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The Pink Face Of Indian Vigilantism. #16

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EDITORIAL

This transformation of global governance has the public, private and non-profit sectors in its sights. Masters of advocacy are confronted with the limits of their impact; partisans of compromise with the energy industry on climate change have lost their battle and will soon be replaced with more radical peers. The way in which Kumi Naidoo, boss and fundraiser-in-chief of Greenpeace, was criticized heavily via a tweet from a British Telecom CSR nerd encountering him in Davos is a sign that an icon of ‘good’ is now ‘touchable.’ What should we think about the new species of NGOs deciding to capitalize in order to carry on? Or the Red Cross, which trades in clothes or hotels to fi nance itself? The lines move around inexorably. In the private sector, even though we believe the Taliban of the Internet forbid us from discussing the need for regulation, we are now seeing the voice of Susan Crawford abruptly moving the debate towards the notion of public interest – a perception which if applied to the global discussion held in Dubai on this subject, would have facilitated agreement rather than an unproductive uproar. Just as we witnessed the Arab Spring, we will soon see another type of Western Spring: more intense and more enduring. To believe this intensifying transformation will be possible outside of a democratic setting is a lie – an illusion that leads us straight back to our old despotic demons. Let us be cautious to not forget, but also not deny ourselves the pleasure of seeing global governance slowly but surely revising many concepts and unleashing new ideas.

Shifts.

In this edition, we remain loyal to the idea of observing and surveying the underlying movements and processes of this transformation. John Ruggie points out the increasing gaps in a globalized world and the need for new global regulations. Other countries like India reinvent their feminism – see the excellent report by Amana Fontanella-Khan on the Pink Gang. Equally a must-read is our interview with Philippe Van Parijs, whose intellectual clarity gives his ideas a quality lacking in our old continent. Our European politicians should draw inspiration from him without delay if they want to save the European Central Bank and all that goes with it. Just as they should also note our investigation into the ‘future of food’ to get back to some inner-convictions.

he 2008 crisis is special in that it will soon be renamed the 2008-2014 crisis. We know crises as emerging sharply and fading rapidly – this one is taking its time. We are experiencing a longue durée crisis. In terms of global governance, things seem to be going differently. Traditional bilateralism is currently of little relevance, just like out-dated multilateralism. In reality, the global governance game is about to change. The view from our window is evolving each passing day. Of course, old leaders still use old behind-the-scenes ingredients: high doses of disingenuous discussion, dirty electoral tricks grounded in national politics that spread into global debates and endless pressure exercised with the upmost politeness to hush their neighbor or competitor. Nothing has changed here. What is new, however, are those who plot outside of the old drinking-well. By playing with vocabulary – citizenship, accountability, corporate responsibility, sustainability, transparency and multi-stakeholderism – we see that it ultimately ends up provoking an outbreak of new ideas. So much so that the G20, BRICs, World Economic Forum, ICANN and other ‘groupings’ should worry about when the pressure of global public opinion will catch up with them. Legitimacy, representativeness and justice are still the core words that a real democracy cannot ignore.

Lots to read over the coming weeks to remind us that it is not only German elections that will count this year for the future of Europe. And if somehow those European politicians are fed up with all of this, they should turn to Ping Fu and her ‘geomagical’ life. It will make them spin the earth more quickly.

Jean-Christophe Nothias Editor in Chief

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CONTENTS

CONTENTS 10 GLOBAL VOICES: Ping Fu 16 GLOBAL VOICES: John Ruggie 21 OPEN VOICES: Africa’s Mineral Wealth: Eternally Cursed? 26 FEATURE: The Pink Face Of Indian Vigilantism 34 FEATURE: The Future Of Food 44 FEATURE: Rediscovering The Utopian In Europe: An Interview With Philippe Van Parijs 52 FEATURE: Cleaning House In Brazil 60 PHOTO ESSAY: The Legacy Of The Killing Fields 74 THE GLOBAL REVIEW 82 FIVE QUESTIONS: Koen Olthuis

COVER IMAGE © VIVIANE DALLES

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FEATURE

Conserving Resources

Protecting the Climate

Science For A Better Life

Climate change represents one of the major global challenges of our time. That’s why Bayer wants to act to reduce its “climate footprint”, a symbolic expression of the negative impact of human actions on the environment. Through the Bayer Climate Program the company is driving forward its activities to protect the climate and respond to climate change. The Bayer Climate Check, for example, is a new tool for reducing CO2 emissions in production processes. With the aid of modern biotechnology we are increasing the stress tolerance of crops towards heat and drought, giving agriculture a chance to overcome the consequences of climate change. To reduce energy consumption in offices and industrial buildings we have cooperated with partners to develop the “EcoCommercial Building”. Based on highly efficient polyurethane insulation and regenerative energies it can meet its own energy needs – a global concept for zero-emission buildings that can be implemented in various world climate zones. www.climate.bayer.com

THEGLOBALJOURNAL.NET 5

CONTRIBUTORS

PETE PIN Pete Pin is a documentary photographer based in Brooklyn. Born in the Khao-Dang refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodian border, he was resettled in California in the mid-1980s. After dropping out of high school, he went on to receive his BA at the University of California at Berkeley – where he graduated magna cum laude in Political Science and was awarded the Outstanding Honors Thesis award – and complete the Documentary and Photojournalism Program at the International Center of Photography.

JULIANA BIDADANURE Juliana Bidadanure is a doctoral student at the University of York and has spent time as a visiting researcher at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. She writes within the field of political philosophy and is particularly interested in questions of social justice, especially theories of equality. Her current research focuses on two distinct topics: conceptions of “what governments owe young people” – including the implications for youth policy – and the notion of a Universal Basic Income.

NARA PAVÃO Nara Pavão is a Fulbright fellow and doctoral candidate in Political Science at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, currently based at the University of São Paulo as a visiting researcher. Her fieldwork is focusing on political corruption, public opinion and voting behavior in Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. Before relocating to the United States, she worked in a policy capacity for the Governor’s Advisory Board on public security issues in Recife, the capital of Pernamubuco.

PAOLO CRAVERO Paolo Cravero is a freelance journalist and researcher whose work has featured in a number of publications in Europe and the United States, including the New Yorkbased weekly journal The Nation, Italian newspaper La Stampa and the International Relations and Security Network’s Insights series. With experience in Kenya addressing issues of human rights and food insecurity, he has more recently been collaborating with professor and best-selling author, Raj Patel, on the Generation Food Project.

CAROLINE KENDE-ROBB

AMANA FONTANELLA-KHAN

Caroline Kende-Robb serves as the Executive Director of the Africa Progress Panel, a foundation formed at the Gleneagles G8 Summit in 2005 and chaired by Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, she worked at the World Bank for nine years as a senior manager and technical expert for the Sustainable Development Network. In these roles, her areas of focus included governance, confl ict and fragility, climate change, social justice and fi nancial crises.

Amana Fontanella-Khan is the author of the forthcoming book Pink Sari Revolution, to be released in August by W.W. Norton & Company. Her work has featured in the New York Times, Slate, The Daily Beast, The Daily Telegraph, Conde Nast Traveller and The Christian Science Monitor. A VOGUE India Contributing Editor, she writes regularly on women’s issues, including prostitution, rape, reproductive health and empowerment. After living in India for four years, she is now based in Brussels.

Thanks: Raphael Briner, Lars Borg, Bernd Breckner Van Damme, Valérie Fougeirol, Erich Inciyan, Harri Irhing, Martine Lamuniére, Pascale Lemoigne, Axel Moulin, Valérie de Palma Vincienne, Richard Pottecher, Jo Guldi, Thierry Soussi, Philippe Vignon, Ernest & the Nothias Family Office

The Global Journal is published by Société des Fondateurs de The Global Journal SA, Geneva, Switzerland.

THE GLOBAL JOURNAL Editor in Chief: Jean-Christophe Nothias Deputy Editor: Alexis Kalagas Digital Editor: Nicoletta Zappile Art Director: Dimitri Kalagas Photographers: Rita Scaglia, Pascal Dolémieux SEO Manager: Florian Bessonnat Webmaster: Moowax Journalists & Contributors: Julianna Bidadanure, Selin Bucak, Paolo Cravero, Amana Fontanella-Khan, Caitlin Hannahan, Caroline Kende-Robb, Alphée Lacroix-September, Julie Mandoyan, Nara Pavao, Pete Pin, Roberto Molinari, Marcos Tourinho

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The Top 100 NGOs

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GLOBAL VOICES © JONATHAN FREDIN

A Life In Two Worlds. PING FU FOUNDER AND CEO OF GEOMAGIC INC. BY ALEXIS KALAGAS

Born on the eve of China’s Cultural Revolution, Ping Fu was separated from her family at the age of eight and left to care for her younger sister amidst squalor and humiliation at the hands of Mao’s Red Guards. Told to leave the country in her mid-twenties following research into China’s nascent one-child policy, she went on to study computer science in the United States, work at the ground-breaking Bell Labs, run the team behind Netscape and ultimately found leading 3D software company Geomagic.

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GLOBAL VOICES The subtitle of your new book is ‘a life in two worlds’ – how did your experiences during the Cultural Revolution shape your later achievements in the United States (US)? Such a dramatic childhood and unusual upbringing certainly had quite a bit of influence on my later life. Initially, I didn’t know whether it was going to be good or bad – I just felt that I had a lot of ghosts. I was trying to set that period aside, forget about it and move on. But then when I became involved with business and assumed a leadership role, I was often asked the same question. It was really one of the motivations to write the book. One part was to write for the nobody that I once was, the other was to try and reflect on the past and see how it influenced my emotional response to events and decision making. When I look back, I think there are some personal skills I have developed in my life journey that became quite useful for entrepreneurship – for example, selflearning, adaptability to change and resilience. I think those are important characteristics that every entrepreneur possesses. As a child, you were sent to work in factories around Nanjing – did this formative period influence your subsequent commitment to manufacturing? It was certainly a strong influence in starting Geomagic, though at the time I may not have recognized it. It was more in my sub-conscious. But I wanted to combine technology with hand craftsmanship or manufacturing. I later realized the reason was because they were the two fields I knew – one I grew up doing and the other I had been working on for the 15 years prior to starting the company. But my commitment does not only stem from my background, but also from an understanding that manufacturing creates jobs and is the backbone of a country’s economy. I’ve been working in the digital field long enough to have grasped that technology is just a tool – we don’t eat e-food, we don’t sleep on e-beds and we don’t drive e-cars. So how can we bring manufacturing methods into the 21st century when so much new technology has been introduced in the information space?

How can we bring that into the product space?

‘I’ve been working in the digital field long enough to have grasped that technology is just a tool – we don’t eat e-food, we don’t sleep on e-beds and we don’t drive e-cars.’ You have described your vision in founding Geomagic as developing the concept of the ‘personal factory’ – can you explain what you mean? At the time, desktop publishing was at its peak and I had seen how music, paper, images and information went from analogue to digital. If I could take old-line manufacturing, combine it with new technologies and make it digital, what could the applications be? I came to the realization it would completely change the way we design and manufacture products. The product would be viewed as starting with you, the individual, not necessarily a market of millions. I believe that in the 21st century a company will succeed if it realizes it is catering to a customer of one and a global resource base of seven billion. So customers will get higher levels of individualized products and services enabled by the global connectivity of the Internet. And products coming down from assembly lines will not all have to be the same – each one can be different. China is often blamed in the West for killing local manufacturing, yet you are a Chinese immigrant in the West speaking about a future ‘democratization’ of manufacturing – it’s an interesting paradox. THEGLOBALJOURNAL.NET 11

In the future, many of the products we design will be based in software code, with the manufacturing itself far simpler than what it is today. The resources or capital required to launch a new venture are presently very substantial, so it is hard for individuals to make products that can be introduced around the world. But in the future I think there will be many more small and mediumsized companies in your neighborhood that will be able to create products that tap the local culture, draw on nature or serve you directly. These products will be fabricated locally even if they are designed globally. It is the reverse of what we do today. Today we design a product in the US, then send it to China for manufacturing before shipping it back. In the future, Chinese people will design things that are concretely Chinese, and Americans will design things that are very American. But if someone wants a Chinese product in the US it will be fabricated locally, not shipped across a sea. It is not that different from publishing. In a publishing industry that is democratized and digital, what is important is the content. What you write is totally unique, but can be printed locally by the person that reads it. It does not need to be shipped to China to be printed. That would be completely inefficient – we cannot imagine that in publishing anymore. But we are doing that in manufacturing, which is crazy. I can see some very standard, cheap, one size fits all screws and fasteners being made in lowcost countries, but I do not see most products being made that way in the future. You are also a member of President Obama’s National Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship – is the US the magnet it once was for budding entrepreneurs, or are we witnessing a ‘globalization’ of innovation? I think innovation now happens globally. Asia is very active in entrepreneurship and innovation, European countries too. At the same time, the US policy environment is still more supportive for entrepreneurship and there is better infrastructure to help people get started. But I certainly see it

GLOBAL VOICES © JONATHAN FREDIN

as a global phenomenon, not just a US phenomenon. And I also believe that if the US wants to remain in a leading position, then it needs to remove barriers and truly believe in and foster innovation. What do you think are the major barriers to innovation in the US? I think the strong focus of US public companies on quarterly earnings is a big issue, because for CEOs facing the pressure of quarterly reporting, innovation is not a short-term effect, it is a long-term effect. The average reign of a CEO in an American company is five years. If you start to focus on innovation or risk-taking, your stock price will most likely decrease. You are also not allowed to make mistakes. And we all know that you need to test lots of different ideas to find one good one.

So I think the US economic system – especially for larger companies – is not conducive to innovation, especially applied innovation. You were there at the moment when the Internet became a truly popular phenomenon, and then a witness to the boom and bust of the dot.com bubble – what is your perspective on today’s tech world? I think the tech world is still very active, but there are some barriers preventing more companies evolving to the level where they are built to last. In today’s environment, most tech companies are funded by venture capitalists, who remain for a few years and then want to exit. In the 1990s, you could go public, consolidate and move forward. But now it is very difficult – or makes no sense – to go public unless you are likely to THE GLOBAL JOURNAL + MARCH & APRIL 2013 12

reach a $100 million valuation. There are very few tech companies that can cross that chasm, because it is simply a much more conservative environment. The so-called ‘big four’ [Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon] are really anomalies. Most normal companies struggle from start-up to grown up and I hope something will change. There are a number of anecdotes in the book that illustrate the male-dominance of this world in its early stages – has much changed since? Unfortunately, the proportion of women working in the tech world has not grown. The number is still very low, even though female participation in the workforce overall has increased. It is an issue I’ve been very actively involved in, because in the coming years a female

GLOBAL VOICES workforce will be a smart workforce. One of my beliefs, which I think many people have also pointed out, is that we need to start young. We need to begin educating girls when they are in elementary school and middle school. Once they move into the workforce it might be a little too late. Being a woman in technology can be lonely, because sometimes you may be the only one and not feel like you have sufficient peers. Also, too few women in general means there are likewise too few women in management or senior management positions. That can discourage female employees as well. I remember talking to my daughter when she was in middle school – she is now a freshman in college studying maths and physics – and she would pretend she was not smart, because being good at maths in middle school is not cool or attractive. I talked to her and asked what I could do to help young girls not feel that way. What could I say to them that would help them to understand that being smart is just part of you – that there is nothing wrong with that? And how could I encourage them to study maths and science? She said, “Mom, it’s not what you say, it’s who you are – if they don’t want to be you, nothing you say matters.” That was a very profound statement to me. I became very conscious of embracing being a woman and showing that women in technology could have great jobs – that we are fun people, not the nerds being portrayed in Hollywood movies. Growing up, young girls read fashion magazines and watch films. There are no positive depictions of female scientists in the media. So at a very young age, girls decide “I don’t want to be that person.” We do not attract them to be us. We just do not have enough women out there as true role models. In the book, you describe your return to China in 1993 and how a “social purity” had been replaced by a spirit of commercialism – do you still believe this to be the case? China has progressed a lot. I cannot even recognize the country today as the China I lived in. When I first returned, China was just at the beginning of an evolution – it had drastically changed

its ideology and it was also me who had spent years holding on to the old China. There was a conflict there in terms of what I wanted to see and what China had begun to transform into. But today’s China is far more mature than in the early 1990s when I first returned. It is now much more similar to Western society in relation to how entrepreneurship is encouraged and how businesses are run. In fact it is a lot easier to set up business in China than in Japan, because the system is so similar to the US.

‘I have come to the realization that my 25-year experience in China does not define China – it just happened to coincide with the darkest period in the countr y’s moder n era.’ China is a big country and has such a huge influence today on the rest of the world. It also has such a long history. I have come to the realization that my 25-year experience in China does not define China – it just happened to coincide with the darkest period in the country’s modern era. I am very happy to see China change and I also have a lot of hope for the current generation of leadership, which is my own generation. Many of those leaders went through the Cultural Revolution just as I did. So those are all very encouraging signs. China still has a lot of issues – including migration and corruption. More generally though, Chinese people have still not arrived at democracy, or freedom of speech or freedom of thought. Much of the thinking that I see from China is still imbued with that sense of a one-party state. Given what you have achieved in your career, has the regime ever THEGLOBALJOURNAL.NET 13

reached out to you as an expatriate success story? No, they have never reached out to me. I was a nobody to them then, and I am still a nobody to them now. I think my book may cause some controversy in China. I don’t know yet, but I can already see – not only with the government, but also with the people – that they simply do not like a book where the ‘life in two worlds’ happens to reflect the life I had in China as a counterpoint to the life I then built in the US. But that is just my life. I am not here to attack China. I was trying to use the experiences of my youth to support who I am today and to inspire people to deal with atrocities or overcome life challenges. But I can already see personal attacks twisting all kinds of facts. The book is obviously very personal – was the decision to reveal some of those very intimate experiences driven by the aim to inspire people through your story? I originally started trying to write a business book, not a memoir. Then I decided that for the business book to be helpful, it would be useful for readers to see where my thoughts and decisions came from. Of course, as we have already discussed, a lot of insights can be drawn from my early life. So I thought I would use my early life to back up the business story. When I started writing, however, the voice was just not right, because it felt more like a self-help book. At the time, one of my friends asked, “if there’s only one person you’re addressing this book to, who would it be?” And I said my daughter, no question. He replied, “remember this, when you’re stuck, think about her.” So when I disliked the self-help feel, I thought about that advice. If I were to write this book for my daughter, what kind of voice would I want it to convey? The answer was a very personal, inclusive voice, because a mother-daughter relationship is so tricky. You would not want to write a self-help book for your daughter. With a memoir of course, you can decide what to include and what to take out – for example, getting raped. I was very reluctant to put that in, but then I knew in China this particular issue

GLOBAL VOICES is very taboo and is always suppressed. If you speak out, you become a victim. With a population four times larger than the US, there are twelve times less petitions being filed in China for sexual assault. And in a country that has a huge gender difference – 20 percent more men than women, sometimes up to 30 percent in villages – it just does not add up. In Beijing, a city of 20 million people, there is only one hotline for sexual abuse cases. If you file a petition, the government does not really pay much attention. It takes years, most times you are ignored and family and friends will put pressure on you because they feel ashamed. Your future will be destroyed. So rape is certainly a taboo topic that no one wants to speak about in China. Women do not have a voice there when it comes to this subject. But I have a voice now and I felt like I should use it to speak on their behalf.

‘A memoir takes courage to decide to write – I always said that big success and big failure come hand in hand.’ A memoir takes courage to decide to write – I always said that big success and big failure come hand in hand. A book like this will cause me some personal pain. But in the end, I decided this was the generous thing to do. Geomagic was recently acquired by 3D Systems and your role is set to change – why did you choose this moment and what does it signal for the next stage in your entrepreneurial journey? Well if it were totally up to me, I would rather not sell the company – put it that way. I have two venture capital investors in Geomagic – one has been there for more than ten years, the other for five years – and they wanted to exit. Plus, 3D Systems and Geomagic have been in a very similar space for many years.

I know them very well and feel that right now 3D printing is at its take-off point. 3D Systems has the vision of content to print, and I said earlier that I believe content is the most important thing for manufacturing, because in the future design will be part of software code. I feel this is the right time to join forces and really democratize on-demand manufacturing. It does not have to just be additive, it can also encompass other advanced manufacturing techniques. There are very few software companies that focus on on-demand manufacturing. I have had this grandiose goal and a belief that I could build a company to last. With today’s environment, I cannot go public and I do not have the business platform to really realize such a wide scale vision. 3D Systems provides me with a different platform to take what I believe will fundamentally change design and manufacturing to the next level. How far away do you think we are from 3D printing becoming something that touches the lives of a mass public? The very first 3D object was printed 30 years ago by Chuck Hull, founder of 3D Systems. I would say that 30 years does not equate to speculation – 30 years makes a movement. According to surveys in the US, the average transformative turnaround point for a company came after 28 years. So even just from the statistics and historical data, if a company survives for 30 years then they become a leader. They become the first-mover, the top dog of the industry. You know something is coming – it is maybe five years in the making. So in terms of when this democratization might happen, my prediction is that in three to five years we will see far more impact on our daily life as a result of 3D printing. But I think on a whole, on-demand manufacturing is going to be more impactful, with 3D printing as just one method. 3D printing is not going to take over the world and supersede all methods of manufacturing. What will change is more innovation in supply chains. Consumers will become ‘prosumers’ – consumers and producers at the same time. Those things will happen. People sometimes like to ask THE GLOBAL JOURNAL + MARCH & APRIL 2013 14

me “when will a 3D printer be common in average households?” Within five years, they will be present in a lot of homes.

‘Maybe in the future we are going to talk about Earth and Mars, rather than China and the US.’ You mention a number of times in the book that as a girl you dreamt of being an astronaut – with private space travel now a reality do you still want to experience this final frontier? Yes, I still do! I am fascinated with space travel. My daughter is also fascinated with the Mars landing and the ‘multiverse’ concept. I like to say that we now truly live in one world, given global connectivity is so high. Maybe in the future we are going to talk about Earth and Mars, rather than China and the US.

BEND NOT BREAK: A LIFE IN TWO WORLDS PING FU PORTFOLIO £12.99

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13.12.12 17:26

GLOBAL VOICES ÂŠ UN PHOTO/JEAN-MARC FERRE

Socially Sustainable Globalization. JOHN RUGGIE BERTHOLD BEITZ PROFESSOR IN HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY BY ALEXIS KALAGAS

An award-winning political scientist specializing in the role of international regimes, John Ruggie was appointed in 2005 by then United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, to be the first ever Special Representative for Business and Human Rights. His most recent book, Just Business, tells the story of how he developed a road map for responsible corporate practices that forged a path beyond the prevailing civil society-business stalemate and is now at the heart of a powerful transformation protecting individuals and communities worldwide. THE GLOBAL JOURNAL + MARCH & APRIL 2013 16

GLOBAL VOICES How did you come to assume the role of Special Representative for Business and Human Rights in the first place? Just unlucky, I guess. My mandate was adopted by what was then the United Nations (UN) Commission of Human Rights and is now the Human Rights Council, which asked the SecretaryGeneral to find a mandate holder. The background was an initiative called the Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises With Regard to Human Rights, which came out of the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. They started drafting a treaty-like instrument in the late 1990s and reported it for the first time to the full Commission in 2003. It did not meet with approval by governments, while businesses were vehemently opposed on the grounds that – to use their words – this was privatizing the protection of human rights by transferring duties to companies that properly belonged to states. It was not going anywhere, but enough governments still felt the issue of business and human rights was sufficiently important to be kept on the agenda. So it came about that the Commission adopted a mandate for what they called a ‘special procedure.’ But to increase its visibility, they wanted it to be a ‘special representative’ of the Secretary-General, and so they asked Kofi Annan, who was SecretaryGeneral at the time, to appoint the mandate holder. I had worked fulltime for Kofi during his first term as Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Planning and he asked me to do this largely on the grounds that it was a highly sensitive and politicized issue. He needed somebody, therefore, who did not represent any of the particular constituencies, but had experience working with each of them. In the book, you relate how at the outset of your mandate a stalemate existed between advocates of ‘voluntary’ versus ‘mandatory’ approaches to regulating the conduct of multinational companies – how did this shape the way you approached your role?

Human rights organizations – by and large – had been advocating for some sort of an international treaty. That is, a comprehensive legal instrument that would govern the human rights conduct of multinational corporations. On the other hand, the business community felt that what was needed were voluntary initiatives guided by the identification and dissemination of best practices. My response to the first position was that the magnitude of what the advocacy groups were asking for – simply in conceptual terms, let alone political terms – was well beyond the capacity of anyone to deliver due to the many issues and legal areas involved. From corporate law, which is different in different jurisdictions, to investment law, securities regulation and labor laws. You are highly unlikely to find enough agreement amongst states to lump all of those various dimensions into a single global legal instrument that would be in the least bit meaningful – so, chuck that. On the other side, I essentially said that while voluntary initiatives have made a significant contribution and are something to build on, in my own experience working with them and studying them they had not yet reached any kind of scale. None had truly moved markets. So what I suggested was needed was to drive greater authoritative guidance into the current system that fell short of international law, but went beyond a free-for-all of voluntarism. You also describe how there was initially significant resistance within the NGO sector to your mandate – how hard was it to bring civil society around? I think they were a little taken aback at the beginning because I did not fall into the normal methodology and language of your typical human rights defender. But what I had said all along was that the topic of business and human rights was new, it was different, it was extraordinarily complex and we needed to develop new and different approaches. I think over time NGOs saw the uptake of this. They saw the widespread support from governments, international institutions, businesses themselves, people in communities affected by corporate activities and THEGLOBALJOURNAL.NET 17

the support I enjoyed from the very beginning within the international union movement. That was also critical. So I think NGOs came on board as time went on, although at first they did not quite know what to make of me. You begin the book by looking at some emblematic cases involving actors like Nike, Shell and Yahoo, showing how each became corporate social responsibility (CSR) leaders in their sectors following well-publicized controversies – does most progress occur in this way, or have other companies quietly improved standards voluntarily? One of the earliest research projects I undertook as part of the mandate was a survey of the Fortune Global 500. One of the questions I asked was if you as a company have human rights elements in your policies and practices, were they a reaction to a specific incident, or did they come about through other means? Roughly half of the respondents said they had not faced a specific incident themselves, which could mean a number of things: that their staff had greater foresight, or that somebody in the company looked at one of their competitors and said, “there but for the grace of God go we – let’s learn from their mistakes.” I don’t know exactly what had motivated this other group, but only about half of businesses overall said that they had responded to a specific incident. In your view, how critical has civil society been in establishing an environment in which companies have become more receptive to the idea of their own social responsibility? I think the whole CSR movement is in part a reflection of the commitment and involvement of civil society organizations. It was the early and ongoing reporting by NGOs on allegations of corporate abuse that brought this to the attention of the international community in the first place – and continues to do so. As in all social reform over the course of history, civil society has played a critical role in drawing attention to the need to develop – both on the part of companies and on the part of states – adequate

GLOBAL VOICES means to respond to these challenges. So I think they have played a critical role in identifying the issues and placing them on the global agenda. Civil society organizations do not necessarily always have the right answers for how best to deal with the issue of business and human rights, but in terms of awareness raising and their commitment to giving voice to victims, their role is indispensable. With the advent of new forms of social entrepreneurship, it can appear the tide has turned and the future is one where social responsibility will be embedded in the fundamental missions of businesses – has CSR had its moment? What I see are two different strains of CSR. One relates to managing the risk of doing harm. The other relates to opportunities for creating shared value. The two are not in contradiction to one another; they are just two different dimensions of CSR as it has evolved over time. My mandate was concerned primarily with strategies for mitigating harm. But at the same time, as you point out, there has been significant progress in identifying opportunities for creating shared value, where a business discovers through one means or another that it can make positive contributions to society and positive contributions to its own bottom line. I do not think that is limited to small firms. Unilever, with its Sustainable Living Plan, is a leading example of an attempt by the third largest consumer products company in the world to try and develop a new business model – literally a new model, not just a CSR strategy – based on the possibility of creating shared value. What was the rationale behind the ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ framework and Guiding Principles you developed during your mandate? And how do these tools function collectively? Well, it was a six-year process. Initially, the mandate was very modest – I was asked to identify and clarify the status quo. At the end of two years the Human Rights Council said, “this was great, thank you, now would you spend another year and come back and make some recommendations.” I came back

a year later and said I only had one recommendation – namely, that the Council adopt the ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ framework. They welcomed it unanimously and then asked if I would spend three more years of my life operationalizing it – that is, developing more specific guidance on how the framework could be put into action. The framework addresses what should be done and the Guiding Principles address how those things should be done. That is the division of labor between the two.

‘The state duty to protect is the bedrock of the inter national human rights regime as we know it today, it just had not been clearly articulated what it implied in relation to businesses.’ One of the problems with the Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises With Regard to Human Rights – the earlier initiative I mentioned – was that it intermingled the respective responsibilities of states and companies, so that at the end of the day you did not know who was responsible for what. One of the things that clearly needed to be done was to establish the independent duties of states, and the independent responsibilities of companies. That led to the distinction between the ‘protect’ and ‘respect’ pillars. Under international human rights law, states take on obligations when they ratify treaties. These obligations mean that states, or agents of states, do not violate human rights, and secondly, that states take steps to ensure those within their jurisdiction enjoy those rights. This means states are required to protect THE GLOBAL JOURNAL + MARCH & APRIL 2013 18

against third party violations of human rights. Third parties include businesses. The state duty to protect is the bedrock of the international human rights regime as we know it today, it just had not been clearly articulated what that implied in relation to businesses. So the state duty to protect pillar lays out what is implied legally – and logically – by the obligations states have undertaken. The corporate responsibility to respect human rights should not be linked to whether governments are doing the right thing or not. It ought to be independent. The independent responsibility that companies have under the framework is to not infringe on the rights of others as they go about their business. The second pillar is linked to the whole idea of undertaking adequate human rights due diligence to ensure you have identified and remedied potential or actual adverse impacts. The third pillar addresses what is widely referred to as the right to a remedy. If you are the individual that human rights law is designed to protect, it does not do you much good if you do not have remedies in the event harm is done. And harm will be done even in the best-managed systems. So the third pillar lays out both non-judicial and judicial steps that states and companies should take to provide access to effective remedies to those that have been harmed. You suggest in the book that conflict zones are the biggest gap in the link between globalization and governance – why is this and what can be done? Let me take you back to an earlier part of our discussion about legal instruments. My issue with the legal instruments question was that it is inconceivable to establish a legal framework that will encompass all business and human rights challenges. But I have certainly felt – and said – all along that there are specific areas within which greater legal clarity and perhaps an international legal instrument would be welcome. One is in the area of conflict zones, because nobody can pretend that it is possible to make the human rights regime work as it was intended in the middle of a civil war or where a country does not control a

GLOBAL VOICES certain territory within its borders and there is no law and order. The home governments of corporations need to step up more in those circumstances – that involves the extraterritorial application of law, which is generally not welcome, but has to be welcomed when there is no other law that could possibly be effective on the ground. The extraterritorial application of law is easier to achieve if it is in conformity with some agreed international norms. Therefore, I welcomed and advocated consideration of an international legal instrument that would address the particular situation in conflict zones, and on the basis of which both home states and neighboring states could undertake more robust measures than they would normally be willing to. Another key issue relates to the arrival of a new set of multinational companies from emerging economies, which compared to the ‘vanguard’ do not really face the same domestic pressures to comply with human rights standards – how do you see broader global economic trends impacting business conduct in the future? Well, you are right that in some cases they do not face the same kinds of domestic constraints – whether from investors because the state is the investor, or from society. But where they do face similar constraints is in their overseas operations. You see issues emerging with Chinese companies operating in Africa or Latin America, for example, where communities have developed expectations over time of company conduct, including stakeholder engagement and consultation. Just because a Chinese company has bought out an operation that was owned by a Canadian mining company, lets say, the communities still have those same expectations. So the Chinese company on the ground has to learn very quickly what those expectations are and how to manage them. The on the ground learning proceeds a lot faster than the pace with which lessons are assimilated back home in the capitals, but certainly the message gets sent back: “hey wait a minute, we can’t do things here the way we’ve done them in the past because there

are different expectations we’re being held to.”

‘You see issues emerging with Chinese companies operating in Africa or Latin America, for example, where communities have developed expectations over time of company conduct, including stakeholder engagement and consultation.’ Is there a difference in that case between the kinds of human rights issues encountered by companies in the extractive industries, versus companies like Nike being scrutinized on the basis of labor standards and global supply chains?

not in the same place on the learning curve, and that is obviously a challenge. But at the same time, they would not have received me if there had been no interest. They were not forced to meet with me. At the conclusion of the book you refer to the idea of “socially sustainable globalization” – what do you mean by this? Well, my mandate did not address environmental issues because it was not empowered to do so, but climate change and climate justice are extremely important components of a socially sustainable globalization. In the case of my mandate, however, what I essentially was arguing is that if you do not have in place adequate policies – whether you are a government or business – to manage the adverse human rights impacts of corporate activity, you are going to breed resistance, you are going to breed backlash, you are going to breed protectionism and you are going to breed populism. At the end of the day, that is not much help to either the protection of human rights, or the expansion and deepening of global markets.

No, I think where the difference really comes in is in relation to certain civil and political rights, for instance in the case of Internet service providers. There you have a clear dispute between what a certain country’s preferences are with regards to rights of privacy and freedom of speech and the desire of others to censor and control information flow. It is a clear-cut difference. I do not think the differences are as stark in supply chain issues with regards to labor, or in terms of extractive industries. Because in both cases what you are talking about are basic economic, social and cultural rights. I spent a fair amount of time in Latin America and in Asia meeting with both government officials and company representatives. It is a time lag issue and a learning curve issue. They were THEGLOBALJOURNAL.NET 19

JUST BUSINESS: MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS AND HUMAN RIGHTS JOHN RUGGIE W. W. NORTON & COMPANY $24.95

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OPEN VOICES LUKAS MASEKO, WHOSE FARM HAS BEEN AVERSELY AFFECTED BY NEARBY COALMINING ACTIVITIES IN MPUMALANGA PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA. © UN PHOTO/GILL FICKLING

Africa’s Mineral Wealth: Eternally Cursed? BY CAROLINE KENDE-ROBB + EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AFRICA PROGRESS PANEL

frica’s so-called ‘resource curse’ is a paradox that has endured. How is it that states enjoying a rich bounty in oil, gas or minerals can end up with worse economic growth and poorer development outcomes than many countries without this natural advantage? The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) may be mineral-rich, for example, but it sits at the very bottom of the United Nations (UN) Human Development Index at 187th, while oilrich Nigeria accounted for a scandalous 11 percent of the world’s deaths in 2010 for children under five years old.

Much has been written about this phenomenon, whereby natural resources disrupt an economy and create incentives for wide-scale corruption and even conflict. The effects of the resource curse need not, however, be viewed as inevitable. Political choice is key. Botswana – a frequently cited example – used its mineral wealth to develop into a stable, middle-income country. More recent producers such as Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone appear to be making good governance decisions so far. It is an exciting moment for the region. Emerging markets, especially THEGLOBALJOURNAL.NET 21

China, continue to ramp up demand for the continent’s commodities, offering a once in a millennium opportunity for African governments – whose resource endowments, after all, are finite – to lift millions of people out of poverty. From Ghana in the west, to Uganda and Mozambique, African leaders have critical choices to make about how best to manage their countries’ non-renewable resources. The international community, big business and civil society must also assume responsibility. Transparency

– essentially the transparency of contractual arrangements struck between governments and extractive industry companies – and accountability are critical. The most practical and credible form of becoming ‘transparent’ – a deceptively complex notion – is the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Being ‘EITI compliant’ means a government explains clearly and openly the revenues flowing from its extractive sector so that any party can see how much the country in question receives from oil, gas and mining companies. So far, ten African governments have been judged compliant. In 2010, for instance, Nigeria became one of the first countries to achieve this status.

Greater transparency around Nigeria’s oil accounts has placed a spotlight on deficiencies and corruption, while triggering vibrant public debate. This has not been sufficient in itself for Nigerians to benefit immediately. But it does mark the beginning of a process that will ultimately allow more citizens to share in their country’s oil revenues, worth more than $50 billion in 2011 alone. To date, 72 of the world’s largest oil, gas and mining corporations have chosen to become EITI supporting companies.

terms will inevitably improve. With little experience of the extractive sector until recently, many states have found it difficult to negotiate with major international companies enjoying decades of accumulated practical knowledge. Most deals have traditionally delivered unfair benefits to big business. When contracts are published online, however, observers have the opportunity to highlight inequitable financial deals or insufficient provision for the protection of the environment or human rights.

Despite resistance from some quarters, transparency has strong benefits for all stakeholders. Host governments win because when they make contracts available for critical analysis, the

At the same time, private sector actors also win due to the way transparency builds trust and long-term stability. As oil, gas and minerals become harder to reach, projects increase in duration and

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OPEN VOICES become more expensive. In the process, this multiplies a project’s exposure to political risk. In Nigeria, failure to build trust with the Ogoni people led to theft, violence and pipeline damage. Contract transparency can be critical to building confidence at a local level.

‘With little experience of the extractive sector until recently, many states have found it difficult to negotiate with major inter national companies enjoying decades of accumulated practical knowledge.’ Finally, the international community wins because long-term social and political stability means a secure supply of important commodities – essential to the smooth functioning of our global economy. Clearly, real life is more complex. Individual leaders or ministers do not always act in their government’s best interests. Some companies still win business by paying bribes. The international community may have more pressing priorities. And perhaps unsurprisingly, we still see resistance to greater openness and accountability. The American Petroleum Institute, a United States (US) based lobby group, is pushing back against new regulations. Some G8 and G20 countries – such as Canada, Russia and Australia – could do more to enforce contract transparency. Most notably, by shepherding through legislation requiring companies headquartered in these jurisdictions to be more open about their offshore business activities.

Similarly, some non-G20 countries – such as Switzerland – could likewise have a greater influence if they enforced higher levels of transparency from major commodity traders like Glencore and Trafigura. But the situation is clearly shifting. Liberia’s 2009 EITI Act requires the public disclosure of all resources contracts, which are uploaded in full on a specially-created website. Sierra Leone, Sao Tome & Principe and Guinea have all embedded contract transparency requirements in oil or mining sector legislation. The DRC has made the country’s most important petroleum contracts publicly available. Meanwhile, executives at Rio Tinto and Newmont have spoken out in favor of contract disclosure. The International Council on Mining and Metals, which includes 17 of the largest mining companies globally, requires that its members “engage constructively in appropriate forums” to improve transparency. Recent regulation in the US and European Union is similarly cause for optimism. Meanwhile, a host of related issues will also be critical if Africa’s diverse populations are to benefit from the continent’s latent resource wealth. Firstly, quality of contracts is key. The DRC received just €100,000 from mineral rights in 2006 – a tiny amount compared with the €760 million estimated value of its exports annually. Capacity to negotiate with major extractive companies may be critical to a country’s success. This is not just about having the best lawyers, but also about enjoying equal access to key information. For instance, do both sides have a joint understanding of the available geological data? Equally, while business may be primarily interested in negotiating over revenues, a government must also consider the social and environmental impacts of an extractive project. How will a company manage pollution and waste? How will it clean up at the conclusion of the project? How will it take care of the local environment? Secondly, economic diversification is a preferable route to job creation. Nigeria and Angola, sub-Saharan Africa’s two largest oil producers, have THEGLOBALJOURNAL.NET 23

hardly made a dent in their poverty levels since beginning to produce substantial quantities of oil. More than half of Nigeria’s 160 million people still live on less than $2 per day. With the world’s fastest growing population from a regional perspective, Africa must generate jobs quickly in order to prevent youth unemployment from rising. Indeed, this may represent the most significant threat to political stability.

‘The oil, gas and mining sectors are notoriously poor when it comes to job creation.’ The oil, gas and mining sectors are notoriously poor when it comes to job creation. An offshore platform tapping deep-sea reserves will create few, if any, positions for locals. Only recently, protests were reported outside Rio Tinto’s QMM mineral sands operation in the south of Madagascar due to high local unemployment. The best way to convert natural resource wealth into jobs is to take the proceeds and invest in other, more labor-intensive industries such as agriculture or manufacturing. Finally, governments must also figure out how else to benefit from natural resource projects underway on their territory. Is an oil company shipping food for its employees from London, or is it buying from local farmers? When a mining venture builds a railway to transport precious ore, can nearby populations use that infrastructure too? These and other issues will be discussed in a report to be prepared by the Africa Progress Panel, a ten-member group chaired by former UN SecretaryGeneral, Kofi Annan. The report will contain a series of policy proposals on how Africa’s mineral wealth can better benefit current and future generations. Africa has many lessons to offer drawn from the experience of its oil, gas and mining sectors. There is no reason why the continent’s citizens should not capitalize on the value of these commodities. The resource curse should be a relic of the past.

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FEATURE

WOMEN TRAVEL BY TRACTOR TO PINK GANG DAY CELEBRATIONS IN FATEHPUR IN FEBRUARY 2011. THE GLOBAL JOURNAL + MARCH & APRIL 2013 26

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The Pink Face Of Indian Vigilantism. TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMANA FONTANELLA-KHAN

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FEATURE SAMPAT PAL, FOUNDER AND SELF-APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE PINK GANG.

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FEATURE WOMEN GATHER TO LISTEN TO A SERIES OF INSPIRING TALKS BY PINK GANG LEADERS.

The horrific gang-rape of a 23 year-old physiology student in a moving bus shortly after nightfall on December 16 in New Delhi has laid bare the failure of the Indian state to carry out one of its most basic duties: the protection of its female citizens. With the silence surrounding sexual violence pierced, mass protests have focused on the deficiency of official justice processes. In the northwestern state of Uttar Pradesh, meanwhile, a growing group of female vigilantes had already begun to take the law into their own hands.

ttar Pradesh, with a population matching that of Brazil, is considered India’s wild west and has been written off as “lawless” by the central government. Despite being run from 2007 to 2012 by Kumari Mayawati, a lower-caste woman, the state has remained a dangerous place to be female – feudal rape is widespread and lower-caste women remain the most vulnerable to sexual violence. It is in a bandit-plagued region of Uttar Pradesh called Bundelkhand, located in the southwest of the state, that one

of the world’s most successful women’s vigilante organizations, the Gulabi Gang – known as the Pink Gang in English – is based. The group, which is named after its distinctive hot-pink sari uniforms and pink-painted bamboo sticks, formed in 2006 and is now reported to number 20,000 women. That is, double the size of the Irish Army and eight times the estimated number of al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. The founder and self-appointed Commander-in-Chief of the gang, THEGLOBALJOURNAL.NET 29

Sampat Pal, is an illiterate woman who was married off at the age of 12 and bore the first of her five children at the age of 15. Despite her humble background, Pal’s spartan tworoom office in the dusty town of Atarra sees a steady flow of people arriving from sunrise to sunset with problems ranging from domestic violence and rape, to crimes like ‘dowry deaths’ – a widespread phenomenon whereby brides who do not offer a high enough dowry after marriage are murdered by in-laws seeking more money.