Filling the Gaps: What Terra Nullius Really Looks Like

By: Jo Jinho

Empty land is a funny thing. The Europeans considered North America empty when they first arrived. This, we know, was surely not true. But nevertheless Terra Nullius – Latin for empty land – provided the Europeans a philosophical and moral justification on which to base colonization of the new world (Asch 2002). Jump ahead to today and the line that land is simply empty remains, legitimizing purchases of vast tracts of land in far distant, mostly African, countries by contemporary governments, transnational corporations, and hedge funds (GRAIN, 2009). This latter trend, often labeled land grabbing, is alike to past colonization except it succeeds under a different flag, that of global capital. The "empty" land being acquired today by agribusiness and financial speculators is just as "empty" as the Americas were at the time of Europe’s arrival: it's not! In cases of modern land grabbing the structured, but perhaps informal, agreements with which local communities establish the land’s use is disregarded and the land subsequently bought up. In such cases what is often considered empty land is rather just land not subsumed by formal regimes of private property.

This absurd arrangement of ‘empty land’ has continued for too long, and it is important that Terra Nullius be considered from a different perspective. A perspective that understands ‘empty land’ as a concept only existing in the condition of private property, rather than in its absence. From this perspective the function of space in today's society can be better reflected, and for what purpose and for whom the function of space currently serves is more clearly seen. Only when land is enclosed, taken away from the public, can land sit idle and truly empty. Certainly not all private property is empty – but much of it is. In places, for example, where a fence demarcates a plot of land and the plot is protected by the state, but the land just sits there literally unused. The land in these circumstances is unused by its owner, except perhaps as a financial asset (as an artifact) but more crucially it is rendered useless by society because any value to be cultivated by the community is disallowed. This is urban actually empty land.

In so many places do plots exist as nothing but a place for garbage and trespassing because the monetary incentive for the land to stand idle acts contrary to its development. This takes away so much from the potential of the community. It takes away from the land’s potential to act as a place to gather or reap, affirming it only a blemish on the face of society. This land must be converted, and more must land in such circumstances inside urban space be recognized as empty. If not, and local space is wasted then urban hubs continue to expand into their surrounding areas that once served to grow food. Worse yet, land will continue to be snatched up abroad, and on a deceitful premise, to make up for the land nearby already devoured. Moreover does land grabbing abroad displace people and just force more into ill-established urban space, only deepening a cycle.

But for urban space to reach its potential, and provide as a place to exist going forward, the gaps must be filled in. Importantly, it must be acknowledged that food can indeed be grown within the confines of urban space, and to an extent that it can contribute to local needs. This is to forgo a perceived obligation to expand the urban outwards. For this, incentives must be demanded so new forms of space relations can take place. It is true that space is constantly being reinvented, but this must happen in a way that the urban empty is conceived and urban empty plots fashioned to be interconnected with the surrounding community.

References:

Asch, Michael (2002) From Terra Nullius to Affirrmation: Reconciling Aboriginal Rights with the Canadian Constitution Canadian Journal of Law and society Vol 17 (2)

GRAIN (2009) www.grain.org

Intellectual Property Rights play a New Role in International Trade

By: Jo Jinho

A landmark trade agreement between the US and Brazil has put intellectual property rights (IPRs) centre stage in a role IPRs have never played before – as a major bargaining chip of emerging economies. In 2008 Brazil won a trade dispute resolution at the World Trade Organization (WTO), in which the arbitration committee found that US subsidies for domestic cotton production violate global trade laws. This sparked a round of settlement negotiations between the two trading partners that seems only now finally settled. The New York Times reported that an agreement came one day before Brazil was to impose WTO-authorized trade retaliations, amounting to nearly $830 million. Along with tariffs on a number of American goods, these retaliations threatened to suspend IPRs.

This settlement is particularly remarkable because IPRs have often been scrutinized as a mechanism that protects the interests of agribusiness and pharmaceutical companies. However, this episode of bilateral trade negotiation, which marks the first time a country (Brazil) has threatened the suspension of IPRs with authorization from the WTO, seems to have induced a fairer trade deal with an economic giant (the US). The Brazilian action to suspend IPRs, which for example would have broken pharmaceutical patents prematurely, could have cost American businesses up to $239m.

As the NY Times reported, retaliation in trade has traditionally been the preserve of the largest developed countries. But Brazil has displayed that threatening to suspend IPRs is a trade retaliation mechanism that gives leverage to small and emerging economies as well.

Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) have been a contentious issue in international trade for quite some time. Those in favor of strict intellectual property regulation propose that strong IP regimes promote innovation by securing copyright and patent laws. Critics of current IP regimes, however, highlight problems where unequal access to these regimes have allowed corporate interests to privatize traditional knowledge, including folklore and other aspects of the scientific commons like genetic materials. Known as biopiracy, pharmaceuticals have been criticized for patenting “medical discoveries” that in effect were derived from traditional knowledge of local plants of indigenous communities. The companies with the access and ability to follow through the patenting procedures have been the beneficiaries of these discoveries, while the sources of these alchemic practices are never fully compensated. Furthermore, in the global food system and agriculture, IPRs have had far-reaching effects. Biotechnology companies use IPRs to monopolize seed banks, charging small producers technology fees and threatening farmers with legal action when patented seeds are used without a license, even if crops are infiltrated through ecological processes.

Nevertheless, while the ability to threaten the suspension of IPRs in trade negotiations does not curb the way companies manage to wield IPRs in their own interest. It does signify new dynamics among nations in trade negotiations. Because securing IPRs in the poorest countries is paramount in generating profit in the richest countries, some leverage is now provided to small and emerging economies where it never existed before. Brazil, in this case, managed to demand concessions in the cattle industry vis-á-vis the US, and negotiated to receive a technical assistance fund – a token that represents the value of retaliation the WTO had authorized. This development will certainly be acknowledged by trading partners everywhere, especially African cotton producers who as well have grievances regarding American cotton subsidies. IPRs can now be recognized as a major chip at the negotiating table for emerging economies. 

Haiti Reconstruction Locking Island in Global Hierarchy.

--> -->

By: Jo Jinho

Early Feb 2010

Despite the scarcity of food, water, shelter and electricity in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, the Export Processing Zones (EPZ) that provide cheap labour to North America’s apparel industry is quickly being refurbished.

EPZ play a key role in the global division of labour. They are small enclaves within a nation where lesser corporate taxes and tariffs apply. Poor countries designate EPZ to attract foreign direct investment for manufacturing centres hoping this will provide wage labour to its citizens.

Before the earthquake, purporting the need to spur development, Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki-Moon and Bill Clinton, Director of the Special UN envoy to Haiti, made a joint recommendation to expand EPZ in Haiti. Yet despite the fact that circumstances and humanitarian priorities have drastically changed, the development strategy to create cheap wage labour jobs, the fruits of which are enjoyed outside the country, has not. In fact, following a trend of post-crisis development that Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine, 2007) has eloquently pointed out before, the current humanitarian crises is being used to entrench the role of Haiti as a source for cheap labour going forward – locking the island nation in the bottom rungs of the global hierarchy. 

What is needed to curb the humanitarian plight in Haiti is well known. Interest free money (grants not loans), cash-for-work programs (Haitians are paid daily cash to work rebuilding the streets of Haiti like tidying debris or planting trees), and focus on creating a central government capacity to disburse funds (this is a tough one) is paramount if the well being of Haitians is really the world’s concern. The President of the World Bank acknowledges this (Zoellick, 2010). But the actual practice of the World Bank and those involved in supplying Haiti with development aid does not follow suit. That’s the rub.

Haiti is stifled by a staggering $1 Billion debt, and in a manner so ludicrous the interest accumulated on this debt can exceed the aid and donations that manage to come Haiti’s way. But creditors of the richest countries continue to line up to provide money at a cost to Haiti. Aid that does not align with western interests, from donors in the Latin American and Caribbean region, is being blocked from entry into the country by American military forces.

But what can Haiti do with the money that it does get? Haitians no longer have a parliament building let alone a functioning government body able to create and execute budgets. The history of government mayhem and international meddling that has obstructed democratic process in Haiti cannot be justly described here. But what can be said is that no amount of aid in the world can “reconstruct” Haiti without Haitians being given the policy space to create a country for themselves.

Aid, donations, and expertise can operationalize in a way that empowers Haitians. It is just not occurring. The top rungs of the global hierarchy, the G8 and G20, will be meeting in Muskoka and Toronto respectively in late June this year. Haiti will be a topic of discussion in one capacity or another, possibly working to keep Haiti in the grasp of poverty for good.