The US has finally put sanctions on companies and individuals that contribute to the building of a natural gas pipeline call Nord Stream 2 which connects Russia and Germany. Europe is interested in the pipeline since it will increase natural gas supplies to European state and Russia wants the pipeline because it will increase its gas exports. The US, however, has been opposed for two reasons. First, it will reduce demand in Europe for US natural gas which is critical to maintaining the profitability of gas companies that use fracking to produce natural gas. Second, it increases European dependence on Russia which harms US influence on Europe. The US, however, has been slow to impede the Nord Stream 2 project and it now appears as if the pipeline is a done deal. Forbes reports:
“Already last year it was clear that the pipeline was probably unstoppable unless the U.S. took immediate action, which it did not. Since then, Denmark has given the last approval needed for the project. The company construction Nord Stream 2 says it is now 83% finished, with 2,042 kilometers (1,270 miles) already laid at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. They say the last section through Danish territorial waters, approved after a long delay in October, can be constructed in just five weeks.
“The pipeline is expected to start pumping gas midway through next year.”
“The burgeoning movement against the citizenship act is a refreshing sign of possible constitutional regeneration. But it may struggle against the headwinds of Modi’s assertive Hindu nationalism. The BJP’s policy priorities in recent months reflect a hard ideological turn: the shredding of Kashmir’s nominal autonomy and the ensuing crackdown in the restive territory; the triumphant exultation over the Supreme Court decision to allow the building of the powerfully symbolic Ram Temple in Ayodhya; and talk of anti-conversion and population control legislation. Even in public discourse, the baiting and demonization of minorities is more palpable. In a recent speech in the central state of Jharkhand, Modi made a sly reference to the fact that those protesting the citizenship law could be ‘recognized by their clothes,’ a clear dog whistle for Muslims.
“Modi’s robust combination of Hindu majoritarianism and authoritarianism will not be defeated easily. But the passage of the citizenship act has woken India to the dangers that threaten its core constitutional values. The road to recover and protect those values will be long, arduous, and full of conflict. Many Indians are finally saying, ‘Enough is enough.’”
Other countries have been slow to express their opinions on the government’s response to the protests. Not long ago, Prime Minister Modi’s position in India seemed unassailable. But his actions in Kashmir and the larger issue of the Registry of Citizens raised suspicions about his commitment to the idea of secular India and the Citizenship Amendment Act has solidified those suspicions into outright mistrust among many Indians.
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Todd N. Tucker, and Gabriel Zucman have written an essay for Foreign Affairs entitled “The Starving State: Why Capitalism’s Salvation Depends on Taxation” which makes a powerful argument that the US government’s policies since the 1980s of lowering tax rates on capital have led to the growth of inequality in the US.
“That simple truth is being forgotten today. In the United States, total tax revenues paid to all levels of government shrank by close to four percent of national income over the last two decades, from about 32 percent in 1999 to approximately 28 percent today, a decline unique in modern history among wealthy nations. The direct consequences of this shift are clear: crumbling infrastructure, a slowing pace of innovation, a diminishing rate of growth, booming inequality, shorter life expectancy, and a sense of despair among large parts of the population. These consequences add up to something much larger: a threat to the sustainability of democracy and the global market economy.
“This drop in the government’s share of national income is in part the result of conscious choices. In recent decades, lawmakers in Washington—and, to a somewhat lesser extent, in many other Western countries—have embraced a form of fundamentalism, according to which taxes are a hindrance to economic growth. Meanwhile, the rise of international tax competition and the growth of a global tax-avoidance industry have put additional downward pressure on revenues. Today, multinationals shift close to 40 percent of their profits to low-tax countries around the world. Over the last 20 years, according to the economist Brad Setser, U.S. firms have reported growth in profits only in a small number of low-tax jurisdictions; their reported profits in most of the world’s major markets have not gone up significantly—a measure of how cleverly these firms shift capital to avoid taxes. Apple, for example, has demonstrated as much inventiveness in tax avoidance as it has in its technical engineering; in Ireland, the technology giant has paid a minuscule annual tax rate as low as 0.005 percent in some years.”
About “eight percent of the world’s household financial wealth is hidden” in tax havens permitted by many governments which further reduces the revenue base. The consequences of this reduced tax base harms democracy in two different ways:
“This spiraling inequality is bad for the economy. For starters, inequality weakens demand: the bulk of the population has less money to spend, and the rich don’t tend to direct their new income gains to the purchase of goods and services from the rest of the economy; instead, they hoard their wealth in offshore tax havens or in pricey art that sits in storage bins. Economic growth slows because less money overall is spent in the economy. In the meantime, inequality is passed down from generation to generation, giving the children of the wealthy a better shot at getting into the top schools and living in the best neighborhoods, perpetuating a cycle of ever-deeper division between the haves and the have-nots.
“Inequality also distorts democracy. In the United States especially, millionaires and billionaires have disproportionate access to political campaigns, elected officials, and the policymaking process. Economic elites are almost always the winners of any legislative or regulatory battle in which their interests might conflict with those of the middle class or the poor. The oil magnates the Koch brothers and other right-wing financiers have successfully built political machines to take over state houses and push anti-spending and anti-union laws that exacerbate inequality. Even rich individuals who are seen as more politically moderate—technology executives, for instance—tend to focus their political efforts on narrow technocratic issues rather than the distributional conflicts that define today’s politics.”
Inequality should be a central question in the upcoming US election. It is a challenge to the future more serious than any other issue, save that of climate change.
Powers to make the Brexit deal legal domestically.
The legislation enabling the transition period allowing the UK to stay in the customs union and single market between 1 February and 21 December 2020.
Powers to ensure key elements of the European Communities Act of 1972 remain applicable domestically. The UK will remain a rule-taker and not a rule maker.
Extensive powers to ministers and devolved governments to deal with the separation issues.
So-called “Henry VIII powers”, under which ministers can repeal or amend an act of parliament without going back to MPs, allowing them to implement the protocol on special arrangements intended to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. These are “a bit of a blank cheque”, says Joe Owen, Brexit director at the Institute for Government. But as nobody knows the detail of how they will operate they reflect the complexity of the consequences of the divorce from the EU.
Powers and arrangements to ensure EU citizens’ rights laid out in the withdrawal agreement are implemented.
What has been removed?
The clauses that give parliamentary say on future Brexit deals, negotiating objectives or the extension period have been removed. Specifically they are:
The clause giving MPs the right to approve an extension to the transition period.
The clause 31 requirement for parliamentary approval for negotiations on the future relationship in the October bill has gone. Under the old bill, the House of Commons would have had to approve the negotiating objectives of the government in the next phase of talks. The parliamentary approval process for any future relationship treaty subsequently negotiated with the EU has also gone.
The removal of clauses pledging alignment with the EU on workers’ rights. The government on Thursday promised in the Queen’s speech that workers’ rights would instead be “protected and enhanced” under an employment bill.
Legal protections for refugee children reunited with family members in the UK have been watered down. The bill removes, via clause 37, obligations in regard to unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the EU with an obligation to make a statement within two months of passing the act.
The promise that the government’s position on negotiating the future relationship will be in line with the political declaration that accompanied the withdrawal agreement.
A clause locking in Brexit at the stroke of midnight, 31 December. The only way that can change is if the EU changes its summer daylight saving.
The bill gives the government new powers in several areas, including Northern Ireland, to change Brexit-related laws through secondary legislation rather than primary, which has the potential to reduce parliamentary scrutiny.
Time limits on any discussion of the divorce bill payments, removing the option of debate up to March 2021. This is in line with the other clauses removing any chance of an extension to the transition period.
It gives the House of Lords’ EU committee the right to scrutinise developments in EU law of “vital national interest” to the UK during the transition or implementation period. The House of Commons already had these powers under the October bill.
An independent monitoring authority to allow EU nationals in the UK to appeal against decisions relating to their rights has slightly changed, with the authority given the power to delegate decisions to launch inquiries.
Readers of this blog know that I am concerned about the extent to which US President Trump and his Republican allies seem to be receptive to Russian influence, particularly Russian propaganda. Russian President Putin held his annual press conference and in that conference stated that he believed that the charges of Russian interference in the 2016 election were fabricated. That denial flies in the face of the strong belief in the US intelligence community that Russian interference was “extensive”. One of President Trump’s strongest supporters, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), introduced a bill in the US Senate entitled “Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act” (DASKA) last August. The bill makes clear that “the United States will never recognize the illegal annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation” and that “No funds authorized or appropriated by any Act may be used to support, directly or indirectly, any efforts on the part of any United States Government official to take steps to withdraw the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty, done at Washington, DC, April 4, 1949, until such time as the Senate passes, by an affirmative vote of two-thirds of Members, a resolution advising and consenting to the withdrawal of the United States from the treaty.” CNBC describes the likely effect of the passage of the bill:
“If passed, it would completely prevent American entities from purchasing Russian debt securities, sanction Russian state banks and potentially issue secondary sanctions on investing in the country’s oil sector, something that would draw particular opposition from the European Union.
“Sanctions experts have described the measures as ‘extreme’ and ‘nuclear’ as well as broad-based and more likely to be effective than previous efforts to deter Russian election interference.
“While likely to be heavily debated and amended before going to a final vote, the measures detailed in the bill are expected to be a more powerful tool against Moscow.”
Needless to say, Russia firmly opposes the passage of the bill.
“Almost from the moment he took office, President Trump seized on a theory that troubled his senior aides: Ukraine, he told them on many occasions, had tried to stop him from winning the White House.
“After meeting privately in July 2017 with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg, Trump grew more insistent that Ukraine worked to defeat him, according to multiple former officials familiar with his assertions.
“The president’s intense resistance to the assessment of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia systematically interfered in the 2016 campaign — and the blame he cast instead on a rival country — led many of his advisers to think that Putin himself helped spur the idea of Ukraine’s culpability, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions.
“One former senior White House official said Trump even stated so explicitly at one point, saying he knew Ukraine was the real culprit because ‘Putin told me.’
“Two other former officials said the senior White House official described Trump’s comment to them.
“The Ukraine theory that has consumed Trump’s attention has now been taken up by Republicans in Congress who are defending the president against impeachment. Top GOP lawmakers have demanded investigations of Ukrainian interference for which senior U.S. officials, including the director of the FBI, say there is no evidence.”
Unfortunately, President Trump has not allowed transcripts of his conversations with President Putin from being examined so we may never know the basis for his beliefs.
Australia is enduring an early summer heat wave which has broken all records–including a temperature of 107.4 degrees F. The situation has been aggravated by drought which, in combination with the high temperatures, has led to serious wildfires. These fires have led to emergency declarations in cities such as Sydney which has been blanketed by noxious smoke. Unfortunately, the weather forecasts suggest that even higher temperatures can be expected soon.
The Indian Supreme Court refused to rule immediately on the constitutionality of the Citizenship Amendment Act which offered citizenship to persecuted religious minorities in neighboring countries except to Muslims. The passage of the act has led to many protests in states such as Assam which has a large number of Muslims who account for about 14% of the Indian population. Issac Chotiner of the New Yorker conducted an interview with Niraja Gopal Jayal, a professor at the Center for the Study of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University. The concerns about the law are deep:
“It introduces, for the first time, a religious criterion as a test for citizenship. Obviously, someone who supports it could argue that it only applies to people who are refugees or illegal migrants—it doesn’t apply to existing Indian citizens. That argument has indeed been made, but I think that it is a threat to the idea of Indian citizenship per se. It is, in some senses, a body blow to the constitutional ideal of equality of citizenship regardless of caste, creed, gender, language, and so on. Ours is a secular constitution, and the worry is that the introduction of the religious criterion will yield, effectively, a hierarchy of citizens, a kind of two-tiered, graded citizenship.
“The even bigger worry is the introduction of religion as a criterion of citizenship in India, because then you open up the floodgates. Like you said, what’s next? If this gets validated in the courts, the next step is that there will be a national register of Indian citizens, for which the law has existed for several years now. That will be activated, and the promise has been made that it will be completed by 2024, which is the next general election. If the Citizenship Amendment Act, which was just passed the other day, is actually enabling some religious groups to become naturalized citizens, leaving out only one major religious group—that is, Muslims—what the National Register of Citizens would do would be to essentially disenfranchise people, including existing Muslim citizens, but Hindus as well who cannot establish, as per the list of documents that may be required, that they are, in fact, Indian citizens.”
US President Trump sent a six-page letter to Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, decrying the impeachment process in the US Congress. There are many misstatements of fact in the letter, far too many to catalog in this post (nor do I wish to spend the time since they merely repeat many that have been completely debunked–Mr. Trump is apparently non-educable). But the more important issue is the tone of the letter. It seems as if the letter was dictated and simply recorded. The letter is intemperate, nasty, and demeaning to the Office of the President. David Graham writes in The Atlantic:
” The six-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a wild ride. The president veers among incoherent semantic lament (‘You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!’), bald-faced lies (about former Vice President Joe Biden’s actions in Ukraine), self-righteous whining (‘You did not recant. You did not ask to be forgiven. You showed no remorse, no capacity for self-reflection’), and atrocious misrepresentation of history (‘More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials’).
“For the most part, the letter is a farrago of common complaints the president has issued in rallies and on his Twitter feed. The president may be most comfortable at 280 characters, but he can expand to six pages given the opportunity. But even though the substance is recycled, the letter is notable because it’s an official communication, on White House letterhead.”
I doubt that there will be any official comments from leaders around the world. There really is no response, but I am certain that most leaders will regard the letter as one that can be clearly characterized as unhinged. The more important question is whether the President’s supporters in Congress will take the letter as evidence of unfitness for the position. I suspect, however, that there will be only silence.
The climate meeting in Madrid was extended for 40 hours after its scheduled conclusion, but it still failed to meet important goals. The most ambitious goal was to reach agreement on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement which allows states to take actions outside of their borders (such as contributing to efforts to control deforestation in tropical forests) which would count toward their national targets for climate change mitigation. There seemed to be a clear sense that the efforts to address climate change are not effective without the participation of the US which is leaving the Paris Agreement.
“At the heart of many of the meeting’s debates was the core of the injustice of climate change: That the people who have contributed least to the problem stand to suffer the most while those who have gained the most from emitting greenhouse gases will suffer the least.
“The United States, the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases (and the largest historical emitter), has already committed to withdrawing from the Paris agreement next year, and was one of the countries watering down provisions for compensating poorer countries for loss and damage incurred from climate-linked disasters.
“Several countries also expressed alarm that even seemingly benign language around the need for international financing mechanisms for developing countries to deal with climate change was being diluted by powerful nations.”
Reuters has compiled a number of quotations from some of the participants to the conference. The quotes capture the frustration and anger of some of the delegates over the lack of progress. The Guardian provides data which highlights the seriousness of the failure: “Research published during the two weeks of talks showed that greenhouse gas emissions have risen 4% since the Paris accord was signed in 2015, and the world will need to cut carbon by more than 7% a year in the next decade to heed scientific advice.”
Business Insider has posted an article on how payroll taxes (the taxes that go to Social Security and Medicare) have increased dramatically over the years while corporate taxes have gone down. Payroll taxes are essentially regressive since they start at the very first dollar of income but end when income reaches the $128,400 cap on taxable wages. Income and corporate taxes are supposed to be progressive, but since the 1980s the tax rates on both sources of income have been steadily decreased. According to the study “Payroll taxes made up 7.8% of national income in 2018, compared to 0.9% for corporate ones — the widest gulf in almost two decades.” It is yet another case of the poor subsidizing the rich.
The US went to the World Trade Organization some time ago and argued that the subsidies offered to the European airplane manufacturer, Airbus, constituted an unfair trade subsidy. The US won that case and the WTO offered its standard remedy for such violations: it gave the US the right to impose countervailing tariffs on European products. Needless to say, the Europeans denied the subsidy and contested the ruling. The US Trade Representative just released a list of products that will be hit with new tariffs of up to 100% and that list includes some distinctively European products such as Scotch Whisky and French Cognac. (Parenthetically, it should be noted that such rulings favoring the US will not occur in the near future because the US refuses to appoint judges to the WTO tribunal).
In the recent climate talks in Madrid, there was much discussion of imposing carbon taxes in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Some European state have already moved in that direction and the Europeans are now contemplating imposing carbon taxes on products produced in other countries, such as the US, in order to force other states to enact similar measures. According to Politico:
“The European Union charges a fee of 25 euros — nearly $28 — per metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted by EU companies such as oil refineries, steelmakers and paper producers. Because other major economies such as the U.S. refuse to set a carbon price for their own industries, the EU’s approach risks making many European companies uncompetitive, and it has prompted calls for a ‘border adjustment’ tariff based on imports’ climate impact in their home countries.
“Spanish Economics Minister Nadia Calviño Santamaría told reporters at the U.N. conference that she wants a carbon tariff ‘as soon as possible’ that would target any country that doesn’t abide by its commitments under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Trump has said he intends to pull the U.S. out of the pact next year.
“’We need to ensure that climate policy does not create an unlevel playing field between those players which operate in jurisdictions which have higher standards and those that maybe do not,’ Calviño said.”
The possibility of linking climate change matters to trade matters makes negotiations on both issues very complex. This European tactic of linking the two is likely to infuriate US policy makers. I doubt that this tactic will take place quickly, but it is a possibility that we should monitor closely.
One of the most curious aspects of the current domestic political situation in the US is the extent to which Some politicians and journalists seem to be sympathetic to Russia. In many respects they have been forced into that position because they seek to downplay the significance of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election in the US because of a concern that the evidence undermines the legitimacy of the Trump presidency. Indeed, on his Fox news program, Tucker Carlson said:
“‘Why do I care what is going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia?!’ Carlson shouted without a hint of irony. ‘And I’m serious. Why do I care? Why shouldn’t I root for Russia? Which I am.'”
“We’ve got a president of the United States who praises Russian President Vladimir Putin every chance he gets, yet spent the NATO summit last week looking like his mommy was making him eat his peas and carrots. He’s pressuring the other members of the Group of Seven to let Russia back in the club. At a recent meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, he told the president of Ukraine he hoped Zelensky could “make a deal” with Putin, clearly indicating whose side Trump was on in the dispute over Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Trump and his Republican puppets have spent the last three months spreading Russian propaganda that it was Ukraine, not Russia, who hacked our 2016 election. When Trump pulled U.S. troops out of northern Syria, he turned over abandoned American bases to the Russians.
“Trump’s allies in the Republican Party have parroted his pro-Russia line. ‘Moscow Mitch’ McConnell pushed for lifting sanctions on Russian aluminum company Rusal, which was largely owned by the oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a buddy of Vladimir Putin’s who has been under sanctions since he was named in the Russian hacking of the 2016 presidential election.”
I doubt very much that we will find out much about why some in the US have decided to defend Russia against all available evidence in the immediate future. But I have no doubts that at some point, analysts in the future will investigate this question thoroughly. At this point, we should all be concerned about the extent to which Russian interests have penetrated US decision-making.
The US is claiming that it has reached a “Phase 1” trade agreement with China. It is not, however, clear what the agreement actually covers. The US will not implement the tariff increases President Trump had threatened to impose on 15 December. Additionally, the 15% tariffs will be reduced to 7.5% but the 25% tariffs will remain in place. Finally, there are promises that China will increase its agricultural imports to $50 billion a year, a level never before attained in any year in the past. According to Al Jazeera:
“The United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) office said in a statement that Washington will maintain 25 percent tariffs on about $250bn worth of Chinese imports and reduce tariffs imposed on $120bn worth Chinese goods to 7.5 percent.
“The USTR added that the deal requires structural reforms to China’s economic and trade regime and covers contentious areas including intellectual property and Beijing’s practice of forcing US firms to transfer technological know-how to Chinese partners. Agriculture, financial services, currency and foreign exchange are also covered.”
But the news reports do not specify any particular actions the Chinese are actually obliged to take in Phase 1. According to Global Times, a media outlet that is regarded as close to the Chinese government:
“In response to the US tariff rollback, China will consider not imposing tariffs on more than 3,300 types of US goods, including auto parts and chemicals due on December 15, Chinese officials disclosed.
“China will also expand agricultural imports from the US, including soybeans, poultry and pork to fill up vacancies in China’s domestic market.
“The text of the phase one deal includes nine chapters ranging from intellectual property rights, technology transfers to the exchange rate and agriculture. More detailed terms and data will be released later.”
I suspect that the Phase 1 agreement was designed to give the US a graceful way to not impose the 15 December tariffs and is not really a concrete proposal. We will have to wait for more details, but at this point I suspect that the US has been played by the Chinese.
Algeria has experienced protests against the government for over a year. A seeming breakthrough was achieved last April with the ouster of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika who was seeking a fifth term despite being seriously ill. Since April there have been protests by those who did not wish anyone associated with the Bouteflika regime to be installed in his place. But an election held on Thursday gave a Bouteflika associate, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the position with 58% of the vote. The protesters believe that army chief Gen Ahmed Gaid Salah is the real power broker in the country and that Tebboune is simply Salah’s puppet. The underlying concern is the degree of corruption in Algerian politics and the absence of any meaningful changes since Bouteflika stepped down. According to Reuters:
“Aside from the months-long political crisis, he will also face Algeria’s most difficult economic situation in decades, with declining energy revenues and bitter cuts to state spending.
“Energy exports, the source of 95% of state revenue, fell 12.5% this year. The government has burnt through more than half its foreign reserves since energy prices began dropping in 2014, and has approved a 9% cut in public spending next year, while keeping politically sensitive subsidies untouched.”
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) has released is annual Arctic Report. Up to this point the Arctic has been a place where climate change has been documented by things such as melting sea ice or disappearing glaciers. But now we have evidence that the Arctic may be contributing to climate change by releasing methane from melting permafrost. According to the report:
Northern permafrost region soils contain 1,460-1,600 billion metric tons of organic carbon, about twice as much as currently contained in the atmosphere.
This pool of organic carbon is climate-sensitive. Warming conditions promote microbial conversion of permafrost carbon into the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane that are released to the atmosphere in an accelerating feedback to climate warming.
New regional and winter season measurements of ecosystem carbon dioxide flux independently indicate that permafrost region ecosystems are releasing net carbon (potentially 0.3 to 0.6 Pg C per year) [petagram (Pg) of Carbon – one Pg =1015 grams=one billion metric tonnes] to the atmosphere. These observations signify that the feedback to accelerating climate change may already be underway.
If that amount of permafrost is melting, it would greatly increase the rate of global warming:
“A 2014 study in Environmental Research Letters estimated that thawing permafrost could release around 120 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere by 2100, resulting in 0.29°C of additional warming (give or take 0.21°C). By 2300, another study in Nature Geoscienceconcluded, the melting permafrost and its resulting carbon feedback loops could contribute to 1.69°C of warming. (That’s on the high end. It could be as low as 0.13°C.)
“The logic here is simple: The more warming, the greater the risk of kickstarting this feedback loop. A study published in Nature Climate Change in 2017 predicted that 1.5 million square miles of permafrost would disappear with every additional 1°C of warming.
In addition, there are other problems associated with melting permafrost, including the release of once frozen pathogens or toxic materials such as mercury. This train may be unstoppable.
“According to the exit poll, the Conservatives are projected to win 368 seats in the House of Commons, versus 191 for the Labour Party. That would give the Conservatives an 86-seat majority, enough to empower Mr. Johnson to pull Britain out of the bloc at the end of January, as he had promised.”
The election will no doubt assure that Johnson will pursue Brexit with great vigor. He will have to negotiate an agreement with the European Union, but the election assures that the EU will have to take his decision as a done deal. Johnson’s opponent in the election, Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, ran on a platform of a second referendum on Brexit. Johnson will undoubtedly consider the outcome as a firm endorsement of Brexit. But we should also consider the possibility that the British people were more concerned with assuring that Labour could not form a government. We will know final results of the election tomorrow and will be better able to assess the significance of the election then.
The World Trade Organization’s appellate court has ceased to function because the US has refused to nominate judges. The court is supposed to have 7 judges, but is now down to one. There are currently 14 trade disputes before the court which cannot be resolved because a minimum of three judges are required to decide cases. According to the Nikkei Asian Review:
“Appointments of new judges to replace those whose terms have expired generally require unanimous approval from WTO members. But the U.S. has vetoed nominations since 2017, in keeping with the protectionism embraced by President Donald Trump, claiming that the WTO’s appellate body oversteps its authority by interpreting American laws.
The World Trade Organization was created in 1995, replacing the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which lacked the ability to arbitrate effectively trade disputes. The WTO was created in order to establish a set of rules by which trade disputes could be settled according to principles that are shared by all members. US President Trump has claimed that the US has lost most of the cases brought before the WTO:
“Trump, Oct. 25: The WTO, World Trade Organization, was set up for the benefit for everybody but us. They have taken advantage of this country like you wouldn’t believe.
“And I say to my people, you tell them, like as an example, we lose the lawsuits, almost all of the lawsuits in the WTO — within the WTO. Because we have fewer judges than other countries. It’s set up as you can’t win. In other words, the panels are set up so that we don’t have majorities. It was set up for the benefit of taking advantage of the United States.”
In fact, when the US has brought cases against other states before the WTO, it has won 91% of the cases. But it has lost most of the cases brought against the US by other states. Dan Ikenson of the Cato Institute makes an important point:
“The WTO doesn’t target any member’s policies, laws, regulations, or actions. The “WTO” doesn’t file complaints at the WTO. WTO members do. And they do so when they are aggrieved and when they are as close as possible to 100% certain that they will prevail if the matter goes all the way through dispute settlement. As a result, complainants prevail almost all of the time — on 90% of adjudicated issues. When the United States has been a complainant (as it has in 114 of 522 WTO disputes over 22 years — more than any other WTO member) it has prevailed on 91% of adjudicated issues. When the United States is a respondent (as it has been in 129 cases — more than any other WTO member), it has lost on 89% of adjudicated issues.
If an agreement about the judges cannot be formed, then the WTO cannot fulfill its primary responsibility. Trade disputes will therefore be settled by power and not the rule of law. The US has effectively dismantled an important part of the liberal world order. Perhaps the WTO should fade away, but the rule of the jungle is hardly a good substitute.
“The bill brings sweeping changes to India’s 64-year-old citizenship law by giving citizenship to ‘persecuted’ minorities – Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians – from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“But critics say the legislation put forward by the Hindu nationalist ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) undermines the country’s secular constitution, with opposition parties, minority groups, academics and a US federal panel calling it discriminatory against Muslims.”
The bill also does not apply to Tamils from Sri Lanka, Rohingya from Myanmar and Tibetans and Uighurs from China. But it is the Muslims living in India who are most concerned. There have been a series of anti-Muslim measures in India since the election of Modi and the BJP:
“Many Muslims in India say they have been made to feel like second-class citizens since Modi came to power in 2014.
“Several cities perceived to have Islamic-sounding names have been renamed, while some school textbooks have been altered to downplay Muslims’ contributions to India.
“In August, Modi’s administration rescinded the partial autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, and split it into two union territories.
“A citizens’ register in Assam finalised earlier this year left 1.9 million people, many of them Muslims, facing possible statelessness, detention camps and even deportation.
World Politics News 