Putting the recent Russia-China deals in perspective.

The series of energy and trade deals inked between China and Russia during PM Putin’s visit to Beijing is of special significance for a number of reasons.



Trade spats between China and the industrialized nations is not uncommon; indeed, Russia and China needed an almighty oil deal of $25bn and trade contracts worth $3.5bn to heal a summer-time dispute. Even now, several important details need to be worked out, especially with regard to the construction of pipelines that connect north-east China and Russia’s Sakhalin Island. Nonetheless, the timing of the deal is highly significant when one looks at the bigger picture.



Last month witnessed a highly publicized and vitriolic dispute between the US and China over seemingly frivolous issues: while the US imposed a 35% tariff on Chinese tyres, the third largest economy in the world, after spewing considerable anti-American rhetoric, responded by imposing tariffs on US automative products, and, wait for it, chickens. Of course, it is evident that this is no pa(oul)try dispute, and that there are serious complications in the relationship between two of the largest trading partners in the world. While China looks to increase its exports to the US to generate massive revenue, the US is heavily reliant on Chinese investment to reduce its enormous deficits. The holding share of China in US treasury bonds is staggering, and has raised several concerned eyebrows in Washington.



It is precisely this imbalance (for every dollar worth of American goods bought in China, the US buys $4.5 worth of Chinese stuff) that is annoying policy-makers; while other issues on the Obama agenda such as labour regulations and WTO compliance hold water, nothing worries more than the mounting American debt to China. The Chinese Government does not help matters, keeping the Remninbi value artificially low, and granting huge subsidies to internal players.



Add to that, the deal with Russia. Sino-Soviet relations haven’t exactly been the picture of bonhomie, and ever since the big Fall-Out, relations between both countries have remained just about civil. So if you are the US President, and wake up one fine morning to see a multi-billion dollars signed between Russia and China, you are legitimate in getting really worried. True, the Chinese are hungrily eyeing vast, untapped energy reserves in Siberia, and Gazprom would do well to seal a few deals with Chinese companies, but the deals, for all the reasons mentioned above, come at a highly critical juncture.



China can and could have waited, for its energy needs will definitely be met by its deal in Central Asia (with Turkmenistan) and other parts of the world (one-sixth of proven reserves in Nigeria is now supplied to CNOOC). However, the deal had to come in tandem with souring of trade relations with the US, and President Obama’s imminent visit to Beijing in November. Will the US rise to the occasion and amend its partnership with China? We’ll just have to wait and watch.



Commerce, Featured, Foreign Affairs, Politics Obituary: C.B. MuthammaPosted by Arun On October - 15 - 2009ADD COMMENTS

Chonira Belliappa Muthamma, the first woman to appear for the Indian Civil Service Examinations (1948) and join the IFS (1949), passed away on Wednesday, October 15, 2009 at 85. Muthamma was the first woman career diplomat, and the first woman Ambassador from India.



From The Hindu : -



C.B. Muthamma, India’s first woman career diplomat and first woman Ambassador, died in the early hours of Wednesday in a Bangalore hospital. She was 85.



Opting for the foreign service after she passed the civil services examinations in 1949, Ms. Muthamma served in her diplomatic career with distinction in many capacities in Europe, Asia and Africa. In 1970 she was posted as India’s Ambassador to Hungary, the first woman from within the service to be appointed Ambassador. Later, she served in Ghana and her last posting was as Indian Ambassador to The Hague.



Ms. Muthamma will be most remembered for her successful crusade for equality for women in the male-dominated Indian civil services of her time. She brought a petition against the government of India on the ground that she had been overlooked for promotion, arguing that the rules governing the employment of women in the service were discriminatory. Her case was upheld in 1979 in a landmark judgment by a three-member Bench headed by Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer. The court impressed upon the government of India “the need to overhaul all service rules to remove the stains of sex discrimination, without waiting for ad-hoc inspiration from writ petitions or gender charity.”



Born in Virajpet in Coorg in 1924, Ms. Muthamma completed her schooling in St.Joseph’s Girl School in Madikeri, and graduated from the Women’s Christian College in Chennai (then Madras) with a triple gold medal. She did her post-graduation in English Literature from Presidency College, Chennai. She retired from the IFS in 1982 after 32 years of service. Following this, she was nominated as the Indian member of the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues set up by the then Swedish Prime Minister, Olaf Palme. She continued to write prolifically and on a range of interests during her retirement, from a collection of scholarly articles titled “Slain by the System: India’s Real Crisis” (2003) to a cookbook on Kodava cuisine.



—



Please find the complete judgment in C.B. Muthamma v. Union of India & Ors here.



Her interview with The Hindu (2003).



Civil liberties, Court, Democracy The Right to Free and Compulsory Education: Jurisprudential Questions.Posted by Arun On October - 14 - 2009ADD COMMENTS



The Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, is a landmark legislation that concretizes the judicial and constitutional status accorded to publicly supported education for children between six and fourteen years. I’ve embarked on some questions that hold jurisprudential significance to the Act, and the way its analysed. Please find a copy of the Act here.



Questions



Amartya Sen sees ‘individual advantages’ in terms of capabilities that a person has, to be a proper yardstick for measuring social justice. His argument stresses on the recognition to be given to the deprivation of capabilities as opposed to the ‘lowness of income’ approach. While maintaining that income remains a primary index in identifying poverty, Sen suggests three methods by which the discussion on capabilities is inducted into mainstream discourse. Read from the perspective of the Right to Education generally (not in the context of Free and Compulsory Education), they are

How is the relationship between income and education affected by social indices such as age, gender, location and so on? Does the Act seek to rectify the problems that arise in this regard?

How does the ‘coupling of disadvantages’, i.e., income deprivation and adversity in converting income into functionings, affect one’s right to education? If handicaps reduce one’s ability to earn an income, and subsequently convert that income into investments in education, how’s the Act helping by brushing persons with disabilities under the carpet of the PWD Act?

How does the distribution of income within the family affect/complicate the provision of education? Is this aspect also discussed by the Act, or is the only solution to make it ‘free and compulsory’ for all?

What is the ambit of a ‘right’ to Education? From a Hohfeldian perspective, to derive the ‘definite and appropriate’ meaning of a right, one must affirm the presence (and juxtapose the right) of a correlative duty. In this regard, how is the enumeration of rights and duties done in the Act? Are the duties ‘correlative’, i.e., are they violated when the right is invaded?

From Hohfeld to Shue’s analysis in terms of rights and duties. Shue’s definition bears three components, a right being a (i) rational basis for a justified demand (ii) that the actual enjoyment of a substance be (iii) socially guaranteed against standard threats.

With regard to a justified demand and the constraints observed in fulfilling that demand, Shue states that the justification means ‘that those who deny rights can have no complaint when their denial….is resisted’. Does the 2009 Act respond to the justified demands of Free and Compulsory education?

Re the actual enjoyment of a right, Shue observes that a mere proclamation of a right cannot amount to its fulfillment. On this count, has the 2009 Act been effective in managing the transition from the host of cases on the right to education, and the subsequent induction into Art. 21-A? In other words, has the judicial and Constitutional proclamation been fulfilled by the legislature through this Act?

Social guarantee against standard threats is an important component of a right: what are the standard threats faced by the target group in access to education, and do the institutional mechanisms envisaged in the Act provide guarantee against these threats?

Is the right to education ‘basic’ as conceptualized by Shue? Is it comparable to the rights of security and subsistence? Shue’s answer to this question is an emphatic no, as his grounds of classification are based on the fact that basic rights are quintessential to the enjoyment of any other proclaimed right. Does it tie into a hierarchical structure, implying that resources must first tend to security and subsistence, and then to other rights? If so, what is the future of this Act, in terms of the implementation of infrastructural and resource set-ups?

In terms of the resources argument, is the Right to Education, prima facie a positive right? With regard to the three types of correlative duties that Shue postulates, what is the relevance of the duty to aid in the present context?

It cannot be an argument for curtailing a right, once granted, simply that society would pay a further price for extending it. There must be something special about that further cost…to say that although great social cost is warranted to protect the original right, this particular cost is not necessary. Otherwise, the Government’s failure to extend the right will show that its recognition of the original right is a sham, a promise that it will intend to keep only until that becomes inconvenient –Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously.

To what limits can the Right to Education be extended, in terms of resources? Can appropriate authorities cite lack of funds as a fundamental reason to deny the full-fledged enjoyment of the Right? In other words, should the Right, as envisaged in the Act, be given a narrow interpretation?

Examining Nussbaum’s approach to Central Human Capabilities, does she read in education as a basic tool to fulfill the capability of Senses, Imagination and Thought. Does this analysis accord greater primacy to education as opposed to Shue’s stance?

Democracy IJCL Online Symposium is onPosted by Sanjhi Jain On October - 14 - 2009ADD COMMENTS

The week-long online symposium marking the release of the third issue of the Indian Journal of Constitutional Law is on.



Dr. Shylashri Shankar and Dr. Christina Eckes have responded and Prof. Kent Roach has replied to them. Prof. Aparna Chandra describes as ‘constitutional minimalism’ and ‘non-deference to other branches of state’ what Roach calls judicial activism.



You can find all responses/follow/start a new discussion here.



Law Reforms in the IMF: A New World Order?Posted by Arun On October - 14 - 2009ADD COMMENTS

Since its inception, the IMF has maintained a system of representation and voting based on the size of their economy and proportional to their contribution. This method has, by and large, remained a relic of the post-War scenario. Consequently, the Bretton Woods institution currently witnesses a situation whereby 61% of the voting rights is held by 14 countries, and the rest by 172 nations. While the US holds 17% of the rights, making it the only country that can block any decision, European economies hold around 40% of the share. Countries like Belgium and Netherland, currently hold weighted vote powers equivalent to China, and higher than India.



However, at the recently concluded G20 summit in Pittsburgh, developing economies, led by China and India were aiming at a reform of the voting system, making way for those nations that are leading the world out of the recession. Admittedly, this was also supported by the Obama administration in the US, calling for a shift in the voting representation. Invariably, the European nation-states will lose out on this bargain; while we’re not clear as to which nation(s) will bear the brunt, a reduction anywhere between 5 and 7% is expected. Apparently, a draft communique to this effect has been signed by the G20.



From Reuters (who have a copy of the Communique):



It called for a shift in IMF voting by at least 5 percent, although several G20 representatives said it was a 5 percentage point shift from developed to under-represented countries. Currently, the split in voting power is 57 percent for industrialized countries and 43 percent for developing countries. The shift would make the split nearly 50-50.



While this would perhaps not match up to the extent demanded by the BRIC, it is very clear that consensus is rapidly developing on the need to recognize powerful, emerging economies, especially in the aftermath of the financial crisis.



(from the BBC)





For a couple of in-depth and analytical works on the Political Economy of the IMF’s voting structure, please see;

1. Blomberg and Broz; and

2. Rapkin and Strand. (Clicking on the link will take you to their papers on the issue).

Featured, Foreign Affairs, Politics