Economic Oppression as an International Wrong or as Crime against Humanity
| DOI | 10.1177/016934410502300202 |
| Published date | 01 June 2005 |
| Date | 01 June 2005 |
| Author | Elias Davidsson |
| Subject Matter | Part A: Article |
ECONOMIC OPPRESSION AS AN INTERNATIONAL
WRONG OR AS CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY
ELIAS DAVIDSSON*
Abstract
The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established to secure the punishment of persons
who have committed the most serious crimes which ‘deeply shock the conscience of humanity’.
1
Yet what shocks the ‘conscience of humanity’ and what leaves people yawning, depends to a
large extent on how mass media select and present facts. While millions of innocent human
beings have been killed and maimed over the last century in armed conflict and by mass killing,
the overwhelming majority of those who fall victim to adverse human agency are not injured by
proximate violence but as a result of being compelled to live in subhuman conditions. Many
more die silently each year of preventable hunger and disease than from widely reported direct
violence. These silent deaths are mostly the result of decisions made, without malice, by
individuals pursuing political or economic interests. Yet, intentionally or recklessly depriving
even a single person of basic necessities may give rise to criminal penalties. Failing by gross
negligence to ensure basic necessities to a dependent person may also give rise to criminal
penalties. Causing death by deprivation of air, water, food, shelter or medicines may amount to
murder. Compelling a person to live in inhumane or degrading conditions amounts to
inhumane treatment, a violation of customary international law. Such conditions are defined
herein as those which do not fulfil minimal humanitarian standards applicable to prisoners of
war. The present article examines the conditions under which measures which subject a civilian
population to inhumane or degrading conditions of life or perpetuate such conditions,
constitute an international wrongful act
2
that may reach the level of a crime against humanity
under customary and conventional law.
3
PART A: ARTICLES
Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Vol. 23/2, 173-212, 2005.
#Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM), Printed in the Netherlands. 173
* The author, who lives in Reykjavik, Iceland, and works as an independent researcher on
international issues, can be reached at edavid@simnet.is. His article is an extension of a project he
has pursued since 1996, partly funded by the Icelandic Red Cross, dealing with the legal effects of
economic sanctions on the enjoyment of human rights. He wishes to thank Gina Gagnon, George
Kent, Marianne Møllmann, Pubudu Sachithanandan and Seydina Senghor for their encourage-
ment and critical observations.
1
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Preamble, at www.un.org/law/icc/statute/
romefra.htm (hereafter The Rome Statute).
2
‘There is an internationally wrongful act of a State when conduct consisting of an action or
omission: (a) Is attributable to the State under international law; and (b) Constitutes a breach of an
international obligation of the State.’ (Article 3 of the Draft Articles on State Responsibility (ILC) of
Part 1 so far provisionally adopted or proposed on second reading, International Law Commission,
as of April 1999.)
3
‘Crimes against humanity’ are recognised as among the major international crimes under
customary international law and under the Statutes of the ICTY, ICTY and the ICC.
174
1. INTRODUCTION
In his book The Fire This Time, former US Attorney-General Ramsey Clark lists various
proposals for a fairer global order. Among these he proposes the adoption of
‘international law criminalizing all forms of economic exploitation of poor
countries, including seizure and all forms of theft and waste of natural resources,
strategic properties, and human labour and skills’.
4
In an interview with Los Angeles
Times on 22 February 1994 he further urged the adoption of ‘a convention to define
economic oppression against a whole people as a crime against humanity’.
5
Almost
one-fourth of mankind lived at the turn of the last millennium in extreme poverty,
6
a
condition manifested by the lack of clean water, malnutrition, high rates of child
mortality and morbidity, low life expectancy, illiteracy, perception of hopelessness
and social exclusion.
7
Extreme poverty is a social pathology, the result of human
agency, not a condition that somehow befalls a population.
8
Even when natural
calamities cause temporary destitution, only deliberate human policies could result
in maintaining this destitution.
9
Our moral blindness towards the inhumanity of extreme poverty – the main
factor for epidemics and hunger and the breeding ground for civil war and
genocide
10
– was well encapsulated by the following observation from a UNDP
report: ‘Torture of a single individual raises unmitigated public outrage. Yet the
deaths of more than 30,000 children a day from mainly preventable causes go almost
unnoticed’.
11
Since civil war broke out in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
in 1998 until November 2002, 3.3 million people are reported to have perished.
‘Most of the deaths are attributable to sickness and famine.’
12
Yet the civilised world
has chosen to look the other way regarding a conflict that ‘has taken more lives than
any other since World War II and is the deadliest documented conflict in African
history’.
13
Mr. Stephen Lewis, the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy for HIV/
AIDS in Africa, calls the lack of resources to fight the epidemic ‘mass murder by
complacency’. He said that those who watched it unfold ‘with a kind of pathological
Elias Davidsson
4
Clark, Ramsey, The Fire This Time, U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf, Thunder’s Mouth Press, New York,
1992, pp. 242-243.
5
Cited by Ko
¨chler, Hans, The United Nations Sanctions Policy and International Law, Just World Trust,
Kuala Lumpur, 1995, p. 39, footnote 115.
6
UNDP, ‘Facts and Figures on Poverty’ (1999), www.undp.org/teams/english/facts.htm.
7
UNDP, ‘Development Report 1999’, http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/1999/en/.
8
Skogly, Sigrun, The Elaboration of a Declaration on Human Rights and Extreme Poverty, UNHCHR,
Geneva, 7-9 February 2001, UN Doc. HR/GVA/POVERTY/SEM/2001/BP:1.
9
‘Mozambique Floods: Helicopters should not leave’, Action Against Hunger, 30 March 2000,
at www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/0/96a011fd0ecbc5dd852568b2005ce1e7?OpenDocument; Duval
Smith, Alex, ‘Mozambique Floods: Aid Agencies Appalled At Lack Of International Help’, 1 March
2000, The Independent (UK).
10
See, for example, Liao, Gening, ‘Genocidal Adjustment: Structural Adjustment Programs and the
1994 Rwanda Genocide’, at http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:L4Q64Si6lD4J:provost.ucdavis.
edu/us/explorations/liao.pdf+imf+rwanda+genocide&hl=en&ie=UTF-8.
11
UNDP report ‘Rights Empowering People in the Fight Against Poverty’ (2000), www.undp.org/
hdr2000/english/book/ch4.pdf.
12
Petersen, Kim, ‘Mass Murder by Complacency’, Africa Forgotten, 11 April 2003, at www.dissidentvoi-
ce.org/Articles4/Petersen_Africa.htm.
13
The International Rescue Committee, ‘Conflict in Congo Deadliest Since World War II’, 8 August
2003, at www.theirc.org/mortality/.
equanimity’ must be held to account. ‘There may yet come a day’, he said, ‘when we
have peacetime tribunals to deal with this particular version of crimes against
humanity’.
14
According to ADT Research of New York, the three major US television
networks’ evening news programme devoted a combined total of 39 minutes in 2003
to the worldwide catastrophe of AIDS.
15
These outrages are not solely the result of human complacency. We submit that
racist attitudes, gross negligence, wilful blindness and recklessness are also involved.
Whereas the ordinary citizen may not be aware of many of the ills that afflict remote
nations, foreign secretaries and officials of international organisations are served
daily notice regarding such conditions. Decisions to act or refrain from acting on the
evidence are routinely made by public officials.
16
Prima facie evidence exists that
causally links extreme poverty to policies which ensure a steady flow of resources
from the poor to the rich,
17
withhold aid and credits to developing countries,
18
facilitate capital flight
19
and kleptocracy,
20
impose economic sanctions against
vulnerable economies,
21
condone environmentally destructive policies
22
and induce
governments to impose socially regressive policies.
23
Lack of access to land and water
Economic Oppression as an International Wrong or as Crime Against Humanity
Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Vol. 23/2 (2005) 175
14
Nyamu, John, ‘Famine and AIDS batter Southern Africa’, Africa Recovery, at www.un.org/ecosocdev/
geninfo/afrec/newrels/lewis.htm.
15
Lobe, Jim, ‘Iraq blotted out rest of the world in 2003 TV news’, Inter Press Service, 7 January 2004.
16
The most potent economic power, the United States, refuses to recognise that economic and social
rights are ‘human rights’ and has not ratified the ICESCR. Most developed States have yet refused
to support an Optional Protocol to the ICESCR, which would provide victims of violations of
economic, social and cultural rights a quasi-judicial forum and thus, some minimal international
protection.
17
‘Rich Nations Abandon Pledge to Aid Poor’, Inter Press Service, 25 November 2003; Iqtedar,
Humeira, ‘The Trap (The Dawn)’, www.pakistandost.com/thetrap.htm; Payer, Cheryl, ‘The Debt
Trap: The IMF and the Third World’, Monthly Review Press, 1974; George Kent, The Poor Feed the Rich
(no date given), at www.unu.edu/unupress/food/8F044e/8F044E05.htm# Food%20trade:%20-
the%20poor%20feed%20the%20rich.
18
For example, ‘European Commission joins IMF in withholding aid to Kenya’, Africa Recovery,Vol.
11, No. 2, October 1997; also UN Envoy Slams IMF for Withholding Malawi Aid, Reuters, 29 January
2003.
19
FitzGerald, Valpy and Cobham, Alex, Capital Flight: Causes, Effects, Magnitude and Implications for
Development, University of Oxford, August 2000.
20
See definition of kleptocracy at www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Kleptocracy. See case study
of kleptocracy in Zaire at Askin, Steve and Collins, Caroline, ‘External Collusion with Kleptocracy:
Can Zaı
¨re Recapture its Stolen Wealth?’, Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 20, No. 57, July
1993, pp. 72-85.
21
The United States imposes at any time unilateral trade sanctions against numerous developing
countries (see list at www.treas.gov/offices/eotffc/ofac/sanctions/index.html). UN sanctions have
been imposed in the last decade against Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Libya, Haiti, Liberia, Rwanda,
Somalia, UNITA forces in Angola, Sudan, Sierra Leone, FRY (including Kosovo), Afghanistan and
Eritrea and Ethiopia, practically all of them developing countries, some wretchedly poor. See
www.un.org/Docs/sc/committees/INTRO.htm; Davidsson, Elias, The Iraq Sanctions – An Annotated
Chronology (2002), at www.juscogens.org/jus/econsanc/chronology.pdf.
22
According to the New Economics Foundation, global warming and the use of tropical hardwoods,
are among policies that contribute to a massive flow of economic refugees. See Brown, Paul,
‘Refugee warning to global polluters: Up to 20 million likely to flee environmental damage, reports
predicts’, The Guardian (London), 30 September 2003, p. 13.
23
See, in general, Chossudovsky, Michel, The Globalisation of Poverty: Impacts of IMF and World Bank
Reforms, Third World Network, Penang, 1997; IMF Threatens Nicaragua with Aid Cut-Off, Central
America/Mexico Report, March 2003; Stiglitz, Joseph, ‘The painful reality the IMF ignores’, The
Guardian (London), 2 October 2003, p. 26.
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