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'Poverty is a massive crime against humanity'
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- Created on Friday, 19 July 2013 00:00
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'Poverty is a massive crime against humanity'
Philosopher Thomas Pogge has accused the wealthy in western democracies of actively harming the world's poor by propagating the wrong political and economic systems. During a recent visit to Germany, Pogge spoke to DW.
DW: In 1973 the World Bank president said it would be possible to eradicate poverty within the 20th century, but that hasn't happened. The new goal is 2030. Why has progress been so slow?
Thomas Pogge: Inequality has increased. If poor people had participated proportionately in global economic growth, poverty would already be history. It's quite possible to eradicate poverty, but we have to rethink the fundamental rules of our economic system. Currently these rules are designed by the privileged and rich for the privileged and rich. We need to rethink these rules to consider the poor.
You're involved in several groups that address poverty's impact on health, including the Health Impact Fund, which you co-founded. What is the fund meant to achieve?
The Health Impact Fund is meant to provide cheaper medicines to people and to encourage pharmaceutical companies to research diseases that affect the poor. These are often diseases completely foreign to rich countries. Companies have no reason to do this, and that's why we want to change the system. The idea is to create a fund of $6 billion (5 billion euros), which rewards pharmaceutical innovations based on the health impact their medicines have. The more health gains, the more money you get out of this pool. In exchange, companies agree to sell medications at cost, without marking up for a profit.
How likely is it that such a plan could be implemented?
I have had promising conversations with politicians in Germany, India and Brazil. Considering the high costs of healthcare, financially strapped governments would welcome a more efficient system of pharmaceutical innovation.
If we know that poverty makes people sick, and that poor health rates burden the state, why isn't it recognized that poor nations need to get healthy in order to facilitate development?
Many people in politics and business only think short-term to the next election or profit statement. It's difficult to get people to abandon a system they know. There are ways to make things better in the short-term, people just need to know how.
I try to share this knowledge. We are foolishly deteriorating the health of the human population, which will be much more expensive in the long run, than if we improved everyone's health now. It's ridiculous to provide medicine only to rich people who can pay the mark-up, and withhold it from the poor who can pay for the marginal cost of producing more product.
Is it a moral or economic problem?
It's certainly both. It's not morally acceptable that the poorer half of the human population lives on 3 percent of global household income, and that they really suffer. They don't have enough food or shelter. They don't have clean water or adequate sanitation. Many children are doing wage labor outside the household. Many adults are illiterate This sort of poverty, when it is completely avoidable, is a massive crime against humanity.
The gap between rich and poor has increased. What makes you hopeful that things can improve?
Here and there, politicians and business leaders are listening. The global financial crisis, as tragic as it was, gave rich countries the opportunity to put dirty money on the agenda, to shine a spotlight on these big multi-national corporations that don't pay taxes. At the last G8 summit, David Cameron - who's not normally a friend of the poor - put it on the agenda. Now the struggle is to make sure the rich countries also stop the loopholes that allow rich people and multi-national corporations in poor countries to siphon off money.
That would be a philosopher's optimism paired with a politician's action to better humanity?
I will fight until my dying breath to protect the poor from the horrible institutions inflicted upon them. Poverty may have gotten a little better, but what matters morally is avoidable poverty, which has gotten much worse. Pretty much all the poverty that exists in the world today is avoidable, and it's our task together to work against it.
Thomas Pogge is the director of the Global Justice Program and Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University in the United States.
Date 12.07.2013
Author Interview: Anke Rasper / lbh
Editor Nancy Isenson
Source: Deutsche Welle
No commentsWhole-life jail sentences: what are the government's options?
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- Category: Law & Justice
- Created on Tuesday, 09 July 2013 00:00
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Whole-life jail sentences: what are the government's options?
{sidebar id=11 align=right}Despite the government's 'profound disagreement' — foreseen by the Strasbourg judges — compliance with the ruling requires little action
Joshua Rozenberg
If the home secretary could base her argument for denouncing the human rights convention on the strength of the Abu Qatada case — which Theresa May won — you'd expect Chris Grayling to argue even more strongly for pulling out of Strasbourg over the issue of life imprisonment for brutal murderers, an iconic issue on which the justice secretary has decisively lost.
But Grayling did not go as far as May. He said that the ruling by the human rights court — which requires ministers to create a review system for murderers serving whole life orders in England and Wales — had reinforced his "determination to curtail the role of the court of human rights in the UK".
May, by contrast, did not confine her remarks to reforming UK legislation. She told MPs on Monday: "We must … consider our relationship with the European court very carefully, and I believe that all options — including withdrawing from the convention altogether—should remain on the table."
Although Grayling would apparently prefer reform to withdrawal, he did say he profoundly disagreed with the lifers ruling. That was just what the prime minister said too. And if ministers are still nowhere near lifting the blanket ban on voting by prisoners nearly eight years after the court's grand chamber found it was unlawful, they are hardly going to rush into setting up the review process that the latest ruling requires.
So what can they do about it? Reforming the Human Rights Act 1998 will not affect the government's obligation under article 46 of the convention to "abide by the final decision of the court in any case to which they are parties". Even denouncing the convention under article 58, which can be done on six months' notice, would not release the government from its obligations before the date at which the denunciation became effective. So the government's choice is between implementing the ruling and breaking its treaty obligations.
As is so often the case, giving effect to the ruling would not require the government to do very much. It would not even have to legislate. Section 30 of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 already allows a secretary of state to free a life prisoner on licence if there are exceptional circumstances justifying the prisoner's release on compassionate grounds. The government argued in Strasbourg that this section not only justifies but even requires the release of a prisoner whose continued detention cannot be justified on legitimate grounds of punishment, reform or retribution.
But a prison service order provides that release under this power can be ordered only if the prisoner is terminally ill or physically incapacitated and other conditions are met. This order would need to be amended or repealed before the government could rely on section 30.
There would also need to be some sort of review mechanism. While not spelling out how it had to operate, the court suggested that every life sentence should be reviewed no later than 25 years after it was passed, "with further periodic reviews thereafter".
As it happens, life sentences in England and Wales used to be reviewed after 25 years. But that review used to be conducted on behalf the home secretary. After earlier defeats in the courts, ministers lost their final say a decade ago in how long lifers should serve in prison. So if the 25-year review was to be retained, it need to be conducted by an independent decision-maker — such as the parole board or a judge. That was the last thing ministers wanted, which is why they scrapped the review. But it makes it harder for them to oppose its revival now.
It is not just that compliance with the ruling would require very little action on the government's part. It would also have very little effect on the handful of lifers — fewer than 50 — who have currently been given whole life orders. The Strasbourg court took the unusual step of sending broadcasters an explanatory note saying that the judgment would not prevent people who commit "terrible offences" from spending the rest of their lives in prison.
"It does not mean that the applicants in the present case must be released in the near future and it offers no guarantee that they will ever be released," the note added. But prisoners in their position must:
have the possibility of arguing that at some point, after a lengthy period in prison, their detention is no longer necessary in the interests of punishment, deterrence and protection of the public and that their release would be justified on grounds of rehabilitation.
That the court chose to spell this out is an indication that it expected its ruling to be attacked by ministers and the wider public. It is to the judges' credit that they were not deterred by the reaction they foresaw.
As the court said, there is "clear support in European and international law for the principle that all prisoners, including those serving life sentences, be offered the possibility of rehabilitation and the prospect of release if that rehabilitation is achieved". Strasbourg could hardly justify leaving the UK out on a limb.
Murderers serving life tariffs are in prison because the prospect of serving an extremely long prison sentence has failed to deter them from multiple killings. A rational person is hardly going to be persuaded that the faint hope of eventual release makes several decades in prison a price worth paying.
Source: The Guardian UK
Gay rights clash: Obama, African host are at odds
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- Created on Thursday, 27 June 2013 00:00
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Gay rights clash: Obama, African host are at odds
AP JULIE PACE
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Laying bare a clash of cultures, President Barack Obama on Thursday urged African leaders to extend equal rights to gays and lesbians but was bluntly rebuked by Senegal's president, who said his country "still isn't ready" to decriminalize homosexuality.
Obama opened his weeklong trip to Africa one day after the U.S. Supreme Court expanded federal benefits for married gay couples. In his first in-person comments on the ruling, Obama said the court's decision marked a "proud day for America." He pressed for similar recognition for gays in Africa, wading into a sensitive area in a region where dozens of countries outlaw homosexuality and a few punish violations with death.
{sidebar id=11 align=right}"When it comes to how the state treats people, how the law treats people, I believe that everybody has to be treated equally," Obama said during a news conference with Senegalese President Macky Sall at the grand presidential palace in Dakar.
But Sall gave no ground. Senegal is "very tolerant," he assured Obama, but is "still not ready to decriminalize homosexuality." Sall said countries make decisions on complex issues in their own time, noting that Senegal has outlawed capital punishment while other countries have not — a pointed jab at the U.S., where the death penalty is legal in many states.
Obama's trip, which also includes stops in South Africa and Tanzania, marks the most extensive visit to Africa by the first black U.S. president since he took office. Many Africans have expressed disappointment over Obama's lack of direct engagement with affairs on their continent — particularly given that his father was Kenyan and he has many relatives living in Africa — yet he was still enthusiastically welcomed.
Thousands of people gathered on the roadways near the presidential palace as Obama's motorcade sped through the coastal city, many in the crowds wearing white to symbolize peace. Some waved homemade signs welcoming Obama, while those gathered near the palace entrance sang and played drums, the rhythmic beats audible from inside the gates.
At Goree Island, the former slave trading post Obama visited later Thursday, local residents waited under scorching sun for hours to catch a glimpse of the president. They sang a song about his return to his ancestral homeland and broke into jubilant cheers as Obama and first lady Michelle Obama walked over to shake hands.
Looming over the festive atmosphere were concerns over former South African leader Nelson Mandela. Obama is due to arrive in South Africa on Friday, though Mandela's precarious condition adds some uncertainty to the agenda.
Obama spoke reverently about the impact that Mandela's struggle against apartheid had on his own activism, as well as about the 94-year-old's influence in Africa and around the world.
"If and when he passes from this place, one thing I think we'll all know is that his legacy is one that will linger on throughout the ages," said Obama, who has sometimes been linked to Mandela given their shared status as their nations' first black presidents.
Mandela's democratic influence in Africa is at the core of Obama's trip. The three countries he will visit were selected as a signal of U.S. support for African nations that have embraced democracy in a region where the legacy of corruption and authoritarianism have been difficult to overcome.
Sall, for example, won the presidency in Senegal last year by ousting an incumbent president who attempted to change the constitution to make it easier for him to be re-elected and for his son to succeed him.
Africa's democratic movements have not been accompanied in most places by equal rights for gays and lesbians. A report Monday by Amnesty International said 38 African countries criminalize homosexuality. In four of those — Mauritania, northern Nigeria, southern Somalia and Sudan — the punishment is death.
Discrimination against gays is the norm. In Uganda, evictions of homosexuals by landlords occur regularly, says the Amnesty report. Vigilante groups in several countries have posted the names of homosexuals online or denounced them on the radio, forcing them to go into hiding to avoid mob violence. In Senegal, suspected homosexuals who were buried in Muslim cemeteries were disinterred in several towns and villages, and their corpses were dragged through the streets.
On another subject, Obama was pressed in his news conference about the status of former government contractor Edward Snowden, who has acknowledged leaking highly classified documents detailing sweeping U.S. government surveillance programs. The Chinese government let Snowden leave Hong Kong, where he had been hiding, to travel to Russia, where he is now believed to be holed up in the transit zone at Moscow's airport.
Obama dismissed the notion of deploying U.S. military resources to detain Snowden, saying "I'm not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker."
On still another topic, the president had harsh words for the Supreme Court on its ruling this week that overturned key elements of the Voting Rights Act. Obama declared the decision "a mistake."
"I might not be here as president had it not been for those who courageously helped to pass the Voting Rights Act," Obama said.
The president is being accompanied throughout his trip by wife, daughters Malia and Sasha, and mother-in-law Marian Robinson. Following the president's meetings with Sall, the family boarded a ferry bound for Goree Island, which by some accounts was the center of the Atlantic slave trade.
The Obamas were given a tour of the salmon-colored House of Slaves where Africans were held before being sold into slavery. The president then peered out into the vast Atlantic through the Door of No Return, where shackled men, women and children left Africa, inching across a plank to the hull of a waiting ship. "Obviously, for an African-American, an African-American president, to be able to visit this site, I think, gives me even greater motivation in terms of human rights around the world," Obama said after his tour.
The president's stop on Goree Island was the first of two visits on the trip highlighting racial change in Africa. The second is scheduled for Sunday at South Africa's Robben Island, where Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison.
___ Associated Press writer Nedra Pickler, Rukmini Callimachi and Robbie Corey-Boulet in Dakar contributed to this report. ___
Tory ministers condemn ECHR ruling on whole-life prison sentences
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- Created on Tuesday, 09 July 2013 00:00
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Tory ministers condemn ECHR ruling on whole-life prison sentences
No 10 'very, very disappointed' with ruling that whole-life sentences without review breach human rights law
Nicholas Watt and Alan Travis
Tory cabinet ministers have condemned the European court of human rights for its ruling on whole-life prison sentences, with the prime minister, justice secretary and home secretary all voicing their "profound disagreement".
{sidebar id=11 align=right}Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, said the ruling would leave the original authors of the European convention on human rights "turning in their graves" and said it reinforced his determination to curtail the role of the Strasbourg court.
"The British public will find this ruling intensely frustrating and hard to understand," he said.
Theresa May, the home secretary, said she was dismayed by the decision but also surprised as it went against several rulings last year by the same court, which upheld the extradition of several suspects to face life terms without the possibility of parole.
They found strong support from the former Labour home secretary David Blunkett, who defended his 2003 decision to scrap the right to a review after 25 years for life-sentenced prisoners, saying he had made it "to ensure that life means life" in the most heinous cases.
Backbench Tory MPs were less measured, with Dominic Raab claiming it as evidence of Strasbourg's "warped moral compass", a gross distortion of the human rights convention and toxic for the reputation of human rights with the public.
The prime minister's spokesman said David Cameron would not rule out abandoning the ECHR if he won the next general election.
The spokesman said: "[The prime minister] is very, very, very, very disappointed. He profoundly disagrees with the court's ruling. He is a strong supporter of whole-life tariffs."
Asked about the ruling that tariffs without a review amounted to a breach of human rights, the spokesman said: "We profoundly disagree. [The prime minister] is a strong supporter of judges, of course, having the ability to award whole-life tariffs. Sentencing obviously is a matter for the judges. But the PM believes that should be available in certain cases."
The spokesman said nothing would be off the table in reforming Britain's relationship with the ECHR when the Conservative party draws up its manifesto for the next general election.
"I would simply point you back to his words at the weekend with regard to the ECHR and the next Conservative manifesto where he said nothing was off the table."
Downing Street conceded that Britain could not appeal against the decision of the grand chamber of the ECHR. "The next step is the government, through the Ministry of Justice, has six months to consider its response. We will consider the detail of that judgment."
Juliet Lyon, of the Prison Reform Trust, said restoring the principle of review of whole-life sentences would help restore balance to a penal system distorted by the 2003 Criminal Justice Act:
"Rehabilitation is a purpose of sentencing alongside punishment. Reinstating the possibility of review, albeit with little prospect of release, puts a degree of hope into the lives of those very few people serving whole=life tariffs and affirms prison staff in their work to enable prisoners to progress even the longest of sentences," she said.
"In fairness, it might be better if the prime minister were a strong supporter of rehabilitation and redemption rather than the eternal punishment and damnation that is a whole-life tariff with no prospect of review."
Source: The Guardian UK
Decentralization plans for DRC's Copperbelt region
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- Created on Saturday, 13 April 2013 00:00
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Decentralization plans for DRC's Copperbelt region