IP in Arsenal: Part 2

? Rahul Dutta | December 2, 2022 | 12th Issue

Greed, mother of evil?

The United States is?the biggest arms and ammunition, exporter. The?US Arms Exports Control and DisarmamentAct (22 USC), in its opening section, states the objective as follows:

an ultimate goal of the United States continues to be?a world which is free from the scourge of war and the dangers and burdens of armaments; in which the use of force has been subordinated to the rule of law; and in which international adjustments to a changing world are achieved peacefully. In furtherance of that goal, it remains the policy of the United States to encourage regional arms control and disarmament agreements and to discourage arms races.?

Further Clause 1 of subsection (a) of Section 3 states the eligibility of the Foreign Countries where exports under the Act are permissible in the following wordings:

No defense article or defense service shall be sold or leased by the United States Government under this Act to any country or international organization, and no agreement shall be entered into for a cooperative project (as de- fined in section 27 of this Act), unless— the President finds that the furnishing of defense articles and defense services to such country or international organization will?strengthen the security of the United States and promote world peace;?

Self-interest is a limitation of the national laws; as it is with the above-stated US statute. The US holds the distinction of being the biggest arsenals producer and exports. The distinction between the warfare arsenals producers and exports goes against the ultimate goal set by the US legislature as?a world that is free from the scourge of war and the dangers and burdens of armaments.?The vision objective and the facts and figures are just contrary to each other. It is a classic clash between the wisdom of legislators' collective will and the capitalist economy wherein the will of the people becomes subservient to the capital interests!

Similarly, the clause mentioned in section 3 of the Act considers the world peace and security of the US in conjunction. This is to be seen in the light of more than thirty wars, mostly invasions, by the US alone. These facts only serve to emphasize the fact that self-serving national interests dominate the global arms manufacturers oligopoly market which exploits the divisions between the allies and foes and then uses these divisions for both creating the need for the latest arsenals and then lobbying on behalf of the domestic manufacturing companies for selling them at lucrative prices.

The case of the US is just an example. The governments and the arsenal manufacturing industry work as a team. The government's foreign offices act as agents of the arsenal manufacturing industry. For the industry, it has never remained easy to engage their government as an agent ‘pro bono’ for exporting their products. The arsenal importing countries are mentioned as the clients both by the government and the industry. This is the reason why the evergreen arsenals industry has remained an oligopoly.

There is no permanent friend or foe in politics. The dynamics of changing relationships with the arms manufacturers countries place the defense preparedness of the arsenals-buying countries at their mercy. In the time of ‘need,’ there is no guarantee of an assured supply of spare parts, ammunition et all. The rise of one of the biggest arms importers India and Saudi Arabia as strong economies with the constant need for investment in warfare materials have forced them to work for becoming self-dependent in warfare material supply. This is further going to make the arsenals market bigger with more armaments having the potential to the destruction of life, property, and nature. It is a mute question as to why a country needs weapons dangerous enough to destroy the planet itself.??The theories of deterrence are as flawed as the fiction of the ‘we the people’ foundation of a welfare State under democracies.

The war within

The United Nations (UN) is a union of 195 Member Countries around the world. The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has once again brought three core issues to the surface: i) The International Institutions, like the UN, are toothless in terms of deterring wars among or between the UN Member States; ii) the modern States created on the foundation of people’s power sustain on people’s blood, sweat, and money; in the name of public welfare a major portion of the financial resources are spent on securing political (international) borders than on human welfare measures, and iii) no one comes forward to prevent war! The conclusion is that each Sovereign State has to make its own security arrangements.

In the third decade of the 21st?century, the world is struggling to control global warming which has been threatening the very existence of the earth that too without a war! In the face of these global challenges facing the planet, the petty clashes within and between countries appear to be insignificant.

In the world community of eight billion people, there is not a single contemporary leader that may be considered to be a representative of all the nations. The Presidents of Global Super Powers China and Russia have conferred on themselves the presidency for life. At the same time, the robust US legal framework staved off a similar attempt by a former President. The ambition to lead countries by usurping power and without people’s mandate relegates the national interest to mere petty selfish interest. The weapons of mass destruction amassed in the name of saving the political borders are at the disposal of the weakest decision-makers posing an increasing threat to the very existence of our planet.

In the formative transition years of democracies, the spirit of nationalism ruled the minds and souls of the citizens. Thus all other interests became subservient to this interest so much so that all resources were diverted to serve it even at the cost of other human development parameters.?

The list of Presidents and Prime Ministers who are ending up in jail for corruption and abuse of power is getting longer with time. It is the selfish interests and ulterior motives of these decision-makers that instigate people in their favor for waging wars in the name of national interest.

An Alternative

Before we conclude this edition, let us focus on an alternate way of existence in conformity with the laws of mother Nature. There are 15 countries having no defense forces.?Iceland?does not have a standing Army since 1869. Iceland banks for its security on NATO, an alliance of mostly European Countries for the security of the North Atlantic area.?Costa Rica?is a beautiful country in Central America that?abolished defense forces as a permanent institution way back in 1948. Costa Rica has about 373 mineral deposits and one-third of the country is covered by the dense evergreen forest. Costa Rica is a home of 5 million people with a US$19,974 Gross National Income per capita and a respectable?58 rank?on?the Human Development Index?value?of 0.809. In this arrangement, the energy and resources of these countries are channelized for public welfare and it appears to be a better alternative for living in peaceful coexistence with mother earth and all other forms of living beings.

Neo-Sovereigns

We must not overlook the actual fact that dominion over things is also imperium over our fellow human beings.?~?Morris R.Cohen, Property and Sovereignty, 13CORNELLL.Q.8,13 (1927)

Sovereign is a creation of a man. Do the intangible characteristics of a man, like ego, self-respect, esteem, and insult also transmit to personify a Sovereign? The answer is YES for the public and NO for the masters of public destiny. The answer is yes for the public because it contributes money, sweat, blood, and life in the name of the country. The answer is no for the masters of the public destiny because they know it is their sweet will that prevails. In the community of the Sovereigns, only the primitive law – rule of might, commands respect. The takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban against the will of the Afghan people was a blatant latest example.??An excerpt of a speech delivered by?Evo Morales, then President of?Bolivia?in the?UN General Assembly?on September 24, 2019, expresses the same observations:

Transnational companies control food, water, non-renewable resources, weapons, technology, and our personal data. They intend to commercialize everything, to accumulate more capital. The world is being controlled by a global oligarchy, and only a handful of billionaires define the political and economic destiny of humanity.?26 people have the same wealth as 3.8 billion people. That is unfair, that is immoral, that is inadmissible. The underlying problem lies in the model of production and consumerism, in the ownership of natural resources, and in the unequal distribution of wealth.?

In the present era transnational companies (TNC) have annual revenue more than the GDP of many-many countries. The home countries of the MNC are acting as the marketing agents to facilitate their trade and commerce. The Colonization period is presently seen as one of long-term’ loot, barbaric, and unhumanitarian. The present TNCs practice the business strategy using knowledge-driven tools including intellectual property for securing the raw material at the lowest price and selling their value-added products globally at the developing world price and thus maximizing the profits. Here, we are attempting to explain it with an example of Coffee. It is estimated that globally one billion people regularly drink coffee.

Coffee is one of the most traded agricultural products. As per?BizVibe web, the producing countries export 70% of Coffee beans production generating a mere US$19 billion. It is in total less than the annual revenue of Starbucks! In the year 2019, the global coffee market was approximately US$ 102.15 billion. The rough added value to the coffee beans is more than five times the value of coffee beans. Is it not an inequitable distribution of wealth in the name of value addition?

The colonization has a better veil over its face of yesteryears’ colonization; in fact, the TNCs are the neo-Sovereigns. It is ironic to see the British Parliamentarians grilling TNCs executives for shelling out ‘morally’ more taxes.?The Public Accounts Committee Hearing on November 12, 2012, on Taxation of Multinational Corporations, witnesses: Matt Brittin, CEO, Google UK, Troy Alstead, Global CFO, Starbucks, Andrew Cecil, Director Public Policy, Amazon:?

Stateless Sovereign

The weakness of democracies and human nature has been exploited by organized trade and commerce entities. Had it not been so, there could not have been any ‘profession’ named Lobbying worth?US$3.7 billion in revenue in 2021. The consistent rise in the number of lobbyists and their increasing revenue shows the power of influencing the legislators who under oath are supposed to represent the public interest.

The mind, body, heart, and soul are the four constituents of a human. The quest for self-respect, access to the basic right for survival, and for mind and soul attributes of equality and justice provide a sense of freedom. Unfortunately, the basic requirements of food and shelter do not exist due to different reasons namely, civil wars, ethnic cleansing, gross human rights violations, and climate change. These issues are forcing people to flee their homes and countries on a mass scale, especially on the African continent. According to the?UNHRC Report, from December 2020 to the first half of 2021, during the Covid-19 restrictions time, 82.4 million people fled their homes.??Most new refugees came from just five countries: Central African Republic, 71,800; South Sudan, 61,700; Syria, 38,800; Afghanistan, 25,200; and Nigeria, 20,300. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) witnessed 1.3 million displacements and Ethiopia, 1.2 million. The Stateless people have a sizable number, and similar circumstances to be treated as?“State”.

The bondage to buy purified water and breathable air display the extent of freedom within the political borders of most countries. The commodification of life essentials has raised the cost of living in ‘secure’ political borders.?Charles Darwin's?theory of Survival (ability to compete, survive, and reproduce) did not account for the concentration of global prosperity in the hands of a few leaving most people high and dry. The US has been mentioned mainly due to its undisputed global superpower position, an example for many countries to emulate. The US Arms Export Control Act was mentioned at the beginning of this issue. When fellow Sovereigns become ‘clients’ for arsenals export, the conflict between the national economic interest and global peace gets exposed. The following two depictions summarise the present issue:

to be continued…