Rule of Law

The news and statistics from Guatemala are anything but reassuring. More than half the nation’s sixteen million citizens live in poverty. Worse, almost one in two children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, which affects not just their immediate well-being but also limits their physical and intellectual potential for the rest of their lives. Violence is rampant. Guatemala City ranks among the most dangerous cities in the world and the national homicide rate, of 40 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, is bested by just four countries worldwide. Women especially are vulnerable, not just on the street but inside their homes, as domestic violence and femicide rates are also among the worst in the world. Few receive justice, with prosecution rates averaging just 2 percent of all crimes. Federal actions to take on these challenges have been largely absent or ineffective. And small islands of progress, such as the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a UN-backed independent body that has prosecuted several serious criminal cases, have been undermined. Even if the political will existed, with tax collection at just 11 percent of GDP—the lowest in Latin America—the government lacks the resources to do much. Despite the dire national outlook, after a recent trip I left with some glimpses of optimism—mainly from both local and private sector efforts to break the vicious cycles of poverty and negative dynamics more generally. These organizations and business are changing the lives of at least some individuals, families, and communities. Trying to take on the debilitating effects of malnutrition is Asociación Puente. The non-profit works directly with pregnant women and young mothers to help ensure better food and nutrition at the vital early stages of life. They also help women start micro-enterprises, to generate the basic income needed to continue putting (nutritious) food on the table.  Founded by former Guatemalan first lady Wendy de Berger and Edna Lima de Morales, the organization has reached over 2,000 families so far. Another is Sheva.com. Started by Marisabel Ruiz, it works to remove at least one of the barriers to girls’ education—puberty. In so many villages Guatemala girls can’t afford sanitary pads. Once they start to menstruate, they miss one out of every four weeks of school, falling permanently behind their classmates and their potential. For each purchase at their U.S. based company, they donate products to girls in need, helping them stay in school. Also in the social entrepreneurship mode is Wakami, an organization started by Maria Pacheco. Originally visiting poor rural communities as a trained biologist, village women kept telling Pacheco what they needed most was jobs. And so Wakami began, harnessing the weaving skills so many women already had but differentiating their products through more modern designs (as opposed to the beautiful but endlessly repeated weavings sold in Guatemala’s local markets). Today, the for-profit business employs nearly five hundred artisans by selling its jewelry in twenty-four countries—including a collaboration with Ann Taylor Loft in the United States. On technology’s cutting edge is MILKnCOOKIES, an interactive communications agency founded by Karla Ruiz Cofiño. Working with clients worldwide to design and build websites, apps and social media strategies, the company leaps up the skill ladder. Competing with technology and app developers globally, it provides not only high paying jobs for those already skilled but also training, presenting at least a handful of fellow citizens a profitable alternative to migration. Each shared what their organizations have found matters to make a difference. One is focusing on women. Studies worldwide show that money given or earned by women is more likely to be spent on children’s food, health, and education. These organizations find similar patterns in their towns, with kids eating better, staying in school longer, and dreaming of a different future than that of their parents when their mothers’ income rises. Another lesson is incorporating men. By providing training and opportunities to everyone in a village, resistance to women’s financial gains lessen. In a society that often restricts a woman and wife’s physical realm to the home, Asociación Puente found that offering workshops and classes to the whole town literally opened the door for women’s involvement. And in a telling discussion with Matilde Garcia, a founder of one of Wakami’s workshops, she related how she employs her husband as her accountant to gain his buy in, though she was quick to share that she is the one that controls the business’ bank accounts. These efforts do help—mattering greatly to those involved by changing individual, family, and community lives. The question remains though can countries such as Guatemala scale these and dozens of other small businesses, non-profits, and non-governmental organizations to change the direction of the nation. Visiting and talking with these women makes you believe that it might in fact be possible.

Earlier this month, the United States and NATO lowered the flags over their mission in Kabul in the first of two ceremonies that mark the end of the international combat mission in Afghanistan. Over the next few weeks, foreign troops in Afghanistan will be transitioning to a training and support role. To discuss the future of Afghan security and the Afghan people—particularly women and girls—after this momentous event, I hosted a roundtable with Dr. Barnett Rubin, director and senior fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation, and Rina Amiri, a senior mediator at the United Nations. Our conversation focused on how stability in Afghanistan is not only relevant to U.S. national security interests, but also critical for the future opportunities, prosperity, and rights of Afghan women. In order for Afghan women to be part of the public sphere, including working outside the home or attending school, stability and security on the ground is paramount. Yet the traditional definition of security—in this context, one that focuses solely on the presence of foreign troops or the readiness of the Afghan security forces—is insufficient to understand the needs of Afghan women and girls after 2014. Establishing an environment where Afghan women can thrive requires the United States to embrace a wider definition of security that includes economic security, human security, and inclusive security. Since at least the Cold War, policymakers have come to realize that economic strength contributes equally, if not more, than strategic position and political influence to the establishment of lasting stability and security. As such, economic security is especially critical in peacebuilding and postconflict reconstruction. Mass poverty and lack of economic opportunity allow extremism to flourish; encouraging economic growth, therefore, can help prevent future outbreaks of conflict. The participation of women in the economy is an important element of generating growth and thus of economic security. Not only is women’s economic inclusion critical for their own empowerment, but it also correlates with better economic and social outcomes. When women earn money, they pay their incomes forward into their communities, families, and children, reinvesting 90 percent of it. Moreover, girls with higher levels of education marry later, have smaller families, and experience reduced incidences of HIV/AIDS, minimizing the potential for poverty for their children. A child whose mother can read is 50 percent more likely to survive past the age of five, and each extra year of a mother’s schooling reduces the probability of an infant dying by 5 percent to 10 percent. Thus, educating mothers is an essential investment in the next generation, with economic and social benefits that have cumulative consequences for stability. In the past two decades, the definition of security has broadened even further. Human security, as defined by the 1994 UN Human Development Report, is the “protection from the threat of disease, hunger, unemployment, crime, social conflict, political repression, and environmental hazards.” Again, focusing on the personal safety of individuals and families limits the probability of violence and extremism taking hold. The minimization of these ills—especially disease, crime, and environmental hazards—is critical for the mobility of women. Without public safety, women’s access to school, employment, and more outside the home is greatly decreased, thus limiting their opportunities for empowerment and advancement. More recently, the security definition has expanded to include inclusive security, referring to a “diverse, citizen-driven approach to global stability,” as defined by Swanee Hunt in a 2001 Foreign Policy article. Hunt’s security framework emphasizes women’s agency, rather than their vulnerability, and argues that women play a critical role in establishing lasting peace. Women are often at the center of popular protest movements and civil society groups, making their participation in postconflict negotiations and other political processes invaluable. As these factors become accepted as critical to security in the twenty-first century, the United States and NATO should seek to support Afghans as they establish this fullest sense of security in Afghanistan. Embracing this multifaceted definition of security and furthering women’s empowerment will then pay further dividends: ensuring more long-lasting stability and a more secure future for all.

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is by Sigrid von Wendel, who edits the Development Channel. Rebuilding a country after conflict is a task that takes years, if not decades. War and genocide can displace millions, reduce cities to rubble, suffocate economies, and leave countless civilians and soldiers dead or injured. These challenges are well known, and governments and aid organizations have long grappled with how to handle the refugee crises, financial shocks, medical emergencies, and infrastructural damage that result from war. But there is another equally important (and less widely discussed) crisis that must be addressed in post-conflict rebuilding: sexual violence. In the 1994 Rwandan genocide, sexual violence, particularly against members of the Tutsi ethnic group, was widespread. Over the course of one hundred days, between 250,000 and 500,000 women and girls were subject to acts of sexual violence including rape; gang rape; rape with objects such as arrows, sharpened sticks, and gun barrels; and sexual mutilation. Rape by HIV+ men was also used as a weapon of genocide and, as a result, more than 67 percent of women who were raped during the genocide became infected with HIV and AIDS. In November 1994, the UN Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to prosecute those responsible for the atrocities. Since then, the ICTR has established important international precedent for prosecution of sexual violence in conflict, and for the care of victims and witnesses of sexual violence. The Tribunal’s successes, and lessons learned from its failures, have advanced a comprehensive global strategy for bringing perpetrators of sexual violence to justice. New developments in international law, however, could undo some of this progress. The ICTR and its sister court – the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) --have recently made rulings based on a higher burden of proof: the accused individual must be proven to have not just aided and abetted, but “specifically directed” the crime. The appropriate standard of proof for convicting war criminals has long been debated within the international community, and for good reason. After 9/11, some U.S. military and intelligence officials began to fear that international courts could undermine national security by targeting military and intelligence officials and limiting U.S. military operations. This “lawfare,” some argue, can enable militarily weak opponents to use law as a weapon of war against superior military powers. While some argue that making the law less open-ended will prevent wrongful conviction, the new standard goes too far and instead threatens to undermine cases against actual war criminals who might not have “specifically directed” a crime, but are still responsible. As Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, has argued, “Officials who want to facilitate mass atrocities are rarely so dumb as to give explicit orders. Rather, they tend to proceed by indirection, giving aid to a criminal enterprise that is already in motion.” The “specifically directed” criteria has already let some war criminals off the hook: last year in Rwanda, prominent ministers previously sentenced to thirty years in prison for committing acts of sexual violence had their convictions overturned. The ICTY’s acquittal of Croatian and Serb military leaders last year sparked additional outrage and resistance to the new criteria. Prosecutors reportedly fear that the standard threatens their cases “to the point where a conviction has become nearly impossible” and sets “legal precedents that will protect military commanders in the future.” The work of the ICTY and the ICTR is far from finished. Even decades later, many perpetrators of sexual violence remain free or have been freed recently by changing court doctrine. It is not just Rwanda, the Balkans, and other post-conflict areas that are affected by these failings. Bringing sexual violence criminals to justice sends a strong message to would-be perpetrators around the world that their crimes are unacceptable and, if committed will be met with the full force of international law. Recent rejections of the “specific direction” standard bode well: the Special Court for Sierra Leone upheld a guilty verdict against Charles Taylor in 2012; and last January, an ICTY appeal bench upheld guilty sentences for four Serbian senior officials, further rejecting the new standard. It is crucial that global powers, including the United States, work to bolster the court’s ability to convict perpetrators of sexual violence. National and global security, stability, and prosperity are strengthened, not threatened, by a strong mechanism that brings war criminals to justice.

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article from Juan Carlos Botero, executive director of the World Justice Project, is part of an ongoing Development Channel series on global justice and development. About half of all countries today lack or have seriously outdated freedom of information legislation—a critical element of government accountability. Even countries that have passed freedom of information acts do not always enforce them or lack the requisite structures to facilitate information flow. The Global Right to Information (RTI) Rating assesses the strengths and weaknesses of governments’ freedom of information legislation and legal framework . This rating offers crucial information about government accountability and citizens’ rights to information around the world. But RTI reports only how freedom of information laws are written, and not how they are enforced. To combat systematic problems such as police or judicial corruption, increase government accountability, or remove restrictions on freedom of speech and assembly, reformers also need reliable data on how rule of law and freedom of information legislation is experienced by citizens in practice. To help fill this knowledge gap, the World Justice Project (WJP), where I serve as executive director, recently released its Rule of Law Index 2014, which among other issues measures the extent to which governments around the world provide information to their citizens. The report is based on 100,000 household and 2,400 expert surveys measuring over 500 variables on how the rule of law is experienced in everyday life in 99 countries. The following chart shows a scatterplot of the WJP Rule of Law Index 2014 measurement of Open Government scores on the x-axis and the Global RTI Rating on the y-axis. The chart shows a negative correlation between the two datasets, highlighting the gap between the laws on the books and in practice. Take Austria and Germany, for example. They are among the worst performing countries in the world according to the Global RTI Rating, signaling very weak rights to information in these countries. However, these two countries perform very well in effectively delivering an open government and guaranteeing the right to information in practice, according to the WJP Rule of Law Index. On the other hand, Liberia, El Salvador, and Sierra Leon excel in the Global RTI Rating, but their performance in delivering information rights in practice is below average, according to the WJP Rule of Law Index. Both a clear understanding of the existing legal framework and institutional arrangements, and how these laws and institutions are function in practice, are critically important to effective reforms efforts.  Of course indicators are only tools, which must be used appropriately. The limits of such data must be taken into account and, to the extent possible, several different types of information (official and privately-produced; local and global; qualitative and quantitative) must be considered in the decision-making and reform process. It is also important to acknowledge how non-legal issues can sideline reform. India, for example, dramatically improved its freedom of information legislation over the past decade, but bureaucratic barriers, lack of resources, and competing policy priorities, among other causes, have led to partial collapse of the system. This shows that effective reforms are not a one-time push for change but rather an ongoing process of changing institutions and agendas. Laws, regulations, procedures, practices, and customs must be aligned for reform to truly take hold.

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is from Nema Milaninia, a legal officer in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The views expressed are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or the ICTY. This piece is part of an ongoing Development Channel series on global justice and development. In 1994, the international community reacted to brutal crimes committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia by establishing tribunals mandated to bring those most responsible to justice. The thinking was that justice would help restore and maintain peace in those regions struggling to recover from divisive tragedies. But today, the relationship between justice, peace, and political stability faces serious scrutiny. How governments and international organizations choose to view that relationship has huge implications for how individuals responsible for mass atrocities will be held accountable. The recent prosecution of Kenyan leaders in the International Criminal Court (ICC) sheds light on the tenuous balance between stability and justice. In October 2013, leaders of the African Union (AU) passed a resolution requesting that the ICC defer its trials against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto – both charged with organizing post-electoral violence in Kenya that resulted in the deaths of over 1,000 civilians and the displacement of another 250,000 or more people. The resolution argued that the ICC cases could “undermine [Kenya’s] sovereignty, stability, and peace.”  In 2009, the AU passed a similar resolution concerning ICC proceedings against Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmad al Bashir, out of fear that his genocide case could “undermine the ongoing efforts aimed at facilitating the early resolution of the conflict in Darfur.” Both of these cases currently face serious obstacles: in Kenya, witnesses have withdrawn, likely due to bribery, pressure, and a climate of hostility. And al Bashir continues to evade extradition to The Hague. Resistance to the ICC is not unique to Africa. Just last year, the Russian government stated that referring the ongoing conflict in Syria to the ICC would be “ill-timed and counterproductive” to peace efforts. Some argue that in conflict or post-conflict situations, the emphasis should be on ensuring security, encouraging economic development, rebuilding key institutions, and disarming belligerent groups. In this view, justice is placed in juxtaposition with peace, and other factors usually weigh against holding leaders accountable. For example, the perpetrators of an atrocity, or their chosen successors, often retain or come into power after a conflict ends. In other cases, both sides of the conflict commit abuses and there is a fear that the quest for justice might undermine reconciliation. Increasingly, however, studies show that the justice or peace dichotomy is false. Instead of being at odds, there is an important and fundamental link between justice, stability, and economic development. In 2010, the International Institute on Higher Criminal Studies (IIHCS) published a survey of world conflicts that took place from 1945 to 2008. The study found that of the over 300 conflicts that took place during that period, nearly all were of a non-international or internal character and were largely concentrated in developing countries in Asia and Africa. The conflicts themselves were usually caused by poverty, exploitation, corruption, and other factors relating to economic, social, and political grievances. Furthermore, the survey found that those who promoted conflict in poor countries were often motivated by personal greed and were willing to surrender their states to the interests of foreign governments (such as in the Cold War) or foreign corporations. In the vast majority of cases, perpetrators of crimes escaped accountability. More often than not, justice was sacrificed for short-term political expediency. However, as the IIHCS study revealed, stability, security, and democracy are actually strengthened by a post-conflict commitment to accountability. Openly facing past violence is essential to prevent future violence. It is for these reasons that Kenya’s key aid donors and senior Washington officials support the ICC process, viewing impunity for state corruption and political violence as a threat to Kenya’s long-term stability.  There is also indication that international prosecutions helped prevent another outbreak of election-related violence when Kenyans voted for a new president in 2013. Of course, balancing political and economic development with accountability will always be a case-by-case determination. Just as conflicts arise from distinct issues and involve different types of violence, post-conflict resolutions must also be context-specific. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to ensuring justice and stability following major conflicts. But there is at least strong indication and growing international consensus that justice and stability are collaborative and not mutually exclusive concepts. Despite this finding, international justice institutions like the ICC continue to suffer from budgetary restraints and limited state cooperation, particularly from the most powerful countries in the world. Without more resources and support, the prospect of realizing both justice and peace risks being reduced to an aspiration instead of a reality.

As protestors from Kiev to Khartoum to Caracas take to the streets against autocracy, a new book from economist William Easterly reminds us that Western aid is too often on the wrong side of the battle for freedom and democracy.  In The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor, Easterly slams the development community for supporting autocrats, not democrats, in the name of helping the world’s poorest. Ignoring human rights abuses and giving aid to oppressive regimes, he maintains, harms those in need and in many ways “un-develops” countries. The Tyranny of Experts takes on the notion that autocracies deliver stronger economic growth than freer societies.  Easterly argues that when economic growth occurs under autocratic regimes, it is more often achieved at the local level in spite of the regime’s efforts.  In some instances, growth under autocracies can be attributed to relative increases in freedoms.  He points to China as an example of this, attributing the country’s phenomenal growth to its adoption of greater personal and economic freedoms, especially compared to the crippling Maoist policies of the past. Easterly also rejects the myth that dictators are dependable and that a certain level of oppression should be overlooked for the sake of economic growth and overall prosperity. Most recently, the violence and chaos following the 2011 Arab uprisings has made some nostalgic for the stable, if undemocratic, governments that kept civil unrest in check, allowing for a measure of economic development to take hold. Easterly stresses that instability and tumult in the wake of ousting a dictator is not the fault of an emerging democracy, but instead an understandable result of years of autocratic rule. The answer is not to continue to support autocrats in the name of stability, but rather to start the inevitably messy process of democratization sooner. Easterly is of course not the first to call attention to the importance of prioritizing rights and freedoms in the development agenda. Scholars from Amartya Sen to more recently, Thomas Carothers and Diane de Gramont, have also advocated for a rights-based approach to development. In Pathways to Freedom: Political and Economic Lessons From Democratic Transitions, my coauthors and I similarly found that economic growth and political freedom go hand-in-hand. Still, the hard questions remain: how to help those without economic and political freedoms?  And when should donors walk away from desperately poor people because their government is undemocratic? Easterly argues that the donor community should draw the line with far more scrutiny than it does today – not just at the obvious cases, such as North Korea, but with other undemocratic countries, such as Ethiopia, where human rights abuses are rampant. He debunks the notion that aid can be “apolitical,” arguing that it is inherently political: giving resources to a government allows it to control and allocate (or withhold) resources as it sees fit. The aid community should focus on ways to help oppressed populations without helping their oppressors. For example, scholarship programs, trade, and other people-to-people exchanges can give opportunities to people in need. At the very least, Easterly argues, development actors should not praise oppressive regimes or congratulate them on economic growth they did not create. Rather than being seduced by “benevolent dictators,” Easterly urges donors to focus their energy on “freedom loving” governments that need help. The Millennium Challenge Corporation is a step in the right direction but, as Easterly pointed out during the CFR meeting, MCC’s approach is undermined by other U.S. aid agencies, such as USAID, that continue to assist countries even when they don’t meet certain good governance and human rights standards. Easterly also emphasizes the need for aid organizations to be more transparent about where their money is going. Robert Zoellick made strides in this direction during his tenure as World Bank president. But more recent developments suggest that the Bank still has a way to go in becoming more open and accountable.  (Easterly noted that an initial invitation to speak about The Tyranny of Experts at the World Bank was later rescinded for “scheduling reasons.”)

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is from James A. Goldston, the executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative, which advances the rule of law and legal protection of rights worldwide through advocacy, litigation, research, and the promotion of legal capacity. Here he discusses why rule of law should be included in the post-2015 development agenda. This piece is part of an ongoing Development Channel series on global justice and development. Since 2000, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have unified and galvanized the fight against global poverty and inequality. By standardizing and building consensus around shared targets, these goals have influenced policy priorities and steered funding for both donors and governments. But despite their strengths and successes, the MDGs have excluded one element crucial to the fight against global inequality: rule of law. Conflict-affected states – where the rule of law is weak – account for disproportionately high percentages of the world’s infant deaths and poor and uneducated populations. Even in advanced economies, those denied access to justice suffer from higher levels of discrimination in education and other public services. The negotiation of the post-2015 development goals, now underway, offers an opportunity to shift course. Last June, the idea of including targets for access to justice won the support of the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. During the sixty-seventh UN General Assembly last September, world leaders affirmed that the rule of law is of “fundamental importance for political dialogue and cooperation among all States and for the further development of the three main pillars upon which the United Nations is built: international peace and security, human rights and development.” Some governments still resist endorsing goals that use phrases such as “access to justice” or “legal empowerment” for fear of encouraging their citizens to demand more rights. Recent uprisings in Tunisia, Brazil, and Turkey prove that achieving a number of the original MDGs does not prevent major outbreaks of popular discontent; even with poverty on the decline, citizens in developing countries around the world still take to the streets to protest injustice. Making progress on “governance free” development targets is not enough to ensure stability and prosperity. In recent years, scholars and practitioners have come to see the rule of law and development as equally important elements in improving quality of life. For example, civil society efforts to raise women’s awareness of their marriage rights and responsibilities have helped decrease the size and frequency of illegal dowry payments in Bangladesh. In India, legal aid groups have exposed corruption in the distribution of medical supplies and have helped poor communities protect their water sources and secure housing. Similarly, legal aid and empowerment programs have helped pensioners in rural Ukraine negotiate local bureaucracies and claim state benefits. Low-cost, community-based paralegal groups working in countries from Macedonia to Kenya are helping previously disenfranchised citizens secure legal identity documents, including birth certificates and identification cards, which grant them access to citizenship, education, and health care. For these reasons, the Open Society Foundations, where I work, calls for the post-2015 development agenda to include targets in five key fields: access to information, legal identity, land and property rights, legal participation, and legal services. These components of justice, important in their own right, are measurable and essential to overall prosperity. Several governments, including Kenya, Egypt, and Papua New Guinea, already track these elements -- whether through the collection of data on case volume and duration or survey questions on legal knowledge and access – and others should follow suit. The rule of law is no less important to development than education and public health. Sustaining open governments; combatting bribery and corruption; and securing equal protection for marginalized groups should be at the center of world efforts to combat poverty and inequality. The MDGs have achieved a great deal. By embracing justice and the rule of law, the second generation of goals can achieve even more. 

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is from Natalie Bugalski and David Pred of Inclusive Development International. Here they discuss the World Bank’s Safeguard Policies review process. For the first time in over a decade, the World Bank is conducting an internal review of its Safeguard Policies, which aim to ensure that Bank projects do not cause social or environmental harm. Civil society groups are advocating for the Bank to bring these policies in line with international human rights and environmental standards and consistently apply them to all Bank operations. The Bank’s senior management, on the other hand, seems more concerned with making the Bank a more attractive lender that can compete with increasingly powerful state financiers, such as Brazil and China, by ensuring there are fewer strings attached to loans. However, this move would hurt the very people the Bank is supposed to help. The current World Bank Group president, Jim Yong Kim, has set two ambitious goals for the institution: eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 and boosting the incomes of the bottom 40 percent of the global population. In order to achieve these goals, Kim wants the Bank to be less risk averse and support more “transformational large-scale projects.” Kim refocusing the Bank’s strategy on its original mandate of reducing poverty is commendable, but many NGOs, including our organization, Inclusive Development International, worry that this will mean gutting the Bank’s binding social and environmental requirements and replacing them with more lax standards. In past decades, Bank-financed mega-projects, conducted without consulting local communities, caused a series of social and environmental disasters and sparked protests around the world. In response, with pressure from the U.S. Congress, the Bank adopted stronger policies to protect communities and ecosystems. During Congressman Barney Frank’s tenure as chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Congress also used its power of the purse to demand the establishment of the Inspection Panel. Over the past two decades, the Panel has enabled affected communities to hold the Bank accountable when safeguard policies are violated. Regional development banks have followed suit by adopting safeguard policies and accountability mechanisms of their own. In fact, several regional banks now have stronger standards than those of the Bank. One of the most glaring areas where the Bank has fallen behind is in protecting people affected by Bank projects from forced displacement and ensuing impoverishment. According to the Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group, at any one time more than one million people are affected by involuntary resettlement caused by active Bank projects. Displacement is often accompanied by violence and corruption, and threatens livelihoods, education, food security, and mental and physical health. Although the Bank has a resettlement policy aimed at avoiding these negative outcomes, gaps in the policy and its implementation have meant that local communities displaced by Bank projects continue to face adversity and human rights violations. The Nam Theun II Hydropower Project in Laos is an apt example of the need for human rights due diligence, and for ensuring the informed participation of people impacted by development projects. The construction of Nam Theun II displaced 6,200 indigenous people and affected more than 110,000 people downstream. In the closed society of Laos, there was no open and thorough consultation process in which people could raise objections to the project. The Bank and its partners largely ignored the repressive political environment and proceeded with the project without meaningfully consulting the affected communities and responding to their concerns. Today, according to the organization International Rivers, the local population is still struggling to recover their livelihoods after they lost access to critical natural resources. Development projects in Ethiopia further highlight why the Bank needs to adopt stronger human rights standards. Since 2006, the Bank has provided over $2 billion to help the Ethiopian government provide basic services to its citizens. However, under the guise of improving services for rural communities, the government has embarked on a mass relocation program affecting an estimated 1.5 million people. According to Human Rights Watch, the program has involved the violent, forced relocation of tens of thousands of indigenous peoples from their fertile ancestral lands to more arid areas, where promised basic services are often deficient or absent. In some cases, this has led to starvation and many victims of the program have fled to neighboring countries seeking sanctuary. There are clear links between this abusive government campaign and the Bank’s Protection of Basic Services project, as argued in a complaint brought to the Inspection Panel in September 2012. Yet the Bank has not applied its resettlement policy to this case, standing behind the Ethiopian government’s dubious claims that the relocation is “voluntary,” despite strong evidence to the contrary. In addition to the Safeguard Policies review, the Bank is also currently engaged in negotiations for the seventeenth replenishment of its International Development Association (IDA) fund, which provides concessional loans to low-income countries. Once this process is completed, Congress will be asked to approve the United States’ financial contribution to the IDA. This gives the legislature considerable influence to shape the Bank’s social and environmental protection policies for the next twenty years. Congress should use its leverage to encourage the Bank to harmonize its policies with international human rights standards. It is imperative that the hard-won gains of adopting binding safeguard policies and establishing an Inspection Panel to enforce them are not undone. Rather, the Safeguards Review and IDA 17 Replenishment negotiations should be seized as an opportunity to ensure that the rights of poor and vulnerable communities are protected and promoted in all Bank projects.

Last week, a United Nations expert panel issued a harsh report expressing concern over the construction of a $12 billion steel project in Odisha, India, financed by the South Korean steel conglomerate POSCO. The project reportedly threatens to forcibly displace over 22,000 people and disrupt the livelihoods of many thousands more. The forests and fields now claimed by the Indian government to build the sprawling project have long been occupied by locals, who rely on the land for their livelihoods. As I demonstrated in my Brooklyn Journal of International Law article last year, the tension between aggregate economic growth and the property rights of vulnerable groups is a longstanding development challenge. Often, growth-enhancing land acquisitions financed by foreign investors forcibly displace the original resource users and ignore their property rights claims, intensifying property insecurity and resource scarcity—even while bringing macroeconomic growth. Legally, governments should protect the rights of all their citizens—rich and poor. But the customary rights of subsistence local resource owners are too often ignored by elites, who sometimes even pocket kickbacks from the transnational investments that displace these local resource users.. In India, residents of Odisha decry government ineptitude and corruption for jeopardizing their property rights and livelihoods. POSCO likewise criticizes the government for not effectively resolving land disputes, which have delayed construction for almost eight years. If rights were fairly recognized and adequate compensation granted to current users, then both local owners and aspiring investors who want to play by fair rules would be better off. Raquel Rolnik, UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, stressed that “forced evictions constitute gross violations of human rights,” in her statement regarding the Odisha steel project. But what can be done when governments fail to protect human rights and global companies like POSCO stand to benefit? International investors finance these projects and own the companies that develop them, so will profit from their success.  These global investors therefore have an ethical obligation to ensure that the rights of all affected communities are respected, in order to promote economic development that is inclusive and sustainable, and not just beneficial to a wealthy few. In the case of the steel project in Odisha, POSCO’s international investors include ABP, Norges Bank Investment Management, Bank of New York Mellon, Blackrock, Deutsche Bank, and JPMorgan Chase. Fortunately, some of these leading investors already have a framework to safeguard environmental and human rights norms for the projects in which they are invested.  The Equator Principles -- currently followed by 78 financial institutions, covering over 70 percent of international project finance debt in emerging markets -- codify norms for human rights, labor rights, and the environment. The principles also reflect a consensus among multilateral development banks and other development finance institutions regarding environmental and social standards. These principles should be extended to cover all private sector investments, not just project finance, so that they would apply to cases like POSCO’s proposed steel plant, which now threatens thousands of poor rural residents. In addition, the principles need to be strengthened to prevent free riding by member companies seeking to boost their reputations without taking the trouble of actually complying with the principles. An independent monitoring mechanism should be established to ensure that all Equator Principle signatories are really playing by the rules. When voluntary measures fail, mere UN reports, however harsh, are not enough to change the facts on the ground. Impacted communities need advocates to represent their interests in complex legal disputes, which entangle investors from many countries. As I have argued elsewhere, mobilizing international corporate lawyers to represent marginalized communities around the world would level the playing field, and would help ensure the rules of the global economy work for everyone, not just the rich and powerful.

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is by Ashok Sircar and Tim Hanstad of Landesa, a global development non-profit that works to secure land rights for the world’s poor. Here they discuss how coordinating development projects can help lift families out of poverty. In 2005, our non-profit, Landesa, partnered with the government of West Bengal, a state in eastern India, to develop a micro-plot program. The goal was to provide hundreds of thousands of landless rural families with a plot of land about the size of a tennis court (one-tenth of an acre) – enough space to build a small hut and plant a kitchen garden. Our research and previous experience elsewhere led us to believe that this could help save families from extreme poverty and constant hunger. We expected that after our government partners provided land, these families would soon build their homes, start planting crops, and begin their newly improved lives. Some did. But others did not. After speaking with officials, farmers, beneficiaries, and those who had not yet benefited, we learned that obtaining land was an essential first step, but that some families needed more support in order to move forward. In particular, they needed help building hand pumps to obtain drinking water and toilets. That’s when we started working on what we now call our “convergence model.” National and state government agencies in India spend billions of dollars every year helping the rural poor. In West Bengal, there are organizations that provide land, work, food, housing, drinking water, sanitation, electricity, livestock, farming supplies, and many other goods and services. A poor family may need all or some of these benefits. The challenge we faced in West Bengal was that these benefits often did not come together, in the right order, or at the right time. There was no coordination of projects. After determining that a family needed to own land in order to qualify for most government benefits, we spoke with our government partners about better coordination with the micro-plot program. The program, we thought, could begin a cascade of support and services. In theory, the plan was simple. In reality, it was not; each government support program had its own guidelines, funding mechanisms, bureaucracy, quotas, target populations, and waiting list of candidates. Nevertheless, all of the implementing agencies eventually agreed to collaborate and formulated a new model: a location-based development plan, focused on land. We tested out the new model in Bagda, a small village near the Bangladesh border where officials and local leaders agreed to coordinate aid to seventy-five families who had recently received land. These families previously lived on the margins, squatting on government land for years after losing their homes in a flood in 2000. First, our government partners provided each family with a small plot. Then the Total Sanitation Campaign Fund provided simple sanitation hookups, Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission provided water, and Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification Program provided electricity, the Indian government’s national rural housing program provided small grants to help the families to buy homemaking materials, and the Agriculture-Horticulture Department provided government-subsidized seeds and saplings. The total cost was about $1,000 per family. Over time, families invested $90-$300 of their own money in purchases such as livestock, animal sheds, and saplings. They finally had the security, opportunity, and incentive to climb out of extreme poverty. Spurred by its success, governments in eleven districts across West Bengal began following this model. Today, more than 4,300 formerly landless families have started new and productive lives on their micro-plots. The cost is one that the government was already investing, but in a less coordinated and effective way. We learned that once families have what they cannot provide themselves, they do the rest by the sweat of their brow. They invest in the land, become environmental stewards, provide their children with nutritious food, and pay school fees. More than 450,000 people in eleven Indian states have now received micro-plots. It seems all they needed to climb out of poverty were the right tools at the right time.

Extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1.25 per day, has declined significantly in recent decades. Thirty years ago, more than half of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty - today, less than a quarter do. Still, that translates into some 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty, and a disproportionate number of them are female. Overall, seventy percent of the world’s poor and about two-thirds of the world’s hungry and malnourished population are women and girls. This is surprising given the fact that many women are employed: they make up forty percent of the international labor force. In the developing world, there are eight to ten million small and medium-sized women-owned businesses, and millions of other women work in the informal economy. However they earn less than ten percent of the world’s income and own less than one percent of the world’s property. On average, women’s businesses tend to be smaller and less productive than male-owned operations. Boosting the productivity of businesswomen in the bottom billion could reduce poverty, grow economies, and create jobs. But what is the best way to support women-owned enterprises? Do poor women need more capital, more skills training, or both? A Roadmap for Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment -- a new report from the ExxonMobil Foundation and the UN Foundation --explores these questions and offers some interesting insights. The report is unique in that it takes a comprehensive look at both effective and ineffective strategies aimed at helping women launch, sustain, and grow small businesses. Based on empirical evidence from eighteen commissioned studies across four categories (entrepreneurship, farming, wage employment, and young women’s employment), the Roadmap identifies proven, promising, and high-potential interventions that increase women’s productivity and income in developing economies. The report also lays out a diverse set of “lessons learned” derived from the research – including the finding that giving electricity and mobile phones to the ultra-poor  increases their productivity, and the realization that providing capital or skills training alone is usually not enough to help women grow and sustain their businesses. The Roadmap report pays extra attention to agriculture.  According to the World Bank, agriculture employs sixty-five percent of Africa’s labor force and accounts for thirty-two percent of the continent’s gross domestic product. And sub-Saharan Africa still accounts for more than one-third of the world’s extreme poor. It is also the only region where the number of poor people has increased significantly over the past three decades, rising from 205 million in the 1980s to 414 million as of 2010.  Improving African agricultural productivity is critical for reducing poverty. Numerous studies, including some cited in the Roadmap, show that investing in women-owned smallholder farms not only gives women a source of income, but also alleviates malnutrition and hunger. Women account for forty-three percent of the agricultural workforce, but women-run farms underperform those owned by their male counterparts, most likely because female farmers do not have the same access to resources that male farmers enjoy. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that giving women equal access to agricultural resources could increase yields by twenty to thirty percent. Eliminating gender inequalities in agriculture could raise total output in developing countries by up to four percent, and reduce the number of hungry people in the world by about fifteen percent. As the authors of the Roadmap report point out, “By expanding and sharing knowledge of what is most effective, funders, implementing organizations and policymakers will be better equipped to achieve greater impact for women, and the benefits for families and communities made possible by women’s economic participation and empowerment.” The Roadmap itself is an excellent contribution to that effort.

In conflict zones, some families view child marriage as a way to preserve their daughter’s honor and protect her from the sexual assault and gender-based violence that commonly occurs in warzones and refugee camps. In reality, however, child marriage only further threatens girls in unstable environments.  In its 2013 report, Untying the Knot: Exploring Early Marriage in Fragile States, the aid organization World Vision found that of the twenty-five nations with the highest rates of child marriage, the majority were countries affected by conflict or natural disasters. The report also cites “poverty, weak legislative frameworks and enforcement, harmful traditional practices, gender discrimination and lack of alternative opportunities for girls (especially education)” as other driving factors of child marriages. Whatever the causes or justifications, once married, these girls are no longer children: they are wives. And they face daunting obstacles in completing their education and finding employment. Child brides are often trapped in a cycle of poverty that leaves them and their future children especially vulnerable in already unstable contexts. The health consequences of sexual activity at a young age can also be catastrophic, both physically and psychologically. According to the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), pregnancy-related complications remain the leading killer of girls aged fifteen-nineteen years old. Girls under the age of fifteen are five times more likely to die in childbirth than girls over the age of twenty. The most recent example comes from Yemen, where an eight year old girl bled to death from internal injuries sustained during intercourse with her forty-year-old husband. The ICRW report also notes that girls married before the age of eighteen are more likely to experience domestic violence and depression than those who marry later. Some even choose to end their own lives. And the consequences of child marriage go beyond the bride herself. UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children report found that an infant born to a mother under the age of eighteen is sixty percent more likely to die in its first year of life than one born to a mother over the age of nineteen. Despite the grim data, few programs and laws are implemented in conflict zones, such as Syria and Afghanistan, to prevent this dangerous practice. Even when laws protecting the rights of girls and women have been passed, many governing bodies are not held accountable when they fail to uphold them. For example, in 2009, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai signed The Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women, which “imposes criminal penalties for child and forced marriages, domestic violence, and numerous other abuses against women.” Yet according to the recent Afghanistan: Ending Child Marriage and Domestic Violence report from Human Rights Watch (HRW), this law and others intended to prevent violence against women are not being sufficiently enforced. Child marriages are still common in Afghanistan, with an estimated thirty percent of Afghan women married before they reach eighteen years old. Accordingly, maternal mortality and morbidity rates in the country are some of the highest in the world. The HRW report calls on the Afghan government to take urgent measures to prevent child marriage and domestic violence, including passing a law to make the minimum age of marriage eighteen and launching awareness campaigns. Governments around the world should adopt these measures, otherwise women in conflict zones will continue to be threatened by dangers both outside and inside of their homes.  And the world will lose even more young women who might have changed it for the better.

My blog post last week proposing a global "Lawyers Without Borders" organization to represent local communities on international economic law issues generated such an unusual number of emails and comments I think it is worthwhile to highlight a couple responses. Robin Ford wrote: "Thanks for this timely  article. I agree, but would go further.  There are many organizations that provide pro bono assistance... Advocates for International Development, the international wing of the American Bar Association, the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association, Human Rights Watch, and more.  I am sure they talk to each[other] from time [to time], but an overall coordinating and strategy-setting body would help them all be more productive.  In addition, I would like to see the creation of a group of superb commercial lawyers willing to work for less to assist lesser developed countr[ies’] governments with matters such as debt financing and public-private initiatives.  Far too often such governments are disadvantaged...when their legal team is not as skilled as the one acting for the other side of a deal." Garth Meintjes, executive director of the International Senior Lawyers Project, wrote: "The solution that you propose already exists, albeit not yet at the scale and scope that you envision.  The International Senior Lawyers Project is a free resource for communities and developing country governments who need high-level legal expertise.  ISLP works internationally on an attorney-client basis to empower those who lack the legal knowledge or representation to manage their resources effectively and to develop their economies.  ISLP’s staff in New York, London, and Paris are working hard to reach more clients and to recruit more volunteers.  Please visit ISLP.org for more information." What did you think about the blog post? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Please post them in the comments below

Private capital flows through foreign direct investment and portfolio investment now exceed $1 trillion annually. This has deep income, wealth distribution, and human rights effects for people around the world—creating opportunity for many, but leaving some behind. International economic rules govern these capital flows by regulating banks and multinational investors, determining property rights, and establishing legal claims and mechanisms for redress. Yet vulnerable communities, such as subsistence landholders, informal workers and entrepreneurs, marginalized religious and ethnic groups, and slum dwellers, have virtually no voice in determining the rules of the global economy and lack effective representation to protect their interests within the developing international legal framework. Accountable governance is critical to protecting human rights, advancing shared opportunity, and promoting inclusive and sustainable development, but is fundamentally lacking at the global level. In the United States, organizations like the Legal Aid Society provide pro-bono services to poor clients faced with day-to-day legal challenges. But no such organization or network exists globally to represent poor communities regarding international matters. Although a number of international advocacy groups currently mobilize public action and pressure policymakers regarding some issues, these organizations are not directly accountable to the constituencies they serve because they do not directly represent vulnerable groups or individuals through client-based relationships. Moreover, all these efforts fall far short of addressing the real needs of affected communities in terms of capacity, reach, and scope. This challenge can be addressed by establishing a global network of legal offices to provide pro-bono client-based representation for vulnerable local communities affected by international economic policy. These advocates for local communities would help level the playing the field, improve social accountability, and ensure that the rules of the global economy work better for everyone. Similar to a standard consulting firm or corporate law firm, this network of pro-bono legal clinics would provide advice, lobbying, and counsel at all stages of the legal and policymaking process: including aiding legislative drafting by congresses and parliaments, rule-making by regulatory bodies like the Securities and Exchange Commission, treaty negotiation and drafting, arbitration within dispute-resolution forums like the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, policy-setting by international standard organizations like the Financial Stability Board, and litigation through domestic courts. International economic laws are complex and influence the lives of vulnerable groups in several different ways. Expert advocates would represent affected communities on the full range of issues and circumstances in which international laws and norms have significant local effects. This social accountability network should tackle the following challenges: representing communal landholders who are being forcibly displaced by foreign investment “land grabs” and development projects such as hydroelectric dams and oil and mining projects representing local communities whose access to subsistence livelihoods or resources are threatened by global climate change agreements influencing new global banking and finance regulations to protect the interests of small-scale microcredit borrowers and entrepreneurs in the global south protecting local fishing communities whose livelihoods are being eviscerated by the global fishing industry advocating on behalf of communities living near sites of fuel extraction and natural resource exploitation whose livelihoods are threatened by environmental pollution promoting intellectual property rights in trade and investment treaties that advance access to essential medicines and medical technologies A new network of advocates for vulnerable communities would address a critical challenge of global economic governance by advancing social accountability—a loosely based Lawyers Without Borders would ensure the rules of the global economy work for everyone, not just the rich and powerful.