“Pacific Civil Society Organizing to influence National, Regional and Global Development Agendas and to create South-South Alternatives“
Co-organized by Pacific Network on Globalization (PANG) and Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), Fiji
October 4, 2012
Microsoft Word – Navigating the SEEA.doc
Thank you for your invitation to reflect upon the “Harsh Realities of the Global Context.”
Reflecting upon my own work—identifying, in part, as a fourth-generation Asian-American settler from Hawai’i, as well as an American settler who traces my genealogy to its colonial past—I’m obliged to resist the wrongs of a system that has successfully promoted a campaign of violence and opportunism to achieve economic hegemony in the world.
“Harsh Realities of the Global Context” accurately highlights the key priorities challenging not just Pacific Small Island States but the world in general and indigenous communities specifically. Additionally, the structural analysis describing the neo-liberal economic system’s impact on accelerating climate change is, I agree, the foremost challenge that we face in the world today. I would only add that in addition to highlighting gender equity, PACER-plus, the TPP, the 2015 MDG, and the investment/finance regime, we might want to give more focus to the build-up of military resources in the region since militarization is the arm that provides security and infrastructure to the trade/investment regime.
The global context seen from the perspective of the Pacific Islands, reminds me of how difficult our Pacific predicament is. Despite attempts of integrating the cultural and ecological richness and vastness of our Pacific territory, we are still disregarded as being disparate and small. When the U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton visited the Cook Islands in August, it simply reminded us of how the Pacific Islands are often acknowledged as a convenience for our militaries or an afterthought for our resources. Last year during the APEC 2011 forum in Hawaii, I met an investment banker who, in response to Clinton’s “America’s Pacific Century”1 op-ed, vigorously exclaimed, “The Pacific is fucked.” His eloquent response sums up the “Harsh Realities of the Global Context.”
In response, our challenge should be to un-fuck the Pacific.
My reflection is two-fold: 1) Consider framing the context of trade and the Global South through revising the System of Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA) and, 2) advocate a methodology for creating a Pacific Region Monitoring Authority that can intervene at the same international level as investor-state agreements.
NATIONAL ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS AND THE 2003 SEEA
Since 1953, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been the international standard for measuring a nation’s economic well-being.2 Since the post-war period, this has been the standard for assigning currency valuation (not to be confused with currency exchange) in international trade.3
Statistical indices were accounted for via a technical aggregate, and these changes measured overall growth in manufacturing and production, employment, cost-of-living, purchasing power, capital formation, and the imports and exports of goods and services.4
According to the GDP, the more we spend, consume, and produce the more the GDP rises. Such a metric of economic progress, however, was fundamentally flawed because it made no distinction between production that contributes to genuine improved well-being and activities that degrade our personal, community, and environmental conditions.5
At its inception, the UN Statistics Division (UNSD) developed a technical and international standard through which the economic growth of national economies—including Pacific Island countries—could be measured called the System of National Accounts (SNA). The UNSD agreed that an international accounting standard based on the US accounting of GDP should be the standard measurement, and that trade and currency valuation would be measured against the dollar. This formulation, however, had disastrous consequences in the global North-South exchange, and in the last decade, there have been a growing number of proposals advancing alternative indicators that aim to reduce the gap between disparate economies.
Most significantly, the Genuine Progress Indicators of Sustainable Well-being Accounting (GPI)6 challenged the GDP hegemony and offered a cohesive route towards fundamentally changing the ecological and economic barriers for the global South. In 2001, GPI advanced the possibility of creating a deficit to unsustainable policies that include resource extraction, big agriculture, and industrial fishing and farming practices.7
In 2003, the SNA, arguably building upon the GPI, produced the Integrated System of Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA) to complement, if not replace GDP. This proposal was rejected during the 2008 SNA revision process.8
This past March, however, the central framework of the SEEA, was adopted at the 43rd session by the United Nations Statistical Commission with the aim of being integrated with the SNA.9
Unfortunately, what was adopted in this 2012 SEEA was only the central framework, and the Commission failed to include the alternative well-being indicators that were in the previous drafts. Ecological issues that account for resource depletion and environmental degradation,10 food security, democracy, the revision of outdated economic boundaries to include women’s rights, household labor, and child-care,11 although addressed, were not adopted. However, the UNSD has provided us with a working template—the 2003 SEEA—that could be used to revise our national accounts despite its rejection by the current neoliberal economic regime.
The duality of geographic location and economic disparity that has confronted Pacific Island Nations at an alarming rate continues to challenge our right to ‘free prior and informed consent.12 The various international economic institutions that have drawn up our economic agreements or frameworks have continuously ignored this right. Forced participation in the various trade negotiations such as APEC, TPPA, and EPA-ACP will likely result in Pacific Peoples becoming indigenous renters in their own land as a consequence of breaching any of the regulations set out in those agreements. The peoples of the Pacific may soon find themselves in a vicious circle of economic and restricted development as a result of the proposed introduction and implementation of any framework without a robust consultation with Pacific peoples.13
If our small island states participated in an integrated ecologically based accounting system, opportunities for challenging already existing trade and investment policies among international
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networks could arise. Sustainable environmental solutions could be achieved through ecological accounting and embracing these revisions could potentially reverse some of the negative impact resulting from climate change. Standardizing an SEEA within the obligation for ‘free, prior, and informed consent’ would need to be a monitoring authority that could evaluate and offer structural guidelines to impacted islands and communities.
PACIFIC REGION MONITORING AUTHORITY
I’d like to offer some recommendations, some of which were presented by the Pacific Caucus from the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio this past year. Although these recommendations comment directly on the impact of the Fukushima reactor spill, large-scale resource exploration, degradation and depletion by transnational corporations on indigenous peoples’ land and territories, a Pacific region monitoring authority does provide a framework in which we can at least begin to develop a consultative process for slowing down these hegemonic investor-state agreements.
- We ask that indigenous/native rights-holders and ecologists participate in developing the guidelines and methodology for implementing new social-economic systems like the 2003 SEEA, and identify a committee that will be tasked to create a methodology based on our collective Pacific ways.14
- We ask that all States recognize our right to our lands, oceans, and resources and that any military, industrial, or mining uses be first approved by the free, prior and informed consent of our Pacific Peoples.
- We request that a percentage of the taxes and royalties States receive from companies that profit from our resources be proportionately allocated to fund the establishment of an Independent Regional Indigenous Peoples Monitoring Authority.
- We urge all States to work with Indigenous Peoples to ensure the full implementation and the legal application of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and recognize our human rights and fundamental freedoms to self-determination and self-governance.
- We call upon the United Nations to assist with the creation of a region-wide, independent and indigenous rights holders-led agency to review and regulate the environmental and economic impact of resource depletion in our region. We seek an agency whose principal rights holders are the cultural and traditional practitioners whose economic livelihoods are most impacted by these agreements and ask that the agency be recognized at the same international level as the investor-state agreements by upholding common-sense environmental and cultural impact reviews.15
The very survival and future of Pacific Island Peoples is linked directly to the policies and practices of States and of international institutions and organizations.
The World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the Inter-American Development Bank
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and the Asian Development Bank16; have projects funded that have been negative and counterproductive to the interests of indigenous peoples and have often contributed to violating our fundamental rights by creating conditions of debt and poverty.
The World Bank has an operational policy on indigenous peoples that states that for any proposed projects that affect indigenous peoples, the borrower is required to engage in the process of free, prior and informed consent and that the projects include measures to (a) avoid potentially adverse effects on the indigenous peoples’ communities; or (b) when avoidance is not feasible, to minimize, mitigate or compensate for such effects.17
In addition, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)—what is being called a 21st-century trade agreement—is presently being negotiated. In its current form, the TPP is an 11-country free-trade agreement representing a 20.5 trillion dollar alignment and negotiators are being advised by 600 of the region’s largest transnational corporations. These TNCs like Walmart, Monsanto, Cargill, Chevron, etc. will create further economic hardships for small island economies as the annual budget for these corporations is larger than most Pacific Island’s GDP. Since most of the PICs are tethered to TPP countries like Australia, New Zealand, the U.S., or Chile, the TPP could prove to be the juggernaut that consumes Pacific Island resources. In addition, the leaked investor-state chapters reveal what was already assumed to be true based on NAFTA’s investor-state chapters, giving investors expanded rights to sue states over many kinds of non-trade provisions. Investor-State enforcements allow foreign firms to skirt domestic court systems and directly sue governments for cash damages.18 These are resolved through closed tribunals in third-party courts before the UN and World Bank and would be devastating to island economies whose GDP may only be $400M, annually. A monitoring authority would be a third-party regulator in these agreements, aimed at preventing or slowing down resource-extracting investments in the region.
1) New Caledonia, a new nickel refinery belonging to Brazilian mining giant Vale is due to start full production next year.19 Vale brokered a so-called Sustainable Development Agreement with New Caledonia’s Kanak leaders in 2008. The company aims to become the largest nickel producer. In 2009, more than 40,000 liters of 98% pure sulphuric acid was released into a river leading into the mouth of Prony Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage bumper zone.20 This resulted in people who depend entirely on farming and fishing to survive being forced to endure serious ramifications to their health and their ability to sustain themselves in the territories belonging to the Thio, Kouaoua, Wawilu, and Poum, among others.
2) Pacific Island countries and territories that have leased out swathes of the deep seabed in their Exclusive Economic Zones for exploration of minerals to transnational mining companies.21 The Solwara 1 Project owned by Nautilus Minerals, a Canadian company, operates in Papua New Guinea and is the only deep seabed-mining project that is in full operation. As the technology develops for the acquisition of lucrative gold, silver, copper, nickel, and rare-earth deposits, we are concerned that small island nations will be at a tremendous disadvantage in protecting themselves from potential accidents and mishaps resulting from these large transnational mining projects. As of yet, there has been no Environmental Impact Study that has conclusively shown the mitigation of the impact of the mining process on the ecology of the deep seabed, on fisheries closer to shore, or on the fragile reef system that is home to the greatest diversity of life on the planet.
3) In Rapa Nui, people are struggling against a tidal wave of developments proposals by the Chilean government in conjunction with international investment regimes, such as
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TransOceanica, for mining projects, airfields, ports, casinos, and hotels. Rapa Nui has been engaged in unresolved decades-long land rights and self-determination struggle with Chile. Now, Rapa Nui is at risk of being crushed under the weight of a regional free-trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which Chile ratified in 2005. This free-trade agreement and proposed development projects will irreparably damage a UN World Heritage site, to the detriment of Rapa Nui, while primarily benefitting the Chilean government and the non-Rapa Nui investment regimes.
4) We are deeply distressed by the growing radioactive plume engulfing the Pacific Northwest region from the ongoing Japanese Fukushima nuclear disaster. We must participate in the development and implementation of a comprehensive plan, based on reliable scientific data, to assist Pacific peoples in monitoring and protecting health, food, and regional resources due to this nuclear disaster. The impact of Fukushima on Pacific island peoples22 whose health and resources have already been compromised by international nuclear testing and experimentation cannot be ignored. As evidenced by the continued negative health indicators and unusually high cancer rates of those living on the islands in Micronesia where massive nuclear testing was conducted fifty years ago. The States and corporations responsible for nuclear proliferation in the Pacific must be held accountable for impacts and remediation to the health, economy, and environment of the indigenous Pacific peoples.
For many years, indigenous peoples have advocated at the UN for the full recognition of core collective rights, such as full ownership rights to their lands and natural resources and the right to self-determination. The UN Declaration entailed a process of more than 30 years in which indigenous peoples and States forged common ground on the need of protecting indigenous territories and governments.
The UN Declaration is a global statement of the law concerning indigenous peoples, which enjoys today full support from the world community. It is by virtue of these rights that indigenous peoples can control, use, manage, and benefit from their lands and natural resources according to their governing institutions, laws, and customs.23
Yet, currently, there is no binding policy specifically protecting indigenous peoples’ territories and governments, which are indispensable for survival as distinct peoples within existing nation-states. We have also not seen a policy in which larger economies, implementing agencies, or investment regimes are fulfilling the obligations of human rights and climate agreements; what we find are governments negotiating regional trade agreements that are reinforcing investor-state frameworks, often with the support and encouragement of our sub-regional institutions and without consultation or approval by indigenous peoples.
For example, SOPAC, the geoscience and technology subsidiary of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) has secured funding to draft a framework that would enable Pacific Island nations to mine the deep sea for minerals, and this SPC-authored framework would disenfranchise Pacific Island communities, impacting the livelihoods of Pacific Islanders without their free, prior and informed consent.24
With respect to mining and other industrial investments among Pacific islands, negotiations, and agreements are often kept secret from public purview. Citing limited negotiating time limits, inadequate access to legal representation, or governments who are not aligned with indigenous interests, Pacific Islanders require an agency that would enable farm and fish practitioners and
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our cultural stakeholders to participate from the initiation of such negotiations and agreements, and have access to the legal resources and adequate time to adequately represent our interests.
Decisions over the ocean environment cannot be made by governments or investment regimes, or even by regional organizations like the Pacific Island Forum, without the free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous community. An independent regional body comprised of indigenous peoples adversely impacted by the decisions of governments, trade representatives, and corporate stakeholders to develop a specific policy aimed at protecting the rights contained within the UN DRIP, must be established and funded.
Although this should be given separate attention, the following is an example of how SNA accounting aggregates are not permanently fixed and how the UN Statistics Division periodically revises the SNA to account for economic policy shifts.25 During the 2008 SNA revision, Military Systems were removed from being an inventoried account to being a fixed asset.26 This move towards being a fixed asset, accounts for projected future investments,27 and resulted in militarized economies raising their GDP several points,28 despite relatively flat unemployment growth figures29 and household spending.30 This accounting change to the SNA unfairly creates further disadvantages to countries that do not have the will or the resources to allocate a substantial percentage of their GDP to military spending.
While Pacific Island Countries are struggling to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by world leaders in 2000 and set to be achieved by 2015,31 we are concerned that the trade and investment liberalization and facilitation policy created within APEC and in the private financial sector will continue to marginalize us from our rightful stewardship and accounting of our resources.32 The facilitation to meet these goals are embedded in APEC’s trade and liberalization model and we would like to see the SEEA provide Pacific Island Countries with a mechanism for protecting our environmental resources, without having to undergo economic structural reform to our infrastructure in exchange for development aid.33
At the closing of Moana Nui 2011,34 a conference shadowing APEC 2011, produced in collaboration between the International Forum on Globalization (San Francisco, U.S.) and Pua Mohala I Ka Po (Hawaii), participants produced this statement:
We, the peoples of Moana Nui, connected by the currents of our ocean home, declare that we will not cooperate with the commodification of life and land as represented by APEC’s predatory capitalistic practices, distorted information, and secret trade negotiations and agreements.
We invoke our rights to free, prior and informed consent. We choose cooperative trans-Pacific dialogue, action, advocacy, and solidarity between and amongst the peoples of the Pacific, rooted in traditional cultural practices and wisdom.
E mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono. A mama. Ua noa.35
This year, at the conclusion of the APEC 2012 meeting in Vladivostok, Russia, Ministers agreed on a list of 54 green technologies that will be subject to import duties of 5 percent or less beginning in 2015.36 This tariff reduction will unfairly pit our homegrown food and/or green energy initiatives against major players like Cargill, Monsanto, Shell, BP, and Chevron, who will further exploit our resources for the benefit of their global-supply principles to shareholders thousands of miles away. Goldman Sachs, the leading Wall St. investment firm has announced that they are setting aside $40 billion to target clean technology and renewable energy.37 Without clear oversight, this is an action that could unfairly compromise small island economies, and we
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cannot accept a policy that encourages Wall. St. to privatize our public utilities for the open market. In addition, trade ministers from the 11 nations participating in the TPP talks, affirmed their determination to move ahead with this policy.38 The next round of TPP negotiations will take place in New Zealand in December.
In closing, I received a note from Jon Osorio, Professor of Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and convener to the Moana Nui conference, and he wrote:
I am just as skeptical of international organizations that preach good stewardship to us as though we really need to be taught this by outsiders.
Kanaka need to reach back into their own traditions and look for ways to balance the values and life-strategies of our ancestors with those of modern human beings. But there is no hope of balance so long as our own people continue to think that our predecessors were ignorant, primitive, superstitious, unscientific a pela aku. There is also no hope for balance if modern human beings continue to believe that the earth can sustain their lunatic “needs.”
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1 Clinton, Hillary Rodham, “America’s Pacific Century,” November 2011, Foreign Policy Magazine. [http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/americas_pacific_century] 14 October 2011.
2 2008 SNA. European Commission, IMF, OECD, UN, World Bank, “System of National Accounts, 2008” New York, 2009. xlix
3 ibid. P.5. (1.34). Levels of GDP or, alternatively, gross national income (GNI) per head in different countries are also used by international organizations to determine eligibility for loans, aid, or other funds or to determine the terms or conditions on which such loans, aid, or funds are made available. When the objective is to compare the volumes of goods or services produced or consumed per head, data in national currencies must be converted into a common currency by means of purchasing power parities and not exchange rates. It is well known that, in general, neither market nor fixed exchange rates reflect the relative internal purchasing powers of different currencies. When exchange rates are used to convert GDP, or other statistics, into a common currency the prices at which goods and services in high-income countries are valued tend to be higher than in low-income countries, thus exaggerating the differences in real incomes between them. Exchange rate converted data must not, therefore, be interpreted as measures of the relative volumes of goods and services concerned. Levels of GDP, or GDP per head, in different countries, are also used to determine, in whole or in part, the size of the contributions that the member countries of an international organization make to finance the operations of the organization.
4 Eurostat, “National accounts – main aggregates and related indicators” (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/National_accounts_- _main_GDP_aggregates_and_related_indicators) January 2012. National accounts are a powerful source of information for studying many aspects of the economy. The main aggregates, covering the annual and quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) and its components, are among the most significant indicators of the state of any economy.” Accessed 15 Sept 2012.
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5 ibid. p.2.
6 Anielski, Mark. “Measuring the Sustainability of Nations: The Genuine Progress Indicator System of Sustainable Well-Being Accounts” Paper delivered at the Fourth Biennial Conference of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics: Ecological Sustainability of the Global Market Place, August 2001, Montreal Quebec.
7 It should be noted that there are two versions of the SEEA, from 2003 and 2012. On the topic of degradation, the 2012 SEEA (System of Environmental-Economic Accounting, European Commission, IMF, OECD, UN, World Bank, 2012). Informs us that during “the revision process it became clear that there remained certain aspects of the SEEA-2003 on which it was unlikely that agreement could be found, in particular concerning the measurement of degradation and its valuation.” The 2003 SEEA focuses extensively on degradation and depletion and extends the SNA aggregates to account for depletion, defensive expenditure, and degradation. It is our opinion that the 2003 SEEA categories on depletion, defensive expenditure, and degradation be restored. 2003 SEEA. European Commission, IMF, FAO, OECD, UN, World Bank, “Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting 2003” New York, 2003, p.447.
8 2008 SNA. European Commission, IMF, OECD, UN, World Bank, “System of National Accounts, 2008” New York, 2009. P.538 “29.120, This is the most difficult part of environmental accounting and one where there is still a wide divergence of views. There are two problems raised by the question of how to incorporate the effects of degradation in the SNA. The first is how to place a value on degradation; the second is how to locate this valuation in the accounts.”
9 Report on the forty-third session (28 February-2 March 2012), Statistical Commission, Economic and Social Council, United Nations. E/2012/24, E/CN.3/2012/34 (http://unstats.un.org/unsd/statcom/sc2012.htm.) Accessed 15 Sept 2012.
10 2003 SEEA. European Commission, IMF, OECD, UN, World Bank, “Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting 2003” New York, 2003. P 447 “attempts to include climate change, biodiversity, land cover change or other aspects of environmental services not yet monetized might be key cases where there could be very fruitful explorations of the policy applications of the SEEA”
11 2008 SNA. European Commission, IMF, OECD, UN, World Bank, “System of National Accounts, 2008” New York, 2009. P.99″Although paid domestic staff from produce many of the services excluded the production boundary of the SNA when undertaken by household members, paying a person who comes to the house to wash, cook or look after children, for example, is as much a market activity as taking clothes to a laundry, eating at a restaurant or paying a nursery to care for children.”
12 Resolution adopted by the General Assembly 1077th plenary meeting (13 September 2007) (A/61/L67 and Add.1), 61/295 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People 2007. Article 11 (2)
13 ibid Articles 19. Paragraph written by Ali’itasi Stewart, who contributed to the writing of this paper. She was also a participant in the Moana Nui 2011 conference in Hawaii
14 Ostrom, Elinor, “A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems,” Science, Vol 325, 24 July 2009. P.419. “A major problem worldwide is the potential loss of fisheries, forests, and water resources. Understanding of the processes that lead to
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improvements in or deterioration of natural resources is limited because scientific disciplines use different concepts and languages to describe and explain complex social-ecological systems (SESs). Without a common framework to organize findings, isolated knowledge does not cumulate. Until recently, the accepted theory has assumed that resource users will never self-organize to maintain their resources and that governments must impose solutions. Research in multiple disciplines, however, has found that some government policies accelerate resource destruction, whereas some resource users have invested their time and energy to achieve sustainability. A general framework is used to identify 10 subsystem variables that affect the likelihood of self-organization in efforts to achieve a sustainable SES.”
Clive George and Colin Kirkpatrick, “Sustainability Impact Assessment of World Trade Negotiations: Current Practice and Lessons for Further Development.” Impact Assessment Research Centre, Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester. November 2003. “While impact assessment has become well established at the project level, many sustainability issues are more effectively addressed strategically, in the design of policies, plans and programmes. Strategic environmental assessment (SEA), for example, is intended to strengthen the environmental component of policy formulation, while broader forms of impact assessment such as sustainability impact assessment (SIA) may be used to integrate the analysis of environmental, social and economic issues (Kirkpatrick et al, 2001).”P.2.
15 Hitorangi and Saiki, “Intervention of the Pacific Caucus. Addendum Draft: towards establishing a Pacific Regional Indigenous Authority: Response to the recently leaked TPP Investment Chapter. “As the TPP economic partnership grows, we are left with little to defend ourselves from many of our own governments from selling our environmental resources out from under us. We will not leave environmental protections in the hands of governments or sub-regional institutions like the Pacific Island Forum, or the Polynesian Leaders Group. We demand the immediate recognition and funding of a Pacific Region Indigenous Authority before any Bilateral or Regional Investment Agreements are signed, and we demand that the recognition of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Free Prior and Informed Consent be part of the process on these Investor-State provisions currently being negotiated among the Trans-Pacific Partnership.”
16 Special Rapporteurs, U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Tenth Session, “Study on indigenous peoples and corporation to examine existing mechanisms and policies related to corporations and indigenous peoples and to identify good practices.” New York, 12-27 May 20122, Item 3 (a) of the provisional agenda.
17 World Bank, Operational Manual. OP4.10-Indigenous Peoples (http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/PROJECTS/EXTPOLICIES/EXTOPMANUA L/0,,contentMDK:20553653~menuPK:4564185~pagePK:64709096~piPK:64709108~theSitePK: 502184,00.html) Accessed 15 Sept 2012.
18 Public Citizen. “Investor-State Attacks on the Public Interest” (http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=5329) Accessed 1 Oct 2012.
19 Gooch, Nicole. “Nickel and Maligned”. 2012, Apr, 27. The Global Mail. (http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/nickel-and-maligned/214/). Accessed 15 Sept 2012.
20 Radio Australia, “Thousand of fish dead after acid leak at New Caledonia Nickel plant.” April 6, 2009.
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(http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/onairhighlights/thousands-of-fish-dead-after- acid-leak-at-new-caledonia-nickel-plant). Accessed 15 Sept 2012.
21 ACT NOW! and PANG Joint Media Release, “Economics of experimental seabed mining don’t add up for Pacific island countries.” May 15, 2012. Papua New Guinea Mine Watch, (http://ramumine.wordpress.com/2012/05/15/economics-of-experimental-seabed-mining-dont- add-up-for-pacific-island-countries/). Accessed 15 Sept 2012.
22 U.N. General Assembly, Fourth Committee (GA/SPD431). “Fourth Committee delegates urge more funding for the scientific committee to enable it to assess emerging risks of atomic radiation on human health, environment.” (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2009/gaspd431.doc.htm). Accessed 16 Oct. 2009.
23 Crippa, Leonardo A. & Gretchen Gordon. “Comments on the UN-REDD Programme Guideline on Free, Prior and Informed Consent.” Indian Law Resource Center. January 2012. (http://www.indianlaw.org/content/centers-redd-related-comments-fpic-guidelines-benefit-and- risk-assessment-tool) Accessed 15 Sept 2012.
24 Papua New Guinea Perspective. (http://www.pngperspective.com/news/pacific-deep-sea- mining-framework-under- fire/?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=paste&utm_campaign=copypaste&utm_content=http%3A %2F%2F). Accessed 15 Sept 2012.
25 European Commission, IMF, OECD, UN, World Bank, “System of National Accounts, 2008” New York, 2009. xlviii. “New features fall into five main groups: assets; the financial sector; globalization and related issues; the general government and public sectors; and the informal sector.
26 Ibid, xlviii. “Expenditures on weapons systems that meet the general definition of assets have been reclassified as fixed capital formation.” More information on this change of military systems: “Canberra II Group’s Recommendations to Treat Military Systems as Fixed Assets: Canberra II Group on Non-Financial Assets, Brent R. Moulton, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. 17 December 2003 (revised 10 March 2004)” (http://www.scribd.com/doc/97355532/m1-p-Military-Revised) Arguments for this change include:
“• It fails to recognise that weapon systems provide a nation with economic benefits by protecting the liberty and property of its citizens.
• It fails to recognise the role of capital in the production of defence services.
• It fails to recognise that existing military equipment has value and can be sold.
• When a government sells or transfers used military equipment, the treatment requires a counter-intuitive accounting entry of negative intermediate consumption.
• The distinction between destructive equipment and non-destructive equipment that can be used for peaceful purposes is difficult to make in practice.
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• The treatment of military equipment used by the military is inconsistent with the
treatment of the same equipment (for example, armoured vehicles) used by internal police.
• The treatment is inconsistent with the latest international public sector financial accounting standards.
• Many countries now maintain military equipment for long periods and are concerned about scheduling and providing for its replacement.” Accessed 15 Sept 2012.
27 Bureau of Economic Analysis, US Dept. of Commerce, “Fixed Assets Accounts Tables, (7.5b) Investment in Government Fixed Assets” Last revised, 15 Aug. 2012 (http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=10&step=1) Between 2007 and 2008 we see nearly a 20-point rise in Defense Spending investments. Accessed 15 Sept 2012.
28 World Bank, Military expenditure (% of GDP). (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS)
Where the Military expenditure as a percentage of GDP has moved from 4.0 in 2007, 4.4 in 2008, 4.8 in 2009 and 4.8 in 2010, this does not account for the percentage increase in GDP, which follows: GDP (Current US$) (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD).
From 2009 to 2011, the US percentage increase in GDP rose from -2.2 ($13,863,600 million) in 2009 to 3.8 ($14,447,100 million) in 2010, to 4.0 ($15,094,000 million) in 2011. If we account for the nearly 20 point rise in Defense Spending Investments, we can conclude that the move of Military Systems from an inventoried account to a fixed asset, has provided an increase in GDP, despite the relatively flat labor statistic and decreased wage statistics, following. Accessed 15 Sept 2012.
29 Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey” (http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea01.htm). In 2007, unemployment was at 4.6%, since 2010, unemployment has wavered around 8.5%. Accessed 15 Sept 2012.
30 Bureau of Economic Analysis, US Dept. of Commerce, “National Income and Product Accounts Tables, (2.1) Personal Income and Its Disposition” (http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=9&step=1&acrdn=2) Disposable personal income between 2010 and 2012 has decreased as has personal savings, suggesting that employment figures are remaining constant, despite lower wages.
Note: Healthcare and social services are not accounted for as fixed assets– generally, community and social services are accounted for as deficits in a non-market sector which, in my opinion, is why lobbyists and many in government are advocating to privatize these sectors. Accessed 15 Sept 2012.
31 United Nations. Pacific. “Millennium Development Goals” (http://www.pacific.one.un.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=118&Itemid=16 9) Accessed 15 Sept. 2012.
32 APEC, “Committee on Trade and Investment” (http://www.apec.org/Groups/Committee-on- Trade-and-Investment) “Trade and investment liberalisation and facilitation are the cornerstones of APEC’s mission and activities, and the Committee on Trade and Investment (CTI) is the coordinating body for all of APEC’s work in these areas. The CTI provides a forum for APECs
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21 member economies to deliberate trade and policy issues. It works to reduce impediments to business activity in the areas outlined by the Osaka Action Agenda, with the objective of helping APEC economies achieve the Bogor Goals of free and open trade and investment.” Accessed 15 Sept. 2012.
APEC, “Apec Observers” (http://www.apec.org/About-Us/How-APEC-Operates/APEC- Observers.aspx). “Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) (http://www.pecc.org) is a unique tripartite partnership of senior individuals from business and industry, government, academic and other intellectual circles. All participate in their private capacity and discuss freely current, practical policy issues of the Asia-Pacific region. PECC aims to serve as a regional forum for cooperation and policy coordination to promote economic development in the Asia-Pacific region, based on the following premises – The respective strengths of business and industry, government, academic and other intellectual circles can be better focused to promote the acceleration of economic growth, social progress, scientific and technological development and environmental quality in the region, and Trade, joint ventures, mutual aid and other forms of linkage, when developed in a spirit of partnership, fairness, respect and genuine cooperation, strengthen the foundation needed for a prosperous, progressive and peaceful Pacific Region.” Accessed 15 Sept. 2012.
Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Secretariat (http://www.forumsec.org.fj) is the paramount regional inter-governmental forum in the South Pacific. PIF addresses issues such as regional trade, economic development, the environment and regional law enforcement, cooperation and security in the South Pacific. Accessed 9 Sept. 2012.
33 Pacific Region Infrastructure Facility. (http://www.theprif.org/goals-and-principles). PRIF is a partnership between development partners and Pacific island country governments. The current PRIF development partners are the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), the European Commission (EC) and the European Investment Bank (EIB), the New Zealand Government via the New Zealand Aid Programme, and the World Bank Group (WBG). Accessed 9 Sept. 2012.
34 “Moana Nui: The Pacific Peoples, their Lands and Economies” was a three-day summit commencing on November 9, 2011, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Organized by the International Forum on Globalization and Pua Mohala I Ka Po, a partnership of scholars, community and political activists and Hawaiian and Pacific Islander cultural practitioners, Moana Nui provided a voice and possible direction for the economies of Pacific Islands in the era of powerful transnational corporations, global industrial expansion and global climate change. (http://moananui2011.org/) Accessed 9 Sept. 2012.
35 Statement drafted at the Moana Nui 2011 meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii in November 2011. (http://www.change.org/petitions/moana-nui-2011-statement) Accessed 9 Sept. 2012.
36 Reuters/ “Asia-Pacific Forum to Cut Import Duties fo Green Technologies” New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/08/business/energy-environment/asia-pacific-forum-to-cut- import-duties-for-green-technologies.html?_r=1). Ministers agreed on a list of 54 green technologies that will be subject to import duties of 5 percent or less beginning in 2015, following through on a commitment made by leaders at the last APEC summit in Honolulu a year ago. The list includes equipment used in generating power from renewable energy sources like the sun,
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wind and biomass; treating waste water; recycling; and environmental monitoring.” Accessed 9 Sept. 2012.
37 Goldman Sachs, “Focus on Clean Technology and Renewables” (http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/focus-on/clean-technology-and- renewables/index.html?mediaIndex=video1&cid=PS_03_28_06_00_00_00). “At Goldman Sachs, we believe that capital markets can and should play an important role in creating opportunities to address today’s environmental challenges. The firm has set a $40 billion target for financing and investing in clean technology companies over the next decade. On this page, we share some of our latest thinking on the cleantech market – in sectors such as solar, wind, geothermal, energy efficiency, green transportation and advanced biofuels – along with efforts to develop market-based solutions to some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.” Accessed 9 Sept. 2012.
38 Heritage, Timothy. “UPDATE 2-Russia’s Putin warns on global economy, looks east” Reuters. UK. (http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/09/07/apec-summit-putin-idUKL6E8K752N20120907). “The diverse nature of the Pacific-Rim economies has led some APEC countries to join Washington in pushing for a new free-trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Marantis said trade ministers from nine nations participating in the TPP talks had met in Vladivostok and affirmed their determination to move ahead at negotiations to be hosted next week by the United States in Leesburg, Virginia.” Accessed 9 Sept. 2012.