By Alexandra Moffit

Picture: Globe License: Public Domain

United Nations

Under a new Secretary-General, the United Nations took several new steps based on studies in 2017.

·       Antonio Guterres begins role as Secretary-General of the United Nations in January.

·       The United Nations Security Council unanimously voted to issue new sanctions to North Korea. These sanctions were in response to its burgeoning nuclear program and its ballistic missile program.

·       The United Nations’ agency that deals with aviation proposed a global drone registry that would aid local law enforcement agencies. This registry would be a step towards global regulations dealing with the small crafts.

·       Russia and China vetoed resolutions that would have sanctioned Syria for its use of chemical weapons.

·       United Nations agencies reported during 2017 that 2016 was the first time in the 21^st century that hunger increased. Possible reasons offered by the United Nations for this increase were climate change and conflict. These would cause an increase in food insecurity around the world. There are currently around 815 million chronically malnourished people around the world.

·       The United Nations and other organizations began investing in blockchain technology. Organizations like the World Food Programme launched pilots that use blockchain in delivering food.

The United States and International Organizations

With the United States changing leadership as President Trump began his tenure in office, the United States changed its relationships with various international organizations significantly during 2017.

·       The United States, in one of Donald Trump’s first acts as President, declared its intention to abandon the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The previous administration had negotiated the large free trade deal with various nations but had not come into effect yet.

·       The United States withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords in June, becoming one of the only countries not party to the climate agreement.

·       The United States, Canada, and Mexico began to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement following President Trump’s dissatisfaction with the agreement. A relocation or dissolution of the agreement would cause major changes in the economies of each nation, as well as trade laws.

·       The United States withdrew from UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization, in October. “At the time when conflicts continue to tear apart societies across the world, it is deeply regrettable for the United States to withdraw from the United Nations agency promoting education for peace and protecting culture under attack,” Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova said. The United States indicated its reason for leaving as the organization’s inclusion of Palestine as a member in 2011.

Refugees and International Organizations

As refugee numbers increased in 2017, various international organizations took steps to combat problems.

·       Security in Burma has been conducting ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims. Some have sought asylum in Bangladesh. The crisis has had a global impact and is ongoing. A new UN pilot program could provide refugees in Bangladesh with work permits.

·       International Organizations like the World Bank used their leverage to try to push Burma to stop its persecution of Rohingya Muslims. The World Bank announced it would be withholding a $200 million loan it had promised to the country.

·       The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees announced that there are over 3 million stateless people around the world. The agency urges countries to grant citizenship to these stateless people, which would provide them with basic health and personal rights.

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April 14, 2018

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March 21, 2017

By Alex Yeager

After years of secret negotiations, the groundbreaking Trans-Pacific Partnership was finally signed on November 3^rd by 11 participating nations. Simply getting the deal signed was no easy task - but the hardest test is likely yet to come. Due to the US’s dual treaty system, the deal requires domestic ratification to fully put into force. While the elaborate, 11-nation negotiation process would seem to be the most difficult component of the deal, the fireworks are likely just about to start.

In response to the signing, powerful Congressional members such as Sen. Orrin Hatch and Mitch McConnell have expressed criticism towards the deal in its current form. Critics feel it fails to hold other nations accountable for unfair trade tactics, and allows large corporations to subject foreign nations to suits without proper safeguards. It is thought by many that if pushed through the House today, it would be likely to fail in front of the Republican controlled House. Yet congressional approval might not even be the TPP’s biggest hurdle.

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February 24, 2016

By Justin Kirschner

With the Trans-Pacific Partnership signed on February 4, and the ratification battle lines cutting deep through the halls of Congress and the town halls of New Hampshire, comparatively less attention has been paid to what economists make of the deal. Though more genteel in their presentation than the average senator or presidential candidate or senator-turned-presidential candidate, maybe these are the experts to whom we should be listening? Last week, a group of economists from Tufts University, supported by former Biden economic advisor Jared Berstein, released their report. It concluded that the TPP will likely lead to losses in employment and increases in inequality. On the other side are multiple studies, including most recently from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Their analysis concludes that incomes will rise in the US but employment rates will be flat as a result of the TPP’s full implementation. The Peterson Institute economists conceded that some workers would be displaced, but called helping them “a compelling ethical and political objective.” Unfortunately knee-jerk reactions and political pandering have largely displaced rational analysis on the campaign trail. The noise has spilled over into Washington, spoiling what otherwise could have been a deeply analytical Congressional debate about what is best for the country.

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February 15, 2016

By Shannon Togawa Mercer

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) will be signed in New Zealand this week, marking the end of a long and complicated negotiation process. After signing, each party has up to two years to complete their respective domestic ratification processes. In the political climate leading up to this year’s Presidential elections, the conditions of ratification are uncertain. Some high-level support for the free trade agreement has recently come down the pipeline. Most notably, President Obama implored U.S. legislators to ratify the TPP in his last state of the union address. Underscoring the potential for TPP to open markets to America, he said, “With TPP, China does not set the rules in that region. We do. You want to show our strength in this new century? Approve this agreement…It’s the right thing to do.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has also come out in support of the agreement, citing World Bank statistics predicting that the FTA will increase each members’ GDP by 1.1% by 2030. Despite these two important endorsements, many do not see the TPP in a favorable light. Democratic Presidential candidates Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have been vocally opposed to treaty. The Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has suggested that the vote wait until after November’s general election. Despite the signing this week, the TPP is still staring down a long road of domestic debate.

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February 03, 2016

By Alex Yeager

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is again drawing criticism, but not for its trade implications.  Instead, the much-maligned deal is now being criticized for the special legal rights it might grant financial institutions.  The agreement is designed to relax trade barriers between the United States, Japan, Canada, Mexico, and eight other pacific-rim nations.  Yet the fear is that under the agreement banks may be able to systematically circumvent domestic court systems to bring special arbitral claims against foreign governments.

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November 30, 2015

By Shannon Togawa Mercer

On October 25, an influential Communist Party newspaper stated that China should join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) at the appropriate time given that the TPP’s aims align with China’s economic reform agenda, Reuters reports. As The Summit’s Alex Yeager reported, China is not party to the TPP, leading some to speculate that the agreement is intended to reduce regional dependence on China’s economy. Some of the terms of the agreement de facto preclude China’s membership, most notably government procurement standards that would change the way Chinese SOEs operate and electronic commerce liberalization. The recent Chinese newspaper release sends a measured message: that China should pay “close attention and at an appropriate time, in accordance with the progress on domestic reform, join the TPP, while limiting the costs associated to the greatest degree.” At the same time, China continues to cultivate its own trade agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), to create a 16-country free trade zone. This leaves us asking, will China show up to the TPP party at all? And if so, is it better late than never?

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November 05, 2015

By Justin Kirschner

On Monday, October 5, the United States and eleven other nations representing forty percent of the global economy and a third of global trade agreed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the largest regional free trade agreement in history.  The TPP lowers trade barriers for the twelve members in the agriculture, pharmaceutical, automobile and textile industries, just to name a few.  It also imposes strict environmental, labor, intellectual property and cross-border data flow standards.  China, notably, is not part of the deal.  Though some see the TPP as a geopolitical effort to balance China’s rise, that view has softened to a point where Pacific-rim leaders, including those in the U.S., leave the door open to China’s accession.

Now that the deal has been inked, each country must approve the TPP through its own domestic political mechanism.  In the U.S., pursuant to the Trade Promotion Authority Congress granted the president, Congress and the public will have 90 days to consider and debate the deal, at which point Senators and Representatives will vote up or down without the ability to amend.  With the presidential campaign in full swing, and support for, or opposition to, the deal already making strange political bedfellows, the TPP is likely to be put through the political wringer before a vote happens in early 2016.  For now, the deal stands as a seminal achievement in President Obama’s much-heralded pivot to Asia.

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October 14, 2015

By Jieying Ding

Presidential efforts to secure the trade power have met with hostility from Congress since 1994, but Obama is facing opposition from his own party on this matter, according to the New York Times. Obama needs his fellow Democrats’ support to finish and approve the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a complicated 12-nation agreement that is a crucial element of Obama’s “pivot” to Asia. Members of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party think that the trade deal would “leave America’s middle class in a deep hole,” while business groups are pressing the President to take a more active role. On the other side of the aisle, even though many Republicans strongly support President Obama’s trade agenda, some just won’t give Obama a victory—no matter how much they like the policy.

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February 04, 2015