All posts tagged Organization of American States

Climate Change: Creating Spaces for Action

Pacchanta women with Ausangate Glacier in the background. Photo credit: Oxfam International / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Pacchanta women with Ausangate Glacier in the background. Photo credit: Oxfam International / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Organization of American States (OAS) has resolved to strengthen its role in addressing climate change, but it has yet to demonstrate that it can convene Latin American countries around this urgent issue.  Participants at a recent OAS roundtable agreed that Latin American leaders have moved beyond debating the existence of climate change and are now focused on mitigating its immediate and future effects.  Of primary concern are the potentially devastating economic consequences of climate change for the region, which the Inter-American Development Bank estimates will reach $100 billion per year by 2050 – severely jeopardizing national economies that are currently growing at a healthy rate.  Based on recent climate change reports and initiatives, the potential of a looming transnational cataclysm is driving a sense of urgency for action within an effective regional framework.

Within the consensus for action, there will be competing priorities.  Climate change presents different challenges to different parts of Latin America and the Caribbean.  In Peru, for example, a major concern is glacier melt in the Andes, which affects fresh water resources, agricultural irrigation, and sustainable urban development.  This has created a need not only for new dams and reservoirs to redirect water, but also for managing internal social conflicts generated by an increasing scarcity of basic resources.  In the Caribbean, where tourism revenue represents the greatest proportion of the regional economy (14 percent of GDP), the top priority is managing the triple threat of rising sea levels, the loss of coastal livelihoods, and intensifying weather conditions.  And in Brazil, as Evan Berry highlighted here recently, deforestation, carbon markets and land use, among other concerns, need to be addressed.

The OAS would appear to be the logical forum to address these issues and provide a negotiating framework regarding climate change.  On recent non-environmental issues, however, the OAS has struggled to coordinate actions and lost prestige among many in Latin America.  The OAS response toward Honduras following the 2009 presidential coup was divisive and ultimately was end-run when the United States cut a deal with the coup regime.  The 2012 OAS assembly in Bolivia was plagued by persistent absenteeism of member states.  Washington has repeatedly pressed the OAS toward a more political agenda, especially pressing for condemnation of Venezuelan Presidents Chávez and Maduro, and has even threatened to suspend its contributions to the organization’s budget.  Insofar as the OAS is perceived as a U.S. proxy, its effectiveness on difficult issues with a north-south spin, like climate change, is undermined.  At the same time, the OAS is competing with other regional bodies, such as UNASUR and CELAC, and the region has raised its profile in international venues such as the 2010 alternative climate summit held in Bolivia after UN negotiations in Copenhagen failed.  With the UN’s 20th Conference of Parties (COP20) taking place in Lima in December 2014, Latin America will again be center stage during conversations on ways to strengthen and replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.  Should the OAS overcome its problems of effectiveness and image, and participate successfully in the current dialogue around climate change, this issue could redefine its existing agenda and give it relevance for years to come.

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by clalsstaff on June 23, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Regional Snapshot
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Posted by clalsstaff on June 23, 2014

https://aulablog.net/2014/06/23/climate-change-creating-spaces-for-action/

Revitalization of the OAS: More Than an Act of Congress

By Carlos Portales*

OAS logoU.S. Congressional passage in late September of the “Organization of American States Revitalization and Reform Act of 2013” could either help revitalize the troubled body or contribute to its irrelevance. By directing the U.S. Secretary of State to develop and drive OAS reform options, the bill seeks to give much higher priority in the OAS and Summit of the Americas to promoting and consolidating democracy in the hemisphere – “with due respect for the principle of nonintervention” – while recognizing that “key OAS strengths” are also in strengthening peace and security, assisting and monitoring elections, and fostering economic growth. Reducing “mandates” – ongoing programs that tend to get institutionalized – is another priority. The new law also requires Secretary Kerry to devise a strategy for a new fee structure in which no member state would pay more than 50 percent of OAS’s assessed yearly fees. (The U.S. Library of Congress reports that the United States, the organization’s largest donor, contributed an estimated $67.5 million in fiscal year 2012 – nearly 43 percent of the total 2012 budget.)

The reforms parallel ideas presented by OAS Secretary General Insulza in his “Strategic Vision of the OAS” on December 2011 (updated in March 2013) striving for concentration on four main pillars: democracy and conflict resolution; human rights; development (in association with the Inter-American Development Bank); and security (mainly against drugs and organized crime). He also advocated limiting a single state contribution to 49 percent without reducing the OAS’s total budget. The Secretary General embraced similar reforms when the legislation was first introduced by then-Senator Kerry in the previous Congress.

Agreement that the OAS needs reform is nearly universal, but any strategic transformation will have to take into account important developments among the Latin American international organizations. The OAS handily accommodated the creation of subregional organizations such as SICA and CARICOM in the past.  But new bodies – such as UNASUR, CELAC and ALBA – have posed new challenges to the organization’s relevance and effectiveness. Differences among the organizations have emerged over trade, democracy (different value attributed to the independence of powers and to press freedom, as well as of handling of crises in Venezuela, Honduras, and Paraguay), security (withdrawal of five countries from the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance), the strategy against drugs, and relations with the United States.  The organizations have also created new arenas for leaders to meet, at times taxing governments’ ability to keep up. From 1990 to 2012 there have been 272 Latin American regional and subregional summits, including eight Summits of the Americas.  When Secretary Kerry delivers his plan, it will be difficult for him to strike a balance between bringing the OAS more in line with Washington priorities, as laid out in the legislation, and seeking a bigger tent that addresses some of the concerns that gave rise to the plethora of competing organizations.

*Carlos Portales is the Director of the Program on International Organizations, Law and Diplomacy at WCL, American University. He was Ambassador of Chile to the OAS between 1997 to 2000.”

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by clalsstaff on October 28, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in United States
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Posted by clalsstaff on October 28, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/10/28/revitalization-of-the-oas-more-than-an-act-of-congress/

OAS Drug Report: Let’s Get Serious

The OAS Preparing their Report on the Drug Problem in the Americas | Photo credit: OEA - OAS | Foter.com | CC BY-NC-ND

The OAS Preparing their Report on the Drug Problem in the Americas | Photo credit: OEA – OAS | Foter.com | CC BY-NC-ND

The Organization of American States’ most recent report on the drug problem in the Americas – released last week in Bogotá – takes a fresh, analytical look at the issue and, by advocating discussion of new approaches, subtly signals the “war on drugs” so far has failed.  The report was mandated by hemispheric leaders last year at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, who “agreed on the need to analyze the results of the current policy in the Americas and to explore new approaches to strengthen this struggle and to become more effective.”  It takes an analytical approach toward drug-related problems in the hemisphere and includes a discussion of both the supply and demand factors of the drug trade.  (Click here to view the OAS documents.)

The report does not make bold policy recommendations.  It calls for greater attention to the public-health implications of the drug problem, but generally avoids advocating particular strategic solutions to the production, transportation and consumption of illegal narcotics, instead providing different scenarios for the evolution of the drug problem in the Americas.  It envisions the legalization of certain drugs, such as marijuana, in various countries, but makes clear that the OAS is not advocating legalization or decriminalization.  Instead, the report emphasizes the need for countries in the Western Hemisphere to work together to combat the drug problem and discuss new approaches.

The OAS’s unique status in the hemisphere – demands on its performance are high but support for its efforts  from key governments in the region is inconsistent – may not make it the best organization to take the lead on an issue as thorny as the “war on drugs.”  The increasingly clear consensus south of the Rio Grande is that the past couple decades of effort have been not been worth the cost in dollars and lost lives, and many Central Americans, in particular, believe the militarized approach has been disastrous.  Often criticized by U.S. politicians and bureaucrats, Secretary General Insulza was probably wise not to use the report to formalize the hemisphere’s rejection of Washington’s policies.  But moving the discussion to the analytical level – rather than parroting support for another Plan Colombia or Mérida Initiative – is a significant accomplishment in itself.  Rolling out the report in Bogotá, where talk of “new approaches” is also growing, probably helped strike the right balance between old and new.  In addition to platitudinous calls for regional cooperation, the OAS can demonstrate its leadership and relevance by channeling the criticism, the lessons learned, frustration with U.S. consumption, and regional governments’ prescriptions on the way ahead into a serious, constructive strategy for the hemisphere.  With this report, the OAS has indicated that it’s time to get serious about viable alternative solutions to this multi-faceted issue – and that clinging to old models and rejecting new ideas is no longer an acceptable response to calls for rethinking the “war on drugs.”

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by clalsstaff on May 28, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Central America, Colombia
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Posted by clalsstaff on May 28, 2013

https://aulablog.net/2013/05/28/oas-drug-report-lets-get-serious/

Whither the OAS?

 

Photo by: Photo by: Jose Miguel Insulza via http://www.flickr.com/photos/insulza/2561669250/

The OAS General Assembly in Bolivia this week underscored, yet again,the Organization of American States’s struggle for relevance in the hemisphere.  Only Presidents Correa and host President Morales showed up.  Secretary Clinton skipped the summit, and U.S. Assistant Secretary Jacobson didn’t even stay to deliver her own speech.  The ALBA countries, led by Venezuela, attacked two of the OAS’s defining initiatives, while the other members stood by.  Alleging the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights was biased in favor of the U.S. agenda, ALBA won a vote to discuss reform in the future.  Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua also announced their withdrawal from the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance.  Known as the Rio Treaty, the pact has enshrined the principle of mutual defense in hemispheric relations since 1947.

ALBA’s complaints about the OAS are not new, and neither are Washington’s.  The House Committee on Foreign Affairs voted to zero out U.S. funding for the OAS in July 2011, when several Congressman called the OAS “an enemy of the U.S. and an enemy to the interests of freedom and security” and claimed it was “bent on destroying democracy in Latin America.”  The Obama Administration did not come to the organization’s defense, and, as in the past, the OAS appeared passive, apparently calculating that the storms would blow over.

The South Americans will be happy to fill the void with their counter to the OAS – the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which explicitly excludes the United States and Canada.  But CELAC lacks infrastructure and funding and, so far, has mostly been a forum for speeches.  Brazil’s position will be key.  Although probably bemused by the decline in U.S. and OAS influence in the region, Brazil may nonetheless see advantage in reviving – and reforming – the OAS as a buffer for working out north-south and even south-south differences.

Click here for additional information from CLALS’s “Hemisphere in Flux” initiative, an ongoing research program on the future of Inter-American affairs, conducted in partnership with Brazil’s Institute Nacional de Estudos dos Estados Unidos (INEU) and the Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones Economicas y Sociales (CRIES) .

 

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by clalsstaff on June 11, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Regional Snapshot
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Posted by clalsstaff on June 11, 2012

https://aulablog.net/2012/06/11/wither-the-oas/

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