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Last updated: 26 January 2015
Approaches
to “Good Government” How Important Are
Transparency and Integrity? Examples of Weak Public Sector Morality Transparency and Accountability in Trade Agreements
Ethical
Issues – Applying Laws of War Accountability for Crimes Against Humanity Earlier links are at the top of
each section |
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Approaches to “Good Government |
Series
of articles on progress toward “good government” (and, in one case, away from
it) by Spiegel Online: Bernhard
Zand, “Which Country Has the Best Government”, Spiegel Online 10 August 2012.. Available at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/good-governance-series-which-goverment-is-best-a-845170.html.
This is the introduction to a series of articles in which Spiegel staff review progress toward good governance. Part
1: “Erich Follath and Jens Gluesing,
“From Poverty to Power: How Good Governance
Made Brazil a Model Nation”, Spiegel
Online, 10 August 2012. Available
at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/good-governance-series-how-brazil-became-a-model-nation-a-843591.html. A rigorous battle against corruption and poverty in
Brazil ushered in new freedoms as well as economic growth and increasing
equality, thus winning the country respect around the world. Part
2 - Marc Hujer, “The End of Reason: What Potatoes
Say about the State of US Democracy”, Spiegel
Online, 17 August 2012. Available
at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-political-potato-battle-shows-influence-of-lobbies-in-us-congress-a-843595.html. The debate in the US Congress last
winter over whether potatoes should be curbed in school lunches is emblematic
of the modern-day crisis in US governance.
Lobbyists and other powerful interest groups dominate the tenor of the
debate and not surprisingly, many Americans have lost confidence in their
leaders. Part
3 - Manfred Ertel and Gerald Traufetter,
“Embracing the Wind: Denmark’s Recipe for a Model Democracy”, Spiegel Online, 24 August 2012. Available at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/how-wind-energy-is-transforming-denmark-into-a-modern-marvel-a-849227.html. Often hailed as a miracle of modern
politics, Denmark “consistently earns top marks for its efficient governance,
innovation and transparency. Nowhere is this more apparent than with its
successful embrace of wind power, making it a role model for the world.” Part
4 – Sandra Schultz, “How China’s Leaders Steer a Massive Nation”, Spiegel Online, 31 August
2012. Available at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/putting-the-plan-into-action-how-china-s-leaders-steer-a-massive-nation-a-843593.html. There is no question that China is an
authoritarian state “but Beijing's efforts to include experts and experiments
in the way it governs also help to keep power in check. Once the government supports a project, it normally
carries it out.” The
Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) are available
at: http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/index.asp. Included are
aggregate and individual governance indicators for 213 economies of the period
1996-2010 for six dimensions of governance: (1) voice and accountability,(2) political stability and absence of violence, (3)
government effectiveness, (4) regulatory quality, (5) rule of law and (6)
control of corruption. Francis
Fukuyama, “What Is Governance?” Centre for Global Development, Working Paper
314, January 2013. Available at: http://international.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/1426906_file_Fukuyama_What_Is_Governance.pdf. The author expresses concern for the lack of
conceptual means for adequately stating what constitutes high-quality
government. He rejects measures of
output for the executive branches of nation-states, and their bureaucracies,
and suggests that a two-dimensional framework using capacity measures
(including available resources and the degree of professionalisation)
and measures of bureaucratic autonomy represents a good starting point. This framework “explains the conundrum of
why low-income countries are advised to reduce bureaucratic autonomy while
high-income ones seek to increase it. |
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Transparency and Integrity |
Government
Transparency”, Omidyar Network (a philanthropic
organisation initiated by Pierre Omidyar, the
founder of eBay). The undated Internet
page is available at: http://www.omidyar.com/initiatives/government-transparency. The information
is useful mainly as a measure of the organisation’s commitment to
transparency and accountability. Transparency
International recently released its “Corruption Perceptions Index 2012” at: http://www.transparency.org/cpi2012/results. New Zealand is
ranked equal first (with Denmark and Finland; Australia is ranked 8th in the
world. Transparency International Australia, “A Ten-Point
Integrity Plan for the Australian Government, Submission on the Proposed
National Anti-Corruption Plan, May 2012.
Available at: http://transparency.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/2012-TIA-NACP-Subv2-FINAL.pdf. TIA
concluded that the single largest corruption risk in Australia was that of
complacency – “the frequent assumption that because things do not ‘appear’ to
be as bad in Australia as elsewhere, or as bad in some Australian
jurisdictions as others, that specific corruption risks are either lower, or
being effectively managed, or simply that no significant corruption-related
conduct is occurring.” Prakash Sarangi, “Can the Right to Information
Help?” Journal of Democracy, Vol.
23, No. 1 (January 2012), pp.149-155.
Available at: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_democracy/v023/23.1.sarangi.html. The author describes India’s experience
with the enactment of the Right to Information Act of 2005 and suggests that
it “brought about a quiet revolution in her quest for good governance.” Some Examples – Both Good and Bad Keith Aston, “Button Up: Abbott to Keep Ministers
in Check,” The Sydney Morning Herald,
26 September 2013. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/button-up-abbott-to-keep-ministers-in-check-20130925-2uelx.html. The author reported that “Tony
Abbott, who once described Kevin Rudd as a ‘hyper-control freak’ for his
autocratic media management, has gagged his own ministers from media
interviews without prior approval from the Prime Minister's office. Peter Hartcher, “Carr’s Tourism
Costly to Diplomacy,” The Sydney
Morning Herald, 29 October 2013.
Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/carrs-tourism-costly-to-diplomacy-20131028-2wbxe.html. Hartcher revisisted Bob Carr’s 18 months as Australia foreign
affairs minister and concluded that it was an “underachievement
sustained by falsehoods.” Bob Carr’s
response: “Using Old Scores to Make
Points in Blame Game,” The Sydney
Morning Herald, 30 October 2013.
Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/using-old-scores-to-make-points-in-blame-game-20131029-2we6o.html. Bill Keller, “Is Glenn
Greenwald the Future of News?” The New
York Times, 27 October 2013.
Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-in-lieu-of-a-column.html?src=recg. Bill Keller devotes his weekly column to
“conversation – a (mostly) civil argument – between two very different views
of how journalism fulfils its mission”. Alexander Furnas,
“Why Representative Democracies Can’t Write Off Transparency,” The Atlantic, 16 January 2014. Available at: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/why-representative-democracies-cant-write-off-transparency/283143/. The author comments on the view that transparency
is overrated (by Amitai Etzioni,
in The Atlantic, 13 January 2014) by underscoring the fact that “disclosure occurs within an ecosystem of interest
groups and advocacy organisations that remix, repackage, and redistribute
information once it is released. This civil-society context in which data is
released significantly affects the effectiveness transparency can have.” Alpha Condé, “At Davos, the West Must Help Us Root Out Corruption in
Africa”, The Guardian, 22 January
2014. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/22/africa-corruption-west-davos-guinea-offshore-deals. The author states: As
president of Guinea I know we can't tackle this problem alone – corruption is
embedded in the western institutions that have helped bleed our country dry. Matt Mossman, “Big Dig: How to
Hold Miners – and the Governments They Work With – Accountable,” Foreign Affairs, 29 January 2014. Available at: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/140699/matt-mossman/big-dig. The article suggests that transparency is the
first step toward accountability in the mining industry. Ben Butler and Lucy Battersby, “NBN Co Blocks FOI Request: Reputations at
Stake,” The Sydney Morning Herald,
17 December 2014. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/business/nbn-co-blocks-foi-request-reputations-at-stake-20140216-32ttz.html. See comment at: http://www.accci.com.au/CommentonNBN.pdf. |
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Public Sector Morality |
Text of speech by John Robertson to the Western
Sydney Regional Assembly, entitled “A New Standard”, 3
February 2013 is available at: http://www.nswalp.com/media/blogs/alp-blog/february-2013/a-new-standard/. The speech
reinforced the expressed desire of the NSW Opposition to regain the public
trust with a newly designed accountable and transparent process, about which
some details were announced and presumably others will follow. |
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Examples of Weak Public Sector Morality |
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Benoît Bréville and Martine Bulard,
“Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: The Injustice Industry,” Le Monde Diplomatique, June 2014. Available by subscription at: http://mondediplo.com/2014/06/12ttip. There is a major legal business in corporate
lawsuits against governments, seeking either a change in proposed legislation
to suit corporate demands, or compensation. Under TTIP, European governments
could face the same claims |
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Applying Laws of War |
John C Yoo and James C Ho, “International Law and the War on
Terrorism”, Global Governance Watch, 8 August 2003. Available at: http://www.globalgovernancewatch.org/docLib/20080314_Intl_Law_War_on_Terror.pdf. The document
examines two specific legal questions: “First, did the September 11, 2001
attacks initiate a war, or “international armed conflict” to use the vocabulary of
modern public international law? Second, what legal rules govern the status
and treatment of members of the al Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban
militia that harbored and supported them in
Afghanistan?” David
Glazier, “Playing by the Rules: Combating Al Qaeda Within the Law of War”, William and Mary Law Review, 10
January 2011. Available at: http://legalworkshop.org/2011/01/10/4163#fn-4163-3. The September
2001 Authorisation for Use of Military Force permitted President George W
Bush to wage war against those behind the 9/11 attacks, but the military
actions that followed did not fall easily into existing international legal
rules. The author examines these legal
rules to determine which if any could assist in normalising (by either
amending US law or international law, or both) the military force that has
been taken. Charles G Kels, “The Pentagon’s Unwise
Silence on the Law of War”, The
National Interest, 20 March 2013. Available
at: http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-pentagons-unwise-silence-the-law-war-8250?page=1. The article focuses on the notion of “direct
participation in hostilities”, which, according to Kels,
“is crucial to the law of war, because it denotes the process by which
nominal civilians may render themselves liable to deliberate attack.” In 2009 the International Committee of the
Red Cross published guidelines for a workable definition for “direct
participation” in the hope that it would become encapsulated in treaties or
reflected in the customs of states. Kels reports that several aspects of the ICRC guidelines
were not acceptable to the United States and the Pentagon intended to release
a document referred to as “Update on the DOD Law of War Manual” that included
this and other relevant matters, but announced recently that the project was
abandoned because no agreement could be reached among the legal people in the
various departments of the United States Government. All this, according to Kels,
is tragic. |
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Armed Drones |
Owen
Bowcott, “Drone Strikes Threaten 50 Years of
International Law, Says UN Rapporteur”, The Guardian, 21 June 2012. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/21/drone-strikes-international-law-un. See commentary by Michael C H Jones at: http://accci.com.au/JonesCommentonDroneStrikes.pdf. The article highlights
the possibility that US policy of using drone
strikes to carry out targeted killings “may encourage other states to flout
international law”. John
Kaag and Sarah Kreps, “The Moral Hazard of Drones”,
The New York Times, 22 July
2012. Available at: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/the-moral-hazard-of-drones/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120723. The authors state: “To say that
we can target
individuals without incurring troop casualties does not imply that we ought to.” Dirk
Kurbjuweit, “’Humane’ Drones Are the Most Brutal
Weapons of All”, Spiegel Online, 9
August 2012. Available at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/essay-on-german-plans-to-acquire-combat-drones-a-848851.html. The author indicated that the German
military is considering the purchase of combat drones.” But we should not allow ourselves to be
seduced by the idea that an unmanned aircraft is a humane weapon. On the contrary, they expose the true
nature of war in all its brutality.” Bradley Strawser, “The Morality of Drone
Warfare Revisited,” The Guardian, 7
August 2012. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/06/morality-drone-warfare-revisited. Drone strikes may cause less collateral damage
than bombing, but that’s not an argument for current US targeted killing
policy Keith
Ellison, “Time for Congress to Build a Better Drone Policy”, The Washington Post, 14 January
2013. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/time-for-congress-to-build-a-better-drone-policy/2013/01/13/aebe7c70-5c2e-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines. The author
notes that it is the responsibility of
Congress to exercise oversight and craft policies that govern the use of
lethal force. “But lawmakers have yet
to hold a single hearing examining US drone policy. Any rules must provide adequate
transparency, respect the rule of law, conform with
international standards and prudently advance US national security over the
long term.” Sarah
Helewinski, “Do Less Harm: Protecting and
Compensating Civilians in War”, Foreign Affairs”, January/February 2013. Available for purchase at: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138464/sarah-holewinski/do-less-harm. The author’s
concluding remark is: “Civilians need to know that militaries value their
lives. And as a country that champions justice and humanity, the United
States must make sure that no civilian caught in conflict is ever in doubt
about this.” Owen
Schaefer, “The Double Standard of Objections to Drone Strikes Against US
Citizens”, Practical Ethics, Oxford
University, 6 February 2013. Available
at: http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2013/02/the-double-standard-of-objections-to-drone-strikes-against-us-citizens/. The author examines both the legal and the
moral basis of the double standard referred to in the title and concludes
that “there is something very disturbing about a doctrine that tosses out
some of our most fundamental constitutional protections by executive fiat in
the face of a supposedly novel threat.”
Michael
J Boyle, “The Costs and Consequences of Drone Warfare”, International Affairs, Vol. 89, No. 1 (January 2013), pp.
1-29. Available at: http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/International%20Affairs/2013/89_1/89_1Boyle.pdf. The author concludes that “the US
embrace of drone technology is a losing proposition over the long term as it
will usher in a new arms race and lay the foundations for an international
system that is increasingly violent, destabilized and polarized between those
who have drones and those who are victims of them. Bruno
Oliveira Martins, “Legal Ethical and Political Issues in Use of Drones –
Analysis”, Eurasia Review, 11 March
2013. Available at: http://www.eurasiareview.com/11032013-legal-ethical-and-political-issues-in-use-of-drones-analysis/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eurasiareview%2FVsnE+%28Eurasia+Review%29. The author expresses concern with
many aspects of drone usage: “whereas its use
as weapon for extrajudicial killings – i.e. the processes of sentencing
people to death and implementing those decisions without any court decision –
poses a myriad of ethical and legal issues, use of drones by the private
sector, and police and border patrol agents, has ignited a discussion on the
frontiers of legality, revealing a process where ethical, philosophical,
legal and political debates have not accompanied the speed of technological
progress. No author cited, “US Navy Laser Cannon Shoots Down Planes”,
The Guardian, 9
April 2013. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/apr/09/us-navy-laser-cannon-planes. “The US navy has
used a powerful laser cannon to shoot down drone aircraft and will start deploying the weapon on its ships,
saying it represents the future of warfare.
It uses electricity and costs only about US$1.00 per shot, though the
laser unit costs about US$30 million.” Ernesto Londono,
“Drones Cause ‘Growing Hatred of America’ Bipartisan Senate Panel Told”, The Washington Post, 24 April
2013. Available at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/drones-cause-growing-hatred-of-america-bipartisan-senate-panel-told/2013/04/23/4863b1f8-ac6e-11e2-a8b9-2a63d75b5459_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines. “A bipartisan panel of [US]
senators held a spirited and unusually public debate Tuesday afternoon [23
April] about the legality and unintended consequences of America’s targeted
killings overseas, a forum convened amid growing calls for stronger oversight
of the government’s use of armed drones outside conventional battlefields”. Scott Wilson
and Greg Miller, “Obama Pledges New Rules on Drones”, The Washington Post, 24 May 2013.
Available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-outlines-new-rules-for-drones/2013/05/23/1b5918e6-c3cb-11e2-914f-a7aba60512a7_story.html?hpid=z1. “President Obama
outlined the future of his counterterrorism polices Thursday in a
wide-ranging speech that sought to more clearly define the American enemy,
make lethal government actions more accountable to Congress and signal that
the nation’s long war against al-Qaeda will one day end.”
The text of the speech at the National Defence University is available
at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/remarks-president-national-defense-university. Jonathan Derbyshire, “Drone
Theory by Gregoire Chamayou
Review – A Provocative Investigation,” The
Guardian, 21 January 2015.
Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/21/drone-theory-by-gregoire-chamayou-review-provocative-investigation. “Drone attacks have become a hallmark of Barack
Obama’s presidency, and the talk of ‘precision’is deeply problematic.” |
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Crimes Against Humanity |
Whitney
R. Harris, “Crimes Against Humanity Initiative: Proposed International
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity”,
Washington University School of Law, August 2010. Available at: http://law.wustl.edu/harris/cah/docs/EnglishTreatyFinal.pdf. This is one of the earlier discussions of the
proposed convention and is therefore simpler than many of the later
discussions, particularly in reference to the duties and obligations of the
State in exercising its jurisdiction. Greg
Barns, “Politics Has No Place When It Comes to Crimes Against Humanity”, The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 November
2011. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/politics-has-no-place-when-it-comes-to-crimes-against-humanity-20111101-1mt63.html. The author notes that thirteen years after Pinochet’s arrest, the act of which set a precedent for
the concept of universal jurisdiction, the impact of such a precedent has
been undermined by governments blocking similar cases for what appears to be
political purposes. Law Library of Congress, “Multinational Report, “Crimes Against Humanity Statues and Criminal Code Provisions”, 26 July 2012. Available at: http://www.loc.gov/law/help/crimes-against-humanity.php. The research report gives a summary of relevant statutes for about 50 countries. Ian Cobain,
“Obama’s Secret Kill List – the Disposition Matrix,” The Guardian, 15 July 2013.
Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/14/obama-secret-kill-list-disposition-matrix. “The
disposition matrix is a complex grid of suspected terrorists to be traced
then targeted in drone strikes or captured and interrogated. And the British government appears to be
colluding in it.” See comment by Michel C H Jones at: http://www.accci.com.au/JonesCommentonCobain.pdf. Or click here
for translation into online Simplified Chinese. Oona A Hathaway and Scott J Shapiro, “On Syria, a
UN Vote Isn’t Optional,” The New York
Times, 3 September 32013.
Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/04/opinion/on-syria-a-un-vote-isnt-optional.html?ref=opinion.
The authors
make the point that “if the United States begins an
attack without Security Council authorisation, it will flout the most
fundamental international rule of all — the prohibition on the use of
military force, for anything but self-defence, in the absence of Security
Council approval. This rule may be
even more important to the world’s security — and America’s — than the ban on
the use of chemical weapons. Rick Gladstone and Nick Cumming Bruce, “UN
Leader Admits Failure to Halt Syrian Atrocities,” The New York Times, 11 September 2013. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/world/middleeast/un-guilty-of-collective-failure-in-syria-leader-says.html. “The remarks by Mr. Ban came in his opening
speech to a General Assembly meeting on the “responsibility to protect”
principle adopted by the United Nations in 2005, which asserts that the organisation has an obligation to prevent mass
atrocities. Despite the adoption of
that principle, Mr. Ban said, ‘atrocities continue to be committed, and we
continue to face challenges in our efforts to
protect people from them.’” Raphael Minder, “Spain to Proceed with
Indictment of China’s Ex-President,” The
New York Times, 11 October 2013.
Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/12/world/europe/spain-to-proceed-with-indictment-of-chinas-ex-president.html?ref=world. “Spain’s national
court approved the indictment of Hu Jintao, the former Chinese president, as part of an
investigation into whether the Chinese government tortured and repressed the
people of Tibet as part of an attempted genocide.” Reuters, “Gaza: Nothing More Shameful than Attacking Sleeping
Children, Says Ban Ki-moon – Video,” The Guardian, 30 July 2014. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/jul/30/gaza-israel-shameful-attacking-sleeping-children-ban-ki-moon-video. UN
secretary general Ban Ki-moon issued a statement on
Gaza, during his visit to Costa Rica, after a school in the Palestinian
territory, being used to shelter families, was shelled by Israeli forces on
Wednesday. At least 15 people, mostly
children and women, died when the school in Jabaliya
refugee camp was hit by five shells during a night of relentless bombardment
across the territory. More than 100
people were injured.” The Editorial Board, “Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses,” The New York Times, 21 December
2014. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opinion/prosecute-torturers-and-their-bosses.html?ref=opinion. The newspaper’s editorial advocates starting a
criminal investigation over “what appears increasingly a “vast criminal
conspiracy, under colour of law, to commit torture
and other serious crimes.” Such an
investigation would be about ensuring that this never happens again and
regaining the moral credibility to rebuke torture by other governments.”
Kirsten
Ainley, “The Responsibility to Protect and the
International Criminal Court: Counteracting the Crisis,” International Affairs, Vol. 91, No. 1 (January 2015), pp.
37-54. Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-2346.12185/pdf.
“The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) process and
the International Criminal Court (ICC) are quite probably the most important
innovations in human rights protection for decades. They led to global recognition that
sovereignty in the twenty-first century entails the responsibility to protect
people from fear and want.” But
progress has been slow as a result of a slow and inconsistent pace set by the
United Nations Security Council. The
author suggests ways in which the situation could be improved. |
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Neuroethics |
The
Royal Society, “Brain Waves Module 3: Neuroscience, Conflict and Security”,
April 2012. Available at: http://royalsociety.org/uploadedFiles/Royal_Society_Content/policy/projects/brain-waves/2012-02-06-BW3.pdf. An increasingly mechanistic understanding of the
brain raises a host of ethical, legal, and social implications. T his has
laid the foundation for the emergent field of Neuroethics,
which examines ethical issues governing the conceptual and practical
developments of neuroscience. |
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