Thursday, December 15, 2011

A week on from the Eurodebacle

(Ah, it was all so much easier back then...)

Ok, so last weekend I was very annoyed about the "Ready, Fire, Aim" approach to EU negotiation by David Cameron; and it didn't get any better by Monday. According to the FT, the cunning plan seems to have been the bright idea of Sir Jon Cunliffe, the ex-Treasury incoming head of UKREP. At the time, I was musing about how this could be unwound, by getting Cameron to amend his current course by approximately 179 degrees. After the PM's Commons statement on Monday, someone (I'm assuming Nick Clegg) has been on the phone to the rest of Europe trying to patch things up.

And whoever this someone is, they've had some early success. The good news is that Britain has been offered "observer" status at the EU-26 talks, and that Germany's Chancellor Merkel's comments that she wants the UK in the EU. This, along with the realization that the one thing Cameron has failed to actually protect was the financial services sector (because most of the financial regulation is still under QMV at 27) - ironic, given this was the rationale for the veto-that-wasn't last week - means that the 179 degree course correction is on, slowly.

What the Tory Eurosceptics/phobes like Bill Cash MP will make of this is not likely to be pleasant reading in No. 10. But in defending the national interest, Cameron will ultimately have to face down his own right wing - which could be great fun to watch, but will continue to irritate the Coalition.

We shall see.

Breaking Up is hard to do...

 (International Law doesn't require Neil Sedaka, but why not...)

In 2011 the world's map has changed. A surprising amount, in fact. 2011 saw the emergence of South Sudan onto the world stage, the failure of Palestine to be accepted to UN Membership - though Palestine is now a UNESCO member - and lots of unhappy (but now largely frozen) conflicts rumbling on (e.g. Balochistan, Kurdistan, West Papua, Puntland, Somaliland, Transnistria, Tibet, and East Turkestan, to name but a few). In other words, the international system is anything but static; the problem is that our international legal system makes it quite difficult.

Given that finding a route out of these otherwise intractable conflicts, this constitutes a problem. A major problem, in fact.


(Fwags required. Honestly!)

But, I hear you cry - "Tobbes, so what? This stuff has been going on for years. And?"

And that's fine. There's clearly more to this independence business than designing a flag and starting a pro-independence party, with the option of having a small war (or indeed a large one) to get your people's freedom. But the problems are significant:

     - How does the outside world decide who to back?
     - What is the territory that needs to be "liberated"?
     - What role is there for democracy?
     - Is a simple majority enough?
     - Who gets to vote?
     - What guarantees are in place for the minorities that are likely to remain in any secession?*
     - How are these enforced?
     - Ultimately, What is "Justice"?

The questions go on and on.

Which is good, as ideally I'd like to do some PhD work on this at some point. Thoughts, anyone?

 (But it does work, occasionally.) 

*We're assuming here that mass population movements are no longer being contemplated - Turkey / Greece in 1922/23 and India / Pakistan in 1947 are experiments that don't need repeating.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Assange and Wikileaks are "Enemy Combatants"

 
(Enemy combatants? Sure, all over the place!)

Newton Leroy Gingrich, former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, is notable for making incendiary comments on a whole range of policy issues. His recent comments on Palestinians as an "invented people" were outrageous enough, (and I was planning on writing about this at some point, but David Cameron and the EU got in the way), but his reported remarks this morning that Wikileaks' Julian Assange is an "enemy combatant" is breathtaking.

This blog has been critical of Wikileaks in the past; Assange in my view has been utterly irresponsible in releasing unredacted US diplomatic traffic - this always felt more about him than about open government. However, Gingrich has taken this to a whole new level: consider the implications of his actual statement. If Gingrich is correct, then:

- Assange can be legitimately targeted by US forces.

- Freedom of speech is where?

Fortunately, it's safe to say that Gingrich is wrong. It's not at all clear what his legal basis for this is - GC III, AP I or AP II? Gingrich could potentially make the case that the Assange was making a material contribution to US enemy action by releasing the US State Department archive that was leaked to him, allegedly by US Army Pvt Bradley Manning. In doing so, you could argue that Assange was taking a direct participation in hostilities, and therefore was targetable.

But I don't see it. Indeed, the reverse should be the case - freedom of expression is protected in Article 19 of the UDHR, amongst other places. Looks like Newt shooting from the hip, as usual.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

European Council Debacle Part Deux

(Yep, quite a lot to ponder there, Dave...)

48 hours on, does David Cameron's position look any better / more sensible / vaugely explicable?

In a word, no.

(In fact, in several words, NO, absolutely NOT.)

It's increasingly clear that this is basically a screw up, albeit on a previously unknown scale. There's coverage everywhere, but Will Hutton's piece is excellent, and it's hard to see how things are going to get any better soon. I can only hope against hope that the financial services sector make it crystal clear that this isn't remotely helpful to them, and that the worst possible position is for the UK not to be in the room making sensible suggestions about evidence-based policy making in this area, and that as a result, the UK needs to swallow it's pride and get back in there.

A difficult U-turn. But an essential one.

And no, I don't see the Coalition breaking up yet. But a bad weekend for that, too.