All posts tagged Regional Relations

OAS Secretary General’s Third Way Stumbles

By Stefano Palestini Céspedes*

34627298223_325ea7fb41_k

Luis Almagro, OAS Secretary General, at the first day of General Assembly in Cancún, June 2017. / Juan Manuel Herrera / OAS / Flickr / Creative Commons

OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro’s effort to drive the organization’s actions on Venezuela through international mobilization appears to have run its course without success during the recent General Assembly.  From the outset, Almagro faced the tough dilemma of what to do when OAS members did not want to fulfill their commitments and were reluctant to invoke the Inter-American Democratic Charter against the Venezuelan government.  As in most international organizations, the OAS Secretary General does not have strong authority to enforce its legal instruments and essentially had two options to cope with the dilemma:

  • To admit his lack of authority – and thereby signal to the world that the organization’s commitments, such as the Democratic Charter, are not credible. In the international system, there are plenty such non-credible and non-enforceable commitments, ranging from the EU Treaty (Article 7) to the Kyoto Protocol.
  • To use his limited powers to persuade member states from within – persuading national representatives to take action. This approach risks to be perceived from outside as inaction.  If persuasion succeeds and member states decide to enforce their commitments, the credit will most likely go to the member state playing the role of leader, and not to the institution.

Faced with Venezuelan President Maduro’s rejection of the OAS’s good offices and with member states’ preference to assign diplomatic leadership to UNASUR (over which Maduro had influence), Almagro chose a third way:  to drive OAS internal processes by pressing member states from outside via international public mobilization.  Through a series of actions in his own name – issuing reports, statements, and posts on social networks – Almagro called the attention of the international community and media to the OAS’s naming and shaming of Venezuela.  By doing so, he indirectly raised the cost of inaction of member states reluctant to take a strong stand.  Maduro’s increasingly undemocratic behavior, and the election of new governments in some key states, particularly Argentina and the United States, improved the odds of success.  Indeed, the OAS gave the Venezuela crisis unprecedented salience, and on April 3 the Permanent Council passed a resolution (approved by consensus but with only 17 states in the room) that, for the first time in OAS history, demonstrated that a democratically elected government could be condemned because of “unconstitutional alterations of the constitutional order.”  A core group of 14 countries – representing more than 90 percent of the hemisphere’s population – coalesced to back up the activist Secretary General.

  • The 47th General Assembly in Cancún was supposed to crown the strategy’s success by moving the OAS from a condemnation of Venezuela towards a common plan for engagement – specifically one embracing the anti-Maduro opposition’s demands. Venezuelan diplomats managed to convince some Caribbean states – dependent on Venezuela’s Petrocaribe program to withhold support of the resolution, causing the OAS-14’s plan to fail to achieve the two-thirds majority by only three votes.  (An alternative resolution put forward at the last minute by San Vicente also failed.)

Secretary General Almagro’s “third way” approach was risky, made under the assumption that the two traditional options would fail.  Reasonable observers can second-guess him, but there is little evidence that either of the other options would have fared any better.  The crisis in Venezuela is a hard case for the Inter-American Democratic Charter, and the OAS’s strict intergovernmentalism militates against decisive action.  Almagro’s public relations pressure from outside arguably worked with the larger states, but alienated the smaller.  A more cautious approach (as I argued here) perhaps would have helped to bring CARICOM states on board.  For now, what is clear is that the OAS will not play a major role in managing Venezuela’s democracy crisis – unless the already severe situation in the country shakes even the OAS fence sitters.  A pending question is whether the OAS might succeed in inventing a role for itself in post-crisis Venezuela.

June 30, 2017

* Stefano Palestini Céspedes is a former CLALS Research Fellow and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Freie Universität Berlin, where he specializes in international organizations and regional governance.

5 Comments
by clalsstaff on June 30, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Venezuela
Tagged ,

Posted by clalsstaff on June 30, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/06/30/oas-secretary-generals-third-way-stumbles/

Venezuela- OAS: New Chapter in a Long Story

By Stefano Palestini Céspedes*

Special Meeting of the Permanent Council, April 3, 2017

On April 3, a special meeting of the OAS Permanent Council voted to condemn Venezuela’s action that allows the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ) to take over the functions of the National Assembly. / Juan Manuel Herrera/ OAS / Flickr / Creative Commons

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro seems determined to validate critics’ claims that the separation of powers in Venezuela has been breached, thereby strengthening diplomatic efforts to force him to reverse course.  After the OAS Permanent Council met for two days to discuss Secretary General Almagro’s call for Caracas’ suspension, Venezuelan courts on March 29 authorized the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia (TSJ) to take over the functions of the National Assembly, and to limit the immunity of the members of the parliament.  The action reinvigorated an exhausted domestic opposition and further infuriated international observers.  Two days later, the TSJ overturned the two rulings after Maduro, casting himself as a mediator between competing constitutional powers, requested it.  These erratic actions signaled the worsening erosion of the rule of law as well as the divisions in the government and the Bolivarian movement.

  • The reversal did not take the edge off OAS General Secretary Almagro’s and others’ condemnation of the power grab as an autogolpe or “self-coup.” The Inter-American Democratic Charter was designed in 2001 precisely to provide the OAS with instruments to deter self-coups in the aftermath of those carried out by Alberto Fujimori (Peru) and Jorge Serrano (Guatemala) in the 1990s.

The TSJ decisions and Venezuela’s defiance didn’t put Almagro’s suspension efforts over the top, but the Permanent Council is now much more actively involved in the crisis.  Venezuela has isolated itself within the Permanent Council.  Speaking at the Council, its delegation severely criticized individual member states the day before the TSJ decisions.  Chile and Peru recalled their ambassadors for consultation after it.  Ecuador, an ally since the time of Hugo Chávez, distanced itself from Maduro.  On April 1, MERCOSUR invoked the Protocol of Ushuaia – the group’s democracy clause – against Venezuela, and it joined Colombia and Chile in a forceful public statement on behalf of UNASUR.  Mexico, historically a jealous guardian of the principle of non-intervention, has assumed the leadership in holding Venezuela accountable for its undemocratic practices.  As a result, the Permanent Council on April 3 approved a resolution condemning the TSJ decisions and committing to “undertake as necessary further diplomatic initiatives to foster the restoration of the democratic institutional system,” including convening a ministerial meeting.

Building a consensus for tougher action in the Permanent Council will be difficult, however.  Last week’s resolution was approved by 19 member states, but four abstained and 10 were absent.  Any proposal to suspend Venezuela will require two-thirds of the members’ affirmative votes.  Although there is still a long way to go to make the OAS part of the solution of the Venezuelan crisis, the General Secretary’s activism has set an important precedent in rallying a majority of states in the Americas to come together to discuss a member’s erosion of democratic principles and institutions – and to condemn the non-democratic actions of a democratically-elected government.  This is a first for the organization, and it is a big step toward fulfilling the original purpose of the drafters of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.

April 10, 2017

* Stefano Palestini Céspedes is a CLALS Fellow and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Freie Universität Berlin, where he specializes in international organizations and regional governance.

Leave a comment
by clalsstaff on April 10, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in South America, Venezuela
Tagged , , ,

Posted by clalsstaff on April 10, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/04/10/venezuela-oas-new-chapter-in-a-long-story/

Return of the Monroe Doctrine: Making Latin America Irate Again

By Max Paul Friedman*

monroe_doctrine

Uncle Sam stakes his claim in the Western Hemisphere in a political cartoon outlining the basic tenants of the Monroe Doctrine (1912). / Wikimedia / Creative Commons

A vigorous resuscitation of the Monroe Doctrine may well be at hand under U.S. President Donald Trump, even though history shows us that it will contradict another favored policy – “America First” – which signals a desire to return to the most notorious isolationist organization in U.S. history.  The Monroe Doctrine, first articulated in 1823 as a means of blocking external interference in the Western Hemisphere, was the central pillar of U.S. policy toward Latin America until Barack Obama’s Secretary of State, John Kerry, told a roomful of Latin American diplomats in 2013 that “the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.”  The statement was part of an effort to rehabilitate the U.S. image in a region long accustomed to seeing the United States as seeking to control it through persuasion when possible, and force when necessary.  In a policy paper published last December, Craig Deare, a dean at the U.S. National Defense University and now Trump’s top Latin America advisor on the National Security Council staff, denounced Kerry’s statement “as a clear invitation to those extra-regional actors looking for opportunities to increase their influence.”  He specifically mentioned China.

A revitalized Monroe Doctrine, however, contradicts the Administration’s other strong impulse, present in its statements far beyond Latin America, toward isolationism.  Trump is promising to build a literal wall between Latin America and the United States, but the Monroe Doctrine was decisively unilateral and interventionist.  It stated that the United States would not intervene in European affairs if European powers did not intervene in the Americas, but Monroe carefully did not state that the United States would not intervene in the region.  Indeed, Presidents James Monroe (1817-1825) and John Quincy Adams (1825-1829) and other U.S. leaders desired and expected the future annexation of parts of what was then Spanish or Latin American territory in Cuba, northern Mexico (later Texas), and beyond.  Later, even in the “isolationist” early decades of the 20th century, the United States was vigorously engaged in military intervention and outright occupation of several countries in Latin America.  The Marines were in Nicaragua (1912-33), Haiti (1915-34), and the Dominican Republic (1916-24).

  • Latin American resistance prompted Franklin Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor Policy,” which supplanted the Monroe Doctrine’s unilateralism with respect for national sovereignty, but during World War II, FDR threatened Latin American governments with economic embargoes and other measures if they didn’t round up and intern thousands of Germans, Italians, and Japanese. After the tide in the war turned in 1943, the Latin American deportation and internment program was continued by U.S. officials seeking to turn the program to economic advantage by crushing commercial rivals.

Even Obama had difficulty reversing the United States’ longstanding desire to guide political and economic developments in Latin America – continuing, for example, Washington’s “democracy promotion” efforts in Cuba and elsewhere – but steps toward normalization of relations with Cuba and other initiatives made important strides toward assuaging Latin American irritation with U.S. imperiousness.  Obama went further than any president since FDR in restoring good relations, and ended the Cold War in Latin America.  Donald Trump’s competing impulses – the interventionism of Monroe and the isolationism of “America First” – will keep U.S.-Latin America relations on edge.  His unilateralist style has already hit its first victim, Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto, and is likely to claim more soon.  If Trump revives the Monroe Doctrine’s unilateralism more broadly in response to a perceived threat from China throughout the region, he is likely to succeed only in making Latin America irate again.

February 2, 2017

* Max Paul Friedman is a Professor in the History Department at American University and author of Rethinking Anti-Americanism: The History of an Exceptional Concept in American Foreign Relations.

Leave a comment
by clalsstaff on February 2, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in United States
Tagged ,

Posted by clalsstaff on February 2, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/02/02/return-of-the-monroe-doctrine-making-latin-america-irate-again/

What Will Trump Do About NAFTA?

By Malcolm Fairbrother*

trump-nafta

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and the flag of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). / Flickr and Wikimedia / Creative Commons / Modified

Despite his campaign rhetoric repeatedly attacking the North American Free Trade Agreement, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump probably won’t touch it, except in superficial ways.  He has called NAFTA the “worst trade deal ever,” and promised to pull the U.S. out unless Mexico and Canada agree to renegotiate it.  Last week, he suggested renegotiation of NAFTA will include provisions for Mexico to repay the U.S. government for the wall he wants to build along the border.

Dismantling or even significantly rewriting the accord is unlikely for a couple reasons:

  • First, the billionaires, chief executives, and friends he is choosing for his cabinet are hardly people inclined to dismantle an agreement whose contents largely reflect what American business wanted from the U.S.-Mexico relationship when NAFTA was being negotiated in the early 1990s. Corporate preferences weighed heavily against any big deviation from the status quo after the last political transition in Washington, in 2008.  Barack Obama too said that “NAFTA was a mistake,” though his criticisms were a little different.  He railed against lobbyists’ disproportionate influence over trade policy, and promised big changes to international trade agreements, including better protections for workers and the environment.  Even so, he didn’t touch NAFTA, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) he negotiated included – like NAFTA – shady provisions for investor-state dispute settlement.
  • It would be near-impossible, or least massively expensive, to get what Trump seems to want most: a big drop in imports from Mexico. In his eyes this would make NAFTA a better deal for America, though of course serious economists disagree.  Realistically, reopening the agreement would be very messy, and if he tried to throw up massive new trade barriers business leaders would strongly object.  NAFTA could include some additional measures to make it easier for goods and/or people to get around among the NAFTA countries, but that’s not what Trump has promised.

His economic nationalism makes the Republican Party establishment squirm, but it’s clear it also helped Trump win several Midwestern states, tipping the electoral college in his favor.  Insofar as agreements like NAFTA entrench rules friendly to business, and generate market efficiencies and economies whose benefits accumulate in the hands of the few, voter hostility is no mystery.  But economics is only part of the reason.  The bigger issue is what the backlash against globalization – embodied also by Brexit and the rise of neo-nationalist parties in Europe – means more broadly.  The average Democratic voter has a lower income than the average Republican voter, but Democrats are more supportive of trade agreements because they are more internationalist, more open to other cultures, younger, more educated, and more urban.  Throughout his presidency, Trump will therefore be squeezed between his working class rhetoric – appealing to the distrustful – and his business class milieu.  He is an extreme case of the politicians’ mercantilist thinking on trade, wherein exports are good and imports are bad, and “trade deals” like NAFTA are somehow like deals in the business world, where it’s possible to out-negotiate someone.  The reality is that this thinking – which flies in the face of basic economics – doesn’t point to any clear course of action.  This is why Trump won’t actually do much about NAFTA.

January 10, 2017

* Malcolm Fairbrother is social science researcher and teacher/mentor in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol (UK).  This article is adapted from a recent blog post for the American Sociological Association.

Leave a comment
by clalsstaff on January 10, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in North America, United States
Tagged , ,

Posted by clalsstaff on January 10, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/01/10/what-will-trump-do-about-nafta/

China, Latin America, and the New Globalization

By Andrés Serbin*

31128355276_da6ad8d3a0_k

Chinese President Xi Jinping received a medal of honor from the Peruvian Congress during his tour of South America last month, which included the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima. / Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores, Peru / Flickr / Creative Commons

In Latin America and elsewhere, the world is undergoing tectonic movements that indicate the birth of a new world order with new rules of play.  For much of the past decade, dynamism in world commerce and finance has been shifting from the Atlantic basin to the Pacific.  While the international economy has shown fragility and the developed economies – particularly the European Union and the United States – have shown slow growth since the crisis of 2008, China and the emerging economies of the Asian-Pacific region have experienced sustained growth.  China, now the second biggest economy in the world, has been the driver of that growth and, according to most projections, is poised to overtake the United States as the biggest.  After several centuries in which power has been concentrated in the West, the emergence of new powers in a multi-polar world will naturally bring about changes in the norms and rules governing the international agenda.

In Latin America and other regions, there is growing awareness of this process – with China and its own version of globalization at its center.  The region has witnessed the paralysis of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the United States as well as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s declaration that he will withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as part of a broader anti-globalization policy.  Trump’s announcement drew two different reactions from participants from TPP country leaders at the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima late last month.  One was the express decision to proceed with TPP even without the United States, and the other was a clear receptivity to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s invitation that they join regional economic groups that he is pushing – the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP).

  • Both agreements explicitly exclude the United States and abandon norms customarily pushed in free trade by the West. They emphasize reducing tariffs and give no consideration to labor and environmental regulations and non-tariff measures.
  • They complement China’s “one belt, one road” initiative, a modern-day revitalization of the Silk Road creating trade links between China’s western regions with Russia, Central Asia, and eventually to Europe, developing land and maritime routes along the way. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – an economic and security pact linking China, Russia, four Central Asian nations, and now welcoming India and Pakistan – is explicitly linked to RCEP.

Washington’s pending rejection of TPP eliminates a central part of President Obama’s “pivot” strategy to counter China’s rapidly expanding influence in Southeast Asia and the South China Sea, but it also has implications for Latin America and the Caribbean as China moves in rapidly to fill the void left by U.S. withdrawal.  While President-elect Trump has pledged to “renegotiate” NAFTA – which he called “probably the worst trade deal ever agreed to in the history of the world” – China last month presented to Latin America a detailed document proposing a new era in relations with “comprehensive cooperation” in all areas and reaffirming a “strategic association” with the region.  In sharp contrast with the new U.S. President’s views of Latin America, Beijing calls Latin America and the Caribbean “a land full of vitality and hope,” praises the region’s “major role in safeguarding world peace and development,” and calls it “a rising force in the global landscape.”  While some analysts suggest that globalization is slowing if not ending, these developments more strongly indicate that it is rather taking on a new form within a new world order that clashes with the visions and values of the West.  We appear to be transitioning into a world that is genuinely multi-polar with globalization under new rules.

December 13, 2016

* Andrés Serbin is the president of the Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales (CRIES), a Latin American think tank.  This article is adapted from an essay in Perfil, based in Buenos Aires.

Leave a comment
by clalsstaff on December 13, 2016  •  Permalink
Posted in Asia-Pacific, United States
Tagged ,

Posted by clalsstaff on December 13, 2016

https://aulablog.net/2016/12/13/china-latin-america-and-the-new-globalization/

What does “Canada is back” mean in the Americas?

By Stephen Baranyi*

27950219435_acf41153d5_h

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the “Tres Amigos Summit” in Ottawa, June 2016. / Presidencia de la República Mexicana / Flickr / Creative Commons

Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau and his cabinet ministers’ statements following their election in October 2015 that “Canada is back” reflect a global strategy that is likely to give a boost to Canada-Latin America relations.  Canada never “left” the Americas during the decade of Conservative governments led by Prime Minister Harper, but the new administration is patching up its predecessors’ mixed record.  Building on the Americas Strategy launched in 2007, Ottawa signed new bilateral free trade agreements with Colombia, Peru and others; broadened its engagement in regional security affairs; and greatly increased its whole-of-government engagement in Haiti.  Canada played a major role at the Summit of the Americas in Panama (April 2015) and hosted the Pan American Games (July 2015).  Yet the revelation of Canada’s espionage in Brazil, visa restrictions on Mexicans, the poor reputation of some Canadian mining firms in the region, and its inability to reach a trade agreement with the Caribbean Community fed a growing desencanto in Canada’s relations with the region.

Through mandate letters issued to ministers in late 2015, the Trudeau government made clear that the Americas would remain an important priority, despite renewed emphasis on Asia and Africa, and that inclusive growth, the responsible governance of Canadian extractive activities abroad, and women’s and indigenous peoples’ rights would get emphasis in the region.  In June, Canada hosted the “Tres Amigos Summit” with NAFTA partners United States and Mexico.  Ottawa also announced that by December, Mexican citizens would no longer need visas to enter Canada, removing a big irritant in Canada-Mexico relations.  The government reaffirmed its partnership with Colombia by indicating its desire to make bilateral free trade more inclusive and announcing projects to support the implementation of peace accords.

  • Ottawa has opportunities for deeper involvement in these countries. In Mexico, Canadian interests will be served through a better balance between pursuing economic opportunities in sectors like petroleum and supporting Mexicans struggling to strengthen rule of law in a system compromised by corruption.  Colombia also requires a sophisticated whole-of-Canada engagement strategy, particularly since the failure of its referendum on the peace accords on Sunday.  Ottawa has signaled interest in continuing to support the rule of law and broader development in Haiti, but Trudeau’s ability to justify large expenditures there will depend on the completion of legitimate elections by February 2017.

Ottawa’s appointment of a new Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) and commitment to revitalizing it as “the premier multilateral organization of the Americas” points to broader engagement on a regional level.  The Trudeau administration could join the Latin American and Caribbean trend on drug policy by decriminalizing the sale of marijuana at home and supporting reforms to OAS and UN counterdrug programs.  Assisting the implementation of the UN Small Arms Treaty, which Ottawa is poised to ratify, could also contribute to rule of law and security in the Americas.  Canada will also find many partners (from Chile to Costa Rica) to promote gender equality.  With regard to First Nations, Ottawa may be tempted to focus on funding new aid projects; yet Canada’s credibility will remain suspect until it ratifies the American Convention on Human Rights and ensures that all Canadian mining firms respect the rights of indigenous communities to free and prior informed consent in large-scale extractive activities.  The Trudeau government will probably monitor the multi-dimensional crisis in Venezuela, the situation in Brazil, and other challenges in the region – over which it probably lacks the leverage to make a significant difference but can lend moral authority to solutions.  Given its clear commitment to a global, rather than regional, strategy, the current administration is wise to carefully select entry points on which its thematic priorities align with opportunities in particular countries.

October 5, 2016

* Stephen Baranyi is an Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa’s School of International Development and Global Studies.  He also chairs the Latin America and Caribbean Group (LACG) of the Canadian International Council.  The author acknowledges his LACG colleagues’ input into this blog, while taking responsibility for its limitations.

2 Comments
by clalsstaff on October 5, 2016  •  Permalink
Posted in Canada
Tagged , ,

Posted by clalsstaff on October 5, 2016

https://aulablog.net/2016/10/05/what-does-canada-is-back-mean-in-the-americas/

Mexico: Environmental Initiatives Likely to Stir Things Up

By Daniela Stevens*

mexico-environment

Mexico City’s Reforma axis under a blanket of smog / Lars Plougmann / Flickr / Creative Commons

Mexico has made a big push on climate issues over the past month that could have far-reaching consequences internally and in the hemisphere.  On August 16, it announced a pilot Emission Trading System (ETS), also known as “cap-and-trade,” that will begin a simulation in November and officially initiate trading carbon permits in 2018.  Two weeks later, at the second Climate Summit of the Americas (CSA), the Mexican federal government signed a joint declaration with the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Québec to advance “cooperation activities on carbon markets.”  Mexico’s motives are not immediately clear.  For a middle-income nation, with annual growth (around 2 percent) compromised by the crash in oil prices, an ETS represents a potentially significant economic burden.  Mexican officials have not explained, moreover, how they might link their cap-and-trade to the Canadian provinces’ systems and to the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), North America’s largest carbon market and the second largest in the world.

The moves may be driven by increasing Mexican belief that more assertive, market-oriented approaches are necessary to meet its international commitments.

  • Mexico is dependent on fossil fuels for over a third of its total energy production, wreaking havoc with the country’s air quality. Over the last few months, Mexico City decreed several “environmental contingencies,” situations of abnormally high concentrations of ozone in the atmosphere.
  • Moreover, Mexico may be seeking the advantage that increased regional cooperation represents. Its international commitments on emission reductions are very ambitious, and a linkage to its North American partners lends itself almost as a natural solution to help in the advancement of its pledges.  Mexico could export sectoral offsets that American and Canadian partners need – contributing to Mexican revenues and to market stability.  Mexico would also benefit from the resulting transfer of information expertise, technology, training, and methodologies.
  • An important first step for the Mexican authorities would be to commit the resources to establish the robust institutional mechanisms and capacities to launch, monitor, enforce and sustain a system as intricate as a national ETS, and only after that, lend itself as a reliable partner in an internationally linked market.

The details of the pilot ETS have not been publicized, and the agreement with Québec and Ontario does not establish commitments beyond “identifying opportunities for linking systems as much as possible.”  Mexican companies already voluntarily buy and sell carbon bonds on a small national market – a system complemented by a carbon tax in place since 2013 – but an enforced and internationally linked market would highlight the disparities among the North American nations – and represent a challenge to Mexico.  Unlike its partners, Mexico is still an industrializing nation, with a thriving motor vehicle industry, and industrializing nations have traditionally been reluctant to pricing emissions.  Industrialized countries are the highest historical emitters and reached that status of development by polluting without paying the price.  Although the need to prioritize economic growth does not exempt Mexico from fulfilling its commitments as the eleventh highest global emitter, it does signal that besides opportunities, Mexico faces challenges with trading partners at different stages of development.  The Climate Summit of the Americas showed, however, that regional fora and of subnational partnerships can further environmental commitments beyond the global and national summits.  The CSA signaled an opportunity for the region to develop North American or, more ambitiously, hemispheric solutions to climate change.

September 15, 2016

* Daniela Stevens is a PhD candidate in the American University School of Public Affairs.  Her research focuses on national and subnational policies that put a price on carbon emissions.

Leave a comment
by clalsstaff on September 15, 2016  •  Permalink
Posted in Mexico
Tagged , ,

Posted by clalsstaff on September 15, 2016

https://aulablog.net/2016/09/15/mexico-environmental-initiatives-likely-to-stir-things-up/

UNASUR and the Venezuelan Hot Potato

By Andrés Serbin and Andrei Serbin Pont*

Ernesto Samper UNASUR

Photo Credit: Carlos Rodríguez/ANDES/Flickr/Creative Commons

The Venezuelan crisis, which the hemisphere has turned to UNASUR to resolve, could break the South American organization and overshadow its past successes in regional mediation.  UNASUR was created in 2008, amid the proliferation of regional organizations such as ALBA that excluded the United States and Canada, as an inter-governmental mechanism to promote regional autonomy, conflict prevention and resolution, and the coordination of public policies, particularly regarding social issues, security, infrastructure, and energy.  It has been driven by individual presidents’ leadership and managed by high-ranking officials and, despite rhetoric to the contrary, has not shown deep commitment to greater civil society participation.  Among its important successes have been defusing internal conflicts in Bolivia and Ecuador, as well helping reduce tensions between Ecuador and Colombia, and between Colombia and Venezuela.  In years past, the group’s effectiveness raised questions about the OAS’s comparative ability to deal with regional conflicts.

In recent years, however, UNASUR has suffered decline.  As the commodities boom ended, regional economies were hit hard, and internal political factors started to change the political map, undermining leftist governments and enabling the election of center-right governments less committed to the UNASUR vision.  This coincided with the profound decline of Venezuela as it fell into the abyss of hyperinflation, debt, scarcity, criminality, and debilitating political instability.  The Venezuelan opposition’s achievement of a parliamentary majority last December, after 17 years of Chavista hegemony, brought no relief as the government reacted with an all-out effort to block it.  UNASUR, which first sought to foster a dialogue between the government and the opposition in 2013, has repeatedly failed to broker a solution.  In May 2016 the organization turned to three former heads of state – Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Dominican Lionel Fernández, and Panamanian Martín Torrijos – to attempt mediation again, to no avail so far.  The government continues to resist change, and the opposition, in addition to remaining firm in its demands of a recall vote to remove Maduro and the unconditional release of political prisoners, has shown persistent mistrust of UNASUR and its representatives, whom they perceive as allies of the government. Such suspicions may not be unfounded, considering Zapatero’s objections regarding the participation of some relevant opposition leaders in the dialogue process.

For the first time in its almost 10 years of existence, UNASUR faces potential failure in its attempt to solve a strategically important political crisis in the region.  To hold off an initiative by OAS Secretary General Almagro to enforce the Inter-American Democratic Charter against Venezuela, the OAS Assembly called on UNASUR and the former presidents to renew mediation efforts yet again last month, but neither Maduro nor the opposition has budged from their fundamental positions.  The situation is, again, stalled.  Indeed, in the context of declarations, extraordinary sessions, initiatives and trips, the commitment to end the crisis in Venezuela still appears quite limited among OAS members, including UNASUR.  Governments supporting dialogue seem most eager to avoid risking valuable political capital both in the domestic and the international spheres.  Neither UNASUR nor the OAS is prepared to handle the Venezuelan hot potato, and both stand to lose credibility for this failure.  But UNASUR’s general lack of leadership and direction in recent years suggests that failure in this crisis, with implications beyond Venezuela’s borders, would be potentially fatal to the organization.  UNASUR, with previous achievements in social, political and regional matters, must now prove that it is still a viable regional mechanism, able to deal collectively with the political turbulence of a changing regional landscape.

July 6, 2016

* Andrés Serbin and Andrei Serbin Pont are members of the analysis team of the Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales (CRIES), a Latin-American think tank.

Leave a comment
by clalsstaff on July 6, 2016  •  Permalink
Posted in South America, Venezuela
Tagged

Posted by clalsstaff on July 6, 2016

https://aulablog.net/2016/07/06/unasur-and-the-venezuelan-hot-potato/

Almagro’s Freshman Year: Bold Actions or Unnecessary Risk?

By Maria Carrasquillo*

Luisito

Photo Credit: Juan Manuel Herrera (OAS)/Flickr/Creative Commons

Secretary General Luis Almagro’s quest to revitalize the Organization of American States (OAS) seems premised on being an “activist” Secretary General in what could be a make-or-break gambit to assert the organization’s hemispheric leadership.  Only 13 months in office, Almagro has taken an approach that is a clear departure from the low-key, consensus-building ways of former Secretary General José Miguel Insulza.  In his 2015 inaugural address, Almagro laid out his plans for the rejuvenation of the OAS, including internal changes to “adapt it to the realities of the 21st century” and “insert [it] into a world different from the one in which it was developed and has grown and operated.”  Almagro underscored the need for the OAS to promote transparent and inclusive elections throughout Latin America and, in regard to democratic governance, “lend a hand to countries that are going through moments of tension and conflict.”

Almagro has taken a number of positions that confirm his desire to redefine the OAS’s role in the region.

  • In 2015, Almagro took the lead in developing a plan to fight corruption in Honduras, resulting in the formation of the Support Mission Against Corruption and Impunity (MACCIH) – a watered-down version of the successful UN-backed CICIG in Guatemala. The jury is still out on whether MACCIH will have a serious impact, but Almagro has staked his reputation on its credibility.
  • He has claimed that the impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff lacked sufficient justification and that accusations against her were politically driven. Almagro also called for anticorruption investigations under Operação Lava Jato to continue as essential for the rule of law.
  • Prior to the Peruvian elections, Almagro warned that the disqualification of two candidates reflected unequal application of the law and raised concerns that the contests would be “semi-democratic.” Following a meeting with disqualified frontrunner Julio Gómez, Almagro called for the reinstatement of both candidates’ right to participate in the elections.
  • Perhaps Almagro’s most controversial action has been his attempt to invoke the OAS Democratic Charter against the government of Venezuela, without a finding by the Permanent Council, as required under Article 20 of the Charter, that the situation there amounts to “an unconstitutional alteration of a constitutional regime.” The Permanent Council implicitly rejected his appeal by urging more dialogue between the OAS and Venezuela.  Almagro then sent a strongly worded letter to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accusing him of lying and “betraying his people,” and calling for the release of political prisoners, restoration of legitimate powers to the National Assembly, and a referendum to recall Maduro in 2016. (The Permanent Council is set to discuss the situation in Venezuela again on June 21.)

Almagro has taken on some very difficult issues, and explanations for his motivations are varied but not mutually exclusive.  Some observers perceive a personal embrace of OAS principles, others detect a desire to avoid the sort of U.S. criticism that plagued Insulza and constrained U.S. support and funding, and still others speculate about his future political ambitions as a reformist on the non-radical left of Latin America.  The democratic principles he is defending are clearly enshrined in OAS documents, but his activism has so far not reversed adverse situations: Rousseff was impeached, the Peruvian candidates were forced to sit out the election, and Maduro has yet to soften.  Being an “activist” Secretary General in the case of Venezuela entails great risks; his predecessors were criticized both for getting too directly involved in the country’s internal affairs and for remaining passive in the face of growing authoritarianism in Caracas.  It seems, moreover, as though Almagro has often acted alone, and the tone of his letter to Maduro was uniquely strident.  A great deal is on the line for the OAS.  If Almagro’s activism works, it will enhance the organization’s leadership on a range of issues confronting the hemisphere, but it may also put the OAS in the middle of future conflicts in which failure would bring a loss of institutional credibility. 

June 16, 2016

* Maria Carrasquillo is a recent graduate of the M.A. Program in American University’s School of International Service and a research assistant at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies.

1 Comment
by clalsstaff on June 16, 2016  •  Permalink
Posted in Regional Snapshot
Tagged , ,

Posted by clalsstaff on June 16, 2016

https://aulablog.net/2016/06/16/almagros-freshman-year-bold-actions-or-unnecessary-risk/

Increasing the Benefits of Trade Agreements

By Antoni Estevadeordal and Joaquim Tres*

Trade 1993-2016

Source: IDB (Full-sized images at bottom of page)

Latin American and Caribbean countries were major players in global trade liberalization in the 1990s but have since been held back by complex rules, infrastructural obstacles, and the poor flow of information.  The successful conclusion in 1994 of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations and the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) fueled growth and optimism in the region, but the slow progress of the Doha Round drove the region into the silent tide of regional trade agreements (RTAs), which now govern about half of world trade.  Latin American and Caribbean countries have concluded some 70 RTAs – a far cry from the handful of sub-regional customs unions and free trade areas in place in 1994.  As a result, tariffs applied by Latin American countries have dropped from an average of 40 percent to 10 percent during this period.

Despite these policy advances, Latin America and the Caribbean’s participation in international trade is still limited.  Whereas the region and the developing nations of Asia had a similar share of world trade in 1962 (around 6 percent), Latin America’s global trade share has remained relatively unchanged – and that of Developing Asia has grown to nearly three times its previous size.  Latin America registers lower levels of intra-regional trade – 18 percent – compared to 37% in Developing Asia and 61% in the European Union.  Our research indicates that Latin America and the Caribbean could close this gap through a series of measures:

  • Harmonizing the different rules of origin in the RTAs and the wide array of sanitary, phytosanitary, and technical standards that qualify market access.
  • Improving infrastructure and reducing inefficiencies at border crossings to reduce transportation and logistics costs, which amount to three times more than existing tariffs.
  • Harnessing the power of information and communications technology to reduce costs through one-stop shops and process automatization, such as the trade single windows being introduced in several countries in the region. The cost of information about consumer preferences, market demand, and foreign regulations is the first barrier that potential exporters face.
  • Simplifying and reducing administrative burdens through expedited and secure customs and other trade facilitation measures. Some experts estimate that, worldwide, some 75 percent of delays are due to inefficient processes (compared to 25 percent due to inadequate infrastructure).

The main lesson for Latin America and the Caribbean is that trade agreements are a necessary – but not sufficient – condition to achieve economic development potential.  Increasing companies’ participation in international value chains is key to unleashing trade as an engine for economic growth and poverty reduction.  Trade-driven growth in the region, much of it from South American commodities, enabled a reduction of poverty from 22 percent in 2002 to 12 percent by creating new employment opportunities and the fiscal capacity to fund poverty reduction initiatives such as conditional cash transfers (Mexico’s Programa Oportunidades, for example).  By our calculation, trade facilitation measures such as customs and border simplifications can increase Latin American and Caribbean exports by as much as 15 percent, translating into a 5 percent increase in export-supported jobs that pay almost 20 percent more than jobs at non-exporting firms.  It is within policymakers’ grasp to create the enabling environment for firms to export, especially for the small and medium-sized enterprises that may represent the next generation of exporters.

May 9, 2016

*Antoni Estevadeordal and Joaquim Tres are, respectively, the manager and principal specialist of the Integration and Trade Sector of the Inter-American Development Bank.  Click here to access the IDB’s new course on trade agreements, and here and here for related studies.

Trade 1993-2016 v2

Source: IDB

Leave a comment
by clalsstaff on May 9, 2016  •  Permalink
Posted in Regional Snapshot
Tagged , , ,

Posted by clalsstaff on May 9, 2016

https://aulablog.net/2016/05/09/increasing-the-benefits-of-trade-agreements/

« Older Posts
Newer Posts »