By Elliot Taylor
In May 2008, much of the world will join together in Dublin to formally negotiate a treaty to ban the use, development, production, trade, and stockpiling of cluster munitions The finer details — like who’s providing lunch and whether or not U2 will be at the mayoral reception — are still to be confirmed. What remains to be seen, however, is what effect this has, not only on manufacturers, but also on those that finance them.
You could be forgiven for thinking that, walking into a Barclays Bank on the Rue Turenne in Paris, you’re the furthest away possible from the cluster munitions that rained down on Lebanon in 2006. It certainly doesn’t cross my mind when I stroll into a New Zealand National Bank - whose owner, ANZ, was part of an international syndicate providing weapons manufacturer Raytheon with a US$2.2 billion five-year revolving credit facility in 2005. Sure, it’s an easy mistake to make, but the fact is that all around the world, banks, insurance companies, pension funds, and other financial institutions are investing in the arms race. A race the Wellington Cluster Munitions Conference in February 2008 helped provide a much needed handbrake to.
Admittedly, during a lunchtime talk on cluster bomb manufacturers and surrounding issues at the conference last month (Feb 08), Mark Hiznay helped shine the light on these issues. The senior researcher of the Human Rights Watch Arms Division pointed out to me his concern over a certain phrase that has seemed to have fallen off the page of Article 1 of the current treaty text: “In any way.”
“It’s been dropped,” Mark said, as he carefully wrote it in on my copy so that I didn’t forget. “This is in the Mine Ban Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Convention. This ‘in any way’, has been interpreted by legislatures to mean financial investment; direct or indirect financial investment. That’s been their hook into it.”
And it’s a hook that makes a world of sense. If a government, on humanitarian grounds, is willing to legislate against the use of cluster munitions, it’s only logical for them to also legislate against investment in any company that is involved in the manufacturing of such weapons. Any honourable government would not continue to allow local financial institutions to invest in industries that stand in stark contrast to its own policies.
Not surprisingly, Norway has again led the way on this issue with its Council on Ethics for the Government Pension Fund. Worth more than $300 billion, this is one of the largest pension funds in the world, so a little ethics is deemed appropriate. The role of the council is to “provide evaluation on whether or not investment in specified companies is inconsistent with the established ethical guidelines.” And from the presentation at the conference by Gro Nystuen, Chair of that Council, it sounds like it’s doing a pretty sterling job.
Belgium has also legislated against investment in companies producing cluster munitions, and according to Mark Hiznay, “the attitude of the Belgium banks shifted overnight. They realised that there’s going to be a new financial regulation that they have to comply with and they were falling over themselves to do it, because they didn’t want to be on the wrong side of their law.”
Similarly, Miriam Struyk of Pax Christi Netherlands has been making some noise on the issue in her home country. After a documentary highlighting the issue was aired on TV, the media latched on to the story, resulting in many pension funds withdrawing their unethical investments — even without government legislation.
These are promising developments. Sure, these may be examples of countries that have achieved certain levels of divestment without international legislation, but they are few and far between. There are also few positive examples yet here in New Zealand. Like Mark Hiznay, I hope the Oslo Process results in a treaty that will raise the call to never assist in any way those that manufacturer these deadly weapons. We need to close the door on assistance and throw away the key.
This article originally appeared in Cluster Ban News, Vol 1 Issue 3, 20 February 2008.
TAKE ACTION
- Write a letter (you can simply adapt the example one on the Cluster Munition coalition site) asking that the New Zealand Superannuation Fund stops investing in companies that produce cluster bombs such as weapons manufacturers Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.
- Sign up for updates from Peace Movement Aotearoa at www.converge.org.nz/pma and receive CMC campaign bulletins by contacting laura@stopclustermunitions.org
- Sign the petition on the Handicap International site calling for a ban on Cluster Bombs
LEARN MORE
Websites:
Oxfam campaigns against Cluster Bombs
Aotearoa New Zealand Stop Cluster Munition Coalition site
Wikipedia entry on Cluster bombs
Human Right Watch collection of documents on Cluster bombs
Heaps of info on http://www.stopclustermunitions.org/
Factsheet on cluster bombs on BBC news site
Videos:
Cluster Bombs: A Weapon out of Control - Human Rights Watch video on YouTube A short film documenting the lethal effects of the use of cluster munitions worldwide, with commentary, new statistics and analysis from military experts at Human Rights Watch. The footage shows how cluster munitions have endangered civilian populations from the Vietnam era through current conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon.
Watch a video report on how thousands of unexploded cluster munitions still cover the battlefields and are wounding many unintended victims (civilians) in Lebanon.
While I sit at a desk and swivel on an office chair, a little known phenomena has begun on the other side of the world where night is falling and children should be getting ready for bed. Instead, tens of thousands of Ugandan children begin what has now become termed as a “night commute”. Every night, children who live in dangerous rural areas where a militant rebel group have stronghold, walk up to 20km just to be able to sleep in the safety of the city. Fear of being abducted by rebels in their sleep, and being kept as soldiers or sex slaves, easily justifies a nightly marathon. And as thousands of eyes close to go to sleep, dreaming is not likely in a world where nightmares are a reality in more ways than one.
Everyone in the world desires good health, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gives everyone in the world the right to have access to medical care that allows them to have adequate health and wellbeing. Pharmaceutical drugs are often able to help provide this, and help people live longer lives. However, not everyone is able to afford the drugs that they need to take in order to live.
The drug companies do not actually discover the new drugs; chemists who are based in universities and other training institutions do. Drug companies merely buy the compounds off these developers. Some of these compounds are existent in nature, but residents of the areas where they have been found do not usually benefit from them.
New Zealand nearly became the only country of the 132 nations who are party to the Cartagena Protocol to block an agreement on labeling GE organisms traded between nations. The Protocol is an international agreement that allows nations to decide whether to regulate the introduction and trade of genetically engineered (GE) crops or seed if they believe it will endanger traditional crops, biodiversity or indigenous farming communities.
The draconian terms of the structural adjustment programmes often include the elimination of tariffs on imports, the forced privatisation of state owned assets, the removal of subsidies to local producers, the reduction of crop diversity and the forced export of crops to a small number of foreign buyers. These policies often lead to much poverty and injustice.
Race relations have been in need of improvement throughout the history of our country. Since Europeans first began to colonise New Zealand, links between Māori and Pākehā have often been the topic of national debate. National party leader Dr Don Brash asked voters in Feb 2004 — What sort of nation do we want to build’? What we want to build is a society that is fused as one while respecting the unique cultures that it comprises of; a nation with equal responsibilities, rights and opportunities for all. Before we can reach that unity however, we need to explore how we can improve our race relations.
Ever get the feeling that the more you find out about your world, the less you wish you knew? Is it simply that the human race is incompetent at managing the planet and people? Or perhaps that our attempts at global euphoria have just gone badly astray?