Fighting impunity - Latin America's and Europe's support of the ICC

I have already stressed in a couple of postings that Europe and Latin America may be closer in their values and aims than most people tend to perceive. Apart from a common, sometimes tragic, history dating back to colonial times and European imperialism, Latin America and Europe share core values of democracy and human rights. Together with Northern America they are forming a triangle of democratic believes. This is true in spite of tensions that arise in certain intervals, particularly between the US and some Latin American states. As I have stated before, Europe and the US do not further these similarities strongly enough, thus running the risk of losing a potential ally, e.g. to increasing Asian approaches.

I have recently started my research on a doctoral thesis about the influence of International Criminal Court (ICC) procedures on active conflicts. During my research it struck me that Europe and Latin America are the only continents in which the majority of states has signed and ratified the Rome Statute founding the ICC. In fact el Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua are the only states that still haven't signed the treaty in Latin America. In the Caribbean, Jamaica and Haiti have signed but not yet ratified the Rome Statute. Additionally, since 2003 the chief prosecutor of the ICC is the Argentinian Judge Luís Moreno Ocampo. Latin America and Europe are thus two of the main pillars of support for the ICC, even though the EU and Japan are by far the most important financiers of the court, providing more than 50% or nearly 25% of the budget respectively.

So what exactly does the ICC do and why are Europe and Latin America especially supportive of its work? The idea to found some kind of international court to judge severe crimes committed in wars and conflicts was already born at the beginning of the 20th century. Nevertheless, the Nuremberg trials, in which some Nazi war criminals were judged for crimes against humanity committed during the second world war, remained the only example for an international court judging crimes of individuals. The political situation during the Cold War made an establishment of such a court impossible for decades. After the cold war things started moving pretty fast though. In 1998 the Rome Statute, aiming to establish an International Criminal Court to judge severe crimes on a global scale, was adopted. In 2002, enough parties had ratified the treaty for it to enter into force. In 2003 the International Criminal Court started its work. Its mandate is to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The mandate is still limited to parties of the treaty or individual nationals of these states but the ICC can start investigations when a case is referred to the prosecutor in the scope of a Chapter VII decision of the United Nations Security Council as was the case with Sudan.

This may be only a first step towards fighting impunity on a global stage and some decisions of the ICC are being criticized as being counter-productive for peace negotiations, but humanity has to start in some way if a spirit of anarchy and impunity is to be replaced by some kind of universal legal order in the future. While the US, China and Russia remain skeptical of the ICC and thus impede a real global reach of the institution, 110 states have already ratified the statute. How come that nearly all of Europe and Latin America has done so?

The explanation lies in similar experiences in the past. While Europe has had it's good share of war crimes, genocides and mass murder in the 20th centuries and has thus decided to fight these phenomena as a lesson from their war ridden history, Latin America has recent experiences with impunity. After the Latin American dictatorships crumbled during the 1970's and 80's, most states passed amnesty laws (often initialized by the very people culpable of the crimes) or held truth commissions. Until today, many crimes remain unpunished, victims unaccounted for and perpetrators are living freely in comfort. These issues remain on the political agenda until today, as the Kirchner's hard-fought efforts to lift the Argentinian amnesty laws and the Fujimori trial in Peru show. The ratification of the Rome Statute is a signal from Latin America's democratic governments, that atrocities like those committed in the past will never go unpunished again. And here we come full circle when considering the biography of ICC chief prosecutor Moreno Ocampo. In 1985 he was assistant prosecutor in the Trials of the Junta, the first trial, in which high military leaders were prosecuted for mass killings since the 1945 Nuremberg Trials.

For further information on the ICC and Latin America consult this article in the ICC magazine of the Crimes of War Project.

How to approach poverty?

Last week Florencia from our bloging network wrote a very interesting article on the criminalization of poverty in Argentina, and interestingly the attitudes towards poor people and people living on welfare are in some aspects very similar to the current discussion in Germany. Of course the political environment is decidedly more polarized in Argentina at the moment with the Kirchner dynasty fighting for political survival, but the arguments which are used on both sides of the Atlantic ocean to deny the necessity of social transfers are interchangeable. Check out Florencia's article (in Spanish) here.

Europe in general and especially Germany is very proud of their social welfare system that they praise as a civilizing accomplishment, particularly in comparison with the United States. The condition of the US welfare system, with about 46 million citizens without medical insurance, and the repeated failures to reform it, show that we are indeed lucky to have developed a network of social welfare institutions that is working reasonably well. Barack Obama's experience with his personal take on the welfare reform, his main campaign promise which is getting more difficult to deliver by the minute, shows how difficult it is to introduce such a system without the underlying historical consensus that has grown in Europe over the decades. But this consensus is increasingly endangered also in Europe.

Like in Argentina, there is a growing tendency in Germany to doubt if social transfers from the rich to the poor are justified. This summer Peter Sloterdijk, a philosopher from the southern German city of Karlsruhe, published an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, claiming that transferring money via income tax from the middle classes to the poor is a form of expropriation. His main argument was that the hard working middle classes are paying the bulk of social transfers and are such deprived of the fruits of their labor. He suggested that social transfers should be paid on a strictly voluntary basis. A series of agitated reactions and counter-reactions swept through the German feuilleton pages, some attacking others supporting Sloterdijk's argument. Many authors either understood his text as an Utopian vision, others as an insidious intent to abolish the social welfare system. Independently from Sloterdijk's true intentions his article definitely caused some damage to the idea of social solidarity since it voiced the common accusation that welfare transfers are some sort of appropriation. Of course he forgot to mention that the income tax is closely followed by the value-added tax, the second most important source of income of a modern state, that everybody, regardless of his income, is paying. The pool of funds from which the social transfers are paid is much more ample than just the reservoir of income tax funds.

Even more damaging was an article written by the prime minister of the German region of Hessia, who claimed that many people living of social welfare are doing so willingly because they are earning more money staying at home and not looking for a job than they would earn in a regular job. While the problem of unreasonably low wages in some jobs is a real problem and the option to accept any suitable job has to be made more attractive for unemployed, his rhetorics were again aiming at the growing resentment against social transfers in our society. He named the fact that unemployed gain as much, or even more, than working people "the perversion of the Social State Principle". Fueling these growing resentments is a dangerous game since the number of people who understand the ideas behind our social welfare system is slowly but constantly diminishing.

There are two main aims at the core of introducing a comprehensive social welfare system. First of all it is meant to ensure that every human being can lead a dignified life. An idea closely connected to our notion of human rights and democracy and as such one of the core values of our societies. Secondly social transfers ensure social peace and thus create the requirements for the advancement of the wealthy strata of society and establish an environment in which prosperous persons can put their wealth to use.

While nobody dares to contest the first aim directly, the second aim is consequently ignored by those well-off people who vilify social transfers as theft or expropriation. Europeans are dead wrong if they are only looking to other continents for social polarization. Growing economical competition on the global level and diminishing natural resources are eating away at the consensus of solidarity in our societies. The bitter irony about this development is that many well-off people condemning welfare transfers do not even realize that they were initially introduced in their own interest and are still serving them as much or even more than the poor.

The Spanish EU Presidency - towards closer ties with Latin America?

After years of arguments, reforms and failed referendums the Treaty of Lisbon, originally planned to be a constitutional treaty, finally came into force on the first of December 2009. On the first of January 2010 Spain entered the new decade as the first EU-Member State to preside the European Council in the post-Lisbon era. For a country in deep economic crisis this important role of Spain in the first half-year of 2010 is a source of pride and confidence. After traditionally eating the 12 grapes to the tune of the chimes of the clocktower of the Casa de Correos at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, Spaniards in front of the TV screens  across the nation witnessed how the facade of the Casa de Correos became the screen for their hopes connected to the EU-Presidency. In an impressive light show the flags and well-known monuments of all 27 Member States were consecutively projected onto the old building, culminating in the publication of the beginning of Spain's Presidency. 

While Spain's youth spent the night on the streets to celebrate the new year until the early morning hours, the accurately prepared clockwork of Spanish initiatives for the EU policy in the first half of 2010 slowly kicked into gear. Apart from hackers replacing President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's welcome video on the official homepage of the Presidency (http://www.eu2010.es/) with a speech by Mr. Bean for a couple of minutes, things are so far running pretty smoothly.

On the foreign policy side, Miguel Ángel Moratinos is the first Foreign Minister that will have to share his role during the Presidency with the newly appointed High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union, Baroness Catherine Ashton. While the public and the press reacted with incomprehension when Baroness Ashton was appointed to represent the EU's common foreign policy, perceiving the nomination as a sign of lacking commitment to strengthen the common foreign policy through nominating a globally known and respected politician, the tandem is so far working rather well. From the perspective of European - Latin American relations we can still expect to see a lot of movement stirred by those two in the months to come.

One of the first foreign policy initiatives of Spain during it's Presidency is the furthering of rapprochement between the EU and Cuba. Even though these efforts sustained a small setback through the repulse of a Spanish parliamentarian at the airport of Havana by Cuba, things are developing in the right direction. Forging closer ties to Cuba would reflect that the EU is aware of the changes and the complex political realities in Latin America and the Caribbean. Interdependence and integration is steadily advancing on the continent, even though the process is constantly being complicated by tensions between different groups of states in Latin America. Dividing the continent into relished partners (Brazil, Chile, Argentina) and somewhat shady states to be kept at bay (Venezuela, Cuba, Honduras) does not reflect the realities on the ground. Even though the Plan Colombia and the aggressive rhetorics of ALBA states highlight the political faults of the region, bridges are being built at the same time. The UNASUR process, including Brazil and Venezuela, is suffering frequent setbacks but is still slowly advancing. Colombia and Ecuador are slowly reestablishing diplomatic ties after the rupture resulting from a Colombian air strike on Ecuadorian territory and Latin America at least tried to forge a consensus vis-à-vis the coup in Honduras last year. Thus the foreign policy of the EU should try to address the region as a whole and refrain from singling out inconvenient states.

After this first step in the right direction Spain is aiming at dissolving the blockade of the negotiations of the treaties of association between the EU and Mercosur and the Andean Community. Zapatero declared that relations to Latin America are at the top of his list in foreign policy, stating that "If there is a Presidency that is looking towards Latin America, it has to be ours. We have to seize the opportunity." Lets hope that the Spanish Presidency will live up to it's words.

Man of the year 2009

First of all a happy new year to everyone! 2009 was certainly an interesting year. Barack Obama was elected as the first President of color of the United States of America, the G8 was practically replaced by the G20 as the most important forum for global decision-making, and China, India and Brasil have definitely stepped up as future powers on the global stage. But the decade ended nearly as bad as it had started on 9/11/2001. We saw the crisis peak (hopefully) in the summer months of 2009, followed by the UNFCCC failure of Copenhagen which diminished the hopes that humanity will be able to unite in order to face a serious threat to it's future and we saw another attempt at a terrorist attack on US soil on Christmas.

Apart from annual reviews that reflect these major events of each year on TV, the radio, the web and in the newspapers, the compilation of rankings is one of our favorite pastimes at the end of each year. Some of the most popular and influential ones of them present the person of the year. While most of us would probably have guessed that  Barack Obama will become the man of the year if somebody had asked us at the beginning of 2009, his first year in the White House has shown that many people (especially his European admirers) had completely unrealistic expectations. I remember people applauding every sentence that came out of Obama's mouth when I saw him during his Berlin speech at the 'Siegessäule' in Berlin. The enthusiasm did not even diminish when Obama indirectly demanded a stronger German commitment for Afghanistan, a mission hugely unpopular in Germany. Obama is a realist politician whose biggest advantage and worst problem is that people have chosen him as a projection screen for their idealism and hopes. The reactions to him being awarded the Nobel Peace Price show, how strong this discrepancy has become.

So, with Obama out, the person of the year lists get at least a bit more interesting and 'competitive'.  While TIME magazine, for example, opted for United States Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Shalom Bernanke, for his role in keeping the financial crisis in check, the French newspaper le Monde named Bazil's President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. Apart from the fact that rankings of persons are a deeply subjective undertaking and that one can well doubt if there is any real sense in composing them, le Monde's result is interesting. A European newspaper voting Lula as man of the year 2009 is a signal for Brazil (and with it Latin America) being recognized as a global player in Europe.

One of the reasons of Lula being chosen as the man of the year 2009 by le Monde is surely his huge popularity in Brazil, where he still enjoys a 70% popularity near the end of his second presidency. This popularity has slowly carried over first to Latin America and then beyond. Like the biographies of Barack Obama and Bolivia's Evo Morales, Lula's humble beginnings as a steel-worker inspire people. The extreme divisions between poor and rich in Brazil further accentuate the importance of a worker holding the office of the President. But if le Monde had chosen Lula for popularity alone we could as well forget the list and switch to talking about the movie or the book of the year.

But Lula's top position in le Monde's list reflects a very important development in 2009. Brazil has established itself as a regional power in Latin America in the last few years. Its style of influencing intraregional relations in Latin America focuses on the forging of consensus and on the furthering of integration. And it was an integral part of Lula's Presidency to try to use Brazil's regional importance in Latin America as a stepping stone for its ascension to more influence on the global level. In 2009 this policy bared fruits when the G20, in which Brazil plays an important role, was upgraded in it's importance in the wake of the global financial crisis. Additionally Brazil has been able to position itself as a spokesperson of developing countries and was the only rising power and newly industrializing country that played a constructive role in Copenhagen. Brazil is well on it's way to becoming a respected global power.

Last but not least, Lula sets an example by bucking the trend of Latin American Presidents like Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Alvaro Uribe, Daniel Ortega and Manuel Zelaya who aim (or aimed) at a second or third term of presidency despite constitutional barriers. It seems like he did not let his huge popularity go to his head, even though he is trying to use it in order to mobilize the electorate in favor of his designated successor Dilma Rousseff.

Lula has definitely helped to put Brazil, and Latin America as a whole, on the map in Europe.