It is surely a measure of the deepening divisions between the major capitalist powers and their political leaders that the more the problems of the world economy grow, the less they are able to discuss them, much less advance any proposals for their alleviation.
The Group of Eight (G-8) summit held in Evian on June 1-3 occurred amid what is arguably the most serious set of economic problems since the summit process commenced in 1975.
There is the decline of the dollar — the biggest international currency realignment in eight years — the spread of deflation — the first time the world economy has been under this threat since the 1930s — and disagreements over the international trading system. But on all three, the G8 either issued no statement or a communiqué so bland as to be meaningless.
The decline of the dollar captured most attention in the lead-up to the summit, following its rapid fall against the euro over the past month and growing fears that the European, and above all the German economy, will be pushed into recession as export earnings are cut.
In an interview on Russian television before the summit, US President Bush appeared to reaffirm his commitment to a “strong dollar” policy.
“The policy of my administration is for there to be a strong US dollar,” he said. “The market, at this point in time, has devalued the dollar, which is contrary to our policy.”
Bush repeated this assurance when he arrived in Evian. However the real position of the administration is that the dollar’s fall should continue and there will be no intervention to prevent it. As Bush’s press spokesman Ari Fleischer put it: “A strong dollar is determined by the market.”
Prior to the summit the leaders of both Japan and Germany voiced their concerns over the dollar’s slide. “We don’t want a further rise in the yen,” said Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Underscoring his government’s concern, came the announcement that a record 3.9 trillion yen (more than $30 billion) had been spent in May trying to prevent the dollar falling against the Japanese currency.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder warned that the cheaper dollar was “already damaging economic developments as German products are becoming too expensive outside the euro zone.”
The problems for Germany are not confined to competition with US firms. With the East Asian economies tying their currencies to the US dollar, German companies are facing increased competition from this region, particular from firms based in China.
Despite these concerns on the part of leaders of the world’s second and third largest economies, the question of currency alignments was not even the subject of an official statement.
A similar attitude prevailed on the issue of economic growth. The G8 leaders ignored the continuing recession in Japan and signs of a worsening slowdown in Europe to accentuate the more positive aspects of the world economy. According to French President Jacques Chirac, the G8 leaders shared “the real conviction that all conditions exist now for a recovery.” Discussion had been “very positive” and the leaders had expressed a “message of confidence” that higher growth rates could be achieved.
In one of their joint statements the G8 leaders declared their commitment to “pursue with strong resolve our fight to improve the integrity of the international economy.” But no concrete measures to revive the world economy were even discussed, let alone decided on. The reason is that divisions between the major powers, which were developing well before the rift over the US-led war against Iraq, are deepening. These divisions can most clearly be seen in trade relations.
In a comment published on the eve of the summit calling for the G8 leaders to “craft a growth plan”, BusinessWeek pointed out that “trade relations between the US and Europe are at their worst point in years” with Europe threatening to levy $4 billion in penalty tariffs against the US over tax breaks for US exporters and the US threatening action against a European moratorium on imports of genetically modified corn, soybeans and other crops.
These conflicts have already delayed the so-called Doha Round of negotiations in the World Trade Organisation and could disrupt the WTO ministerial meeting scheduled for Cancun, Mexico, in September.
In their communiqué on trade, the G8 leaders directed their ministers to “pursue urgently” the Doha agenda and committed themselves to “delivering on schedule” a new agreement by the end of 2004. But as the Financial Times noted in its report, the whole exercise was largely one of papering over the cracks in the WTO talks because there was no hint of “shifts in negotiating positions that could lead to progress in the talks.”
There was no reference to existing disputes, such as the EU’s moratorium on GM crops, nor were there any indications that either the US or the EU was prepared to change their farm subsidy systems.
While the G8 has come to be regarded as largely irrelevant as far as management of the global economy is concerned, there are fears that the deep divisions, which have reduced these gatherings to a series of empty communiqués and photo opportunities, could have serious consequences.
Some of these concerns were voiced in an article by Washington Post economics commentator Robert Samuelson, published on the eve of the summit.
“To anyone with a sense of history,” he wrote, “the Bush administration’s decision to bless a cheaper dollar must seem disquieting. Huge US trade deficits have flooded the world with so many US dollars that a sizeable currency decline was likely. But by making US exports cheaper and hurting other countries’ exports, this raises the spectre of ‘beggar thy neighbour’ policies—of protecting your industries at the expense of other countries. It’s not free trade; it’s political trade. In the 1930s, these sorts of policies arguably contributed to World War II. We need to avoid repeating this.”
Samuelson warned “early signs of economic warfare abound” and that if
“economies worsen, nationalistic pressures will intensify” in conditions where, because of the interdependence of major economies, a chain reaction of nationalistic policies would be “self-destructive.”
“The leaders should defuse this danger. They need to nudge Europe towards deep [interest] rate cuts and Asia away from protective currency policies. The cheaper dollar signifies the US economic engine can no longer support the rest of the world. If other engines don’t come up to speed, the craft will continue to lose altitude and, possibly, crash,” Samuelson concluded.
He would have found nothing in the summit’s deliberations and decisions to allay these fears.
Nick Beams
Article reprinted courtesy of the World Socialist Web Site: http://www.wsws.org
Please see also:
Violent crackdown on protests marks G8 summit:
[2 June 2003] http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jun2003/g8-j02.shtml
Currency upheaval could have major consequences:
[29 May 2003] http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/may2003/doll-m29.shtml
Davos summit: From the “new economy” to war and recession:
[28 January 2003] http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jan2003/davo-j28.shtml
Please also read "The Watchdog Report"from iAbolish
RED ALERT: Corporate Extremists, U.S. Justice Department
Seek to Kill International Business Accountability
********************************************************************
Can you imagine how corrupt the world would be if a business that partnered with criminals to commit genocide and slavery was allowed to do so without any legal punishment?
Thankfully, America's founders, in the first U.S. Congress in 1789, passed the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), allowing victims that were injured abroad to seek justice in U.S. federal courts for violations of the law of nations (international law).
Sadly, an extremist and powerful group of big business interests and organizations are waging a campaign to exempt themselves from being held accountable in U.S. courts under ATCA. These businesses want to make the U.S. a haven for businesses, individuals, and organizations that carry out crimes against humanity exactly what our founders sought to avoid with ATCA!
What does this mean to the anti-slavery movement? This would mean that the class action law suit filed by Sudanese victims against Talisman Energy for its role in allowing the Government of Sudan to use Talisman's airfields, roads,
and company vehicles to conduct ethnic cleansing against southern Sudanese for oil extraction would go unheard in court. These victims, represented by American Anti-Slavery Group board member Carey Davino have no other recourse
because their own government is using Talisman to help them commit these atrocities. Without ATCA, Talisman would be unaccountable to anyone and continue to perpetuate the persecution of Sudanese.
Defenders of human rights will win the public policy debate because the extremist business community has resorted to lying - not even smoke and mirror tactics, but outright lying - to bolster their weak case because they know
the facts work against them.
Through a powerful lobbying group called USA Engage, which has the support of the National Foreign Trade Council, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufactures, U.S. Council for International Business, and the Organization for International Investment, they make three main false
accusations to gut ATCA:
LIE: They claim the cases are frivolous and clog the courts, making U.S. courts the world's civil court of first resort.
FACT: Yet, in the 200 plus year existence of ATCA a mere 25 cases have been filed against companies in federal court. This compares to the 250,000 civil cases filed annually in U.S. federal courts. In addition, USA Engage's lobby seeks to take away the court's power to decide for itself whether a case has merits or is frivolous, thereby reversing the time-tested U.S. Congressional approval of ATCA reaffirmed in 1992 with the Victims of Torture Protection Act and the USA Patriot Act of 2001.
LIE: USA Engage claims U.S. Companies should not be held legally accountable for the behavior of foreign governments over which they have no control.
FACT: Victims seeking justice under ATCA must file cases where companies are directly complicit in crimes committed by foreign governments and their security forces, such as in the case of Talisman. For example, victims suing
California-based energy company, UNOCAL, allege that the Burmese military (hired to provide security for UNOCAL's gas pipeline project) used slave and forced labor, among other human rights abuses, in direct connection with completing the construction of UNOCAL's pipeline.
LIE: Big money whines about ATCA discouraging U.S. direct investment in developing countries and opposing U.S. national foreign policy interests.
FACT: As Carey Davino of Berger & Montague, P.C. of Philadelphia aptly said, It is a sad commentary that corporate America believes that laws prohibiting the crimes of genocide, torture, slavery, and rape in pursuit of profits overseas
raises the bar of corporate responsibility too high. America has among the world's toughest business laws, yet these regulations do not deter legitimate businesses from driving America's economic engine.
Americans should understand that these elements represent the most extreme greed in our business community. And while we were sleeping, these forces were creeping around Capitol Hill and the Bush Administration, and recently jumped in bed with the U.S. Justice Department to file an amicus brief regurgitating their misinformation against the UNOCAL case, potentially affecting other cases like Talisman.
We must join together to send a clear message that we will uphold the principles of our forefathers and affirm that the accountability they envisioned, through international law, was not only for crimes in 1789 but all those entities that are complicit in crimes against humanity throughout time.
Read more:
ATCA news articles from Earth Rights International:
http://www.earthrights.org/atca/index.shtml
Background information on ATCA from Human Rights Watch:
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/atca/
iAbolish Freedom Action Network: http://www.iabolish.com/
Please also read: Spain
Legal action against policing of demonstrations
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2003/may/13spaindemos.htm
The Group of Eight (G-8) summit held in Evian on June 1-3 occurred amid what is arguably the most serious set of economic problems since the summit process commenced in 1975.
There is the decline of the dollar — the biggest international currency realignment in eight years — the spread of deflation — the first time the world economy has been under this threat since the 1930s — and disagreements over the international trading system. But on all three, the G8 either issued no statement or a communiqué so bland as to be meaningless.
The decline of the dollar captured most attention in the lead-up to the summit, following its rapid fall against the euro over the past month and growing fears that the European, and above all the German economy, will be pushed into recession as export earnings are cut.
In an interview on Russian television before the summit, US President Bush appeared to reaffirm his commitment to a “strong dollar” policy.
“The policy of my administration is for there to be a strong US dollar,” he said. “The market, at this point in time, has devalued the dollar, which is contrary to our policy.”
Bush repeated this assurance when he arrived in Evian. However the real position of the administration is that the dollar’s fall should continue and there will be no intervention to prevent it. As Bush’s press spokesman Ari Fleischer put it: “A strong dollar is determined by the market.”
Prior to the summit the leaders of both Japan and Germany voiced their concerns over the dollar’s slide. “We don’t want a further rise in the yen,” said Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Underscoring his government’s concern, came the announcement that a record 3.9 trillion yen (more than $30 billion) had been spent in May trying to prevent the dollar falling against the Japanese currency.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder warned that the cheaper dollar was “already damaging economic developments as German products are becoming too expensive outside the euro zone.”
The problems for Germany are not confined to competition with US firms. With the East Asian economies tying their currencies to the US dollar, German companies are facing increased competition from this region, particular from firms based in China.
Despite these concerns on the part of leaders of the world’s second and third largest economies, the question of currency alignments was not even the subject of an official statement.
A similar attitude prevailed on the issue of economic growth. The G8 leaders ignored the continuing recession in Japan and signs of a worsening slowdown in Europe to accentuate the more positive aspects of the world economy. According to French President Jacques Chirac, the G8 leaders shared “the real conviction that all conditions exist now for a recovery.” Discussion had been “very positive” and the leaders had expressed a “message of confidence” that higher growth rates could be achieved.
In one of their joint statements the G8 leaders declared their commitment to “pursue with strong resolve our fight to improve the integrity of the international economy.” But no concrete measures to revive the world economy were even discussed, let alone decided on. The reason is that divisions between the major powers, which were developing well before the rift over the US-led war against Iraq, are deepening. These divisions can most clearly be seen in trade relations.
In a comment published on the eve of the summit calling for the G8 leaders to “craft a growth plan”, BusinessWeek pointed out that “trade relations between the US and Europe are at their worst point in years” with Europe threatening to levy $4 billion in penalty tariffs against the US over tax breaks for US exporters and the US threatening action against a European moratorium on imports of genetically modified corn, soybeans and other crops.
These conflicts have already delayed the so-called Doha Round of negotiations in the World Trade Organisation and could disrupt the WTO ministerial meeting scheduled for Cancun, Mexico, in September.
In their communiqué on trade, the G8 leaders directed their ministers to “pursue urgently” the Doha agenda and committed themselves to “delivering on schedule” a new agreement by the end of 2004. But as the Financial Times noted in its report, the whole exercise was largely one of papering over the cracks in the WTO talks because there was no hint of “shifts in negotiating positions that could lead to progress in the talks.”
There was no reference to existing disputes, such as the EU’s moratorium on GM crops, nor were there any indications that either the US or the EU was prepared to change their farm subsidy systems.
While the G8 has come to be regarded as largely irrelevant as far as management of the global economy is concerned, there are fears that the deep divisions, which have reduced these gatherings to a series of empty communiqués and photo opportunities, could have serious consequences.
Some of these concerns were voiced in an article by Washington Post economics commentator Robert Samuelson, published on the eve of the summit.
“To anyone with a sense of history,” he wrote, “the Bush administration’s decision to bless a cheaper dollar must seem disquieting. Huge US trade deficits have flooded the world with so many US dollars that a sizeable currency decline was likely. But by making US exports cheaper and hurting other countries’ exports, this raises the spectre of ‘beggar thy neighbour’ policies—of protecting your industries at the expense of other countries. It’s not free trade; it’s political trade. In the 1930s, these sorts of policies arguably contributed to World War II. We need to avoid repeating this.”
Samuelson warned “early signs of economic warfare abound” and that if
“economies worsen, nationalistic pressures will intensify” in conditions where, because of the interdependence of major economies, a chain reaction of nationalistic policies would be “self-destructive.”
“The leaders should defuse this danger. They need to nudge Europe towards deep [interest] rate cuts and Asia away from protective currency policies. The cheaper dollar signifies the US economic engine can no longer support the rest of the world. If other engines don’t come up to speed, the craft will continue to lose altitude and, possibly, crash,” Samuelson concluded.
He would have found nothing in the summit’s deliberations and decisions to allay these fears.
Nick Beams
Article reprinted courtesy of the World Socialist Web Site: http://www.wsws.org
Please see also:
Violent crackdown on protests marks G8 summit:
[2 June 2003] http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jun2003/g8-j02.shtml
Currency upheaval could have major consequences:
[29 May 2003] http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/may2003/doll-m29.shtml
Davos summit: From the “new economy” to war and recession:
[28 January 2003] http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jan2003/davo-j28.shtml
Please also read "The Watchdog Report"from iAbolish
RED ALERT: Corporate Extremists, U.S. Justice Department
Seek to Kill International Business Accountability
********************************************************************
Can you imagine how corrupt the world would be if a business that partnered with criminals to commit genocide and slavery was allowed to do so without any legal punishment?
Thankfully, America's founders, in the first U.S. Congress in 1789, passed the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), allowing victims that were injured abroad to seek justice in U.S. federal courts for violations of the law of nations (international law).
Sadly, an extremist and powerful group of big business interests and organizations are waging a campaign to exempt themselves from being held accountable in U.S. courts under ATCA. These businesses want to make the U.S. a haven for businesses, individuals, and organizations that carry out crimes against humanity exactly what our founders sought to avoid with ATCA!
What does this mean to the anti-slavery movement? This would mean that the class action law suit filed by Sudanese victims against Talisman Energy for its role in allowing the Government of Sudan to use Talisman's airfields, roads,
and company vehicles to conduct ethnic cleansing against southern Sudanese for oil extraction would go unheard in court. These victims, represented by American Anti-Slavery Group board member Carey Davino have no other recourse
because their own government is using Talisman to help them commit these atrocities. Without ATCA, Talisman would be unaccountable to anyone and continue to perpetuate the persecution of Sudanese.
Defenders of human rights will win the public policy debate because the extremist business community has resorted to lying - not even smoke and mirror tactics, but outright lying - to bolster their weak case because they know
the facts work against them.
Through a powerful lobbying group called USA Engage, which has the support of the National Foreign Trade Council, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufactures, U.S. Council for International Business, and the Organization for International Investment, they make three main false
accusations to gut ATCA:
LIE: They claim the cases are frivolous and clog the courts, making U.S. courts the world's civil court of first resort.
FACT: Yet, in the 200 plus year existence of ATCA a mere 25 cases have been filed against companies in federal court. This compares to the 250,000 civil cases filed annually in U.S. federal courts. In addition, USA Engage's lobby seeks to take away the court's power to decide for itself whether a case has merits or is frivolous, thereby reversing the time-tested U.S. Congressional approval of ATCA reaffirmed in 1992 with the Victims of Torture Protection Act and the USA Patriot Act of 2001.
LIE: USA Engage claims U.S. Companies should not be held legally accountable for the behavior of foreign governments over which they have no control.
FACT: Victims seeking justice under ATCA must file cases where companies are directly complicit in crimes committed by foreign governments and their security forces, such as in the case of Talisman. For example, victims suing
California-based energy company, UNOCAL, allege that the Burmese military (hired to provide security for UNOCAL's gas pipeline project) used slave and forced labor, among other human rights abuses, in direct connection with completing the construction of UNOCAL's pipeline.
LIE: Big money whines about ATCA discouraging U.S. direct investment in developing countries and opposing U.S. national foreign policy interests.
FACT: As Carey Davino of Berger & Montague, P.C. of Philadelphia aptly said, It is a sad commentary that corporate America believes that laws prohibiting the crimes of genocide, torture, slavery, and rape in pursuit of profits overseas
raises the bar of corporate responsibility too high. America has among the world's toughest business laws, yet these regulations do not deter legitimate businesses from driving America's economic engine.
Americans should understand that these elements represent the most extreme greed in our business community. And while we were sleeping, these forces were creeping around Capitol Hill and the Bush Administration, and recently jumped in bed with the U.S. Justice Department to file an amicus brief regurgitating their misinformation against the UNOCAL case, potentially affecting other cases like Talisman.
We must join together to send a clear message that we will uphold the principles of our forefathers and affirm that the accountability they envisioned, through international law, was not only for crimes in 1789 but all those entities that are complicit in crimes against humanity throughout time.
Read more:
ATCA news articles from Earth Rights International:
http://www.earthrights.org/atca/index.shtml
Background information on ATCA from Human Rights Watch:
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/atca/
iAbolish Freedom Action Network: http://www.iabolish.com/
Please also read: Spain
Legal action against policing of demonstrations
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2003/may/13spaindemos.htm