Global Governance

BRICS Nations Stand Against the ‘New Wave of Protectionism’

Emerging countries like India, China, Brazil and Russia, have been asking for increased voting rights in IMF, which would reflect their growing share in world economy.

Pretoria: BRICS nations on June 4 said they oppose the “new wave of protectionism” and the systematic impact of unilateral measures that are incompatible with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, apparently referring to US President Donald Trump’s tough trade policies.

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, who is on a five-day trip to South Africa, attended the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) foreign ministers’ meeting.

After the meeting, the foreign affairs ministers of BRICS nations reiterated BRICS commitment to multilateralism and a rules-based international order and in this regard reaffirmed the centrality of the UN, the WTO and international law.

The ministers pledged their support to efforts towards making global governance more representative with greater participation of emerging markets and developing countries in global decision making.

The ministers emphasised the importance of an open and inclusive world economy enabling all countries and peoples to share the benefits of globalisation, a statement released after the meeting said.

They underlined their firm commitment to free trade, and the centrality of a rules-based, transparent, non-discriminatory, multilateral trading system as embodied in the WTO, the statement said.

They opposed the new wave of protectionism and the systematic impact of unilateral measures that are incompatible with WTO rules and undermines global trade and economic growth.

“They reiterated that the WTO Dispute Settlement System is a cornerstone of the multilateral trading system (MTS) as it is designed to enhance security and predictability in international trade,” the statement said.

The statement came as Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from top US trading partners, including Canada, Mexico and the European Union. He has threatened tariffs on up to USD 200 billion in Chinese imports, raising the potential of a trade war.

The BRICS ministers reaffirmed their resolve to foster a global economic governance architecture that is more effective and reflective of the current global economic landscape, increasing the voice and representation of emerging markets and developing economies, it said.

They reaffirmed their commitment to conclude the International Monetary Fund’s 15th General Review of Quotas, including a new quota formula, by the 2019 Spring Meetings.

The emerging countries, like India, China, Brazil and Russia, has been asking for increased voting rights in IMF, which would reflect their growing share in world economy.

They also deplored the continued terrorist attacks, including in some BRICS countries. They condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations wherever committed and by whomsoever.

“They urged concerted efforts to counter terrorism under the UN auspices on a firm international legal basis, and expressed their conviction that a comprehensive approach was necessary to ensure effective fight against terrorism,” the statement said.

“They recalled the responsibility of all States to prevent financing of terrorist networks and terrorist actions from their territories,” it said.

They expressed concern over the ongoing conflict and heightened tensions in the Middle-East region, especially with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian situation.

Growing Inequality Under Global Capitalism

The main benefits of economic growth are being captured by a tiny elite. Despite global economic stagnation in the last decade, the number of billionaires in the world has increased to a record 2,199.

The main benefits of economic growth are being captured by a tiny elite.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has described severe income inequality as the biggest risk facing the world. Credit: IPS

Sydney and Kuala Lumpur: Income and wealth inequality has increased in recent decades, but recognition of the role of economic liberalisation and globalisation in exacerbating inequality has never been so widespread. The guardians of global capitalism are nervous, yet little has been done to check, let alone reverse the underlying forces.

Global elite alarmed by growing inequality

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has described severe income inequality as the biggest risk facing the world. WEF founder Klaus Schwab has observed, ‘We have too large a disparity in the world; we need more inclusiveness… If we continue to have un-inclusive growth and we continue with the unemployment situation, particularly youth unemployment, our global society is not sustainable.’

Christine Lagarde, IMF managing director, told political and business leaders at the WEF, “in far too many countries the benefits of growth are being enjoyed by far too few people. This is not a recipe for stability and sustainability”. Similarly, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim has warned that failure to tackle inequality risked causing social unrest. “It’s going to erupt to a great extent because of these inequalities.”

In the same vein, the influential US Council of Foreign Relations’ journal, Foreign Affairs carried an article cautioning, “Inequality is indeed increasing almost everywhere in the post-industrial capitalist world…. if left unaddressed, rising inequality and economic insecurity can erode social order and generate a populist backlash against the capitalist system at large.”

Much ado about nothing?

Increasingly, the main benefits of economic growth are being captured by a tiny elite. Despite global economic stagnation for almost a decade, the number of billionaires in the world has increased to a record 2,199. The richest 1% of the world’s population now has as much wealth as the rest of the world combined. The world’s eight richest people have as much wealth as the poorer half.

In India, the number of billionaires has increased at least tenfold in the past decade. India now has 111 billionaires, third in the world by country. The largest number of the world’s abject poor also live in the same country – over 425 million, a third of the world’s poor, and well over a third of the country’s population.

Africa had a resource boom for a decade until 2014, but most people there still struggle daily for food, clean water and healthcare. Meanwhile, the number of people living in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank, has grown substantially to at least 330 million from 280 million in 1990.

In Europe, poor people bore the brunt of draconian austerity policies while bank bailouts mainly benefited the moneyed. 122.3 million people, or 24.4% of the population in the EU-28, are at risk of poverty. Between 2009 and 2013, the number of Europeans without enough money to heat their homes or cope with unforeseen expenses, i.e., living with ‘severe material deprivation’, rose by 7.5 million to 50 million people, while the continent is home to 342 billionaires.

In the US, the income share of the top 1% is at its highest level since the eve of the Great Depression, almost nine decades ago. The top 0.01%, or 14,000 American families, own 22.2% of its wealth, while the bottom 90%, over 133 million families, own a meagre 4% of the nation’s wealth. The top 5% of households increased their share of US wealth, especially after the 2008 financial crisis. Meanwhile, the richest 1% tripled their share of US income within a generation.

This unprecedented wealth concentration and the corresponding deprivation of others have generated backlashes, arguably contributing to the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election, the Brexit referendum, the strength of Marine Le Pen in France and the alternative for Germany, and the ascendance of the Hindutva right in secular India.

‘Communist’ China and inequality

Meanwhile, China has increasingly participated in and grown rapidly as inequality has risen sharply in the ostensibly communist-ruled country. China has supplied cheaper consumer goods to the world, checking inflation and improving living standards for many. Part of its huge trade surplus – due to relatively low, albeit recently rising wages – has been recycled in financial markets, mainly in the US, which helped expand credit at low interest rates there.

Thus, cheap consumer products and cheap credit have enabled the slowly shrinking ‘middle class’ in the West to mitigate the downward pressure on their living standards despite stagnating or falling real wages and mounting personal and household debt.

China’s export-led development on the basis of low wages has sharply increased income inequality in the world’s largest country for more than three decades. Beijing is the new ‘billionaire capital of the world’, no longer New York. China now has 594 billionaires, 33 more than in the US.

Since the 1980s, income inequality in China has risen faster than most. China now has one of the world’s highest levels of income inequality, rising mainly in the last three decades. The richest 1% of households own a third of the country’s wealth, while the poorest quarter own only 1%. China’s Gini coefficient for income rose to 0.49 in 2012 from 0.3 over three decades before when it was one of the most egalitarian countries in the world. Another survey put China’s income Gini at 0.61 in 2010, greatly exceeding the US’s 0.45.

(IPS)

Protecting the Rights of Women Migrant Workers

Most women migrant workers contribute more than men in destination countries but face added risks of in of discrimination, abuse and exploitation.

Women migrant workers. Credit: UN

United Nations: International migration is a complex phenomenon dealing with overlapping issues relating to the human rights of migrants, mixed migration flows, international protection, smuggling and trafficking, as well as other push and pull factors affecting migration.

But, the need of the hour is a rights-based comprehensive approach placing the human rights of migrants at the centre of the discussion to halt and roll back overall deterioration of treatment of migrant workers, worldwide – in particular, women migrant workers and children.

Evidence suggests that the world is on the eve of far greater international mobility largely due to work force decline and population ageing, coupled with low birth rates in many industrialised countries. Migrants will be even more essential to address labour market needs and the sustainability of economic development in many countries.

But as we all know, migrants move due to a number of reasons. Migration is not only due to economic factors – man-made disasters and conflicts can drive them in large number as we observe now.

And migration can be engendered due to poverty and lack of human development, gender inequalities, discrimination, abuse and neglect, gang violence, political instability, socio-ethnic tensions, bad governance, food insecurity, environmental degradation and climate change.

As underscored by many human rights defenders, human rights abuses play a crucial role in decisions to migrate, in particular by women.

Out of more than 244 million migrants throughout the world, half are women, and an estimated 20% are in an irregular situation. In some countries like Sri Lanka and the Philippines, female migrant workers leaving for work abroad are much more than half of those leaving.

And in overall, international migration is becoming increasingly feminised as more women are migrating on their own volition, seeking economic and social opportunities and empowerment through migration.

Most women contribute more than men in destination countries in professions, such as care-givers while contributing even more to the well-being of their families in their countries of origin. But, women migrant workers are particularly at risk of discrimination, abuse and exploitation.

They receive wages that are under the minimum baseline and are victims of fraudulent practices, excessive working hours and even illegal confinement by their employers. Sexual harassment, threats and intimidation against them are rampant.

Meanwhile, the number of women migrant workers committing suicide is on the increase. Abuses of women migrant workers are more intensified when their immigration status is irregular. They are often denied the most basic labour protections, personal security, due process guarantees, health care and education for their children. They often face abuse and harassment at international borders based on race, identity and age. And often they risk being trafficked, enslaved or sexually assaulted.

Domestic female migrant workers are a most vulnerable group. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), 53 million women and girls around the world are employed as domestic workers in private households. They clean, cook, care for children, look after elderly family members and perform other care giving essential tasks for their employers.

Despite their important role, they are among the most exploited and abused workers in the world. They often work 14 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week, for wages far below the minimum wage. And their work is often not recognised as work under national labour codes.

Their work is not quantified in financial terms and therefore not adequately compensated. They may be locked within their workplace and subject to physical and sexual violence for lack of means for seeking formal protection normally available for other women in formal sectors of employment.

Therefore, policymakers and other stakeholders in every country must adopt a gender-sensitive and rights based approach in developing labour migration laws and policies in line with the core human rights treaties and in particular the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Committee on Migrant Workers (CMW), as well as relevant ILO labour standards.

These human rights instruments relevant to migrants seek to achieve gender equality and protection for women and girls irrespective of age, sexuality, race, disability, migration status and other identity markers.

National and local laws and policies should be evolved to guarantee that human rights, including labour rights, are enjoyed equally by men and women migrant workers and that migration legislation, policies and programmes must promote equality of opportunity and treatment in respect of employment and occupations with a view of eliminating any discrimination based on sex.

In this regard, female domestic workers must receive special attention, as they are most vulnerable group. The Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families is a robust and agreed legal framework for the rights of all migrant workers and their families in countries of origin, transit and destination.

The convention sets out the best strategy to prevent abuses and address challenges faced by female migrant workers. It provides guidance for elaborating of national migration policies for international co-operation based on respect for human rights and the rule of law.

In addition to setting minimum obligations for the protection of migrant workers and members of their families, the convention is a helpful tool for governance of migration. The convention explicitly provides a framework for human-rights based policy-making on migration, including irregular migration and female migrant workers.

The treaty body of the convention, the CMW seeks to encourage its state parties and all stakeholders to work towards reaching standard enunciated in this convention and other relevant international instruments. And CMW in its general comments have elaborated guidance as to how states can implement their obligation with respect to migrant domestic workers, in particular, females.

CMW regularly advises states to ensure that they develop effective pre-departure and awareness-raising programmes for female workers who have made the decision to migrate, with briefings on their rights under the relevant human rights treaties in force, including CMW, as well as the conditions of their admission and employment and their rights and obligations under the law and practice of the receiving states.

Among other measures, CMW encourage countries of origin to enter into agreements with states of destination for the establishment of standard, unified and binding employment contracts with fair, full and clear conditions and labour standards that are enforceable by systems of law in countries of origin and employment; and to ensure that consular offices are trained to assist female migrant workers, and to provide counselling and guidance for submitting complaints; and encourage states to regulate and monitor recruitment agencies to ensure that they respect the human and labour rights of women migrant workers.

CMW also advises states to repeal sex-specific bans and discriminatory restrictions on women’s migration on the basis of age, marital status, pregnancy or maternity status, including restrictions that require women to get permission from their spouse or male guardian to obtain a passport or to travel or bans on women migrant workers.

The issue of detention of female migrant workers is yet another punitive measure that is often abused by authorities in many countries. The convention attempts to make migration for work as a positive and empowering experience for individuals and their societies, contributing to economic progress and human development both at home and in destination countries.

Today’s dramatic migration crisis underscores the urgent need to begin a more honest discussion about the obstacles to ratification of the Migrant Workers Convention. The convention at present has only 50 state parties, and most are states of origin of migrant workers, and destination countries by not ratifying the convention are conspicuously avoiding the human rights standards of the convention.

A clear vision of the need for migrant labour in destination countries, with more channels for regular migration, as well as for family reunification, would assist greatly in preventing the exploitation and other dangers faced by female migrant workers and to enable them to live a life in dignity.

This article was originally published on IPS.