By Sarah Ganter
BERLIN, Dec 11 2023 – Champagne corks popped in New York after the majority voted in favour of a UN tax convention. The clear result paved the way for a stronger role of the United Nations in shaping more inclusive and effective international tax cooperation. This fulfils a decades-long demand by the G77 group and the international civil society.

Public Services International (PSI), the international trade union of public service providers, is also an important champion of fair international tax rules. Its General Secretary, Daniel Bertossa, commented that the UN vote stood as a confirmation of the tireless campaigning work of the trade union movement and its partners and the fact that ‘tax rules that affect us all should involve us all’.

For international tax policy is ultimately a global distribution policy that touches on issues of national sovereignty. As far back as the American Revolution, the slogan ‘no taxation without representation’ was aimed at the British Crown.

However, it’s a shame that the historic vote turned into a battle between the Global South and the Global North. On the online platform X, Kenya’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations commented on the result as the most clear-cut North-South vote he had seen in recent years.

In view of the increasing state of crisis and conflict in international relations, people often talk about the formation of global alliances and the need for partnerships on equal terms. But the refusal to release patents for vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the industrialised countries shrugging their shoulders in the face of the existential threat of the international debt crisis for many middle- and low-income countries, have long since undermined trust in the reliability of such partnerships.

A dangerous signal

The vote on the UN tax convention has become the next crucial test, with a clear result: 125 countries voted for and only 48 against the resolution introduced by the group of African countries to the Second Committee of the General Assembly. Opposing votes came from the US, Canada, Australia, all EU countries and EU accession candidates, as well as Switzerland. With the exception of Norway’s abstention, the Global North voted unanimously against the initiative.

In an open letter prior to the vote, the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation (ICRICT) had appealed to the EU and the US. In the letter, members of the commission, which is made up of high-ranking economists from the North and South, warned of a ‘dangerous signal’ that ‘blocking the Resolution on Promotion of Inclusive and Effective International Tax Cooperation at the United Nations’ would send.

According to the experts, the suspicion would be that ‘those who most loudly tout the benefits of a rules-based international order don’t actually believe in one.’

Taxes are one of the most important sources for financing public goods and services. In the last 10 years, there has finally been some movement in the discussion about reforming the international tax system. But despite all the talks and negotiations, multinational companies are still able to avoid taxes on a large scale.

Given the ever-increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and the fact that only four per cent of global tax revenue comes from wealth-related taxes, it is obvious who bears the main financial burden of financing – working people and ordinary citizens, not billionaires. Labour is taxed, not wealth and financial assets.

The call to make the United Nations the central venue for international tax cooperation is as old as the debate about reforming the international tax system itself. So far, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the club of industrialised countries, has taken a leading role in the reform process of the international tax system. On behalf of the G20, the OECD is developing proposals to curb base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS).

The Group of 77 and civil society organisations such as the Global Alliance for Tax Justice have long called for the United Nations to take a stronger role in shaping an international tax system aligned with the goals of the sustainable development agenda that will ensure greater international tax justice.

With the slogan ‘if you are not at the table, you are on the menu’, they criticise the fact that developing countries do not have an equal seat at the table in OECD negotiations.

Proponents are expecting the UN tax convention to not only lead to a more inclusive international tax policy but also more transparency in the process, thanks to the greater involvement of civil society. Critics, however, fear a parallel event to existing reform efforts and a dilution of the negotiation successes achieved so far at the OECD.

The need to work together

In the ICRICT Commission’s press release following the vote, former Colombian Finance Minister José Antonio Ocampo struck a conciliatory tone. He called the resolution ‘one step further towards global social justice’ and sees it as a ‘strengthening of institutions, democracy and international stability’. He asks that all ‘learn from all the efforts of the past and build this process not on antagonism but on real cooperation between countries and between global institutions’.

Against the backdrop of the enormous financing challenges of our time, it is crucial that common solutions be quickly found for better international taxation of multinational corporations, without getting lost in institutional disputes. A UN tax convention offers the opportunity to give the negotiation successes of the OECD process a universal basis of legitimacy and also to build on important preparatory work by the United Nations Committee of Experts on international tax matters, such as the framework on double taxation developed by the UN.

The OECD’s Inclusive Framework on BEPS has undoubtedly achieved a historic negotiation success with the agreement on a global minimum tax. The minimum rate is intended to put a stop to international competition between locations for ever-lower taxes.

Nevertheless, from the perspective of the Global South, the rate of 15 per cent is clearly set far too low to achieve the hoped-for positive revenue effects. There is even concern that countries with higher tax rates will have an incentive to adjust them downwards. For this reason, the ICRICT Commission has been long calling for a rate of 22–25 per cent.

Structural injustices, such as the distribution of taxation rights, are hardly addressed in the OECD’s two-pillar approach. Critics see the linking of taxation rights to the registered domicile of the parent company as posing a disadvantage for the countries in which the actual value creation takes place along production networks. Therefore, criticism is being levelled that the OECD-led reform process has little to offer the countries of the Global South, while at the same time preventing them from taking their own initiatives, for example in the taxation of the digital economy.

It is hoped that the United Nations could facilitate a more effective reconciliation of interests, while at the same time placing taxation issues in the larger context of financing the transformation towards a sustainable global development model. Along those lines, preparations for the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4), which will take place in Madrid in 2025, are set to begin in early 2024.

Ten years after the last major conference in Addis Ababa, the FfD4 conference is to provide the much-needed framework to create coherence between the various reform agendas, especially in the areas of taxes, debt and investment.

The demand for the creation of a universal and intergovernmental tax institution under the auspices of the United Nations was already on the agenda in Addis Ababa but was rejected by industrialised countries.

In the final statement of the accompanying Civil Society Forum, more than 600 non-governmental organisations from around the world expressed their disappointment at the lost opportunity. With the new vote on the UN tax convention behind it, the Global South is now in a significantly better negotiating position for FfD4 in Madrid 2025

Sarah Ganter is a political scientist and heads the Globalisation Project of the Global and European Politics Department of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS) is published by the Global and European Policy Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin.

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By Timothy A. Wise
CAMBRIDGE, MA., Dec 11 2023 – The dispute mounted by the U.S. government over Mexico’s policies to restrict the use of genetically modified corn is the latest example of the misuse of a trade agreement to impede social programs in Mexico and other countries. The U.S. government has been doing this for years.

It’s all about boosting exports. U.S. agricultural policies favor and encourage the overproduction of crops such as corn, soybeans and wheat. They depress prices, with supply regularly exceeding demand. It serves the interests of agribusiness, which benefits from high demand for its seeds, agrochemicals, and machinery, and low prices for livestock feed, for its ethanol factories, and for its highly processed food.

But farmers suffer from low crop prices and high input costs, kept high by corporate concentration. As the graph shows, between 1980 and 2020, U.S. farmers suffered losses in sales in 33 of the 40 years. The bottom line represents their profits without subsidies, in the negative in every year save the 2007-2013 period of the so-called “food crisis.”

(Source: FarmDoc Daily, December 9, 2022.)

The top line represents their earnings with subsidies. Even with subsidies, in many years, most still lose. But the subsidies themselves do not cause this overproduction. Rather, they are a response to losses which maintains the system for agribusiness.

For a time in the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. had a policy of supply management to reduce overproduction and achieve a balance between supply and demand to keep prices at a more appropriate level for producers. Not anymore, and the resulting expansion of production requires the U.S. to open international markets to sell the excess, usually at prices below production costs. This is known as “agricultural dumping.”

Timothy A. Wise

The U.S. has for years used NAFTA and now the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement (USMCA) to try to weaken or end a successful supply-management program in Canadian dairy. Canada recently won a dispute with the U.S., but U.S. officials promise to keep trying to open the Canadian dairy market for U.S. farmers, who are suffering a wave of overproduction.

U.S. dairy exports to Mexico under the USMCA have driven down milk prices there. Milk is one of the Mexican government’s priority products to recover a margin of self-sufficiency, but that is very difficult with dumping-level prices.

In May of this year, I published a report on U.S. dumping, particularly for Mexico’s priority products – corn, wheat, rice, beans, and milk. In each case, we see a dramatic expansion in exports under NAFTA/USMCA and a drop in domestic prices under competition from dumped imports, while domestic production stagnates or falls.

In wheat, for example, imports rose by 68% after NAFTA took effect in 1993, and prices to Mexican producers fall by more than 60%. Domestic production suffered. Before NAFTA, Mexico produced 80% of the wheat it consumed. Now it imports more than 60% from the U.S.

In corn, after NAFTA, exports surged by more than 400% in the first few years at prices 19% below production costs. That produced a drop in Mexican farm prices of 66%. Mexico has maintained its production of white and native corn, but so far has failed to stimulate the dramatic expansion sought by the government. Much of this is due to U.S. agricultural dumping.

Now the U.S. government is using the USMCA to undermine the Mexican government’s policies in the GM corn dispute. A presidential decree barely restricts U.S. exports, prohibiting GM corn in tortillas to protect human health. But the U.S. still seeks to impose its industrialized agricultural regime and its narrow view of science over Mexico’s precautionary science and food sovereignty.

Mexico has dramatically moderated its policies to reduce impacts on international trade. Even the USMCA itself recognizes the right to take precautionary measures, based on science and with transparent processes. And by taking the “least trade distorting” actions.

What measures can Mexico take that are less trade-distorting than its current actions? It does not restrict imports, only the use of GM corn in the tortilla chain. The borders are open to any non-transgenic corn, even from the U.S.

But more to the point, why doesn’t Mexico deserve the right to take precautionary measures to advance public health and protect the diversity of its precious corn?

The U.S. has a long history of misusing trade agreements to undermine anti-hunger programs. Since 2013 at the World Trade Organization the U.S. government has pursued a dispute against India over its national food security program, which was established through the efforts of a national movement for the right to food. India is the hungriest country in the world with hundreds of millions of people lacking sufficient food.

The program guarantees a minimum distribution of basic foodstuffs to the poor, free of charge, through public distribution centers. The government collects rice, wheat, and other crops from small and medium-scale producers at fixed and fair prices, somewhat higher than free market prices. Purchases go for distribution to the poor. It has been a great success, reducing poverty and food insecurity both for the farmers because of the fair prices and for the hundreds of millions of poor people who receive the benefit.

Using outdated rules under the WTO agreements, the U.S. filed a formal dispute arguing that the guaranteed prices offered by the government to Indian farmers violate the agreement. It said India is harming exporters who do not receive the same price, that its above-market prices represent an excessive subsidy to farmers.

Imagine the hypocrisy! The U.S., even with its billions of dollars of subsidies to farmers, most of whom are not going hungry, accuses India of providing excessive subsidies to its small-scale farmers, who are poor. This is a guaranteed price, not a direct subsidy, and it is part of the largest anti-hunger initiative in the world. So far, the dispute remains unresolved. Fortunately, the program continues to expand in India.

Mexico has every right to defend its policy of restricting GM corn in the tortilla chain. Hopefully the arbitration panel will recognize the hypocrisy and cynicism of the U.S. in trying to apply the USMCA rules to an initiative that barely affects its exports. Mexico gets to decide if it wants tortillas free of GM corn.

This article summarizes the author’s presentation November 30, 2023 at the International Conference on Food Self-Sufficiency and Agroecology held in Oaxaca City, Mexico.

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 11 2023 – As the civilian death toll in Gaza continues to rise to unprecedented heights —reaching over 17,000 since October 7, with more than 46,000 injured – one of the most distressing reports to come out of the war zone is the use of excessively heavy weaponry by Israel.

The Hamas attack on October 7, which killed 1,200 inside Israel, has resulted in a disproportionate number of Palestinians killed so far—and rising.

In a report last month—comparing Israeli bombings with US attacks in Middle East conflicts—the New York Times pointed out that the aerial bombs used by American forces against the Islamic State (ISIS) in urban areas in Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria were 500-pound weapons.
But, in contrast, “Israel’s liberal use of very large weapons in dense urban areas” included American-made 2,000-pound bombs that flattened buildings, houses and an apartment tower in Gaza while killing thousands of Palestinians.

“It’s beyond anything that I’ve seen in my career” Marc Garlasco, a former intelligence analyst at the Pentagon, was quoted as saying.

Which triggers two questions: would Israel have survived without the $130 billion in weapons and military assistance provided by the US since Israel’s creation in 1948. And should Israel be charged with war crimes, along with US, the primary arms supplier to Israel?

https://www.ipsnews.net/2023/11/us-provided-130-billion-dollars-aid-weapons-israel-largest-ever/

But both scenarios are not likely to happen. Any such attempts in the Security Council—either against the US or Israel will be vetoed by the Americans—as it happened last week on a resolution for cease-fire in Gaza.

The resolution suffered a US veto (even though it had the support of 13 of the 15 members in the Security Council, with one abstention by UK.

According to a December 1 report in the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. last week provided Israel with additional 2,000-Pound bombs for the Gaza War.

The U.S. has provided Israel with large bunker buster bombs, among tens of thousands of other weapons and artillery shells, to help dislodge Hamas from Gaza, U.S. officials were quoted as saying.

The surge of arms, including roughly 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells, began shortly after the Oct. 7 attack and has continued in recent days, the officials said. The U.S. hasn’t previously disclosed the total number of weapons it sent to Israel nor the transfer of 100 BLU-109, 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs.

After sending massive bombs, artillery shells, U.S. also urged Israel to limit civilian casualties: a warning ignored by Israel.

According to Wikipedia, the Mark 84 or BLU-117 is a 2,000 pounds (907 kg) American general-purpose bomb. It is the largest of the Mark 80 series of weapons. Entering service during the Vietnam War, it became a commonly used US heavy unguided bomb (due to the amount of high-explosive content packed inside) to be dropped.

Norman Solomon, Executive Director, Institute for Public Accuracy and National Director, RootsAction.org, told IPS military aid from the U.S. government has been essential for Israel to maintain itself as an expansionist country during the last several decades.

“That assistance has enabled Israel to systematically crush the human rights of Palestinian people while continuing to violate international law with occupations of Gaza and the West Bank. Israel has used its military might to, in effect, sadistically turn Gaza’s residents into abused prisoners,” he said.

He pointed out that much of the strength of the Israeli armed forces has been due to Washington’s extraordinary quantities of support with military aid. Recent events have underscored how the U.S. government is willing to step up military assistance with massive amounts of weaponry and other war material while Israel continues to slaughter civilians in Gaza.

“The wanton and purposeful killings of more than 15,000 civilians during the last two months are war crimes that deserve unequivocal condemnation and prosecution. What’s more, the U.S. government is more than complicit – it is an accomplice in these crimes against humanity. The same standards that should emphatically condemn Hamas’ murders of civilians on October 7 should also emphatically condemn Israel’s murders of civilians since then,” said Solomon, author, “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.”

In recent days, a pair of developments involving the United States government have underscored its direct complicity in the ongoing mass murder by Israel in Gaza.

On December 8, the U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution for a ceasefire. The next day, the Biden administration disclosed that it is bypassing Congress to sell 13,000 rounds of tank ammunition to Israel. Overall, in Washington, bipartisan zeal is persisting to actively support the slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

“Propaganda efforts to equate calls for a single standard of human decency with antisemitism are specious and demagogic”.

“Like a growing number of other Jewish Americans, I reject any and all efforts to equate Judaism with the state of Israel. The government of Israel continues to be engaged in large-scale war crimes, with the support of the U.S. government. They should be unequivocally denounced and opposed,” declared Solomon.

Dr Ramzy Baroud, author, a syndicated columnist, editor of Palestine Chronicle & a Senior Research Fellow at Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), told IPS a long-term narrative has served to explain Washington’s relationship with Tel Aviv: that the former is the latter’s benefactor and main backer, whether financially, military or politically.

“The latest war on Gaza and the direct US involvement in this war are forcing us to rethink our perception of the US-Israeli relationship”, he said.

“If we list everything that Washington has done to help Israel in carrying out and sustain its ongoing genocide in Gaza, we would need many hours explaining the degree of US involvement”.

This includes the immediate blank check signed by Washington to justify any Israeli response to the October 7 operation, the dispatching of aircraft carriers, of hundreds of military airplanes, along with seemingly endless financial and other forms of support.

So, this is no longer about a certain, fixed amount of money that Washington sends to Tel Aviv. It is also about 2,000 pounds bombs with the full knowledge of how and when these bombs would be used, with intelligence information as to where these bombs would be dropped, and the full political backing in justifying the devastating outcome once the bombs are dropped, he argued.

“In other words, Washington is a direct partner in the Israeli war on Gaza. This realization shall have direct consequences, not only to US reputation in the Middle East, but in the short and even long-term US-Middle East strategies, including its military presence in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere.”

Palestinians, and millions around them, understand that they are also fighting a war against the US. They are not wrong, he said.

Meanwhile, according to a breaking story in the New York Times last week, the US State Department is pushing through a government sale to Israel of 13,000 rounds of tank ammunition, bypassing a congressional review process that is generally required for arms sales to foreign nations.

The State Department notified congressional committees at 11 p.m. last Friday that it was moving ahead with the sale, valued at more than $106 million, even though Congress had not finished an informal review of a larger order from Israel for tank rounds.

The department invoked an emergency provision in the Arms Export Control Act, the State Department official and a congressional official told The New York Times. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivities over the sales. The arms shipment has been put on an expedited track, and Congress has no power to stop it.

The Defense Department posted a notification of the sale before noon on Saturday. It said Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken had informed Congress on Friday that “an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale.”

It is the first time that the State Department had invoked the emergency provision for an arms shipment to the Middle East since May 2019, when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo approved weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a move that was criticized by lawmakers and some career officials inside the State Department, according to the Times.

The State Department has used the emergency provision at least two times since 2022 to rush arms to Ukraine for its defense against Russia’s invasion.

But in the case of the Israel-Gaza war, there has been growing condemnation in the United States and abroad of the way Israel is carrying out its offensive. The State Department’s decision to bypass Congress appeared to reflect an awareness of some Democratic lawmakers’ criticism of the Biden administration for supplying arms to Israel with no conditions or scrutiny, the Times said.

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By Umar Manzoor Shah
DUBAI, Dec 11 2023 – There is an irreparable connection between culture and the seas: loss of land due to rising sea levels and loss of livelihood due to changing fish migration patterns are having a massive impact on coastal communities.

This formed the core of discussions at an event titled Tackling Climate Change for Sustainable Livelihood in Island and Coastal Communities at COP28 in Dubai.

The panel included experts and climate advocates from across the globe, all sharing a common mission: to confront the intricate challenges faced by some of the world’s most vulnerable regions and explore sustainable solutions.

The Sasakawa Peace Foundation’s Ocean Policy Research Institute, the Palau Conservation Society, the National Institute of Oceanography and Marine Sciences of Sri Lanka, the University of Namibia, the Maldives National University, the University of the West Indies, and the Columbian Institute for Marine and Coastal Research were all involved in organizing the event.

Together, they sought not only to dissect existing challenges but also to share successful practices and foster potential partnerships for a sustainable future.

Farhana Haque Rahman, Executive Director, IPS Noram, and Masanori Kobayashi, Senior Research Fellow, Ocean Policy Research at the Institute of Sasakawa Peace Foundation, moderate a panel on the impact of climate change on coastal communities. Credit: Umar Manzoor Shah/IPS

The panel discussion, co-moderated by Farhana Haque Rahman, Executive Director, IPS Noram, and Masanori Kobayashi, Senior Research Fellow, Ocean Policy Research Institute of Sasakawa Peace Foundation, included a rich tapestry of insights with diverse perspectives.

Rahman stressed the need for tailored solutions, emphasizing that the vast challenges faced by coastal communities often remain obscured in the shadows of mainstream international media. She passionately urged for a collective effort to illuminate these issues globally.

Dr Manumatavai Tupou-Roosen, Director General of the Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency, offered a scientific perspective, delving into the predicted impact of climate change on fisheries. She highlighted the dual threat posed in terms of abundance and distribution, stressing that science indicated a potential shift of biomass from exclusive economic zones to high seas, signifying a significant loss for coastal nations.

For countries heavily dependent on oceans, like those in the Pacific, fisheries were not just a source of sustenance but also a lifeline for economic development and government revenue.

An artist and environmental advocate, Uili Lousi, representing the Kingdom of Tonga, infused the discourse with cultural significance. He passionately articulated the inseparable connection between their heritage and the oceans. Lousi drew attention to the existential threat that melting ice caps and the potential migration of tuna due to rising sea temperatures pose.

“Our culture and our heritage are our ocean, and as the Arctic is melting, we are sinking.”

The event showcased voices from the frontlines of climate change impacts—Rondy Ronny, acting chief of Eco Paradise in the Republic of Palau, spoke of how fisheries were not just livelihoods but the very pulse of family well-being.

Climate change was disproportionately impacting livelihoods, particularly those of women, and there was a pressing need for solutions, Amin Abdullah, the warden in charge of marine parks and reserves in Tanzania, said while highlighting the vulnerability of coastal communities in the western Indian Ocean, where 25 percent of the population lives along the coast.

Alvin S Jueseah, chair of the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture Sciences at the University of Liberia, provided a stark portrayal of ground reality. He underlined the realness of climate change, with rising sea levels displacing residents, destroying fishing gear, houses, and, tragically, lives.

This had resulted in the necessity of building sea walls and implementing early warning systems to aid those facing climate change-related crises.

Collaboration was needed, Dr Hamady Diop, CEO of DnS Consulting, said, and he warned of the potential for transboundary conflicts arising from climate change, especially in regions where fishing is an industry. The industry was valued at USD 25 billion.

“With 38 coastal countries in Africa depending on fisheries, the implications of sea-level rise and temperature increases were dire,” he said.

The director of the Maldives Specie Research Agency, Ahmad Niyad, shed light on the critical importance of data availability.

Niyad stressed that one cannot manage what one cannot measure. The scarcity of data was a significant challenge faced by their organization, prompting a year-long focus on analyzing the situation and obtaining satellite monitoring data. He highlighted the unique economic reliance of island nations on tourism, an industry intricately linked with climate conditions.

“We island nations are together. We have one ocean, and we have to share it together,” was his message to COP28.

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