Posts Tagged ‘President Obama’

Labour should see the bigger picture on the UK in the EU

22/02/2016, 10:27:58 AM

by Jonathan Todd

“In 1941 there were only a dozen democracies in the world. Today there are over a hundred. For four centuries prior to 1950, global gross domestic product (GDP) rose by less than 1 percent a year. Since 1950 it has risen by an average of 4 percent a year, and billions of people have been lifted out of poverty. The first half of the twentieth century saw two of the most destructive wars in the history of mankind, and in prior centuries war among the great powers was almost constant. But for the past sixty years no great powers have gone to war with one another.”

These, according to Robert Kagan, in a book published at about the same time as Obama’s second term began, with the clear intension of dissuading the president from stepping back from global leadership, are American fruits. Since then, Kim Jong-un and Putin, Syria and the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands, have brought into question America’s global reach. Nonetheless, Obama has held the international institutions that have held sway throughout much of the period venerated by Kagan – EU, NATO, IMF, UN, World Bank – in as much reverence as any modern US president.

We have our discontents with globalisation (and these are justified, notwithstanding its gains, which, in Kagan’s historic sweep, are considerable, even unprecedented). We have our grumbles with Obama (but it is hard not to feel that he has made a sincere attempt to recalibrate American strategy and recraft international institutions for ongoing transition to a more multipolar world). None of these discontents and grumbles, however, justify a retreat to nineteenth century statecraft.

John Kerry bemoans Putin playing by “19th century rules”, while Thomas Wright has chronicled Donald Trump’s “19th century foreign policy”. Trump – like Nigel Farage and George Galloway – holds Putin in high regard. The feeling is mutual. The Russian leader has said of Trump that he is a, “really brilliant and talented person”.

(more…)

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

What The Keystone XL Case Tells Us About TTIP

21/01/2016, 10:21:33 PM

by Sam Fowles

Last week TransCanada, the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, filed notice that it intends to sue the USA, demanding $15bn in compensation for President Obama’s decision not to grant a permit for the pipeline. But this is not just a piece of trade litigation on the other side of the Atlantic, the Keystone arbitration should serve as an indication of what we can expect if the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is passed un-reformed.

1. This is not just about protection for western investors in developing states

The Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) tends to dismiss concerns about the treaty with the, somewhat airy, assertion that, despite being signed up to 93 similar treaties, the UK has never been successfully sued. Yet the more you increase your exposure, the more likely you are to get sued. When combined with the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA – the equivalent deal between the EU and Canada) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP – the equivalent between the USA and pacific-rim states), TTIP will increase the coverage of trade with Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) by over 300%. While most of the UK’s existing treaties are with states which provide little investment into the UK (thus minimal risk of action), TTIP will extend the same right to the top provider of investment into the UK.

Like the UK, the US has never lost a case in ISDS but the Keystone arbitration looks likely to end that streak. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA – the treaty on which TransCanada are basing their suit) prohibits discriminatory or arbitrary treatment of investors. TransCanada’s notice of action asserts that the Obama Administration rejected the Keystone permit despite awarding permits for almost exactly identical projects, that it ignored its own environmental impact reports and that Administration officials appear to have openly admitted that the decision was made for political rather than environmental reasons. If TransCanada’s lawyers can prove the truth of any of these assertions, the Administration will struggle to defend the suit.

2. TTIP isn’t just about nationalisation

When challenged in the EU Select Committee by Geraint Davies, Lord Maude claimed that investment protection provisions in TTIP would only apply to nationalisation without compensation. The Keystone arbitration shows his understanding is outdated. TransCanada claim that, in denying them permission to build the pipeline, the Obama Administration has deprived them of profits they may have made in the future. This isn’t an absurd claim in the context of ISDS. When a similar claim was made in Ethyl v Canada, the company won.

(more…)

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Finding grace in America and Europe

29/06/2015, 05:44:24 PM

by Jonathan Todd

“We as a country,” said President Obama in his first statement on the Charleston shootings, “will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries.” He spoke with a forlorn resignation that was odd coming from the world’s supposedly most powerful person and realistic, given “the politics in this town foreclose a lot of (gun control) avenues right now”.

In the past week, however, Washington DC has not been the cradle of disappointment that it has for Obama. Through rare bipartisanship, he’s taken a big step towards completing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade deal intended to cover 40 percent of the world economy and an important plank of Obama’s legacy planning. Obamacare and gay marriage, issues upon which the Supreme Court has this week backed him, also feature in this legacy.

Obama’s America, though, is also a place where, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research, black men in their 20s without a high school diploma are more likely to be incarcerated than employed. It will take, of course, much more than TPP to change this. Only in relation to prison services does black America have better access to public services than white America.

(more…)

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon

Our failure to act in Syria is making the world a more dangerous place

02/05/2013, 08:55:14 AM

by Peter Watt

I remember in the aftermath of the second Iraq war engaging in a discussion with some people opposed to the war.  It was a very hot topic and many people had very strongly held views.  I was then and still am a supporter of the decision to invade Iraq and to remove Saddam Hussein; the people I was debating were not.  But it was in fact a friendly discussion and there was mutual respect despite fundamental disagreement.  I certainly understood their objections and could see their point.

But there was one thing that I couldn’t understand.  I asked whether they could see any circumstances in which there was evidence that a “rogue” country had weapons of mass destruction that we should act forcibly to disarm them.  They said “no”.  I pushed; what if Iran or North Korea for instance developed a nuclear weapon?  Again they said ‘no’.  In fact they said that we had no right to stop them having a nuclear weapon as we and the U.S. had them.  If we or the United States had them (so their argument went) then it was only fair that Iran or North Korea could have them as well if they wanted them.

Now personally I think that this is palpable nonsense.   We and the U.S. are democracies, respect human rights, basic freedoms and free-speech.  To be frank we have every right to both have nuclear weapons ourselves and to demand that others do not.  Something incidentally that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its 190 signatories agree with.

Does that means that I think that our liberal, democratic way of life is better than the totalitarian or unstable alternatives then yes I bloody well do!  And I think that these ideals are worth defending.  And so I just couldn’t see how it was possible to argue that there weren’t circumstances that force may have to be used to ensure that some states did not become owners of the ability to kill millions.

And I think the same is true when it comes to chemical weapons.  Should rogue states be allowed to possess them and threaten their own populations or those of their neighbours?  Again “no.”  And in the last resort we should be prepared to use force if necessary to ensure that this does not happen.  To do otherwise would be irresponsible in the extreme.

Which brings us to Syria.

History will judge us harshly for the way that we have allowed the people of Syria to suffer and to be massacred by the Assad regime.  It will shame us all and we will have to explain to our children how we have stood by and let 70,000 people die so far.  It is not just the immediate and on-going killing.  Who knows what the long term consequences will be for the region and indeed the world of a generation of Syrians so systematically brutalised?

(more…)

Facebook Twitter Digg Delicious StumbleUpon