Sustainable populations and joined-up thinking

What I like about the Simultaneous Policy approach is that it promotes up joined-up thinking, in a way that current global policy making does not, as evidenced by our leaders efforts to tackle climate change, while increasing oil production or refusing to listen to the concerns of farmers in developing countries at the World Trade Organisation, while there is evidence that forcing open developing country markets has impoverished farmers and increased food insecurity in some countries (see past blogs).

Since starting this blog and thinking in a little more depth of the possibilities of the Simultaneous policy, there seem to be a multiplicity of ways that different global problems can be tackled in a coherent way.

Sustainability, population growth and protecting the right to food came together for me this week, re-reading Michael Latham's chapter in Global Obligations for the Right to Food about tackling the curse of worms, measles and malaria. Professor Latham recommends governments to take a Resolution to the World Health Assembly calling for a strategic program for tackling these three illnesses. This could be worth proposing for inclusion in the Simultaneous Policy.

Here's how some issues were joining up for me this week. I read that in Brazil, the birth rate has fallen to 1.8 children per woman, a level similar to that in industrialized countries. This level was not anticipated by the Brazilian National Institute of Geography and Statistics until 2043. The rapid drop is attributed to urbanization, where more children cost more money, in contrast to the countryside where historically more children have been seen as more hands to tend the land. But the rate has fallen in rural areas as quickly as in cities, attributed to the success in promoting family planning and the rising living standards experienced, or aspired to.

The expectation is that Brazilian's population will stabilise around 290 million inhabitants in 2050. The population if growth was at the rate of 1991, would be 377 million. With the rate of 1970, it would be 623 million.

If the average Brazilian was to increase their demand on the land to 4.1 hectares per person (the same as in Switzerland), then a population of 220 million could be supported. With present consumption levels, Brazil could support 384 millions. This is based on a study by the World Wide Fund for nature. All the above statistics are drawn from Brazil's news weekly, Veja, whose 30 July issue led with the cover story: "Where are all the babies?"

So achieving a sustainable population is within easy reach for Brazil, somewhere around the 220 - 290 million mark.

Sometimes in my work campaigning against the aggressive marketing of baby foods, practices which contribute to the unnecessary death and suffering of babies in conditions of poverty and compromises development elsewhere, I come across people who suggest that it is better that babies are dying in poor countries to limit population growth. Really. That's how some people think.

But the fact is that populations stabilise when parents have the expectation their babies will survive and outlive them. It is in conditions with high infant and young child mortality that birth rates tend to be higher. Rising standards of living also reduce birth rates as people are both more educated and raising children is more expensive. Parents choose to focus resources on a fewer number.

In the interests of sustainability for the global human population - and our lives on this planet are inextricably linked - reducing childhood mortality rates and raising standards of living benefits us all.

Michael Latham, like the rest of us who contributed chapters to Global Obligations for the Right to Food, makes the case that governments have obligations under existing human rights conventions to take collective action to deliver and protect the right to food. Promoting, protecting and supporting breastfeeding is part of the measures he highlights for improving child short and long-term health.

He also argues that relieving hunger encompasses relieving malnutrition and that is achieved not only by providing more food, but ending endemic parasites and illnesses that compromise nutrition.

I don't want to reiterate everything that is in his chapter - you really should buy the book - but the three principal concerns (worms, measles and malaria) are embarrassingly cheap to address. Embarrassing, because governments with the resources are failing to do so. They are not only failing in their human rights and moral obligations, they are, in some respects, costing themselves unnecessary expenditure.

Worms, parasites in the intestines that may affect organs such as the lungs, infect probably 2 billion people. Cambodia's de-worming programme cost US$ 0.06 per child.

There are about 50 million cases of measles every year, with about 1 million deaths. Immunization can have significant impact. "Six southern African countries that recorded 60,000 measles cases in 1996 reduced this to 117 cases in 2000". While national governments should be taking this action, where they cannot, the support of the international community is vital, argues Professor Latham, and will save them money if a concerted global campaign wipes out measles.

He writes: "It cost the United States US$ 124 million a year to keep itself free of smallpox for the twenty-five years prior to when smallpox was eradicated in 1978. Thus the US$32 million that the United States invested in the global Smallpox Eradication Program was recouped in about three months once smallpox vaccinations could be discontinued."

It is estimated that there are 1200 million cases of malaria every year, resulting in 1.5 million deaths annually. Impregnated bed nets are seen as an effective way to greatly reduce this toll. A net costs typically just US$ 3, but many people in poor countries cannot afford them. Malaria is so widespread that its impact is far greater than that counted in deaths. Lost schools days, days off work and unmet potential are also a blight.

Governments have signed up to the human rights instruments, that include the right to health as well as the right to food, and the Millenium Development Goals, but are failing to meet the obligations that arise from these.

A joined up approach would suggest serious and concerted effort to tackle worms, measles and malaria is a worthy candidate for inclusion in the Simultaneous Policy as it will not only address the injustice of people on our planet suffering from preventable illness, but will help reduce costs for all people and lead to lower mortality rates and smaller families and towards sustainable populations.

Join the discussion in the Simpol Forum at:
http://www.simpol.org.uk/forum/

Sign up as a Simultaneous Policy Adopter to vote on suggestions and put forward your own. Call on your political representatives to pledge to implement the Simultaneous Policy alongside other governments.

UK House of Lords says rule of law must come second in bribery case

Nearly two years ago the UK's Serious Fraud Office dropped a criminal investigation into the British arms company, BAE systems, which was accused of running a £ 60 million slush fund to Saudi officials who had authorised a £42 billion arms deal. The Attorney General was Lord Goldsmith. The BBC at the time reported that a further arms deal was under threat, with the possibility Saudi Arabia would buy planes from France rather than the UK if it continued to be embarrassed by the investigation. In addition, the BBC reported:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6181949.stm

---extract from BBC report of 15 December 2006
Lord Goldsmith said that both Mr Blair and Defence Secretary Des Browne had argued that carrying on the investigation would harm intelligence and diplomatic co-operation with Saudi Arabia, in turn damaging the UK's national security.
---extract ends

You could look on £60 million in 'commissions' as a small price to pay to secure British jobs, or you could look on it as the corrupting influence of the arms trade. What is certain, is that the rich club of nations, the OECD, which is for a rules-based system of trade, has a treaty against bribary which the UK has signed. It said after the investigation was dropped that it would take "appropriate action" against the UK. See:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6275199.stm

At that time, the then leader of the Liberal Democrats commented: "The next time British ministers go into Africa and take to task the governments of developing countries on the ground that they are not dealing sufficiently harshly with corruption they will get this decision thrown back in their faces."

However, there were British citizens who thought the government should be held to account and they won a case at the High Court, which ruled the Serious Fraud Office was wrong to halt the investigation. That ruling has now been overturned by the House of Lords. Here is the press release from the campaigners:

---Cornerhouse/CAAT press release 30 July 2008
Serious Fraud Office WIN appeal in BAE-Saudi case as public outrage continues.


The House of Lords, the UK's highest court, has this morning OVERTURNED the High Court's ruling of April 2008 that the Director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) acted unlawfully when, acting on government advice, he terminated in December 2006 a corruption investigation into BAE Systems' arms deals with Saudi Arabia after lobbying by BAE and a threat from Saudi Arabia to withdraw diplomatic and intelligence co-operation.

The High Court ruling was in response to a judicial review brought by the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and The Corner House.

Today, the law lords described the threat made by Saudi Arabia as 'ugly and obviously unwelcome'.

Baroness Hale said that she would have liked to have been able to say that it was wrong to stop the investigation as it was 'extremely distasteful that an independent public official should feel himself obliged to give way to threats of any sort.'

But she felt she had to agree that the SFO Director's decision was lawful because of the breadth of the Director's discretion.

In response to the Lords' judgments, Nicholas Hildyard of The Corner House said:

''Now we know where we are. Under UK law, a supposedly independent prosecutor can do nothing to resist a threat made by someone abroad if the UK government claims that the threat endangers national security.

''The unscrupulous who have friends in high places overseas willing to make such threats now have a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card -- and there is nothing the public can do to hold the government to account if it abuses its national security powers. Parliament needs urgently to plug this gaping hole in the law and in the constitutional checks and balances dealing with national security.

''With the law as it is, a government can simply invoke 'national security' to drive a coach and horses through international anti-bribery legislation, as the UK government has done, to stop corruption investigations.''

Symon Hill of CAAT said:

''BAE and the government will be quickly disappointed if they think that this ruling will bring an end to public criticism. Throughout this case we have been overwhelmed with support from people in all walks of life.

''There has been a sharp rise in opposition to BAE's influence in the corridors of power. Fewer people are now taken in by exaggerated claims about British jobs dependent on Saudi arms deals. The government has been judged in the court of public opinion. The public know that Britain will be a better place when BAE is no longer calling the shots.''

The law lords judgment confirms that the UK is in flagrant breach of its duty to implement and give force to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.

In practice, the UK Government now has a green light to use an undefined and broad concept of 'national security' to cover themselves when taking potentially unlawful decisions.

The SFO, BAE and the Government might think that, with today's judgments from the law lords, it's now all over. Far from it! The real challenges have only just begun.

Both CAAT and The Corner House are calling on all those who are alarmed at the gaping holes in the law revealed by the House of Lords' judgments today to join us in:

--Pressing for changes to the law to ensure that our prosecutors can remain independent and are empowered to resist threats from abroad.

--Ensuring that national security advice can be scrutinised by the courts and by parliament so that the Government cannot arbitrarily invoke national security - without effective checks and balances - to trump the rule of law.

--Opposing the clauses in the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill that would prevent a judicial review like ours from ever being taken in the future and that would give the Government 'carte blanche' to invoke national security to stop a fraud investigation or criminal prosecution without effective checks and balances.

--Insisting that the Government fulfil its international obligations to cooperate with requests for assistance from the US and Swiss authorities in their investigations into BAE's dealings with Saudi Arabia.

--Pressing the OECD to clarify the circumstances under which national security concerns can legitimately be invoked to exempt signatories from fulfilling their obligations under the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.

--Pressing the Serious Fraud Office to re-open its investigation into BAE's dealings with Saudi Arabia given that circumstances have changed since the investigation was dropped in December 2006. Much of the information that Saudi Arabia was apparently concerned to keep out of the public domain is now public knowledge.

--Exposing the preferential access of arms companies, such as BAE, to the Government, and campaigning to end public subsidies to the arms industry.

CAAT and The Corner House are obviously disappointed -- but we're not despondent! The judicial review process has increased public awareness of corruption, arms trade, national security and the rule of law; it has now clarified the law; and key documents have been released into the public domain that would not otherwise have seen the light of day.

As we reflect further on the implications of today's judgments, we'll keep you posted . . .

Many thanks for all your support and best wishes from all at The Corner House

CornerHouse/CAAT statement in response to House of Lords judgments:
http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/item.shtml?x=562186

Opinions of the Lords of Appeal:
http://www.controlbae.org/jr/Lords_judgment.pdf

Indian farmers protest about proposed WTO agreement

I wrote recently about the need for UN bodies, international organisations and governments in their foreign policy to consider their human rights obligations. In the article I addressed the right to food in particular. See:
http://globaljusticeideas.blogspot.com/2008/07/food-prices-rights.html

The following news item from campaigners in India has arrived in my email in box showing how people there are concerned about the impact of World Trade Organisation on their food security.

--Message from Devinder Sharma who organised the meeting described


Points from the Press Note:

Farmers and rural women of Karnataka, in solidarity with various farmers organizations of India, resolve that the latest drafts on Agriculture and Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) that were released on the 10th of July, 2008 in Geneva, are an orchestrated attempt to open up the Indian markets for highly subsidized cheaper imports. Importing food is importing unemployment and poverty that will destroy livelihoods and the country's food self-sufficiency.

What is being offered to us at WTO by way of special products (SP) and Special Safeguard Measures (SSM) is only a smokescreen and offers no real protection to Indian agriculture and fisheries.

The Agreement on Agriculture is designed to ensure that subsidized products from the developed countries are dumped into India. In the absence of quantitative restrictions since 2001, farmers across the country have been exposed to price volatility, decreased incomes and, in many cases, driven to commit suicide. This is a calculated move to push farmers out of farming and replaced by corporations as has been the approach in the USA and European Union.

In this context and given the above concerns, we demand that the Government should reject the two drafts, as they fail to take India's minimum concerns on-board.

Agriculture and Food should be left out of WTO.

We urge political parties, civil society organizations, academics, etc. to stand up and join hands with us to resist this anti-farmer agreement. We also request our state governments to take up this matter with the Centre on an urgent basis so that the interest of farmers and nation is protected.

http://www.dsharma.net/
---quote ends

Quotas are everywhere in the free market - so why not for coffee?

I wrote yesterday about the crisis facing the global coffee market and the day before about child slavery in the cocoa industry. How to deal with these issues is something that may be relevant for the Simultaneous Policy.

There are efforts to address the coffee crisis, with a new International Coffee Agreement currently being ratified by governments that have signed up to it in principle. One thing the agreement does not talk about is using a quota system to better match supply and demand. Over supply, something exacerbated by companies such as Nestlé encouraging farmers in Vietnam and China to enter the market, keeps prices so low they are sometimes below the cost of production.

Quotas are not liked by business. Nestlé alternative suggestion is that consumers should drink more coffee. But when you think about it, we are surrounded by markets that run with quotas to make them more effective.

Quotas have a whiff of central planning about them, which is perhaps why they may promote a negative reaction. The example of the former Soviet Union, with shortages and appalling environmental impacts, is not a good advertisement for that. There were problems with quotas for coffee in the past and the Common Agriculture Policy pursued by the European Union has proved difficult to update to correct its failings.

But we see quotas in many other places. In 2000 the UK government conducted an auction for part of the electromagnetic spectrum in the form of licences for G3 mobile telephone services. The available spectrum was split into 5 packets to be licensed separately. In part there was a technical limit on how the frequency ranges could be split, but there was also a desire to open the market, which was currently dominated by four companies. The 5th licence was reserved for new operators, who could also bid on the others. There were 13 bidders trying for licenses at the outset. In such a market, there cannot be a free for all. There needs to be a quota set. See:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/727831.stm

There is a similar situation with slots at airports. There are physical limits on how many aircraft can be processed taking off and landing. There may also be political factors, such as the amount of noise that surrounding residents can be expected to put up with, which may further reduce slots. Slots become highly sought after. Indeed, it was suggested recently that airlines in Brazil were keen to take over Varig, which went into administration, because of the value of its slots as much as for its other assets. These could perhaps be seen as the buying side of the equation. Companies wanting access to a scarce resource to be able to do business, be it electromagnetic spectrum or space at the airport.

In many countries taxi services are regulated, which is more the sellers side of the equation. Taxi drivers want a license to be able to offer their service. The number of taxis that are licensed is often limited. Too many taxis would result in none being occupied as optimally as it could be, meaning empty vehicles on the roads and low incomes for drivers, possibly with consequent social effects. Too few taxis and those who want one might be disappointed or the charges may become extortionate (though it often seems to be the case that the rates taxis can charge are also fixed). There are other considerations, such as the need for the number of taxis and charges to be attractive to encourage people to leave their cars behind, while still making bus journeys more attractive still (as they cause less congestion and pollution). So a quota system is set with the aim of satisfying the sellers (the drivers) and the buyers (would-be passengers). Licensing can also be used to provide quality control (by requiring drivers to show knowledge of the city) and security (as passengers know the stranger whose car they enter is on a register). There can be failings to the system. It is in drivers interest to keep the number of licenses small. But with local control over numbers, there should be democratic recourse for passengers to change the situation.

Another situation where quotas are commonplace and accepted, though also often controversial, is with planning permission. In the UK, town and city councils put limits on the number of supermarkets that can open. Possibly this may be due to a physical limit on available land, but is more likely due to political factors, such as wanting to limit car journies to out-of-town sites and to maintain commerce in town centres, which are more communal, and protect local shops, which may be the only choice for the elderly, infirm and those with limited transport options. Consideration of a planning application from a supermarket chain can raise strong feelings, both for and against. A responsive local democracy will aim to resolve the conflicting demands in a transparent way.

There are no doubt many other examples of where quotas are an accepted part of the market in which businesses operate. There are also, of course, many cases where quotas are unnecessary and a free market operates successfully (though free markets are often still regulated in other ways to protect consumers and ensure fair competition).

So considering a quota system for certain resources, such as coffee, where oversupply puts many farmers into an insecure position, is not so extreme after all.

The International Coffee Agreement is currently being ratified. Will it solve the coffee crisis?

I wrote yesterday about the on-going crisis in cocoa farming. Transnational corporations have not delivered on their undertakings to end child slavery in their supply chains. Low prices, which fuel exploitation, are exacerbated by corporations encouraging new producers to enter the market at any sign of price increases. It has been proposed that there should be an international secretariat to oversee cocoa supply management. This may be an appropriate issue to be addressed in the Simultaneous Policy. On the other hand, those who believe that a free market should set prices without any controls are welcome to put forward alternative views and vote accordingly. See:
http://globaljusticeideas.blogspot.com/2008/07/chocolate-crisis.html

Cocoa is not the only food commodity in crisis. Coffee is another that has been the subject of much study and campaigning. A few years ago, Oxfam launched a report called Mugged: Poverty in Your Coffee Cup and a campaign aimed at improving the position of coffee farmers. Amongst its recommendations was that the oligarchy of coffee processors source an increasing percentage of their coffee from Fair Trade certified producers. One of them, Nestlé, made a public relations splash of its launch of a Fairtrade-marked coffee, though drew much criticism for using it to cover up its negative impact on coffee farmers, particularly as the number of farmers involved represented just 0.1% of those dependent on the company. See:
http://www.babymilkaction.org/resources/yqsanswered/yqanestle07.html

Oxfam also called for a Commodity Management Initiative, with proposed outcomes including: "Producer and consumer country governments establishing mechanisms to correct the imbalance in supply and demand to ensure reasonable prices to producers. Farmers should be adequately represented in such schemes."

In its latest update, Oxfam is claiming some progress through a new International Coffee Agreement, signed in September 2007. The agreement can be downloaded from the site of the International Coffee Organisation. See:
http://dev.ico.org/

These developments should make it clear that in calling for policies to address global problems, the Simultaneous Policy campaign is not being outlandish. Such policies are being developed as we speak, with varying degrees of democratic accountability and transparency. The SP campaign does not necessarily have to include new proposals. Adopters can be forward existing measures for discussion and approval through the democratic process. Significantly, however, it is the people who are in charge of this process, not vested interests who play countries off against each other.

The International Coffee Agreement has, like many international agreements and conventions, a similarity with the Simultaneous Policy in that it is due to come into force when a trigger level of governments party to it have ratified it. Given that this may not happen, the Agreement is to come into force provisionally on 25 September 2008. If the trigger level isn't reached by 25 September 2009, its provisional nature may be extended, those governments that have ratified it can decide it comes into force amongst themselves, or it will fall. The International Coffee Organisation is tracking the state of ratification.

One thing the Agreement does not talk about it setting quotas. Rather Articles 36 states:

---extracts
ARTICLE 36
Sustainable coffee sector

Members shall give due consideration to the sustainable management of coffee resources and processing, bearing in mind the principles and objectives on sustainable development contained in Agenda 21 adopted by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and those adopted at the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002.
---

'Giving due consideration' to sustainable development is a formulation which could be satified by a note in the minutes of a meeting, rather than having a tangible impact.

Quotas, or some other form of market control trying to meet supply and demand more closely, are disliked by business interests as market distortions. Yet it is also a market distortion for Nestlé to encourage farmers in Vietnam and China to enter into coffee production, so further exacerbating supply. It is also a market distortion when the oligarchy of coffee processors has the power to compel farmers to accept below the cost of production when competition for buyers is particularly great.

Tarif barriers on processed coffee is another market distortion and one recognised in the International Coffee Agreement, which states in Article 37:

---extract
ARTICLE 37
Standard of living and working conditions

Members recognize the need of developing countries to broaden the base of their economies through, inter alia, industrialization and the export of manufactured products, including the processing of coffee and the export of processed coffee, as referred to in sub-paragraphs (d), (e), (f) and (g) of paragraph (1) of Article 2 [definitions of different types of processed coffee]. In this connection, Members should avoid the adoption of governmental measures which could cause disruption to the coffee sector of other Members.
---

What this means in practical terms is a little unclear. On the one hand it recognizes that export countries can keep more of the value-added phase in their countries by industrializing and exporting processed coffee, but on the other hand this should not cause disruption to other Members. If processing becomes more local to production, would this not be to the detriment of processing in industrialized countries?

That the issue of trade barriers is being addressed, show how global problems such as the poverty of coffee farmers cut across other issues. In the context of the Simultaneous Policy, there could be further linkage, with the true cost of transport being factored in through, for example, a tax on carbon emissions.

The International Coffee Agreement is limited to coffee. It involves importing and exporting governments and international organisations as Members and is to have a Private Sector Consultative Board consisting of growers, exporters, importers and roasters.

The Simultaneous Policy enables a bigger picture view in other regards. The coffee crisis impacts on other issues such as food security, poverty, the environment and involvement in the drugs trade (an attractive cash crop when coffee prices collapse). These are issues that the world has to deal with or suffer the consequencies. A cross-cutting and joined up response where vested interests are not in the driving seat should produce better solutions.

The book Global Obligations for the Right to Food (order on the right) suggests governments should be giving consideration to food security in any case when developing global governance procedures, which is what the International Coffee Agreement is. The analysis of existing human rights instruments by Professor George Kent in the opening chapter of the book contains the following :

"Generally if you have the capacity to protect someone from great harm or you can deliver great benefits and you can do that at small cost or risk to yourself, then you are obligated to do so."

Governments have yet to be convinced of this argument, but we, as individuals, may do so and SP provides the mechanism.

To increase the incomes of coffee farmers, the impact on consumers will be minimal as the percentage of a the price of a cup of coffee that goes to farmers is very small. In the Oxfam report the breakdown suggests that a farmer receives just US$ 0.14 for supplying the coffee for a bag of soluble coffee costing US$ 26.40. If SP Adopters were asked to accept a regime which would more fairly distribute the rewards through the supply chain, affecting the final price slightly or not at all, and were being asked to do so by Adopters along that chain, then an seemingly unresolvable problem could be resolved.

Under the present system, it is the unremitting driving down of costs by those who hold power in the supply chain that results in such inequality in the sharing of rewards.

There were problems last time a quota system was tried, with free-riders producing poor quality coffee and the way some governments divided up licences. These should be learned from in designing whatever system more effectively matches supply and demand. Experts in this field are very welcome to submit proposals for consideration by other SP Adopters. See the Simpol websites for information on how to do so.

Chocolate, child slavery and the Simultaneous Policy

There is a problem of child slavery in the cocoa supply chain. Most of the world's cocoa comes from Ivory Coast and Ghana. According to the International Labour Rights Forum (ILRF), which has just launched a new report:

---
The US Department of State has estimated that more than 109,000 children in Cote d’Ivoire’s cocoa industry work under “the worst forms of child labor,” and that some 10,000 or more are victims of human trafficking or enslavement. These child workers labor for long, punishing hours, using dangerous tools and facing frequent exposure to dangerous pesticides as they travel great distances in the grueling heat. Those who labor as slaves must also suffer frequent beatings and other cruel treatment.
---

Two US Senators introduced a plan to end child slavery in the supply chain within 5 years and called on chocolate companies to sign up to it, which they did. But little happened and the deadline of the so-called Harkin-Engel Protocol was extended. Now the ILRF has analysed what companies are doing in its new briefing, available at:
http://www.laborrights.org/stop-child-labor/cocoa-campaign/resources/1552

Instead of abiding by the protocol, the companies, including some of the world's largest transnational food corporations such as Kraft, Cargill, Nestle and Mars, have embarked on their own 'certification' schemes which they have used in public relations campaigns to claim progress is being made. While there may be some merit in the pursuing voluntary action, ILRF points out the shortcomings of operating outside a regulatory framework or independent certification system:

---Extract from ILRF report
In the US consumer market, the public deals with a vast array of certifications ranging from product quality specifications (Grade A eggs or syrup, octane 87 gasoline) to specifications of ethical or environmental standards (organic-certified produce, FSC-certified wood, dolphin-safe tuna). All certification systems have a number of characteristics in common:

• there is a set of standards that must be met in order to achieve the certification (whether it is octane rating or criteria for ‘dolphin-safe’ fishing)

• there is a process for verifying that a product, service, or person has met those standards (often by an independent monitoring organization)

• there is a certification mark logo or seal that identifies the standards and the verification that have been fulfilled

• there is a system for auditing to ensure that the certification mark is being used properly and that the product or service or individual continues to meet the standards over time (often by a completely independent oversight body, such as USDA’s oversight of the National Organics Program).

The industry “certification concept” is missing all these pieces. There is no set of clear standards with related compliance criteria to ensure that these standards are being met, and in the absence of clear standards, naturally no process to verify that producers are meeting those standards.
---extract ends

The report points out that child slavery arises through systematic failings of the cocoa market. Farmers exist on the edge of poverty, prompting exploitation. While processors claim they are helping to increase productivity and profits, ILRF suggests that where this has happened the greater workload of farmers to achieve the yields has not received a proportionate increase in income. In other words, it is the companies that benefit, not the farmer.

The industry has also been seeking to promote production in new countries as prices rise in Ivory Coast. Increased production means lower prices and increased pressure for cutting corners, such as child labour and forced labour.

The ILRF report states:

---extract begins
While ILRF are not experts on the issues of sensible and farmer-friendly commodity policy, we support the recommendations put forth in a paper issued by the Reseau des Organisations Paysannes et de Producteurs de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (ROPPA) and cited in part here:

• Cocoa Supply Management: The low price of cocoa on the global market is a major factor in the use of child labor. The global supply should be subject to a management agreement.

• Establish an International Secretariat: An international arrangement, based in West Africa, to control the global supply is needed and ECOWAS (along with Indonesia, Brazil and Cameroon) would be well-placed to lead supply management efforts as 63% of the world’s cocoa is produced in West Africa.

• Introduce Production Controls: In order to avoid issues like smuggling and overflowing of buffer stocks, a new cocoa agreement should include production controls to ensure a effective management system. Quotas will be determined by the international secretariat and each country will have a five year period to adjust their production levels.

• Raise Farm-Gate Prices: A small raise in farm-gate prices for cocoa would ensure more stability in the market and increase the ability of farmers to invest in sustainable farming methods as well as worker wages. This is an important stop in curbing child labor. The costs would be negligible for buyers.

• Combine with Conservation Programs: With a higher and more stable price, farmers can invest more labor and money in shaded growing systems, forest conservation and replanting and tree crop diversification which are more ecologically sustainable.

• Establish Diversification Zones: Supply premiums and credit to farmers to diversify their crops. This will be an important part of ensuring cocoa-producing countries’ food sovereignty and their ability to respond to domestic food needs.
---extract ends

Commodity agreements are disliked by industry, as much as independent monitoring systems. It is argued they distort markets and create cartels. Yet in highly consolidated industries, such as cocoa (and coffee), the processors wield great power. Trade barriers make it difficult for developing countries to sell processed goods into developed countries as these are subject to higher tariffs. In other words, there is not a free market, there is a market where the rules are fixed to benefit the powerful.

Whether commodity agreements are something to be resurected within the Simultaneous Policy, and if so, how they would work, is something Adopters may well wish to discuss. The fact is that current trading systems are failing those at the start of the supply chain, creating problems which the rest of the world has then to try to resolve. Current efforts, whether by governments, voluntary organisations or business interests, are not having a verifiable effect, despite the claims made to placate critics.

ILRF has recommendations for companies, governments and international agencies. We can also take individual action as consumers, in seeking chocolate that is certified as Fair Trade and on calling for companies to abide by the protocol to which they pledged support in 2001.

As a parallel strategy we can consider whether SP has a role to play. Signing up as an SP Adopter through the Simpol website is the way to have a voice and a vote in the policy development process and to make implementation a reality.