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Soriek  9mo ago (text post)   784 thread views

Transnational Thursdays 12

This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from around the world. Feel free to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the Ukraine War, or even just whatever you’re reading.

Ecuador

Fernando Villavicencio, a Presidential candidate for the upcoming August 20 race, was [tragically assassinated yesterday](Fernando Villavicencio). He wasn’t really a front runner or anything, though he was pretty outspoken about crime and narcotics trafficking. For now President Lasso is blaming it on organized crime (certainly plausible) and has declared a state of emergency for the country for 60 days. He’s previously declared a state of emergency in two of Ecuador's provinces so this will now temporarily extend the suspension of civil liberties to the entire country. For now the election will continue as normal.

Niger

Last week ECOWAS threatened an intervention if the Nigerien military wouldn’t back down after their coup. Senegal, Benin and Ivory Coast were all willing to intervene but much depended on Nigeria, which holds the largest military in ECOWAS, over 20 times the size of Niger’s. Nigerian President Bola Tinubu was indeed one of the most prominent advocates for intervening, however (thanks to @random_ranger for bringing it up) Nigeria recently held a vote on the intervention and Tinubu’s own party handily overruled him and voted against intervention. The Sunday deadline has now passed without incident and for now a West African war seems to be off. Niger remains heavily sanctioned, with overseas assets frozen, and much of their electricity cut off from Nigeria.

Spain

Recapping from last week, the Spanish election ended with a perfect stalemate between two coalitions: the center right PP and far right Vox vs the left PSOE and the farther left Sumar. The coalitions are both competing for tie breaker parties: the EH Bildu, the Basque Nationalist Party, the Republican Left of Catalonia and Junts (the Catalan independence party), but the nationalist Vox is disliked by these, especially the historically secessionist parties, putting PP at a big disadvantage. PSOE leader and current Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has taken advantage of this and has been trying to court a deal with the Catalans and Basques without offering them too much in the way of concessions. Currently PSOE and Sumar have been offering to update the regional financing system, or to allow them to speak their regional languages in parliament, but what Junts in particular wants is for their fugitive leader Puigdemont to be allowed to return to the country with legal immunity for the last Catalan independence referendum - a nonstarter for both sides, at least for now.

Vox, surprisingly, has responded in reasonable fashion by now offering their full support to a conservative coalition even if their own members aren’t included in the new government. This has got the right wing coalition…at least one more vote, but at least opens up long shot negotiations to get a separatist party to abstain from voting. With both sides competing for the basque and Catalan parties, they are certainly going to leverage their position to demand as much as is possible.

Pakistan

Imran Khan has officially been jailed for three years and banned from politics for five years. This was followed by huge protests with over a thousand people arrested. President Arif Alvi has now disbanded the National Assembly and an interim government (not yet formed) will take charge till elections. Speaking of which, elections are supposed to happen in three months but a government spokesperson has said it may be more like four months as they do a census recount and redraw electoral boundaries. Two controversial bills enhancing the power of the military and the intelligence services have also been passed in the now defunct National Assembly and await Alvi’s signature:

Proposed amendments to the century-old Official Secrets Act will broadly empower the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) to arrest citizens over "suspected breach of official secrets". In addition, a new bill recommends a three-year jail term for anyone who discloses the identity of an intelligence official.

Thailand

If you’ve followed the coverage in previous weeks, you’ll know the general outline that two anti-military, anti-monarchy parties won big in the last election. They tried to form a coalitional government but the military objected strongly to the more radical party, Move Forward, and rejected its leader Pita from the Prime Ministership. His party has now been ejected entirely from the coalition and the less radical party, Pheu Thai, seems to have shelved its most serious criticisms of the monarchy-military axis and has been making forward strides forming a government, with the Bhumjaithai Party and the much smaller Chart Thai Pattana Party joining their coalition. They’re now thirteen seats away from a majority but their remaining options are rough. They can either work with the pro-monarchy Democrats, or violate their pledge not to coalition with the military and ally with Palang Pracharath Party or the United Thai Nation, the ruling pro-military parties that led the last coup in 2014. Both options would incur pretty serious backlash from their more committed members.

Italy

Italy’s rocky road to chart an economic course continues. They’ve been pushing a series of reforms, including raising taxi licenses by 20% and formally ending Covid restrictions; now they’re back on taxes. Banks have been pulling record profits, up 64% from the previous year, and the Italian government has now proposed a 40% tax on “ the difference between the interest they pay customers on deposits and the interest they earn on loans.” This is in the same vein as a measure Spain has pushed last year and the funds would be redistributed downwards (funny hearing Matteo Silvini talk about promoting “social equality”) to make up for some of the effects of European Central Bank interest rates. Stocks responded in decisive fashion by falling across the board. Italy already seems to be backing down.

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I wanted to write a bit about the ongoing adventures in Israel with Judicial Reform. I'm not a huge expert in the country or region myself, but I've got a few friends who lived there and keep pretty close track of things. They/I might be effectively biased as a result, but here's a decent summary of it from what I have read.

As background, the Israeli Supreme Court appears at a glance to be similar to the American one, but there are a number of critical differences. Notably, there is no Constitution there that the Courts are on paper obligated to make decisions about whether laws are compatible with. In addition, the nomination process for new Justices includes the current Justices having veto power over any new selections. And, beginning around the timeframe of the 90s, the court increasingly granted itself the power to override arbitrary government and military policies and decisions at will based on rather arbitrary criteria including “reasonableness,” “worthiness,” and the “principle of equality.”

And so, in the last few months, Netanyahu and his government have been attempting to pass a series of reforms the limit the power of the Judiciary. This has been met with remarkably fierce protests, seemingly from all levels of society. Many of the most highly respected institutions have (or at least seem to have) joined in, including tech workers, entrepreneurs, Air Force pilots, academics, labor unions, doctors, etc. The fundamental issue appears to be more whether you are for the current right-ist governments policies or for the ability of the courts to be essentially an arbitrary check on them. The usual canard of "danger to Democracy" seems to get thrown around a lot by the anti-reformists, but I'm not seeing it - how is it "Democracy" for unelected and unaccountable justices to arbitrarily override the policies of an elected government on their own whims?

In any case, the first phase of the reform appears to have gone through, with others in the works. It appears to be unclear whether the courts will attempt to strike down new laws limiting their own power, or exactly what would happen next if they did so.

The WSJ has a decent overall summary of the situation with some more details. This fellow is rather less neutral and more critical of the anti-reform movement. This op-ed has more details about specific actions the court has taken that many think are inappropriate.

And, beginning around the timeframe of the 90s, the court increasingly granted itself the power to override arbitrary government and military policies and decisions at will based on rather arbitrary criteria including “reasonableness,” “worthiness,” and the “principle of equality.”

Thanks for the coverage. Could you speak to some more examples of court overreach? Unfortunately the WSJ link doesn't seem to be working for me. The examples from the Israel National News mostly seem to be saying the court should take social norms and politeness into consideration, but from my outsider perspective it doesn't really seem like the Supreme Court's fault if the only legal standard is the Basic Laws.

Here's a few good articles with some more details:

https://newrepublic.com/article/60919/enlightened-despot
This is a 2007 essay by American judge Richard A. Posner describing how unusual the way the Israeli courts have expanded their own authority is, though it's a bit vague on specific cases and exactly how they worked.

https://hashiloach.org.il/%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%A7%D7%98%D7%99%D7%91%D7%99%D7%96%D7%9D-%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%95%D7%98%D7%99-%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%94%D7%A4%D7%9B%D7%94/
This is a (long) article in Hebrew (Google Translate seems to work pretty well for it) by Daniel Friedman, a professor at the Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University, that goes over the concepts and types of judicial activism and cites a bunch of specific cases to document the rise of "radical" activism, which he defines as directly contradicting legislation rather than interpreting how it is to be applied in situations that it doesn't specifically cover. Strangely, I can't tell the exact date of publication - it seems to be pretty recent but predating the latest reform controversy, I'm guessing around 2020-2021 by the dates of the cites and the single comment.

https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%91%D7%92%22%D7%A5_%D7%95%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%A8_%D7%A0%D7%92%D7%93_%D7%A9%D7%A8_%D7%94%D7%91%D7%99%D7%98%D7%97%D7%95%D7%9F
This is a Wikipedia article about a specific ruling in 2007 where the court basically tells the military what tactics to use to protect a school from incoming rockets. The "Judgements of the High Court" section linked appears to have articles on the details of a number of the other significant cases as well.

Thanks for the added context, the New Republic article in particular was helpful.

I have also found it surprisingly difficult to find details about the cases that people who have issues with court overreach are complaining the most about. Presumably the actual rulings and legal documents are in Hebrew. I've put requests for details out to a few of the people who have talked about this, I'll follow up if I hear anything good back.

Thanks, much appreciated. I’ll poke around and see if I have any luck as well.

I know a guy who was active in the Finns Party (ie. the local right-wing nationalists) and then moved, out of all places, to Ecuador, married a local woman, started a business and evidently integrated to the local society, to the degree that he now posts (in Finnish) his opinions about Ecuadorian politics to Facebook. He apparently was a Villavicencio supporter and convinced that Correa/the left was behind the assassination.

Anyway, latest Finnish update discusses the Finnish presidential race and also the H5N1 avian flu spreading in Finnish fur farms and the reignited proposals to ban fur farming to deal with it.

Unlike with food production – the poultry farms, say – the sector cannot justify itself by its contribution to food security, always an important issue for a small Northern nation without a lot of good or even decent farmland. Of course, many people consider fur farming to be a morally deeply deficient field, an effort to kill masses of animals for what is today mainly seen is a vanity product.

Animal rights have had a strong standing in the Finnish environmental/progressive movement for a long time and closing the fur farms has been a top issue for the movement. Finland is, indeed, one of the few remaining countries in Europe where fur farming continues to be anything resembling an important sector – not a particularly important one nationally, but with a presence in certain electorally important regions for various parties.

Nevertheless, Sanna Marin’s center-left government took no steps towards abolishing fur farming, and this government is likely to follow the same course. In this issue even the Swedish People’s Party – usually the most progressive party in this right-wing government - agrees, as fur farming happens to be a particularly important profession in the Swedish-speaking west coast of Finland, one of SPP’s most important areas. Hesitation might also be caused by memories of Denmark’s COVID-era mink cull, probably a large reason for why the local center-left government was eventually turfed and replaced with a more centrist one.

He apparently was a Villavicencio supporter and convinced that Correa/the left was behind the assassination.

Do you know what his argument was?

Anyway, latest Finnish update discusses the Finnish presidential race

How exactly does the Presidential system work in Finland? I get that they're supposed to run foreign policy but are they genuinely independent of the party coalition / president or still subordinate?

Also:

How exactly does the Presidential system work in Finland? I get that they're supposed to run foreign policy but are they genuinely independent of the party coalition / president or still subordinate?

They're genuinely independent. The current president, for instance, avoided taking Finland to NATO until last year's events basically flipped the whole society's position on it overnight, even though his (former, he has to resign from parties by law upon presidency) had been gunning for it for years as their main foreign policy goal.

Do you know what his argument was?

Villavicencio apparently organizing a new investigation against Correa, and his anti-mafia campaign also being implicitly an anti-left one, since the mafia and correistas are connected, or something like that.

I just noticed, from his FB status, that another Finnish nationalist type that I'm familiar with (not, like, know personally, but has enjoyed a bit of a meme status in some of my friend circles for his musical career) has apparently moved to Argentina and is now a citizen of that country and is planning to vote for some obscure candidate for that country's presidential election, and is also convinced that Correa is behind Villevicencio's murder.

and is planning to vote for some obscure candidate for that country's presidential election

Any chance it's Javier Milei? He seems to be the go to for slightly zany nationalist types

No, Milei wouldn't of course be obscure in Argentinian context.

Gotcha, i thought you meant obscure in the international context.

Apparently his candidate was this guy, who represents a party whose ideology Wikipedia describes as "far-left to far-right".

Re: Nigar / ECOWAS, AFP just tweeted that:

ECOWAS backs military intervention in Niger 'as soon as possible': I.Coast president

I can't tell if this is just Ivory Coast President's opinion...

But anyway CNN wrote:

West African leaders on Thursday ramped up the rhetoric against Niger’s coup leaders, ordering the “activation” and the “deployment” of a regional standby force to restore constitutional order in the coup-hit country.

Meeting in Abuja, Nigeria after the expiration of the one-week ultimatum they gave to the Niger’s military junta, leaders from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) called for a deployment “to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger,” according to a statement read by Omar Alieu Touray, President of the ECOWAS Commission.

It was not immediately clear what the “deployment” and “activation” of the force would entail. The statement also emphasized a “determination to keep all options on the table for the peaceful resolution of the crisis.”

...

Several analysts told CNN that a military intervention in Niger would probably not be imminent, as it takes time to assemble the ECOWAS troops.

The communique is “about mobilizing the required resources should an intervention be needed, but it’s also a signal to the junta in Niger that ECOWAS is prepared to take necessary actions including force should talks fail,” Abuja-based defense and security analyst Murtala Abdullahi told CNN.

So I'm confused, I guess this kinda means there is hesitation and they are just saying / doing stuff so that they live up to the deadline they set?

It sort of sounds like it? They've said they've "activated their troops" but no one seems to know what that means. Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Benin's militaries together are still under 25% of Nigeria's. Still larger than Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger's but it's hard to imagine they'd intervene on their own without the ECOWAS Chair. I could certainly be wrong though. Meanwhile, Niger has formed a new cabinet and has said they'll kill Bazoum outright if anyone intervenes.

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