Noteworthy….

"The continent must not be like a beautiful fruit tree by the wayside. Every passer-by plucks a share and the fruit tree seems to forget that it could one day grow old.." Words of caution to Africans as both Russian and American leaders make trips to the continent

African leaders have denounced the ICC and refuse to extradite Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir, while others attempt to decipher what, exactly, this means

Niall Ferguson and James Fallows discuss the influence of China on the U.S. economy at the Aspen Ideas Festival

Win in China: a great documentary on the rise of entrepreneurship in China

Raising the bar on corporate social responsibility

In 1995, Nigeria's authorities executed Ken Saro-Wiwa, an environmental activist and a member of the Ogoni ethic group in the Niger Delta, whose land was being targeted and destroyed by the oil extracting activities of Royal Dutch Shell. At the height of his non-violent campaign, Saro-Wiwa was arrested along with nine other anti-oil campaigners. All were tried by a military tribunal and hanged by the Nigerian military government of General Sani Abacha. The charges were entirely politically motivated. 

This devastating human tragedy provoked much outrage and raised many important questions, the most crucial of which had to do with the human rights responsibilities of multinational corporations, especially when working in conjunction with corrupt national governments. In 1996, relatives of the nine executed campaigners brought a case to hold Shell accountable for alleged human rights violations in Nigeria, in Ogoniland in the Niger Delta in particular. The case accused Shell of being complicit in murder, torture and other abuses by Nigeria's former military government against campaigners in the region.

While the case was set to go to trial at the beginning of this month, Shell on Monday agreed to pay $15.5 million to settle the case. Shell continues to deny any wrongdoing, touting the settlement as a "humanitarian gesture" meant to compensate the plaintiffs for their loss and to cover a portion of their legal fees and costs. Regardless, the settlement indubitably brings a long-awaited peace to the families of the victims. Ken Saro-Wiwa Jr., son of the executed activist, had a moving piece in yesterday's Guardian in which he wrote: 

Nothing about this has come or will ever come easy. Every word, every phrase and every comma has been weighed, scrutinised and debated. These are life and death matters. Head versus heart. The case has been freighted with all kinds of agendas that it cannot possibly satisfy. In the end a settlement is a compromise; both parties agree to settle their differences by meeting in a so-called middle. That middle is a matter of perspective of course. To some this must be bewildering. To others it was too long in coming. In the end it is only those who are intimately involved, who have everything to lose and everything to gain that have to make a decision that will not satisfy everyone.

History will show that this was a landmark case. Multinationals now know that a precedent has been set, that it is possible to be sued for human rights violations in foreign jurisdictions.

Indeed, the significance of the settlement lies precisely in the fact that the bar for corporate social responsibility has been firmly set, sending multinationals a clear signal that their activities vis-a-vis local populations in the regions in which they work will be under close scrutiny. Surely a step in the right direction.

Tiananmen twenty years on

Reporting from Beijing today James Fallows observes the scene in Tiananmen Square:

[...] There are always plenty of security forces around -- soldiers in green uniforms, various kinds of police in blue uniforms, and "plainclothes" forces who are pretty easy to pick out, like strapping young men in buzz cuts all wearing similar-looking "leisure" clothes. But I have not seen before anything like the situation at the moment. 

There are more representatives in all categories -- soldiers, police, obvious plainclothesmen -- than I recall seeing even during the Tibet violence in early 2008 or through the Olympic games. Also many people whom you would normally classify as fruit vendors, tourists from the Chinese provinces, youngish white collar workers male and female, and skateboarder-looking characters wearing cargo shorts and with fauxhawk haircuts, were last night walking up and down the sidewalks with their eyes constantly on visitors and drifting up next to people who were holding conversations.

The way to avoid their attention is keep moving briskly along the sidewalk rather than stopping as if you think there is something particular to look at in the square today. The way to draw it is to stop and look around, to pay attention to the security forces themselves, or to have a camera in your hand. 

Writing in the WSJ's China Journal, Loretta Chao elaborates further:

Most local residents seemed not to know what the commotion was about. One man asked if there was something going on because Malaysia’s Prime Minister arrived in the capital yesterday. Before he could continue talking, several officers swooped in and told him to leave the area.

The man offered minor resistance, then left. But as he walked away, a camera-toting cop followed him, recording the man’s departure. Not realizing that the camera cop, who was wearing a white T-shirt and no badge, was with the authorities, the man demanded to be left alone, splashed his bottled drink on the camera cop’s face, then threw the empty bottle at his head before walking off. “Why are you following me?” he yelled. “What’s wrong with you?”

Rather surreal and eerily ironic images stand to commemorate the June 4 incident. But has the West been mischaracterizing it for all these years? Should we speak louder about the abuses that occurred - and continue to occur - in China, or is this best left for discussions behind closed doors?

More on contemporary land grabs: the case of the DRC

A brief follow-up on my previous post, if I may.

While it is true that the vast majority of farmland investments in Africa are those of foreign entities, this is not always the case as an interesting piece in the WSJ makes clear:

[South African farmers] are scrambling to get on board an ambitious venture to reclaim farmland in Congo's interior and help relieve that country of a reliance on food imports. Already some 70 farmers have booked a Congo tour and more than 3,000 have expressed interest, said Agri-SA, the South African farming group organizing the venture.

... According to a draft memorandum of understanding, Congo is willing to sign long-term leases and provide tax breaks and waivers on duties of imported supplies for approved projects. The South Africans in turn would build infrastructure, employ locals and instruct them in modern farming techniques. People familiar with the matter say the initial focus will be on restarting state-owned farms abandoned in 1992.

... South African commercial farmers, mostly the descendants of Dutch and French pioneers who began settling the continent's southern tip centuries ago, are renowned for their ability to coax food out of African soil. Eager for their expertise and capital, African countries from Ghana to Nigeria have offered them incentives to set up shop. South African farmers have turned Mozambique into a banana powerhouse. Zambia became self-sufficient in maize after welcoming farmers from Zimbabwe and from South Africa.

As with foreign (i.e. non African) land investments/grabs, such programs are equally controversial, as they raise the very same issues of land tenure, colonialism, and eviction as do those by China, the United States, Saudi Arabia or any other countries. According to the contract governing the investment, South African farmers will enjoy a five-year holiday on corporate tax and the dismantling of taxes on the import of agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilizer and machines. The farmers will be allowed to take all their profits out of the country and are under no obligation to sell their output on the domestic market. Oh dear.

[HT: The Meaningfulness of Little Things]

Land grabs in poor countries: blessing or curse?

Apologies for my recent absence: I dashed off to Nantucket for the Memorial Day weekend and - to be perfectly frank - postponed my return to the 'real world' (for me part of which entails blogging) for as long as humanly possible thereafter. It was such a lovely time! Alas, one can only put off the inevitable for so long, so here I am: back at long last.

While doing a bit of sunbathing on the beach over the weekend, I happened to stumble across an excellent overview of the issues surrounding present-day land grabs (or "outsourcing's third wave") in last week's Economist. I wrote about this matter earlier this month when a similar story appeared in Canada's Globe & Mail, though I feel the Economist does a much better job of teasing out the issues at stake.

As the Economist piece aptly observes, land grabs are particularly common among countries that export capital but import food (think the U.S. and China, for instance). Countries such as these outsource their farm production to countries that need capital but have land to spare; the vast majority of which are found in Africa (see map). And while investments in foreign farms are not a new phenomenon, there are several factors that differentiate today's 'land grabs' from those of the past, foremost among which is the scale (in Sudan, for instance, South Korea has signed deals for 690, 000 hectares! Before, a 'big' land deal use to be around 100,000 hectares) and the fact that the investors are no longer private entities alone: governments (and their state-run enterprises) have now likewise taken to investing in global farmland. China, for instance, has set up 11 research stations in Africa to boost yields of staple crops, and has secured several large deals across the African continent.

Duncan Green writes: 

The obvious motives for the deals are the spike in food prices and the subsequent decision of governments in several key producer countries to restrict their exports, threatening the food security of food importing countries such as the Gulf states, China and South Korea (the main participants in the deals). However, water shortages are another, hidden driver. Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, the chairman of Nestlé, claims: “The purchases weren’t about land, but water. For with the land comes the right to withdraw the water linked to it, in most countries essentially a freebie that increasingly could be the most valuable part of the deal.” He calls it “the great water grab”.

According to a newly released report by the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN, farmland investments in the past five years total approximately 2.5m hectares - equal to about half the arable land of the UK. Other estimates posit the total farmland investments in Africa, Latin America and Asia at over 15m hectares, about half the size of Italy. While supporters of such deals argue that they are a tool for development, providing new seeds, techniques and money for agriculture, mounting evidence suggests they produce quite the opposite effect, driving out local farmers and in many cases depriving poor people of access to land, water and other resources.

Among the many underlying problems is that of the conflict between customary and statutory laws in the countries where the investments are transpiring. Writes the Economist:

Host governments usually claim that the land they are offering for sale or lease is vacant or owned by the state. That is not always true. “Empty” land often supports herders who graze animals on it. Land may be formally owned by the state but contain people who have farmed it for generations. Their customary rights are recognised locally, but often not accepted in law, or in the terms of a foreign-investment deal.

So the deals frequently set one group against another in host countries and the question is how those conflicts get resolved. “If you want people to invest in your country, you have to make concessions,” says the spokesman for Kenya’s president. (He was referring to a deal in which Qatar offered to build a new port in exchange for growing crops in the Tana river delta, something opposed by local farmers and conservationists.) The trouble is that the concessions are frequently one-sided. Customary owners are thrown off land they think of as theirs. Smallholders have their arms twisted to sign away their rights for a pittance.

The mechanisms for averting such losses would entail measures such as respect for customary laws, stable property rights, and increased transparency surrounding the land deals (among countless others, to be sure!). The trouble is that the majority of the countries which are party to today's land investments lack these very mechanisms and have been struggling with them for quite some time; in many cases decades. A potential solution might be the formulation of some international code, though I'm not quite sure as to what that would look like or what, exactly, it would entail. It would appear that our best option presently remains one of 'wait and see.'

P.S.  I doubt that this falls into the category of 'land grabs,' but the story does speak to the increased prevalence of the phenomenon of giving away land: touched by Biden's speech to the Bosnian parliament last week, a local farmer and war veteran offered Biden a piece of his land as a gift. Go figure.

A 21st century scramble for African land

A reader from the University of Toronto alerted me to the following article in Tuesday's Globe and Mail on the issue of land acquisition in Africa:

Wealthy foreign investors have acquired, or begun negotiating for, an estimated 15 to 20 million hectares of farmland in the developing world – equal to roughly half the size of Newfoundland and Labrador – since 2006. Most of this is in Africa, where the soil is fertile, costs are low and the owners are weak.

Critics are calling it a “global land grab” with neocolonial overtones. The African Union has warned that Africans could be exploited by the massive farmland deals because of their weak bargaining position. Overwhelmed by the rapidly developing trend, they are failing to get sufficient benefits in return, the AU says.

The buyers and leasers of African farmland are the rich and powerful (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates) or the hugely populous and land-hungry (China and India). For all of them, Africa is the jackpot, a region where vast tracts of land are cheap and underutilized.

Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world, is a prime target of those hungry for land. But there are plenty of other African targets, too. China is seeking 2 million hectares in Zambia to grow crops for biofuels. Saudi Arabian investors are spending $100-million to acquire land in Ethiopia, $45-million for land in Sudan, and millions more for 500,000 hectares in Tanzania. Libya has secured 100,000 hectares in Mali to grow rice. Qatar has obtained 40,000 hectares in Kenya.

The land deals are a sign of a shift in the world's priorities. Farmland is becoming as much of a strategic resource as oil fields.

The issue is admittedly one about which I am not too well educated, though now realize I ought to be: implicit in the notion of 'China in Africa' (i.e. the arrival of Chinese in Africa) is the question of how they are acquiring land! Obviously! While the article tends to focus on larger-scale investors, I'd venture to guess that the matter is even more pronounced on the micro scale, with entrepreneurs scrambling for spaces from which to run their shops, restaurants, etc. Chinese in Africa tend not to be particularly active in any farmland activities at present, so my guess is that much of their 'land grabs' center around urban areas. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if they began to diversify their interests in the not too distant future. This may well be worth looking into in greater detail.

On Sri Lanka (for want of a better title)

It's quite a curious exercise, isn't it, observing which humanitarian crises receive international attention? Perhaps not surprisingly (though most unfortunately), the most talked about issues are often those that have somehow  been sensationalized by the media and/or altogether clueless celebrities who mean well but often lack the knowledge necessary to raise proper awareness, let alone do anything about the problems at hand. Darfur, the Congo, the AIDS crisis more generally, Somalia - which was brought into the international spotlight only when pirate attacks escalated on mostly Western cargo ships - the list goes on.

Yet what about other parts of the world? Places like present-day Sri Lanka, for instance, where the populace is suffering on an unimaginable scale. Yet who can honestly say that they have heard much about Sri Lanka, let alone the country's problems? Few will likely know that a humanitarian catastrophe is raging on in the country after Tamil Tiger rebels ignored a surrender deadline from the government and the government likewise rejected the rebels' offer of ceasefire on the grounds that the offer was "meaningless." While exact figures are unavailable, it is estimated that there are upwards of 6,500 civilian deaths, with over 100,000 refugees and 50,000 civilians trapped in a space roughly the size of Central Park. According to one British official, Sri Lanka's conflict makes "what happened in Gaza look like a sideshow."

Indeed, comparisons are being drawn between Sri Lanka's plight and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Tamils are using refugees as human shields; the rebels are accusing the government of trying to starve the population into submission; and foreign media is kept beyond the conflict zone. Indeed:

This is a situation of armed conflict in which both parties are acting in ways that pose a grave risk to innocent civilians. The party that is perhaps more culpable -- the rebels -- answers to no one. And the Sri Lankan government has been able to operate with virtual impunity because it is fighting "terrorists." Even Western states that usually condemn violations of international law have given the situation a wide berth.

The international community has, in fact, stepped in, calling for both a ceasefire and permission for aid groups to access the war zone. Neither call appears to have been met. What becomes of Sri Lanka remains to be seen. As Robert Templer observes: either the conflict will end in a bloody massacre, likely resulting in decades more of war and suffering, or there will be a breakthrough of sorts, heralding in peaceful negotiations and the hope for a peaceful Sri Lanka. But no matter: I don't think Bono has sung about this one yet, has he? 

How China sees the world: A lesson from The Economist

The most recent cover of The Economist has caught the attention of cartographers (self-proclaimed and otherwise) and Chinese scholars (ditto) alike. Falling more squarely into the former category (though without the self-proclaimed epithet), the folks over at Strange Maps offer an interesting analysis of the depiction: 

In the ocean immediately beyond the city are a few islands of particular interest to China:

• Japan: the old rival, whose rapid modernisation preceded China’s, but now eclipsed and reduced to a few harmless islands.
• Taiwan: similarly superseded by China’s massive economic progress, but still relevant as the rival claimant to be China’s ‘legitimate’ government. Even more repulsive to mainland China is a competing strand of current Taiwanese politics, striving for ‘independence’ and thus eschewing the ‘One China’ policy still officially espoused by both the communist mainland and nationalist Taiwan.
• Hong Kong: the former British crown colony that was handed back to China in 1997 and which has been allowed a degree of autonomy unthinkable elsewhere in China (e.g. Tibet) under an agreement often referred to as ‘One Country, Two Systems’, whereby Hong Kong was allowed to retain its capitalist system and its civil liberties, including inchoate democratic institutions.
• Spratly Islands: a sprawling archipelago of over 600 islets, atols and reefs in the South China Sea, between Vietnam and the Philippines, with barely 5 square kilometers of dry land between them. Because of their strategic location, the Spratlys, or parts of them, are claimed and partly occupied by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia - and as such are a flashpoint waiting to happen.

Across a narrow representation of the Pacific Ocean lies the continent apparently most on China’s mind - America. And especially, apart from a tiny slice labelled Canada and a small appendage being dug up for minerals called South America, the United States. The US is a crumbling empire, with the Statue of Liberty clutching a begging bowl and holding up a sign saying: Please give generously. Next to some shacks is a sign saying Foreclosure Sale (a reference to the house repossessions that are symptomatic of the credit crunch which triggered the present economic recession). Wall Street is a fault almost splitting the US in two.

Europe is much smaller and more irrelevant than America, in the ocean beyond it. All that distinguishes it are Prada and Hermes, two brands of luxury fashion accessories, and presumably very popular with the wealthy Chinese elite - suggesting that Europe is only interesting to China as a glorified shopping mall. 

Next to Europe is Africa, equally distant from China, but at least decked out with some of the implements of industry, referring to the large investments China is making in Africa, benefiting the poorest continent with new infrastructure and providing China with access to much-needed raw materials for its burgeoning industry.

Visibly missing from the "map" are the Middle East (with especial attention paid to Iran) and a demarcation of Russia, both of which are vital Chinese allies. The Economist especially should be aware that much of China's world view is informed by its need for natural resources, predominant among them oil, for which both the M.E. and Russia are essential. Alas, I'm willing to forgive this wonderful publication for such a glaring oversight (this time). 

With somewhat of a different conundrum, however, is Will Lewis of Experience Not Logic - a brilliant China law blog - who asks whether the Economist cover might possibly infringe on copyright law. He draws on the important copyright dispute in Steinberg v. Columbia and offers up a most interesting discussion. If you look closely, the cover even alludes to this very case: the sign above the Imperial Palace reads: "With apologies to Steinberg and the New Yorker." Who would have thought that one can learn so much without even opening The Economist?! Sheer brilliance, I say. 

Human rights through your local church

At least that's the idea in Rwanda, where President Paul Kagame is seeking to mobilize Rwandan pastors to protect human rights and pursue forgiveness. Kagame has even teamed up with Rick Warren of Saddleback Church to develop a five-to-seven year project aimed at attaining precisely these objectives. Via Opinio Juris Roger Alford writes:

I have spent the last two weeks working with a team of Saddleback lawyers who are implementing this impressive program. Having met with Supreme Court and High Court judges, Ministry of Justice officials, and over sixty of the top Rwandan pastors in the country, I am convinced that in a country where 82 percent of the population are Christians, there is no better vehicle for educating the general populace about human rights than the local church. At the invitation of President Kagame, Saddleback Church has been sending hundreds of volunteer professionals–doctors, nurses, lawyers, psychologists, etc.–to work with local churches to address Rwanda’s most pressing problems.

On the legal front, top government officials have identified three central problems: intra-family land grabbing, domestic violence, and sexual crimes. To address those problems, lawyers from Saddleback Church have drafted a human rights manual for local pastors they can use to educate their members about those issues. They have started with the issue of land grabbing, and future manuals will be developed that focus on domestic violence and sexual crimes.

[...] It is an impressive project. The result will be a manual that will be sent to thousands of Rwandan pastors with information on the rights of women and children and information on legal resources for families who struggle with land grabbing. Prevention is the principal objective, but for those who are in the midst of a land grabbing dispute, the manual encourages local pastors to work with government legal aid clinics, the National University of Rwanda, and the Christian human rights NGO International Justice Mission to intervene.

Time Magazine also ran a story on this back in 2005 which can be found here.

Marking their territory

I initially refrained from commenting on the US-China naval spat in the South China Sea earlier this month, assuming that it was perhaps a one-off misstep; a faux pas, if you will. These things happen, right? Well, yes, but it would appear that the incident is part and parcel of China's broader attempts to assert itself in the South China Sea or, as James Kraska writes, a careful and deliberate attempt to promote "a vision that de-legitimizes the forward presence of the U.S. Navy in the region." This warrants some commentary.

The FT today reports that China is sending even more navy patrols to the South China Sea, seeking to extend its reach over the disputed Spratly Islands (disputed insofar as they are claimed in full (!) by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei). The Chinese have indeed become more aggressive and forward-looking than they were several years ago, both in terms of their hard and soft power strategies. Such activity begs two key questions: first, with respect to the incident in particular, who or at what level in the Chinese government was the incident (de facto harassment) ordered?; and second, with respect to China flexing its naval muscles, what is an appropriate U.S. response?

Gordan Chang writing in RealClearWorld (the global edition of RealClearPolitics) certainly seems to have some thoughts:

Analysts speculate as to Chinese intentions, but in a sense it really does not matter what Beijing is trying to accomplish. Its conduct is simply unacceptable. Washington, however, seeks to establish “dialogue” with China’s generals, admirals, and officials as if their belligerent acts are the result of the lack of contact. It is simply ludicrous for the Obama White House to claim that the Chinese want to “strengthen cooperation” or build a “positive and constructive” relationship after engaging in such truculent behavior.

And it is wrong to suggest that incidents can be avoided in the future if we only increase the level of communication or its frequency. We have had formal and informal military relations with China for decades, and now there is even a brand new mil-to-mil hotline connecting the United States to China. So it is an attack on common sense for the Pentagon to claim that “face-to-face dialogue in Beijing and in Washington will go a long way to clearing up any misunderstanding about this incident.” The problem is not that we don’t talk to the Chinese enough or that we misunderstand them. It is that they are hostile.

The hostile Chinese? David Axe doesn't appear to think so:

To be clear, Beijing and Washington are not enemies, Robert Kaplan stressed in a recent article for Foreign Affairs. Rather, China is a "legitimate peer competitor" of the United States. The task of the U.S. Navy will therefore be to quietly leverage the sea power of its closest allies -- India in the Indian Ocean and Japan in the western Pacific -- to set limits on China's expansion.

One would be hard-pressed to deny China as a "legitimate peer competitor," yet I would argue that some of this legitimacy is lost when harassment is adopted as a strategic tactic. There is nothing wrong with a state wanting to mark its territory; it is the fashion by which it goes about doing so, however, that sets the tone. As the old adage goes, actions speak louder than words.

Noteworthy….

Chinese arms sales are on the uptick. The major markets?: the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. Wonderful.

Can Catholicism help Africa? Africans express their views on the religion's impact.

Just say 'no': China's Ministry of Commerce blocks Coca Cola's proposed acquisition of China Huiyuan Juice Group.

Bringing Sudan's forgotten judiciary back into the picture: a review of Abdullahi Ibrahim's book, Rectifying the Neglect of Sudan's Judiciary

Oh, now this hits close to home: Northwestern professors Jeff Ely and Sandeep Baliga are blogging at http://cheeptalk.wordpress.com. I have fond memories of sitting in Professor Ely's (I can't bring myself to call him Jeff...) microecon class back in the day. Admittedly, his blog appears infinitely more interesting than the course (I'm allowed to say that now, right?)

It's an international law miracle!

The Khmer Rouge Tribunal is actually trying someone. Today. For the first time. Ever. Better later than never, I suppose.

Kaing Guek Eav - more commonly known as Duch (charming) is the first ultra-Maoist to be tried. Duch was the director of the notorious torture center S21 (he was the Head Torture Chief. No, really), where approximately 17,000 of the regime's enemies were tortured and exterminated. In total, 1.7 million people died between 1975 and 1979.

Today's hearing is largely procedural, with the main hearings due to start next month and a verdict expected by September. Hundreds of people allegedly filled the public gallery today, including Buddhist monks, diplomats and survivors from the era, in what marks a important step for justice in Cambodia. Many, however, remain skeptical over the legitimacy of the trial, as concerns about corruption and political interference continue to grow. The Cambodian judges have the majority in all chambers and, well, let's be honest, the Cambodian judiciary isn't exactly know for its independence (many human rights organizations have questioned the efficiency of the Tribunal, for instance Human Rights Watch).

In any event, this is an interesting (and quite monumental) judicial experiment, and it can only be hoped that it helps the Cambodian people come to terms with their past.

[HT: Wronging Rights]