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381. Making Markets for Merit Goods: The Political Economy of Antiretrovirals

Author:
Ethan B. Kapstein and Josh Busby
Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
This paper examines the role of policy entrepreneurs and global activists in shaping the international market for antiretroviral drugs to combat HIV/AIDS. When ARVs first came on the market in the 1990s they were exceedingly expensive; the cost of treatment was upwards of $10,000 per year. These drugs were thus accessible only to those patients who had high incomes. But in 2006, the “international community,” meeting at a United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS), made an astonishing pledge to those who were infected with HIV. It proclaimed that there should be universal access to ARV treatment. This UNGASS, following up on an earlier historic UN special session devoted entirely to AIDS in 2001, marked the first time in history that the international community pledged itself to chronic care for the ill, which in this case includes the approximately 30 million people around the world estimated to be HIV positive. How do we explain the transformation of ARVs from private goods, which only a few could afford, into merit goods that were (at least declaratively) to be made available to everyone? In other words, how does a norm of “universal access to treatment”—that no person should be denied these life-extending drugs—become the ethical basis for global public policy with respect to pharmaceutical allocation? What are the lessons of the ARV story for other global issues? These are the primary questions we explore in this paper. Briefly, we argue that the policy entrepreneurs and activists who promoted the creation of a universal access to treatment regime—of the transformation of ARVs into global merit goods—relied on a combination of moral arguments and ideas with favorable material circumstances. From the ethical perspective, the task of these entrepreneurs was to convince the “international community” that access to ARVs was a “human right,” or conversely to convince decision-makers that it was morally wrong to allocate these life-enhancing drugs solely on the basis of ability to pay. But from a material standpoint, these arguments were greatly facilitated by the lowering prices of ARVs caused by a combination of differential pricing (that is, lower prices for drugs in the developing world than in the advanced welfare states) and competition from generics producers, coupled with increases in foreign aid spending devoted to HIV/AIDS and other diseases.
Topic:
Globalization, Health, and Markets
Political Geography:
United Nations

382. Peacebuilding: Task Forces on Strengthening Multilateral Security Capacity IPI Blue Paper no. 10

Author:
Lead Rapportuer and Jenna Slotin
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
Peacebuilding involves implementing a range of reconstruction and reform efforts in countries with some of the most fragile, fluid, and unpredictable political environments. These situations present tensions and contradictions that often cannot be fully reconciled and require trade-offs between competing needs and goals. Moreover, each postconflict situation is unique, defying general theories and blueprints for action.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, International Cooperation, Peace Studies, and War
Political Geography:
United Nations

383. Understanding Local Context: The Use of Assessment Tools for Conflict-Affected and Fragile States

Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
On June 11 and 12, 2009, the International Peace Institute (IPI) convened an experts' workshop as part of an ongoing project called Understanding Local Context. The project aims to improve understanding of how international actors grapple with local context and dynamics in the countries where they work.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, International Cooperation, and Fragile/Failed State
Political Geography:
United Nations

384. The Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) and Genocide Prevention in Africa

Author:
Jenna Slotin, Castro Wesamba, and Teemt Bekele
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
Within the United Nations, the concept of the responsibility to protect (RtoP) has regained considerable momentum after nearly two years of stasis following the 2005 World Summit. Outside the corridors of the world body, discussions about RtoP and its application to specific regional situations, as well as the mandate of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, one of the crimes specified in the Summit's Outcome Document, are still at a nascent stage. In order to contribute to rectifying this imbalance, the International Peace Institute, the UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, and the InterAfrica Group convened an expert roundtable on “The Responsibility to Protect and Genocide Prevention in Africa” in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on October 23 and 24, 2008.
Topic:
Genocide, Human Rights, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
Africa, United Nations, and Ethiopia

385. A Profile of the TTP's New Leader: Hakimullah Mehsud

Author:
Mukhtar A. Khan
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
On OCTOBER 17, 2009, Pakistan's military launched a new offensive in South Waziristan Agency, the stronghold of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The offensive comes in the wake of a series of major attacks launched by suspected TTP militants, including an October 5 suicide attack on a United Nations office in Islamabad, and the audacious October 10 assault on the military's General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. In the days before the October 17 offensive, the TTP warned Pakistan's government that any assault on South Waziristan would result in increased attacks on civilian and military targets in Pakistan. On October 28, the TTP seemed to deliver on its threat. The group was blamed for a powerful car bomb that killed more than 100 people in Peshawar just hours after the arrival of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Islamabad.
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Soviet Union, and United Nations

386. Sanctioning North Korea: The Political Economy of Denuclearization and Proliferation

Author:
Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland
Publication Date:
07-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
As a small country dependent on foreign trade and investment, North Korea should be highly vulnerable to external economic pressure. In June 2009, following North Korea's second nuclear test, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1874, broadening existing economic sanctions and tightening their enforcement. However, an unintended consequence of the nuclear crisis has been to push North Korea into closer economic relations with China and other trading partners that show little interest in cooperating with international efforts to pressure North Korea, let alone in supporting sanctions. North Korea appears to have rearranged its external economic relations to reduce any impact that traditional sanctions could have.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Sanctions
Political Geography:
China, North Korea, and United Nations

387. Aid for Agriculture: Promises and the Reality on the Ground

Author:
Jean-Denis Crola
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Between June 2008 and July 2009, over 40 billion dollars were pledged by the main donor countries to provide emergency response to the food crisis and to sustainably invest in agriculture in developing countries. In addition, the donor and beneficiary countries, the United Nations, the World Bank and other actors called for better coordination of interventions on the ground, as well as increased investment in national strategies and policies. These two elements were identified as essential points for action in the joint statement on food security made at L'Aquila, during the last G8 summit.
Topic:
Agriculture, Humanitarian Aid, and Poverty
Political Geography:
United Nations

388. Contextualizing Conceptions of Corruption: Challenges for the International Anti-corruption Campaign

Author:
Malte Gephart
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
While in an initial legal and academic anti-corruption wave corruption itself was at the center of analysis, research is now increasingly focused on anti-corruption discourse and praxis. The latter analyses have generated numerous criticisms of anti-corruption activities and anti-corruption research, and these are presented in this literature review. These criticisms range from the anti-corruption norm's legitimacy deficit, to the difficulty of defining and measuring corruption, to the discourse's depoliticization through its technicalization. The anti-corruption movement faces particular difficulties with respect to the tension between the universality of the anti-corruption norm and its simultaneous contextualization for specific and local application. This tension is especially important because it touches upon the central issues of the respective political communities, such as the division of the private from the public, which differ from one cultural context to another. The contextualization of anti-corruption concepts has to be enabled in various areas: first, with respect to the culturally shaped conception of the division between the public and the private; second, with respect to local understandings of corruption, that is, what is actually meant when talking about “corruption”; and third, with respect to the low socioeconomic development levels in some countries, which do not permit the absence of corruption (evading a zero-tolerance rhetoric).
Topic:
International Relations, Corruption, International Cooperation, and International Political Economy
Political Geography:
Africa, United States, and United Nations

389. It\'s One Climate Policy World Out There—Almost

Author:
Nancy Birdsall and Jan von der Goltz
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
In the run-up to the December 2009 Copenhagen climate conference, the authors surveyed members of the international development community with a special interest in climate change on three sets of detailed questions: (1) what action different country groups should take to limit climate change; (2) how much non-market funding there should be for emissions reductions and adaptation in developing countries, and how it should be allocated; and (3) which institutions should be involved in delivering climate assistance, and how the system should be governed. About 500 respondents from 88 countries completed the survey between November 19–24, 2009. About a third of the respondents grew up in developing countries, although some of them now live in developed countries. A broad majority of respondents from both developing and developed countries held very similar views on the responsibilities of the two different country groups, including on issues that have been very controversial in the negotiations. Most favored binding commitments now by developed countries, and commitments by 2020 by \'advanced developing countries\' (Brazil, China, India, South Africa and others), limited use of offsets by developed countries, strict monitoring of compliance with commitments, and the use of trade measures (e.g. carbon-related tariffs) only in very narrow circumstances. Respondents from developing countries favored larger international transfers than those from developed countries, but the two groups share core ideas on how transfers should be allocated. Among institutional options for managing climate programs, a plurality of respondents from developed (48 percent) and developing (56 percent) countries preferred a UN-managed world climate fund, while many from both groups also embraced the UN Adaptation Fund\'s approach, which is to accredit national institutions within countries which are eligible to manage implementation of projects that the Fund finances. Among approaches to governance, the most support went to the Climate Investment Fund model—of equal representation of developing and developed countries on the board.
Topic:
Climate Change, Energy Policy, and Treaties and Agreements
Political Geography:
China, India, South Africa, Brazil, and United Nations

390. India's Strategic Defense Transformation: Expanding Global Relationships

Author:
Brian K. Hedrick
Publication Date:
11-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:
Following India's independence in 1947, then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru embarked on a foreign policy that was based on principles of socialism and remaining noncommittal to the emerging struggle between the Soviet Union and the countries forming the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the post-World War II period. Eventually, this policy led to India becoming one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1955. In practical terms, it placed India in a position of securing bilateral international commitments only in situations that were clearly neutral in nature or in cases of lastresort. The basic principles of nonalignment also governed the military relationships of the Indian defense establishment, resulting in limited military-tomilitary contacts, usually through United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions or training at foreign military schools. These practices were generally followed by his successors until the early 1990s when a changing geopolitical structure and an internal economic crisis began to challenge these principles.
Topic:
Security and Defense Policy
Political Geography:
India, Soviet Union, and United Nations