|
ICE
Case Studies |
Why Timber
Is A Crisis-Driving Commodity An
ontological review of third world socio-economic pandemics By: Joshua Kleymeyer |
The current investigation into crisis-driving commodities focuses primarily on the causes, and secondarily on the severity of social upheavals in developing countries. The bloody conflicts that have too often resulted from the exportation of highly coveted natural resources come with a tremendously exacting, yet often unacknowledged price tag. This price tag is calculated in terms of the loss of human rights, an unsustainable democratic process, and so, the degradation of self-determination and the disenfranchisement of the poor.
This study is as much an overview of one of the great modern polemics, having its roots in the industrialized world, as it is a historical, and thereby ontological, attempt to take on the broader questions surrounding the control of goods on our modern supply and demand continuum. Specifically, the focus of this study is on what socio-economic elements exist that are critical for the perpetuation of rural violence in the form of civil wars or ethnic cleansing, worldwide. What are results of exporting those economic, political, and legal systems of economically dominant nations on countries bereft of the rule of law? In a results oriented world like today, it is critical for our governments to keep in mind what conditions make impoverished nation ripe for some form of mass civil unrest. Though there exist today many crisis-driving commodities of the caliber to ensure a socio-economic pandemics around the globe, for the purposes of this study, timber will be the main parameter describing a extractable natural resource with a large black-market presence.
Drawing on a pool of specific studies, theories, and recent developments, this research paper proposes that current perspectives and policies towards conflicts that habitually spiral out of control symbiotically can influence and are influenced by these ever-worsening situations which typically erupt in the more lawless and disparate regions of the world. To accomplish this, a five-section guideline will be adhered to with a total of 16 subsections. The format proposed here is that of the typical Inventory on Conflict and Environment (ICE) case study. A short outline/summary of the ice case study methodology is as follows.
This first section is the Case Background, and commences with an abstract defining the context whereby conflicts are fueled and sustained by commerce and trade. The second subsection gives a description of conflict commodities, and the nature of timber extraction for foreign consumption. The following segment offers a general account of the duration of this crisis, with a specific concentration on the injurious inheritances residues from the industrial world. This is best described in the context of the pernicious socio-political fallout because of the proxy wars, both economic and territorial in character, which stemmed from old Cold War rivalries. The focus of the subsequent subsection is on location, or rather the environment that a commodity-driven conflict tends to fester. The last subsection determines whom the actors are, and under what conditions and to what extent resource rich regions are forced into insurgent/modern warfare.
The second chapter focuses on Environmental Aspects. Commencing with the type of environment needed to produce a commodity-driven civil war, the first subsection looks at certain environmental problems that have emerged. This is followed by a review of the social and political habitat necessary to create fragile, failing, or failed states, and how these systems are exploited both internally and externally. A short subsection on act and harm sites follows.
The third chapter is on Conflict Aspects. The first subsection offers investigative findings on the type of conflicts that result from the ability of a developing nation to export and import goods with to and from the outside world. A look at the level the conflict has reached follows. Greater detail in this area would come from a longer investigation, complete with the production of hard sociological data, but has yet to be conducted as of the publishing of this case study. Regardless, a general review of how these conflicts can generate such high levels of fatalities as a result of commodity-driving disputes concludes this section.
The fourth chapter is on the connection between an Environment and Conflict. It looks first at the links and dynamics between the environment and conflicts. Specifically, how a locally abundant and a globally high-demand resource like timber promulgates modern guerrilla warfare resulting in often acute regional and international fallout. A review of the level of strategic interests in terms of local and global actors follows. The importance of which lies in discovering how illegal trading operations engender notably bloodier societal backlashes where free market ideals are not followed due to monopolies on black-market goods. This paper proposes, therefore, that when there is hording and haggling of natural resources, which crosses the principles of a free market economy, human rights violations and a disturbing democratic deficit are to be expected. The last subsection is on the outcomes of the dispute as best defined by the present multinational market environment entangled with free trade agreements, like we live with today.
The fifth and last chapter, Relevant Literature and Web sites, is a collection of related resources on the subject of timber as a conflict-driving commodity. It is composed of a subsection on related ICE and TED case studies, and finishes with a group of relevant web sites, recommended literature, and a list of endnotes that substantiate this case study.
In the final decades before the end of the Twentieth century, a growing correlation emerged between human rights abuses, criminal acts committed by international crime syndicates - in the form of local and global terrorist networks - and the specific increase in official and unofficial fact-finding studies conducted with the intention of comprehend the scope of ensuing socio-economic problems. These problems are notably linked to the mass extraction of natural resources from countries in conflict, and the purchasing of small arms and light weapons. A host of inquires into the matter grew in number and scope, charged to do more than simply discuss current affairs and past atrocities, and have resulted in such needed global legislation as the U.S.-E.U Action Plan on Small Arms and Light Weapons, whose fourth point charges these parties to “Promote support for the observance and the enforcement of the Economic Community of West African States' (ECOWAS) moratorium on the import, export and manufacturing of small arms in West Africa.” [1] The international studies are also compelled to recommend viable ways to diffuse (or at least halt) mounting tensions in developing countries that constantly threatened to slide into a quagmire typical of any and all fragile, failing, or failed nation states. Though popular academic and/or institutional studies have proven their necessity and legitimacy,
The current study also aims to show that generally and specifically the overall analysis of prior government funded research conducive to ever greater levels of “groupthink” often fault the messengers (the survivors) instead of the message (systemic socio-political failure that forces individuals to sacrifice their principles so that they and their families may live to see another day. In more exacting terms, it is the rogue organizations, the criminal cartels, and the corrupt states who shoulder the burden of their innovative and entrepreneurial actions, instead of the political environment ushered in by the suspect arms race of the Cold War. To the embarrassment of international community, which can be credited for the reform measures being sought and instituted in many organizations (the United Nations being a quintessential example), the 90s saw a tremendous rise, not a reduction, in the levels of ethnic uprisings, social upheavals, and economic disasters. Those natural resources accessible within a nation state's sovereign boundaries have lamentably become the fuel for acrimonious and amoral social deviance, instead of a positive element in the struggle to create greater peace, equality, and prosperity; a principle of a free market oriented democracy.
In studying modern crisis, those influential Western foreign
policy theorists that predominately saw the world descending into greater chaos
are critical in understanding the manner in which modern warfare has adapted in
the ways that it has. Many of the
great Conservative, neo-Conservative, Realist, and neo-Realist theories of the
twentieth century, energetically formulated to bolster a core logic, or rather
a lasting ideological framework, for when and why one powerful nation should
wade into the fray of a crisis in a weaker state headed towards anarchy. In particular, whether or not one or
several powerful nation’s global interests may or may not be at stake. Furthermore, whose or what
administration will be intractably intertwined and therefore accountable to the
world’s lenders and collectors of both political and fiscal security. Such world views, for example, have
been historically argued through the writings of Hans J. Morgenthau’s
It is important to note, in the post-WWII political
environment, how the works of Morgenthau grew to epic levels of importance, and
greatly influence the Cold-War period.
The result was urgency and a rationale that declared
We are entering a bifurcated world. Part of the globe is inhabited by Hegel’s and
Kaplan,
it would seem, suggests that Western world powers should in no way compromise
their national interest, or else become vulnerable to weakness which would diminish
our capacity to survive the coming deluge of conflict. This line of thought holds that, for a
country like the
Another
theory, similarly fashioned, is the often-cited thought-piece by Samuel P.
Huntington titled, “The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of the World
Order.”
When popular literary works, like those mentioned above, directly impact the foreign policy strategies proposed b elected moral authorities like those in the US and the EU, these ideologies retain the power to define what is acceptable when formulating questions, and what are the realistic conclusions to be reached by most if not all fact-finding panels. Smear campaigns typically await those who are not willing to be a party to the systematic and unlawful extraction of natural resources. Our present day intelligence needs and the reforms with, antiquated or premeditated perspectives can and have only led to a crisis in informational legitimacy, credibility of action (i.e. use of force over sovereign borders), and as mentioned prior, anti-free market groupthink. Humanitarian crisis today as seen in the Great Lakes region on Africa or in the far East like Indonesia, be they caused by a desperate and savage contest over national resources, or be they due to a long standing policy by the West to weaponize a region through external strengthening of internal trade partners and government to government assistance like that handled by USAID, the IMF, or the World Bank.
In the case of official studies on conflict commodities, in
particular, they have historically functioned, regardless of their
comprehensibility, as the reference reviewed and relied upon by policymakers
whose responsibility it is to endorse or thwart intervention. The United
Nations (UN), through the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) and PROFOR,
works constantly on raising awareness on topics of global concern, and yet
proves greatly ineffectual in generating progressive change. For example, UNFF recently issued a
report on how “conflict timber” fuels militias and guerilla groups in the
Greater Lakes Region of Africa, in June of 2001. Since the conflicts that ravaged
In the case of UNFF’s study, they focused on the Congolese
opposition groups actively fighting the government in the Democratic Republic
of Congo who presently have strong connections in
Similar types of fact-finding reports have been issued in the
To better comprehend the social and environmental crisis linking timber and armed conflict, ARD divided the problem of timber harvesting into two categories. On one level, timber can be used, “specifically to finance armed conflicts…,” and on another level, vast swaths of land covered in timber create, “rival claims to ownership of, or control over, forest resources, resulting in conflict.”[8] Though many of the policy suggestions that follow tend to include unsavory options like international sanctions, which often prove to worsen the situation, and wipe out a nation’s middle class, more engagement by the international community in resolving a conflict does allow for continued diplomacy. As such, these studies are good because they assist in raising awareness on critical issues in a way that shows how virulent conflicts around the world demand responsible and unwavering engagement. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, greater political engagement often comes in the form of the aggressive implementation of international conditions. To the detriment of the innocent bystanders of conflict, these conditions often require the withholding of humanitarian assistance, the enforcement of trade barriers, or the blocking of money intended to help develop civil society until the armed conflict is suspended, or human rights abuses are reduced – a task nearly impossible without foreign assistance and guidance being readily available.
The purpose of many international reports in the field of conflict studies, as USAID’s contracting of ARD to create a Conflict Timber Task Force in the year 2002 showed, are charged to better understand how conflicts are funded, perpetuated, and resolved. The latter suggestions are classically ensconced in a policy recommendation section. These reports offer as well, the opportunity to review the international community’s response to a crisis. Developing an independent analysis in this case can lead to a set of “sustainable” policy recommendations that benefits the foreign policy debate greatly, as it stimulates the public sphere. Yet, what studies like ARD’s often miss is how the long-term and short-term devastation in unstable regions around the globe stems from a forced paradigm shift.[9] The agitation felt in the process of conforming to foreign (Western) economic and institutional systems in foreign lands often works to create an unsustainable level of cognitive dissonance in the country’s citizenry and their leadership.[10]
The ramifications of this clash are many, but the norm has
been that if the reasons a state is failing can be ignored, they are. Moreover, the many problems besetting a
failed state are only addressed when they reach a level of disaster high enough
for there to be a spillover effect felt in other sectors of humanity.[11] One could say that
international terrorism is a direct result of world powers ignoring regional
unrest until it exploded on the international scene. Consequently, Alan M.
Dershowitz, professor of law at
Continuing on the subject of regional studies conducted by
research institutions, much quality work is being produced in
2. Country Strategy Papers should include, where relevant, an evaluation of the economic, social and political significance of natural resources in the target country.
3. EU aid for extractive
industry and logging sectors should be assessed in terms of the positive
spill-over effect on the development of related, non-extractive industries to
ensure that targeted development assistance is not unduly favoring industries
prone to corruption and exploitation, nor aggravating income inequality or
impeding economic diversification.[13]
The current case study aims to look at the issue of “conflict commodities,” and how the lack of timely and/or sufficient action on the part of the world’s power brokers directly led to a perpetuation and diversification of conflicts around the world, and the resources burned up in the process. These power brokers are, but ARE not limited to governments, monetary unions, military treaties and alliances, legal conventions, international diplomatic bodies, and multinational corporations. A necessary explanation is sought in understanding the causes and effects the international trade of goods and arms elicits in the “harvest and sale” of natural resources. It is the opinion of this author that the deficient models of development instituted half a century ago that created as many if not more problems than they were structured to resolve, must be overhauled if peace and freedom are truly going to be attainable and sustainable.[14]
As Hamid Mowlana, professor of International Communication at American University pointed out in his book, Global Information and World Communication, “Western theories of human development, both Marxist and liberal democratic, proceed from a shared assumption that the development of societies requires that modern economic and social organization replace traditional structures.”[15] As such, this Current study will concentrate on how capitalism, with its demand for a “labor-market,” a “cash-payment,” and “greater deregulation,” has demonstrated its terrible potential to further destabilize, instead of develop those ‘hot-regions’ that consist of developing countries.[16] In the 1970’s, Marxist theorist suggested that these tensions were insurmountable.[17]
The research conclusions of the current paper describe the possible reasons developing countries remain volatile even in the face of half a century of functioning diplomatic and financial institutions. It also aims to uncover the roots of foreign policy misperceptions that may have led to a worsening OF relations between states internationally. By singling out timber as an abundant commodity known to perpetuate conflicts in already war torn regions, the modern system of trade is noted to be the backbone on which these conflicts ride that kill millions of combatants as well as non-combatants. Let us not forget that deforestation is also of tremendously pressing environmental concern. As was seen in the few years before the end of the Cold War, and even more so in the decade that followed, many developing regions around the globe suffered an acute abandonment of socio-political, economic, and military aid and oversight. This unexpected disappearance almost overnight of what grew to be exaggerated foreign aid packages – typically in the form of military hardware and software (i.e. weapons and training) – proves not to be the sole destabilizing force, but unquestionably one of the main ones.
Subsequently, the push and pull on the local level of the
national interests of the power blocs, would leave millions dead by the end of
the last century. What was
obviously not of any concern at the time was the disastrous crisis left in the
wake of such global struggles.
When the fight for supremacy in certain global theaters was deemed less
a priority, or no longer of national interest, perhaps too costly to continue,
those theaters experienced a tremendous evacuation of support and guidance and
an inevitable failure of governance.
When their house of cards crumbled the exacting result was a mortifying
increase in human rights abuses.
The
Devastation and desperation brought about by conflicts, and
being as much psychological as economic, rooted in the juxtaposition of Western
political, legal, and economic models on rural populations that are not
prepared for such a colossal transition of values. In a separate study conducted by the Heinrich Böll
Foundation in 2003 titled, “The Aftermath of September 11: New Challenges for a
European Common Foreign and Security Policy,” author Marianne Ebertowski argues that this is one of the causes of
failed states. In her chapter on
“the Responsibilities of the International Community toward Failing and
Such societies are modified in a way that leaves them
fundamentally altered. These
societies turn into societies of fear characterized by social polarization,
social exclusion, increasing violence as an instrument to acquire goods and
resources, that absence of law, massive violations of human rights,
criminalization and the growing illegalization of the economy, and the
disappearance of the central state.[20]
The UN has demonstrating the constraints not only of its Charter, but also of its signatories. Acting in accordance with UN Charter chapter 1, Purposes and Principles, Article 2.1 that states, “The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members,” means that stopping a genocide is as complicated as calling it a genocide.[21] The UN, it must be noted, was evolving challenge by challenge its institutional roles in this environment. As a cause of this, the UN has grown the greatest in sectors that have witnessed the most struggle.
The phenomenon of the failing of a state has, after September
11, come full circle to show the
world to what degree instability and civil unrest can be exported. Furthermore,
Widely accepted in the West and diffused among the elites of
the less industrialized countries, this assumption encompasses, among other
things, industrialization in the economy; secularization in thought,
personality, and communication; the development of a “cosmopolitan
attitude”; integration into the
“world culture”; and rejection of traditional thoughts and technologies simply
because they dominated the past and thus are not “modern.” This third way eschews both Marxism and
liberal democracy. It has its
roots in more humane, ethical traditionalist, anti-bloc, self-reliance theories
of societal development. In short,
the “third way” seeks not to promote itself or its ideology; it seeks dignity
though dialogue.[22]
In raw numbers, NGO’s have exponentially increased in
correlation with the number of natural or unnatural disasters that have been
filling the minds of the world’s TV viewers since the days when
Somewhat perversely, the levels of violence within the field
of organized crime may rise following the successes of law enforcement. By disabling powerful group leaders or
groups, the field is opened to fierce competition between organized crime
groups wanting to fill the power vacuum.
Concerning resources, it is clear that organized crime groups in the EU
amass vast profits from their illicit undertakings. Although it is impossible to exactly estimate the money
involved, the sum should be measured in billions of euro annually.[25]
The failure to implement early warning systems in regards to conflict has allowed a culture of illegal networks to concretize. Those people committing crimes, by default on the part of weak law enforcement, have had the chance to perfect their ability to function and avoid being brought to justice. This, unfortunately, has been the precedent the world around.
The role of controlling natural resources in these conflicts has, indeed, become primary to the competing factions within countries in crisis. Ironically, even though the seeds of “conflict commodities” were sown in the wake of the retreating interests of superpowers, they have been perpetuated by the consumer. Modern rules of international relations, in fact, have not brought forth states that are based on principles of modern democracy but on AN entrenched culture of dependencies, which breeds corruption and organized crime. If ever democracy and capitalism were thought of as the preeminent panacea to world inequality and suffering, especially when Mikhail Gorbachev threw in the towel on Christmas Eve of 1991, these modern institutions continue to miss opportunities to thwart dissension in nation states, and as such, aggressively move away from creating the social fabric needed to establish a true international community.
Inevitably, something crueler has evolved from the risks
taken by presidents, czars, prime ministers, and policymakers over the last
half century. As the largest world
power’s competing national interests began to fade in regions such as Southeast
Asia, North and
Furthermore, with the mind-boggling collapse of the
Those countries most vulnerable to instabilities rapidly fell into chaos, demonstrating the “failing” of a state phenomenon, occurring when a government buckles under the stress of dissenting factions. This crumbling created an environment where the further corruption of existing political structures by international terrorists and crime syndicates ultimately functioned to cast off any obligation to protect a nation’s resources or peoples. It has been argued that in those situations, the concept of adhering to a higher moral order pales in comparison with that of keeping a semblance of control. Establishing control then becomes an aggressive act of self-preservation. If the choice to participate is removed from the non-combatant in an armed conflict, resulting in collateral damage, then the conflict was unjustified. By these standards, many if not all conflicts are therefore unjustifiable. Writing on the possible justifications for a final and decisive war, recognized as encapsulating the Nuclear Dilemma of the Cold-War period, Oldenquist and Kincade stated, “The most significant moral perplexity turns on the fact that the deterrent use of nuclear weapons could mean an end to the traditional injunction against killing non-combatants. This violates one of the most important principles of moral reasoning about conflict: that it must be discriminate if it is to be justified.”[27] Curiously enough, this same parameter defines the dilemma in comprehending a terrorist act.
Many nation states that were no longer privileged to continue
their dependence on historic sources of economic and security patronage,
logically infused the ensuing political struggles for dominance with primarily
economical and militaristic goals.
It must be pointed out that a country with a disciplined military
structure under political control is characteristic of Western political
culture, and not of the global south or the
The high exploitation of conflict commodities alone by
terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah ranges into the billions of
dollars. This illegal movement was
on the radars of the world’ strongest intelligence and law enforcement
agencies. The movement of funds
through parallel banking systems like Hawala, should have been a clear warning
of the redefinition on a global scale of what constitutes resistance and
guerilla warfare.[28] As such
it took an attack on
Not two years after the UNSC resolution declaring war on
To make further reference to ARD’s contract with USAID for the nine-month study, the assembled Task Force sought to gain understanding of the exact cause and effect conflict timber has on developing countries, as follows:
To begin characterizing the magnitude and dimensions of the
problem at the global and regional levels, Country-level Conflict Timber
Profiles were developed for 14 countries from
The point to be made here is complicated, and yet obvious. In the tradition of Western democracies flush with laws and law enforcement mechanisms, the criminal is always to blame.
But today, the principle culprits of bloody conflicts are not just the despots in positions of power, the corrupt elite, or a sadistic military; the uninformed consumer abroad is as much a progenitor, albeit unconsciously, of conflict as those in house despots who attempt to reign in their respective industries. Alongside the infamous leaders of war-trampled countries like that of Charles Taylor in Liberia or Siyad Barre and later Mohamed Farah Aideed in Somalia, are hosts of competing gangs cutting their teeth on some of the worst human rights violations. Alongside these dictators are crime lords, corrupt militaries and police force, guerrilla revolutionaries, private military contractors and their paid mercenaries, and of course, international terrorist organizations to name a few. In addition to these actors, culpability also falls on the shoulders of international corporations for their blind demand of raw materials; and, as mentioned above, the world powers for their failure at preventing conflict, which was a top priority in the agreement signed at Dumbarton Oaks.
Moreover, the modern Nation States system is culpable. The slow implementation of crucial international legal codes, the sporadic and arbitrary allocation of hard and soft diplomacy, the fickle enforcement of sanctions, have all functioned to send mixed messages to developing states as to their place and their powers when recognized by the UN, and to tribal warlords or terrorist organization as to what the international reaction will be. Organized crime, in the final analysis, has flourished under the watchful eye of the world’s conflict-prevention institutions. This is the five-act tragedy of our modern political drama.
What has followed in many of the destabilized or “abandoned” regions around the globe is, consequentially, the birth of ‘conflict commodity’ sponsored terrorism. The continuation of proxy wars started by the now-disinterested superpowers allowed guerrilla groups, militias, and weak governments to continue the fight for control of resource-rich lands and sustain what has been termed as “economies of war” in the ensuing grab for any form of power and control. It is important to raise a point that often gets lost in the intensity of conflict: those who witness and survive the most atrocious human rights abuses often rise to positions of power because of these vicious cycles. The poor and the planet’s only hope, it would seem, are those non-partisan, non-state actors motivated by solidarity and a greater sense of humanity. We must ask ourselves if humanitarian organizations and international alliances would be better served if they were not constrained by one country’s national interests over another.[30]
The length of time that the illegal logging of timber in
conflict areas of the world has been termed “conflict timber” has been
historically short. And the length
of political response, even shorter.
The European Union’s response to violent conflict, in what they call the
‘near-abroad’ first emerged in May 2001, in the form of Article 7 of the
Council’s Common Position on conflict prevention in
Another unsavory aspect in the world of ‘trade of goods and
services,’ is the lack of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), in regards to
purchasing timber harvested either illegally or in areas where the profits
undeniably go to armed factions.
These illegal logging operations are located in almost all regions
enduring years of economic instability.
With like minded goals, logging companies and regional actors have been
known to team up not only to avoid being caught in the act, but also to
publicly and physically confront activists. A specific case to recall is the threatening of the
Greenpeace ship the M.V Arctic Sunrise, in November 2003, on a stretch of the Brazilian
Amazon. Three hundred Brazilian
loggers, having been enticed by their mayor (who owns the largest logging
concession in the region of Porto de Moz) and other local officials with the
promise of fuel and alcohol boarded 17 boats and two large barges and
aggressively confronted the Arctic
Sunrise in mid-river. The efforts made by Greenpeace in
The
Sub-Sahara
When it comes to complicity in the many armed conflicts of
our time, the failure on the part of the international community to collectively
deter tense situations from spiraling out of control has been categorized by
political scientists as ‘the sin of omission.’ The historian Jacob Burckhardt once said, “The essence of
tyranny is the denial of complexity.”
In part, what Burckhardt was declaring was that the consequences of
turning a blind eye to fact and figures is to partake in tyrannical behavior
toward both those you represent and those you don’t. In the case of
Addressing the question of actors is both easy and hard;
obvious and yet, ever more elusive.
On the list of perpetrators of illegal logging are multinational logging
companies, local officials, military commanders, state-sponsored militias, and
the masses of individuals who have no other choice but to engage in
environmental exploitation to eek out a living. Exponentially more wealthy countries like the
Valuable world commodities that come from failing or failed
states like timber, diamonds, gold, oil, coltan, or even uranium that fall into
the hands of militarized cartels, guerillas, or terrorists have only made war,
and thus a false state of security, a daily reality. But unfortunately, when violence erupts, it is the killers
and the victims that are declared culpable for the bloodshed. Yet beneath the surface is an intricate
global network of trade that turns a blind eye to this phenomenon because it
supports the liberalized movement of goods. The capital infusions into these regions as a result of the
business interests have side-affects that are simply not being examined. Intelligence agencies including
Europol, Interpol, the MI6, the CIA, the NSA, and The FBI are well versed in
the lucrative nature of organized crime when it expertly traffics
commodities. As such, it is
important when attempting to construct a historical perspective of conflict commodities
and their origins, to recognize that capitalist countries and their law
enforcement agencies have limited lists when it comes to who perpetrates
conflicts and should be punished accordingly. Frankly, this situation has been long under-appreciated for
its capacity to institutionalize violence. An NGO that has brought tremendous
insight into how the environment is affected by conflict is Greenpeace. To quote an article found on their
Since 2000, Greenpeace has repeatedly exposed the links
between Liberian logging companies associated with illicit arms trading and
timber traders throughout
In
the act of supplying materials, raw or processed, the global demand of natural
resources has the function of creating huge amounts of capital in remote areas
of the world. In their own way,
warlords who arm their loyal soldiers are, to some degree, engaging in a
radical form of aggressive peacemaking not unheard of in the larger world. Unfortunately, the manner in which they
keep the peace is through violence:
a system that only feeds on itself to the detriment of the existing
social ecology. What lesson is
there to be learned when political will is so difficult to conjure? It is
important to point out that nowhere in Europol’s 2002 organized crime report
did they gauge the affect on
Another agency quite active internationally dealing with such
global concerns is Global Witness.
This NGO began with two men, carrying few supplies, who trekked into the
mountains of
Hardwoods often fetch a higher price due to their rarity. Moreover, in the production process, hardwoods are cut very thin and sold as veneer for upwards of thousands of dollars a sheet. The international community (armed with money, modern technology, a vast military complex, and a host of theories on preventive diplomacy) must consider on the road to rectifying any crisis, the manner and ease with which organized crime becomes a way of life for those who are faced with survival under a dictatorship. It remains altogether too easy for multinational corporations and logging companies to cut deals with black-listed distributors in countries beleaguered by internal conflict. The research of Ó Riain demonstrates that, “Relations of unequal exchange in primary commodity trade and a heavy reliance on foreign investment have been shown to be poor development strategies, whereas structural adjustment programs associated with foreign debt repayment have wreaked havoc on many economies.”[36] Furthermore, when it comes to conflict commodities, the level of complicity is frighteningly obvious when you consider the logistical challenges of cutting a tree down, milling it, transporting it, and distributing it.
The existence of an international open market based on capitalist theories of ‘embedded liberalism’ have only allowed multinational logging companies to justify the role they play in facilitating extraction of foreign resources. It goes without saying that ‘whom’ our global corporations are doing business with is a progressively revealing issue. Industries bent on their bottom line standards of success further demonstrate their interest in implementing cost effective measures by buying low and selling high. In addition, when they do business in bulk, specifically with rare hardwoods (though lower quality woods have a sizable market as well), they act as perpetrators of human rights abuses and environmental degradation. As the ill-effects of this practice are seldom if ever felt at home, enabling illegal logging to continue constitutes good business. And because there exist relatively few historically examples to dissuade the further practice of marketing timber from warring regions, it continues without mandatory checks and balances.
Many natural resources fall under the category of Conflict Commodities; yet those considered more in high-demand are principally five. In particular, five natural resources known for their capacity to fuel or sustain conflict are: timber, diamonds, oil, gold, and columbite-tatalite ore (otherwise known as coltan, which is vital for the fabrication of microchips used in modern-day technologies like mobile phones and laptop computers) Most countries rich in natural resources have the potential to create industries, and therefore, economies of scale able enough to raise the standard of living enabling the respective region to crawl out of turmoil and poverty. Considering this, it is shocking that so few do. It is by force of proximity and association that the local supply of global commodities captures already distressed communities, and the environment, as its de facto prisoner of war.
With an appropriate level of aid and management directed by the world community, developing countries in theory could establish enduring institutions of good governance capable of managing their domestic affairs. This would work to engage civil unrest through economic expansion, the provision of better civil services, health and educational services, and the subsequent rise in the quality of life for all. But, for those on the ground scrapping for a meager, if not humiliating living, this kind of state altruism is sadly neither the case, nor the norm. Again, the difference between the theory and practice of engaging in stabilizing a failing state is extremely pronounced.
As the World Bank has previously pointed out, a natural
resource-dependent country is four-times as likely to experience civil war than
a developing country with no primary natural commodity.[37] Moreover, these resource-rich
states are often further polarized due to the domination of these resources by
elite factions with close political and military associations that demonstrate
a ruthless survival-of-the-fittest strategy. It is not surprising then that the riches garnered through
control of a country’s abundant natural resources are hoarded and ferociously
protected. Comparatively, the
position of our governments and industries would seem to denote the
counterproductive nature of giving concessions to global alliances like the UN
or human rights conventions like those signed in
Because timber is found the world around, the entire planet becomes the type of habitat that can support this type of conflict. If we look at the history of conflict commodities and armed conflict, timber has often been a crucial resource, if not a decisive resource when engaging in war. Whether to heat meals or keep troops from freezing; in the construction of forts, raise lodgings, or boats and train cars that transport goods; when building weapons like battering rams, arrows, spears, or the butts of a Kalishnokoff riffle, wood has proved its essentiality time and time again. Yet, what has immerged as fundamentally different today in the use of timber, is not the form it is fashioned into, but the value it has acquired, and the manner in which the spoils are directed. This scenario has been of major concern to environmentalists and conflict management practitioners. Because readily available caches of timber and exotic hardwoods are located in remote regions of the world, there has been a focus on establishing environmental regulations to protect these woods, thus making their sales illegal, and the market for them illicit.
Affected regions around the world, as mentioned above, are
limited only in where these natural resources exist. The rapid deforestation of
In looking back at the
twentieth century, we can recall the atrocious loss of life of two consecutive
World Wars. The first shot, often
cited as being the casus belli of WWI
(that after its conclusion, left Europe with major diplomatic issues and
resulted in WWII), was dealt by the sharp-shooting Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo
Principe, when he assassinated the Arch Duke Ferdinand and his wife Sofia in
Sarajevo, Bosnia. A few generations later, the world would witness the creation
and actual application of Nuclear technology – unleashed on innocent Japanese
civilians – though perhaps it would not comprehend the connection. Conventions, Pacts, Acts, and Alliances
were actively engaged in, starting in the late 1940s, to ensure the lessons
world wars teach were learned, and never repeated. Only a few years later, the Cold War escalated with the
wealthiest countries contributing their best technology, science, and capital
into what rapidly became a ‘must-win’ geopolitical game of survival, until the
This paradox has been voiced by other highly regarded activists known by those international agencies dedicated to the struggle for sustainable peace through conflict resolution. The former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, contributed an essay to the book, Preventive Diplomacy: Stopping Wars Before They Start, on his role as the UNSG. His essay chiefly set out to put in plain words why the world saw so much conflict in the 1990s. In the words of Boutros-Ghali, “The Cold War might be over but the world was still plagued by a number of wars that it had spawned, almost all of them wars within states.” He goes further to demarcate the origins of these conflicts stemming directly from the, “so-called proxy wars in which each of the protagonists was backed, politically and in materiel, by one of the Cold War power blocs.”[38] Hence, the genesis of anarchy in so-called failed states (recall the Kaplan camp) is linked to both the plundering of natural resources in the era of colonialism, and the excessive Cold War and post-Cold War meddling.
This issue is further
addressed in one of the Carnegie Commission to Prevent Deadly Conflict (CCPDC)
studies titled Opportunities Missed, Opportunities Seized: Preventive
Diplomacy in the Post-Cold War World.
The editor of this study, Lee H. Hamilton, is the director of the
Bruce Jentleson, director of
the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) and professor of
political science at the
If the norm of development
has been to export democracy to the far corners of the earth, regardless of the
unsuitability of those places for institutional modernization, then
facilitating liberal trade of their natural resources has created an egregious
cultural and ethnic disconnect.
The actors, as much as the act, then defines the type of struggle
produced by conflict commodities.
It would follow that those agents (political, military, or business)
more willing and able to play the game, are those considered more capable of
wielding authority and legitimizing their power grabs. The logical consequences that
materialize around this type of cultural divergence is: heightened resistance. John Tomlinson noted that this ideological
divide is entrenched even in the institutional discourses of UNESCO on
protecting cultures. For example,
the 1982 UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies held in
When discussing the Type of
Conflict a commodity engenders, it is crucial to establish sufficient
context. Are we addressing a
conflict of interest, or addressing socio-political dilemmas that result in
armed conflict? Are we speaking of
conflicting ideologies, or of territorial conflicts born from nationalist
sentiments rallied by scandalous leaders?
Perhaps we are talking about the type of illicit conflicts that are
state-sponsored as in the case of a Taliban Afghanistan, a Bathist Iraq, a
Khmer Rouge
Left to their own devices,
conflicts fueled by commodities tend to grow in severity, frequency, and
fixation. Conflicts within
nations, like those that surfaced in the 70s, 80s, and 90’s, unfortunately, did
not lead to more political transparency, more institutionalization of the rule
of law, or inspire a more apt distribution of wealth, or lower the regional
tensions that stem from sustained human rights abuses. Warfare does not lead to greater nation
building, but the business of regional in-fighting. It would seem that
Humanitarian intervention has ceaselessly been built on a creed of hardship alleviation. This is particularly true with those agencies around the world that make it their business to decrease poverty, reduce disease, and resolve conflict in so many areas of the world. They are known for adhering to the high moral standard of the diplomatic tract. Industrialized countries, however, house corporations that justify sponsoring greater interaction abroad on the principles of product and capital-driven trade. The justification for which is often argued in terms of a utilitarian social order of democracy that has its roots in the social theories of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. They focused on society benefiting from market expansion, i.e. hardship alleviation through greater economic strength.[45]
When deconstructing geopolitical policies of prosperity and freedom, like those which promote capitalism and democracy, it is vital to ask: Are the millions of impoverished and underprivileged individuals around the would being freed of their hardships, or not? In effect, it is critical to ask if the policies, say economic and political, are not at odds. Moreover, since the rhetoric of ‘development’ became a fundamental aspect of the language of diplomacy in the mid-nineteen hundreds, any country who publicly endorses preventive measures to reduce conflict, and yet has had a hand in generating said conflicts is in itself a thorny and sobering indicator. Furthermore, when gauging the level of conflict that is generated precisely by the trading in those commodities found in the Horn of Africa, Southeast Asia, South America, or Central Eastern Europe, it is demonstrative, as was done in the previous section on ‘Types of Conflict,’ to look at what came previously, and why. However, to do so is a complicated if not impossible task, requiring at least, the rewriting of twenty-first century history. It is the nature of the problem that to comprehend how conflicts with direct links to illegal trade have elicited different State versus non-State responses (i.e. public versus private) in the latter half of the last century, one must comprehend how demand of commodities also produces an oversupply of conflict.
When the political will for action arises under the auspices of national interest, the tendency towards reactive instead of proactive approaches becomes tantamount. When diplomats argue for action based on a: ‘Let us intervene by exporting stability to them, before they make a mockery of our sovereignty by exporting their form of instability over our borders,’ the tendency towards disjointed foreign policy stances becomes the norm. The fact that the World Bank, the IMF, the UN, and USAID (amongst others active in this debate) have not concretized a forum for amalgamating their visions, capacities, and methodologies, has repeatedly made a three-ring circus of conflict management. The four independent Balkan wars that occurred in the 1990s are perfect examples of the level of conflict that can arise and be prolonged when the multiple mechanisms for peacekeeping and preventive diplomacy fail to coordinate their efforts.
The initial inoculation of democracy into under-developed regions of the world starting in the 1950s was based on the theories of venture capital and microeconomics, but also on international law. However, we must question the validity of current models of development having witnessed the size of the chore and the consequences of failure. The unreliability of the ‘come on over and be like us’ policy has proved to be such a faulty calculation that the World Bank, the IMF, and USAID were just a few amongst many to undergo structural and institutional overhauls in the late 1990’s. Kofi Annan’s recommendations for an overhaul of the United Nations can be found in his Millennium Declaration. The European Union, as well, underwent several bureaucratic stages of development that in the end produced a rubric establishing parameters towards maintaining security within the EU’s territories. Efforts in this direction can be seen with the Maastricht Treaty in 1991, the Helsinki Final Act, the Madrid Declaration, and more recently, the Petersburg Tasks. Though the EU and its member states do not face any direct military threat to their territorial integrity other than the organized crime emanating from the Balkans, they have begun to understand that long-term security must be implemented comprehensively, with competency, and in a timely manner. Furthermore, they have noted that the root causes of instability and insecurity have to be met with institutionalized, rule-based multilateralism.[47]
Continued violence around the world clearly demarcates why
nation-building has more to do with national and cultural solidarity within a
conflict infected region, than with global market policies. The IMF’s fiscal policies toward
Yet, the irony of such modern phenomena like the ‘CNN factor’
is that public opinion and political will are extremely erratic in the sense of
when action is finally taken, and why.
This was most acutely witnessed in the disjointed responses to Bosnia,
Rwanda, Somalia, and Zaire (which having a low level of media presence, has
clocked in at over one million dead from its recent years of conflict post-Mobuto
Sese Seko’s reign of terror and has yet to generate any corresponding
international policy debates). To
quote from a recent report on conflict timber: “Dimensions of the Problem in
Conflict arises where commercial stocks of timber are
present. In every study area, the
background to conflict lies in past repressive state control over forest lands
under the Suharto regime, or even before in the colonial period. Old resentments that have long held the
potential for violence have been unleashed. The recent upsurge in violent incidents related to timber
has occurred in tandem with an ongoing and chaotic process of political
decentralization along with capricious application of laws and regulations by
new and old political elites.
International companies buying forest products, or providing logging
tools, are also directly or indirectly complicit in engendering conflict.[49]
The
political and economic destabilization that occurs in countries rich in
resources but not in the rule of law results in “Kleptocratic” regimes. They cycle into and out of power, vary
in name and style, but all, in actuality, have the same socio-environmental
ramifications. And all have
relatively the same solution, beginning with an end to violence through greater
understanding. Non-state terrorism
is, to our increasing detriment, the language of a growing number of
disaffected peoples around the world.
It is, in effect, the stage beyond power-motivated inter-state
genocide. To return to the idea of
September 11, the
The UNDP study mentioned above categorized these affects
into six areas, which are near universal when comprehending the cause and
effects of commodity driven conflicts.
These problem areas are as follows:
1) Implementation and enforcement of law is capricious.
2) Fragmentation of political power has fragmented natural resource management.
3) Newly devolved political powers to the local level by decentralization, which was meant to alleviate poverty within a newly democratized context, are abused.
4) Old frustrations erupt with more frequency and force into conflict because the central government’s authority is primarily on paper, and so, without influence.
5) Formal security and military agencies are directly and indirectly involved in timber conflicts.
6) Corruption in
financial and banking arrangements is an incentive for activities engendering
conflict.
Numerous
case studies conducted in
With a total of 37 armed conflicts raging over a ten year period, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has been forced to deal with a host of issues – all political, financial, and legal in nature. Mandated to debate the form and scope of a UNSC Resolution, cabinet-level diplomats representing their nations vital-interests together with other signatory nation states argue over terminology, and therefore, the rules of engagement. They argue, for example, if the Geneva Convention’s international laws or the UN’s Charter on Human Rights both drafted in the late 1940’s, are applicable and how. In the case of Rwanda, when the conflict reached its height in 1994, and where the conflict between a Hutu-majority and a Tutsi-minority cost over 800,000 people their lives in approximately eight months, the word “Genocide” was not used until the damage had been done.
The scenario that began coalescing in far off regions of the post Cold-War world was a ruthless push to establish a regional balance of power. This strategy, infused with often contradictory perspectives of tribal warlords and state-sponsored militias, produced the hoarding of resources (which explains the land-grab aspect privy to all civil and world wars). Militias mandated to establish civil obedience in a fractured state, whose integrity can only be maintained by heavy infusions of cash and military hardware, did so through violent domination. The vicious civil wars that burst upon Africa over land and resources, where several countries sponsored militias to destabilize neighboring countries, as was seen in the case of Congo with refugees and its massacres resulting from military operations initiated by non-native political parties.
The subsequent creation of the Democratic Republic of Congo
to diffuse the conflict has not functioned to solve this problem. A non-governmental organization by the
name of the International Rescue Committee released a report on 8 April, 2003
estimating the death toll of combatants and non-combatants associated with the
civil war (i.e. civilians and refugees alike who suffer casualties caused by
starvation and disease) at between 4.7 and 6.7 million. The inability to establish a more exact
number is blamed on black-holes, rather, the many areas completely off-limits
to aid workers or peacekeepers.
Consequently, where there is a marked lack of regulatory powers with
civilian rights as a priority, and conflict reigns, there are incalculable
casualties. Case in point, conflict timber in the form of Futon Beds or
But the regulations dealing with the trade of timber products have not, to date, included a comprehensive definition of conflict timber. The EU, for example, has yet to put forth a blacklist of all companies with the history of, or potential to violate an established and stringent corporate code of conduct when it comes to conflict timber. This has more than just a humanitarian angle. It is seen by many to be crucial for the clean conscience of EU member-states and their timber industries. This is due to the obvious obstacle inherent in harvesting timber, and the complicity that EU companies have simply because the trafficking (not trade) of conflict timber requires a host of tools, trucks, ships, and ports clearly under control of Western companies.
In taking this further, in the context of what has been outlined, the point must be made in regards to the fundamental premise of “open market capitalism.” That is: without demand, there is no supply. Without multinational corporations, there is no viable market for goods that originate in foreign lands plagued with human rights, and thus, environmental abuses.
In the world’s more underdeveloped countries, devolution of
Human Rights and Environmental regulations is always preceded by political
instability. The corruption of
existing military and police organs continues to speak of the deficiencies latent
in the field of International Law and its many conventions (from the Geneva
Convention, to the European Union’s Petersburg Tasks; from the Children’s
Convention, to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination
against Women.) It would seem
though that the “soft power” being cultivated in
As mentioned, the EU’s Neighborhood Policies are instruments that theoretically offer concrete benefits through preferential relationships to contiguous states in the form of greater market access, as well as investment promotions. The availability of these benefits are directly linked to a defined list of positive accomplishments that states must prove to have reached. Examples of areas that must see progress are: respect for human rights, economic reform, democratization, and notable political/military cooperation in order to create joint crisis management and conflict prevention mechanisms, including opening the door to possible strategies to combat terrorism. The EU’s soft power is based on creating bilateral relations that will develop into multilateral partnerships to allow participating countries to approximate the status of an EU member state without actually being one. The basic underlying objective here is to harmonize shared values on security and prosperity and so minimize the disputes and the violent manners in which they are traditionally resolved, or not resolved.
The relationship between a conflict commodity like timber and regional instability is undoubtedly linked at the grassroots level. The fact of regional instability is both inversely and conversely linked to the interest of global players (i.e. governments, markets, consumers, etc.). The outcome of the particular dispute surrounding the harvesting and sale of illegal timber is far from being concluded. In conclusion, the reality of such illicit and ultimately war- inducing global exchanges will surely define (as we have begun to take in the full extent OF the chimera that is a terrorism) the model of modern warfare, and the ensuing methods of quelling social unrest.
TED Cases:
AFRICA
- by Jennifer Douglas and Shehu Ibrahim
AUSTRIA
- by Christina Patterson
CAMWOOD
- by Shugo Tanaka
CHOPSTIK
- by Jay A. Schmidt
GHANA - by
Senamede Beheton and Shehu Ibrahim
HAWALA - by Joshua
Kleymeyer
MALAY -
Nik Balanakura
NICARAG
- Deborah Ullmer
OPTION9
- David Dalbeck
SURINAMEWOOD - Sharon Eve
Grau
TEAK -
Kevin T. Kunkel and Teri Emmons
THAILOG
- Paul Macek and Kalaya Chareonying
VIETWOOD
- Brian W Hill
WOODLBL
- Shawn Lee Bryant
ICE Cases:
10. NAGORNO
“Nagorno War and Armenian Deforestation,” by Kathy Lalazarian (Summer, 1997)
11. KALIMAN “Ethnic
Conflict and Deforestation in
12. BELIZE “
15. PETEN
“Guatemala-Maya Civil War and Deforestation,” by Barbara Pando (November, 1997)
26. TUPAC “Tupac
Amaru,” Deforestation and
54. HAITIDEF
“Deforestation in
88. CONGO-COLTAN
“
96. TEAK “Teak Deforestation
and Trade in
116. LIBERIA-AMERICA
“Repatriates to
117. MINDANAO “The
Conflict in
http://www.greenguideonline.com/news_display.cfm?StoryID=278
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/natres/timbrindex.htm
http://www.diamonds.net/news/newslist.asp?type=all&searchfor=timber&author=&topic=Conflict
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0723/p09s02-coop.html
http://www.ardinc.com/htm/projects/p_timber.htm
http://www.undp.org/seed/forest/pages/news/june01.html
http://www.undp.org.vn/mlist/envirovlc/072003/post71.htm
http://www.afleg-minef.org/
http://www.iisd.ca/sd/sdfle/
http://www.iisd.ca/sd/afleg/
http://www.iisd.ca/sd/wfc12/
http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/ESSD/ardext.nsf/14ByDocName/ForestGovernanceProgramAfricaMinisterialProcess
http://web.greenpeace.org/multimedia/download/1/109537/0/forestcrimes.pdf
http://web.greenpeace.org/press/release?item_id=327689&campaign_id
http://web.greenpeace.org/press/release?item_id=266582&campaign_id=4009
http://web.greenpeace.org/press/release?item_id=265515&campaign_id=4009
http://web.greenpeace.org/press/release?item_id=219640&campaign_id=4009
http://www.globalwitness.org/campaigns/forests/
http://www.globalwitness.org/campaigns/forests/initiatives.php
Pauwels, Natalie. “Conflict Commodities: Addressing the Role of Natural
Resource in
Conflict.” Briefing Paper No. 27, March 2003,
Klare, Michael. "Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global
Conflict." Owl Books;
Reprint edition (
Struhsaker, Thomas. "Ecology of an
Conflict Between Conservation and Exploitation." University Press of
Homer-Dixon, Thomas. "Environment, Scarcity, and Violence."
Princeton Univ Pr;
Reprint edition (
Ebertowski, Marianne. “The Aftermath of September 11: New Challenges for a
European
Common Foreign and Security Policy.” Heinrich Böll Foundation EU Regional
Office
Coolsaet, Rik and Sven Biscop. “A European Security Concept for the 21st
Century.”
Royal Institute for International Relations (IRRI-KIIB)
Jarvie, J., R. Kanaan, M. Malley, T. Roule and J. Thomson (May 2003)
“Conflict Timber:
Dimensions of the problem in
Jervis, Robert. “Perception and Misperception in International Politics,”
(Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1976).
1. U.S. Mission to the European Union,
2. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for
Power and Peace, “Political Power,” fifth ed. (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1973),
ch. 3, p. 25.
3. Robert Kaplan, “The Coming Anarchy: How scarcity, crime,
overpopulation, tribalism, and disease are rapidly destroying the social fabric
of our planet,” The Atlantic Monthly, February 1994, Volume 273, No.
2, p. 53.
4. These concepts are outlined in the works of Samuel P.
Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (Upper
Saddle River, NJ, NJ: Simon &Schuster, 1996).
5. For further information on this subject, see reports
conducted by United Nations Development Program, compiled in their Human
Development Report. Specifically the 2000 HDR report on “Human Rights and Development,”
and the 1998 HDR report on “Human Development to Eradicate Poverty,” (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2001 and 1999).
6. Rapaport News,
7. “Security Council Report Addresses Conflict Timber,” PROFOR,
News Archive: June 2001.
<http://www.undp.org/seed/forest/pages/news/june01.html > (11/2003).
8. ARD, Inc. Projects, “Conflict Timber: Dimensions of the
Problem in
9. The gravity of this issue is addressed in the works of John
Tomlinson in his book, Cultural Imperialism (Baltimore: John Hopkins University
Press, 1991) and Herbert Schiller in his book, Information Inequality: The
deepening social crisis in
10. For further discussion on “cognitive dissonance,” see
Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics,
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), Ch. 11, 382-406.
11. Marianne Ebertowski, “The Aftermath of September 11: New
Challenges for a European
Common Foreign and Security Policy.” Heinrich Böll Foundation EU Regional
Office
12. Alan M. Dershowitz, "Rules of war enable
terror." The Baltimore
13. Natalie Pauwels, “Conflict Commodities: Addressing the
Role of Natural Resource in Conflict.” Briefing Paper No. 27, March 2003,
14. For more information on the advent of development
prerogatives and projects by the numerous institutions created after WWII look
at Hamid Mowlana’s chapter 10 “Communication and Development: The Emerging
Orders” in his book, Global Information and World Communication, second ed.
(California, Sage Publications: 1997) p. 187-8.
15. Ibid., 234.
16. For more detailed discussion into the ramifications of
societies functioning on the cash payment, criticized greatly by Marx, reference
to Niall Ferguson’s, The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World,
1700-2000, (England, Penguin Press: 2001).
17. See writings of Jürgen Habermas, Legitimation Crisis,
(London, Heinemann: 1976); and C. Offe, Contradictions of the Welfares
State, (London, Hutchinson: 1984).
18. Charter of the United Nations: Chapter VI and VII.
<http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/ chapter6.htm> (
19. For more discussion on what the UN can and can’t, will or
won’t do, reference Linda Polman’s book, We Did Nothing: Why the truth
doesn’t always come out when the UN goes in, (UK: Penguin Books, 2003).
20. Marianne Ebertowski, 14.
21. Charter of the United Nations:
22. Hamid Mowlana, “The Unfinished Revolution: The Crisis of
Our Age,” found in, Global Information and World Communication, second ed.
(California, Sage Publications: 1997) ch. 12, p. 234.
23. Power Point presentation facts offered at the OSCE
headquarters in
24. For further conversation on the quagmire that was
25. Europol, “2002 European Union organized crime report, “(
26. Greenpeace, Bloody Timber Off the Market .
http://www.Greenpeace/Bloody timber off the market.htm (
27. B. Thomas Trout, J. Harf, & W. Kincade, eds.,
Essentials of National Security, (New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,
1989), Ch. 11, 258.
28. For further discussion on the many sides to Hawala,
reference Josh Kleymeyer’s case study in the TED database titled, “Hawala:
Conflict Diamonds and Child Soldiers” (AU TED Database: 2003)
<http://www.american.edu/ted/hawala.htm>
29. ARD, Inc. Projects, “Conflict Timber: Dimensions of the
Problem in
30. For further insight into cross-national quantitative
research on these topics, see AM Crowly et. al., "Quantitative cross-national
studies of economic development: a comparison of economics and sociology
literatures," Studies on Comparative International Development,
(1998, 33:30-57).
31. Greenpeace, “Lawlessness in the Amazon Underscores Need for
32. Kenneth Menkhaus and Louis Ortmayer, “
33. For further discussions on the issue of policy failures
toward illegal logging see Charles Barber, “Forests, Fires and Confrontation in
34. Greenpeace, "European Timber Trader Linked With
Liberian Arms Trafficking." (
35. Seán Ó Riain, “States and Markets in An Era of
Globalization,” Annual Review of Sociology, 2000, 26: 188.
36. Ibid., 194.
37. Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, “Justice-Seeking and
Loot-Seeking in Civil War,” (
38. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, “Reflections on the Role of the UN
and its Secretary General,” found in “Preventive Diplomacy: Stopping Wars
Before They Start,” ed. Kevin M. Cahill, a joint publication of Routledge and
The Center for International Health and Cooperation, (New York, 2000), 189.
39. Lee H. Hamilton, “Forward,” found in Bruce W. Jentleson’s,
“Opportunities Missed, Opportunities Seized: Preventive Diplomacy in the
Post-Cold War World,” (Washington D.C.: Carnegie Commission on Preventing
Deadly Conflict, 2001), xi.
40. Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, Final
Report, (Washington DC: Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict,
1997), p. 11-12.
41. Bruce W. Jentleson, Carnegie Commission on Preventing
Deadly Conflict, “Opportunities Missed, Opportunities Seized: Preventive
Diplomacy in the Post-Cold War World,” (
42. Morton Abramowitz, “Going Backwards in the Balkans.” The
43. Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in
International Politic, “Deterrence, the Spiral Model and Intentions of the
Adversary: Two Views of International Relations and the cold War,” (New Jersey,
Princeton University Press, 1976), 66.
44. Ibid., 66.
45. For more discussion on how the public sphere is the
instrument of private or pubic choice, see: Shalini Venturelli, Liberalizing
the European Media: Politics, Regulation, and the Public Sphere, (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1998), 41.
46. For further discussions on new forms of sanctions possible
at the sub-political level in the form of political conditions like human
rights, see Lord Robert Skidelsky and Edward Mortimer’s piece titled, “Economic
Sanctions as a Means to International Health,” found in Kevin M. Cahill, ed.,
Preventive Diplomacy: Stopping Wars Before They Start, (New York: Routledge,
2000), 143-161.
47. This is explained further in “Ch. 5, Europe’s Proximity:
Neighborhood Policies,” found in A European Security Concept For the 21st
Century, published by the Royal Institute for International
Relations(IRRI-KIIB), (Brussels: October 2003) 6, & 9-11.
48. Susan L. Woodward, “Costly Disinterest: Missed
Opportunities for Preventive Diplomacy in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina,
1985-1991,” found in Bruce W. Jentleson’s book, “Opportunities Missed,
Opportunities Seized: Preventive Diplomacy in the Post-Cold War World,”
(Washington D.C.: Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, 2001),
p.146.
49. Jarvie, J., R. Kanaan, M. Malley, T. Roule and J. Thomson
(May 2003) “Conflict Timber:
Dimensions of the problem in Asia and Africa.” Vol. 2 - Asian Cases -
United Nations Development Programme.
50. Ibid.
[June 2004]