Good Thing the UN Has Its Priorities Straight

UN Watch is reporting that while the UN Human Rights Council has responded positively to Cuba's request to investigate rising food prices, the Council isn't interested in looking into the refusal by the ruling junta of Myanmar to allow relief to the millions of people suffering in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. When asked why the Council was h0lding a special session on food prices (an important, but long-term issue) but not on the situation in Myanmar, Rupert Colville of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights responded that "the Council had a very full programme, including the Universal Periodic Review, so it was a pretty packed schedule at the moment and it would be difficult to fit it in."

Seriously.

This would be shocking, if it wasn't so unsurprising. Bashing the UN is like shooting fish in a barrel. A country's government blocks and steals humanitarian relief aid, and the international body tasked with investigating human rights abuses can't be bothered to find time to even look in to it? The Human Rights Council should be abolished and not replaced unless the UN can get beyond its slavish devotion to sovereign equality and create an institution that works.

Kiva It Forward

It's a very exciting day in my career as a micro-financier! My first loan, made on August 1, 2007 to Dung Truong Thi of VietNam, has been repaid! Dung borrowed $75 from three lenders to expand her pig raising business. Dung repaid her loan $9 per month, and made the final payment today. Congratulations, Dung! I hope your business is thriving and that you have been able to allow your children to continue their educations.

Once a Kiva loan is repaid, you have the option of getting your money back, or relending the funds. I have chosen the latter option. The newest recipient is Phou Ly of Cambodia, who is borrowing $1,200 to expand her restaurant in Phnom Penh. She will be repaying her loan over the next 10 months.

As for my other loan, the news isn't quite as good. Julita Milka Aoko Onyango of Kenya borrowed $350 back in August to add charcoal and paraffin to the stock of goods she can offer for sale in the Kongowea Market in Mombasa. While Julita had been repaying her loans, the ethnic violence that erupted in Kenya back in January interrupted her business and she hasn't made a payment on her loan since December. Kiva has not been able to provide any news about specific borrowers, so I don't know what's going on with her, or even if she is still alive. A small payment was made last month, but not by Julita, and it's not clear to me what's going on. I hope Julita is alive and that her business is still extant, and that she will be able to repay her loan as the political situation in Kenya continues to stabilize.

Once again, let me say that there is simply no better way to address the problem of international development than through microfinance organizations like Kiva. The money goes directly to those who both need it and can best make use of it. A look at the website reveals scores of people asking for second and third loans to expand their businesses. I am proud that I have been able to help Dung, Julita, and Phou, and I hope to expand my lending in the future. Please consider lending!

To Send Aid Or Not To Send Aid, That Is The Question

In the wake of the destruction left by Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (Burma) -- the government is announcing 23, 335 deaths and 37, 019 people missing, while international humanitarian organizations are putting the death toll at more than 100,000 and more than 1 million displaced people -- the international community is faced with a difficult decision of how best to aid the suffering people. Initially, the ruling junta obstructed relief efforts, stopping aid shipments at the airport, seizing UN food packages, and holding off US naval ships coming to help. On Friday, the junta reversed course, announcing that it would "accept aid from any corner"and allowing emergency UN food shipments to enter the country, delivering food and temporary shelters (although a shipment from the World Food Programme that arrived on Friday was seized). On Saturday, the Myanmar government began handing out food packages emblazoned with the names of the junta members and taking credit for the relief. Despite the devastation wreaked by the cyclone, the junta was intending on proceeding with a previously-scheduled "referendum" on a constitution that would further entrench the power of the junta, and the provision of aid seems to be a propaganda exercise designed to cement support for the vote.

Meanwhile, as the government controls and exploits relief supplies for its own ends, relief experts are warning of impending catastrophe if help is not provided soon:

A total of 23 international agencies were providing aid to people in the devastated areas, said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Byrs said another U.N. flight with 33 tons of plastic sheets, water and sanitation items and mosquito nets got clearance to take off from Brindisi, Italy later on Saturday.

But a large number of organizations still were awaiting government clearance for more aid shipments, staff and transport.

"It's a race against the clock," Byrs said. "If the humanitarian aid does not get into the country on a larger scale, there's the risk of a second catastrophe," she said, adding that people could die from hunger and diseases.

Health experts have warned there was a great risk of diarrhea and cholera spreading because of the lack of clean drinking water and sanitation.

Also:

"We think we need to be moving 375 tonnes of food a day down into the affected areas. We are doing less than 20 percent of that," World Food Program spokesman Marcus Prior said in the Thai capital.

At the United Nations in New York, Ban delivered his most critical comments so far of the Myanmar authorities' response.

"Today is the 11th day since ... Nargis hit Myanmar," Ban told reporters. "I want to register my deep concern -- and immense frustration -- at the unacceptably slow response to this grave humanitarian crisis.

"We are at a critical point," he said. "Unless more aid gets into the country very quickly, we face an outbreak of infectious diseases that could dwarf today's crisis."

Myanmar's reclusive military government was accepting aid from the outside world, including the United Nations, but refused to admit foreign experts waiting in Bangkok for visas from the Myanmar Embassy.

Whenever humanitarian emergencies occur in the most repressive countries of the world, as is the case here or during famines in North Korea, the international community is faced with an exceedingly difficult political and moral choice: Provide aid, knowing that much of it will be diverted for use by the government and hoping that some of it will trickle down to the people, or refuse to help, believing that helping the government remain in power is the worst option. Usually, the international community chooses to help.

In this case, the decision is complicated by the blatant manipulation of the aid in connection with the constitutional referendum. If the reports are accurate, the relief effort will end up further entrenching the junta in power, now with the cloak of democratic approval. That does not bode well for the future of the Burmese people.

So what else should be done? Assuming that doing nothing is off of the table, there are really only two options: Provide relief without going through the government through airdrops or invade the country to force the government to allow access to relief experts and the depoliticized distribution of food, medicine, and shelter. None of these is really an attractive option.

Many people have begun discussing the possibility of providing aid without going through the junta. Mark Faramaner, the director of Burma Campaign UK, argued that the UN should begin providing aid throughout the country without permission from the military leaders, but Douglas Alexander, the British Secretary for International Development, argues that doing so would be "incendiary":

"Our responsibility is to make sure that our sole focus is getting the aid to the people who desperately need it."

He said carrying out forced air-drops of supplies would be the wrong action to take.

"We believe that the best way forward would be for the junta to provide access, which the whole international community - including Ban Ki-moon [secretary general of the UN] - is requesting.

"That's why we've been making direct approaches, but we've also been speaking to other governments, including the government of China, urging them that there should be a united front to say that the access needs to be provided immediately."

Even those in favor of airdropping relief supplies acknowledge that doing so may not provide relief in anything approaching an efficient manner:

Former Liberal Democratic leader Sir Menzies Campbell said air drops were a "possibility" because of the scale of the disaster, but were not the most efficient way of distributing supplies.

"I don't think we have any legal right to impose it - we might have a moral obligation.

"But I don't believe we could give effect to that moral obligation for this reason - Burma is essentially a state run by the generals with an extremely powerful army.

"Any effort to impose humanitarian aid might well be the subject of resistance which would have the effect of damaging yet more of the people of that blighted country."

Former Conservative deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine said air drops should only be considered if they could be guaranteed to be effective.

"Who is going to be at the receiving end of the air drops? It could be the Burmese army. It could be the very people least affected by the tragedy that is going on."

Meanwhile, arguments for invading Myanmar have been raised as well. Writing in the Asia Times, Shawn Crispin argues that:

A unilateral - and potentially United Nations-approved - US military intervention in the name of humanitarianism could easily turn the tide against the impoverished country's unpopular military leaders, and simultaneously rehabilitate the legacy of lame-duck US President George W Bush's controversial pre-emptive military policies.

...

In the wake of the cyclone, the criminality of the junta's callous policies has taken on new human proportions in full view of the global community. Without a perceived strong UN-led response to the natural disaster, hard new questions will fast arise about the UN's own relevance and ability to manage global calamities.

This week, French Foreign Minister Bernard Koucher suggested that the UN invoke its so-called "responsibility to protect" civilians as legitimate grounds to force aid delivery, regardless of the military government's objections. On Friday, a UN spokesman called the junta's refusal to issue visas to aid workers "unprecedented" in the history of humanitarian work.

Because of the UN's own limited powers of projection, such a response would require US military management and assets. US officials appear to be building at least a rhetorical case for a humanitarian intervention. While offering relief and aid with one hand, top US officials have with the other publicly slapped at the Myanmar government's lame response to the disaster.

...

This time, it is almost sure-fire that Myanmar's desperate population would warmly welcome a US-led humanitarian intervention, considering that its own government is now withholding emergency supplies. Like his father then, Bush is now clearly focused on his presidential legacy, which to date will be judged harshly due to his government's controversial pre-emptive military policies, waged until now exclusively in the name of fighting global terror.

In an era when the US routinely launches pre-emptive military strikes, including its 2003 invasion of Iraq, the 2003 Predator drone assassination attack against an alleged al-Qaeda leader in Yemen, a similar drone attack in 2006 in northwestern Pakistan, and last week's attack against a reputed al-Qaeda ringleader in Somalia, it is not inconceivable that the US might yet intervene in military-run Myanmar, particularly if in the days ahead the social and political situation tilts towards anomie.

Whether or not a US military intervention in the name of humanitarianism would, as in Somalia, eventually morph into an armed attempt at regime change and nation-building would likely depend on the population's and Myanmar military's response to the first landing of US troops. Some political analysts speculate that Myanmar's woefully under-resourced and widely unpopular troops would defect en masse rather than confront US troops.

While Myanmar ally China would likely oppose a US military intervention, Beijing has so far notably goaded the junta to work with rather than against international organizations like the UN, and more to the point, it lacks the power projection capabilities to militarily challenge the US in a foreign theater. Most notably, the US would have at its disposal a globally respected and once democratically elected leader in Aung San Suu Kyi to lead a transitional government to full democracy.

But, in Time magazine, Romesh Ratnesar writes that:

A coercive humanitarian intervention would be complicated and costly. During the 2004 tsunami, some 24 U.S. ships and 16,000 troops were deployed in countries across the region; the mission cost the U.S. $5 million a day. Ultimately, the U.S. pledged nearly $900 million to tsunami relief. (By contrast, it has offered just $3.25 million to Burma.) But the risks would be greater this time: the Burmese government's xenophobia and insecurity make them prone to view U.S. troops — or worse, foreign relief workers — as hostile forces. (Remember Black Hawk Down?) Even if the U.S. and its allies made clear that their actions were strictly for humanitarian purposes, it's unlikely the junta would believe them. "You have to think it through — do you want to secure an area of the country by military force? What kinds of potential security risks would that create?" says [Jan Egeland, the former U.N. emergency relief coordinator]. "I can't imagine any humanitarian organization wanting to shoot their way in with food."

So, what to do? Despite the rafts of criticism I have leveled at the institution, this is a case where the UN can potentially be a critical asset. The problem here is, of course, one of sovereignty. Myanmar is a sovereign state that has the right to determine how it receives international aid. But the UN should invoke its "responsibility to protect" doctrine (the logic that enabled the UN to retroactively approve of NATO's intervention in Kosovo) and declare that sovereignty does not confer the right to deny one's people of basic supplies and relief. The UN should, as it did in 1990, put together a global coalition of humanitarian and military forces to deliver relief supplies to Myanmar. Most of the coercive force would, of course, come from the US, but the international community could, as it did during Operation Desert Shield/Storm, bear much of the financial burden (and provide much of the relief as well). While obtaining China's assent may be difficult (China is both a patron to Myanmar and exceedingly wary of authorizing international violations of state sovereignty), the recent negative publicity of the problems in Tibet may lead Beijing to seize this as an opportunity to burnish China's image leading up to the Olympics.

The US needs to look at the disaster in Myanmar through a strategic, as well as a moral, lens. Just as US relief in the 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami was a major boost to US soft power, taking an aggressive approach to helping the victims of Cyclone Nargis can have a similar effect. The US must realize that doing the right thing here is clearly in the US national interest as well. The US should pressure China and the UN Security Council to authorize a humanitarian mission with or without official sanction. Such a move could save tens or hundreds of thousands of lives, help the US image, and even force the UN to reconsider its slavish devotion to the concept of sovereign equality. All of these are excellent goals for US foreign policy.

More Strikes Against Russia

A few weeks back, I blogged about what the US, NATO, and the Western powers should do about Russia, writing that while "Russian security concerns should be taken into account, to allow those concerns to move NATO away from its pacific mission is the wrong choice." Today, I find more support for my position with specific regard to NATO expansion.

Today comes reports from Georgia that war is "very close" between Georgia and Russia. Perhaps in response to Kosovo's breakaway from Serbia, Russia has been increasing the number of peacekeepers it deploys to protect the ethnically-Russian region of Abkhazia. Russia has accused Georgia of threatening war against the region, while Georgia sees the Russian troop deployment as a not-so-subtle move to create de facto independence there. So far, Russia has kept troop levels under the maximum number (3,000) allowed by a UN agreement, but a self-proclaimed "foreign minister" of Abkhazia has announced that "[Abkhazia] agrees to Russia taking this territory under its military control. In exchange, we will demand guarantees of our security." The US, in response, has "urged the Russian government to reiterate its commitment to Georgia's territorial borders and sovereignty, reverse the troop movements and "cease from further provocation."

The Russian government is behaving extremely irresponsibly here, likely using blunt threats and posturing to send messages over the nature of Russian strategic interests and the need to preserve state integrity and sovereignty. But such ham-fisted attempts merely reinforce the questions over Russia's intentions and strengthen the case and need to get Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. Russia's actions clearly throw into doubt whether Russia can be seen as a long-term status quo power and overall trends do not show even the kind of progress that can be seen in China. While the Cold War is not reemerging, the US, NATO, and the West should make it abundantly clear to Russia that its own interests will only be respected so far as Russia adheres to legitimate means to pursue those interests.

The Environment Versus the Poor, Part 2

In an anarchic international system in which international law is at best weak and at worst toothless and ignored, questions of duties beyond borders are difficult ones. Do states have obligations, be they legal or moral, to actors outside of their own political control? Many issues of international politics touch on this question, such as promulgation of human rights, but in no case is the problem raised more clearly than in the issue of biofuels. As I blogged about last week, there is strong evidence that the push by developed states to develop biofuels is directly contributing to recent food shortages by artificially encouraging under-production of food crops (not to mention that fact that biofuels may be worse for the environment than the fuels they replace). This has led to a call from many leading food scientists to cease producing food-based biofuels, an action which they claim could reduce the price of corn by 20% and wheat prices by 10%. So, if the actions of the developed states are causing food shortages in the developing world, does the developed world have any obligation to change its policies?

Not according to President Bush. In a recent press conference, the president called for the US to increase the use of ethanol (the leading biofuel) to reduce rising fuel prices and to reduce American energy dependence. According to Bush, "it's in our national interest that our farmers grow energy, as opposed to us purchasing energy from parts of the world that are unstable or may not like us."

While other states are moving away from the production of biofuels, the US is by far the largest global producer, so unless the US does so as well, there is likely to be little impact on prices (not to mention that collective action problems will dissuade others from stopping production if the US won't). The impact of biofuel production on food prices is disputed: President Bush asserted that 15% of the recent rise is due to biofuels, while the US Department of Agriculture put the number at 20%. Furthermore, "a soon to be released International Food Policy Research Institute analysis blames 30 percent of the overall food price rise from 2000-2007 on biofuels, while a [biofuel] industry-funded study put the food cost rise at 4 percent."

This is an excellent illustration of many of the problems that make international relations so fascinating and so frustrating. Today's globalized and interdependent world has certainly changed the contours of the notion of obligation -- even if one doesn't believe in moral or legal obligations, the notion of economic and political interdependence connects obligation to national interest in a powerful way. States that ignore the needs of others in one issue area can be made to pay a high price in a different issue area. For example, the west's inability to lift domestic agricultural subsidies gave the developing world the leverage to refuse to agree to new market openings at the recent Doha round of WTO negotiations. Simply being wealthier and more powerful isn't enough to get one's way in a globalized world.

Additionally, policy imperatives compete, and often conflict, with one another. Leaving aside the likely irony that biofuels are worse for the environment than fossil fuels, how do states decide between competing obligations? Do we save the environment if doing so means condemning people to starvation or depriving the developing world with the means to develop? Needless to say, answering these questions is a unenviable task.

In this case, the US needs to end incentives for biofuel production immediately. It's one thing to make a hard choice to pursue one agenda at the expense of another; it's another thing entirely when pursuing one agenda is entirely counterproductive. Given the evidence that biofuels are worse for the environment, it seems like that the US program to encourage their production is more a sneaky way to protect the US agricultural market than a genuine effort to save the planet. And given the impact that this protection is having on the global food market, that choice isn't just bad politics, it's just plain bad.

The Environment Versus the Poor

In the wake of Earth Day, and in the run-up to the conference on energy dependence and aviation this Friday here at UPS, is the need to confront the stark truth that goods in the world are scarce and that attending to one concern often produces unintended consequences. Case in point: the mounting evidence that the production of biofuels is greatly contributing to rising food prices, food shortages, and even widening hunger and starvation in the developing world. According to the New York Times:

The food crisis is not only being felt among the poor but is also eroding the gains of the working and middle classes, sowing volatile levels of discontent and putting new pressures on fragile governments.

In Cairo, the military is being put to work baking bread as rising food prices threaten to become the spark that ignites wider anger at a repressive government. In Burkina Faso and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, food riots are breaking out as never before. In reasonably prosperous Malaysia, the ruling coalition was nearly ousted by voters who cited food and fuel price increases as their main concerns.

“It’s the worst crisis of its kind in more than 30 years,” said Jeffrey D. Sachs, the economist and special adviser to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon. “It’s a big deal and it’s obviously threatening a lot of governments. There are a number of governments on the ropes, and I think there’s more political fallout to come.”

Indeed, as it roils developing nations, the spike in commodity prices — the biggest since the Nixon administration — has pitted the globe’s poorer south against the relatively wealthy north, adding to demands for reform of rich nations’ farm and environmental policies. But experts say there are few quick fixes to a crisis tied to so many factors, from strong demand for food from emerging economies like China’s to rising oil prices to the diversion of food resources to make biofuels.

It's the last that is of particular concern as governments are encouraging and subsidizing the production of biofuels as a means of reducing emissions responsible for global warming. The problem is that government involvement is distorting the market, as subsidies for biofuels artificially change the market incentives to convert farm crops into biofuels and to replant cropland to produce grains for biofuel production. These decisions then raise the global price of food staples that, particularly in the developing world, contribute to food shortages, riots, and starvation. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute:

biofuel production accounts for a quarter to a third of the recent increase in global commodity prices. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations predicted late last year that biofuel production, assuming that current mandates continue, would increase food costs by 10 to 15 percent.

Of course, there are other factors contributing to the rising cost of food. Escalating oil prices raise the price of transport, burgeoning populations and improving economic conditionks have increased demand, and droughts and other disasters have destroyed production. But costs accruing from biofuel production are entirely within the ability of the developed world to control. Furthermore, there is little evidence that biofuels do, in fact, contribute positively to the regulation of global warming. According to a New York Times article from February 8, 2008, biolfuels may be more harmful to the environment that the fuels they replace.

Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these ''green'' fuels are taken into account, two studies published Thursday have concluded.

The benefits of biofuels have come under increasing attack in recent months, as scientists took a closer look at the global environmental cost of their production. These latest studies, published only by the journal Science, are likely to add to the controversy. These studies for the first time take a detailed, comprehensive look at the emissions effects of the huge amount of natural land that is being converted to cropland globally to support biofuel development.

The destruction of natural ecosystems -- whether rain forests in the tropics or grasslands in South America -- not only releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when they are burned and plowed, but also deprives the planet of natural sponges to absorb carbon emissions. Cropland also absorbs far less carbon than the rain forests or even scrubland that it replaces.

Together the two studies offer sweeping conclusions: It does not matter if it is rain forest or scrubland that is cleared, the greenhouse gas contribution is significant. More important, they discovered that, globally, the production of almost all biofuels resulted, directly or indirectly, intentionally or not, in new land's being cleared for food or fuel.

''When you take this into account, most of the biofuel that people are using or planning to use would probably increase greenhouse gases substantially,'' said Timothy Searchinger, lead author of one of the studies and a researcher in environment and economics at Princeton.

So, if biofuels are actually harmful to the environment and contribute to hunger and starvation in the developing world, why would governments encourage their production? Because biofuels subsidies are politically popular. As pressure increases on the governments of the US, Europe, and Japan to lift the agricultural subsidies that undermine development, biofuels have emerged as a way to protect the politically important farm constituency without appearing to do so. But a market distortion is a market distortion. Even discounting the non-beneficial nature of biofuels, clearly if their production was left to the market, farmers would be producing food instead. That is reason enough for the governments of the developed world to stop subsidization and incentive programs.

Trading Darfur For Tibet

With the uproar over the Chinese crackdown on Tibetan pro-independence/autonomy protests, the hubbub over the Olympic torch relay, and the to-do over the Dalai Lama's visit to the US, it's no wonder that the 2008 Beijing Olympics are being referred to as the "Tibet Olympics." As world leaders debate whether to boycott, or just skip, the Opening Ceremonies or the Games themselves, more and more attention gets turned to the cause of Tibet.

To the detriment of Darfur.

Before the protests in Tibet broke out, the Beijing Olympics were supposed to be the "Darfur Olympics." Much attention was paid to China's role as Sudan's patron and protector in the UN Security Council; Mia Farrow and Steven Spielberg criticized the Chinese government; I even spoke at a rally sponsored by SaveDarfur here in Tacoma about China's role in Sudan and what might be done. And the campaign seemed to be paying off. As I blogged last April:

after two years of shielding Sudan from international sanctions over the situation in Darfur, China has recently begun applying more pressure to Sudan.

Just when it seemed safe to buy a plane ticket to Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games, nongovernmental organizations and other groups appear to have scored a surprising success in an effort to link the Olympics, which the Chinese government holds very dear, to the killings in Darfur, which, until recently, Beijing had not seemed too concerned about.

Groups focusing on many issues, including Tibet and human rights, have called for boycotts of the Games next year. But none of those issues have packed the punch of Darfur, where at least 200,000 people — some say as many as 400,000 — mostly non-Arab men, women and children, have died and 2.5 million have been displaced, as government-backed Arab militias called the janjaweed have attacked the local population.

But now, all that attention has shifted to Tibet. The situation in Darfur continues to worsen, but the pressure is now off China to do anything to reverse things there. Political capital and the energy needed to motivate protests is, of course, limited. It may be that the media, non-governmental organizations, protesters, and the general public only have the resources to focus on one issue. If so, it seems as if Tibet has won out over Darfur for linkage with the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

But that would be a mistake. If only one cause can be aggressively championed (or even if championing both detracts from each), that cause should be Darfur. Not because the Darfuris are more worthy of protection that are the Tibetans, not because the situation is worse in Darfur (although a strong case could probably be made for that argument), not for any reason other than practicality. China is much more likely to yield to pressure over Darfur than it is over Tibet. Sudan represents important political and economic interests for China; Tibet represents sovereignty. China will, most likely, never cede Tibet. Greater autonomy is possible, but not in the short term. Using the Olympics to pressure and shame China into leaning on Sudan to moderate its behavior in Darfur seemed to be paying off. Using the Olympics to pressure and shame China into backing off Tibet is only likely to alienate and anger Beijing.

It would truly be a shame if an opportunity to help the people of Darfur went unrealized so that people can vent their anger over Tibet. The Tibetan people may very well deserve independence and our support. But not in ineffective protests that distract from and obstruct progress over Darfur.