Brookings: Experts - Ted Piccone

President Obama's Trip to Mexico Emphasizes America's Future Economic Prosperity and Security

Diana Villiers Negroponte and Ted Piccone — Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Mexico and the U.S. are mutually dependent on one another for their collective and respective economic and national security interests. President Obama’s meetings with Mexico’s new president Enrique Pena Nieto will certainly cover border security issues, weapons, drug trafficking and immigration, but these two leaders will want to find ways to further cement the economic relationship between the two countries. Earlier this week, Senior Fellows Ted Piccone and Diana Negroponte sat down together to examine the importance of these talks.

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President Obama's Trip to Mexico Emphasizes America's Future Economic Prosperity and Security

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A Conversation on President Obama’s Trip to Mexico and Costa Rica

Joshua Meltzer, Diana Villiers Negroponte, Ted Piccone and Neil Ruiz — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:59:00 -0400

In advance of President Obama’s trip to Mexico and Costa Rica later this week, Brookings scholars Ted Piccone, Joshua Meltzer, Neil Ruiz and Diana Negroponte discuss the main priorities on the agenda between the United States, Mexico and Costa Rica. Topics covered include: expanding trade and economic cooperation between the U.S., Mexico and Central America, U.S. immigration reform, border security, drugs, crime and violence in Mexico and Central America, energy cooperation, and local politics in Mexico.

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“I think there has a been a view around for awhile now that the bilateral relationship at least with Mexico has been dominated by drugs and violence. And I think there is going to be a concerted effort here to refocus attention on to the depth and size of the economic relationship.” — Joshua Meltzer

“It’s a second term trip for the president, but its early in his second term and I think he’s got a lot of heavy lifting still to do on issues that are particularly important to Latin America and especially important to Mexico and Central America. These issues [jobs and the economy, immigration, security] are not the typical ones on the foreign policy agenda. These are issues that are bread and butter, hot-button domestic political issues but they are very important to the Latins, particularly in Mexico and Central America.” — Ted Piccone

“Immigration is a hot button issue of course. It’s something that is still alive here in the U.S. There’s no reform yet to report back to Mexican and Central American leaders. But these meetings actually set the stage for building the relationship for working together once immigration reform is implemented into law.” —Neil Ruiz

“This is a time when Enrique Pena Nieto, the newly elected Mexican president, has got a chance to really celebrate the strength of the Mexican economy: 3.5 percent GDP growth this year, 3.9 percent GDP growth last year… [and] a growing middle class, which means more people with a car and an ability to take a vacation, with iPods, with cellular telephones, and more mobile.” —Diana Negroponte

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A Conversation on President Obama’s Trip to Mexico and Costa Rica

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Democracy, Human Rights and the Emerging Global Order

Ted Piccone — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:12:00 -0400

The Brookings Institution’s Managing Global Order project convened a two-day workshop to discuss emerging trends in international support for democracy and human rights and the increasingly complex drivers shaping foreign policies. Bringing together policy makers and experts from emerging and established democratic powers at Greentree, the workshop identified areas of convergence and divergence in foreign policy priorities, methods, and discourse, and extrapolated implications for the evolving global order.

On the first day, participants explored the concepts of democracy and human rights and their promotion within the context of competing national interests. On the second day, the focus shifted to international cooperation on issues of democracy and human rights, especially as seen through the lens of the Arab uprisings and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), and the politics that guide the foreign policies of democracies. The discussions, which were held on the basis of the Chatham House rule of non-attribution to specific speakers, are summarized here.

The conversation was predicated on a working definition of democracy as a liberal, representative political system as articulated in various international instruments like the Warsaw Declaration of the Community of Democracies, UN General Assembly Resolution 56/96 of 2001, and the Inter-American Democratic Charter. While recognizing that it takes different forms in different contexts, democracy in this sense reflects such core principles as the separation of powers with checks and balances, civil and political rights, freedom of the press, universal suffrage in free and fair elections, and civilian control of the military. Although participants disagreed to what extent social and economic rights should be emphasized in the expression of democracy, they agreed that all human rights as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are interdependent and mutually reinforcing and deserve protection.

Global Governance

In an era when the gap between the demand for and the supply of global governance is growing, it is increasingly urgent that established and emerging democracies find common ground on norms and delivery of global public goods, especially on democracy and human rights issues. There is cause for optimism: Rising democracies like India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, and Turkey are embracing democracy and human rights at home and to varying degrees promoting them in their neighborhoods. But they are not yet stepping up to address the gap on these and other issues in global governance internationally.

Simultaneously, the rules-based system under which international relations take place is in flux, providing an opportunity to reshape and redirect the global order. Emerging powers emphasize the importance of democratization both domestically, where they are grappling with their own internal processes of reform, and multilaterally, where they question whether actions of established powers are commensurate with their principles, argue for universal application of rules and norms, and insist on a greater voice at the decision-making table. They have the opportunity to shape the future of global governance as leaders and are proving themselves important players in global affairs, but this shift has been more marked at the level of regions and neighborhoods. The results of multipolarity in the global sphere have been more ambiguous and it remains to be seen whether the liberal world order persists or a new framework emerges with rising powers at the helm of a more elastic set of norms. While it appears certain that human rights will remain a durable legacy of the era of Western hegemony, the cause of enlarging democracy stands on less solid footing.

The Democracy Advantage and its Place in Defining National Interests

In the modern era, peace generally reigns amongst democracies. Democracies also perform better than non-democracies at economic development, and democracy, economic development, and regional integration work hand-in-hand to promote peace and stability. Non-democracies are more likely to be failed states spawning internal or external conflict. It would be expected, therefore, that democracies would identify the spread of democracy as in their national interests and would partner on certain issues, such as support for democratic transitions, human rights and rule of law. A state’s designation as a democracy or non-democracy, however, is not necessarily a good predictor of foreign policy alignment. While there is strong convergence on the fundamental principles of human rights, emerging and established democracies favor very different methodologies for addressing threats to such core values, resulting in divergence of policy, politicization and stalemate, as in the case of Syria.

There was consensus that democracy cannot be imposed by external actors, but rather must be pursued organically by a population. It is a path, not a destination. Similarly, countries formulate and express democracy differently based on their unique histories; there is no single model of democracy. Aspiring democratic countries seeking advice from other democracies are increasingly turning to states that have undertaken their own transitions more recently, and they, in turn, are responding positively if and when asked to assist. In fact, the “twinning” model of pairing newer democracies with transitioning states is being prototyped by the Community of Democracies through its project pairing Poland with Moldova, and Slovakia with Tunisia. The G8 has arranged similar pairings through the Deauville Partnership with Arab Countries in Transition, which links leaders in aspiring democracies with G8 partners to build institutional capacity, promote knowledge sharing, and strengthen accountability and good-governance practices. In addition, rising democracies like Indonesia and South Africa have been key players in establishing and utilizing multilateral fora like the Bali Democracy Forum and the African Peer Review mechanism to share experiences and best practices in this domain.

Although participants agreed that democracy must be demand driven, disagreement emerged regarding the universality of democracy promotion. Some felt strongly that countries on the path of democracy have a responsibility to assist those who seek the same path. Others noted the negative connotations associated with democracy promotion and its perceived application as a post-hoc, faux justification for military intervention aimed at regime change, as with U.S. involvement in Iraq. Some also pointed to its selective application, especially when energy security interests take precedence over influencing, punishing, or removing repressive regimes, as with U.S. passivity in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Some in the global South interpret democracy promotion as a U.S. agenda rather than a universal aspiration and wish to construct a unique brand of support for democracy in contrast to the U.S. and E.U. model. Rising democracies seek their own identity (also referred to as strategic autonomy) in an effort to avoid being seen as tools of more established powers. In one respect, this attitude has prompted emerging powers to act timidly with regards to democracy promotion, hiding behind the fig leaves of sovereignty and non-intervention when asked by the international community to act outside their neighborhoods.

Nonetheless, such powers have actively promoted democracy in their regions through both bilateral and multilateral mechanisms. Indonesia, for example, was a key player in leveraging ASEAN to encourage Myanmar to undertake political change and in drafting the first ever ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights. However, emerging powers have been as complacent as established powers in indirectly suppressing democracy when other national interests take precedence, as with India’s less than decisive response to the political crisis in the Maldives, or Brazil’s uncritical support for Cuba. In response to the Arab Spring, rising democracies are for the first time being expected to grapple with the notion of democracy promotion beyond their own regions, an expectation many find difficult to fulfill. The prevalence of extremist ideologies and xenophobia, the increased threat of the tyranny of the majority, and the free and fair election of leaders the international community may dislike all posed significant red flags for emerging (and established) democracies and reinforced their reticence regarding democracy promotion. Other national interests like trade relations, energy dependence, migration and diaspora population concerns present roadblocks to greater international engagement on this issue.

The emergence of other domestic political and economic actors with their own interests and values plays an important role in shaping national interests, especially in emerging democratic powers. Some disagreement concerned which actors had the most influence over the definition of national interests. In Brazil, for example, the private sector may be notably more influential than other domestic players, which complicates a truly national definition of priorities. Parliament plays an uneven and unpredictable role in formulating foreign policy, although legislators in emerging powers have begun taking greater interest. For example, Brazilian congressmen and senators recently joined a coalition with NGOs to hold the foreign minister accountable on human rights issues. While recognizing the important role legislators can play in inserting human rights into foreign policy, some acknowledged that their contribution could also be a mixed blessing due to nationalist, religious or ethnic political motivations.

Much conversation also involved the balancing of interests that sometimes conflict with human rights, such as national security and the economy. Some argued that human rights and democracy support must be managed in a way that does not jeopardize other national interests or relations with key trading partners like China. In this respect, constant calibration between interests and values is vital. Rising democracies will continue to define their own pace of democratization at home and support for democracy and human rights abroad, leading many observers to predict a continued period of inertia and inaction in responding to or preventing democratic breakdowns or mass human rights violations. The international community is thus tasked to advance a mutually respectful collaborative approach that appeals to both emerging and established powers and that achieves results. To successfully reach such a compromise, it must identify approaches the global South feels comfortable employing and develop strategies to bring those tools to bear in new and challenging contexts.

The Arab Uprisings and the Responsibility to Protect

Although the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is embraced as within democratic principles, its primary purpose is not democracy promotion. R2P’s mission is atrocity prevention, though it is difficult to operationalize the concept. The application of R2P in Libya through military intervention authorized by the UN Security Council and the subsequent failure to exercise it in Syria as of yet has revealed many challenges inherent in current understandings of R2P. It also provided an important venue for conversation between established and emerging powers about humanitarian intervention. It is clear that a fundamental shift has taken place regarding humanitarian intervention and that more and more states embrace the broad values expressed by R2P. For example, most of the 118 states that mentioned Syria at the UN General Assembly in 2012 expressed concern about the population, up from less than a third who invoked Kosovo and East Timor in 1999. In addition, the IBSA Dialogue Forum sent a delegation to Syria, as did Turkey, a new rallying of emerging powers to address threats to human rights both inside and outside their own neighborhoods. This level of attention and the unprecedented advocacy of a policy of intervention by rising powers can be attributed at least in part to the improved quality of democracy in the rising democracies.

With the support of emerging powers like South Africa, UN Security Council Resolution 1973 authorized the use of force in Libya, but elicited rancor from some parties when it resulted in the overthrow of Moammar Gaddafi. Suspicions were voiced that Resolution 1973 had acted as cover for regime change, and because it was couched in the language of R2P, states began questioning the concept. In response to this breakdown in consensus, Brazil proposed the Responsibility While Protecting (RWP) principle, which emphasized the sequencing of measures to ensure all options were exhausted before using force, and called for greater accountability and reporting to the Security Council. Participants disagreed as to whether RWP served as a useful basis for conversation between the North and South, or if it represented a counterproductive Brazilian political move that merely inflamed rhetoric. Some of the good will engendered by RWP has begun to disintegrate as the situation in Syria continues to fester with no coordinated international response.

Admittedly, Libya and Syria are very different countries, especially in terms of the roles they play in the strategic interests of key actors. Nevertheless, the application of R2P in Libya but not in Syria highlights the phenomenon of selectivity, a topic of debate throughout the workshop. Participants agreed that crisis situations should be examined on a case-by-case basis, but at the same time many reinforced the global responsibility to support all states that are unable to adequately prevent mass atrocities. Some suggested that selectivity is the principled application of R2P but called for transparency in decision making to better understand a state’s motivations for supporting or denouncing intervention as an option. Others argued that universalizing the concept to make responsibility an obligation at all times in all cases is a fundamental challenge that the international community should pursue. At the very least, discourse must recognize that all states engage in some form of selectivity in order to advance the conversation.

It was pointed out that international responses to the Arab uprisings have been uneven not only in atrocity prevention but also democracy support. Emerging powers hesitate to lend support to the application of R2P in Syria lest it be used as a mask for regime change, as some perceive to have been in the case in Libya. However, established and emerging powers alike have not exercised leadership in universally supporting calls for democracy in countries of the Middle East because of overarching security concerns like energy and relations with Israel. And although emerging and established powers share an interest in energy security, they still differ on methodologies; a country may have leverage in a situation short of intervening militarily which might result in strategies that are most cost effective in money and lives. For example, South Africa resisted intervening militarily in Zimbabwe in response to democracy and human rights crises, despite international calls to do so, but was able, in their view, to improve elections there through alternative means. Likewise, it refused to intervene militarily in Sudan, instead employing a triangulation strategy that led to secession. Similarly, Turkey initially prioritized dialogue and consultation with the Assad regime, relying on the relationship it had cultivated with Syria over the last ten years to exhaust all potential peaceful solutions. IBSA also sent a high-level diplomatic mission to Syria to try to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict and thereby ward off military intervention.

The Arab uprisings have fundamentally challenged the Western idea of the separation of church and state, and Arab democracy demands a redefinition of secularism that allows religious values, but not rules and regulations, to take root in society. Discussants will continue to have to confront this new reality as the conversation continues regarding democratization in the Arab world.

Current understandings of preventive diplomacy tools like R2P – especially how they relate to and affect emerging democracies – must be improved. The discussion prompted by the Brazilian proposal of RWP highlights the need for further conversation or clarification about R2P as a tool. There is still fear that R2P provides a blank check to pursue national interests rather than prevent atrocities. Therefore, a refocusing on R2P’s purpose and intentions is needed, and may reduce objections to its proper application. In addition, a multilateral coalition must be built and maintained to address mass atrocities such as in Syria. This requires ongoing messaging with all partners and the public to maintain support and communicate expectations and mission objectives.

Tools for International Cooperation on Democracy and Human Rights

Recent events show a clear incapacity of international mechanisms to effectively address major threats to democracy and human rights. While established democracies are quicker to pursue coercive tactics and emerging democracies strongly prefer dialogue and reconciliation, a variety of tools are available and being tested on the world stage. Indonesia seeks to make democracy and human rights foundational concerns at existing institutions like ASEAN, its new Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), and the G20. Indonesia’s leadership in the adoption of the ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights and the establishment of the Bali Democracy Forum underscore this commitment. The Community of Democracies creates issue-based working groups to involve government and civil society and maximizes technology through the LEND network, connecting key leaders in transitioning countries with those in transitioned countries.

Another key tool touted by many participants is reliance on regional bodies as antenna in noting potential problems and as early movers in response to crises. The AU and SADC both have provisions to suspend any country that experiences an unconstitutional interruption, ECOWAS recently suspended Mali’s membership in response to a coup, and UNASUR recently exercised a similar provision against Paraguay. These and other multilateral mechanisms are critical because they reflect regional ownership without the presence of Northern powers and because such a coalition is less likely than a single nation to create further problems or receive pushback from local actors.

Participants discussed in depth the merits of democracy-inclusive forums and democracy-exclusive forums for discussion of important transnational issues. For example, the Community of Democracies reformed its invitation and governing council selection process in 2010 to ensure leadership consists of staunchly committed democracies while expanding participation at ministerial meetings to include countries at incipient stages of democracy. The Bali Democracy Forum, however, invites a broader base of participants, including China and Vietnam, in an effort to establish a conversation with more parties. While it was agreed that both style of forums are necessary and beneficial, participants lacked consensus as to when democracies should and should not include others in policy conversations.

Most participants with a global South view asserted that for any country to retain credibility in international cooperation on human rights and democracy, a strong human rights record at home is a vital requisite. Otherwise, the rules-based system that governs behavior is weakened by the perception that great powers write the rules but are not necessarily committed to following them. In this respect, emerging powers emphasize the importance of addressing human rights challenges domestically. For example, Brazil recently established a truth commission to investigate human rights abuses under the military dictatorship and passed a freedom of information law to increase transparency. It has also engaged in international efforts to combat violence against women and encourage open government initiatives, key concerns within Brazil and essential to advancing its own democracy. No consensus was reached on the means by which accountability can be increased on the global level, although the need was clearly articulated. Emerging democratic powers are increasingly held to account by vibrant civil society organizations and media that feature voices from victims of violations and question government’s actions abroad. Decision makers have noted this democratization of foreign policy and it continues to shape their processes and actions.

Words of caution tend to outweigh prescriptive solutions in discussing tools for international cooperation. According to some participants, limiting discussions on transnational issues to an exclusive club of democracies is a false dichotomy that discourse must move past. Engaging with imperfect democracies (like Venezuela and Bolivia) is crucial to encourage their continued development on the path of democracy. The regional dimension of democracy and human rights support should also be strengthened so that neighbors hold each other accountable for advancing democratic practices. Trade and regional economic integration can also be considered as a potentially effective tool for promoting values. States should also leverage their private sectors, which engage in new and different ways with civil society when investigating potential investment opportunities abroad, to take advantage of new avenues for dialogue. In addition, they should encourage business leaders to prioritize their obligations to protect human rights and sustainable development. Finally, the international community must better coordinate its efforts to avoid overwhelming target populations, as has occurred with countries rushing to Tunisia’s aid in its transition. It must also ensure that such aid is voluntary and in no way coercive.

The Politics of Foreign Policy in Democracies: The Human Rights Dimension

In the last session, participants articulated the tactics that facilitate action at the global level and the factors preventing further progress, with suggestions for improvement. Agreements at the UN Human Rights Council and other similar international fora are often reached by isolating extremists and working effectively with the middle. Diplomats are also successful when they can effectively navigate their governments in capital to alter a country’s position on an issue. Therefore, personalities of the diplomats at the UN, the Human Rights Council, and other relevant bodies can play important roles in shaping the course of negotiations. Similarly, personal priorities of government leaders can influence how much importance is placed on human rights. U.S. Secretary of State Clinton has prioritized women’s human rights and LGBT human rights, but Dilma Rousseff, President of Brazil, is a technocrat who prioritizes economic growth and social protections. The foreign policies of the countries reflect these priorities.

Many factors, including the realpolitik interests of emerging powers, resource constraints, political dynamics, personalities and what is politically and procedurally possible at international bodies all combine to explain why more action is not taken on human rights issues at the global level. For example, to highlight the importance of human rights in foreign policy, one European expert shared that the human rights section of the foreign ministry receives the highest number of parliamentary questions on foreign policy, while about half of the daily statements from the ministry spokesperson pertain to human rights. However, budget constraints and the current state of the economy prevent more robust action at this time. Another participant from an established democracy shared that internal bureaucratic politics limited the policy options available to diplomats which slowed action at the Human Rights Council and limited that country’s opportunities to lead. Conversely, domestic politics forced India to change its vote at the Human Rights Council regarding a resolution calling on Sri Lanka to address human rights abuses. India had long resisted such resolutions, but thanks to overt pressure from a coalition partner, it became more active. This represents an unusual but important example of domestic politics prompting rather than impeding action on human rights at the international level.

Emerging democracies face major challenges in addressing their own human rights deficits at home. They largely lack a domestic constituency for a more human rights-oriented foreign policy, meaning the few NGOs advocating for these issues have a small pool of support on which to draw. As a result, economic growth and private interests are usually prioritized over accountability. In Brazil, much of civil society has not been actively engaged on these issues, and in Indonesia, the discussion has traditionally been dominated by think tanks. This has begun to shift and influence on foreign policy has begun to diversify, but in many of the emerging powers this change is still in the nascent phases. In some cases, emerging democracies still struggle to maintain a high-quality representative system. The process of decentralization in Indonesia has led to a growing oligarchy which threatens the protection of minority rights – especially religious minorities but also women. Turkey has experienced serious backsliding regarding freedom of the press while continuing to wrestle with its own minority rights challenges. Overall, civil society engagement on foreign policy in emerging democracies has been limited but is improving. Attention should be paid to framing the discussion on a case-by-case basis to bring these issues into the public consciousness in the relevant countries.

Despite these challenges, most participants agreed that civil society and NGOs have an enormous role to play in shaping foreign policy regarding human rights. When governments refuse to act on important issues, civil society can apply pressure to prompt action. For example, when South Africa hesitated to broach LGBT rights at the Human Rights Council, South African civil society held the government accountable by bringing public attention to the prioritization of human rights codified in the 1994 constitution. This shamed South Africa into leading on this issue. However, many participants asserted that civil society and NGOs must be more creative in approaching governments. While the foreign ministry is often the lead on foreign policy regarding human rights, many other ministries have equity in these crosscutting issues and shape (or block) the debate. Civil society and NGOs should approach other ministries – ministries concerned with the economy, education, and security, for example – to apply pressure and enact change. In addition, they can call upon leaders in the executive branch with a personal interest in democracy and human rights matters to apply pressure. For example, in Brazil, NGOs approached an attorney general who had previously worked in the human rights field to question the foreign ministry about an upcoming vote on North Korea. By invoking Article IV of the 1988 Brazilian Constitution, which codifies a commitment to human rights, the attorney general and NGOs were able to elicit a change in Brazil’s vote.

While these recommendations may help civil society and NGOs bolster their impact, they must be prepared for pushback from governments. While governments in the global North revert to funding constraints and domestic pressure as motivations for their action or inaction, governments in the global South might rely on arguments that South-South cooperation should be emphasized over naming and shaming tactics and that the system operates under a double standard. Civil society and NGOs should accept and support South-South cooperation, but not complacency. They must demand leadership from their governments to ensure the safeguarding of the global democracy and human rights order.

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Ted Piccone

Image Source: © Ho New / Reuters

How The Hague Courts and Tribunals Protect Human Rights

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 10:00:00 -0400

Event Information

April 4, 2013
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

For the last twenty years, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has given a voice to victims as it prosecuted those accused of grave human rights abuses in the Yugoslav conflict. The International Criminal Court (ICC), established just over ten years ago, also plays a vital role in holding violators responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. These anniversaries provide a valuable opportunity to reflect on the past and look to the future of international courts and tribunals and how they promote and protect human rights globally.

On April 4, the Managing Global Order Project at Brookings and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands hosted a discussion to take stock of the ability of the ICTY, the ICC, and other international and regional justice mechanisms to hold leaders accountable for grave human rights abuses. Panelists included: Fatou Bensouda, prosecutor for the International Criminal Court; Theodor Meron, president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and its successor the United Nations Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals; and Ambassador Stephen Rapp, ambassador-at-large for War Crimes Issues at the U.S. Department of State. Senior Fellow Ted Piccone, deputy director of Foreign Policy at Brookings, provided introductory remarks. Abiodun Williams, president of The Hague Institute for Global Justice, moderated the discussion.

Time to Bet on Cuba

Ted Piccone — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Cuba’s efforts to “update” its socialist system through a series of economic reforms just got more complicated. The death of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, its principal benefactor, could seriously disrupt what is already a precarious process of maintaining top-down political control while liberalizing elements of the economy. Raúl Castro’s announcement that he will step down in five years and the emergence of younger leaders born after the 1959 revolution add further uncertainty to the island’s future.

These new circumstances offer President Obama a rare opportunity to turn the page of history from an outdated Cold War approach to Cuba to a new era of constructive engagement. In his second term in office, he should place a big bet by investing political capital in defrosting relations, an approach that will advance U.S. interests in a stable, prosperous and democratic Cuba.

Under Castro, the Cuban government has undertaken important reforms to modernize and liberalize the economy. Cubans are now permitted to buy and sell property, open their own businesses, hire employees and enter into co-ops, with state-owned enterprises on a more equal footing. The updating of the Soviet-style economic system is a gradual and highly controlled process. But the recent legal emergence of formal, small-scale private businesses (cuentapropistas) that can now compete on a more equal footing with state-owned enterprises opens a window into a profound shift in thinking already under way on the island. The reforms also offer new opportunities for U.S. engagement.

Castro’s loosening of the apron strings extends beyond the economy. In January, the Cuban government lifted exit controls for most citizens, which is likely to accelerate the process of reconciliation within the Cuban diaspora. It could also result in a swift uptick of Cubans departing for the United States, demanding a reconsideration of U.S. migration policy to manage the increase. The gradual handoff of power to a next generation of more pragmatic party and military leaders who will determine the pace and scope of the reform process is yet further evidence that the Castro generation is looking forward to securing a viable legacy.

The U.S. approach to Cuba has likewise undergone important changes since Obama took office. Since the expansion of travel and remittances in 2009, hundreds of thousands of the 1.8 million Cuban Americans living in the United States have sent more than $2 billion to relatives there, providing important fuel to the burgeoning private sector and empowering citizens to be less dependent on the Cuban state.

Much more, however, could be done. In his second term, Obama has a wealth of policy options available to him through executive authority that would reframe U.S. support for the Cuban people and advance U.S. national interests.

In his second term, the president can (and should):

Appoint a special envoy to open a discrete dialogue with Havana without preconditions to discuss such issues as migration, travel, counterterrorism and counternarcotics, energy and the environment, and trade and investment. Such talks could result in provisions that strengthen border security, protect Florida from oil spills, break down the walls of communication that prevent our diplomats from traveling outside Havana and help U.S. businesses export more goods, and thereby create jobs.
Authorize financial and technical assistance to support burgeoning small businesses and permit trade in goods and services with certified independent entrepreneurs.
Expand the list of exports licensed for sale to Cuba, including school and art supplies, water and food preparation systems and telecommunications equipment.
Grant general licenses for journalists, researchers, humanitarian organizations and others to facilitate people-to-people exchanges.
Remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, where it does not belong, allowing a greater share of U.S.-sourced components and services in products that enter Cuban commerce.

This list is not exhaustive; the president can take any number of unilateral steps to improve relations and increase U.S. support to the Cuban people, as mandated by Congress. He can also expect significant pushback from a well-organized and vocal minority of elected officials who are increasingly out of step with their constituencies on this issue. (In the 2012 election, Obama’s share of the Cuban-American vote increased by 10 points in Miami-Dade county.) He can win the argument, however, by demonstrating that these measures are in the spirit of the congressional mandate to encourage a free and prosperous Cuba.

The trend toward reform in Cuba is evident and suggests that an inflection point is approaching. Now is the time to employ a new paradigm by opening a long overdue direct dialogue with our next-door neighbor and thereby test the willingness of the Cuban government to engage constructively, including on the case of U.S. citizen Alan Gross. By invoking his executive authority to expand trade, travel and communications with the Cuban people, Obama can continue to help them make the transition from subjects to citizens. The moment has come to rise above historical grievances and extend that outstretched hand he so eloquently promised just four years ago.

Authors

Ted Piccone

Publication: The Hill

Image Source: © Enrique de la Osa / Reuters

Chavez Is Dead. Chavismo Lives On.

Ted Piccone — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0500

The death of Hugo Chavez will have little short-term impact on Venezuela's current trajectory of "Boliviarian socialism" or on its relations with the United States. His long illness and resounding re-election victory last October gave his cohorts both the time and the legitimacy to project an image of continuity and stability. This, combined with the ongoing social welfare benefits meted out to Chavez's core followers, will ensure a victory for Chavez's anointed successor, Vice President Nicolás Maduro, in snap elections to be held next month. Maduro will have some serious economic challenges to tackle, including rising food prices, the highest inflation rate in the hemisphere and mounting debt. The recent decision to devalue its currency, however, demonstrates that the Chavistas are willing to make some hard decisions. Those are likely to be put on hold, however, until after the next round of elections.

In foreign policy, Maduro is unlikely to veer from Chavez's tested formula of demonizing the United States, at least rhetorically, a tactic he has already deployed in accusing Washington of somehow instigating Chavez's illness and expelling two U.S. military attachés.

The longstanding close relationship between Chavez and the Castros in Havana is likely to continue under new leadership in Venezuela, at least for the short to medium term. Cuba has carefully inserted itself into the transition planning process in Caracas and both sides benefit from continuity in terms of oil subsidies, medical and education services, security and intelligence cooperation and ideological and anti-U.S. solidarity.

Washington should bide its time and quietly wait out what should be a relatively smooth transition to a post-Chavez leadership and then remount its earlier efforts to turn a page away from the antagonism of the Chavez era toward a more pragmatic relationship of mutual interests. If Maduro concludes, however, that he has more to gain parroting the Chavez line of virulent anti-Americanism, it will be difficult to turn the other cheek for another six years.

Authors

Ted Piccone

Image Source: © Carlos Garcia Rawlins / Reuters

Opening to Havana

Ted Piccone — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

President Obama can break free of the embargo against Cuba by asserting executive authority to facilitate trade, travel and communications with the Cuban people. Ted Piccone drafted this memorandum to President Obama as part of Big Bets and Black Swans: A Presidential Briefing Book.

What can President Obama do about trade, travel and communication with Cuba?
How does Cuba easing its travel restrictions affect U.S. migration policy?
What can Obama do to overcome Congressional opposition to talks with Cuba?

Download Memorandum (pdf) | Download the Presidential Briefing Book (pdf)

TO: President Obama

FROM: Ted Piccone

Your second term presents a rare opportunity to turn the page of history from an outdated Cold War approach to Cuba to a new era of constructive engagement that will encourage a process of reform already underway on the island. Cuba is changing, slowly but surely, as it struggles to adapt its outdated economic model to the 21st century while preserving one-party rule. Reforms that empower Cuban citizens to open their own businesses, buy and sell property, hire employees, own cell phones, and travel off the island offer new opportunities for engagement.

Recommendation:

You can break free of the straitjacket of the embargo by asserting your executive authority to facilitate trade, travel and communications with the Cuban people. This will help establish your legacy of rising above historical grievances, advance U.S. interests in a stable, prosperous and democratic Cuba, and pave the way for greater U.S. leadership in the region.

Background:

Early in your first term, you made an important down payment on fostering change in Cuba by expanding travel and remittances to the island. Since then, hundreds of thousands of the 1.8 million Cuban-Americans in the United States have traveled to Cuba and sent over $2 billion to relatives there, providing important fuel to the burgeoning small business sector and helping individual citizens become less dependent on the state. Your decision to liberalize travel and assistance for the Cuban diaspora proved popular in Florida and helped increase your share of the Cuban-American vote by ten points in Miami-Dade county in the 2012 election.

As a result of your actions and changing demographics, families are more readily reuniting across the Florida straits, opening new channels of commerce and communication that are encouraging reconciliation among Cuban-Americans and a more general reframing of how best to support the Cuban people. Cuba’s recent decision to lift exit controls for most Cubans on the island is likely to accelerate this process of reconciliation within the Cuban diaspora, thereby softening support for counterproductive tactics like the embargo. The new travel rules also require a re-think of the outdated U.S. migration policy in order to manage a potential spike in departures from the island to the United States. For example, the team handling your immigration reform bill should be charged with devising proposals to reduce the special privileges afforded Cubans who make it to U.S. soil.

Under Raul Castro, the Cuban government has continued to undertake a number of important reforms to modernize its economy, lessen its dependence on Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, and allow citizens to make their own decisions about their economic futures. The process of reform, however, is gradual, highly controlled and short on yielding game-changing results that would ignite the economy. Failure to tap new offshore oil and gas fields and agricultural damage from Hurricane Sandy dealt further setbacks. Independent civil society remains confined, repressed and harassed, and strict media and internet controls severely restrict the flow of information. The Castro generation is slowly handing power over to the next generation of party and military leaders who will determine the pace and scope of the reform process.

These trends suggest that an inflection point is approaching and that now is the time to try a new paradigm for de-icing the frozen conflict. The embargo — the most complex and strictest embargo against any country in the world — has handcuffed the United States and has prevented it from having any positive influence on the island’s developments. It will serve American interests better to learn how to work with the emerging Cuban leaders while simultaneously ramping up direct U.S. outreach to the Cuban people.

I recommend that your administration, led by a special envoy appointed by you and reporting to the secretary of state and the national security advisor, open a discreet dialogue with Havana on a wide range of issues, without preconditions. The aim of the direct bilateral talks would be to resolve outstanding issues around migration, travel, counterterrorism and counternarcotics, the environment, and trade and investment that are important to protecting U.S. national interests. Outcomes of these talks could include provisions that normalize migration flows, strengthen border security, break down the walls of communication that hinder U.S. ability to understand how Cuba is changing, and help U.S. businesses create new jobs.

In the context of such talks your special envoy would be authorized to signal your administration’s willingness to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, pointing to its assistance to the Colombian peace talks as fresh evidence for the decision. This would remove a major irritant in U.S.-Cuba relations, allow a greater share of U.S.-sourced components and services in products that enter Cuban commerce, and free up resources to tackle serious threats to the homeland from other sources like Iran. We should also consider authorizing payments for exports to Cuba through financing issued by U.S. banks and granting a general license to allow vessels that have entered Cuban ports to enter U.S. ports without having to wait six months. You can also facilitate technical assistance on market-oriented reforms from international financial institutions by signaling your intent to drop outright opposition to such moves.

Under this chapeau of direct talks, your administration can seek a negotiated solution to the thorny issue of U.S. and Cuban citizens serving long prison sentences, thereby catalyzing progress toward removing a major obstacle to improving bilateral relations.

You should, in parallel, also take unilateral steps to expand direct contacts with the Cuban people by:

• authorizing financial and technical assistance to the burgeoning class of small businesses and cooperatives and permitting Americans to donate and trade in goods and services with those that are certified as independent entrepreneurs, artists, farmers, professionals and craftspeople;

• adding new categories for general licensed travel to Cuba for Americans engaged in services to the independent economic sector, e.g., law, real estate, insurance, accounting, financial services;

• granting general licenses for other travelers currently authorized only under specific licenses, such as freelance journalists, professional researchers, athletes, and representatives of humanitarian organizations and private foundations;

• increasing or eliminating the cap on cash and gifts that non- Cuban Americans can send to individuals, independent businesses and families in Cuba;

• eliminating the daily expenditure cap for U.S. citizens visiting Cuba and removing the prohibition on the use of U.S. credit and bank cards in Cuba;

• authorizing the reestablishment of ferry services to Cuba;

• expanding the list of exports licensed for sale to Cuba, including items like school and art supplies, athletic equipment, water and food preparation systems, retail business machines, and telecommunications equipment (currently allowed only as donations).

The steps recommended above would give your administration the tools to have a constructive dialogue with the Cuban government based on a set of measures that 1) would engage Cuban leaders in high-level, face-to-face negotiations on matters that directly serve U.S. interests in a secure, stable, prosperous and free Cuba; and 2) allow you to assert executive authority to take unilateral steps that would increase U.S. support to the Cuban people, as mandated by Congress.

To take this step, you will have to contend with negative reactions from a vocal, well-organized minority of members of Congress who increasingly are out of step with their constituents on this issue. Your initiative should be presented as a set of concrete measures to assist the Cuban people, which is well within current congressional mandates, and as a way to break the stalemate in resolving the case of U.S. citizen Alan Gross (his wife is calling for direct negotiations). Those are winnable arguments. But you will need to be prepared for some unhelpful criticism along the way.

Conclusion:

Current U.S. policy long ago outlived its usefulness and is counterproductive to advancing the goal of helping the Cuban people. Instead it gives Cuban officials the ability to demonize the United States in the eyes of Cubans, other Latin Americans and the rest of the world, which annually condemns the embargo at the United Nations. At this rate, given hardening attitudes in the region against U.S. policy, the Cuba problem may even torpedo your next presidential Summit of the Americas in Panama in 2015. It is time for a new approach: an initiative to test the willingness of the Cuban government to engage constructively alongside an effort to empower the Cuban people.

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Obama: Take Advantage of Change of Momentum in Cuba

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Obama: Take Advantage of Change of Momentum in Cuba

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Ted Piccone

Image Source: © Enrique de la Osa / Reuters

What Roles for Foreign Direct Investment in the New Cuban Economy?

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 09:00:00 -0500

Event Information

December 10, 2012
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM EST

Stein Room
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC

Today’s ailing Cuban economy is marked by high labor costs, low wages and small inflows of foreign investment. In 2011, under President Raúl Castro’s leadership, the government started instituting reforms to open the economy. Positive developments in international tourism, nickel and cobalt mining, and high value-added agriculture serve as foundations for future growth. But progress made to date has yet to take full advantage of the plethora of competing sources of capital offered by today’s more diversified global economy. In order to remain competitive and preserve quality social services, Cuba could learn from its own experiences with joint ventures and free trade zones, and from the experiences of other developing countries, to harness foreign capital as a vital tool of national development. Will President Barack Obama, in his second term, take advantage of Cuba’s economic opening to forge a new path for relations with Havana?

On December 10, the Latin America Initiative at Brookings hosted the launch of a new study, “The New Cuban Economy: What Roles for Foreign Investment?” by Brookings Nonresident Fellow Richard Feinberg, professor of International Political Economy at the University of California San Diego. The report explores the role of foreign capital in the future of the Cuban economy, including recommendations for Cuba, the United States, and international financial institutions. Feinberg was joined by Diego Ruiz, vice president of Global Public Policy and Government Affairs for PepsiCo, Inc., and Christopher Sabatini, senior director of policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas. Senior Fellow Ted Piccone, deputy director of Foreign Policy at Brookings, provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion.

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Senate GOP Failed on Disability Rights

Ted Piccone — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

As human rights advocates around the world celebrate the 64th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights this week, their counterparts in the United States are mourning the Senate's rejection last week of the international convention for disability rights. Appalling in its own right, the Senate Republicans' defeat of the 21st century's first human rights treaty is a sad but sharp reminder that misinformation and fear can still override fundamental principles of human decency and common sense.

More importantly, it is yet another blow to the United States' ability to play a leading role in promoting freedoms and human dignity in the world.

The international bill of rights adopted by the United Nations on December 10, 1948, still stands as the gold standard in the daily fight for basic human rights today. As our societies democratize, mature and progress, human rights defenders are winning longstanding battles to expand the frontiers of rights to include women, children, indigenous peoples, LGBT communities and migrants. Economic and social rights are ascendant as well, as people make claims for the essentials of human life: water, food, health, jobs and education.

Read the full article »

Authors

Ted Piccone

Publication: CNN

Image Source: © Larry Downing / Reuters

Global Swing States and the Human Rights and Democracy Order

Ted Piccone — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's Note: This paper was originally published on the German Marshall Fund of the United States website. You can also download the related report titled "Global Swing States: Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey, and the Future of International Order."

SUMMARY

The convergence of values and divergence of methods between the “global swing states” — Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Turkey — and the world’s established democracies are on particular display in the arena of democracy and human rights. To varying degrees, all four nations are prepared to play a role in supporting international mechanisms to strengthen human rights and democracy, but this is to be done on their own terms: through quiet diplomacy and mediation, using coercive methods only as a last resort. The challenge before Western democracies is to evaluate when to seek convergence with global swing states on international interventions to uphold human rights and when to yield to parallel efforts that may entail less control but greater acceptance and therefore greater effectiveness on the ground.

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Global Swing States and the Human Rights and Democracy Order

Authors

Ted Piccone

Publication: The German Marshall Fund of the United States

Image Source: © Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

The Middle Classes and Foreign Policy in Latin America

Ted Piccone — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 00:00:00 -0500

As the middle classes have expanded in Latin America’s prospering democracies over the past 30 years, so too has their demand for better public policies from their governments. As their awareness of the effects of globalization on their own lives increases, civil society, including the media, business groups, academics and NGOs, are slowly becoming more vocal and organized.

This increasing competition for a voice in international affairs is the start of a long-awaited trend toward the democratization of foreign policy, offering both opportunities for greater transparency, accountability and pro-human rights policies, as well as risks of politicization and capture by special interests.

Read the article on America's Quarterly »

Authors

Ted Piccone

Publication: America’s Quarterly

Image Source: © Paulo Whitaker / Reuters

The Candidates Debate Foreign Policy – The Takeaways

Shadi Hamid, Kenneth G. Lieberthal, Ted Piccone, and Marvin Kalb — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 15:00:00 -0400

On October 22, President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney met in the last presidential debate of 2012, this time focusing on foreign policy. In this second part of a two part compilation, read the reactions to the debate by Brookings Foreign Policy experts: Shadi Hamid analyzes statements both candidates made on U.S. Middle East policy; Kenneth Lieberthal examines three themes on China both Romney and Obama focused on during the debate; Ted Piccone explores why Latin America was left out of the debate; Bruce Riedel comments on Romney's defense of Obama's Afghanistan-Pakistan policy; Marvin Kalb reflects on lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis and how they apply to U.S. foreign policy today.

Discussion of Middle East Would Leave Arabs Confused
Shadi Hamid, Director of Research, Brookings Doha Center and Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy
CNN

This debate, if nothing else, showed us that U.S. discourse on the Middle East bears little resemblance to how Arabs see their own region. I joked on twitter that if you had a split-screen of randomly selected Arabs watching, they’d probably be beyond confusion. To begin with, Romney’s foreign policy message crumbled under the weight of its own contradictions. In his October 8speech on the Middle East, he echoed the Bush “freedom agenda” in calling for a more pro-active approach to democracy promotion. But his first response on the Arab Spring suggested an exclusively security-oriented approach, with a region reduced to violence, terrorism, and “tumult.” He cited the free election of an Islamist president in Egypt as an example of the “dramatic reversal in the kind of hopes we had.”

Republicans and neoconservatives, to their credit, once prioritized democracy promotion. But the fact that Islamist parties tend win free elections has rendered “neoconservatism” incoherent. It is simply impossible to support democracy, on one hand, and oppose the rise of Islamists, on the other.

Authors

Publication: The Brookings Institution, CNN, Foreign Policy

Image Source: © POOL New / Reuters

Human Rights, Revolution, and Reform in the Muslim World

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 13:30:00 -0400

Event Information

September 26, 2012
1:30 PM - 3:00 PM EDT

The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC

On September 26, 2012, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy held an event featuring Anthony Tirado Chase, author of Human Rights, Revolution, and Reform in the Muslim World. The event started with an introduction of Dr. Chase by the moderator, Theodore Piccone. Dr. Chase began his presentation by stressing the need to recognize the reality in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), in terms of its plurality and ideological diversity, and the importance of these two factors in matters of human rights. According to Dr. Chase, “There is more to the Arab world than Islamists.” For this reason, the West must move away from the narrative framing the MENA as a uniform region.

Dr. Chase noted that his book attempts to highlight events in the region and the danger the West faces should it ignore the plurality of the MENA. Plurality helps us understand the region, its politics, society, the Arab Spring and its aftermath. The West will not understand “why they hate us,” until close attention is paid to the divisions in the Muslim and Arab World, instead of assuming that there is a unison Muslim or Arab World.

According to Dr. Chase, it is important to acknowledge and understand the people represented by current social and political movements. He said that “the mythical Arab street idea is that mobs tend to be manipulated,” but this has not been the case during the Arab Spring. Dr. Chase assessed that the lack of leadership in these movements created public democratic spaces. He recognized that violent acts led by extremists will always take place – such as the recent attack on the U.S. embassy in Libya. However, Dr. Chase reiterated the importance of understating pluralism to deal with these acts more “intelligently” and mitigate the effectiveness of radical groups.

According to Dr. Chase, human rights have always had an enormous impact in framing the political, social, and economic expectations of people and events in the region. In fact, there are more citizens in the MENA involved in politics and supporting democracy than in the West, and the denial of human rights is what has moved people into political action. In his view, more people were concerned with human rights than unemployment and economic issues. For this reason, he believes that leaders with undemocratic tendencies, such as Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, will be cautious in their use of force and limiting of human rights because they would risk losing power if they take radical coactive measures. “They are cynics in power,” Dr. Chase said, when referring to Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, “but the political and social circumstances force them to act democratically even against their will to retain power.”

During the latter part of his human rights discussion, Dr. Chase focused on the importance of freedom of expression in the processes of strengthening democracy, education and a broader cultural social dynamism in societies. “One cannot separate freedom of expression from other rights, nor can you draw red lines to freedom of expression, as Salafists want to do,” he said. Dr. Chase noted that “societies that loose freedom of expression become closed and static societies because they lose dynamism.”

Dr. Chase concluded by focusing on the future of the MENA. He warned that too much pluralism can also mean a fractured society with no cohesion because the old certainties of Arab nationalism could be lost. On the other hand, he praised the bottom-up nature of the recent revolutions that have become the antithesis of the top-down revolutions of the past. These movements are a “transnational current that is breaking the monopoly on power and information that governments had,” Dr. Chase said. In his view, some future possibilities for these countries are Islamists, Reactionary, and Old Order regimes.

Participants

Moderator

Ted Piccone

Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, Foreign Policy

Panelists

Anthony Chase

Associate Professor of Diplomacy and Worlds Affairs

Syria, Human Rights and the United Nations

Ted Piccone — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0400

As the world's leaders head to New York for their annual gathering at the United Nations General Assembly, much of the world's attention will be focused on the bloodletting in Syria and the ongoing stalemate that has prevented the world body from taking collective action. While Lakhdar Brahimi's mission on behalf of the U.N. Security Council and the Arab League to facilitate peace is admirable, he inherits a mandate that utterly failed, and conditions for peace have only gotten worse.

Despite the Assad regime's efforts to block and manipulate information about the conflict, we have reliable information that tells us he will go to the mat to outlast his opponents, both armed and unarmed. From the stream of refugees crossing borders into Turkey and Jordan, brave journalists who are risking their lives on the frontlines, everyday citizens armed with nothing more than a cellphone and a Skype connection, and U.N. monitors deployed to the field, the evidence is clear that civil war has been declared, and civilians are caught on the crossfire. The outcome of that war, it appears, will depend on which side is able to force a settlement that results in either the departure of Assad, or his retention of power for years to come. Hopes are dim, however, that the U.N. Security Council will do much given the continued intransigence of Russia and China and ambivalence of rising democracies like Brazil and India.

One U.N. body that appears to be doing the job it's supposed to do on Syria is the Human Rights Council. From the outbreak of the conflict in March 2011, the Council's members have decided to shine a spotlight on the human rights violations underway in Syria. It has convened multiple special sessions examining the situation and appointed a special commission of inquiry, led by Brazilian human rights expert Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, to scrutinize the available information and assign responsibility.

The commission's latest report (PDF), which will be debated at the next Human Rights Council session on Sept. 17, concluded that the Syrian government, as a matter of state policy, has perpetrated war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, extrajudicial killings and torture, gross violations of human rights and sexual violence. The report also found that more brutal tactics and new military capabilities have been employed in recent months by both government forces and armed opposition groups. While rebel forces have also allegedly committed war crimes, including murder and torture, the commission observed that these violations are not of the same gravity, frequency and scale as those committed by government forces and its militia, the Shabbiha. A confidential list of individuals and units believed to be responsible for these crimes will be submitted to High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay later this month. This in turn will create pressure on the Security Council to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court.

The Human Rights Council has taken up not only Syria, but other urgent cases as well. Its emergency session on Libya after Muammar Gaddafi signaled all-out war against civilians led immediately to its dismissal from the Council. It also helped establish the case for the Security Council's invocation of the responsibility to protect doctrine, an important breakthrough in operationalizing a concept that has protection of civilians at its core. It has created special rapporteurs to investigate human rights abuses committed by the governments of Eritrea, Belarus and Iran. It is putting pressure on states to improve their records across a whole range of human rights issues including freedom of association, attacks against human rights defenders and rights for lesbians and gays. And its new mechanism to examine the human rights record of every U.N. member state is winning plaudits from activists from countries like Venezuela, Zimbabwe, India and Brazil, as I heard during meetings of the CIVICUS World Assembly in Montreal last week.

The Council is moving forward on addressing these matters even though difficult states like China and Russia are members of the Council. While some politicians like to seize on every opportunity to dismiss the Council in toto because of its mixed membership, the facts tell another story: that with determined leadership from the United States and other democracies, along with an organized global human rights community, greater dissemination of the Council's work through the Internet, and the valuable contribution of the Council's independent experts, human rights is rising on the agenda of the international community and leading to surprising, albeit slow, progress. That's why I voted, on the recent Foreign Policy magazine survey of UN experts, for the Human Rights Council as the leading example of the Obama Administration's success with its relations with the U.N.

We will know how the rest of the world feels about Washington's role at the Human Rights Council on Nov. 17, when the U.N. elects members to the Council, a list that will not include, at least this year, states like Cuba, China and Sudan.

Come January, regardless of the state of affairs in Syria, we will also know if the United States will continue down the path of engaged, pro-active and effective relations with the United Nations, or set out on a different track of hostility, parsimony and withdrawal from the world body, as advocated by the likes of John Bolton and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, close advisers and friends of Mitt Romney. The global movement for human rights hangs in the balance.

Authors

Ted Piccone

Publication: The Huffington Post

Image Source: Reuters

New Technologies and Human Rights Monitoring

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Event Information

August 6-7, 2012

Stanford University

Stanford, CA

Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law together with the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and Google.org, convened a two-day workshop to advance strategic thinking on how to leverage new technologies to strengthen U.N. human rights monitoring around the world. Bringing together a small group of United Nations Human Rights Council mandate-holders, leading civil society activists, government representatives, and technologists working at the intersection of technology and human rights, the workshop developed concrete proposals for how technology platforms can be used to amplify the voices of mandate-holders, broaden their engagement with activists and citizens globally, and increase the awareness and impact of U.N. human rights monitoring mechanisms.

On the first day of the workshop, participants identified the needs of special rapporteurs, learned how technology is currently being used to promote human rights, and discussed the possibilities presented by new technologies for strengthening U.N. human rights mechanisms. The second day was conducted in the form of a design workshop. Hosted at Stanford's Design School (“d.school”), participants engaged in a day-long exploration of the needs of particular constituencies of the U.N. Special Rapporteurs, and designed and prototyped potential solutions to meet those needs.

Key findings/prototyped solutions:
- A victim-oriented platform of reporting, tracking, and responding to complaints of human rights abuse would allow victims and UN mechanisms to engage one another more directly and effectively;
- A dashboard-style case-management system designed to collate and analyze data would help manage and broadcast the work of UN mandate-holders, facilitating timely reporting and public engagement at all steps of the process;
- A tool for crowd-sourcing support for specific tasks like language translation could help address the lack of financial resources and human capital that hinders effective human rights monitoring

Read the full summary of the event »

Event Materials

New Technologies and Human Rights Monitoring Report_FINAL_2012

A Conversation on the UN’s Special Procedures

Ted Piccone and Cherif Bassiouni — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Editor’s Note: The United Nations’ mechanism for investigating human rights violations, called the special procedures, face a number of challenges in completing their mandates. To hear about these challenges firsthand, Ted Piccone, author of the book Catalysts for Change: How the UN’s Independent Experts Promote Human Rights, spoke with international human rights expert and DePaul University School of Law Prof. Cherif Bassiouni, who has served as an independent expert in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, and Bahrain. Piccone and Bassiouni discussed their experiences working with independent experts this July.

Ted Piccone: Cherif, you have so much experience, going back to your work when you served as an independent expert in Afghanistan. Can you give us your own personal reflections of this tool that governments have created to send independent experts to look into human rights matters on the ground?

Cherif Bassiouni: First Ted, congratulations on your new book. I think it is a very important book and I don’t say that gratuitously. But I think it is important for people to understand some of the problems with the [United Nations] as a system in respect to fact-finding and how in the final analysis it’s individuals who are appointed to these different fact-finding missions who save the day. Because the UN system is not only fraught with political considerations, but is self-fragmented bureaucratically, so it’s quite surprising that anything gets accomplished. And with limited resources available, the credit really in the final analysis goes to the individuals, whether they are appointed by the [UN] Human Rights Council as members of commissions of inquiry or as special procedures, as independent experts or in my first experience, the Security Council appointed me chairman of a commission to investigate what was happening in the former Yugoslavia.

Having investigated five conflict and justice situations, I can say that there isn’t a mandate that looks like the other, and not only in the five cases I was involved in, but in the many other cases. Each mandate is created for different political reasons, has its political limitations, personnel limitations, financial limitations. When the [UN] Security Council in ’92 appointed a commission of experts to investigate what was happening in the former Yugoslavia at the height of the war, to my utter surprise, the commission was not allocated a penny in resources. Not a penny. So here in ’92, you have the biggest mandate given by the Security Council since Nuremberg to do an investigative fact-finding mission and yet no resources allocated. And we finally had to go and find the resources through the private sector and voluntary contributions.

You mention Afghanistan. When I was assigned as independent expert to Afghanistan, it wasn’t a commission. It was just a single individual. And again, not a single penny for resources. And it was a good thing that I had the resources of the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences in Italy, which I direct, that had an office there funded by the Italian government, which I used as a base for the work. In Libya, we (for example) were given a fairly large mandate, good resources, but that lasted only until Gaddafi was alive and the moment Gaddafi died, all interest went out the window.

You see these different mandates with their political overtones, but you also see the political manipulation working through the resources, the personnel allocation, and the facilitation that the UN can provide. And that’s why in the end, the contributions of individuals and their organizations become critical.

Piccone: You really put a fine point on one of the basic themes of the book, Catalysts for Change: How the UN’s Independent Experts Promote Human Rights, which is to emphasize the importance of individual personalities and their own working styles, and their ability to get on the ground and connect the dots, to be able to talk to victims, to government officials at the highest level, because the governments are of course wary of any kind of bad reporting but they also feel sometimes the pressure, the political pressure, to talk to the independent expert to give their side of the story. Can you give us an anecdote or two on how you manage to play in that world and come up with such revealing stories?

Bassiouni: I remember one day in Afghanistan, I went to see President [Hamid] Karzai and I said, “You know, I just discovered something quite atrocious. First of all, I discovered that there was a prison in Kabul. It had 40 women in there, and when I went in there, I discovered there were 120 children.” He said, “Children in the prison?” and I said yes. Apparently when the husbands find that their wives are going to prison, they don’t want to keep the children. And so they send the children with their wives in prison. So suddenly, the women who are in prison are now sharing their resources, their food, their blankets, their beds with their children. If it weren’t for the women sharing it [resources], these kids would starve. I said, “How is that tolerable?” And he said, “Well, I can’t believe it.”

I said, “Let me add something else. Do you know, for example, that one of these women, a short woman of about [5’1”], she was found guilty of killing two men over six-foot tall by stabbing them to death. He said “well that’s impossible.” And I said, “I think that’s impossible too. You know what’s happening is that the women folks are taking the blame for the men folks in your country.” This is not the only problem that the women are facing here. All of the crimes that are being committed between men result in young girls getting bartered by tribes in marriage as a way of compensating the other tribes. So you’re not only putting young children in slavery or bondage as of the age of 12 or 13, but their children will suffer the same condition.

Well, he raised hell and yelled and screamed and whatnot, and pretended that he never heard of it and things like that. The point is: Nothing much was done, but a little bit was done and the only way it was done was because I was able to personally embarrass him in a very polite way. But there are many, many examples of that where some progress is made simply because an individual who is appointed in that type of mission carries out the work with some dedication, with additional resources from the outside, and is willing to push the outer envelope.

Piccone: Another factor in creating some kind of momentum for change is the role of non-governmental organizations, and of course the media shining a spotlight on the findings of the special rapporteurs. Did you have any particular experience with either the NGO community or with the media that you felt helped get your story out there whether in Afghanistan or perhaps more recently with the experience in Libya?

Bassiouni: Both the NGOs and the media can be a help and a hindrance and the reasons are different. In respect to the media, it really depends on the newspaper or the media outlet, how many persons they have available, what time and resources they have available. So if you have a situation where when I chaired the independent commission of inquiry in Bahrain, and I had a visit from somebody from The New York Times, the person will come and say, “Well, you know, I only have 24 hours for Bahrain because I’ve got to cover other countries in the Middle East. So what is it that I can discover in 24 hours or that you can tell me that I can verify so I can write my story?” That immediately limits the range and it becomes a question of opportunity when you were there at this time a journalist, this major news outlet was there, so that you can coincide with the person. That’s one problem.

The other problem is that because of the lack of time and resources, most journalists don’t have time to check their facts, verify what their sources are and so on. As a result of that, they frequently take things at face value, without verifying the facts, and they tend to follow the sensationalism. And sometimes it is not true or is misleading.

On the human rights organizations, it’s a problem because you have a few major organizations: Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Human Rights First. These are major organizations, these are big enterprises. They have hundreds of employees, millions of dollars in budgets. And they do a good job on the whole but they also become bureaucratized. They also become an enterprise. They also seek funding from foundations and other sources. They also seek recognition from governments – that helps with their standing and it also helps them with getting funding. There are times when you will find, for example, Human Rights Watch being particularly focused on Bahrain and disproportionately covering Bahrain and not covering Syria for example. And so you have the problem of balance that depends on a variety of internal factors with the organization.

In Geneva, where you have the Human Rights Council and you have the treaty bodies, the nine committees created by various human rights treaties, frankly all of the work in Geneva is very largely dependent on human rights organizations. And if it wasn’t for their contributions to facts and gathering of information, much of the work of the UN would go to a grinding halt.

Piccone: Do you have any thoughts on the U.S. political debate around the Human Rights Council - should the U.S. stay engaged, which the Obama administration has done, or should it just walk away?

Bassiouni: I think it should stay engaged, I think it should engage more. I don’t think it has been quite as effective as it should have been. I think Russia, for example, is very engaged, as is China. And both of these countries are working very hard and in effect controlling the functions of the human rights councils and of the commissions of inquiries that are established by playing with the mandate and then using their political leverage to pressure the Office of the High Commissioner. Remember: the High Commissioner depends on the states for her political support, for the political support of the office, and especially at a time when now we’re going to a new election for the position, there might be another candidate for that post and that makes the High Commissioner very vulnerable to pressures of major governments who have something to say about whether she stays or not. And the one way that you can appease government is by making sure that you’re not going to have special mandates and special procedures going and stepping on governments’ toes, or doing things that are going to embarrass governments.

Piccone: Well that is going to be a very interesting story to watch unfold and I want to thank you so much for your time. Hats off to you for all the contributions that you’ve made to human rights around the world and I hope you can stay in touch with us. If anyone is interested, they can read more about the book at Brookings.edu. Thank you.

Bassiouni: Thank you Ted, and congratulations on your book.

Authors

Ted Piccone
Cherif Bassiouni

Image Source: Denis Balibouse / Reuters

The Road to Hemispheric Cooperation: Beyond the Cartagena Summit of the Americas

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 09:00:00 -0400

Event Information

July 17, 2012
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Latin America and the Caribbean have made substantial progress in advancing democratic freedoms and enhancing economic opportunities. However, hemispheric cooperation and integration remain key challenges. During last April’s Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, leaders reached consensus on social inclusion and other difficult challenges facing the region but disagreements on other topics, such as Cuba and drug policy, dominated the agenda. Can the region’s governments rise above the current stalemate and move forward on pressing issues such as economic innovation and integration, public security, education reform, and energy and climate change?

On July 17, the Latin America Initiative at Brookings hosted a discussion and offered recommendations for a roadmap to greater inter-American cooperation on these and related issues. Drawing on a set of papers commissioned by Brookings, authors Inés Bustillo, Kevin Casas-Zamora and Ted Piccone assessed issues of economic development, public security, and democracy and human rights. Their presentations were followed by commentary by John Feeley, principal deputy assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, and Brookings Nonresident Senior Fellow Richard Feinberg. Senior Fellow Ernesto Talvi, director of the Latin America Initiative, provided introductory remarks.

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The Road to Hemispheric Cooperation: Beyond the Cartagena Summit of the Americas

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:18:00 -0400

For the United States, the tumult exhibited at this spring’s Sixth Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia was an unfortunate but increasingly common display of the shifting templates of contemporary inter-American relations. From the high point of the Miami Summit in 1994—when a convergence of historic transitions to democracy and more open economies gave birth to an ambitious hemispheric agenda of cooperation across multiple sectors—to the failure in Cartagena to reach agreement on a final declaration, plus an embarrassing scandal involving U.S. Secret Service agents, regional diplomacy has grown ever more fractious and deadlocked. The fragmenting poles of power and influence in the region—a rising Brazil, a combative alliance led by Venezuela, a weakened Central America bogged down by economic stagnation and criminal violence, a struggling Mexico adapting to global forces and a new president, and a distracted and despondent United States, not to mention the pull of new actors like China and the downcast eyes of old actors like Europe—translate into a frustrating competition for leadership and growing doubts about the usefulness of pursuing a hemispheric agenda.

At least that is how it looked from the headlines in Washington, which focused on the contentious debates around U.S.-Cuban relations, the “war on drugs,” and even the long-simmering Malvinas/Falklands dispute that marked the Cartagena gathering. These are longstanding and legitimate disagreements that deserve recognition and serious hemispheric diplomacy. But they should not stand in the way of other important business on the regional agenda, issues that range from economic innovation and trade to public security, education reform, and energy and climate change. These are the subjects that will determine whether countries of the region are able to move together into the 21st century as meaningful partners with a common vision for win-win solutions. They merit more attention and discussion in every capital of the hemisphere and at the heads of state level.

Introduction

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:18:00 -0400

Publication: The Road to Hemispheric Cooperation: Beyond the Cartagena Summit of the Americas

The Inter-American Democratic Charter: An Assessment and Ways to Strengthen It

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:18:00 -0400

The ongoing and increasingly polarized debate around the region’s shaky commitments to democracy and human rights are well addressed in Dr. Perina’s thoughtful paper. In addition to the examples he offers, further evidence can be found in the decision of the OAS General Assembly in June to consider a raft of proposals to weaken the inter- American human rights system. These are important signals of change in regional politics and diplomacy. First, they connote a growing sense of self-confidence on the part of some leaders that they can handle their internal human rights problems on their own. Indeed, some even reject the basic principle of external scrutiny of their adherence to legal and political instruments they’ve endorsed. Second, they demonstrate the solidarity among the ALBA states to exploit certain decisions of the Inter-American Commission and Court on Human Rights as a wedge between Washington and the rest of the region. And third, it suggests the moral, if not always legally enforceable, power of these institutions to pressure governments to improve their human rights records remains effective.

Publication: The Road to Hemispheric Cooperation: Beyond the Cartagena Summit of the Americas