)

With BP making the headlines with the industrial disaster in the Gulf of Mexico (prior IntLawGrrls posts), many have been asking the question of how and whether giant corporations can be made accountable for their actions.
The fact is that a combination common in the Western world -- tighter laws governing pollution and higher standards -- has not worked. Rather, it has often meant that multinational corporations, which no longer have to respect national boundaries, move elsewhere, where standards are lax and land and labour is cheap.
The growing movement for volunteerism among corporate entities based on corporate social responsibility has had some benefit: it has highlighted the social responsibility that companies have when they invest in a given area. (Prior IntLawGrrls posts) However, it has also allowed many corporations to engage in green-washing their image through the display of sophisticated policies printed in expensive brochures.
A new story that has attracted some attention recently concerns the activities of the Vedanta mining concern, one of Britain’s largest companies, who have built an aluminium producing plant in Orissa, in the east of India. Vedanta now wishes to mine bauxite in the region in order to get the plant running at full capacity.
Orissa is one of India’s least developed states, with some of the poorest people in the world, with many indigenous tribes among them. It has been known for a long time that this part of India holds significant deposits of mineral resources, but with India speeding towards accelerated development, these resources have suddenly become crucial to sustaining growth.
Vedanta maintain that their mining activities would bring jobs and increasing wealth to the local population. However, the indigenous Dongria Kondh tribe strongly oppose mining in their sacred mountains, and are concerned about the environmental impact of this activity in the region. An Amnesty International report issued in February supports their view.) The tribal members argue that they do not want to change their ancestral way of life, and have no interest in the type of development Vedanta has promised them. (credit for photo by Parth Sanyal /Reuters, captioned "A tribal woman with her child near the mining site of the alumina refinery in Orissa state")
From an international legal perspective, the Vedanta story raises several important issues:
► The increased power of transnational corporations has made the seeking of accountability for their actions extremely difficult in environments where they may be able to operate freely, and often with the complicity of the government.
► While globalisation itself cannot be regulated, it is clear that new norm creation activities have been taking place in international law, not least with the presence of the World Trade Organisation.
► However, little of the ethos concerning human development and poverty alleviation feeds into these important discussions.
To address these challenges, my home institution, Middlesex University in London, England, has created an MA programme in Human Rights and Business. The course covers areas of law such as international human rights law and the law of the WTO, and explores the relevance of these areas to multinational corporations -- especially those corporations operating in emerging economies. The modules are deliberately human rights law-centred, and go significantly beyond the concept of corporate social responsibility. The programme itself is tailored for busy professionals with significant online content and class contact restricted to two days a month (Friday-Saturday). More information here.

On July 22

On this day in ...
... 1956, leaders from across the Americas concluded a multilateral conference by signing the Declaration of the Presidents of the American Republics. The declaration's hemispheric vision:

An America united, strong and benevolent will not only promote the well-being of the Continent but contribute toward achieving for the whole world the benefits of a peace based on justice and freedom, in which all peoples, without distinction as to race or creed, can work with dignity and with confidence in the future.

The conference "helped lay the groundwork for the creation of the Inter-American Development Bank and elements for the Alliance for Progress." (credit for photo of U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signing documents at the 1956 conference) It was held in Panama City in commemoration of the "first collective manifestation of Pan Americanism," an Assembly of Plenipotentiaries of the American States there, "convoked by the Liberator Simón Bolívar" in 1826. The 1956 effort has evolved into the Summit of the Americas process, which features meetings of governmental leaders that conclude with similar declarations. Most recent was the 5th summit, held in 2009 in Trinidad and Tobago; the 6th is set for 2012 in Colombia.

(Prior July 22 posts are here, here, and here.)

Protecting Women's Rights in the Reconstruction of Haiti

It is easy to forget, what with the millions of gallons of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, with scores of ethnic Uzbeks being killed in Kyrgyzstan, and with the blocking of vital aid to Gaza , that the humanitarian crisis sparked by January's earthquake in Haiti rages on.

Of the hundreds of thousands enduring an epic lack of food, shelter, and medical care, Haitian women and girls remain among the most vulnerable in the aftermath of that natural disaster. (credit for May 19, 2010, photo, © UNICEF/NYHQ2010-0779/LeMoyne, of mother who's just had her daughter vaccinated at health centre in Haiti)

The lack of security on Port-au-Prince's streets and temporary camps, all of which host thousands who have been rendered homeless, has catapulted the rate of violence against women in Haiti. Already endemic before the earthquake, the rate has reached new highs. Prior to the earthquake, violence against women in Haiti was described as "widespread" and "alarming." Over 90 percent of Haitian women were estimated to have experienced gender-based violence at some point in their lives.

The insecurity following the January 12 earthquake has not only exacerbated that state of affairs but presented an opportunity for change as well. Governments, donors, and international organizations -- if not the global citizenry -- are providing humanitarian assistance to the tiny Caribbean nation as it struggles to rebuild its homes, schools, and roads. In addition to the bricks and mortar work being done, development agencies have observed the need to rebuild Haiti's justice and security systems.

No one appreciates the absence of rule of law in Haiti better than its women, who have long struggled to access health care services, police investigations, prosecutions, and enforceable sentences against their aggressors.

On June 7, one of those women, Malya Villard-Apollon, testified before the U.N. Human Rights Council. Villard-Apollon is a member of KOFAVIV, a grassroots organization that has worked with victims of sexual violence in Haiti for six years. Since the earthquake, KOFAVIV has recorded 242 cases of rape but has yet to see a single prosecution. Villard-Apollon urged the Council to take action, saying:

Although violence against women is common, rape survivors like myself refuse to believe that it cannot be stopped and neither should the members of the Council.

She cited a lack of education and security as reasons for the alarming rates of violence against women, as well as "ineffective" aid distribution and aid agencies' failure to consult with local organizations. Villard-Apollon reminded donors of the United Nations' Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, and urged aid providers to consult with Haitian women in the delivery of aid. Principle 18 of the Guiding Principles calls specifically for the involvement of displaced women in the distribution of water, food, shelter, and medical care.

The importance of consulting with women in Haiti's reconstruction was echoed by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay in her June 11 report on human rights during the rebuilding of Haiti.

Involving women in the reconstruction of Haiti does not simply satisfy international legal obligations, it also makes good development sense. Participatory development has been a buzzword in the field of international aid since the 1990s, when development agencies began shifting away from top-down programming to more bottom-up initiatives. Since this time, many aid organizations have been working with grassroots groups to set the development agendas for their own communities, understanding that such involvement leads not only to project ownership but also to initiatives that are more tailored to participating communities and ultimately, to more sustainable outcomes.

This development philosophy, together the international legal principles prescribing participation of women in humanitarian relief, may translate into reconstruction efforts in Haiti that will not only stem the current crisis of gender-based violence but also prevent its recurrence in the future.

The State of Web Development 2010

Here's a look at the state of web development this year; developers clearly love their Apple products. Check out the summary of results or the in-depth report for more information. You can also download the PDF above.

World of Warcraft on the iPad?

Here's a bit of speculation for your Monday morning. PvP in the cloud, via software called Gaikai, or Photoshop hackery? You decide- enjoy!

• World of Warcraft on the iPad With The Help of Gaikai

On the Job! Haiti country consultant

(On the Job! pays occasional notice to interesting intlaw job notices)

The American Jewish World Service, an international development organization, seeks a person experienced in community development and/or human rights, with particular focus on the needs of women, youths, and/or persons with disabilities, to be its full-time country consultant for Haiti.
This country consultant will work directly with the organization's grants team on developing, implementing, and monitoring a plan to strategic plan for aid in post-earthquake Haiti.
Experience and knowledge respecting Haitian society, politics, and economy, as well as skill in English and Kreyol, are required. Applications should be submitted no later than April 30. For details, contact aestrella@ajws.org.

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: (potential) international law impact

(Thank you to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this guest post on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities)

Having followed closely the negotiations on the disability convention as a member of the United Nations' disability programme team between 2003 and 2006, I was struck that this convention was rich and carried much potential for human rights and international law more generally. In this guest post I share some of my findings, based on my article “La convention relative aux droits des personnes handicapées : quel impact sur le droit international ?”, published recently in the Revue Générale de Droit International Public.
The UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in December 2006, after only four years of negotiations. An ambitious treaty, it aims to ensure human rights by persons with disabilities. As stated in Article 1:

The purpose of the present Convention is to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity.

The Convention was enthusiastically welcomed by the international disability community, which considers itself as the largest minority in the world.

In addition to its explicit purpose, the Convention is at the heart of developments that concern international law more widely:
► First, the participation of civil society in the negotiations will certainly contribute to the development of the international legal capacity of civil society actors. The number of nongovernmental organizations that participated in the negotiations and the way their participation was facilitated and made official by General Assembly resolutions was unprecedented. It is fair to say that the major part of the text comes from NGOs.
► Second, the text of the convention and the process that led to it will no doubt result in a renewed interest in the right to development, and even international development law. Indeed, the convention was considered by many as a “development convention” or at least a “hybrid” convention, blending development, human rights and non-discrimination. Notably, it is the first human rights convention that includes an article on international cooperation, Article 32.
► Third, the convention further reinforces the fading of artificial categories of human rights, especially the dichotomy between civil and political rights, on the one hand, and economic, social and cultural rights, on the other. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities focuses on detailed implementation measures, which prove that all rights require positive measures from States. Moreover, the Disability Rights Optional Protocol supports the justiciability of all categories of rights, and this most likely helped to clear the deadlock in the negotiations for an Optional Protocol for the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. There is no doubt that the disappearance of categories of rights both will have positive impacts on equality and will empower weaker segments of society.

So far 76 States have ratified the Convention, and 48 have ratified its Optional Protocol. (credit for map below showing Convention parties in dark green, nonparty signatories in light green, and nonmembers in grey) It is with much eagerness that we await the ratification of the Convention by Canada and the United States, both now signatories, and for State practice to reveal the extent to which the potential of the Convention will actually be developed.

Remittances to Africa

Yesterday, the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) released a report on remittances to Africa. The report notes that the 30 million members of the African diaspora abroad contribute annually approximately $40 billion in remittances -- a number that far exceeds official development assistance for the region as a whole and that is greater than foreign direct investment for many countries. As a result, "[p]articularly in these times of financial turmoil, workers’ remittances are being recognized for their contribution to the economic health of the region’s nations, as well as for their vital importance to recipient families." In the interest of increasing the development impact of these remittances, IFAD examines the competitiveness and regulation of as well as access to African remittance markets.
The picture is not pretty: two major money transfer companies control 65 percent of all remittance payout locations, and these companies require that agents sign exclusivity agreements, creating serious barriers to market entry. Moreover, 80 percent of African countries allow only banks and foreign exchange bureaus to offer remittance services. As a result, microfinance institutions, which may be better located and structured to serve rural and less wealthy customers, constitute less than 3 percent of remittance payers. IFAD cautions that a regulatory fix alone will be insufficient to jump-start microfinance; most of these institutions currently lack capacity and will need significant technical assistance in order to offer remittance services that will maximize development impact.
Of particular interest is the impact of remittances on gender disparities in income:

Average monthly income excluding remittances is significantly higher for men (US$195) than for women (US$175). Interestingly, when the receiving of remittances is included, women have a slightly higher monthly income (US$226) than male remittance recipients (US$218). Among non-recipients, men have significantly higher monthly incomes (US$195 versus US$164 for women).

Moreover, female remittance recipients have, on average, 2.5 times the savings of non-recipients.
Lowering the cost and increasing the development impact of remittances seems an uncontroversially desirable goal. To that end, IFAD recommends more regular study of remittances to Africa; reforming regulation to encourage competition in services, including by supporting microfinance institutions; and building capacity by providing technical assistance to microfinance institutions and financial literacy programs for remittance recipients. These approaches fall squarely within the African Union's mission of sustainable and self-reliant development, and may be promising candidates for regional regulation and coordination.

Guest Bloggers: Brigid Inder, Kate Orlovsky & Katrina Anderson

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome Brigid Inder (left), Kate Orlovsky (below right), and Katrina Anderson (below left) as today's guest bloggers.
All 3 work at Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice, an international women’s human rights organization that advocates for gender justice through the International Criminal Court. Based in The Hague, Women Initiatives: conducts political and legal advocacy for the prosecution of gender-based crimes; advocates for victims’ participation before the ICC and reparations for women victims and survivors of armed conflicts; and engages in peace processes and negotiations. It also operatives extensive country-based capacity building programs and access-to-justice initiatives.
► Brigid is the Executive Director of Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice. Before founding the organization, she was the Director of Community Legal Centres in New South Wales, Australia, and led HIV/AIDS health promotion, services, and anti-discrimination program at Australia's largest HIV/AIDS Council. Brigid has a background in international politics and advocacy for women’s rights at the United Nations and other global policy arenas, and is currently the President of AWID, the Association for Women’s Rights in Development.
► Kate has been a Legal Officer with the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice for a little over a year; before that, she consulted for a number of international organizations working on international justice, including the International Center for Transitional Justice, the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, and Human Rights Watch.
► Katrina joined the staff of the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice as a Legal Officer this past July. Her previous position was as a Human Rights Attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York. She has also worked with the War Crimes Research Office at American University’s Washington College of Law, of which IntLawGrrl Susana SáCouto is Director, and with the Documentation Center of Cambodia.
In their guest post below, the 3 set forth a critique of 2 recent rulings that limit the ability of the ICC prosecutor to press a complete set of allegations respecting sexual violence and gender-based crimes.
Heartfelt welcome!

Hope in Africa?

I could not let this day pass without noting U.S. President Barack H. Obama's visit to Ghana.

Described as the first visit by an African-American President to sub-Saharan Africa, there were only minor controversies. One involved the supposed North Africa vs. sub-Saharan African divide (Obama had visited Egypt since becoming U.S. President and many Africans do not recognize a socio-political division of the continent in this way). Another debate involved which country the President should visit first (his father is from Kenya, which Obama visited as a young man and as U.S. Senator; Nigeria was competitive as a large, politically and economically powerful state actor in West Africa). It seems the White House chose Ghana to signal support for its relative political and economic stability and democracy.

Obama spoke of hopeful prospects for greater agricultural and economic development and self-reliance in Africa despite the global economic crisis. Although often described as "poor," the region is extraordinarily rich in social, educational, and cultural traditions as well as agricultural, mineral, and biodiversity resources. At the same time, many countries in the region are beset by the ravages of a colonial legacy (including contemporary political corruption), the violence that accompanies the international trade in small arms, and the lack of well-maintained local healthcare and trade infrastructure.

Nevertheless. this enormously complex continent is filled with potential for its own peoples and for the world. Thousands throughout the continent celebrated the visit, and there was hope for the realization of plans to reorient thinking on African development. Such new approaches must involve a people-centered, sustainable, and self-directed development that meets the needs of local peoples first.

Perhaps no aspect of the Obama visit was more moving for African-American observers than the First Family's tour of Ghana's Cape Coast Castle, a 17th century dungeon in which thousands of African slaves were held in horrendous conditions prior to boarding slave ships (above, photo credit). A shaken Obama compared the impact of the visit to a previous stop at Buchenwald, the World War II Nazi slave labor and death camp, noting the human capacity for evil in every generation. He also spoke of the human capacity for resilience and for overcoming such evil. The latter is the hope of peoples all over the world; let's ensure that both U.S. and regional African policies help fulfill those dreams at home and abroad.

Go On! Global South Scholars' Institutes

Brown's International Advanced Research Institutes (BIARI), intensive summer workshops for junior scholars from the Global South, are still accepting applications. According to the BIARI's director, Professor Ileana Porras :

The objective of the program is to provide a platform for promising young faculty from the Global South and emerging economies to engage in a high level and sustained intellectual and policy dialogue with leading scholars in their fields, and to foster scholarly networks among young faculty, while providing them with an opportunity to develop their scholarship agendas.

The institutes are organized around 4 key themes:

►Toward a Global Humanities: Critical Traditions from the Global South;

►Law, Social Thought, and Global Governance;

►Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Management (including technology and development (about which we have posted here);

►Development and Inequality in the Global South.

Applications are being reviewed on a rolling basis as of March 15, 2009. Further details are available here.

A Trip to Haiti

In December, I received a call asking me to go to Haiti on a trade and development project. Although I have done such work in the most unlikely of places--Algeria in the midst of a Civil War, for example--my first instinct was to question the project. Would it really make sense to put on a conference on the rules of origin obligations in international agreements in Haiti? After all, Haiti has faced crises that many would argue should take precedence over a trade policy agenda. President Rene Preval's government had undergone a threat to its credibility with the loss of its prime minister, and just weeks earlier the Island had been battered by a series of hurricanes that destroyed homes and washed away bridges severing some parts from Port-au-Prince, the capital. And then came reports of schools collapsing and the deaths of innocent children. The request to work in Haiti presented for me an opportunity (even an obligation) to question the limits of my work. Can I in good conscience talk about trade in the face of needs more pressing and more acute? To be perfectly honest, I made the decision to take on the project for my own selfish reasons. As a Haitian American who has done trade projects throughout the African continent, this was the first opportunity I had to make a contribution to the land of my ancestors. I could not imagine not going, even as I questioned whether my contribution would be "enough" (significant enough, useful enough, relevant enough . . . )

When I landed at the airport in Port-au-Prince, I was assailed by memories. I was reminded of the day my grandmother took me to that very same airport and explained to my siblings and I that we would be joining our parents in New York--but that she would stay behind. I was four years old at the time. I remember flying back to that airport just five years later so that we could bury my mother on Haitian soil just as she wanted. And I remember returning to that airport in my mid-twenties at last ready to confront that part of my history and my past--I had not been back to Haiti for years, and my sense of connection to the Island was tenuous at best. Now here I was a decade-and-a-half later returning to Haiti on a trade and development project.

What I learned from my time in Haiti far exceeded any contribution I might have made. Yes, I worked hard to put together a meaningful workshop on rules of origin obligations under international agreements, but what I got in return was a sense of renewal. After years of work in this area, I had come to loath incrementalism. I was tired of the one-small-step syndrome and wanted to be part of something that could usher in a sudden, quantum leap of change. I wanted to waive a magic wand that would right the economic and political wrongs of Ethiopia and allow that huge, fertile country to prosper. Ditto for Senegal, The Ivory Coast, South Africa, Cape Verde and every other country I had worked with over the last decade. And if I could not do that, I wanted to do nothing. It is a terrible thing to lose faith that the work you are doing is meaningful. Haiti allowed me to once again see meaning in my work.

At the rule of origin workshops, I met Haitians who were strong, committed advocates of trade. But I also met many who believed (as I secretly did) that Haiti had more pressing problems. Rather than suppressing those sometimes combustible opposing views, I welcomed them. Our discussions were hot and heavy at times as we explored the many ways trade laws both help and hurt developing countries. And there was something about seeing these folks grappling with the same dilemmas I had that renewed my commitment to be a part of the larger debate. Inexplicable perhaps, but true.

When I returned from Haiti, I immediately began work on a new writing project: How history has shaped Haiti's current role in the international trading system. I want to understand the current impediments to Haitian trade--both internal and external. The only way to do so, in my view, is to understand how international trade shaped Haiti's destiny. I am not interested in history for its own sake, but rather want to understand the lessons of history to apply them to the present.

Talk about incremental change!

Lending A Hand For African Development

The growth and development figures for Africa are too well known--and frankly too depressing--to relate in this post. Instead, I want to focus on one potential solution. I've recently become interested in an organization proposing a radical new approach to development: Angel investing in African entrepreneurs. MYC4 identifies its mission as helping to create "a world without poverty where everyone has the same access to knowledge, markets and capital." It takes inspiration from Nobel laureate and professor Mohammad Yunus, the founder of the microfinance movement pioneered by Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. While Grameen Bank focuses on lending small sums of money primarily to the rural poor, MYC4 goes a step further by harnessing the power of the internet to create networks beteween investors in rich countries and entrepreneurs in Africa. MYC4 handles the difficult work of evaluating proposed projects, while investors get to bid on supporting these pre-vetted business opportunities. It creates a potentially lucrative win-win possibility for all.

I wonder if anyone in the IntLawGrrls community has had direct experience with MYC4? If so, please share!

The Doha Disaster & Ross Contest: What I did on my Summer Vacation

Hello InLawGrrls Readers!
Where has the summer gone? Just a few short weeks ago, I set out for some much needed R&R. I landed in Westport on California's moody, foggy, cold, craggy, and oh-so-beautiful North Coast. Westport is a town of about 200 inhabitants with a claim to fame nearly unheard of in the modern age: I couldn't get internet access! I confess at first I was perturbed at the thought. No access? Whatever would I do without the "civilizing" influence of the internet, Starbucks, bookstores and all that noise that accompanies modern life? What did I do? I went native! I quickly gave up on the thought of driving 20 miles down a steep, narrow and winding road to get my fix. Instead, I walked on the beach, read, walked my dogs, slept and wrote a little (my rented house didn't even have a television and my cell phone got no reception to boot!). As with any addiction, the first 72 hours were the worst. After that, it was simply amazing. I only wish all of you had a chance to rejuvenate as well. (photo credit)
Alas, back to reality! Upon my return to civilization (ok, I confess to pouncing on my email like a starving water buffalo set free on the range) I was met with a pleasant surprise: my fifteen minutes of fame had arrived! Diane was kind enough yesterday to highlight the publication of my essay, which won the American Bar Association's Ross Essay Contest. I owe a debt of gratitude to all of you for the win. I first wrote about that conversation with my father right here on this blog. I don't believe I would have written the same essay without the trip down memory lane I first took with all of you. Thank you. Let's see, to date my blog posts have led me to: (1) write an op-ed piece published in the Sacramento Bee, (2) write an award-winning essay, and (3) launch my own website. Wow! I look forward to seeing what this (academic) year's posts will bring!
Of course, plugging back in to civilization also brought its share of bad news. Once again, trade negotiations that would have completed the nearly eight year old Doha Development Round collapsed at the eleventh hour. If I did not know better, I would say this round was cursed. We had a miscarriage in 1999 with the "Battle in Seattle," when developing countries refused to agree to a launch. It wasn't until just a few weeks after September 11, 2001, that Doha was born--as proof of Presiden't Bush's commitment to business-as-usual so as not to "let the terrorists win." An inauspicious beginning for a trade negotiation, you'll have to agree. Then came the "Cancun Crisis," where delegates failed to meet a crucial deadline and everyone said the round was DOA. And now this . . . The "Doha Disaster" as I've dubbed it (if I were keeping up with the parallelism, I would have to find something to rhyme with "Geneva," which is the city in which the current negotiations fell apart. Try as I might, my rhyming skills just were not up for it, so I took the easy way out!)
Is this really the end of the round? Maybe. Nothing will happen before the U.S. Presidential election; and having failed so spectacularly at the eleventh hour, it will take a great deal of U.S./EU leadership to bring things back on course--not to mention India's support. I cannot see a new president using his early political goodwill for something that is admittedly so controversial (and particularly not if that President is Obama--who is my choice despite our differences on trade policy). If Doha is not dead, it is going into a very long hibernation.

On June 11

On this day in ...
... 1963 (45 years ago today), a Buddhist monk burned himself to death in Vietnam, to protest the government of President Ngo Dinh Diem. Witnesses said the monk, Thich Quang Duc, got out of a car at a busy intersection in the capital city of Saigon, sat in the lotus position as 2 other monks poured gasoline on him, and then ignited the fire, which consumed him in minutes.
... 2005, in London, finance minister from the Group of 8 wealthiest countries agreed to write off $55 billion of the debt owed by 19 of the world's poorest countries. Much of the debt was owed to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the African Development Bank.

Creating Effective Assistance Programs for Poor Countries

Funding for technical assistance, particularly in the ever-controversial area of international trade, continues to grow. Every year, both the World Trade Organization and individual member states spend millions of dollars funding technical assistance programs in the developing world. The goal of these programs is to assist developing countries in building the legal infrastructure and institutional capacity to export their goods and services effectively and to attract foreign investment in order to support their development objectives.
In my last post, I asked whether trade-related technical assistance can help poor countries develop. Ultimately, I believe that it can—with some limitations. Assistance will never propel poor countries to prosperity, but it can become a stepping stone to greater participation in world trade. If will managed, trade can lead to greater wealth; it certainly has done so far a number of countries, including China and the “Asian Tigers.”
But some have dismissed technical assistance as a “joke.” Stories of waste, graft, ineptitude or just plain stupidity abound in the technical assistance world (see, for example, Matt Bivens’ article, Aboard the Gravy Train: In Kazakhstan, the Farce That Is U.S. Foreign Aid, in which one assistance provider allegedly took off his swim shorts to give them to a government official who expressed an interest in them; the provider feared if he didn’t keep the official happy, he might not get a renewal of his USAID-funded project). In his book Globalization and its Discontents, one of the most distinguished critics of technical assistance programs, Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz, decries the heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all approach of the International Monetary Fund. Similarly, Amy Chua’s World on Fire highlights the dangers of technical assistance projects that export U.S.-style free markets and democracy to developing countries without the legal and regulatory mechanism to protect against a “market-dominant minority” hijacking the bulk of economic activity.
The technical assistance programs described by Bivens, Stiglitz, Chua and others clearly fall within the bounds of “what not to do”. But technical assistance itself is not a dirty word. As I mentioned in my previous post, to be effective, however, technical assistance must meet certain criteria: (1) Individual projects must have “buy-in” from the recipient country; (2) Assistance providers would do well to remember the human emotions—suspicion and fear on the part of recipient countries must be addressed (“why are they here? What do the really want?”); and (3) Neither recipients nor beneficiaries should offer up more than they can afford to give away (i.e., don’t take your pants off for anyone—literally or figuratively).
In this post, I want to explore other models of assistance that work in partnership with developing countries to achieve goals and objectives identified by the recipients rather than imposed by the donors. Specifically, partnerships between developing countries and universities in the developed world hold out much promise as an effective model for providing technical assistance training. Because many of the trade-related technical assistance projects focus on building a legal infrastructure for development, partnerships between laws schools and beneficiary countries look to be particularly promising.
The World Trade Organization has recently adopted programs that foster such partnerships. In Africa, the WTO works in partnership with local universities to deliver training programs throughout the Continent. Faculty members from the region co-teach some of the courses with WTO personnel. And the WTO is committed to working with local universities to build their capacity in trade law; the universities are expected to play a lead role in course delivery in the future. The promise of these programs is that when technical assistance providers leave, there will be a cadre of educated professionals in the beneficiary country ready, willing and able to “do for themselves.”
In many ways the WTO model offers the perfect opportunity for U.S. law schools. U.S. academic institutions can provide for faculty and student exchanges as well as long-term advanced legal training, thus increasing the pool of local experts and broadening the depth of institutional expertise. U.S. law schools and universities have the comparative advantage in building knowledge, and I believe more of them should get involved in technical assistance projects.
Technical assistance is no joke but a very serious business. If done well, it provides a real opportunity for poor countries to make progress.

"Predictable" food catastrophe

A Predictable Catastrophe—that is how Jacques Diouf, Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, has described the growing world food crisis. The combined pressures of market speculation, diversion of corn to biofuel production, pressures from a changing climate, and an increased demand for meat from rapidly developing nations all contribute to the record high prices for staples like wheat, corn, and rice.
These recent events are not written on tabula rasa. Decades of International Monetary Fund-imposed structural adjustment, which forced developing countries to drastically cut agricultural subsidies and to promote production of export crops rather than food for the domestic population, created a situation in which developing countries were particularly vulnerable to the vagaries of international trade. The current crisis (prior IntLawGrrls posts here) is also at least partly attributable to the collapse of the Doha round and the failure of the United States, European Union, and Japan to eliminate domestic subsidies for agricultural production.
Where is the outrage?

I know that sitting here in New York, awash in plenty, most of my neighbors are more interested in whether fast food companies should have to post the calorie counts for their meals than the hundreds of millions of people suffering food insecurity. From a distance, it can be hard to appreciate the enormity of this problem. But, millions of the world’s poor face hunger because they simply cannot afford to feed themselves and their families. That is inexcusable!
Biofuel production poses a particular threat to the food security of women. A recent FAO analysis reports:

Unless policies are adopted in developing countries to strengthen the participation of small farmers, especially women in biofuel production by increasing their access to land, capital and technology—gender inequalities are likely to become more marked and women’s vulnerability to hunger and poverty further exacerbated.

The report also warned about threats to biodiversity and traditional knowledge posed by the replacement of local crops with monoculture energy crop plantations.
Food riots, prompted by shortages, are perhaps the most visible sign of a food system in disarray. The FAO warns that more than 30 countries face food crises. (See post below for yet another set of concerns.)

Olivier de Schutter, the newly appointed U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, certainly has his work cut out for him.

On this day

On March 1, ...
... 2008 (today), is celebrated the 1st day of Women's History Month. Our prior post on this commemoration is here.
... 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10924, which established a Peace Corps (logo at right) "responsible for the training and service abroad of men and women of the United States in new programs of assistance to nations and areas of the world, and in conjunction with or in support of existing economic assistance programs of the United States and of the United Nations and other international organizations." In a statement that can be read and heard here, Kennedy predicted that although "the life will not be easy, it will be rich and satisfying. For every young American who participates in the Peace Corps -- who works in a foreign land -- will know that he or she is sharing in the great common task of bringing to man that decent way of life which is the foundation of freedom and a condition of peace." Since then, according to the Peace Corps' website, "more than 190,000 Peace Corps Volunteers have been invited by 139 host countries to work on issues ranging from AIDS education to information technology and environmental preservation."
... 1947, in Washington, D.C., 1 of the international organizations established as a result of the 1944 conference held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, the International Monetary Fund (logo at left), began financial operations. Operating as an overseer of the global economy and as an international lender for development projects, the IMF's tripled in membership since its founding -- today it has 185 states parties.