BPR Spring 2015/Volume IV Issue 1

SPRING 2015 / VOLUME IV ISSUE 1

Missing the Point The story of Providence’s lost Cape Verdean past

By Mitchell Johnson

Featuring interviews with:

Larry Siems

Editor of “Guantánamo Diary”

Theodore Olson

Former US Solicitor General

The

Loud Athenian Greece’s new leadership is stirring up trouble.

By Matteo Cavelier Riccardi

Sponsored by:

{ we’re not confined to print }

www.brown political review.com visit our website for additional commentary on: the International Criminal Court’s failure to deliver justice in Sudan. { Emily Cunniffe ‘17 } the escalating economic crisis in Greece. { Brais Lamela Gomez ‘17 } the differing public perceptions of Medicaid and Medicare. { Andrew Deck ‘17 } an op-doc exploring the 2016 primary field in the United States. { Indira Pranabudi ‘15 + Gray Brakke ‘18 }

an interview with Dr. Carl Hart on misguided drug policy. { Mady Matsui ‘17 }

STAFF Executive Board

CONTENTS

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF ARIADNE ELLSWORTH & EZRA KAGAN CHIEF OF STAFF MEGHAN HOLLOWAY ASSOCIATE CHIEF OF STAFF ALEXANDER ABUAITA SENIOR MANAGING EDITOR L AUREN SUKIN INTERVIEWS DIRECTOR HENRY KNIGHT MEDIA DIRECTOR NINA ROESNER CONTENT DIRECTOR NOAH FITZGEREL BUSINESS DIRECTOR ALEXANDRA GARCIA MARKETING & OUTREACH DIRECTOR OLIVIA PINCINCE L AYOUT DIRECTOR MARLENA MORSHEAD

Features MISSING THE POINT The story of Providence’s lost Cape Verdean past Mitchell Johnson THE LOUD ATHENIAN Greece’s new leadership is stirring up trouble.

Matteo Cavelier Riccardi

Editorial SENIOR MANAGING EDITOR L AUREN SUKIN MANAGING EDITORS EDWARD CLIFFORD & ALEX LLOYD GEORGE ASSOCIATE EDITORS NAZ AKYOL, SADHANA BAL A, MATTEO CAVELIER RICCARDI, MATTHEW COMPOSTO, JACOB FREUND, CARTER JOHNSON, DAVID MARKEY, BASUNDHARA MUKHERJEE, MEG SULLIVAN & CARLY WEST

Copy Editorial CHIEF COPY EDITORS THOMAS CULVER & BRENNA SCULLY COPY EDITORS SABIYA AHAMED, PIETER BROWER, LILY COHEN, ALICIA DEVOS, ALEXANDRA DOYLE, JONAH GOLDBERG, GRAHAM GONZALES, JIHO KIM, EMILY MAGAVERN, SEONG MIN KIM, MICHELLE KULOWSKI, KRISTINE MAR, CONNOR MCDERMOTT, MILI MITRA, WILLIAM NOBER, LUCREZIA SANES, SOFIYA WALKER, EDWARD TIE, TAYLOR PEARCE, ADAM VIEIRA & DUNCAN WEINSTEIN

Interviews INTERVIEWS DIRECTOR HENRY KNIGHT ASSOCIATE INTERVIEWS DIRECTORS NAOMI CHASEK-MACFOY & SAMUEL RUBINSTEIN INTERVIEWS ASSOCIATES CARI BONILL A, MICHAEL CHERNIN, MADELEINE MATSUI, ELI MOT YCKA, GRAHAM ROTENBERG, ZACHARY RUBIN, ALEXANDER SAMAHA & JENNA WALDMAN

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Point / Counterpoint

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THE POSITIVES OF PRIVATE PHILANTHROPY Benjamin Koatz

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THE PERKS OF PUBLIC PROGRAMS Mintaka Angell

Media MEDIA DIRECTOR NINA ROESNER ASSOCIATE MEDIA DIRECTOR WILL DAVIS CONTENT CREATORS GRAY BRAKKE, KAT Y CHU, JASON GOETTISHEIM, INDIRA PRANABUDI, SALIL SINGH, ERIC SONG & L AUREN THOMAS

Content CONTENT DIRECTOR NOAH FITZGEREL ASSOCIATE CONTENT DIRECTOR NAZ AKYOL ASSOCIATE WEBMASTER SHREYA SRINIVAS SECTION MANAGERS BRENNA SCULLY, MEG SULLIVAN & CARLY WEST ASSOCIATE SECTION MANAGERS PIETER BROWER, MATTHEW JARRELL, CARTER JOHNSON, AMALIA PEREZ, IAN TARR & SCOTT THEER CULTURE WRITERS EMMA AXELROD, SERGIO CHEN, ISABELL A CREATURA, ANDREW DECK, ALEX FLOYD, REBECCA HANSEN, SEBASTIAN ŁUCEK, ASHLEIGH MCEVOY, EMMA MOORE, OWEN PARR, SAMUEL LIN-SOMMER, ELIZABETH STUDLICK & PHOEBE YOUNG US WRITERS MINTAKA ANGELL, BRIAN COHN, ERIN IYIGUN, MITCHELL JOHNSON, KANIKA KHANNA, BENJAMIN KOATZ, L AUREN KOTIN, RYAN LESSING, ROBIN MANLEY, KRISTINE MAR, ASHLYN MOONEY & PATRICIA PAULINO WORLD WRITERS VICTOR BRECHENMACHER, EMILY CUNNIFFE, LYDIA DAVENPORT, MATTHEW DUDAK, JASON GINSBERG, BRAIS L AMEL A GOMEZ, PAUL A MARTINEZ GUTIERREZ, HASSAN HAMADE, KATHERINE L AMB, NIKHITA MENDIS, MILI MITRA, MARINA DO NASCIMENTO, LUKE O’CONNELL, PREDRAG PANDILOSKI & CAMILA RUIZ SEGOVIA STAFF CORRESPONDENTS JAMES JANISON & ALEJANDRO VICTORES

THE MAGAZINE IN NUMBERS

28 32

United States

8 10 12 14 15 20

The US-led coalition to rollback

SHOTS NOT FIRED Meghan Holloway LICENSE TO BILL David Markey THE MORE YOU GMO Basundhara Mukherjee DR. SAFELOVE William Janover A MAYOR AND A MODEM Meg Sullivan

ISIL lies in stark contrast to unilateral actions taken in Vietnam 50 years ago.

World

22 25 26

BPR MEDIA SPOTLIGHT: FOX POINT

32

Business

BUSINESS DIRECTOR ALEXANDRA GARCIA ASSOCIATE BUSINESS DIRECTORS COURTNEY BERGH & MALLIKA SAHAYA BUSINESS & SALES ASSOCIATES MEREDITH ANGUEIRA, SOPHIA ASHAI & BRITTANI TAYLOR

Marketing & Outreach MARKETING & OUTREACH DIRECTOR OLIVIA PINCINCE ASSOCIATE MARKETING & OUTREACH DIRECTOR SANDRA LIFSHITS SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR KEVIN GARCIA MARKETING & OUTREACH ASSOCIATES RIYA CHANDARIA, GEOFFREY KOCKS CHEMTAI L ANGAT, ELIZABETH LIPPMAN, MARLEY RAFSON & AL AN SWIERCZYNSKI

Last year, agribusiness

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companies spent over $125 million on lobbying, and their

WAR CRIMES AND PUNISHMENT Anthony Kariuki PL ASTIC SURGE Naz Akyol THE CARRIAGE OF JUSTICE Amalia Perez APOCALYPSE THEN AND NOW Jason Ginsberg MAID IN HONG KONG Agnes Chan

Interviews

efforts have paid off. W

36

L ARRY SIEMS

Layout

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BILL MCKIBBEN MAURICIO SANTORO

Artists

39 40 41

THEODORE OLSON

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VICTORIA REED

L AYOUT DIRECTOR MARLENA MORSHEAD ASSOCIATE L AYOUT DIRECTOR LUCIA COOKE DESIGN ASSOCIATES KEREN ALFRED, BENJAMIN BERKE, GEORGE ESSELST YN, ANICA GREEN & ANNABEL RYU ART DIRECTOR KWANG CHOI STAFF ARTISTS REBECCA ANDREWS, SORAYA FERDMAN, ANISA HOLMES, GOYO KWON, JULIA L ADICS, KATRINA MACHADO, EMILY REIF, KIMBERLY SALTZ & OLIVIA WATSON COVER ARTIST SORAYA FERDMAN

912

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MICHAEL SALBERG

THE MAGAZINE IN NUMBERS

$100

MUKHERJEE, p. 12

Cost of fully vaccinating a child in 1985

75%

of processed foods contain genetically modified organisms.

$2,912

Cost of fully vaccinating a child in 2015 HOLLOWAY, p. 8

34 COUNTRIES

out of the 123 total ICC member states are in Africa, representing the largest membership of any single continent.

KARIUKI, p. 22

BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW MAGAZINE IN NUMBERS

1/3

4

of Syria is currently controlled

by ISIL.

1%

Territory regained from ISIL in Iraq by American-led efforts

GINSBERG, p. 32 JANOVER, p. 14

39% of US electricity is generated by 6%

from solar, coal-fired plants, versus wind and geothermal power.

$200 BILLION DOLLARS Cost of occupational licensing to consumers every year

MARKEY, p. 10 CHAN, p. 34

1 in 3

The number of domestic workers for every household with children in Hong Kong

DUBAI 56 BRAZIL 23 20 US

PLASTIC SURGEONS PER ONE MILLION CITIZENS

AKYOL, p. 25

Gain insight and perspective on the world’s greatest challenges.

UNITED STATES BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW

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Join the conversation with @WatsonInstitute

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POINT

What is the best way to THE POSITIVES OF PRIVATE PHILANTHROPY STORY BY BENJAMIN KOATZ

BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW POINT / COUNTERPOINT

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cross the country, private organizations aren’t waiting for big government to tackle the problem of homelessness. United Way, the premier philanthropic organization combating homelessness in the United States, dots the nation with local chapters and funnels 90 percent of its operating budget directly to programs on the ground — instead of administration or advertising. Relying on private sources for the vast majority of its funding, the Skid Row Housing Trust redefined homeless care by creating an impeccably designed permanent housing complex.

During Colorado’s frigid winters, the state’s various shelters, including the Denver Rescue Mission, tailor their efforts to house the homeless who are kicked out of public spaces and struggle to survive against the harsh elements. Hyper-local organizations can innovate, identify and tackle the specific problems faced by their communities — trumping the government by far when it comes to efficiency.

This kind of innovation, focus and flexibility thrives when people support essential services through the nonprofit sector rather than the ballot box. When giving to a shelter or food bank, people fund organizations whose sole focus is the issue at hand. In contrast, the government receives its dollars through general taxation, which means politicians — not the public — decide how to allocate the money. With only around 3 percent of voters ranking “Poverty/Hunger/Homelessness” as the most important issue facing the United States, keeping a keen eye on funding for the homeless is not going to be any elected official’s top priority. Instead, decision-making will fall to bureaucrats, who are notoriously difficult to control and even more difficult to fire should something go wrong.

Unaccountable middlemen stand between any progressive concerned about the

procurement of vital social services and the people who need them. Overlapping, bloated federal programs put millions of dollars into middle-class pockets. In contrast, nonprofits are significantly more efficient: The majority of the nonprofits rated by Charity Navigator spend less than 25 cents per dollar on fundraising and administrative costs, because their donors expect them to use their money more efficiently. In other words, private philanthropy can tackle the same problems as public welfare — but with greater accountability and fewer dollars.

However, there remain concerns that private individuals will only fund sexy philanthropic endeavors — such as those that include an Ice Bucket Challenge. Yet even if we accept this problematic assumption, there is no reason to believe that people will allocate their votes any better than they do their money. And the notion that the government should perform unpopular functions is counterintuitive for another reason: It simply does not make sense. In a democracy, the state should reflect the will of the electorate — whether one agrees with the electorate’s priorities or not. Even if public administrators can use their distance from constituents for unpopular problems promoting the public good, we should require them to represent the public’s will rather than laud their undemocratic actions.

The way in which religious nonprofits distribute their money is another oft-cited critique. While our government is separate from the church, not all private enterprises are, and private philanthropy is often funneled through faith-based organizations.

But this does not delegitimize these philanthropic efforts: Religious doesn’t necessarily mean discriminatory. The Denver Rescue Mission, for example, caters to people regardless of faith, sexual orientation or gender identity. That being said, regressive institutions do often discriminate against

transgender and non-straight individuals, limiting their access to charity. In these cases, secular charities could fill in the gaps left by religious ones that do discriminate.

But this strategy only works if nonreligious liberals stop choosing the government over private philanthropy as the primary vehicle for their promotion of social justice. The more funding given to equitable and private secular institutions, the fewer injustices marginalized groups will face in accessing services and the more financial pressure regressive institutions will feel to end their problematic policies.

Finally, there’s the countercyclical defense for public welfare. This argument states that when investment and consumer spending nosedive during an economic crisis, government is the better choice for promoting social equity since it can simply run up a deficit to keep operating its social programs. However, recession spending is not incompatible with a nonprofit landscape.

When the Obama administration funneled money to stimulate infrastructure projects during the recession, it used private contractors to complete the job. Similarly, the government could donate to private shelters, clinics and food banks in order to aid the indigent during hard economic times. If we don’t require all industries to fall under control of the state because of recessions, why should we shoehorn philanthropy into the public sector for that reason?

Nevertheless, there are many opportunities beyond these disagreements for unity in this debate. We can end the government’s criminalization of homeless behaviors like panhandling, fast-track zoning permits for nonprofits and abolish antipoor policies that limit upward mobility. And if we can successfully decouple our stunted notions of progress from the lethargy of government, maybe we can more capably begin to improve human lives.

COUNTERPOINT

provide a social safety net?

THE PERKS OF PUBLIC PROGRAMS STORY BY MINTAKA ANGELL

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Americans during the recession and have lifted over 20 million people out of poverty. The programs that we often take for granted as safety nets — free school lunches, food stamps, social security, Medicare and Medicaid — sustain the basic needs of Americans on a scale that the private sector simply cannot match.

Furthermore, lacking oversight, some nonprofits have misused funds, misled donors and operated in discriminatory ways.

The Red Cross has recently been rocked by multiple scandals over its misappropriation of millions of dollars. The Salvation Army actively discriminated against LGBTQ+ communities until very recently, and some argue that they have not actually stopped.

Large national nonprofits with problematic corporate sponsors, like the Susan G. Komen foundation’s and No More’s questionable partnerships with the NFL, can even reinforce the oppressive systems that well-meaning nonprofits ostensibly battle against. And while Americans donate large amounts of money to philanthropic organizations, nearly 40 percent of that giving is to religious congregations, while 75 percent is to organizations with religious ties.

Though these organizations can do good, they can also cause active harm — for example, when American evangelical religious organizations worked to influence Uganda’s antihomosexuality legislation.

It is also wrong to assume that goal-oriented nonprofits are necessarily more efficient or better run than similar government efforts. Much of the disenchantment towards government social programs is based on the image of inefficient bureaucrats and a lack of focused leadership. As a whole, though, this image is misleading: Government programs are actually very efficient. In 2013, for instance, the SNAP program spent less than 6 percent of its budget on administrative costs, and the

Earned Income Tax Credit, which lifted 6.5 million people out of poverty in 2014, spends less than 1 percent of its entire cost on administrative expenditures. Overall, in 2010, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that 91 to 99 percent of total federal funding for government assistance programs reached beneficiaries in the form of benefits or services.

Conservative and libertarian ideology often alleges that voting with your dollar instead of your vote is a more efficient way of providing aid. However, that’s easier said than done. Large parts of the public are poorly informed about what makes a nonprofit successful. For example, the public is generally averse to donating to charities and nonprofits that spend a lot on overhead, but newer schools of thought show that skimping on administrative costs cripples the effectiveness of nonprofits.

There is also no guarantee that the personal interests of donors match the needs of different causes. When it comes to private philanthropy, donors’ dollars dominate.

Since both options offer the same tax benefits, the rich are more ready to donate to institutions like the Ivy League and operas over homeless shelters. While the poor and middle-class might not be able to afford large donations to philanthropic organizations that could work to their benefit, they at least have the chance to vote for welfare.

And voting makes all the difference when it comes to large-scale societal problems: Philanthropy is indeed an invaluable tool for righting the wrongs in society, but it can only ever be a tool in the fight — not the endgame itself.

BENJAMIN KOATZ ‘16 IS A COMPUTER SCIENCE CONCENTRATOR AND US STAFF WRITER AT BPR. MINTAKA ANGELL ‘15 IS A HISTORY CONCENTRATOR AND US STAFF WRITER AT BPR.

POINT / COUNTERPOINT BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW

rom rural Oregon to New York City, the United States suffers from structural inequality. With a problem so large, the solution must come on a similarly broad scale. Private philanthropy and nonprofits have much to offer, but neither is the ultimate solution to inequality. Government-based assistance programs and structural attempts to fix inequality are best suited to address the problem in two essential ways: scale and consistency.

Throughout US history, economic recessions have shown that philanthropic giving does not provide stable relief for social issues. When the American economy tumbles into a crisis, charitable spending usually goes the same way. This reality was on display most recently during the 2007-2009 economic recession, when charitable donations fell by up to 20 percent. Because market-based solutions are dependent on stock market vagaries and the benevolence of donors, they are unreliable in the long term.

The scale of many philanthropic efforts also limits their ability to make a significant impact and to use funds efficiently. Most nonprofits are very small, operating on budgets of under $100,000. While many organizations do good work under these constrictions, financial limitations still mean that they cannot provide services to a large community. Financial scarcity puts extreme pressure on nonprofits to streamline operations, cut staff and reduce their programs.

While individual nonprofits are constrained by geographic and budgetary limitations, the government is capable of extending an equitable and broad safety net to the poor and marginalized in the long run. Public assistance programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and unemployment benefits — as well as initiatives like the 2009 stimulus package — helped fill the gap for vulnerable

ART BY MARLENA MORSHEAD

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SHOTS NOT FIRED The vaccine industry needs a cash injection.

STORY BY MEGHAN HOLLOWAY / ART BY KWANG CHOI

BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW UNITED STATES

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family weekend at Disneyland costs less than getting your children vaccinated — unless, of course, they come down with the measles. Today, it takes $2,192 to fully vaccinate a child, but 30 years ago, it cost the same amount as a ticket to Disneyland does today: $100. Part of this dramatic increase is intuitive: We simply have more vaccines for more diseases today.

Since the 1980s, the number of vaccines required for children has jumped from 3 to 12, and these new vaccines are considerably more expensive than their older peers. As a result, families now find it increasingly difficult to fully vaccinate their kids, not only because the families themselves can’t afford it, but because their doctors can’t either. The lack of access to vaccines — not the vocal minority of parents who actively choose not to vaccinate their children — is the true problem facing most Americans when it comes to preventing childhood illness.

The United States has bumped up against a vaccination deficit before. From 1989 to 1991, cost-driven scarcity of vaccines led to an outbreak of measles that left 55,000 people infected and 123 children dead. Dr. Lance Rodewald, head of the Immunization Services Division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), attributed the outbreak to a shortage of vaccines caused by doctors incapable of affording a full vaccine inventory. Pediatricians, unable to vaccinate their patients, increasingly encouraged parents to get their children vaccinated at public clinics instead. However, few parents showed up at the clinics, and many children went unprotected.

The problem of vaccine financing mechanisms has gotten worse as the price of shots has skyrocketed and insurance companies’ reimbursement rates have failed to keep up. Take Prevnar 13, a pneumococcal bacteria vaccine that has become the poster child for runaway vaccine inflation.

Prevnar 13’s price has increased by a hefty 6 percent each year since the Food and Drug Administration approved it in 2010. Currently the vaccine’s recommended schedule

of four doses — required by public schools in most states — costs $544 to provide.

Increasing prices are the product of technological advances and evolving business practices. New developments in medical technology are — rather obviously — a good thing. Without scientific progress spurred by pharmaceutical research, we would not have many of the vaccines we have today, including Prevnar 13. The research for Prevnar 13 took 14 years, and it is, according to a Pfizer spokesperson, “one of the most complex biologic products ever developed and manufactured.” It takes two years to create one batch of Prevnar 13; meanwhile, drug companies can roll out flu vaccines yearly. Companies like Pfizer, therefore, argue that they have to charge high prices in order to recoup the costs they pump into the production process.

LAST YEAR, PREVNAR, WHICH IS REQUIRED FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL ENROLLMENT IN MOST STATES, BROUGHT IN $4 BILLION FOR DRUG COMPANY PFIZER — APPROXIMATELY DOUBLE WHAT TWO OF ITS OTHER PRODUCTS, VIAGRA AND LIPITOR, EARNED IN THE SAME YEAR. However, drug development costs don’t tell the full story of why your pneumonia shots cost more than buying the whole bar a round of shots. When Singapore included Prevnar 7 in its required schedule, the price jumped from $80 a dose to $120 a dose.

That’s because forcing parents to purchase a pharmaceutical company’s product allows the company to raise its prices. Parents can’t boycott the drug or turn to competition; it’s required and patented.

This story holds true in the United States as well, as state governments and schools have come to require more and more vaccines. Currently vaccines become preconditions for school entrance when the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice (ACIP) recommends that all chil-

dren use them. Such recommendations are powerful: They can give drug companies a major windfall in profits. Last year, Prevnar, which is required for public school enrollment in most states, brought in $4 billion for drug company Pfizer — approximately double what two of its other products, Viagra and Lipitor, earned in the same year.

When deciding how to recommend a new vaccine, the ACIP conducts a cost-benefit analysis. But determining whether a vaccine’s cost is worth its benefits is a complicated process that often boils down to how much we value a human life. That is an understandably messy business to be in, and the ACIP is known to make recommendations that are not cost-effective, even by its own analyses. For example, when the ACIP first evaluated Prevnar 7 in 2000, the committee initially decided its provision wouldn’t be cost-effective unless each dose was priced at $46. But when Prevnar 7 debuted on the market, it cost $58 per dose, and the ACIP still decided to recommend it.

It then falls to pediatricians to undertake the expensive process of delivering the vaccines that the ACIP recommends. Most children in the United States — 85 percent — receive at least some of their vaccines from a private physician. This includes the 55 percent of children whose vaccines are paid for by the federal or state governments.

Unfortunately, it costs more than just the sticker price for physicians to provide vaccines — something insurance companies often don’t consider when reimbursing doctors. Reimbursement rarely covers other costs associated with vaccinating children, like refrigerated storage, record-keeping systems and insurance covering a doctor’s expensive vaccine vault; on average, doctors keep somewhere between $100,000 and $150,000 worth of vaccines on hand every year. The American Academy of Family Physicians estimates that insurance companies typically reimburse pediatricians for somewhere between 40 and 100 percent of the purchase price of vaccines. But even the higher percentages don’t include coverage for associated costs. The total cost of vaccinating patients is 17 to 28 percent higher

insurance companies better account for the actual costs of vaccine purchase and delivery. A third proposal suggests a changed vaccine payment system that does not make physicians purchase vaccines from manufacturers until the vaccines are delivered to patients, thereby reducing the overhead and risk associated with purchasing and storing vaccines. Since all of these policies shift the current cost of providing vaccines from pediatricians to the government, insurance companies or pharmaceutical manufacturers, their successful implementation seems unlikely.

Encouraging drug companies to voluntarily reduce their prices is a fool’s errand.

The companies have been consistently intractable, arguing that they need high prices to afford the costly research, development and production of modern vaccines. Furthermore, pharmaceutical companies argue that when prices and profits have been lower, vaccine development has stagnated because of a lack of incentives.

If the private sector won’t decrease its prices due to the high cost of research, some suggest that the government should take a larger role in the funding of vaccine research. Governmental and charitable funds are used to pay for the research behind most vaccines. For example, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now known as the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation) funded the research that resulted in the development of the first polio vaccine.

Public money was driven into vaccine research because, back then, patents could not be issued for natural products. When this changed after a Supreme Court ruling in 1980, drug companies suddenly had a profit incentive to invest in vaccine research, and the role of government funding became less significant. That said, public research institutions still play a significant role in the development of vaccines. A 2007 study found

that almost all the “important, innovative vaccines that have been introduced during the past 25 years have been created by public-sector research institutions.”

If we cannot make vaccines more affordable, the natural solution would instead be to limit the number of vaccine recommendations made by the ACIP. If the threshold for cost effectiveness were higher, perhaps fewer expensive vaccines would need to be administered. Making such calls is not easy, though, especially when it comes to public health. As described by Mark Pauly, a health economist at the University of Pennsylvania: “You do have a rough idea that if it’s $1.98 per life saved that sounds like a good thing to do, and if it’s $198 million per life saved, that sounds like not a good thing to do. But where to draw the line is the part that any sensible person will run away screaming from.”

The recent measles outbreak shows just how important vaccinations are for the health and safety of our society. Though today’s antivaccination movements pose a significant danger, if Americans and their doctors continue to be unable to afford vaccinations, this problem will only get worse. In order to make a dent in vaccines’ soaring costs, the government must either mandate that pharmaceutical companies deliver more affordable vaccines or provide a financing system that does not force pediatricians to face losses when they are vaccinating children. If we believe that the required list of vaccines plays a crucial role in the maintenance of public health — and it does — then we should be doing all we can to ensure that these vaccines are delivered where they are needed. Otherwise, Mickey might catch the measles.

MEGHAN HOLLOWAY ‘16 IS A HEALTH AND HUMAN BIOLOGY AND ECONOMICS CONCENTRATOR AND CHIEF OF STAFF AT BPR.

UNITED STATES BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW

than the cost of the vaccine itself.

In the past, some physicians have tried charging patients a fee to fill the gap between the reimbursement rates offered by insurance providers and the actual price of providing the vaccine. Other pediatricians have taken this a step further, issuing patients a prescription for the vaccine and making the patient procure it independently before the pediatrician administers it.

But the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has eliminated both practices. As part of its emphasis on preventative care, and in recognition of vaccines’ vital role in maintaining public health, the ACA prohibits doctors from charging patients any out-of-pocket fees for childhood vaccinations. This policy was designed to encourage more parents to get their children vaccinated, but in practice, it forces pediatricians to depend on the meager reimbursements insurance companies currently provide for vaccinations.

Unaffordable vaccines have serious consequences for doctors trying to vaccinate their patients. One survey found that one-third of family doctors are considering no longer administering immunizations because of the expense. Another found that 40 percent of pediatricians don’t offer at least one of the required childhood vaccines for public school enrollment. These numbers are worrisome and, if the trend continues, may lead to the same type of vaccine shortage that caused the early 1990s measles outbreak. Clearly, today’s system for vaccine delivery is not working, and something must be done to fix it.

Solutions fall into one of two categories: either making vaccines more affordable or making fewer mandatory. There are a variety of ways to lower the cost of vaccines — though none seem to be all that feasible. Some suggest that the government should pay for all required vaccines. Others advocate for legislation that would make

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LICENSE TO BILL Occupational licensing is killing American entrepreneurship.

STORY BY DAVID MARKEY / ART BY ANISA HOLMES

BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW UNITED STATES

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evada requires emergency medical technicians to complete 26 days of training before obtaining a license — a pretty standard state requirement for an occupation licensed across the country.

However, Nevada is also one of only three states and Washington, DC that license interior designers, and the requirements are steep: 2,190 days, or six years, of education and training, comparable to the time needed to train a general surgeon. Although interior designers should understand building codes and how to read blueprints, they breathe new life into rooms, not patients.

As ridiculous as Nevada’s interior designer requirements might sound, they are part of a growing trend in the United States — one reaching back to the 1950s — to license professionals. That trend, however, costs the United States millions of jobs, billions of dollars and, in some cases, citizens’ health.

The general push for state licensure laws has slowly spiraled out of control since an 1889 Supreme Court case ruled that occupational licensing was primarily a state responsibility. In the 1950s, 5 percent of all jobs required a license. But as the United States began to transition from a manufacturing to a service economy, occupational licensing increased almost sixfold, to the point where 29 percent of all jobs now require a license. Occupational licensing intends to decrease consumer uncertainty by ensuring the quality of a service. The social implications of low-quality service are more serious in some professions than in others. When you go to a doctor, you should be confident that your physician has a thorough understanding of medicine, and your state licenses doctors to guarantee a certain level of quality. Similarly, states license other technical professions — such as attorneys, mortgage brokers and accountants — where consumers face high stakes and challenges in determining quality.

But the practice has gotten out of control; there are currently state licensure laws for positions like fortunetellers, florists and frog breeders. Where did these regulations come from? It seems unlikely that public interest groups demanded that states begin shielding consumers from untrained

fortunetellers. Rather, these licensing requirements came from groups that stood to gain from the regulations: the businesses themselves.

The conventional wisdom is that businesses hate regulations. However, when it comes to occupational licensing, most change their tune. The national associations for interior designers, cosmetologists and locksmiths, along with those for countless other professions, ardently push for stricter licensing laws. This is not some fad in socially conscious management — you won’t see Exxon pushing for tighter oil production regulations in the near future — but rather profit-oriented protectionism. Industries that push for expensive or time-consuming licensing are interested

EXCESSIVE OCCUPATIONAL LICENSING ALSO HAS SIGNIFICANT EFFECTS ON AMERICAN EMPLOYMENT, WITH ESTIMATES SUGGESTING LICENSURE REDUCES THE NUMBER OF JOBS BY AS MANY AS 2.85 MILLION. in eliminating competition before it even enters the market, not protecting consumers. When prospective interior designers in Nevada learn that licenses come with a sixyear education requirement, many either pick a new profession or practice interior design in another state. With less competition, licensed interior designers in Nevada can find more work and charge higher prices than they could have otherwise. Established interior designers win; consumers lose. On average, state-licensed professions see wages rise anywhere from 9 to 17 percent compared to their unregulated counterparts. That’s why the Professional Beauty Association (PBA) prominently advertises the potential risks of beauty professionals transmitting HIV, HPV and MRSA, among countless other diseases — to make sure that only licensed cosmetologists can open hair salons. While the PBA is probably right that beauty professionals need some training, those requirements have gone from necessary to onerous.

The proof of licensing abuse can be found where increased prices and high barriers to entry exceed the benefits of reduced risk for consumers. To begin with, occupational licensing costs consumers over $200 billion per year. But the costs don’t stop there. Harsh licensing requirements are partially responsible for growing income inequality. Licensing poses substantial hurdles to those seeking work in low- and moderate-income professions. Individuals with lesser means and lesser education who could seek jobs as truck and bus drivers, pest-control applicators or cosmetologists may not have the time or resources to meet licensing requirements. Excessive occupational licensing also has significant effects on American employment, with estimates suggesting licensure reduces the number of jobs by as many as 2.85 million. Licensing requirements can even slow employment growth by 20 percent in states where they are required in comparison to states where they are not. The sum of the research on licensure laws comes with a clear message: that licensing any profession carries a wide range of significant costs.

Unfortunately, the supposed benefits of nontechnical occupational licensing — namely, higher-quality service, reduced fraud and improved consumer health — often fail to materialize for the average consumer. There is scant evidence to show that stricter licensing requirements improve the quality of professionals in less technical fields. A study of Louisiana’s florist licensing laws found no difference between the quality of floral arrangements from licensed Louisiana florists and unlicensed florists in Texas. The study did, however, find that floral arrangements from Louisiana cost significantly more than those from Texan businesses. Even regulating higher-risk professions such as nurse practitioners showed similar outcomes: same quality, higher prices. In fact, because of the higher prices associated with licensing, licensure laws often reduce the overall quality received by the average consumer, as fewer consumers are able to afford the more expensive, higher-quality services. And while the inability of lower-

marginally reduce the cost of high-quality services, even though they eliminate low-quality, low-cost alternatives. In other words, licensing laws lower prices for the rich — consumers who were already going to buy the high-quality service — by increasing the quantity of high-quality service providers at the expense of the low-income market.

But for the most part, the benefits of licensing can be achieved through other, less invasive means. Apprenticeships and onthe-job training can teach professionals the information they need to succeed in their careers. Additionally, state certification can incentivize training programs and reduce the risk for consumers without the unwanted drawbacks of fencing off a market.

State certification differs from licensure in that it doesn’t prevent those who are not certified from participating in the market. Certified interior designers might have significantly better taste and business etiquette than uncertified interior designers, but no state law prevents uncertified interior designers from charging for their services. At most, uncertified interior designers have to disclose to their clients

DAVID MARKEY ‘18 IS AN INTENDED APPLIED MATH-ECONOMICS CONCENTRATOR AND AN ASSOCIATE EDITOR AT BPR.

UNITED STATES BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW

income Louisianans to purchase flower arrangements may not be a particularly pressing issue, the negative effects of price hikes have serious consequences when it comes to more critical professions, like health care practitioners. For example, the level of restrictions placed on dental hygienists in different states has a positive correlation with the percent of adults in that state missing teeth, suggesting that harsh licensing laws on dental hygienists raise prices to the point where poorer consumers stop getting their teeth cleaned regularly.

Studies of other medical services have shown similar results. Though intended to raise the quality of practicing professionals, licensure laws often lower the overall quality received by consumers by limiting access to lower-quality, cheaper services.

Despite all its flaws, occupational licensing in less technical jobs is not exclusively negative. The job security and higher prices associated with licensure laws increase the incentive for companies and workers to invest in rigorous training programs because they will not have to compete with lower-quality professionals. Furthermore, in some cases, these laws may

that they don’t have any type of certification. While licenses cut low-quality service providers out of the market, certifications separate them from high-quality providers, leaving consumers to choose which type of service — and cost structure — they prefer.

In the same way Hershey’s and Godiva use branding to differentiate the quality of their products, industries can use certification to signal the level of service they provide.

Certification isn’t the final word in signaling quality. Consumers can use everything from word-of-mouth referrals to Angie’s List to the Better Business Bureau to estimate the quality of service before making a purchase. Unfortunately, there are still hundreds of licenses that need to be removed across the United States before we can fully rely on these market-based solutions to determine the quality of a business.

Due to the immense influence of the special interests that support them, occupational licensure laws are rarely repealed.

The harmful effects of licensure laws are not apparent to most consumers, and so they don’t inspire much of an impassioned response. However, deregulating licensed markets is by no means impossible. Though the federal government cannot change state licenses for occupations, it can create incentives for states to reevaluate their licensing programs. In fact, in the 2016 White House budget proposal, President Obama recommended allocating $15 million to help states and state partnerships identify places where occupational licenses create unnecessary barriers to entry or prevent workers from moving across states. The federal government could go even further. Obama could issue an executive order to create an interagency working group between the Departments of Labor and Commerce to establish a set of reasonable standards for licensing certain professions and encourage states to adopt these standards. Or Congress could help spur these programs forward by creating a fund to incentivize states to meet particular occupational licensing goals, much like it did with educational incentives in the Race to the Top program. Given that the most cautious estimates put the cost of occupational licensing to consumers in the tens of billions of dollars annually, these incentives could be fairly sizeable and still pay for themselves — and some highly qualified frog breeders.

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THE MORE YOU GMO Warning: This article may have been partially produced with genetic engineering.

STORY BY BASUNDHARA MUKHERJEE / ART BY EMILY REIF

BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW UNITED STATES

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n a nation where 75 percent of processed food contains genetically modified organisms (GMOs), Vermont reignited an already contentious debate in May of last year when it passed a law requiring mandatory GMO labeling. While other states, including Maine and Connecticut, have passed similar legislation, their laws require “triggers” to go into effect, meaning the labeling requirements won’t be put into place until neighboring states also ratify GMO ordinances. Vermont’s rare success in passing a strict labeling bill is the product of nearly two decades of push from consumers living in a state with an immense agricultural presence. The bill, set to come into effect in July 2016, outlines requirements for all genetically modified foods to be labeled with the phrases: “produced with genetic engineering,” “partially produced with genetic engineering” or “may be produced with genetic engineering.” Though the bill’s advocates rejoiced after its passage, victory may very well be short-lived, as cor-

porate interests and the federal government have already begun to push back aggressively against the new law.

In April 2014, around the same time that the bill for GMO labeling passed in Vermont, new legislation opposing labeling was introduced in Congress. The proposal, known as the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act, would place the federal government in charge of food labeling, which could prevent states from having any jurisdiction over food regulation. Another challenge to the law came only a month after Vermont passed the GMO labeling bill, when four major trade associations filed a lawsuit against the state, citing “burdensome new speech requirements and restrictions.” The presiding judge clarified that the hearing would not focus on GMO safety but on the right to label — weighing the constitutional rights of consumers against those of the plaintiff agribusinesses.

The case is a microcosm of the larger debate about GMOs. Safety is not the central rea-

son why labeling should occur; instead, all sides need to accept that consumers have a right to know what is in their food.

Before the mid-1900s, the notion of a genetically engineered organism would have been unfathomable. Mere decades later, GMOs have not only become ubiquitous in the nation’s agriculture and food industries, but have also become normal in the eyes of the everyday consumer. GMOs are widely used to improve yields, enhance nutritional value, give longer shelf life and provide resistance to drought, frost and pests. In addition, genetic modification allows for mass production at lower costs.

In a nation where one-sixth of Americans struggle to put food on the table, the advent of GMOs appears promising. However, opponents see downsides to GMOs, saying that they are unhealthy and environmentally harmful.

The question of GMO safety first arose in the 1990s at a meeting between the Food and Agriculture Organization and the

ed a multitude of safety tests on genetically engineered foods, thus rendering labeling irrelevant at best and damaging to both business interests and consumers at worst.

For agribusinesses, labeling seems like little more than scaremongering.

Even if agribusinesses are not wrong regarding the safety of their products, their wide-reaching influence at the federal level has tainted their credibility.

To many, the favorable treatment of GMOs is a smoking gun in the debate over the extensive influence wielded by agribusiness in Washington, DC. Last year, agribusinesses spent over $125 million on lobbying, and their efforts have paid off.

The US government has a long history of aggressively subsidizing farmers, and it rarely legislates against the interests of agriculture. Among other victories, agribusinesses have successfully retained exemptions from the Clean Water Act and even last February’s Farm Bill, which repealed $4.5 billion in direct subsidies, though it offered the same amount in crop insurance subsidies while nevertheless slashing food stamps for needy families.

THE PUSH FOR MANDATORY LABELING WAS BORN OUT OF THE DESIRE TO KEEP CONSUMERS INFORMED. “WE CANNOT CONTINUE TO KEEP AMERICANS IN THE DARK ABOUT THE FOOD THEY EAT,” SAID REP. PETER DEFAZIO (D-OR).

The oft-recited claim that Washington is a revolving door seems to hold true in the agriculture business. In addition to Taylor, the former Monsanto lawyer responsible for creating the FDA standards, Islam Siddiqui, the former Chief Agricultural Negotiator in the Office of the United States Trade Representative, worked as a lobbyist for conglomerated agribusiness from 2001 to 2008. And Dennis DeConcini, a former US Senator from Arizona, previously served as legal counsel to Monsanto. While Monsanto is no stranger to controversy, it has arduously sought to buck its reputation as an industry bully, though its apparent influence in the halls of US decision-making raises questions regarding the impartiality of labeling regulations.

In the Food Guidance Regulations, the FDA takes “responsib[ility] for assuring that foods sold in the United States are

safe, wholesome and properly labeled.” By opposing the labeling of GMOs, the FDA contradicts this mission. While adversaries of the law claim that labeling would vilify GMOs, it is equivalent to other labeling practices. Like the caloric content of a food or the list of ingredients, denoting genetic modification offers yet another piece of information about what buyers are consuming and provides a more holistic approach to nutritional labeling.

Moreover, consumers want to be informed. The Right to Know campaign states that more than 90 percent of Americans would prefer the labeling of GMOs. Furthermore, a 2013 New York Times poll determined that 93 percent of respondents supported labeling. Popular support provides additional defense for the labeling movement and Vermont’s new law.

What agribusinesses don’t realize is that labeling could very well be mutually beneficial for manufacturers and consumers. Even if Monsanto’s point that labeling could “imply that food products containing [GMOs] are somehow inferior” has some intuitive validity, the solution is not to outright dismiss labeling or, more importantly, consumers’ rights. Instead, it should be a wake-up call to agribusiness that they need to commit themselves to proving that GMOs are not harmful and to educating the public about their products. As more information emerges about the effects of GMOs, agribusinesses could be central partners in spurring further research. In the long run, these efforts will present the American public with the knowledge necessary to make informed decisions about what they do — or do not — want to eat.

Support for labeling should be premised in consumer knowledge, rather than in arguments about the safety, or lack thereof, of GMOs. GMO labeling provides a needed change to the current food industry; it allows consumers to determine their own choices without being influenced by food corporations. Corporate agribusinesses and a general lack of knowledge about their practices have heavily contributed to the stalling of GMO labeling initiatives, but with a greater push from dedicated states like Vermont and grassroots organizations like the Right to Know, the next apple you buy might just come with a GMO label.

BASUNDHARA MUKHERJEE ‘18 IS AN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS CONCENTRATOR AND AN ASSOCIATE EDITOR AT BPR.

UNITED STATES BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW

World Health Organization. It was then that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Deputy Commissioner for Foods — former Monsanto lawyer, Michael Taylor — proposed the concept of “substantial equivalence.” The idea would allow foods to be sold without safety tests so long as their chemical compositions did not differ significantly from those of foods already existing in the market. The subsequent adoption of this framework has kept the FDA’s role in food safety testing for GMOs minimal, and thus little substantive information has emerged on the safety of GMOs. Furthermore, opponents of GMOs fear that the scientific research needed to draw such conclusions is often influenced, and sometimes conducted by, the very companies producing GMO products in the first place. The paucity of evidence in this debate doesn’t lend credence to either side. Agribusiness and entities in the federal government insist that there is no risk associated with GMO products and, in fact, that GMO innovations and technologies make food cheaper and more plentiful. On the other hand, proponents of labeling cite studies pointing to health complications engendered by GMO consumption. Because GMOs contain artificially altered DNA, organic food connoisseurs argue that they are unnatural and can harm consumers. But these are simply speculative claims.

The push for mandatory labeling was born out of the desire to keep consumers informed. “We cannot continue to keep Americans in the dark about the food they eat,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), who recently helped reintroduce the Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act to Congress. Grassroots movements like the Right to Know campaign — which was instrumental in the passage of the Vermont law — have expressed their stance on the mandatory labeling of genetically engineered foods as one founded on the “basic right to know what we’re eating and feeding our families.” They argue that labeling neither prevents nor vilifies GMOs, but rather allows consumers to make their own choices.

On the other side, corporations often argue that labeling inherently prejudices consumers, who may not know the benefits of GMOs, against their products. Monsanto — one of world’s largest and most publicly reviled agribusinesses — has staunchly opposed GMO labeling “in the absence of any demonstrated risks.” Groups like Monsanto contend that the FDA has already conduct-

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DR. SAFELOVE Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the molten salt reactor STORY BY WILLIAM JANOVER ART BY SORAYA FERDMAN

BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW UNITED STATES

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e cannot afford to lose another decade,” warned the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in April 2014, explaining how critical it is for countries around the globe to seriously consider efforts to reduce the effects of climate change. If the world is to take dramatic action, the United States must take a leading role. Today, solar, wind and geothermal power account for just 6 percent of US energy production. Unfortunately, the American public remains wary of one of the most promising energy alternatives: nuclear power. Though not a silver bullet for the climate crisis, nuclear power provides carbon-free electricity on a large scale, which the United States desperately needs.

Once a prime target for the ire of the flower power generation, nuclear power has begun to gain wider acceptance, but a fear of nuclear energy remains embedded in the American consciousness. Security hawks on the right and ardent environmentalists on the left remain equally skeptical. The former group worries that terrorists will target reactors or that enemy states can too easily convert civilian nuclear programs into sources for atomic bombs. The latter faction is wary of the dangers of nuclear waste and is opposed to proliferation on principle.

This partially explains why, in a rare point of bipartisan compromise, lawmakers on both sides — from Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to Mitt Romney — came together to oppose the primary long-term solution to the problem of radioactive waste: Yucca Mountain.

Americans weren’t always so opposed to nuclear power; in the 1950s and 1960s, the Atoms for Peace program helped the United States develop the world’s largest civilian nuclear program. But one month in 1979 would change the public perception forever. In March, “The China Syndrome” opened in theaters, portraying a meltdown at a nuclear reactor and its disastrous consequences. For many viewers, it was the first time they had been confronted with this

possibility. Within 12 days of the movie’s release, a reactor at a nuclear plant on Three Mile Island sustained a partial meltdown.

Though no one died, and the amount of radioactive matter released was not dangerous, the event remains seared in American minds. There has not been a major incident at a US plant since, but paranoia over nuclear energy remains, kept fresh by accidents at Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986 and Fukushima in Japan in 2011.

Yet many of nuclear power’s opponents overestimate the likelihood of a meltdown.

All cases have involved an improbable combination of poor regulation, out-of-date design, operational negligence and bad luck — and each remains an anomaly in the history of nuclear energy. The assumption that nuclear power plants are just waiting to fail

comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of the plants’ technology and the undue vehemence against their use.

Furthermore, nuclear reactor technology has made major advances since Three Mile Island. Today a new generation of nuclear scientists is tackling the challenge of designing fail-safe reactors. The latest ones include mechanisms that would prevent catastrophes like those in Ukraine and Japan.

Three such innovations, which industry insiders collectively refer to as advanced nuclear reactors, are molten salt reactors, pebble-bed reactors and fast neutron reactors.

Each presents an excellent opportunity to make up for the shortcomings of the standard Cold War era light water reactors.

While not a new concept, molten salt reactors have emerged as the most promising avenue for nuclear innovation.

Unlike light water reactors, molten salt reactors do not run the risk of pressurerelated explosions like those that occurred at Fukushima or Chernobyl. These reactors can also run on fuel too degraded for typical nuclear power plants to use — including the waste from conventional reactors, offering

an innovative and productive solution to today’s problem of nuclear waste.

Additionally, because they can run on nuclear fuels other than uranium, molten salt reactors address the concern that reactors can be used to generate weaponsgrade nuclear material. Several companies have been working to bring molten salt reactors to the market, amongst them Transatomic Power and Flibe Energy.

Although molten salt reactors are currently the most marketable solution to outdated reactor designs, pebble-bed reactors and fast neutron reactors also carry advantages that make them safer to operate than conventional technologies. Pebblebed reactors are better designed to deal with the heat released by accidents, limiting the effects of any potential problems. In addition, proponents say they would have lower operating costs than traditional designs. While fast neutron reactors carry high costs and require high levels of uranium enrichment, they are also much more efficient than the current technology, producing little waste with comparatively low toxicity levels.

The federal government must now step in to encourage nuclear entrepreneurs with financial backing as well as technical and regulatory support. However, that won’t be easy: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has only had to deal with one kind of reactor and is wholly underprepared to certify and monitor plants that use these new technologies. Moreover, the Department of Energy (DOE) will need to devote more funding to loan guarantee programs and other forms of project financing in order to encourage research, development and implementation in the nuclear energy field — only 8 percent of the DOE’s current budget goes to new reactor research. And the United States must move fast: Two domestic nuclear energy companies have already moved their testing facilities to China, while major research developments are already underway in countries like Norway and Japan.

Nuclear power is not a perfect energy source, and the path ahead — developing and installing safe nuclear reactors — will be complicated and challenging. Nevertheless, if we are serious about preventing the disasters that climate change poses, the American public faces a choice: resign itself to the rising tide of catastrophic climate change or lift the clean energy sector up through nuclear innovation.

WILLIAM JANOVER ‘15 IS A HISTORY CONCENTRATOR.

A MAYOR AND A MODEM Bill de Blasio is high on WiFi STORY BY MEG SULLIVAN ART BY KWANG CHOI

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that 74 percent of the city’s population has access to high-speed broadband.

The uneven spread of access reflects the disparate distribution of wealth throughout the city. According to a report by New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, 30 percent of Brooklyn households lack broadband, and in some areas, 50 percent of households go without access. In Manhattan only 21 percent of households lack subscriptions to broadband Internet.

Only one year into office, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has already established a national reputation for his demonstrated commitment to improving social equity, including through expanded broadband access. Last year, during the US Conference of Mayors, de Blasio took the lead on this issue, saying: “If we’re going to create fairness and economic opportunity, high-speed Internet…has to be available to all of our citizens.” De Blasio has also characterized broadband as “essential for everything we need to do to be a fair and just city.”

The mayor has already rolled out a number of policy strategies. Most recently, he announced the expansion of a library hotspot program. A $1 million donation from Google, along with a $500,000 grant from the Knight News Challenge, will allow the city to expand a program through which families can borrow free WiFi devices from local libraries. The public-private partnership aims to provide 10,000 people with the opportunity to borrow Sprint-powered WiFi devices.

In March 2013, de Blasio also unveiled the LinkNYC initiative, which aims to

MEG SULLIVAN ‘15 IS A POLITICAL SCIENCE CONCENTRATOR, US SECTION MANAGER AND AN ASSOCIATE EDITOR AT BPR.

UNITED STATES BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW

he amazing thing about the dollar menu in a New York City McDonald’s is not that one can buy a meal for a dollar, but that free WiFi comes with it. Internet access is a growing concern for policymakers because of its important effects on disadvantaged groups such as low-income youth and adults, senior citizens and nonnative English speakers.

Without Internet access, many citizens cannot obtain health care, apply for work or help their children properly complete school assignments. When the underprivileged cannot afford the expenses of home broadband — finding Internet access only during time slots at public libraries or through WiFi in coffee shops and McDonald’s — they are excluded from an increasingly essential component of modern life.

Experts identify the “digital divide,” or the disparity between individuals’ access to high-speed broadband, as a new challenge to social equity. Although many have cited poor access to the Internet in rural areas as the main culprit for the United States’ low broadband subscription rate — only 73.4 percent in comparison to 88 percent in the United Kingdom and Germany — unequal provision of Internet in cities has posed an additional, and relevant, problem. Urban areas contain a deep disparity in broadband subscription rates between more and less affluent neighborhoods, with the gap between the highest and lowest rates averaging 65 percentage points, according to the Census Bureau.

It is only fitting that cities across the United States are looking to the Big Apple for guidance on the digital divide, given

transform the 6,400 payphones peppering the city into WiFi pods, structures that provide 24-hour Internet access within a 150-foot radius. These pods will allow residents to charge cellular devices and will contain tablets with applications related to city services. The administration emphasized that this network of devices will extend to the city’s outer boroughs and throughout “neighborhoods across the income spectrum.”

In his ambitious mission, de Blasio has touched upon one of the most contentious issues in the American tech community: competition. He has stated a need to reevaluate municipal franchise agreements in order to require companies like Verizon FiOS and Time Warner Cable to provide “the kind of service they’re obligated to.” A number of experts have pointed to the oligopolistic nature of the broadband market in the United States as a serious blight on citizens’ ability to obtain affordable, highspeed access. Susan Crawford, Harvard Law School professor and author of “Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age,” explained: “We’ve come into an era where these markets have consolidated, and for most Americans, their only choice for high-speed, high-capacity Internet connection is their local cable monopoly.”

Crawford warns that without reform in the telecommunications industry, the United States’ ability to compete with its peers in the global economy will be compromised. She puts forth two solutions to the current predicament: greater oversight to ensure a blanket national standard for high-speed access or city-level fiber networks that replace today’s reliance on companies like Comcast and Time Warner. “A lot of mayors are extremely interested in doing this because they see it as a street grid or a tree canopy — this is just infrastructure,” Crawford said. “We’ll see a lot of developments along these lines the next few years as we try to get out from under the thumb of the cable monopoly.”

It certainly looks like New York City’s mayor has taken Crawford’s advice to heart. The struggle for greater equity in New York City faces a large hurdle in the digital divide, but de Blasio seems up to the challenge. And if LinkNYC is successful, perhaps free WiFi will be coming soon to a city near you.

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Missing the Point The Story of Providence's Lost Cape Verdean Past

by Mitchell Johnson / Art by George Esse lstyn

BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW FEATURE

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am sitting across the table from Dr. Claire Andrade-Watkins, a documentarian and historian of the Fox Point Cape Verdean community with the Swearer Center for Public Service, in the Benefit Street Juice Bar and Café. This place, with its hip music, organic juices and college-aged clientele, is not how Andrade-Watkins remembers it. For her, this will always be Bob and Gloria Solomon’s store, where she would purchase bright penny candies after school as a kid. “This was where all my cavities started,” she laughs, pointing out the spot where the candy counter used to be, describing the malt balls and paper dot treats that are now only found in kitschy reproductions of old-time general stores. In its place, there is only an empty section of hardwood floor — any sign of the counter that used to sit there is long since gone.

The story is familiar across Fox Point: The small, family-owned businesses that

catered to an immigrant community in the 1950s and 1960s have disappeared due to a series of initiatives that evicted residents in order to preserve historic homes and build a more modern neighborhood. The shops of the old guard have been supplanted by boutique coffee houses, record stores and art galleries that cater to a professional community largely composed of Brown University’s professors and students. What used to be a thriving, self-sustaining community of immigrants is now almost gone, existing only in the memories of the people who grew up there.

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mmigration to the Northeast from Cape Verde started in full force in the mid19th century. From 1860 to 1921, roughly 1,500 Cape Verdean immigrants arrived each year. Immigration continued fitfully after the 1920s, with a surge of migrants in the wake of World War II and another in

1965 after the Immigration and Nationality Act ended exclusionary policies on immigrants from African countries. Immigrants from Cape Verde came to the United States in droves on steamships, packet boats and small freight vessels, with many of these new Americans settling down in Providence’s Fox Point.

Fox Point’s Cape Verdean community long remained tied to the water, often working on whaling ships from New Bedford and Nantucket. In the 19th century, a significant portion of Nantucket’s whaling crews was comprised of Cape Verdeans. But even after the whaling industry collapsed in the 1920s, members of the community often continued to find employment at the port as dockworkers and longshoremen.

By the time a young Andrade-Watkins was walking along Benefit Street, the Cape Verdean residents had started many of their own businesses and forged their own com-

munity in Fox Point. The community was fairly isolated, largely due to a lack of access to Rhode Island’s educational and economic resources. As a result, Fox Point residents were forced to become self-sufficient, creating opportunities that were never given to them by others. Andrade-Watkins’ mother, for example, recognized the failings of education in Fox Point and sought to improve it. Her and others’ hard work was fundamental in creating the charter that eventually led to the development of Fox Point Elementary School.

It was actions like these that created the Fox Point community. Large, multigenerational families — many of which did not speak English — were its backbone.

“We were all related,” Andrade-Watkins remembers. “When you have a community that’s intact, people know one another.”

It may not have been particularly wealthy, but it was culturally rich, and the community was both cohesive and united. And, as Andrade-Watkins remembers it, because “everybody knew everybody,” there was barely any crime. According to Bobby Clarkin, who grew up in the area with Andrade-Watkins, “Crime was next to nothing…we never locked the doors.” Though hard data on crime is difficult to come by, Fox Point residents seem to have taken some steps to keep their community safe; young men, for instance, would go to the Fox Point Boys Club together each day after school, participating in activities that were designed to keep them out of trouble.

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he Fox Point described by those who grew up there was different from how outsiders saw it. While to Andrade-Watkins and her childhood friends, Fox Point was a safe community of tight-knit and hard-working families, others considered the neighborhood syn-

onymous with instability. The first omens of the impending gentrification appeared in the 1935 report by the Providence Redevelopment Agency called “Proposed Slum Clearance and Housing Project for Providence: South Main-Wickenden District.” The report concluded that Fox Point was in need of urban renewal and claimed that “the present population is unstable and employment is irregular.” While the suggestions of this report were not enacted, it set the precedent for the eventual renewal of the neighborhood. The report displayed what would engender Fox Point’s reputation as a slum that needed to be changed — and fast. In 1940, another report found that as many as 40 percent of the houses in Fox Point lacked private facilities or needed repairs — a statistic that was never revised as time went on, though it was used as an underlying basis for many claims about the problems in the community. However, conditions in the area nonetheless seemed to be improving: Two studies by the Providence Redevelopment Agency, in 1951 and 1961, noted major improvements on structures in the area over the decade, with these improvements almost entirely undertaken by residents themselves.

Nevertheless, the city began to take a few constructive steps towards renovating the Fox Point area in the years after the 1935 report. Plans for urban renewal in Fox Point only became a concrete reality, however, after a 1959 report was published by the Providence Planning Commission and the Providence Preservation Society entitled: “College Hill: A Demonstration Study of Historic Area Renewal.” Regarding Fox Point, the report states, “the study area contains overcrowded slums and neglected and worn out buildings.” Moreover, the report dismissed South Main Street, the cultural hub of Fox Point and the location of many

small, family-run businesses, as “a mixture of junk shops and other poor grade commercial establishments interspersed with an occasional substantial business.” The College Hill report ultimately served as the basis for the East Side Urban Renewal Project, an effort that permanently transformed Fox Point when it was enacted in 1961.

The one characteristic the neighborhood had of value, at least according to the 1959 report, was the centuries-old colonial homes its residents occupied. However, those residents were already beginning to feel pressure to relocate. Brown was expanding quickly: Between 1940 and 1956, Brown purchased a number of new properties in order to build more dormitories and offices, as well as to clear land for Wriston Quadrangle. The central part of College Hill — the area surrounding Brown — already had some of the highest rents in the city. The College Hill plan sought to encompass Fox Point, where rents were generally low, in the expansion of the wealthier parts of College Hill. The goal was ultimately to transform the neighborhood in a way that would accommodate the ever-expanding University campus while pushing out the Cape Verdean residents from their valuable colonial homes and replacing them with wealthier residents who would provide a better tax base for the city.

It wasn’t just the beautiful homes or proximity to the University that sold the city on the College Hill plan. Urban renewal fit many of the city’s goals, allowing it to attract residents back into the city and fight rapid suburbanization. It also would clean up urban spaces in which the new, wealthier residents could live, thrive and pay taxes.

But replacing the current residents meant having a reason to get them out, and the narrative of a poor, unstable community in Fox Point, which had begun with the

FEATURE BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW

"It was the buildings that were of concern..."

Andrade-Watkins said, "Bricks and mortar. It was nothing about the people. Our value and community as a group was negligible."

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BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW FEATURE

URban development and the university

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1951

1954

1967

Wayne State University Mid-town, Detroit

University of Chicago Hyde Park-Kenwood

Indiana University WestSide, Indianapolis

An expansion of the University, along with local expressway project and other developments, displaced upwards of 7,000 people.

The first in the nation to be designated an urban renewal project, this reform initiative planned 101 acres of land clearance. The project was funded by private investors, the federal government and the university itself.

Another project designed to clear up space for a university, Westside's renovation debased approximately 300 acres of a predominantly African-American neighborhood.

1935 report and continued throughout the years, provided the perfect base on which to overlay concerns about urban blight.

Thus, a story was born: Fox Point was suddenly seen as not only an opportune location for urban renewal, but also as a place that genuinely needed it.

“You needed to rationalize, the same way you needed to rationalize Manifest Destiny,” Andrade-Watkins says of the PR movement that accompanied Providence’s urban renewal plans. The government was essentially advocating for displacing an entire community, and that meant changing how people saw the value of the community. But the plan worked, and the effect the idea had on the rest of Providence was powerful. “It created a hostile public perception in the newspaper for white people, for the power structure,” remembers Andrade-Watkins.

Although Andrade-Watkins’ story — and Brown University’s — is about Fox Point in particular, it certainly wasn’t a foreign concept. Urban renewal had taken the country by storm in the 1940s and continued to be a major force in the reorganization and redevelopment of cities across the country. But while Robert Moses was building bridges in New York City, the Providence government was busy burning them.

The result of the publicity campaign was a policy that preserved the houses in

Fox Point, but not the people who lived in them. It was this intense practicality that Andrade-Watkins remembers as disturbing: “It was the buildings that were of concern,” she says. “Bricks and mortar. It was nothing about the people. Our value and community as a group was negligible.” Andrade-Watkins explains that the logic really came down to wealth, and that meant that the Cape Verdean community was seen as having little value.

Most Fox Point residents rented their housing, and the sudden push for preservation raised rent prices to unmanageable heights. Much of the district was rezoned from a multiple dwelling area, one that accommodated the sorts of families typical in the Cape Verdean community — like the one Andrade-Watkins grew up in — to one dominated by single family homes, precisely because they were more desirable to the types of people who were now supposed to move into the area: professionals who worked downtown, faculty and students.

Raising rents worked. Faculty from Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design bought many of the newly restored houses, both because they were conveniently located and because, having just been priced out from under a low-income community, they were relatively cheap.

Students also began moving into the neighborhood: Between 1971 and 1978, the Brown student population in Fox Point in-

creased by 66 percent. Over time, the original Fox Point residents were priced out of their historic neighborhood. The value of the neighborhood had risen rapidly: Houses bought for $3,000 to $12,000 were then regularly sold for $10,000 to $22,000 after renovation. Many who owned their houses were happy to sell for more money than they had paid and move to the suburbs.

But for the majority of Fox Point’s Cape Verdean community, the changes were devastating. As renters were forced to leave their homes, suddenly unable to pay for the buildings in which they had lived for so long, they struggled to find suitable alternatives. According to Andrade-Watkins, Cape Verdeans often faced rental discrimination in other areas of the city. Her parents were some of the last to leave their area of Fox Point, relocating from their house on Planet Street, where they had lived for 35 years, to Cranston in 1974. Over a dozen families within three blocks of Andrade-Watkins’ home were displaced and forced to find new homes, mostly in East Providence or the East Side near Camp Street. Andrade-Watkins describes the devastation as something more than just a story of individual families struggling with housing — it was an intergenerational loss. She remembers Fox Point as she saw it: a safe and pleasant community on the brink of entering the middle class, spurred onwards by bur-

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gathering 1,037 signatures for the construction of the Gano Street off-ramp. Several hundred residents joined the Fox Point Neighborhood Association, founded by Charles Simon, and fought to preserve the neighborhood as they had known it. But the combined forces working against Fox Point were too strong. The Cape Verdeans were trapped by Brown University on one side and I-195 on the other. With the advent of the East Side Urban Renewal Project, they were forced out of their neighborhood altogether despite their protests. In Andrade-Watkins’ mind the small, marginalized community in Fox Point could never have withstood the institutional forces working against it, even when its members stood up to the big guns.

The biggest crime of the gentrification of Fox Point was not the theft of homes — it was the theft of history. Although the new residents have kept the name, they have also sterilized Fox Point’s past. The colonial legacy of Fox Point is preserved in the centuries-old homes and their commemorative plaques, but the history of the Cape Verdeans who occupied those homes between then and now is forgotten. “It’s a comfortable space,” Andrade-Watkins acknowledges, where the more uncomfortable aspects of the neighborhood’s history have been intentionally forgotten.

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can’t change the past. You know, I don’t have an ax to grind. But am I sad? Do I miss [it]? When I walk into Bob’s and Bob and Gloria aren’t here…when I pass my street that all of us grew up on…when I don’t see my childhood friends and didn’t grow up with them the last 50 years? Like our parents grew up together, from before they were born until their deathbed? Do I miss that? I can’t even begin to tell you how that feels.”

Today Andrade-Watkins finds Fox Point barely recognizable. If residents of the Fox Point that existed 50 years ago visited today, they might be surprised, or even horrified, to find places like Manny Almeida’s Ringside Lounge, once a gathering place for the community, turned into the now-closed Z Bar. But the damage has already been done, and the only question now is how to preserve the memory of Fox Point and the people who once lived there.

Andrade-Watkins, also an Associate

Professor at Emerson College and Visiting Scholar at the Brown Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, works to catalogue the experiences of the community. Her own memories of Fox Point, she understands, are only part of a much larger story, a complex network of friends, family and neighbors who have now moved on. She stresses that because of this intricate history there is no definitive truth in the story of Fox Point, and that her work alone could never fully represent the countless stories of the Cape Verdeans in Fox Point. “What I have done is put together, through my work, something that reflects the sense of the community and is inclusive. But in no way does anybody have the authority or the imperative to be the voice, either for us or of us.”

The Fox Point story is neither isolated nor over. Neighborhoods across the United States — from Boston’s West End to Chicago’s South Side to Los Angeles’ Bunker Hill — whisper similar stories of gentrification and eviction at the hands of powerful institutions. But the history of Fox Point is important for us to remember as residents of Providence and as Brown students who benefit from this institution and its efforts to overtake real estate in Fox Point. As Brown plans to increase the size of its student body and the University continues to expand, our relationship with surrounding communities must not be ignored. Brown’s responsibility lies in embracing its dual roles — as both an institution responsible for its flawed history and as a facilitator for the study of it.

The Fox Point of the 1950s and 1960s is, nevertheless, gone. The thriving, self-sustaining Cape Verdean community that lived there was removed to make way for the growing University and a new, bustling interstate. But that’s not quite the end of the story. “Our bonds haven’t been broken,” Andrade-Watkins says, regarding the Cape Verdean community today.

“We’re going to be Fox Point forever.” She explains to me that even decades after the destruction of the Fox Point Cape Verdean community, when there is a death among the original residents, hundreds of Cape Verdeans still show up to the funeral. There are some bonds, it seems, that even highways cannot break.

MITCHELL JOHNSON ‘18 IS A US STAFF WRITER AT BPR.

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geoning educational opportunities and the drive of its business-oriented residents.

Her generation, she explains, would have gone on to college and careers elsewhere, and the neighborhood would have gradually changed as its residents found success.

It didn’t need the urban renewal it had been prescribed. Instead, urban renewal stopped that gradual, organic coalescence and forced the Cape Verdean families to relocate — thereby dismantling the work of past generations. The community never recovered after being forced away from the self-sustaining neighborhood that had provided for them for so many years.

Fox Point’s problems, however, did not end with the East Side Urban Renewal Project. The concurrent construction of I-195 added to its destruction. The Federal Highway Act had promised to modernize infrastructure in the United States, just as the Autobahn had done in Germany. Eisenhower’s promise of one nation, indivisible, united by roads became a reality in cities across the country. But it also had less ideal consequences. Many marginalized neighborhoods became the sites for these new freeways, and Fox Point was no exception. The plans for I-195 began in 1947, and the construction commenced in 1958.

Fox Point was in part chosen for its cheap land, but the construction of I-195 also played into the narrative of renewal: The highway would be a starting point for the redevelopment of a blighted area, an initiative that would help tear away the fabric of the old community and set the stage for a wealthier and better-connected one. The freeway construction resulted in the leveling of dozens of houses and businesses near the waterfront, which were seized through eminent domain to serve the project. Over 200 people were displaced by I-195, and Fox Point was severed in two, disconnecting the once-communal neighborhood.

I-195 wreaked even further havoc on the community by slowing down business at the port. Although it had already been in decline due to containerization and industrialization in the 1960s, I-195 exacerbated the downturn.

Throughout the decimation of its neighborhood, the Fox Point community did not sit idly by. When builders constructed I-195 without any point of access to Fox Point, the neighborhood protested,

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Media Spotlight: Fox Point by gray brakke

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ntil the 1970s, Fox Point was the focal point of the Cape Verdean community in Providence. Today, the neighborhood that lies just south of Brown’s campus and a little ways down College Hill is primarily known to Brown students as the home of Duck and Bunny, India Point Park and — of course — The Whiskey Republic.

Brown students’ relationship to Fox Point reveals how the neighborhood has now become almost completely gentrified, with few traces left of its Cape Verdean history except a scattering of historic houses. This gentrification process was spurred by urban renewal schemes in the 1960s and Brown University’s own efforts to purchase property in the area. These images show the Fox Point of today and the scarce remains of its Cape Verdean heritage.

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See the full photo essay in the Media section at: brownpoliticalreview.org

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WAR CRIMES AND PUNISHMENT Why is the ICC targeting Africa?

STORY BY ANTHONY KARIUKI / ART BY KIM SALTZ

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ince its establishment in 2002, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has heard 22 cases and indicted 36 individuals, all of them from Africa. Now, in the midst of multiple ongoing ICC investigations in African countries, the continent has shot back. All members of the African Union (AU) — with the sole exception of Botswana — expressed their distrust in the institution during the 23rd annual African Union summit. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni even threatened to put forward a motion to have all African countries withdraw from the Court. Robert Mugabe, the new chairman of the AU, has echoed Museveni’s sentiments by insisting that a mass pullout appear on the AU’s next agenda.

Although these leaders have claimed that an inherent bias against the continent has caused the ICC to unfairly target African nations for review, the debate is not so simple. Instead, factors such as the limitations imposed on the Court’s jurisdiction — along with the lack of domestic or regional alternatives for prosecuting crimes against humanity — have been the real culprits in the alleged injustice.

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he foundations for the ICC were established after the Cold War demonstrated the need for an international judicial body that could prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The institution, headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands,

currently has 123 member states. These states are party to the Rome Statute, which serves as both the Court’s governing document and its statement of intent. Of the 123 countries that have signed and ratified the Rome Statute, just under one-third are African nations, and the continent’s delegates and representatives have historically played an important role both in the drafting of the statute and in the development of the judicial institution.

At first glance, the subjects of the Court’s scrutiny do not seem to be indicative of any geographical or continental bias. Currently, the Court is conducting multiple preliminary examinations in Colombia, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Georgia, Guinea, Honduras, Iraq, Ukraine and Palestine. Despite the wide mosaic of global hotspots the Court seems to consider improper, the only official investigations that have gone to trial have their roots in African countries.

There are a number of structural reasons why this lopsided attention has developed, and one of them is fundamentally jurisdictional. Despite its large membership and narrow focus, the ICC’s jurisdiction is a messy and byzantine affair. The Office of the Prosecutor is responsible for conducting investigations and may open cases when a situation is referred to the office by a member of the ICC, by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) or by individuals or organizations that report on crimes in countries within

the Court’s jurisdiction. Additionally, jurisdiction is not only limited to crimes committed after July 2002, but also by subject matter. Because the Court can only investigate cases involving genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, it is unable to prosecute other serious global transgressions. Further restrictions compound the jurisdictional issue even more. The prosecutor cannot open a case if a similar one is being tried at the national level. The only exception occurs if the Office of the Prosecutor concludes that there has not been a genuine process of justice on a national level — but such a conclusion is both subjective and political.

Crucially, the ICC is limited by its lack of jurisdiction over states that haven’t ratified the Rome Statute — a list that happens to include some of the most powerful nations in the world: the United States, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and Turkey.

The same rule that excludes the United States and Turkey from the ICC’s scrutiny also affects the Court’s ability to investigate and prosecute nonstate actors. The ICC can only investigate a nonstate actor if it receives an invitation to do so via a state’s formal declaration to the UNSC. However, this process is long and, because such a declaration requires unanimity in the UNSC, is frequently beset by political maneuvering between heavyweight rivals.

In the case of Syria, for example, the fact that the conflict involves both state and nonstate actors means that the ICC can only intervene if the UNSC refers the case, which is not likely to happen since Russia and China have veto powers and do not wish for the ICC to get involved in the conflict. The ICC’s limited prosecutorial abilities have also hampered the pursuit of nonstate actors in similar cases.

The cumulative weight of these limitations on the Court drastically reduces its possible targets, resulting in stringent boundaries on its reach. Since many countries in which cases could be brought are out of the ICC’s territory, an emphasis has been put on African nations as the ICC’s primary viable targets, as they make up a large chunk of the small handful of nations still within the Court’s capacity.

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THE ICC IS LIMITED BY ITS LACK OF JURISDICTION OVER STATES THAT HAVEN’T RATIFIED THE ROME STATUTE — A LIST THAT HAPPENS TO INCLUDE SOME OF THE MOST POWERFUL NATIONS IN THE WORLD: THE UNITED STATES, CHINA, INDIA, PAKISTAN, ISRAEL AND TURKEY. former police commissioner and a radio executive. But when the investigation began to face difficulties, the Kenyan parliament voted to end the internal examination and instead send a report to the ICC prosecutor. The prominence of the slogan, “Don’t be vague, let’s go to The Hague,” demonstrates the popular support for the move. The ICC subsequently accepted the case and completed its initial investigation within a year, summoning the Ocampo Six to trial in two separate cases to denounce their crimes against humanity.

In this light, it makes sense that the ICC’s spotlight shines so harshly on the African continent. The disproportionality lamented by African leaders is primarily driven by limitations on the ICC’s jurisdiction and the lack of alternative judicial pathways in Africa. Yet in a world where race and geopolitics are sensitive global issues, the continent’s luminaries and other ICC critics have not hesitated to express their opposition to the ICC.

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nother factor that has calibrated the ICC’s focus to Africa is the lack of viable alternative institutions for the promotion of justice. Currently, the only options are the African Human Rights Court (AHRC) and the Court of Justice of the African Union. Though the two courts are planning to combine, not enough countries have ratified the change.

In the meantime, these courts are minimally effective at best; they can hardly punish a normal robber, let alone genocide perpetrators or mass murderers. Furthermore, the AHRC is limited in that only 27 of 54 African countries have so far ratified its protocol and are party to its jurisdiction. And even in the areas in which the AHRC does retain jurisdiction, it has done little. The Court has yet to prosecute any serious offenders since its establishment 11 years ago. The reality is that attempting to make use of these failed courts will only serve to entrench impunity for African leaders, allowing them to continue to perpetrate crimes.

Although African countries have often tried to resolve their major judicial issues within their national court systems,

the ICC has proven time and again to be the only viable option. Both the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR) sought to try perpetrators domestically but turned to the ICC for help after failing to make headway. The DRC could not agree on the details for establishing a tribunal; the CAR could not prosecute the leader in question due to the political immunity he was guaranteed as vice president.

A recent case in Kenya followed a similar pattern. After disputed presidential elections in December 2007, violence rocked several parts of the country, leaving over 1,000 people dead and thousands of others injured or displaced. At first, the national government sought to open a criminal investigation into the primary instigators of the violence, the Ocampo Six, which included the Deputy Prime Minister, the Industrialization Minister, the Education Minister, a cabinet secretary, a

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ecently, the ICC’s attentional imbalance on Africa has resulted in several African leaders criticizing the Court’s focus on the continent as inappropriate: The threat to pull out of the Rome Statute en masse is just one example of angered rhetoric from African leaders.

But it is a critical one, since a mass pullout would damage the Court’s functionality.

Recognizing both African anger and the importance of its African members, the Court has taken some steps to placate its critics. But even recent changes like the appointment of Gambia’s Fatou Bensouda to the Office of the Prosecutor have not spared the Court from increasingly harsh critiques.

One such critic is former AU Commissioner Jean Ping. Ping believes that the Court is not just unfairly targeting Africa, but that it is designed to do precisely that.

His lament can be summed up in his recent exclamation: “Why not Myanmar…

Why not Iraq?”

Ping’s question has an answer: Myanmar is not party to the ICC, and the Court is indeed targeting countries like Iraq. The current Iraq case is undergoing a procedural “Phase 2” investigation, a subject matter jurisdiction phase in which the Court analyzes all the information it has gathered to determine whether the preconditions for it to exercise its jurisdiction are satisfied. Although the Court decided to discontinue its investigation in 2006, the then-Prosecutor for the ICC, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, announced that investigations could be re-opened if more information became available. And so it has. Last January, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, together with Public Interest Lawyers, submitted a communication to the Court alleging the responsibility of United Kingdom officials in war crimes involving systematic detainee abuse in Iraq from 2003 to 2008. While Iraq is not party to the Rome Statute, the UK is, placing a new case within ICC jurisdiction. The Court is now in the process of conducting a preliminary examination to determine whether there is a reasonable basis for it to proceed further with its investigation.

It remains to be seen if the ICC will rise above the criticism regarding its geographical focus and open a case against the UK. Though the AU’s claim of bias may be unsubstantiated, it is not their only concern regarding foul play from the ICC. The AU has also accused the Court of breaking international law, saying that by investi-

gating sitting heads of African states, it has failed to respect political figures’ guarantees of immunity from prosecution. Prosecuted figures include the current president and vice president of Kenya as well as the president of Sudan. The international immunity law stems from an understanding that while in office, state officials fulfill critical executive duties and that undergoing prosecution for criminal offenses could hinder their performance. Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Minister Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus summed up the sentiment at a recent summit, when he said that asking a sitting president to appear before the Court was tantamount to infringing on the sovereignty of a country. And in this regard, the critics may be right: The ICC has indeed taken improper action against African leaders while they remained in office.

Yet even this complaint is not so clearcut. In the Sudanese case, like the Libyan one, it was the UNSC that referred the problems to the ICC. Both referrals had

THE AU HAS ACCUSED THE ICC OF BREAKING INTERNATIONAL LAW, SAYING THAT BY INVESTIGATING SITTING HEADS OF AFRICAN STATES, IT HAS FAILED TO RESPECT POLITICAL FIGURES’ GUARANTEES OF IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION. the full support of all the African countries that were represented in the UNSC at the time. And in even more striking irony, many of the African cases investigated by the ICC were referred to the Court by the governments of these countries themselves. The procedures of the ICC require that justice be a two-way street: When the international community or even a country’s own government asks for international aid in bringing justice, the ICC has a heavy responsibility to take act.

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uch of the current criticism of the ICC is reflective of some questionable political practices.

In Kenya’s Ocampo Six case, for example, although government officials originally referred the case to the ICC, the rhetorical tide quickly began to turn after the initial investigation closed. Those who suspected that they might be held culpable as a result of the trial quickly began to denounce the Court. Many of the same people who

had originally selected the ICC as their preferred pathway towards justice began to openly complain about the Court’s failures in handling the case, accusing it of basing its evidence on hearsay rather than conducting a serious investigation.

Ultimately, facing a new surge of pressure from Kenya, the ICC had to drop most of the charges due to what it deemed “noncooperation by the government.” The Kenyan government has also vowed to continue to impede the progress of the ICC on any remaining cases in order to prevent it from taking any decisive steps towards the provision of justice. In short, Kenya exemplifies the way in which criticisms of the ICC and its supposed focus on Africa have primarily become political maneuvers and knee-jerk reactions from those who are likely to face justice in The Hague’s halls.

Nor is Kenya the only government to have backtracked on its support for the ICC after the Court’s scrutiny turned to its leaders. For example, in 2003, under the leadership of Laurent Gbagbo, the government of Côte d’Ivoire submitted a declaration accepting the jurisdiction of the ICC. Following violence related to the country’s disputed elections of 2010, the new president, Alassane Outtara, reaffirmed the former declaration, an act that ultimately led to the indictment of former President Gbagbo. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gbagbo and his supporters’ public view of the Court shifted once it had issued arrest warrants against him and his wife.

So although the statement that the ICC has prosecuted African individuals disproportionately is undeniable, the disproportionality is not, as has been alleged, the result of any inherent prejudice.

Rather, it is the result of structural factors such as limitations on the ICC’s jurisdiction and a lack of alternatives for effectively prosecuting African leaders. Moreover, the accusations are often rooted in the desire of powermongers to deflect unwanted scrutiny from their own actions, rather than in any substantive malaise lurking at the core of the ICC. As long as the ICC remains the Mother Continent’s best path towards justice, African countries would be wise to avoid retreating from the Court in the name of regional autonomy.

ANTHONY KARIUKI ‘17 IS AN APPLIED MATHECONOMICS CONCENTRATOR.

Read more about the ICC’s case in Sudan at: brownpoliticalreview.org

PLASTIC SURGE The Emirates’ new nose STORY BY NAZ AKYOL ART BY JULIA LADICS

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The soaring numbers of and international interest in Dubai’s plastic surgery clinics also reflect shifting geopolitical sands. International demand for cosmetic surgery used to be dispersed among facilities in Lebanon, South Korea and the United States. This change in consumer patterns has mainly occurred at the expense of Beirut’s status as the most popular destination for wealthy Middle Easterners to be nipped and tucked. Due to regional conflict, Beirut’s predominance as a medical tourism destination has declined, given that medical tourists often prioritize safety. Dr. Sami Saad, the National Secretary for the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery in Lebanon, has said that business in Beirut has dropped by about 30 to 40 percent.

The influx in demand for plastic surgery and cosmetic operations has been a boon for Dubai’s economy. These operations are the second-largest contributor to Dubai’s blossoming medical tourism sector, ranking only behind cancer and oncology treatments. According to the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), in 2012, medical tourists made up 8.7 percent of the health sector’s total revenue. The founder of the Dubai plastic surgery consultancy, Vasilica Aesthetics, adds that the city’s healthcare market is expected to grow 11.4 percent over the next two years.

These developments make Dubai’s future seem bright and prosperous. In 2013, according to the DHA, around 120,000 medical tourists visited Dubai, generating $200 million in revenue — a 12 percent increase from 2012. In 2014, the number of medical tourists jumped to 135,000, and that figure is projected to exceed 150,000 by the end of this year. Furthermore, the number of medical tourists visiting Dubai exclusively for cosmetic treatment purposes is expected to double in 2015, and revenue from medical tourism is predicted to increase to $299.5 million in 2016. By 2020, when an estimated half-million medical tourists will visit the city, this number may even reach a remarkable $708 million.

Despite contemporary criticism of universal beauty standards, the intersection of political and economic pull factors has been incredibly powerful. Dubai is the new global giant in the plastic surgery business, and perhaps Kevin Sands, the Kardashians’ cosmetic dentist, said it best: “It’s a gold mine.”

NAZ AKYOL ‘17 IS AN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS CONCENTRATOR, ASSOCIATE CONTENT DIRECTOR AND AN ASSOCIATE EDITOR AT BPR.

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hockingly, Beverly Hills is no longer the place plastic surgeons want to be. That dubious honor instead goes to Dubai, the young cosmopolis that is becoming the hottest plastic surgery market in the world. In Dubai, there are a whopping 56 plastic surgeons per 1 million citizens, compared to 20 in the United States and 23 in Brazil. In a country where clothing is expected to cover the majority of the body, it is puzzling that this particular medical sector is flourishing. And while this puzzle has no singular solution, multiple factors come into play: the ascent of domestic demand, helpful government policy and geopolitical tremors throughout the region.

Plastic surgeons have become highly cognizant of the colossal growth in the Dubai market. “If you think about 20 years ago, nobody in the world [had] heard about Dubai. And today there is not a person in the world that hasn’t heard about it,” says Dr. Luiz Toledo, a Brazilian plastic surgeon who moved his practice to Dubai a decade ago. Since 2009, celebrity surgeons like Dr. Toledo and Beverly Hills’ Dr. Jason Diamond have traveled with increasing frequency to the jewel of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in response to the massive demand for their expertise, bringing along other notable and successful contemporaries. “Every time I go, I don’t even sit down,” Dr. Diamond says. “I’m running around from 7 am until midnight. The demand is literally out the door.” The membership of the Emirates Plastic Surgery Society has jumped from 60 in 2006 to 150 this year.

A significant part of the demand for cosmetic surgery is homegrown, or at least

imported from close by. With expats, migrant workers and business residents of 200 different nationalities calling the Emirati city home, Dubai’s plastic surgeons have a colorful palette of patients willing to go under the knife. “Last year, I saw patients from 73 nationalities…a record,” says Dr. Toledo. Though patients come from as far as Africa and Eastern Europe, the majority, he says, come from the Gulf countries, with many hailing from Saudi Arabia. It’s common for Middle Eastern women to arrive at a Dubai plastic surgery clinic demanding Angelina Jolie’s lips or Kim Kardashian’s nose. Evidently, the region has not been exempt from the pressure to conform to beauty standards universalized through the widespread popularity of Western culture.

“They have very similar beauty ideals to what we have here based on the Hollywood influence,” says Dr. Diamond, describing cosmetic demands of his Middle Eastern patients. “That was a really big shock to me.”

Though organic upticks in domestic demand have been vital to the growth of Dubai’s skin-dicing trade, government policy has played a part as well. The emirate, in accordance with the rest of the UAE, has no income tax on earnings, making it particularly appealing for surgeons looking to capitalize on their gains overseas.

In addition to being an attractive market for surgeons, Dubai is also economically appealing to the consumers in the industry. To take full advantage of the thriving medical tourism sector, the city has rolled out three-month renewable visas specifically catered to medical tourists — many of whom are traveling for cosmetic surgery — and their companions. This policy is part of a larger campaign to brand Dubai as the preeminent center for plastic surgery in the Middle East. Dubai intends to pursue this prosperous status as a medical tourism hub by targeting half a million health and wellness visitors by 2020 and hopes to grow the economy fourfold in revenues from this sector alone.

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THE CARRIAGE OF JUSTICE How did miscarriage become a crime in El Salvador?

STORY BY AMALIA PEREZ / ART BY GOYO KWON

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even years ago, 18-year-old Carmen Guadalupe Vasquez Aldana was rushed to the hospital in her home country of El Salvador. Vasquez had been raped months earlier and was now suffering a miscarriage. After she gave birth to a stillborn child, police raided her hospital room, handcuffed her and charged her with abortion, which would later balloon to aggravated homicide. Her unwarranted health nightmare was rendered a criminal case under El Salvador’s draconian reproductive rights laws, which criminalize miscarriages. El Salvador, along with its Central American counterparts Honduras and Nicaragua, is one of the seven countries across the Latin American and Caribbean region with a total ban on abortion. In January of this year, seven years into Vasquez’s

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30-year prison sentence, the Salvadoran Supreme Court issued an unprecedented pardon, a decision that evoked praise from women’s rights and human rights organizations worldwide. While this is a victory for the reproductive rights movement in El Salvador, 16 women remain incarcerated in the country on miscarriage-related murder charges.

Despite taking steps towards equality for women, Central America’s tumultuous political history and inextricable relationship with the Catholic Church has established the region as the hemispheric epicenter of the oppression of women’s reproductive rights. Vasquez’s case may be worthy of celebration, but the pardoning of an 18-year-old who suffered a miscarriage may not signal a significant shift in tides

given the entrenched political realities of harsh restrictions on women’s rights.

Extremism on abortion rights in El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua is complemented by policies in these countries’ regional neighbors — Guatemala, Mexico and Panama — whose near-total bans on abortion exempt only those cases in which the mother’s life is in direct jeopardy, a standard that cases of rape and incest often don’t meet. The stagnancy of grassroots reproductive rights movements, confounded by the regional rigidity of abortion legislation, is exhibited in one statistic: In 2008, 95 percent of abortions across Latin America were conducted under unsafe circumstances.

The health risks for women enduring covert procedures are catastrophic, and El Salvador’s problematic policies — like many across the region — force women to risk their lives in clandestine abortion procedures.

El Salvador’s regressive trajectory with regards to women’s reproductive rights can be traced back to the country’s civil war, which dragged on from the late 1960s into the 1990s. Tacit US involvement, government death squads and decades of political violence characterized this tumultuous era. By January 1992 — after the war had claimed 70,000 lives — the leftist rebel party, Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), finally signed a peace treaty with the right-wing, military-led government. This agreement would prove to indirectly, but decisively, alter the status of abortion rights in the country to the detriment of women’s health and safety. On one hand, political scientists and historians alike hail the peace process as one of the most successful in world history, for it precipitated the peaceful transition of the FMLN into the major political party it is today. However, even if it did provide a pathway to representation for the liberal opposition of FMLN, it also further cemented the authority of the established, conservative ruling government. The peace treaty segued into larger constitutional reform, an

Say Yes to Life Foundation, or Fundación Sí a la Vida. Though grassroots movements made a resolute attempt to secure abortion rights in 1990, forming the Day of Action for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion, the combined voices of the government and the Church eclipsed the actions of these women’s rights advocacy groups. The prevalence of the Catholic Church is also underscored in the Salvadoran government’s founding of Ciudad Mujer, a task force whose ostensible protection of women’s fundamental rights quickly revealed it to be a mere puppet of the marriage between the Church and the state. The Council on Hemispheric Affairs argues that the task force “all too often functions to reinforce the traditional Catholic view of women as mothers and wives,” concluding that “it is of little help” to women in El Salvador.

WITH INSTITUTIONAL ANIMOSITY TOWARDS ABORTIONS ALREADY IN THE MIX, THE INCREASING PREVALENCE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN POLITICAL PROCEEDINGS CREATES A PERFECT STORM FOR FOSTERING CENTRAL AMERICA’S ANTIQUATED REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS. The influence of the Catholic Church on Salvadoran politics is reflective of the region as a whole. Nearly all Central American nations have a ban on abortion with a varying range of circumstantial exemptions, and the majority of these, not coincidentally, are characterized by a similarly heavy religious influence in their legislation. Even Costa Rica has implemented harsh abortion laws incongruent with the popular progressivism for which it has been praised. Most recently, the county raised international eyebrows when it denied a woman the right to an abortion despite the intense physical toll the pregnancy was taking on her body.

Though the law is supposed to include an exception for when a woman’s life or health is at risk, the woman’s doctors and, ultimately, the Costa Rican Supreme Court, decided that her physical pain and depression were not significant enough to grant her an abortion. Although the laws were designed to be somewhat more lenient than those of, say, El Salvador, increasingly strict interpretation of the laws has created a rather draconian anti-abortion sentiment.

With institutional animosity towards abortions already in the mix, the increasing

prevalence of the Catholic Church in political proceedings creates a perfect storm for fostering Central America’s antiquated reproductive rights. Between 1971 and 2001, the number of Catholic Seminarians in Costa Rica increased by 421 percent — and that number has been on the rise since. The Church’s political influence is evidenced by the fact that the majority of Central American politicians vying for office say they would not contradict the stance of the Catholic Church for fear of jeopardizing their political potential.

Fortunately, recent actions and political shifts have created a few far-fetched beacons of hope for the future of women’s reproductive rights in El Salvador and Central America at large. Vasquez’s historic pardoning comes as El Salvador moves to the left: The last two presidents have been from the FMLN, which has grown increasingly progressive over the years, including a thawing stance towards women’s and reproductive rights. Following a critical victory last year in which he defeated his conservative Alianza Republicana Nacionalista opponent, President Salvador Sánchez Cerén publicly condemned the Supreme Court’s and the National Legislature’s incarceration of the 16 women. This powerful statement from the president comes at a time when grassroots organizing for women’s rights is finally seeking a competitive political platform, with groups like the San Salvador Feminist Collective financing the appeals processes of the 16 women who remain unjustly incarcerated. The party’s newfound efficacy on El Salvador’s democratic stage demonstrates the importance of women in the political space, and it is clear that women’s voices will be integral to the movement towards more progressive reproductive rights.

The new government has a meager chance to shift the trajectory of reproductive rights and women’s safety in El Salvador.

The fate of the 16 women who remain incarcerated, as well as that of all the country’s female citizens, lies in the hands of President Sánchez Cerén and his government.

Perhaps El Salvador’s rigid laws have finally met their match in the country’s shifting political and social tides — tides that are only now moving previously dormant women’s rights issues towards the forefront of the political stage.

AMALIA PEREZ ‘18 IS AN INTENDED CONCENTRATOR IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES AND AN ASSOCIATE CULTURE SECTION MANAGER AT BPR.

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opportunity conservatives in government used to temper abortion rights. Before the rewriting of the constitution in 1998, abortions had been legal in extenuating circumstances, but an amendment changed that — instead banning abortion completely. Civil war era shifts in the makeup of the Salvadoran government are partially responsible for women’s rights falling through the cracks. In short, as the Council on Hemispheric Affairs states: “Institutional change [in post-war El Salvador] provoked constitutional change.”

Nicaragua, a few hundred miles south of El Salvador, maintains equally oppressive reproductive rights legislation. Along with a total ban on abortion, the country also prosecutes doctors who treat pregnant women with serious medical conditions, such as cancer, as doing so is considered tampering with the fetus. As in El Salvador, institutional change provoked the rigidity of today’s legislation: The pressure from interest groups and the Catholic Church to ban abortion completely — as opposed to allowing abortion in extreme cases — stood at the forefront of Nicaragua’s 2006 presidential elections. Afraid of polarizing formidable factions of the voting population, most candidates assented to the abortion ban, and the constitution was amended later that year to institute the new policy.

Except for Belize, whose ban on abortion exempts myriad circumstances, the rest of Nicaragua and El Salvador’s Central American neighbors emulate their rigidity, albeit with somewhat less extreme measures. The history of institutional fluctuation and the animosity maintained by Central American governments have transcended the decades since their countries’ wars and today silently perpetuate and institutionalize these states’ social conservatism.

Institutional animosity is not the only factor underlying the paucity of protections for women. The entrenchment of the Catholic Church in the political and social environments of Central America plays a decisive role in maintaining the conservative doctrines of these states. The Church’s policies are of critical political importance in a region where nearly 90 percent of the population professes to be Catholic, a figure that makes anti-abortion momentum at a federal level relatively easy to muster.

For example, the Salvadoran government of the 1990s was only able to push forth its drastic amendment to the constitution with the collaborative help of religiously affiliated interest groups, most notably the

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Greece’s new leadership is stirring up trouble.

STORY BY MATTEO CAVELIER RICCARDI / ART BY BEN BERKE

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ticularly EU allies scandalized by the new government’s demands for debt relief. In order to bankroll its domestic spending, Syriza has insisted on drastic changes to its debt deal with international creditors. Some estimates report that 90 percent of bailout funds from the so-called Troika — the EU, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank — are currently earmarked for repaying foreign bank loans with significant interest rates. When it became evident that Syriza was headed for victory, Germany and other major EU creditors voiced their willingness to renegotiate when and how Greek debt would be repaid. The flexibility of other EU leaders is by no means new.

The fact that the Troika bailed out the Greek government three times between 2010 and 2012 is a testament to the degree to which creditors have been flexible with Greek debt repayment. Syriza Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis nevertheless articulated

BY RESORTING TO THE EMOTIONAL TOPIC OF THE NAZI OCCUPATION, TSIPRAS MAY BE ATTEMPTING TO STRONGARM GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL INTO RECONSIDERING HER STANCE ON GREECE’S DEBT SITUATION. his disinterest in continuing what his party believes is an endless chain of debt and austerity. Rather, Varoufakis intends to write off most of Greece’s debt, forcing European banks and governments to absorb the costs.

Foreign creditors have barely flinched in the face of this provocation. Governor of the Bank of France Christian Noyer ruled out Varoufakis’ proposal during a radio interview only a few days after Syriza’s victory.

On February 5, German Federal Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schäuble similarly said a write-off was “off the agenda,” according to the BBC. To counter Germany’s dissent, Syriza has conjured a historical argument that reflects its tendency to appeal to pathos rather than sincere negotiation: war reparations. Citing the massive sums that Nazis exacted from Greece during World War II, Syriza has repeatedly demanded compensation from Germany. This request harkens back to a “top-secret report” released in 2013 by the Athens finance ministry, which cited no-interest loans that

Hitler forced the Greeks to provide after the Nazi occupation in 1941, as well as serious infrastructure damage done to Greek cities at the time. The report concluded that the current German government owed Greece €162 billion ($212 billion at the time of the report), a number that other advocacy groups like the National Council on Reparations quote to be as high as $677 billion by including the value of stolen artifacts and individual claims.

But the demands for reparations led nowhere, at least under the previous government, a failure that was often derided by Syriza’s antiestablishment campaign. Tsipras even promised that his government would “demand debt reduction, and the money Germany owes [Greece] from World War II, including reparations.” This, however, is doubtless more rhetoric than policy. The Guardian’s Phillip Inman noted that France, the Benelux countries and Britain made similar reparations demands directly after the war in 1945, but they all rescinded their requests once the Marshall Plan began to revive their war-wrecked economies. Syriza therefore has little historical precedent for its demands. Instead, by resorting to the emotional topic of the Nazi occupation, while simultaneously demanding changes to the debt deal, Tsipras may be attempting little more than to strong-arm German Chancellor Angela Merkel into reconsidering her stance on Greece’s debt situation.

Refusing to further acquiesce to EU economic demands, a Greece with Syriza and Kammenos at the helm could challenge other aspects of its relationship with Western Europe and the United States — specifically its longstanding membership in NATO. Syriza has voiced its intention to reevaluate the country’s role in NATO, despite the fact that Greece’s membership stretches back to 1952. According to the BBC, the official party line supports “a multi-dimensional, pro-peace foreign policy for Greece, with no involvement in wars or military plans.” Foreign policy spokesman Costas Isychos also pronounced that NATO has “no reason to exist,” echoing another Syriza statement suggesting that NATO is a dated byproduct of the Cold War. These incendiary statements have come at a rather inconvenient time for Europe, when many of its nations are revisiting the importance of military coalitions in the face of growing aggression from Moscow.

So far, however, it seems that Tsipras is merely trying to use NATO membership as a bargaining chip with its conventional al-

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s Alexis Tsipras and his victorious Syriza party try to make good on the promises that put them in power, world leaders are struggling to keep their frustration in check. In January, Greeks voted the radical left-wing party into office, hoping to reverse the austerity measures that saved Greece’s government from default but left its economy mired in recession. Tsipras wasted no time in unveiling plans for sizable social programs with wide popular appeal. It is no surprise that this promised surge in government spending put Greece’s lenders, namely France and Germany, on edge. Far more unexpected, however, are the new government’s controversial foreign policy tactics that have challenged Greece’s relationship with the European Union and other traditional allies. Syriza’s coalition with the right-wing Independent Greeks (ANEL), fronted by the radical new defense minister, Panos Kammenos, was a foreboding sign that Greece could soon stir up trouble. Ultimately, Tsipras’ methods and the inflammatory inclinations of his partners in government may further isolate Greece.

Tsipras’ foreign policy makes it more likely that his pleas to the EU and other allies to pull Greece out of a social and economic crisis will be rudely rebuked.

By forming a coalition with the Independent Greeks, Syriza has married radical foreign policy ideals to its already radical domestic agenda. What attracted Greeks to Tsipras and his party in the first place was the promise to reverse foreign-imposed austerity measures and provide economic relief through various forms of government aid.

Yet his alliance with ANEL and Kammenos has thrown in a wild card. Kammenos, whose party was described by the Greek Reporter as “patriotic,” “church-loving” and “anti-immigration,” is an unconventionally nationalistic choice for defense minister, considering how much of Tsipras’ job will involve easing international resistance to his domestic goals. Additionally, Kammenos’ nationalist sentiments may provoke him to diverge from Syriza’s main line. Already, his recent claims that Germany is “trying to abolish the European Union and NATO altogether” and that its demands amount to “blackmail” are a taste of his provocative rhetoric. Kammenos’ statements pander to an enthusiastic domestic audience wary of foreign pressure on Greece, but they may ultimately destabilize Greece’s economic and military interests in the larger region.

Syriza itself has shown few qualms about antagonizing its neighbors — par-

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lies. According to former International Herald Tribune correspondent Judy Dempsey, Greek armed forces “rely on NATO for their security,” and while Kammenos’ statements might make it seem otherwise, the actions of the new government haven’t departed from previous policies. On February 3, Kammenos met with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to reaffirm Greece’s commitment to the organization and to resolve the perplexity caused by Syriza’s statements.

Kammenos specified that Greece would still cooperate with NATO “on a political level and also on a military level.” Rather than gesturing towards an exit, Greece may be floating the possibility of their departure so

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of Greeks were at risk of poverty in 2013, compared to 28% in Italy and 20% in Germany.

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that NATO feels pressured to concede to its demands. The government’s rhetorical maneuvering might result in some superficial successes for the fledgling administration, but it is just as likely to result in new tensions with countries that will increasingly read the new government’s ambiguity as antagonism.

The status of Macedonia and Kosovo is at the heart of Greece’s spats with the EU and tangles with its neighbors. Though the EU has tried to bring these countries into its sphere of influence, Greece has repeatedly disrupted these attempts. Macedonia is a candidate for full membership in NATO, and it has been repeatedly tapped for accession talks into the EU since 2005. Greek opposition to Macedonian membership is largely related to the country’s official name, the “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.” According to a policy statement by the Greek foreign ministry, “the term ‘Macedonia,’ which is a Greek word, refers to the kingdom and culture of the ancient Macedonians, who belonged to the Hellenic nation and are unquestionably part of Greek historical and cultural heritage.” Greeks are afraid that the country’s name will push the nation to sustain claims to parts of Greece, as in some school books, in which Macedonia presents “Greek territory as being within the territory of a ‘greater’ Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.” Kyriakos Moumoutzis of King’s College London believes

unfriendly Greek policy towards Macedonia will not change under Kammenos; ANEL previously made an independent statement saying it would “refuse to negotiate over the issue of [Macedonia’s] name altogether.” This is problematic for EU policy, which prioritizes political and economic stability in Eastern Europe and doesn’t consider Macedonia’s path to democratization guaranteed. A similar case exists with the self-proclaimed state of Kosovo, which Greece also refuses to recognize. EU member states Spain, Romania, Slovakia and Cyprus all consider Kosovo a part of Serbia so as to not inflame similar independence claims by minorities in their own countries.

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The two states joined NATO in the midst of the Cold War, a military tie some analysts believe has allowed them to avoid animosity over the years. Former Turkish military advisor Metin Gürcan considers Kammenos’ plans to “develop the military” and mold “new pacts outside NATO” as a direct challenge to Greece’s alliance with Turkey, especially since this rhetoric is coming from a defense minister whom Gürcan labels as an “unadulterated nationalist” and “dedicated anti-Turkish politician.” Fears that the new nationalist defense minister might spark conflict with Turkey were further stoked when Kammenos flew by helicopter to the disputed Imia Islets in the Aegean Sea —

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Greece’s rate of unemployment in 2014, compared to Italy’s 13%, Spain’s 24% and Germany’s 5%.

Greece’s ratio of debt to GDP in 2013, compared to Italy’s 133% and Spain’s 94%.

The new government’s rhetoric threatens continued and heightened obstructionism to EU policy goals in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, increasing the chances of instability in a region already scarred by a long history of bloody conflicts.

An uncooperative Greece may also reignite its antagonism towards Turkey, waking tensions that could spell disaster for both Greece and the EU. Initially, it seemed as though Syriza’s ascendance could lead to closer ties with Turkey. Turkish analysts saw Tsipras’ talk of “the prospect of a settlement on Cyprus” as a positive sign that Syriza’s Greece would solve one of its long-standing disputes with Turkey. Since 1974, Cyprus has been split in two, with the independent Cypriot state under Athens’ sphere of influence, while the island’s northern section is occupied by the Turkish military.

Turks hoped that the new Greek government would be open to recommencing talks to resolve the issue, which were stalled by Greek withdrawal in December 2014. With a similarly hopeful tone, both sides lauded a December 2014 meeting between Tsipras and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu as an “important beginning in bilateral relations.”

However, some of the latest moves by Kammenos suggest that hopeful predictions of Greek-Turkish reconciliation may have been premature. First, Syriza’s tenuous relationship with NATO is troubling Turkey.

the site of previous conflict between the two countries — despite the visit’s apparently benign nature. The Turkish Doğan News Agency portrayed the resulting chaos as an “unfriendly confrontation” between the Turkish and Greek navies, and it interpreted Kammenos’ move as a message that Greece intended to recommence its claims over the uninhabited islets.

It may still be too early to tell whether Kammenos’ nationalist sentiments will impact Turkish-Greek relations, as these initial aggressions are more likely meant to appeal to nationalist Greeks than to establish anti-Turkish policies in the long run. “On both sides of the Aegean,” writes Gürcan, “the hope is that the first action by Kammenos… was a one-time populist move to prove his credentials.” If Gürcan is wrong, however, heightened tensions between Greece and Turkey would come at a problematic time for the EU as a whole, since Turkey is a major strategic partner in combating the spread of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. In what Reuters has called “one of the highest-ranking EU visits to Turkey in years,” the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini — essentially the EU’s foreign minister — visited Ankara in December to rally Turkish support for EU policies, promising €70 million in aid for the Turkish government in response to the influx of Syrian refugees. If Greece’s provoc-

moves leave little hope that this balance can be attained.

Tsipras’ campaign promises for monumental changes to Greek policies already had EU leaders braced for the worst, but one move in particular has left the Brussels establishment in shock: In a break with EU policy, Syriza has taken to defending Russian interests. The Greek elections came at an especially grave time for EU-Russia relations, when upticks in violence along the Ukraine-Russia border forced the United States and several EU leaders to strengthen their resolve to respond to violence in eastern Ukraine. But when the EU published a condemning statement aimed at Russia earlier this year, the newly elected Tsipras asked to delay the issuance of this strongly worded communiqué. The EU continued regardless. Snubbed, Tsipras declared that Greece did “not consent” to the statement and sent a complaint to Mogherini over the issue. Regarding the EU plan to impose further sanctions on Russia, Syriza also made it clear that it “would not back another batch of measures, let alone support those already in place that come up for renewal in March.”

Greece’s pro-Russia stance was not ignored in Moscow, and Russian Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov even offered to help Greece settle its debt problems. As sanctions have to be approved unanimously by the European Parliament, Moumoutzis said moves like these by Greece “could undermine the effectiveness of EU foreign policy.” Tsipras’ position also outraged other EU heads of state, with Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas A. Linkevičius summarizing that the Greeks were “forced to change their stubborn position over sanctions.” Although a diplomatic crisis within the EU was averted, Tsipras’ initial decision to step out of line with other EU leaders demonstrated just one more way in which Greece has antagonized EU foreign policy.

Such crude moves by Tsipras may also hurt the country’s ties with some nations that have so far been unfazed by Greece’s poor economic and military track record. In particular, Syriza’s economic policies might soon put it at odds with China, a prospective ally that is investing heavily in European state-controlled firms. In previous administrations, one plan to reduce national debt included privatizing the state-owned Piraeus Port, one of the largest ports in Europe.

But Tsipras’ government put all privatization plans for state firms and public infrastructure on hold “as an open challenge to international creditors,” who had demanded

the privatizations in order to finance debt repayments. The privatization freeze has angered China, whose COSCO company was one of the primary contenders to buy the state’s share of the port. Commerce Ministry spokesperson Shen Danyang issued a statement saying China was “deeply concerned”

by Syriza’s decision, pushing Syriza to arrange a meeting on the issue with the Chinese ambassador in Athens. Some surmise that Syriza wants to privatize these state structures on its own terms, using the funds to bankroll social programs as opposed to paying foreign creditors. However, an effort

by Greece to increase public spending is more likely to alienate it from the countries that are currently willing to continue to negotiate on its debt, while further frustrating Greece’s other economic allies.

As it becomes increasingly clear that Syriza’s domestic and foreign policies are unsustainable, other radical parties in Europe may realize the need to temper their populism with a dose of pragmatism. In the aftermath of Syriza’s victory, it was predicted that the spread of Syriza’s anti-austerity policies would create a pan-European alliance against German domination of EU bodies. Pablo Iglesias, leader of the Spanish anti-austerity party Podemos, proclaimed that the Greek election was a precursor to “a year of change in Spain and in Europe.” Podemos celebrated Syriza’s victory by holding a highly publicized rally in Valencia. However, the failures of Tsipras, Varoufakis and Kammenos are likely to push Iglesias to keep his distance from Syriza in the future.

It is not as though Syriza’s policies are shockingly radical in and of themselves; other Greek politicians have certainly espoused the virtues of debt renegotiation and more progressive regional policies. But Syriza’s attempts to use foreign policy as a weapon to reverse German and French attitudes towards Greek debt have proven futile, if not counterproductive. Inflammatory rhetoric, whether calculated to drum up national support or to attain foreign policy goals, has placed Greece’s international relations in increasingly precarious circumstances. Unfortunately for Syriza, the party may soon have to eat its words.

MATTEO CAVELIER RICCARDI ‘17 IS AN EAST ASIAN STUDIES AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE CONCENTRATOR AND AN ASSOCIATE EDITOR AT BPR.

Read more about the Greek debt crisis at: brownpoliticalreview.org

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ative acts continue, though, Turkey may be more reticent to fall in line with EU policy on the Middle East.

Kammenos’ political convictions may also fray Greece’s developing military alliance with Israel. The two countries and the United States have carried out joint military exercises since 2011. Shortly thereafter, there were talks amongst Greek, Cypriot and Israeli energy ministers about exploiting recently discovered natural gas deposits in the eastern Mediterranean. The flourishing relations between Greece and Israel were reflected in a 2013 editorial written by former Greek Interior Minister Evripidis Stylianidis, in which he insisted that Greece was the “ideal transnational partner,” for Israel and that an Israel-Greece-Cyprus alliance could “alter the status quo in the region.” Defense Minister Kammenos has promised to continue this line of cooperation with Israel “both on a political and military level,” considering the importance of strong ties between the countries to counter Turkish influence in the region.

Despite a history of strong ties between Israel and Greece, Kammenos’ blunt and politically incorrect statements may sour the spirit of cooperation. In a widely publicized comment last year, Kammenos claimed that “Greek Jews paid less taxes than other citizens,” which the Greek Central Board of Jewish Communities attacked as a “seriously anti-Semitic act.” Though Kammenos has since tried to make amends through positive comments about Greek-Israeli cooperation, Israel did not take kindly to his appointment. Israeli news network Arutz Sheva published an article titled: “Anti-Semitic Politician Now Greek PM’s Ally,” accusing Kammenos of being “fond of conspiracy theories.” Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an article with a similar tone, but it tried to put the statement in context, explaining that “anti-Semitic stereotypes are widespread [in Greece],” suggesting Kammenos’ statements may not exactly reflect an anti-Israeli policy. The same article said Kammenos “is still likely to be more pro-Israel than the Syriza lawmakers,” who it claims have supported pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the past. Kammenos’ policies may be pro-Israel, but anti-Semitic rhetoric could complicate Greek relations with Israel in the long run. Kammenos’ challenge now will be maintaining a balance between bolstering domestic support through his nationalist rhetoric and maintaining diplomatic rapport with Greece’s strategic allies. So far, Kammenos’ tactless

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APOCALYPSE THEN AND NOW America is taking lessons from Vietnam in its war on ISIL. STORY BY JASON GINSBERG / ART BY OLIVIA WATSON

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alf a century ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson made a decision that still haunts the American memory today. In February 1965, Johnson announced the now-infamous bombing campaign Operation Rolling Thunder.

Fifty years later, it is hard not to notice a dark sense of déjà vu. Every day, headlines report the progress of American airstrikes and the intensifying bombing campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Since last August, the United States, joined by a host of allies, has led a surge of new airstrikes in Iraq and Syria as part of Operation Inherent Resolve.

And over the past six months, the United States alone has deployed more than 5,000 weapons against ISIL. As efforts continue to escalate, the historical parallels are impossible to ignore. By the 1960s, in the midst of the Cold War, Americans were tired after forces in Korea had failed to roll back communism. Today, recovering from the longest war in US history, Americans are similarly weary of international conflict. In practice, the United States has almost blindly supported the Iraqi government in its confrontation with a local, nonstate actor. The war in Southeast Asia similarly brought US support to South Vietnam against the throes of a guerrilla movement. Given the similar context for both conflicts, it is not surprising that so many — from Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to Paul Findley, one of the principal architects of the War Powers Resolution — have compared US efforts in the Middle East today to Vietnam.

Considering the psychological toll Vietnam took on the United States, the historical similarities between the two campaigns might seem troublesome. But it is clear that Operation Inherent Resolve has fundamental advantages over its historical parallel. With a firm moral stance, joint operations on the ground and a global coalition of support, efforts against ISIL are better positioned for success.

Since airstrikes began in August 2014, the fight against the Islamic State has been one of significant moral magnitude.

Though President Obama initially dis-

missed ISIL as “a jayvee team” last January, he has since supported increased pressure against it. When ISIL advanced into Iraq, the world watched as over 40,000 Yazidis — a Kurdish religious group — were left stranded on Mount Sinjar. In response, Obama authorized humanitarian aid and offensive airstrikes in order “to prevent a potential act of genocide.” Since then, numerous developments, including ISIL beheadings of civilian hostages, mistreatment of women and children and the recent execution of a Jordanian pilot, have framed the fight against ISIL as an international moral struggle. It is not just about defeating a threat to nations, but also about destroying a threat to humanity. As such, Obama’s recent proposal for an Authorization for Use of Military Force carries

ISIL HAS HELD JOURNALISTS FOR RANSOM, CALLED UPON FOREIGN FIGHTERS TO ATTACK THEIR OWN NATIONS AND PUBLISHED ONLINE VIDEOS OF THEIR KILLINGS FOR THE WORLD TO WATCH. THESE ARE NOT CIVIL LONGINGS FOR STATEHOOD BUT RATHER VIOLENT REBUKES OF MODERN CIVILIZATION. a strong sense of ethical resolve that has garnered support from both the American public and the international community.

Certainly one could argue that Vietnam, too, was a moral struggle. The Western world at the time saw communism as a challenge to its way of life — one that threatened to bring such evils as starvation and nuclear war. Many Americans believed that the Vietnamese needed to be “saved” from such treatment and brought to join the West against the growing communist sphere of influence. Yet the Vietnam War is remembered less as a moral struggle than as a misguided confrontation with Vietnamese political interests. Beneath the surface of the Vietnamese cry for communism was a longing for independence after decades of French colonial rule.

In some respects, it might seem that the Islamic State is a nationalist movement much like that of the North Vietnamese.

After years of American presence in the Middle East and gains in Shiite influence across the region, ISIL seeks to reinvigorate Sunni influence in the form of a caliphate. By calling itself a state, ISIL invokes notions of sovereignty and selfdetermination. Its calls for nationalism, however, have gone beyond the statebound violence of Vietnam. Over the past six months, ISIL has held journalists for ransom, called upon foreign fighters to attack their own nations and published online videos of their killings for the world to watch. These are not civil longings for statehood or nationally-motivated acts of resistance but rather violent rebukes of modern civilization.

Operation Inherent Resolve’s moral strength, however, would be meaningless without the support of joint operations on the ground. Fifty years ago, as American airstrikes escalated in North Vietnam, this strategy was not present. Despite the bombing campaigns, South Vietnamese forces were unable to launch ground offensives into North Vietnam. Without boots on the ground, bombing could only be so effective. From the sky there is no way of securing gained territory or properly deterring the amassment of new forces. Additionally, blind bombing without a ground follow-up can create increased resentment against the foreign force. In asymmetric warfare, airstrikes are only effective if combined with a parallel effort on the ground.

These joint ground operations are essential to the fight against ISIL. While American-led efforts have regained at least 1 percent of ISIL-held territory in Iraq, ISIL has expanded substantially in Syria, now controlling one-third of the country.

The difference between these two fronts is the extent to which Operation Inherent Resolve has joint ground support. In Iraq, the United States works with local Kurdish peshmerga forces more regularly. In recapturing the Syrian city of Kobani, international airstrikes worked together with Kurdish fighters. Generally, cooperation is

limited in Syria, where civil war continues to ravage the country. Kurdish support on the ground allows Operation Inherent Resolve to more effectively deter the spread of ISIL, while working with the local populace. And joint operations have an additional advantage: fewer American boots on the ground.

Fortunately, even if the United States were to send ground troops back to the Middle East, as former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has suggested, it would not be acting alone. The American-led coalition to rollback ISIL lies in stark contrast to the unilateral actions the United States took 50 years ago. There was little international support when the country sent advisors, then ground troops and bombers to Vietnam.

In its Cold War mindset, the United States tried to prevent the communist dominoes from falling in Southeast Asia, but in doing so only succeeded in enforcing a bipolar framework of the world. The United States and the Soviet Union were at odds with one another, and neutral countries, like Korea and Vietnam, were forced into the middle.

This bipolarity worked against the United States in Vietnam, since no country wanted to get involved in the tug-of-war between the world’s two superpowers.

Five decades later, however, the world is less static. Today the United States is the world’s leading hegemon and global superpower, and without the dichotomous world struggle, it is easy for other states to fall under the wings of US leadership. Along with Western allies Canada and Australia, players like Jordan and Saudi Arabia have joined the United States in confronting

the regional unrest caused by ISIL’s rise to power. Unlike in Vietnam, widespread opposition to ISIL has prompted international action and produced a far-reaching coalition of support. Such prevalent backing only deepens the multilateral resolve against ISIL. ISIL faces a United States that has vastly adapted its approach to confrontation since 1965. As McCain has pointed out, however, if Operation Inherent Resolve is to be successful, there needs to be a clear US strategy in the Middle East. This will help avoid the gradualism of escalated troop deployments that created such backlash 50 years ago.

In defining its strategy, the United States should consider the enemy’s goals — an essential aspect of military planning that was neglected in Vietnam.

ISIL has said precisely what its goal is: establishing a caliphate. It is fighting for both a territorial state and an ideological mission. Still, in facing ISIL so far, the United States has only measured spatial success, as was the case in Vietnam. The Department of Defense talks of “kilometers regained,” not of people saved. To secure a strategic victory, the United States should work with local populations to curb the spread of ISIL propaganda and find solutions that complement pure military operations in Iraq and Syria. If the United States has truly learned the lessons of Vietnam, it will act quickly and efficiently, limiting senseless civilian casualties and relaying honest updates to the American public. Acting with this clear vision, the United States can avoid repeating the failures of its past.

A half-century ago, the United States

failed to contain communism in Southeast Asia and lost a war that, in early forecasts, looked winnable. Over the last several decades, Vietnam has become synonymous with American failure and, in particular, with the overextension of US forces and an overeagerness to intervene in other countries’ local affairs. Dropping more than 600,000 tons of bombs over North Vietnam, the United States ignored wartime realities and misrepresented its South Vietnamese counterparts — disregarding international objections to entanglement and dangerously mischaracterizing North Vietnamese nationalist tendencies. Without a proper strategy to confront this anti-West ideological struggle, the United States failed in Southeast Asia. Today the memory of Vietnam evokes these images of false characterization and hyper-intervention.

Over the last five decades, however, the United States has learned from its misguided past. Framed as a moral necessity against Islamic extremism, Operation Inherent Resolve is a stronger bombing campaign than Operation Rolling Thunder. It is a smarter strategy, tying together local ground forces with Western air power in joint operations. And Operation Inherent Resolve is a wider campaign, bringing together numerous states in a multilateral coalition against ISIL. Five decades later, the echoes of Rolling Thunder have begun to shape American foreign policy for the better.

JASON GINSBERG ‘16 IS A POLITICAL SCIENCE CONCENTRATOR AND STAFF WRITER AT BPR.

WORLD BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW

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MAID IN HONG KONG The dark side of the maid trade STORY BY AGNES CHAN / ART BY REBECCA ANDREWS

BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW WORLD

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n most days, Central is Hong Kong’s swarming business district: Thousands of suits and pencil skirts transform its streets into a sea of black as myriad professionals lend a vibrant hum to one of the globe’s greatest financial centers. On Sundays, however, the briefcases and stilettos are tucked away comfortably at home, and Central becomes a haven for thousands of domestic workers to convene and rest after six days of tough labor.

For the rest of the city, the sheer number of Filipino and Indonesian immigrants who gather on Sundays is a chilling reminder of the imported labor that fuels the economic success of Hong Kong and other neighboring hubs. Known widely and often notoriously as the “maid trade,” the practice is rife with problems regarding the treatment of workers by both their employers and the government.

The maid trade dates back to the 1970s, when, as a means of combating high unemployment rates and low revenue, the Filipino government encouraged the export of labor to neighboring areas such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. Those who moved away from their homes to work abroad were hailed as “new economic heroes” by their government. A similar situation facilitated the growth of labor exports in Indonesia: In the mid-1970s, a government program sparked changes in the agriculture industry and forced many women into unemployment, causing them to seek job opportunities abroad. At the same time, host countries saw a rise in demand for this newly available cheap labor. In particular, the Taiwanese government’s push for highly skilled individuals — such as stay-at-home mothers — to enter the workforce resulted in a shortage of domestic labor.

The maid trade has become a far more established and expansive system than it was back in the 1970s. Today, over 300,000 domestic helpers work in households in Hong Kong, amounting to more than double the number of domestic workers the city had in 1995. These workers comprise

approximately 10 percent of Hong Kong’s total working population. There is one domestic worker for every eight Hong Kong households and one for every three households with children.

Though the growing number of domestic workers in the Asia-Pacific region does not necessarily pose an ethical problem in and of itself, recent scandals involving the abuse of helpers have generated concerns about what many now identify as the epitome of “modern slavery.” In mid-January, for example, a domestic helper from Myanmar reportedly fell from the fifth floor of a building while trying to escape her job in Singapore. She claimed the job was “the same as being in hell.” After being verbally abused on countless occasions, the worker had requested to be returned to her agency and relocated to a new household, but she was apparently ignored. Then, the poor treatment worsened: She was even refused food on several days. Despite the terrible treatment, she felt trapped between an abu-

WORKING 21 HOURS A DAY, SEVEN DAYS A WEEK, SHE WAS BEATEN WITH MOPS, HANGERS AND LADDERS IF SHE DID NOT RESPOND PROMPTLY TO HER EMPLOYER’S CALL OR IF SHE DID NOT CLEAN WELL ENOUGH. sive boss and her family’s poverty. “I can’t make enough money to pay for my daughter’s education in Myanmar. I can make $300 a month in Singapore,” she said, “So I have to go back there whatever happens.”

In December, Indonesian helper Erwiana Sulistyaningsih made headlines across Asia after speaking publicly about the eight-month torture she had endured under her employer in Hong Kong, Law Wan-tung. Working 21 hours a day, seven days a week, she was beaten with mops, hangers and ladders if she did not respond promptly to Law’s call or if she did not clean

well enough. On one occasion, a vacuum cleaner tube was rammed into her mouth as punishment. When Sulistyaningsih became sick and crippled, Law left her at the Hong Kong airport with a ticket back to Indonesia and less than $10 USD after threatening to kill Erwiana’s family members if she ever spoke of the torture.

Even if these are exceptional cases, they are fundamentally the product of an abusive system. Unethical treatment of domestic workers begins early on in the advertisement and hiring process. This February, a flyer distributed in Malaysia advertising “Indonesian maids now on sale!” led to public outcry over the promotion of domestic workers as commodities. And in January, Malaysian company Robovac used the slogan, “Fire your Indonesian maid now!” in an advertisement for its automatic vacuum cleaner. Robovac’s advertisement elicited tensions between the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia, prompting Indonesia’s foreign minister to phone his Malaysian counterpart to argue that the slogan was “utterly insensitive” and to urge Malaysian authorities to ban the advertisement.

Seen as commodities by the very agencies that place them, domestic workers continue to face difficulties even after they have secured a job. After making a commitment to agency services, workers often unwittingly fall into a system of debt bondage. The costs of a worker’s airfare, visa and living expenses are initially paid off by employment agencies that then require the workers to pay back these costs with the money they earn abroad. This practice creates three problems for workers. First, domestic helpers often do not have enough money left to send home during their first few months abroad due to agency expenses. Furthermore, if a worker leaves a job before the expenses are completely paid off, the debt multiplies, leaving the worker in a downward spiral of financial obligation. Finally, workers often end up trapped in jobs where they are poorly treated as they try to secure enough money to handle their debts.

Moreover, after landing jobs abroad, workers are generally excluded from the basic protections and regulations that these countries ensure their own citizens.

In many Asian countries, basic minimum wage laws do not apply to foreign domestic workers. In Hong Kong, for example, the minimum wage is around $4 USD an hour — about $1,800 per month — whereas foreign domestic workers are paid the “minimum allowable wage,” currently set

In addition to excluding domestic workers from minimum wage laws, the Hong Kong government has implemented a two-week rule, stating that if migrant workers cannot find new employment and obtain an approved work visa within two weeks of leaving their previous job, they must leave the city. This makes seeking redress impossible for helpers who have faced abuse, as a Labour Tribunal case typically takes two months to process. Moreover,

5.7 x 5.7 INCHES

as the Immigration Department admitted, not only is two weeks insufficient time to find a new employer, but also “even when you can get an employer immediately, the approval of a working visa by the Immigration Department takes 6-8 weeks.” The rule therefore disincentivizes domestic workers from quitting jobs with even the harshest working conditions.

The Hong Kong government also limits the freedom of domestic workers through the live-in law. By making it mandatory for domestic helpers to live in their employers’ homes, the law denies workers

AGNES CHAN ‘18 IS AN INTENDED INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND ENGLISH CONCENTRATOR.

WORLD BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW

at approximately $530 per month. Other host nations offer an even gloomier picture: In Taiwan, foreign domestic helpers make $510 a month; in Singapore, they make between $316 and $475 a month; and in Malaysia, where the cost of living is much lower, foreign workers make between $121 and $181. These monthly wages are all well below the legal minimum wage in their respective countries. Unsurprisingly, there is a vast gap between the quality of life enjoyed by foreign domestic workers and their citizen counterparts — a gap exacerbated by the laws of these lands.

the basic freedom of choosing their own living conditions and creates the conditions for violations of privacy and other troubling abuses. In a 2012 survey conducted by Mission for Migrant Workers, 20 percent of domestic helpers reported that employers had installed video surveillance equipment in their rooms. Additionally, 25 percent stated that they had no privacy in their employers’ residence.

The same survey revealed that 35 percent of helpers would opt to live outside of their employers’ home if they had the choice.

Clearly, the maid trade is a troubled institution in need of change. Yet change is hard to come by. There is high demand for more domestic help in these areas, incentivizing governments and employment agencies to continue policies that encourage the sustained growth of the domestic labor market. Moreover, the maid trade has become a pivotal economic driver for exporting countries, and their economies would suffer severely if the system were to be abolished. The Philippines, for instance, derives 11 percent of its GDP from the remittances of nine million Filipinos working overseas. And poor conditions in exporting countries like Malaysia and the Philippines mean that there remains a steady supply of workers willing to go abroad to find jobs — even though the market is fraught with abusive employers and offers workers little protection.

Both host and exporting governments are responsible for helping pave a better and healthier path for the future. Early last year, the Singaporean government warned domestic worker employment agencies about the undignified advertisements that were marketing helpers as commodities.

Approaching the problem from a different angle, the Philippine government recently set a quota on the number of maids allowed to work in Singapore, aiming to lower the supply of its domestic helpers to the country by 20 percent. However, these solutions are unlikely to make a significant dent in the problem. Only through a comprehensive rethinking of policies by all governments involved — including moves to protect workers, such as adjusting the minimum allowable wage, abolishing the live-in rule and lifting restrictions on changing jobs — will the pressing human rights concerns surrounding the maid trade be properly resolved.

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LARRY SIEMS Larry Siems, author of “The Torture Report,” is a writer and human rights activist. He is the editor of the New York Times bestseller “Guantánamo Diary,” the memoir of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who has been imprisoned at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility since 2002.

BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW INTERVIEWS

INTERVIEW BY HENRY KNIGHT

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Describe the scope and magnitude of the “Guantánamo Diary” project.

It’s an incredibly unique project because it’s the only manuscript that has made it out of Guantánamo. Mohamedou wrote “Guantánamo Diary” in 2005 in an isolation cell that he had been dragged into as part of this extremely brutal so-called “special projects interrogation.” He began writing in the spring of 2005, when he found out he would finally be allowed to meet with attorneys. With their encouragement, he continued to write through the summer and, in September, finished the 466-page handwritten manuscript in English, his fourth language. But like all materials that are produced by Guantánamo detainees, the manuscript was deemed classified from the minute it was created, so it was removed from Guantánamo and kept in a locked facility outside of Washington, DC. For about six and a half years, his attorneys conducted litigation and negotiations behind the scenes to get the manuscript through two stages of clearance: declassification and clearing for public release. They finally achieved that in the summer of 2012. The previous four years I’d been working on a project called “The Torture Report” with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The ACLU had managed to extract about 140,000 pages of formerly classified government documents from the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice and the CIA that documented prisoner abuse in Guantánamo, Afghanistan, Iraq and the CIA black sites.

My job was to go through these documents and piece together narratives. Mohamedou’s story was one that really stood out: As one of two special projects interrogations in Guantánamo, he was subjected to extremely brutal torture that lasted from 2003 into 2004. By 2012, I knew that his story would be remarkable: an epic journey through America’s post-9/11 national security global gulag, covering about 20,000 miles with interrogations in five different countries. What I didn’t know until I got the manuscript was what an incredible writer and what a humane and eloquent conveyor of experience Mohamedou is.

How did you approach editing Mohamedou’s manuscript?

I was dealing with a manuscript by a living writer, who was completely inaccessible to me. I was especially committed to following his voice and what I felt to be the direction and intent of the manuscript. What’s remarkable about this book is that it’s a voice from the void — [one that’s] resonant, accessible, wise, funny, empathetic and ultimately forgiving.

American politicians and bureaucrats have couched the torture discourse in a vocabulary that abstracts away from its human consequences. How does this “voice from the void” undermine that language?

It’s a voice that insists on the humanity of the speaker. You can see a humorous, creative, perceptive, feeling individual.

There’s a sensual core to the story. Mohamedou’s two essential

characteristics are empathy and curiosity, which are among the most universal and compelling human characteristics. There’s this amazing scene where [the detainees are being] delivered to Guantánamo in a freezing cold airplane. The guards are yelling at them, “Sit down, shut up, cross your legs.” One guard yells: “Do not talk,” and another yells: “No talking.” In the extremity of that situation and the pain and the fear of that moment, Mohamedou says, “I noticed that they have two different ways of giving the same order. That’s interesting.” He begins a process of reclaiming the humanity that this entire system was set up to deny or negate.

That voice from the void reached the public a month after the release of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report on the CIA’s torture campaign. How does Mohamedou’s memoir complement the report?

The torture report gave us a real sense of the magnitude of the brutality of the torture regime carried out under US authority after 9/11. For the first time, they list the names of several dozen innocent people held in CIA black sites. The report hints at the human side of these things, and then Mohamedou’s book comes along, and for the first time, tells what it means to experience this sort of treatment — not just for him, but also for those who are in the position of meting out these illegal policies. Guantánamo was born in secrecy, secrecy that was designed so that torture could happen and be perpetuated to conceal the fact that it happened. Institutional secrecy now exists to delay accountability. It took the Senate Select Intelligence Committee two years just to get the executive summary of their report declassified. But culturally, we’ve also drawn a curtain in our minds around these places. We haven’t done much to tear down the secrecy because we’re afraid of what we’ll find. Mohamedou pulls back that curtain for us and allows us to see and experience this world in all of its pain and dehumanizing brutality. But he also shows us that even in the face of such relentless dehumanization, it’s a place of real human exchanges: occasional gestures of kindness and warmth, identification, recognition and sometimes even forgiveness and redemption. Under international law, violations of the Convention on Torture require two things: investigation of the torturers and restitution for the victims. An essential part of that restitution is the process of recognizing the experience of the victims of torture and of the torturers. As this book makes clear, torture damages not just the tortured prisoner but also the captors who torture. It reveals the cost of these things on a human level for everyone.

The media response to the Senate’s report distracted away from the human costs: waterboarding, sexual abuse, forced rectal feeding. The question the media posed was: Did the United States gain actionable intelligence from advanced interrogation techniques? Was that question raised to justify such techniques?

The Senate Select Intelligence Committee report foregrounded the [media’s] question. In fact, that’s specifically what they set out to study. The US government’s position was: “First, we’re not torturing.” Then, when information came out about advanced interrogation, it was the legalese saying: “This isn’t torture.” Finally, it shifted towards: “The gloves came off and we beat some people up, but we did it because we had to get crucial information.” The

carrying the burden of conscience for the things that we’ve done.

I think that there are people involved in Mohamedou’s case who would love to talk publicly about what their experiences meant to them. They bear the burden of conscience for a culture that has, in some ways, asked them to do these things. Yet we have not acknowledged their stories or begun to reckon with what it meant to put them in these positions.

“Mohamedou allows us to see and experience this world in all of its pain and dehumanizing brutality. But he also shows us that…it’s a place of real human exchanges: occasional gestures of kindness and warmth.” whole moral argument against torture seemed to have failed, so I think the Senate Select Intelligence Committee tried to address the efficacy argument. When you take that approach…you end up deflecting attention from the fact that torture is deeply immoral according to our understanding of human rights and dignity and that it’s forbidden under international and domestic law. It was a red herring to focus on efficacy, but I think that was one of the sustaining bits of scaffolding in the public imagination about the question of torture. Polling reveals a distressing trend whereby more people in 2014 are accepting torture as a necessary and efficacious part of counterterrorism than [in] 2002. Something has happened in the public consciousness that has allowed that tacit approval to grow. The efficacy argument has taken root. There’s also popular culture and the way that torture is depicted in mass media. From “24” to “Zero Dark Thirty,” there’s this plot device that assumes [torture] produces information. The Senate Select Intelligence Committee report is a devastating deconstruction of [that public perception] and shreds the idea that this was an effective program. It begins the process that Mohamedou continues in his book: refocusing the attention on individuals.

If you read “Guantánamo Diary” alongside the Senate report, what gaps in the story are still missing?

The stories of the guards and the interrogators who had to carry out these programs and who are also bound by the secrecy regime. There are thousands of them living among us now and

In his 2015 State of the Union address, President Obama reiterated his promise to close Guantánamo. But in 2010 his administration appealed a US District Court judge’s decision to grant Mohamedou’s habeas corpus petition. With his case in legal limbo, Mohamedou remains imprisoned. How do you explain this contradiction on the part of the administration?

The administration could withdraw its objections to the habeas ruling and Mohamedou could be released. That hasn’t happened. It goes to the heart of our national contradiction about these questions, which is completely unresolved. Why hasn’t Obama closed Guantánamo? He said he would. I sincerely believe he wants to. So why hasn’t he? Resistance from Congress.

Then the question becomes: “Why does Congress keep doing this?” If Congress explained their objections honestly, I think they would fess up to their uncertainty about whether voting to close Guantánamo will have political consequences for them in the next election. In other words, they’re afraid of us, the American people. We all have to take responsibility for closing Guantánamo. We shouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing that Mohamedou is still there and that there’s no satisfactory explanation and no plan to release him. Let’s insist that there be individual accountability and due process for everyone. We have to send that message to our elected leaders.

Do you hold out hope of one day meeting Mohamedou?

Yes. This book demonstrates a tremendous faith in the power of the truth. Mohamedou believes that by telling his story as accurately and vividly and empathetically as he can, we’ll read and respond to it. I share that belief. As a writer and a human rights activist, this is what I’ve done for years. I’ve believed in the power of the word.

INTERVIEWS BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW

Does that process speak to a broader relationship between literature and cultural memory?

Absolutely. Literature is an essential part of the process of cultural reflection and of moving things from the bureaucratic language of documents to the larger question of, “How did we get to this point?” That’s always a question of we, not they. Literature widens the circle of implication. How much are we responsible for these things and for moving forward and taking responsibility for ourselves so that they don’t happen again? That’s the critical part of the torture debate that we haven’t had yet. We’ve had this struggle for nearly 14 years about accountability for the torture that happened under US auspices after 9/11. So far, those who designed and carried out [the programs] have controlled the narrative. That control is slipping away. We’re going to start hearing more voices like Mohamedou’s. He has broken ground in the most beautiful, undeniable and eloquent way.

Do you think those stories will ever be told?

Yes. Mohamedou’s book is both a driver and a symptom of a shift that we’re beginning to see. You can’t sweep these things under the rug. They’re literally imprinted on the bodies and in the minds of people around the world. The Senate torture report, Mohamedou’s book — we can choose not to talk about these things. But make no mistake: The world is talking about them.

We serve no national security purpose by trying to suppress this information, because it’s already out there. The real national security question that’s looming is whether we’re capable of confronting the information.

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BILL MCKIBBEN Bill McKibben is the author of “The End of Nature,” widely regarded as the first book about climate change written for a general audience. He is a founder of 350.org, the first global grassroots climate change movement. The Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College, he was the 2013 winner of the Gandhi Prize and the Thomas Merton Award.

INTERVIEW BY NAOMI CHASEK-MACFOY

How would you characterize President Obama’s legacy on climate issues?

It’s extraordinarily mixed. On one hand, he’s done more than his predecessor, Mr. Bush, but I’ve drunk more beer than my 14-year-old niece — that’s not a very high bar. He’s also done an enormous amount to open up vast swaths of America for more oil and gas drilling; in his tenure, the United States has passed Saudi Arabia and Russia as the biggest hydrocarbon producer on Earth. He’s also raised gas mileage for cars, which is good. It’s up, down, up, down.

BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW INTERVIEWS

The United States recently reached a deal with China to curb emissions. Is this significant beyond communicating to the international community a willingness to proactively address climate change?

It’s less a deal than a kind of pledge — a pledge written on someone else’s credibility. Since it’s not a treaty approved by the Senate, [the agreement’s] significance entirely depends on the next three presidents deciding to follow it. The way that the United States and others have set up the current round of negotiations, they’re all about these voluntary promises and commitments. That said, it was a useful thing to get the Chinese to acknowledge that the day will come when they have to use less carbon.

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Regarding the upcoming United Nations climate talks in December, do you think there is a potential for impact?

The mistake that observers and environmentalists have made over the years is to imagine that the real action is going on in these kinds of forums. It’s not. These ratify, or don’t, what’s happening in the real world, and what’s happening in the real world is a constant fight for supremacy between the fossil fuel industry and those of us opposed to it. At this point, pretty much everyone has agreed on the basic analysis that the fossil fuel industry has, in its reserves, about four or five times as much carbon as scientists think we could safely burn. The question is, will they have enough political weight to dig up all those reserves, burn them and keep their business model another decade or two at the expense of wrecking the planet over geologic time? Or will the rest of us manage to head them off? Stay tuned.

Where do you think momentum should come from for the global climate activism movement?

A ton of the momentum has come from people on what one might call the “advanced lines” of dealing with the fossil fuel industry. Mostly it’s people in particular places having to deal with particular problems. The architecture is different from great movements of the past when there was a great leader or a few great leaders, or like the great television networks of the past, where there were only a few places messages were coming from.

This is more like the Internet. There are a zillion locations of sig-

nificance and that’s good news because the fossil fuel industry itself is very sprawling and protean, so one has to be protean in order to stand up to it.

At the People’s Climate March, “system change not climate change” was a common rallying cry; it seemed like there was a focus on the economy as a potential locus of change. Do you see a causal relationship between the logic of capitalism and the results of climate change?

The kind of capitalism we’ve been practicing lately fetishizes the idea that you should be allowed to do anything you want if you have a lot of money. It isn’t working out very well. Carbon dioxide pollution is a classic example of why completely unregulated markets can’t solve problems. Since we’ve made sure that carbon carries no price, markets are innocent of it. If carbon carried a price, markets might provide part of the helpful response.

Remember, the biggest spokesmen for libertarian, unregulated capitalism in this country are the Koch brothers. They’re also the biggest leaseholders in the tar sands of Canada. They’ve also made more money off oil and gas than any other people on Earth. It’s working well for them; it’s not working for the other seven billion people on the planet…I think the most important thing that happened in the last few hundred years was the development of fossil fuel. I think it was more important than the development of ideology. It’s no accident that it wasn’t until after the invention of the steam engine that Adam Smith wrote “The Wealth of Nations,” not the other way around. When we take action to deal with climate change, we’re probably going to be making changes to the way that power and wealth are spread around this world. I don’t see any way that a world that runs on sun and wind, which are omnipresent but diffuse, won’t have a different balance of power than a world that runs on a few pockets of coal and gas and oil that happen to be owned by the people sitting on top of them.

What incentives are there to act on climate change?

The main incentive for the fossil fuel industry is going to have to be the realization that their current way of business isn’t going to work. And until we’ve been able to convince them that they’re not going to be able to dig up their huge reserves and burn them, they’ll keep doing what they’re doing. It’s a political fight.

Do you have anything to say in particular to a college audience?

Only that it is a great shame that Brown University, so far, has not divested from fossil fuel. One would think that Brown, with its own particular history of where its money came from, would be particularly acute to thinking about being on the right side of history. But that said, I have no doubt that eventually it will do the right thing because it is such a wonderful place.

MAURICIO SANTORO Mauricio Santoro is a human rights advisor for Amnesty International in Brazil. He is also a political science professor at Cândido Mendes University.

INTERVIEW BY JENNA WALDMAN More than 19,000 families were reportedly removed from their homes in Rio de Janeiro between the years 2009 and 2013 for the World Cup and upcoming Olympic Games. What consequences did this have?

There were many cases where the forced evictions had nothing to do with the World Cup or the Olympics. They were motivated by real estate speculation on the prices of the land. The government used the World Cup and the Olympics as an excuse to carry out the evictions. There was widespread support in Brazil for these big international events, and it was easier for the government to evict people this way. These people are now living in much worse conditions, because they are far away from the center of Rio and the places where they work.

One of the major concerns for the Olympic organizing committee in cleaning up the image of Rio de Janeiro is cracking down on prostitution and sex tourism. What has been the effect of those efforts?

The crackdown led to gentrification and human rights violations.

The police evicted some prostitutes from the buildings where they used to work. Prostitution was very restricted during the period of the World Cup, and it probably will be restricted during the Olympics as well. The sex trade industry is very strong in Brazil in general, but in Rio especially because of the Carnaval and the foreign tourists. As you know, the poorest women are the ones who work as prostitutes. It’s the same pattern of discrimination brought by big transformations in the city.

According to Amnesty International, 70 percent of the 30,000 young victims of homicide in 2012 were black. How do you explain the correlation between race and homicide in Brazil?

This has everything to do with the “Black Lives Matter” movement in the United States. What we are trying to do is raise awareness in Brazilian society about how violence has a racial bias: how black people — especially young black people — are the major victims of violence in Brazil. Violence decreased for white people in Brazil in the last three years, but it rose for black people. The majority of the public in Brazil doesn’t know about this. This is a very difficult subject, because it doesn’t mean that every police officer in Brazil is racist. It’s about how these institutional visions and how the way the police operate on a daily basis are marked by the huge racial inequalities in Brazil and by the huge social inequalities in Brazil.

What can Brazil learn from Ferguson and vice versa?

When we heard the first news about Ferguson, our reaction was something like: “Well, this is what happens daily in Brazil.” When we have this kind of death in Brazil, there are demonstrations, but very locally. It’s usually the families or the friends of these young guys that go to the streets, but it’s not something that becomes a national issue. We were really impressed by the size of the demonstrations and by how Ferguson and the Eric Garner death in New York became national issues in the United States. We want to learn from these experiences. How can we mobilize, for example, white middle-class people in Brazil who usually think police violence is not a concern for them? How can we talk to a police officer in a demonstration on the street in order to make things more peaceful?

INTERVIEWS BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW

The Brazilian government installed the Pacifying Police Unit in 2008 as a means of regaining control of Rio’s slums from criminal organizations. What has the impact of this been?

These special units managed to reduce violent crime in many neighborhoods, especially in the smaller slums. The bad side is that the increased contact between the police and the people that live in the poor neighborhoods has also led to many violent crimes and violent human rights abuses. For example, the number of forced disappearances rose, and there was perhaps the most famous human rights case in Rio in the last few years, which was the Amarildo case about a bricklayer who was abducted by the police, tortured and killed. His body is still missing. Another problem is that, in some of the biggest communities, the level of violence has actually increased since the pacification. The pacification program did not include a reform of the police, so we still have a very violent and a very corrupt police force. Another problem is that, in many cases, the coordination between national government, state government and the city is not good. To conduct pacification in a Brazilian slum there must be a very high level of dialogue between the state and the city, because the state controls the police and the city controls most of the public services. This dialogue is not going on.

In 2014, the National Truth Commission produced a report connecting the 20th-century Brazilian military dictatorship to militarized police forces today. What do you suggest for current police reform efforts?

The report of the Truth Commission was very important for Brazil. One of the big challenges that the commission faced was how to show the link between the dictatorship and the human rights violations that we suffer today. The link also includes the army and the marines, because they are used in Brazil in daily public security operations. The dictatorship created a violent way to think about public security and how the police should operate day-to-day. One proposal is to end the military police force. We also want to end what we call in Brazil the “atos de resistência,” which are “acts of resistance.” It is a political tool that the police use to say that every boy killed was killed by the police in self-defense. This is a very serious problem because the police kill at least six people each day, so more than 2,000 people per year. The “atos de resistência” makes it very difficult for public prosecutors and judges to investigate killings committed by police officers. The commission also made some very important observations about the need to reform Brazilian prisons and the need to reform aspects of the Brazilian judiciary power.

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THEODORE OLSON Theodore Olson served as legal counsel to President Ronald Reagan during the Iran-Contra affair and as United States Solicitor General under President George W. Bush. In 2000, Olson represented Bush in Bush v. Gore. In 2013, Olson successfully argued against Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage, before the Supreme Court. Olson is currently a partner at the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

INTERVIEW BY ALEX SAMAHA

In hindsight, would you have advised President Reagan any differently on the Iran-Contra affair?

After he left the presidency, I was a private counsel for him with respect to Iran-Contra. I am convinced, as the special prosecutor in that case ultimately was, that President Reagan had done nothing illegal. He had been honest and forthright with the congressional investigators, the Tower Commission, which was created to investigate those facts, and the independent counsel special prosecutor that was appointed to investigate him.

BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW INTERVIEWS

What shaped your views on same-sex marriage and led you to join with David Boies, the opposing lawyer in Bush v. Gore, to argue against Proposition 8?

First of all, I think that Republicans are no more monolithic than Democrats are. Conservatives are more likely to oppose same-sex marriage, but that’s changing. I grew up in California, and I have never felt that it is right to discriminate against individuals based on their sexual orientation. I’ve always felt that we, as the human race, are committed to the idea that all persons are created equal and equally endowed with the right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I felt, when I was first contacted about this case, that it was the right thing to do, and I feel even more strongly about my decision now. When we took that case on, there were only three states that permitted marriage between persons of the same sex; now there are 36 or 37, depending on where you put Alabama, and public opinion has changed quite dramatically, such that the majority of Americans now support the right for individuals to have that happiness.

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Do you believe that your work on same-sex marriage has pushed the GOP to change its stance on the issue in the long run?

I don’t know whether it is my work necessarily, but I do believe that Boies and I set out to have an impact on public opinion. We tried to get the American people to understand the lives that gay people live and the damage that is done by denying them the opportunity to get married. We tried to get Americans to understand the fact that same-sex marriage is allowing two people to form a stable relationship and become a respected part of our community. The more people hear that message, and the more they know gay people or lesbians who have the same aspirations as the rest of us do, the more they change their minds.

Do you think the consequences of the Citizens United decision have been good for the country?

As far as Citizens United is concerned, the First Amendment protects individuals’ free speech, whether they speak individually, form partnerships, form political action committees or speak through corporations like the New York Times or the NAACP. Speech having to do with the election of public officials is really the most important thing, and to the extent that government puts limitations on how much people can speak, that’s simply inhibit-

ing discourse about the most important political activity in this country.

Can you explain how the concept of political spending is equivalent to a form of speech?

Can you convince very many people without a microphone?

You cannot get your message out to the American people if you are running for national or statewide office without a means of communication that exceeds an individual’s personal voice. It helps to have a microphone, and it helps to have the ability to put your message out to the people on television or on radio. The argument that those means of enhanced communication are not speech overlooks all of the cases that the Supreme Court has decided on from the beginning of time, which count books, television, billboards, loudspeakers and so forth as forms of speech.

Putting aside the legal aspect of Citizens United, how do you think the decision has ultimately affected the current political process?

I don’t know exactly; it is very difficult to measure that. The person who spends the most money doesn’t necessarily win the election. Eric Cantor, who was the minority whip in the House of Representatives, was beat in a primary election by a person he outspent 26 to 1. If you start putting limits on how much people can spend to run an election campaign, you provide an enormous advantage to incumbents. Incumbents have the power of their office, the power of their name recognition, and they are almost always going to win elections unless you give their opponents an opportunity to communicate ideas that are different.

The more people have an opportunity to hear different points of view, the better off we are.

Though the Citizens United decision does give an advantage to nonincumbents, does it not also give an advantage to the wealthy?

When you say wealthy, do you include labor unions? They amass immense amounts of money, and I think the biggest spender in the last couple of elections was the Service Employees International Union, who — along with other unions — not only used vast amounts of union dues for political purposes, but also put its members on the street in registration and get-out-the-vote drives.

It has always been true that people who have more resources have advantages in elections. People who are incumbents, people that have famous names like “Kennedy,” people who are good looking and highly articulate like Ronald Reagan and people related to victors from a previous election have an advantage. If the government took to regulating the playing field by limiting the amount that people can spend, they would have to limit the advantage of incumbency, limit the advantage of newspapers and so on. I think the First Amendment tells the government to stay out of the issue and let the people decide.

MICHAEL SALBERG Michael Salberg is the Director of International Affairs for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the world’s leading center for the eradication of anti-Semitism.

INTERVIEW BY SAMUEL RUBINSTEIN How should Europe respond to rising anti-Semitism?

There has been a resurgence of anti-Semitism throughout Europe. Since 1980 in France, around 17 French Jews have been murdered by terrorists, most recently in a kosher supermarket following the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack…We expect the government to protect all of us in a democracy. It’s very easy to say it, but it’s much more difficult to do it. Anti-Semitic attitudes extend to more than a third of the general public [in France]. The government needs to [ensure that] French Jews have a sense of safety and security. In the days following the attacks, the Prime Minister of France, Manuel Valls, delivered a speech in the National Assembly that was incredibly powerful and passionate. He expressed his sense of deep regret that Jews in France are subject to these kinds of violent acts. He pointed out to Parliament, and to the French people, that the French Jewish community expects more of France — more outrage, more action. That’s the speech we want to hear from leaders all across Europe. Now the question is: Will there be the resolve to take the actions that are necessary? Today, the French Jewish community is protected by the military so that their kids can go to school. French Jewish parents have to decide between keeping their kids in a Jewish day school and sending them to public school because the kids are subjected to anti-Semitic bullying. The other choices are to lose one’s Jewish identity or to leave the country. That reality is heartbreaking, something that American Jews cannot imagine.

How do you reconcile that viewpoint with the perspectives of people who self-identify both as Jewish and as anti-Zionist?

The natural result of that would be that the Jewish character of Israel would disappear, which would require Israel to forsake its Jewish nationalism and identity along with its status as a refuge for Jews fleeing persecution and to no longer be the Jewish homeland. One has to look at and consider whether that outcome is what the people of Israel want. [American Jews] don’t get

How has the ADL acted on its survey of global anti-Semitism?

The major conclusion we have reached is that somewhere around 26 percent [of adults in the world] harbor strong anti-Semitic views. Our index consists of 11 statements that represent anti-Semitic stereotypes. If individuals answer “probably true” to six or more statements we classify those respondents as having firmly held anti-Semitic attitudes. The region that has the highest level of anti-Semitism is the Middle East and North Africa, at about 74 percent of the population. The lowest levels are in the English-speaking countries — the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand — at around 13 percent. But the attitudes reflected in our polling are just one piece of the puzzle. You have to look at specific incidents — the public discourse, rhetoric and societal responses…When we first started polling in the United States [in 1964], levels of anti-Semitism were north of 30 percent. In the most recent poll we did, the United States was at 10 percent. Progress can be made, but it doesn’t happen overnight.

How do you respond to the success of radical fascist parties, like Golden Dawn in Greece?

[These parties] are dangerous, and it isn’t just in Greece. In Hungary, another anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi, ultra-right-wing, neo-fascist political party called Jobbik has 17 percent [of the seats] in the parliament. In France, the National Front has cleaned up its image, but the founder expresses anti-Semitic views on a regular basis…The leaders of Golden Dawn are in jail awaiting murder charges, and they still did well in elections! There is a serious problem with anti-Semitism in Greek society. But there has not been a real opportunity to address it because the economic circumstance in Greece fuels a sense of desperation…When people feel desperate, they don’t ask, “What did we do wrong?” They ask, “Why are they doing this to us?” It’s very difficult to begin to chip away at the ingrained tendency to look for scapegoats.

Recently, the ADL commented on the controversy over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s scheduled address to the US Congress. Why did the ADL choose to do so?

One of the hallmarks of US support for Israel, over 67 years, has been its unified bipartisanship. At ADL, we feel this should be preserved and enhanced. What we saw in the invitation and in the reaction was partisan politics. That’s why we thought [the speech] was ill-advised — it was divisive. But even more importantly, we felt that the Prime Minister has a critically important message regarding the existential threat that Israel feels, which was being drowned out by the controversy and the politicization of the invitation.

INTERVIEWS BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW

Is anti-Zionism the same as anti-Semitism? Is it possible to hold one without the other?

I think it’s nearly impossible. Look at behaviors, not necessarily concepts. People have an absolute right to take to the streets to blog, tweet and post about their dislike for what the government of Israel does and how it does it. But when you go to the streets to protest those policies and actions, and then you look for somebody wearing a kippah and punch them in the face, or you go to a synagogue and graffiti “Free Gaza” on it, that’s an attack on Jews. It has nothing to do with being against Zionism. If you are against Zionism, the nationalist aspiration of the Jewish people for a homeland, what other nationalist aspirations do you oppose? If you are opposed to all nationalist movements, then I would say, perhaps it isn’t [anti-Semitism]. But when you single out Zionism, then I don’t think it’s that difficult to say there is an anti-Jewish element.

to vote there. I would suspect that most of the people who hold the view that you just described aren’t prepared to emigrate so that they can have a real impact on the outcome.

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VICTORIA REED Victoria Reed is the curator of provenance at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. She researches the histories of the art that the museum holds or plans to purchase and determines if the pieces were stolen or acquired unethically.

INTERVIEW BY SAMUEL RUBINSTEIN Do many museums have a position like yours?

Other American museums are conducting provenance research, but each institution has handled the issue differently based on their needs, so there may not be a position completely analogous to mine.

What are the best practices for acquiring and displaying art ethically, and what decision rules do you use?

We have a two-page, 21-question form that curators are required to fill out for every acquisition. It comes down to risk assessment…The most important thing in making an acquisition is to do so being fully aware of what has been asked, what issues exist, where the object has been and to be fully transparent about the object’s collecting history. All of our new acquisitions become a part of our collection database online where we post provenance information and update it. That is what is great about American museums: their commitment to transparency.

BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW INTERVIEWS

What are the key points among those 21 questions?

Is it something unique? Can it be traced? Is it one of 500 candlesticks or prints? Is the value of the object such that we have to be concerned about the way it was declared when it was imported? Certain objects will present import issues. We have import restrictions with a number of countries through the US Department of State or, for financial reasons, through the Treasury Department. We also need to be aware of the export legislation of the countries these objects came out of. If the object is ancient or archaeological, that presents certain concerns. If the object could have been in Europe during the Nazi era, that presents concerns.

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Do you think that as our concept of ethics evolves we need to think of displays of art from around the world as colonialist?

One of the great things museums can do is present objects from around the world. We have to build these collections legally and ethically. Bringing provenance information into the galleries is important. Objects leave their origins in a variety of ways, some of which are problematic by today’s standards, if not deplorable. I don’t necessarily think that everything needs to be repatriated, but museums can be places to discuss or even problematize the ownership histories of these objects.

Are there situations where an object belongs elsewhere but cannot be kept safely there?

If we have made a determination that we are not the legal owners of an object, or that it is stolen property, it’s really not up to us to decide how it is displayed and cared for. Most countries of origin, if they were not in a position to safely keep [the art], would delay their request in asking for it back. I don’t know of any instances in which sending an object back has jeopardized its history. Some people questioned that when we

returned [bronze sculptures of the Benin people] to Nigeria, but I don’t think Nigeria would have asked for them if they could not properly keep them.

You’ve said that the global art market is largely unregulated.

Is there a need for an international convention regarding art?

In an ideal world, yes. In reality, it’s unlikely. In American institutions, most repatriations are based on an understanding of US law, accompanied by the desire of museums to uphold a high ethical standard. If we are dealing with things that are stolen, under US law we cannot hold them. US law is very different from European law. A basic tenet of US law is that you cannot convey title. Once something is stolen, it remains stolen. The thief can sell it, and the buyer can buy it in good faith, but it remains stolen. In other countries, the title can be acquired if the purchaser acquires an object in good faith. We also don’t have the concept of cultural property in the US. We don’t have a minister of culture. In many countries in Europe, pieces of art attain the status of cultural property. For example, a couple of years ago, we were returning an object to a European institution because it was stolen property. They had asked for it back because it was their cultural heritage. The end result was the same, but we had very different reasons.

Does it continue to surprise you that so many years after World War II so many claims remain unresolved surrounding Nazi-looted art?

The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, which wasn’t really that long ago. A lot of documentation and artifacts have come to light since that time. Just when you think we have kept track of everything that is out there, 1,200 pieces of art are found in an apartment in Munich that no one has seen in decades. For countries that were once under Soviet rule, there was not a lot of research being done. It is a topic that was neglected for many decades, and only in recent years have people become aware again that not all of these claims have been resolved.

What are your greatest accomplishments in terms of acquisitions that did not go through or works that were repatriated?

One was the case of a pendant offered at the Maastricht Fine Art Fair that, after doing a little bit of digging, we found was stolen out of a museum in former East Germany, probably in 1945. We notified the dealer, who sent it back. It wasn’t that hard to figure out that it was a war loss, but the pendant had been on the market for decades. No one had asked the questions. The Nazi claims can be very time-consuming, so to see them resolved is very satisfying. We reached a financial settlement with the heirs of a Jewish art dealer who was persecuted during WWII and reclaimed a Dutch panel painting, and the research for that took eight years.

verb

| ‘kät ’lässõ | e

Καταλλάσσω [ with obj. ]

1)

cause to coexist in harmony; reconcile, of persons; make or show to be compatible.

2)

admit into a community; to allow (a person, country, or organization) to join an organization or a group.

3)

change decisively; make or become a different substance entirely; transform.

COGNATES / DERIVATIVES catallaxy noun catallactic adj.

At The Political Theory Project, we’re talking a lot these days about the ideal of Catallaxy: a pattern of mutually beneficial interaction that does not require that participants share the same ends, such as friendship.

Through our program of visiting scholars and post-doctoral fellows, and through our student programs such as The Janus Forum, we aspire to provide spaces for the building of catallactic friendships here at Brown.

Submit a pitch!

Submit an article idea for our next issue of the magazine. If your pitch is selected, you’ll be published! Pitches are due on March 15th.

Submit here: www.brownpoliticalreview.org/write-for-bpr/

AHEAD OF THE CURVE Investing in early education pays off.

STORY BY RAPOLAS BINKYS ART BY KWANG CHOI

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child who never receives high-quality early childhood care and education (ECCE) is 25 percent more likely to drop out of school, 40 percent more likely to become a teenage parent and 70 percent more likely to be arrested for a violent crime. EECE shapes a child’s potential early, whether they will get pregnant in high school to how much money they will make after college. These programs have demonstrated statistical significance in shaping a person’s life-long achievements by accelerating the development of “soft skills” — commonly “emotional intellectual quotient,” or EQ — at a young age.

These skills measure an individual’s ability to communicate effectively and work with others in social situations; EECE encourages children to interact with one another, providing them with intellectual stimulation and education. EQ is the yin to IQ’s yang – which ECCE also improves.

Though IQ development is an important benefit of EECE, the most direct and measurable benefit is EQ, a fact that is becoming ever more relevant as new studies show correlations between high EQs and both economic success and career advancement. Although counter-studies have shown that ECCE’s impact on IQ diminishes as students grow up, the early advantage provided by ECCE can contribute to a lifelong achievement gap. It isn’t just statisticians who are noticing these trends: En-

trepreneur.com recently reported that “77 percent of employers surveyed said they were seeking candidates with soft skills.”

6Seconds, a non profit focused on the development of soft skills, argues that EQ “has twice the power of IQ to predict performance” and that it “is also a better predictor [for job success] than employee skill, knowledge, or expertise.” EQ’s edge in the hiring process and the boost it gives to general successes in the workplace accounts for income differences ranging up to $30,000 per year between individuals comparable in all ways but EQ. Despite the clear social and economic advantages of ECCE, ChildTrends Data Bank found that almost half of children in poor and low-income families had any exposure to ECCE, and that even when low-income children did have access to early education, most of the programs they attended fell short when compared to those of their more affluent peers. This is not surprising. The White House claims that the consumer costs of most nine-to-five care programs run over $10,000 per child per year — comparable to, and in some cases even exceeding, the cost of tuition at public four-year universities. High prices are driven by rising demand, and in many cases, families who cannot afford these high-quality facilities are forced to choose between working and leaving a child in an unsafe or low-quality daycare facility.

Unfortunately, due to the steady increase in childcare costs over the years, ECCE is increasingly unaffordable for many American families as parents are faced with tough financial decisions.

Strengthening our early childcare programs doesn’t just make sense — it makes cents. The President’s Council of Economic Advisors showed that ECCE generates an eightfold return on investment — $8.60 for every $1.00 spent. But more than half of American families still lack access to affordable, high-quality childcare, and that number is growing: Slate reported that barely 30 percent of families in 2014 were enrolled in ECCE, a decline from 42 percent in the late 1990s.

Like most of the Democratic Party, President Obama has amped up advocacy for ECCE, remarking in the 2015 State of the Union: “It’s time we treat [childcare] like the national economic priority that it is for all of us.” Through nuanced tax breaks and targeted spending, Obama has set his sights on making access to ECCE a major project before he leaves office. His goal is to promote “universal childcare” by tripling the value of current childcare tax credits in addition to relaxing the requirements, thereby allowing more families to take advantage of potential savings or refunds come tax season. These changes aim to extend benefits to more than five million families and six and a half million children, ranging from the lowest income families to those making up to $120,000 a year. In a second childcare-friendly measure, the President’s new budget includes a significant boost to the Child Care and Development Fund, a federal fund that matches state level resources for childcare subsidies.

With critics of Obama’s ECCE budget reform asking only if his plan is enough to have a meaningful impact, it is possible that this may be a rare bipartisan win. Acrossthe-aisle support indicates a consensus that EECE could be a national priority, although the mood on Capitol Hill means that even such a demonstrably positive measure might end up caught in the partisan crossfire. Politicking aside, the research and momentum are all pointing in one direction, and it is reassuring that the United States is finally making moves towards investing in education programs that promise a more equitable start for millions of families across the country.

RAPOLAS BINKYS ‘18 IS AN INTENDED APPLIED MATH-ECONOMICS CONCENTRATOR.

UNFREE PARKING Aer Lingus’ future is up in the air.

STORY BY LIZ STUDLICK / ART BY KRISTINE MAR

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all it the luck of the Irish. Shares of Dublin-based airline Aer Lingus plummeted this February on speculation that the Irish government would reject a €1.36 billion offer to purchase the company. The buyer was International Airlines Group (IAG), the owner of British Airways. It’s unsurprising that many of the concerns about the deal voiced by members of the Dáil, Ireland’s most powerful legislative body, revolve around jobs. Slightly more unexpected is the real stumbling block in the negotiations: Aer Lingus’ 23 pairs of parking slots at London’s Heathrow Airport. While fisticuffs over airplane parking slots might not seem to be the most significant conflict, it is reflective of both recent changes in the European airline industry and Ireland’s struggle to assess the economic and political benefits of giving up what is considered a national asset.

Started in 1936, Aer Lingus was primarily state-owned until 2006, when the government sold its almost-60 percent stake on the London and Dublin stock exchanges. Though Aer Lingus remains financially healthy in an industry rife with bankruptcy, the deal with IAG may nevertheless be a best-case scenario for the

company. In recent years, many airline companies have transitioned from being state-owned carriers to seeking private sources of capital in order to compete with low-cost carriers. And Aer Lingus has not been spared: The airline faces competition from Ryanair, a low-budget Irish airline which holds a 29.99 percent stake in the company, and EasyJet, a British firm. Lowcost airlines like these have grown at double-digit rates over the past decade while the growth of established network and flag carriers has largely remained stagnant.

Furthermore, when the EU deregulated its formerly strict market in 1997, allowing any European carrier to fly within any European country’s borders, low-cost carriers came to dominate shorter routes. With the rise of Ryanair and other low-cost competitors, it makes sense that the company itself is in favor of the IAG sale.

Airlines across the globe face an increasingly competitive landscape, and for many, consolidation has been the answer.

This is not just a European solution, but also a global one: While 9/11 changed the face of air-travel drastically, with more passengers choosing to fly with low-cost carriers than before, so-called “mega mergers”

have allowed US airlines to remain profitable. European airlines are beginning to follow the same trend, but with less success. Though it’s a tempting narrative, consolidation in Europe isn’t a foregone conclusion. In the United States, 95 percent of the market falls to just eight carriers; in Europe, two dozen European carriers carve up 80 percent of the market. Barriers like language, regulation and government-owned stakes still stand in the way of consolidating Europe’s diverse airlines.

In addition to, and partially due to, being the most fragmented airline market worldwide, Europe’s is also the least profitable.

With IAG buying into the consolidation trend, Aer Lingus is a particularly valuable prospect for the conglomerate to acquire — not because of its profits, but because of its parking spots. In the world of aviation, parking slots grant airlines permission to land and depart during specific times. The slots in question are owned by Aer Lingus at Heathrow, one of Europe’s busiest and most overcrowded airports.

Out of Heathrow’s 680 pairs of slots divided between two runways, Aer Lingus owns a coveted 23 pairs. Despite growing pressures to build a third runway at Lon-

don’s flagship airport, plans for expansion have been bogged down in political debate, meaning the delay is likely to continue.

Unlike in the United States, where slots are allocated by the Federal Aviation Authority and are nontradable, the European Union has allowed airlines to swap spaces as airports across Europe have increasingly neared capacity. As a result, the secondary market for the trading of slots at Heathrow has skyrocketed in volume in the past few years. In 2005, 68 pairs of slots were transferred between airlines; in 2012, that number grew to 526. As the result of an aggressive trading campaign in 2013, British Airways now owns over half of Heathrow’s slots.

Given the limited supply, slots at Heathrow have become increasingly valuable. In early February, a pair of Scandinavian Airlines-owned slots in Terminal Two, a terminal Aer Lingus shares, went for $60 million. Even with conservative, back-ofthe-envelope calculations — the values of slots are highly variable, though consulting firm Deloitte has estimated a typical slot pair at somewhere around $40 million — the airline could be sitting on about $1 billion in slots alone. Based on that figure, parking slots account for over two-thirds of IAG’s offered price — explaining its interest in the small airlines.

For the Irish government, however, the slots may prove even more precious than their nominal value in euros. Though it only owns a 25 percent stake in the airline, Ireland relies on the Heathrow slots for both tourism and business travel. Though the island nation may not seem like a major vacation destination, tourism accounted for a healthy 13 percent of GDP in 2008.

Ireland’s proximity to the UK, combined with a lower cost of living, makes its cities economically attractive to visit. Furthermore, Aer Lingus’ business model relies on its London slots: One in three of the 2.28 million flights out of Irish airports to Heathrow last year were transfers for lucrative international flights. Their sale, therefore, would dramatically cut traffic through Dublin and would threaten the investment potential of cities like Shannon and Cork that rely on quick access to London. It’s not all about access, either. If Aer Lingus loses control of the slots, the airline could shrink, triggering the job losses that Irish politicians are publicly worrying about in the wake of the offer.

It’s plain to see why politicians have been scrambling to defend Irish owner-

ship of these slots. Members of Fianna Fáil, one of the leading opposition parties, have outspokenly condemned the sale, warning that IAG could offer no long-term security for the slots should it be allowed to take over Aer Lingus. There is some truth to this claim: after Prime Minister Enda Kenny called for “cast iron permanent guarantees” from IAG, the company promised only that the slots would remain designated for Irish routes for the next five years. Unsatisfied, Irish politicians have demanded that the government receive veto power over any future sale of the slots, even after the sale of their entire stake in Aer Lingus. This tactic may be working. Given mounting political opposition to the deal, IAG has indicated that they are willing to put permanent protection for the slots on the table.

IF AER LINGUS LOSES CONTROL OF THE SLOTS, THE AIRLINE COULD SHRINK, TRIGGERING THE JOB LOSSES THAT IRISH POLITICIANS ARE PUBLICLY WORRYING ABOUT IN THE WAKE OF THE OFFER. This isn’t the first controversy over airline parking. The merger between British Airways and Spain’s national carrier Iberia — the deal that originally formed IAG — sparked similar concerns in 2010. Five years later, Iberia has kept all its Heathrow slots despite the merger. If the deal were to go through, IAG would presumably choose to do the same with Aer Lingus’ slots. The larger company has already announced that Aer Lingus would remain headquartered in Dublin after the sale.

This development, together with the fact that IAG is now offering to make a series of legally-binding agreements retaining Irish control of the slots, means that the rush to criticize the sale likely has more to do with Irish politics-as-usual than any real indication of IAG having nefarious plans for the Heathrow slots.

With Ireland’s 2016 elections just around the corner, endorsing the sale is viewed as political poison. As a coalition source said in January, “This is a year-one issue, not a year-five issue” — meaning it is elections, not economics, that are holding up the deal. The long-standing coalition government formed by left-leaning Labour and center-right Fine Gael parties has floundered in recent years, losing support in opinion polls by over 30 percent in the

past year. Fianna Fail, formerly Ireland’s dominant populist party until a crushing defeat in 2011’s elections, is predicted to gain seats next year along with opposition party Sinn Fein. Independents and smaller parties have garnered as much as 29 percent in recent polls, leading to an increasingly fractured electorate. With the balance of government in a rather precarious place, such a touchy topic as the airline slots has not earned many champions from the government or its opposition.

The fraught Irish political landscape might not make much of a difference. Even if no political party is willing to agree to the sale, the government may not have any say in it. Although IAG has stated it would only close on the sale if both the government and Ryanair agreed to it, both are short of the 30 percent stake it would take to block the deal. IAG is not known for playing hardball, but the current offer stands at a significant premium to the airlines’ share price, leaving institutional and retail investors more than happy to part with their shares. IAG could easily pick up the shares necessary to gain de facto control; furthermore, Ryanair has indicated that it is looking to dump its shares after seeing its own offers to buy Aer Lingus rebuffed one too many times over the past few years. Though unlikely, even if the government held on to its 25.1 percent stake and retained veto power over the sale of slots, IAG would still be able to lease or temporarily swap them. As such, the Irish government’s position of intransigence may be in vain.

However logical consolidation may be in an increasingly competitive market, and however IAG may sweeten the deal, the acquisition may be something that Irish politicians, and the country at large, are never willing to accept. As long as the public continues to feel that they still own Aer Lingus — and insists on claiming the Heathrow slots as Irish birthright — it may be impossible for the Irish to view the deal entirely objectively. The focus on slots has already overshadowed the handwringing around jobs in the public arena; IAG’s latest statement contained no reference to jobs, a fact that IMPACT, the trade union representing Aer Lingus pilots and cabin crew, was quick to point out. It remains to be seen whether the deal will ride out these political headwinds or be taken down by turbulence.

LIZ STUDLICK ‘16 IS AN ECONOMICS CONCENTRATOR AND CULTURE STAFF WRITER AT BROWN POLITICAL REVIEW.

REFUGE DENIED The tides are turning on Australia’s immigrants.

STORY BY MICHAEL WICKS / ART BY GOYO KWON

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he Human Rights Watch World Report recently condemned Australia’s “draconian new policies” towards asylum seekers and refugees. The country’s current policy, which consists of detaining and processing asylum seekers off its shores, has spurred deep controversies both domestically and abroad. Such a policy hasn’t always been the norm, however. After the conclusion of World War II, successive governments built a progressive immigration system that was characterized by a willingness to accept a diverse array of immigrants. Just a few decades later, and well into the 21 century, there are 2,757 people detained in facilities across mainland Australia that Human Rights Watch describes as “substandard, unsafe, and inappropriate.” Australia’s dramatic policy shift can be attributed in large part to the issue’s political rhetoric, which has grown steadily more divisive since the late 1980s. The culmination of the rhetorical fisticuffs between Australia’s conservative Liberal and progressive Labor Parties has come with the current government’s controversial Operation Sovereign Borders initiative, which doubles-down on efforts to reduce the influx of asylum seekers into the country.

There are two consistent, yet contradictory, threads running through Australia’s history of immigration. The first is the country’s need for substantial human resources to drive an industrial economy.

The second is deep-seated resentment for each wave of immigrants that has arrived at its shores. As time has passed, Australia’s political realities have changed, and immigration policies have morphed with them.

At the end of WWII, the national mood was such that the country had to “populate

or perish” — which is to say, grow or risk losing an influential stake in world affairs.

As a result, Australia placed annual immigrant intake targets between 60,000 and 70,000 people, twice as large as the intake amounts had been in the inter-war years.

However, the “White Australia” policy still favored Northern European immigrants and limited the effects of Australian xenophobia.

The White Australia policy remained in place until its last vestiges were finally removed in 1973, when the Whitlam government enshrined a nondiscriminatory immigration policy into law. As a first step, Australia opened its borders to people from Italy, Greece and Yugoslavia. While there were strong, and often negative, reactions to

this new vision of Australia, Parliamentary bipartisan support tenuously held. Towards the end of the 1970s, for example, opposition leader Malcolm Fraser publicly welcomed the “boat people” who were fleeing their homeland of Vietnam in a display of this new view on immigration.

By the 1990s, Australian immigration policy had begun to shift again. A 1988 review of immigration found that “multiculturalism had helped make immigration unpopular.” Soon afterwards the country was hit by recession, and the economic malaise that followed pushed the Australian populace to look for a scapegoat — one it found in ethnically diverse immigrants. Tapping into popular discontent, the government at the time, led by Australian Labor Party leader Paul Keating, introduced indefinite mandatory detention as an interim measure to handle recent boat arrivals from Indochina. This move was a marked departure from global norms. Under the UN Refugee Agency’s Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, Australia is prohibited from restricting the movements of refugees while it is processing them, making the country’s detentions a potential violation of international law.

Nevertheless, in 2001 Australia departed its legal obligation in what became known as the Tampa affair, where the government left 438 Afghani asylum-seekers, many of whom required urgent medical attention, stranded off its shores on the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa. The Prime Minister was John Howard of the Liberal Party, who as opposition leader in 1988 had infamously given a speech endorsing his “One Australia” campaign. In that speech, he argued that the number of

Asians coming into Australia was threatening the nation’s cultural identity and social cohesion. At the time, this sparked a furor in which then-Labor Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, introduced legislation committing the country to an immigration policy that did not discriminate with regards to ethnicity.

Nearly 15 years later, the Tampa affair was invoked in a reevaluation of how the two political parties in government cooperated — or didn’t — on immigration. Despite efforts from the Labor party to quell partisan differences, the Liberal government stuck to its guns. In doing so, it had the public’s backing, as the Australian electorate supported the Liberal government’s resistance to the Tampa.

The eventual result of the Tampa affair, and the public groundswell of support for the government, was the so-called Pacific Solution.

Under the Pacific Solution, the Australian government excised thousands of islands from Australia’s so-called migration zone. Anybody who arrived in the zone without proper documentation would be treated as though they had not actually landed on Australian soil. As such, these individuals would not have access to the legal rights and privileges available to lawful arrivals. Any asylum seekers intercepted by border police would then be sent to detention centers set up in Nauru and Papua New Guinea while they awaited processing.

At the time the Tampa incident occurred, there was a heightened state of fear regarding immigrants. Although these fears range from the moderate to the absurd — Wilson Tuckey, a Member of Parliament, warned that boats of immigrants could provide cover for terrorists disguised as refugees — they continued to have a prominent place in Australia’s discourse about terrorism. And politicians like John Howard have since been able to use these public fears about the place and legitimacy of immigrants to defend anti-immigrant policies that would previously have faced public opposition.

Six years later, Kevin Rudd, a member of the Labor Party, was elected to government. Rudd attempted to break the pattern on immigration by championing Big Australia, an initiative that would have attempted to increase the population from 22 million in 2010 to 36 million in 2015 — efforts that would have been largely fueled by immigration. However, a simulta-

neous increase in the frequency of arrivals of asylum seekers galvanized popular revolt against the policy and the Labor Party in general. Attacked for mismanaging the country, the Labor Party crumbled. The party subsequently rejected Rudd’s “Big Australia,” blaming the policy for leading them astray and concluded that they could only survive the next election by a taking a hardline on asylum seekers and reinstating Howard’s Pacific Policy.

Despite the shift in immigration policy, Labor did not win the next election. The Liberal party was instead elected in 2013 under the leadership of Tony Abbott — who promised he would “stop the boats” as a central platform of his election bid. With this in his platform, Abbott was elected by a landslide, with his Liberal Party winning

WILSON TUCKEY, A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, WARNED THAT BOATS OF IMMIGRANTS COULD PROVIDE COVER FOR TERRORISTS DISGUISED AS REFUGEES. ABSURD FEARS LIKE THESE CONTINUE TO HAVE A PROMINENT PLACE IN AUSTRALIA’S DISCOURSE ABOUT TERRORISM. 90 seats in the House of Representatives to the Labor Party’s 55. Needless to say, the Liberal government undid several of the progressive efforts of the previous Labor government; specifically, Abbott’s administration opposed a former agreement with Malaysia providing that all new boat arrivals would be relocated to the SouthAsian country. Since the election, the new Immigration Minister, Scott Morrison, has also introduced “Operation Sovereign Borders,” a policy designed to reduce the flow of asylum-seekers attempting to travel to Australia via boat.

The program was conducted across a number of military divisions and overseen by a three-star general. The operation has oftentimes been shrouded in secrecy, as public statements on the arrival of boat people have slowed to a standstill, with the Immigration Minister declaring that such information would be released on an “as needs be basis.” Other officials refused to comment on what were referred to as “on-water matters,” seemingly out of fear that such discussion could jeopardize the operation. As a result, intercepted asylum seekers were effectively towed back to In-

donesian waters, which did not endear the policy or its makers to the Indonesian government, contributing to the increasingly fractious relations between the two countries.

Abbott’s policies faced legal challenges after two Sri Lankan boats of asylum seekers were seized in July 2014 under the new policy. Operation Sovereign Borders was then under investigation for violating international law — though it was not ultimately found to be unlawful. People on one of the boats were assessed under an “enhanced screening process” before being returned to Sri Lanka. The other boat was turned back in accordance with previous policies, and upon the boat’s return, the Sri Lankan government charged its occupants for illegally leaving the country.

Those who had made it to Australia — and were subsequently transported to the detention camps — faced trying conditions in their temporary homes in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. In February of 2014, prison officials in the Papua New Guinea camp bashed an Iranian detainee to death in a riot. Others were so seriously injured that they had to be evacuated.

This wasn’t the only troubling instance; the Australian government has also since confirmed that people in the same detention center were going on hunger strikes and even engaging in self-harm.

Despite the controversy surrounding Operation Sovereign Borders, immigration into Australia has continued to grow faster than ever, from 131,162 permanent additions between 2000 and 2001 to 254,737 between 2012 and 2013. Primarily, this growth is primarily driven by demand from businesses and universities for more labor and students.

The current climate surrounding the so-called refugee crisis has come to the point where it now casts an inordinately large shadow over Australian politics.

The obsession with turning back asylum seekers is little more than a talking point that diverts public scrutiny away from more pressing issues like development and growth. But the rhetoric has been effective, as tapping into Australians’ xenophobic fears has allowed politicians to promote strong anti-immigration policies, even if the result has been damage to the lives of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers.

As for Australia’s reputation on the global stage, the ship may have already sailed.

MICHAEL WICKS ‘17 IS A HISTORY CONCENTRATOR.