NJIA Winter 2007

NORTHWESTERN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

XX VOLUME VII

SPECIAL THANKS TO

PRESIDENT HENRY BIENEN

AND

PROVOST STEPHEN FISHER

WINTER 2006 XX

OPERATIONSHaimu Sun, Director

EDITINGCaley Walsh, Editor

Tara JayantDerek Thompson

Amanda Craig

LAYOUT AND DESIGNFarah Ahmed

ILLUSTRATORPeter Golovin

BUSINESSShyaam Ramkumar

Derek Moeller

OUTREACHJames Wang

Ana ValenzuelaGeorge Brandes

TECHNOLOGYTyler Perrachione

NJIA Staff Members



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To get involved or for more information visit:groups.northwestern.edu/njia

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1.Interview, Marshall Bouton

2.Bringing the World Home

3.Torture: A Necessary Evil?

Absolutely Not

4.Promoting Democracy Around

the World

5.White Man's Burden? The

International Community's Role

in Haiti

6.Challenging the System:

Investigating the Emergence of

Nonprofit Drug Development

Organizations

7.A New Paradigm in Trans-

Atlantic Space Relations

HAIMU SUN

DEREK THOMPSON

SHANKAR MURUGAVELL

PETER H. MERKL

DR. PHILIPPE R. GIRARD

EVAN MICHELS

NICOLAS PETER

Table of Contents


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Marshall BoutonPresident of Chicago Council on Foreign Relations

INTERVIEW BY HAIMU SUN

Marshall Bouton became president of The Chicago Council onForeign Relations in August 2001. Prior to that, he served twenty years atthe Asia Society in New York, most recently as executive vice president andchief operating officer. Previous positions include director for policy analy-sis in the office of the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Near East,Africa and South Asia, special assistant to the U. S. ambassador to India,executive secretary for the Indo-U.S. Subcommission on Education andCulture, and program director for India affairs at the Asia Society in NewYork. Mr. Bouton earned a B.A. (cum laude) in history at Harvard, an M.A.in South Asian studies from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. inpolitical science at the University of Chicago in 1980.

BIOGRAPHY

1) As the president of ChicagoCouncil on Foreign Relations, howdo you perceive U.S. leadershipacross the world? What do you thinkcaused the resentment from someparts of the world to US leadershipin recent years?

I think it is clear that the interna-tional opinion of US is at the low end inmost of the world, not just the Muslimcountries. There are some exceptions such asIndia. That has to do with the post 9/11administration’s unilateral policy: not tak-ing international opinion into sufficient con-sideration. That said, much of the world isstill looking up to U.S. I think with achange of administration and policy, thisphenomenon shall go away in the long term.

2) What do you think of the impactof recent hurricanes on the image ofthe U.S. across the world?

Hurricane Katrina, not so muchHurricane Rita, lets people realize that theUS government is impotent in dealing withsome domestic issues. It shows again thatthis administration, which is ambitious andnot willing to admit doing wrong, is incom-petent in dealing with certain issues: first theinternational ones, now domestic ones. Thereis some impact across the world, however itis not likely going be a lasting impact.

3) Why has the US lost some of itspowerful European allies such asFrance and Germany? Will this pat-tern continue in the near future?

As far as Europe is concerned,Iraq was a big blow to US-Europe rela-tions. I also think there is a trend in US-Europe relations in recent years, as there isno single enemy, like the Soviet Union. Theagendas of the two often diverge. Europeansare focused on how to develop a better futurefor Europe. With Iran, they were trying tobuild communication and understandingbetween Iran and Europe and so forth. Theagendas of the two have been diverging, yetthe historical connections have been so deep,which would ensure relations would not gointo some sort of rapture.

4) What do you think of quicklygrowing countries such as China andIndia? Will they pose threats to theUS leadership?

China and India are sort of likethe US and Germany of the 21st Century.The rise of China in the long term can be afar more important issue to the US than thethreat of terrorism. The central question ishow to integrate this emerging power into theglobal community, in terms of questions onpacific issues, China-Japan relations, etc.,whether through means such as WTO orotherwise. The challenge of the US is howto not put China into a corner which would

INTERVIEW WITH MARSHALL BOUTON

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provoke Chinese emotions. For India, thetask is to try not to go too far too fast, andnot to cause China to feel that US is sup-porting India’s development to counterChina.

5) As for college students, is thereany way we can get involved or workwith the Chicago Council on ForeignRelations?

Of course, we have had manyNorthwestern students working here asinterns in the past. As a matter of fact, wehave a few right now. Northwestern studentsare welcome to attend our events. The bestway to do this is to ask a professor to call tothe Council and let us know the details, suchas number of students and which event, etc.Many NU professors including Mr. Bienenhave been active with our Council. We lookforward to having more students involvedwith the Council.


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BRINGING THE WORLD HOME

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AID was established in September of 2002 by Marshall and Rhodesscholars at Oxford University who sought a new vehicle to bring the worldhome to Americans and it has quickly grown, attracting new student audi-ences, prominent partner NGOs and local, national and international mediaattention because it fills a niche in foreign policy and student activism. AIDhas now trained more than 2,000 student leaders on over 400 U.S. campusesto carry out its mission in their communities.

Bringing the World Home

by DEREK THOMPSON

BACKGROUND


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On the morning of September11, 2001, Seth Green was inPrinceton, New Jersey, to say good-bye to friends before leaving for atwo-year postgraduate program inEngland. Hours later, four hijackedjetliners crashing along the East coaststunned the world and cast Green’ssend-off in shock and solemnity.

When he arrived in England,Green could not have anticipated hisnew classmates’ reactions. Theshockwaves from 9/11 rippled acrossthe Atlantic and outpourings of sym-pathy for the United States’ tragedyfound new homes in Europe, espe-cially in England.

“From the dining hall to theclassroom, my peers from around theworld displayed constant sympathy inthe aftermath of that horrificSeptember morning,” Green said.

But within a year, the sympathyGreen found in England vanished.Classmates who once considered theUnited States a righteous victimreacted to President George W.Bush’s aggressive foreign policy withfear and indignation. Green’s friendsquestioned what they saw as inappro-priate U.S. unilateralism—America’swithdrawal from the Kyoto Protocal,its rejection of the InternationalCriminal Court, and the controversial

campaign to invade Iraq.America’s fall from grace was

swift and disturbing for Green andother international students. Thesame country that welcomedAmerican students with sympathy inthe months after September 11 nowskewered U.S. graduates as productson a cultural monolith of rash,Hummer-driving unilateralist cow-boys.

“I was spit at by kids yelling,‘Don’t attack Iraq,’” Green said, “andharassed by a drunkard who declaredthat he gladly would blow himself upto kill me.”

Disillusioned by Europe’schange of heart, yet galvanized torepair America’s image abroad, SethGreen joined with fellow OxfordUniversity graduate students DavidTannenbaum and Jason Wasfy toestablish a non profit organization toinspire a new generation of worldleaders. They called it Americans forInformed Democracy.

AID BECOMES A REALITY

Initially, AID aimed to stem therising tide of anti-Americanism bypublishing op-eds and organizing e-mail campaigns to alert bothCongressman and commonAmericans about the effect the Bush


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administration’s policies was havingoverseas. What began as internation-al damage control became somethingmuch more: a multi-national organi-zation bringing light to culturalstereotypes and biases by coordinat-ing town hall meetings on America’srole in the world and hosting leader-ship retreats for young multilateral-ists.

In June 2002 at Oxford, AIDnotched what Green called theirmost memorable forum on percep-tions of the U.S. media. American,European, and Muslim studentscame together to experience the fullspectrum of American media in aconference that featured a diverserange of American pundits and TVpersonalities.

“We included outlandish seg-ments of cable TV shows like PatRobertson’s 700 Club was well as seg-ments from Meet the Press and NBCNightly News,” Green said.

The response was inspiring.Non-Americans were shocked to seethe variety of views. By shining lighton the dynamism of U.S. politicalcoverage, AID brought to England adynamic, even incongruous, Americaso different from the Western mono-lith Europeans feared.

The success of the June con-

ference convinced Green that AIDwould be most successful by organiz-ing similar “town hall” meetings onrelations between the U.S. and theIslamic world, including conferenceson more than a dozen college cam-puses. The meetings targeting theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict were espe-cially poignant and moving.

During one meeting, SueRosenblum, an American who losther 28-year-old son Joshua on 9/11,spoke movingly about her unique,implicit relationship with the Muslimworld.

“It is entirely possible that amember of the Islamic communitysitting here today might have a dis-tant relative who was directly or indi-rectly involved with the 9/11 attacksthat killed my son,” she said. “It isalso possible that as an American andas a Jew I might have a distant relativewho caused pain to a member of hisfamily. But even if that is the case itwill not stop me from reaching outmy hand in friendship.”

INFORMED DEMOCRACY COMES TO

NUTerrorism, like nuclear prolifer-

ation, climate change, and disease, isa multinational issue requiring multi-national cooperation. The United


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States, Green says, cannot go it alone,but the world needs U.S. leadership asthe U.S. needs the world’s support.

“AID is a pioneer in ‘reversepublic diplomacy,’” Green said,“using the knowledge and passion ofyoung Americans, especially thosewho have studied abroad, to bringthe world home to fellowAmericans.”

Northwestern student SarahBush heard the message loud andclear. During her junior year atOxford University, she heard aboutAID through an e-mail from NU’sPolitical Science Department.

“The experience of living andtraveling abroad during such tumul-tuous times made me extremely pas-sionate about bringing the world Ihad seen in Europe back home to mycommunity in the States,” Bush said.

After attending an AID spon-sored leadership conference inVermont, she was convinced theorganization’s mission reflected whatshe had always thought about theinternational political scene. Bringingthat internationalist tradition toEvanston, Sarah Bush started theAID chapter at Northwestern at thestart of the 2004-2005 school year.

As the Co-Executive Directorfor AID, Bush organizes town hall

and videoconference events in cam-puses across the country. AID is cur-rently working on four national initia-tives as part of their campaign to“bring the world home.” AID’s firstsuccessful event at Northwestern wasits national “Hope not Hate” pro-gram on the future of U.S.-Islamicrelations.

In response to the summerbombings in London, Bush said, theupcoming conference will addressnot only American-Muslim chal-lenges, but also the continuing con-flicts between the Western World andthe global Arab-Islamic community.According to Bush, the series willinclude more than one hundred townhall meetings across the country toevaluate the Western-Islamic rela-tions.

“I think that the United Statesshould promote democracy by beingashining example of democracy to theworld,” Bush said, “and by using itssoft power to support democraticleaders around the world.”

AID BY CONSENSUS

Restoring the kind of interna-tional cohesion that followedSeptember 11 may be years if notdecades away, but Seth Green, Sarah


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Bush, and the members ofAmericans for Informed Democracyare working to form the first links ina chain of international consensus onpeace and freedom. As Green said,non-Muslims and Muslims at everytown hall meeting expressed a deter-mination to eliminate organized ter-rorism and promote freedom anddemocracy in the Middle Eastthrough more peaceful means.

It will take more than video-conferences to solve the epidemic ofterror in the Arab-Islamic world.Americans for Informed Democracyrecognize that deepest wound is notwithin the Middle East but ratherbetween the Arab-Islamic communi-ty and the West. By fostering under-standing rather than sanguine prom-ises, AID takes a small, significantstep toward bridging the rift.

Maybe they will find that con-sensus is contagious.


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BIOGRAPHY

Shankar Murugavell, from Eastchester, New York, is a Junior atNorthwestern University and a Double Major in Economics and PoliticalScience. He is a member of Habitat for Humanity, several intramural teamsin various sports and also a research assistant in the MORS department ofKellogg.

ABSTRACT

The use of torture has become a politically heated debate in theUnited States since the attacks of September 11th. Proponents of tortureargue that it is a necessary tool in the "war on terror," while opponents arguethat it undermines the values of America. This article takes a deeper lookinto the issue and concludes that torture, under any circumstance,should not be legalized.

Torture: A Necessary Evil? Absolutely Not

by SHANKAR MURUGAVELL

TORTURE: A NECESSARY EVIL? ABSOLUTELY NOT

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For much of the past half-century, there has been a prevalentbias against torture in American soci-ety; it has been widely viewed as abarbaric and inhumane practice thatviolates the principles of a moralsociety. However, following theattacks of September 11th, manyAmericans have second-guessed orreversed their “gut-feeling” regardingthis matter. The torture of humans isno longer seen as egregiously unethi-cal or ineffective. Instead, manyAmericans are willing to condonetorture all in the name of nationalsecurity. This change of mind is verydisconcerting. Torture, I believe, evenwhen viewed from a post 9/11 lens,is still un-American.

Consider the following “tick-ing bomb terrorist” hypothetical,found in almost all torture debates:

A terrorist has placed abomb at an undisclosedlocation in New YorkCity. Police are able toarrest the terrorist butare unable to locate the

bomb. The terroristrefuses to voluntarily

reveal the location of thebomb. Should law

enforcement/intelligenceofficials torture the ter-

rorist in order to extractthe necessary informa-

tion? Should this practicebecome legal?

Many Americans will not hesitate toanswer those questions with aresounding “yes.” I strongly disagree;torture may reap benefits in the shortterm, but it will certainly lead toadverse effects in the long term.

PRACTICAL PROBLEMS1

The main practical problemwith torture is that it is very unreli-able as an information-producingtactic; there are absolutely no guaran-tees that the terrorist will “crack”upon torture. This is especially trueamong the terrorists of the worldtoday. If they are willing to strapbombs onto their chests and die forthe jihad, why would they not endurephysical pain for the jihad? Theseindividuals have a complete disregardfor human life and their sole objec-tive is the mass murder of civiliansand military personnel. It seemsimplausible that such terrorists, whoare more than willing to die for theircause, could be “cracked” throughsheer physical pain. After all, whowould expect Osama bin Laden, ifcaptured, to reveal the next terroristattack to the “infidels?”


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Even if intelligence officialswere somehow able to elicit aresponse from terrorists through tor-ture, there are no guarantees thatwhat the terrorists reveal will betruthful. It seems more than likelythat terrorists would intentionallyprovide false information so as tolead law enforcement officials ondead-end trails and consequentlywaste resources (both monetary andmanpower) and time.

“SPHERES OF INFLUENCE”PROBLEMS

The decision to legalize tor-ture will almost certainly haveadverse spill-over-effects in otherfields. I will discuss the negativeeffects in four crucial areas: (1) inter-national relations (2) American senti-ment worldwide (3) the moral bal-ance of the world and (4) future mil-itary operations.

International RelationsUnder the Geneva

Convention accords ratified in 1949,the United States cannot torture pris-oners of war (POWs). “No physicalor mental torture, nor any other formof coercion, may be inflicted on pris-oners of war to secure from theminformation of any kind whatever.

Prisoners of war who refuse toanswer may not be threatened, insult-ed, or exposed to any unpleasant ordisadvantageous treatment of anykind.”2 In addition to the accords,the United States ratified in 1994 theConvention Against Torture andOther Cruel, Inhuman, or DegradingTreatment or Punishment (from hereon: CAT). CAT prohibited the tor-ture of any human being by the gov-ernment (including terrorists andenemy combatants who were other-wise not protected under the GenevaConvention accords).

In order to legalize the prac-tice of torture, the United Stateswould have to withdraw from theGeneva Convention accords and dis-solve CAT. This would have tremen-dous backlash. Nations that currentlyfollow the Geneva Convention pro-tocols would be unlikely to followthem in the future if they were toenter a war with the United States(and would consequently tortureAmerican POWs). After all, if theUnited States was going to torturePOWs, why should these othernations not be allowed to do thesame? Withdrawal would alsotremendously weaken internationallaw and establish a terrible precedent.Again, if the United States could


WINTER 2006 XX

abandon international treaties in thename of “national security,” whycould other nations not do the same?Taking this logic to the extreme,

nuclear nations could withdrawthemselves from NonproliferationTreaties, International AtomicEnergy Agency (IAEA) inspections,

SALT I (Russia), START I (Russia)and an array of other internationaltreaties. The precedent establishedcould set forth a grave set of events.

Moral BalanceTorturing the terrorist would

signify the deterioration of theUnited States as the moral leaders of


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the world. The United States has longbeen a champion of human rightsand basic freedoms; how would theother nations of the world look uponthe United States knowing it readilyand willingly tortures prisoners? Howwould other nations look upon theUnited States knowing that it pro-motes democracy, human rights andequality across the globe while at thesame time it tortures humans in itsown backyard? The United Stateswould be viewed as a hypocrite andwe would lose some, if not most, ofour leverage as the moral leaders ofthe world. As Joe Messerli put it:“The things that put us [UnitedStates] above these monsters[Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden,terrorists] are our high value (sic) weput on human rights and our Bill ofRights freedoms. We shouldn’t lowerour moral ideals to the point wherewe’re no better than the terrorists.”3

Anti-American SentimentThe legalization of torture

would lead to a rise in anti-Americansentiment worldwide. According tothe Pew Research Center, which con-ducted a worldwide study ofAmerican sentiment in March 2004,the United States’ approval rating hasundergone a steady decline over the

past four years.4 In many of theMuslim nations polled, suicideattacks against U.S. personnel andother Westerners were deemed justi-fiable by a majority of respondents(Pakistan, which is a US ally in thewar on terror, had a 46% justifiablerate).5 This pattern would continue iftorture was legalized. The AbuGhraib scandal and the Koran scan-dal in Guantanamo Bay validate thisclaim. There were revolts, protests inthe streets and increased insurgencyattacks in Iraq after the the Arabmedia released pictures of the AbuGhraib prison abuse scandal.Similarly, the false accusation that aU.S. intelligence officer flushed acopy of the Koran down the toiletonce again led to revolts, protests andultimately 17 deaths in the Arabworld.6 Such occurrences wouldbecome the norm.

Military/Intelligence OperationsThe use of torture tactics

would also jeopardize the lives ofU.S. military personnel in combatareas in the future. If terrorists andwar combatants knew that theywould face unrelenting torture uponcapture, then they would be less like-ly to surrender and more likely to


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fight till the death. This results in adouble negative: (1) the lives of U.S.personnel are now at a greater riskand (2) U.S. intelligence officers loseaccess to potential information. Hadthese terrorists and war combatantsnot fought to the death, intelligenceofficers could have humanely interro-gated them for information.

COUNTER-ARGUMENTS

A common rebuttal by pro-ponents of the legalization of tortureis that: “Pain is a lesser and moreremediable harm than death; and thelives of a thousand innocent peopleshould be valued more than the bod-ily integrity of one guilty person.”7

The problem with this argument isthat this logic can lead to a “slipperyslope” where torture is abused andthe “morality by numbers” principletakes over. Would it then be okay totorture 999 convicted terrorists,some of whom have no relevantinformation, to save 1000 innocentlives? Would it be okay to torture thefamily of the terrorist, all of whomwere innocent, to save 1000 innocentlives? What about the terrorist’sentire village? The problem with thislogic is evident: it violates the harmprinciple and causes physical harm toinnocent civilians. All the while, there

is still no guarantee that (a) the terror-ist has the necessary information or(b) the terrorist will provide theinformation upon torture.

Proponents will also makethe argument that since the UnitedStates is waging an unconventionalwar against a ruthless enemy, uncon-ventional methods of interrogationare acceptable. I do not buy this argu-ment. First off, the United States cannot simply ignore international lawwhen it is convenient; it cannot sus-pend the Geneva Conventionaccords for the current war and thenreinstitute them once the war is over.That would obviously diminish thepurpose of international law. Oncethe practice has been used, it must belegalized (and will subsequently bringall the consequences I have men-tioned earlier). Additionally, thenature of this war should not be jus-tification for torture. The moral prin-ciples that separate the United Statesfrom terrorist organizations shouldnot be manipulated in times of con-flict. Rather, they should be soughtafter for guidance.

And finally, some proponentsconcede that there is a precedentagainst torture in the United States,but argue that innocent Americanlives should never be sacrificed to


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protect such a precedent. I counterthis argument by pointing out that inthe past, innocent American lives havebeen sacrificed to protect a precedentthat the government deemed vital.An example of this would be theUnited States’ refusal to negotiatewith terrorists in the event of ahijacking or kidnapping. In the pasttwo years, the government hasrefused to negotiate with the captorsof Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg or a hostof other kidnappers in Iraq. Why? Ifthe government had negotiated, itwould have reversed a long-estab-lished precedent that the UnitedStates would not be bullied or black-mailed by any country or terroristorganization. That precedent, thegovernment calculated, was morevaluable than any single life. Thesame argument applies to torture;lives must be sacrificed when theprecedent the United States isdefending is superior.

POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES

Alan Dershowitz, a HarvardLaw School professor and advocateof torture, outlines three alternativeways that torture can be implementedwithout universal legalization: (1)permit intelligence and law enforce-ment officers to operate in “a twilight

zone which is outside the realm oflaw” (2) insist that anti-torture is theofficial policy, but turn a blind eye totorture or (3) establish a system of“torture warrants.”8 I believe that allthree are fundamentally flawed.

Enabling any official, evenlaw and intelligence officials, to oper-ate without limits would be unprece-dented and ill-advised. These individ-uals still need to be held accountablefor their actions under some form oflaw. Otherwise, there will almost cer-tainly be an abuse of power (AbuGhraib occurred even with guidelinesin place; one can only imagine theatrocities that would take place whenthere are no guidelines or conse-quences). Additionally, implementingsuch a policy would undermine thedemocracy that has governed thisnation for over 200 years. Up to thispoint in American history, no indi-vidual, not even the President of theUnited States, has ever been abovethe law. When society starts handingout such rights, democracy will crum-ble.

A similar argument can bemade for turning a blind eye to tor-ture. In a healthy democracy, it is aprerequisite that all political and mili-tary actors behave according to andwithin the law. If actors begin to turn


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a blind eye to certain laws, it will notbe long before they begin to turn ablind eye to all laws. Dershowitzmakes a similar point: “No legal sys-tem operating under the rule of lawshould ever tolerate an ‘off-the-books’ approach to necessity. Eventhe defense of necessity must be jus-tified lawfully. The road to tyranny hasalways been paved with claims of necessitymade by those responsible for the security ofa nation” (emphasis added).9 Whenthe nation’s leaders start to ignorelaws, democracy will crumble.

Dershowitz’s “torture war-rant” suggestion is far more difficultto dismiss. This plan requires that lawenforcement/intelligence officialspresent compelling evidence to ajudge that a terrorist has certaininformation. Once the judge deemsthat the evidence is sufficient, thenand only then is a torture warrantissued. The prisoner is then present-ed with the torture warrant and givenseveral more opportunities to revealall information. If he/she refusesagain, then he/she is tortured. Atfirst, this plan seems to be idealbecause it places several checksbefore a terrorist is tortured and alsoensures that only “real” terrorists areever tortured (it assumes that judgeswill reject a high percentage of cases

where evidence is borderline/ques-tionable). However, a closer look atthis plan reveals that it too is vulner-able to several downfalls. First andmost important, it will require theuniversal legalization of torture. TheUnited States cannot operate a tor-ture system in the legal arena withoutwithdrawing from the GenevaConvention accords. Secondly, itdoes not provide a universal sys-tem/guideline for judges. What con-stitutes sufficient and compelling evi-dence? Can there be variance on acase to case basis? After all, issuing atorture warrant is far different fromissuing a search warrant. And finally,there are no safeguards in place toensure that judges and law enforce-ment/intelligence officials do notabuse this system. Since there is noplace in this system for the defendant(i.e. the prisoner) to defend him-self/herself, it would be very easy forthe judge and other officials to abusethe system. In that scenario, whochecks the power of these judges andofficials (since these trials will all beconducted in secret)?

CONCLUSION

Jeff Jacoby once said:“Torture is never worth it. Somethings we don’t do, not because they


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never work, not because they aren’t‘deserved,’ but because our very rightto call ourselves decent humanbeings depends in part on our notdoing them. Torture is in that catego-ry. Let us wage and win this waragainst the barbarians withoutbecoming barbaric in the process.”10

The issue of torture is certainly acomplicated and controversial onefor American society. It is true thatwe are fighting a ruthless enemy, butthat should not change what theUnited States stands for. We are anation built on principle and morali-ty. We are a nation built on basichuman rights. We are a nation ofhope. To legalize torture would be toreverse all that; then the terroristshave won.


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A Year After Iraq War.” The Pew Research Center. 16 March 2004. 20 May2005. <http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206>.

Dershowitz, Alan. “Should the Ticking Bomb Terrorist be Tortured?” WhyTerrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to theChallenge. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2002.

Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.” Officeof the High Commissioner for Human Rights. 20 May 2005.<http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm>.

Jacoby, Jeff. “Why not torture terrorists?” Townhall.com 21 March 2005. 20May 2005.<http://www.townhall.com/columnists/jeffjacoby/jj20050321.shtml>.

Messerli, Joe. “Should high-ranking captured terrorists be tortured to obtaininformation?” 21 March 2005. 20 May 2005. <http://www.bal-ancedpolitics.org/prisoner_torture.htm>.

Stout, David. “U.S. Presses Newsweek to ‘Repair’ Damage from FlawedReport.” The New York Times. 17 May 2005. 20 May 2005.<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/17/international/mid-dleeast/17cnd-koran.html?ei=5065&en=8220bf74f67fe5a5&ex=1116993600&part-ner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print>.

Works Cited


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1For purposes of practicality, I define the term ‘terrorist’ as those individu-als acting in a jihad against the United States. I acknowledge that not all ter-rorists participate in a jihad, but the current focus of the United States is onthose who do, so I will as well. The logic I use can also be applied to non-Arab, non-jihad terrorists (e.g. Timothy McVeigh).2 “Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.”Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm.3 Messerli, Joe. “Should high-ranking captured terrorists be tortured toobtain information?” 21 March 2005. http://www.balancedpolitics.org/pris-oner_torture.htm.4 “A Year After Iraq War.” The Pew Research Center. 16 March 2004.http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206.5 Ibid.6 Stout, David. “U.S. Presses Newsweek to ‘Repair’ Damage from FlawedReport.” The New York Times. 17 May 2005.http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/17/international/middleeast/17cnd-koran.html?ei=5065&en=8220bf74f67fe5a5&ex=1116993600&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print.7 Dershowitz, Alan. “Should the Ticking Bomb Terrorist be Tortured?”Why Terrorism Works: Understanding the Threat, Responding to theChallenge. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2002.8 Ibid.9 Ibid.10 Jacoby, Jeff. “Why not torture terrorists?” Townhall.com 21 March 2005.http://www.townhall.com/columnists/jeffjacoby/jj20050321.shtml.

References

PROMOTING DEMOCRACY AROUND THE WORLD

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BIOGRAPHY

Peter H. Merkl is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at theUniversity of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of many books,including Origins of the West German Republic (Oxford, 1963), PoliticalViolence under the Swastika (Princeton, 1975), and A Coup Attempt inWashington? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001) and editor of many others, includ-ing Developments in West German Politics (Macmillan, 1992) and TheFederal Republic at Forty (NYU, 1989).

Promoting Democracy Around the World

by PETER H. MERKL


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In his Second InauguralAddress, President George W. Bushproclaimed the promotion of “dem-ocratic movements and institutions inevery nation and culture, with theultimate goal of ending tyranny inthe world,” as a major goal of his sec-ond term, directly connected to thewar on terrorism and to his rationalefor invading Iraq. There is no ques-tion that this goal is intimately relatedto American traditions going back tothe Declaration of Independenceand, in fact, to the aspirations andprogress of liberal democracy in theWest and throughout the developingworld. Scholarly literature examiningthe growth of democracy on differ-ent continents has grown since the1980s. A recent multi-national surveyof the German Marshall Fund, aU.S.-European think tank inWashington, has revealed that thenew policy of promoting and sup-porting democracy is welcomed, inprinciple, by nearly three-fourths ofEuropean adults polled. Barely morethan half of the American respon-dents expressed similar sentiments,which probably reflects their politicalsuspicions and hostility towards thecontroversial president and the dis-tortions of truth they associate withhis partisan propaganda machine. It

may also be a sign of growing isola-tionism in reaction to the doubtfulprogress of American-sponsoreddemocracy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The idea of helping to estab-lish and support democracies aroundthe world is indeed an inspiring one,even if the great optimism of the1980’s about the march of democra-cy has long given way to big doses ofskepticism and pessimism. Dashedhopes among post-communistregimes and major reverses, forexample in Africa, have taught us tolower our expectations. We continueto tolerate grim dictatorships amongour allies and friends abroad. Thethreat (and major assaults) of inter-national terrorism on some demo-cratic regimes including the U.S. havefurther darkened the horizons ofnew and old democracies with regardto the expansion of individual free-dom. At the same time, we must alsoexamine the practical and logical lim-itations of such a policy of promot-ing democracy. The Marshall Fundsurvey cited earlier was at pains toestablish that the respondents sup-porting world-wide democratizationgenerally intended such promotion toinvolve only “soft tactics” such ascritical publicity and election moni-toring, and not CIA manipulations or


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military intervention as in Iraq. Theshadow of the continuing controver-sies over the invasion of that countrywithout UN authorization lies heavi-ly over most public discussions aboutdemocratizing foreign countries. Butthere are also at least three majorgroups of further caveats or limits onthis topic that call for examinationbefore such a course of actionshould be considered.

MATTERS OF DEFINITION

A large group of criticisms ofthe announced campaign for pro-moting democracy hinge on the defi-nition of a democratic regime, ofdemocracy itself. Are we speaking ofa settled regime or of future intentand comments to that effect? Inpolitical statements, alleged recentsteps and developments are often sopainfully vague and lacking inspecifics, as in “nascent democra-cies,” “steps in the right (democratic)direction,” or “challenges of democ-racy” as to amount to mere eye-wash,or worse, white-wash meant todeceive the gullible. Conducting anoccupation-sponsored election ofpolitical leaders, especially onemarred by ongoing violence or majorboycotts, falls far short of establish-ing a democratic regime. Elections

are a necessary but not a sufficienttest of democracy unless a numberof other criteria are met as well: AnIraq election under civil-war-like con-ditions and with most Sunnis boy-cotting or being intimidated fromvoting is at best a first step. Eventheocratic Iran has had its electionswhich produced, for a while, a con-siderable reformist majority in parlia-ment, but this has made little differ-ence to the nature of its regime. Didpost-communist Russia become ademocracy by virtue of its elections?Quite a number of post-communiststates had elections but are far fromdemocracy today. Did HosniMubarak’s contested elections turnEgypt into a democracy? Finally,there have been so many electionsvitiated by fraud or gross manipula-tion all over the world that we hardlyneed to give any more examples.

One of the criteria for thevalue of elections as a measure ofstable democratic regimes is thenature of the party system behind therecurrent contests. Only a truly com-petitive system in which a viable,democratic opposition awaits its turnwill do, and this is a rarity amongaspirants to democratic status.Segmented societies, such asLebanon in its brief heyday or


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Switzerland, present great difficultiesto majority rule unless they can adoptspecial arrangements such as federal-ism or the Dutch verzuiling system ofanother day to protect minoritygroups from the onslaught of majori-ties. Such devices tend to be difficultto establish and maintain, as theLebanese civil war demonstrated.The crucial requirement of a nation-al constitutional order for lastingdemocratic stability has long beenrecognized, for example in the writ-ings of Seymour Martin Lipset, JuanLinz, Larry Diamond and others, andreaffirmed in the studies of FreedomHouse, the Encyclopedia ofDemocracy, and journals devoted todemocratic studies. All of these havealso confirmed that it usually takes ademocratic regime decades of stabil-ity – no “nascent democracies” – tobe recognized as such.

The role of a constitutionalorder in democracy is less a matter ofparticular constitutional arrange-ments, such as a parliamentary orpresidential executive, or federalismversus centralization, than it is of anabiding faith in the desirability andrule of law. A society really needs alegalistic political culture, a pervasiveand universal belief in law and courtsof justice to sustain constitutional

democracy for any length of time.Many existing democracies indeedhave such a legalistic or contractualculture, if not always free of lapsesand historical discongruities. Manynew or aspiring democracies still lackthis basis of legal thinking and mayrequire decades of institutionaldevelopment to acquire it.Democratic revolutions alone, even ifrepeated periodically, as ThomasJefferson has suggested, are no last-ing foundation for democratic stabil-ity.

A belief in law and legal rela-tionships among governmental insti-tutions and between citizens andtheir government, of course, alsofocuses on the role of courts andtheir crucial function of deciding dis-putes between contending interests.While it may be less important tomaintain a separation of powersbetween executive and legislature –the latter being of course central torepresentative government – theindependence of the judiciary fromeither of the other major branches isabsolutely essential to securing dem-ocratic stability and the rights andfreedoms of citizens. The very com-plexity of all these relationships andarrangements alone demonstrates theextraordinary difficulties of the


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establishment of democratic regimesby a hegemonic power. But this dis-cussion of the definitions and dimen-sions of real democracy at least keepsus from wishful thinking and theloose word usage of inspirationalpolitical speeches. We must stopspeaking of democracy as loosely asof “freedom,” without furtherspecifics, as in “the terrorists hate usbecause we are for freedom.” Whosefreedom, and freedom from whomor what? Are we speaking of the free-dom of elites to exploit their under-lings or of the freedom of the latter?If we were to ask Iraqis in occupiedIraq today, they would probablydemand freedom from the Anglo-American occupation and its decep-tive promises.

THE REPUTATION OF THE

MESSENGER

A campaign to promotedemocracy around the worldinevitably draws attention to the rep-utation of the messenger. It is notnecessarily his true character thatmay be questioned but strongimpressions and appearances of hisdemocratic flaws and lapses the out-side world has glimpsed. WeAmericans think we are the epitomeof a democratic country and only

evil, anti-American propaganda couldmake it appear otherwise. But forsome time now, a large part of for-eign media opinion around the world,especially in Europe and the MiddleEast, has been very critical ofAmerican democracy, and this onseveral concrete occasions. The criesfrom abroad about the apparentinability of the American govern-ment to cope promptly with the dis-mal aftermath of Hurricane Katrinain New Orleans have not yet dieddown: unclaimed bodies lying onsidewalks and floating in floodwatersfor more than a week, endless delaysin supplying medical care, food,drinking water and ice to the storm-stricken, the breakdown of timelyevacuation from flooded residencesand the New Orleans Superdome.All were seen abroad as a spectacularfailure of democratic government totake charge of the crisis in thebiggest superpower in the world.America had been perceived as a bea-con of government serving all peo-ple, its own and also others over-whelmed by natural catastrophes. Butnow, as the media in the U.S. andabroad reported, it looked like Haitiduring the worst natural and revolu-tionary crises. The many foreign jour-nalists present during the debacle of


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hurricane relief also picked up quick-ly on the appearances that promptemergency relief seemed to be avail-able mostly for white middle and

upper-class victims of the disasterand that the floating bodies belongedmostly to African-Americans, theelderly poor, and the halt and the

lame left behind in the exodus fromthe stricken city.

This negative view of foreignopinion about American democracy,

of course, is not new. From the daysof the Cold War and Vietnam War,America has often been viewed as afrequent supporter of dictators and


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corrupt regimes – for example inLatin and Central America, but alsoin the Middle East – rather thandemocracies and democratic move-ments. To be sure, such judgmentsoften sprang from Cold War con-frontations and from diametricallyopposed definitions of democracythat would, for example, juxtaposeallegedly more democratic Castro’sCuba and Sandinista Nicaragua withthe preceding, exploitative dictator-ships and their capitalistic Americansupporters. After the end of the ColdWar, such stereotypical distinctionsshifted to the right and becamesomewhat more sophisticated, some-times juxtaposing the ways of old-style liberal democracies, likeLabour’s Britain or Sweden, to a kindof Reaganite “conservative democra-cy,” as in the U.S. and MargaretThatcher’s Britain. President Reaganhimself tried to make the word “lib-eral” into the suspect “L-word,” andthe general denigration of liberalismcaught on among the self-styled con-servatives in America. Critical foreign(and domestic liberal) opinion wasreluctant to accept some of the idio-syncrasies of this new American con-servatism and the new language thatcame with it. It refused, for example,the worship of tax cuts for the

wealthy, private gun ownership, thegutting of the welfare state, and theabandonment of the separation ofchurch and state as hallmarks ofdemocracy.

With the decline of commu-nism and its so-called “people’sdemocracies” at the end of the1980s, democracy became the icon ofpolitical development around theworld. Americans shared the enthusi-asm about the presumably unstop-pable march of democracy, but theyalso tended to link it to other aspectsof the American self-image that wereincompatible with a universal icon ofdemocracy. One was the myth ofAmerican military invincibility, slight-ly damaged by Vietnam but still achallenge for new, imperial assertion.Another took the form of a religious,Judeo-Christian crusading spirit thatfurther distorted the democraticthrust. How could a Christian mili-tary super-power crusade hope toimpose democracy on Islamic soci-eties (that were themselves already inreligious turmoil)? Given the prevail-ing struggle for Middle Eastern oil,how could America avoid the impres-sion that its sudden desire to democ-ratize the region – while supportingdictatorships right and left – was nota mere pretense hiding a set of ulte-


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rior motives?Skepticism about the sterling

qualities of American democracy as amodel was reinforced by the world-wide reception of major recentAmerican political crises. The visibil-ity of American problems fromabroad has probably also risen expo-nentially with the globalization ofcommunications; the foreign presspresence in the U.S. has increased instep with the hunger for politicalnews about America all over theworld. Electronic media everywherehas been revolutionized, andnowhere more than in the MiddleEast. In the age of Al-Jazeera, thereis now the beginning of free mediaand a huge and growing televisionaudience eager to see and judge thestumbling of American democracy,as well as images of American vio-lence in Iraq and Israeli violenceagainst Palestinians.

One of the most widely pub-licized democratic crises of Americawas the impeachment of PresidentClinton by the newly victorious con-servative Republican Congress of themid-1990s. The attendant media cir-cus in America and the contrivednature of the constitutional chargesagainst the president were duly notedby a critical foreign press led by The

Guardian, Le Monde and Le Figaro,La Repubblica, Süddeutsche Zeitungand many others. The whole worldwas treated to the quasi-pornograph-ic Starr Report of the appointedprosecutor, Kenneth Starr, sent overthe Internet at the expense of theHouse of Representatives to everypoint of the globe in a transparentattempt to shame the maligned presi-dent into resignation. Almost withoutexception, however, foreign mediaopinion judged this impeachment asa fraudulent abuse of the relevantconstitutional clauses, high crimesand misdemeanors, and as a manifes-tation of an extreme state of politicalpolarization in the U.S.—two factorsthat are deadly for a functioningdemocracy. Starr became a globallydespised villain while Americandemocracy received a black eyearound the world. A second black eyecame only a few years later followingthe presidential election debacle of2000. By this time, the world-wideaudience was ready to ridicule theworkings of American democracy.The Guardian wrote: “The fix is in”in Florida while scores of editorialsfrom obscure (and often non-demo-cratic) nations offered to help Floridaelection authorities to count the but-terfly ballots. In the end, the foreign


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media may have been barking up thewrong tree, and they largely missedthe real fraud: the Republican manip-ulation of the voter rolls (felonpurge) and the partisan interventionof the U.S. Supreme Court. But thedamage to the icon of Americandemocracy had been done. Now whowould buy democracy from America?

A third crisis universallyreported was the headlong rushtowards the invasion of Iraq. In thiscase the decision to go to war wassupported by Congress and a popularmajority, but overwhelming evidencelater revealed the heavy-handedmanipulation of intelligence forCongress and public opinion, hardlythe democratic way to make such animportant decision. Americans havelargely forgotten these crises, but theoutside world has not. It has come toregard the messenger of a world-wide campaign to promote democra-cy as rather unsuited to tell them howto run their own governments.

EMPIRE OR DEMOCRACY ?For decades, American for-

eign policy has been suspended inclouds of assumptions and deliberatedeceptions that often hid nakedaggressions and imperial ambitionsfrom the American public. Few

media outlets or politicians told us,for example, about the brutal realitiesof our Central American policiesunder President Reagan and few aretelling us today about our strategicgoals in the Middle East. ThePentagon and White House propa-ganda machine of course denies thatthe pursuit of empire is the name ofthe game, or that the promotion ofdemocracy may be incompatible withimperialist ambitions. Fortunately,the neo-conservative or imperialistfaction in American foreign policyhas left a clear and public documen-tary record of its imperialist plansand ambitions ever since the collapseof our Cold War enemy, for examplewith the 1997 Project for a NewAmerican Century (PNAC) and morerecent manifestoes. There is no men-tion of the goal of promotingdemocracy and democratic institu-tions although, with a little spin, theycould easily be added as a veil forimperialist intentions and “therebuilding of America’s defenses.”

The conflicts between thepursuit of empire and democracyneed not even depend on the benignor imperialistic motives in the mindsof the conquerors. A good exampleis Iraq. The biggest mistake of theAnglo-American “liberators” was not


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to anticipate the Iraqi insurgency,even though British colonial occu-piers before World War II had faceda similar nationalist insurgencyagainst them. With the first manifes-tation of the insurgency, PresidentBush naively responded: “Bring themon!” He evidently never understoodthat a sizeable insurgency automati-cally turns benign liberation into ahostile, military occupation, and thatrelations between the occupiers andthe civilian population could only getworse from that point on. In themyopia of battle, both sides will onlysee “the enemy” and make little dis-tinction between the real foes and theuninvolved population. Every occu-pation raid and investigation to ferretout insurgents from the Iraqi peopleinevitably creates deep resentmentsand, the unavoidable civilian damageand casualties will also highlight alsothe thousands of civilian casualtiescaused by the original conquest. ThePentagon planners and presidentialadvisers completely misunderstoodthe often-cited precedents of theoccupation of Germany and Japanwhich in time had resulted in thedevelopment of democratic regimes.The military defeats of Germany andJapan were also major moral defeats,and the defeated were anxious to

return to democracy which they hadenjoyed before their Nazi or imperi-alistic/militaristic lapses. There werealso no significant insurgencies in thetwo countries and the American tute-lage proceeded under the most auspi-cious conditions.

Aside from a full-blowninsurgency, whether home-grown orfanned by jihads from the outside, theconduct of the occupation forcesand their government is also a majorfactor that can kill democracy beforeit really has much of a chance: InIraq, for example, assigning recon-struction and other services mostlyto American companies and at out-landish rates makes them appear likegreedy carpetbaggers. Lavishingreconstruction funds voted on byCongress on these companies ratherthan on the natives obviously con-vinced the latter – among whomunemployment is very high and eco-nomic opportunity scarce – that theAmerican occupier had no intentionto empower them economicallyeither. Even if local occupationtroops do some reconstruction, theinsurgents will soon destroy or sabo-tage their efforts too. The uncertainavailability of the basic services, suchas clean water, power, and gasolinefor the natives to carry on, not to


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mention the pervasive insecurity, alsoweakens their resolve to participate indemocratic self-government.

One of the most devastatingblows to Iraqi’s budding democracy,finally, was the Abu Ghraib scandaland subsequent revelations of mili-tary prisoner abuse in Iraq,Afghanistan, and at GuantanamoBay. From the Iraqi point of view, itis less a matter of whether Anglo-American soldiers and prison guardsfollow the Geneva Convention ortheir uniform code of military con-duct, or even whether they get pun-ished in the end. Nor is it a questionof whether they misbehave for lackof training or of proper leadership,or because “they need to release theirtension,” although Iraqis must surelybe aware that no American officersof any account are ever held account-able under the leadership of Bushand Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.What does matter for the pupils ofAnglo-American democratization inIraq is the utter contempt for theirpersons that is conveyed in theshameful mistreatment of prisoners,as with the accidental killing of civil-ians. The common excuse that theprisoners deserve no better becausethey are AlQaeda members, Taliban,or hostile insurgents is not only

unconvincing to Iraqis in the absenceof obvious proof, but even if theywere, they are still fellow Muslimsand do not deserve to be treated likedogs or vermin. The occupiers’denial of the humanity of the victimsstems from their racist or imperialarrogance and is hardly a basis forteaching democracy. The pursuit ofempire simply is incompatible withthe pursuit of democracy, and ismade even more so by the over-whelming callousness of the imperialconquerors.


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White Man’s Burden? The International Community’s Role in Haiti

by DR. PHILIPPE R. GIRARD

BIOGRAPHY

Philippe R. Girard is an Assistant Professor of Caribbean history atMcNeese State University (Louisiana). He obtained his Ph.D. from OhioUniversity and specializes in Haitian history. He is the author of Clinton inHaiti: The 1994 U.S. Invasion of Haiti (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004)and Paradise Lost: Haiti’s Tumultuous Journey from Pearl of the Caribbean to ThirdWorld Hot Spot (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, forthcoming 2005). He is cur-rently working on a monograph on the 1802-1803 Leclerc-Rochambeau expe-dition to Saint-Domingue.

ABSTRACT

The author takes a critical look at the international efforts over thepast 30 years to democratize Haiti and develop its economy. He argues thatHaiti has fallen under a quasi-protectorate based on the colonialist assump-tion that Haitians are not competent enough to rule themselves. Foreign med-dling, far from improving the lot of average Haitians, breeds dependency,inspires nationalist resentment, and serves as a convenient excuse for Haitianrulers’ own shortcomings.

WHITE MAN’S BURDEN?

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Haiti is a small country ofnine million people occupying thewestern one-third of the island ofHispaniola. It is politically unstable,overpopulated, and poor. Its farmingsector, which employs a majority ofthe workforce, suffers from defor-estation, soil erosion, fragmentedland ownership, and minimal produc-tivity. It has few natural assets save itspeople. Abroad, it is known mostly asa place hellish enough for millions ofboat people to risk their lives in thedangerous crossing to Florida in adesperate attempt to leave.

Haiti also happens to be oneof the most assisted societies on theplanet. For the past thirty years, for-eign aid has poured in by the billions.Private and public projects have vac-cinated children, fed the hungry,planted trees, run schools, and organ-ized elections. The U.S. military sent20,000 men and two aircraft carriersin 1994 for the sole purpose ofreturning a Haitian president topower. Foreign peacekeepers occu-pied the country from 1994 to 2001,then again from 2004 on. Per capita,there are few countries on which somuch international attention andmoney have been lavished.

This international involve-ment in Haitian affairs has had two

goals: fostering political stabilitywithin a democratic framework andjump-starting economic develop-ment, all of this with the unspokenassumption that emigration pressureswould be alleviated. Yet, thirty yearslater, Haiti is still politically unstable,overpopulated, and poor—as well asdeeply resentful of the very foreign-ers who bankrolled this internationalcampaign. What went wrong is oneof the most interesting puzzles ofour time, and a case study for whichthe conclusions should serve as acautionary tale for the many otherWestern attempts at democratizationand development in the Third World.Given the magnitude of the failure,there is blame aplenty to apportion.Some should go to Haitian rulersthemselves; some should go to mis-guided policies on foreigners’ part;finally, some is inherently linked tothe neo-colonialist belief withininternational policy-making circlesthat non-Haitians have a “whiteman’s burden” to constantly inter-vene in Haitian affairs.

VOODOO ECONOMICS (1971-1986)Western involvement—most-

ly French, Canadian, andAmerican—began in earnest in 1971when François “Papa Doc” Duvalier


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died and was replaced as President-for-Life by his son Jean-Claude“Bébé Doc” Duvalier. Following thedeath of the murderous Papa Doc,the United States decupled its foreignaid program (to $35.5 million a yearby 1975) with the hope that BébéDoc would use the money toimprove his countrymen’s economiclot, fight as a loyal ally in the ColdWar, and dismantle the repressiveapparatus of Tontons Macoutes he hadinherited from his father.

The 18-year-old Bébé Docwas the world’s youngest head ofstate and was widely rumored to bedim-witted and thus easily manipulat-ed; but he proved his political acu-men by turning down demands thathe liberalize his regime, pocketing themoney intended for his starving sub-jects, and still obtaining a total of $1billion in aid from France and theUnited States during his 15 years inpower (his financial acumen was lessdeveloped; he is now a penniless alienin a suburb of Paris).

One assistance program con-sisted in sending used clothing fromthe United States to the Haitian poor;donated clothing became so ubiqui-tous as to be called kenedi in Creole(after the American president)—andto seriously undermine the local gar-

ment industry, which could not com-pete against foreign products offeredfor free. Rice was another example ofaid’s unexpected consequences. Astaple of the Haitian diet, rice wasexported at low or no cost to Haiti torelieve European and American agri-cultural surpluses while feeding hun-gry Haitians. But the native riceindustry, in which production costswere already high due to inadequateirrigation and poor soil, could notwithstand foreign competition. Tomake matters worse, later Haitiangovernments lowered tariffs afterBébé Doc’s downfall in the hope ofreducing food prices for the Haitianpoor, thus exposing Haitian farmersto even greater competition. Riceproduction fell—quite a paradox fora program designed to combathunger.

An oft-cited example of pooraid management took place in 1982,when the United States offered to killlocal Haitian pigs threatened withswine fever and to donate larger, fat-ter breeds as a replacement. The gen-erous offer backfired, however, whenthe foreign pigs failed to adapt to themeager feed and spartan facilitiesavailable in Haiti, leaving the peasantswith no pig, foreign or otherwise.Outside aid can provide temporary


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relief in cases of natural catastro-phes; but it has too many long-termunintended consequences (not theleast of which is that it bolsters tyran-nical regimes like Bébé Doc’s) tomake it a lasting solution.

CHAMPIONING DEMOCRACY (1986-1994)

Bébé Doc’s years in officeshould have discouraged foreigndonors, but it did not. Foreigninvolvement, still designed to combatpoverty and democratize Haiti,increased rather than diminishedafter Bébé Doc was ousted in 1986.Foreign observers were there tomonitor elections in 1987, whichwere cancelled when election-dayviolence left 22 would-be votersdead. New elections were held inDecember 1990 with internationalassistance, this time successfully, andthey brought to the presidentialpalace a 37-year-old priest namedJean-Bertrand Aristide.

There were many aspects ofAristide’s personality that shouldhave made foreigners wary. Heshared the theology of liberation’scritical view of Western democraciesas greedy and imperialistic. Heobliquely thanked his supporterswhen they responded to far-right

political violence with lynching. Buthe was the closest thing to a champi-on of democracy foreign powerscould find, and he was able to enlistforeign support for the next ten yearsof his career.

Aristide’s first presidency wasshort-lived. His calls for revenge wor-ried army leaders who overthrew himseven months after his inauguration.But Aristide, while in exile, mounteda massive lobbying campaign to con-vince France, the United States, andother Security Council members tosupport the return of democracy(that is, himself) at any cost. Theresult was a three-year internationalembargo meant to punish the mili-tary junta that failed in its mainobjective but destroyed Haiti’sexport-driven assembly sector in theprocess.

The public mood was isola-tionist in the United States in 1994.During that year, the Clinton admin-istration evacuated its troops out ofthe Somali morass and refused to endgenocide in Bosnia and Rwanda. But,in keeping with the inordinateamount of international attentionaimed at Haiti, Bill Clinton sent20,000 men to Haiti in September1994 in an intervention that cost U.S.taxpayers over two billion dollars.


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The international coalition putAristide back in the presidentialpalace, created a new police force,and lingered on until the last UnitedNations peacekeepers left inFebruary 2001. Foreign occupationwas accompanied by a massive aidpackage totaling $625 million for1994-95 alone (or 25% of Haiti’sGDP), to which must be addedmoney spent by occupation troops inHaiti, aid distributed by non-govern-mental organizations, and workers’remittances sent by the HaitianDiaspora. Few knew at the time thatOperation Restore Democracy, as itwas called, would fail to create afunctioning democracy in Haiti, thatit would also fail to combat poverty,and that its only perceptible impactwould be to feed anti-Americanismin the very population it was sup-posed to help.

THE WORST FRIENDS MONEY CAN

BUY (1995-2004)France and the United States

bankroll many of Haiti’s aid pro-grams and are the favored destinationfor Haitians leaving their country, yetHaitians generally harbor strong anti-American and anti-French feelings.As early as the 1970s, Haiti was rifewith conspiracy theories that the

USAID was a front for the sinisterAmerican Plan, of which the endgoal was to destroy Haitian agricul-ture and force peasants to work in bigcity sweatshops exporting to the U.S.market. Bébé Doc exploited suchxenophobia and portrayed his vora-cious dictatorship as a nationalistblack revolution that proudly stoodup to foreign imperialists, yet at thevery same time, he lobbied his back-ers for an upsurge in foreign aid.

Haitian leaders, who findthemselves in the difficult position ofrelying on foreign support for theirsurvival while leading a people suspi-cious of any hint of foreign support,have demonstrated much expertise inthis delicate balancing act. No onehas been more adroit in that regardthan Jean-Bertrand Aristide, bestknown during his political ascendan-cy as a leftist priest of the poor whorailed against capitalist, imperialistcountries, particularly the Yankeehegemon he dubbed “the cold coun-try to our north.”1 His radical andnationalist credentials turned into aliability when he was overthrown in1991 and U.S. diplomatic and militaryhelp became his only hope of everreturning to power. Aristide thusswallowed his pride, moved toWashington, D.C., and changed his


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rhetoric to appeal to his newAmerican friends. After a meetingwith Bill Clinton in 1993, he declaredthat “we are with you; in the future,we will be with you, and you will bewelcome in Haiti when I will be thereafter the restoration of democracy.”2

This sudden change of heartproved short-lived. Within a year ofhis return to Haiti in the footsteps ofa U.S. military intervention, Aristidedelivered an angry speech warningthat he would “send back to hiscountry” any foreigner who chal-lenged his authority.3 Anti-Westernrhetoric resumed its place as a centralfeature of Aristide’s rhetoric for theyears to come despite his regime’sreliance on foreign aid.

One key bone of contentionbetween Aristide, his Lavalas Partydeputies, and international institu-tions like the IMF was the privatiza-tion of Haiti’s inefficient publicmonopolies. Privatization was listedas a prerequisite before many foreignmonies could be disbursed; but it alsowas unacceptable to Aristide’snationalist backers. Lavalas legislatorsthus preferred to forgo billions ofdollars in aid rather than come acrossas unpatriotic by meeting a foreigndemand.

Both Aristide (served 1991,

1994-1996, 2001-2004) and his friendRené Préval (1996-2001) were electedpresident, but these elections—par-ticularly ones in 2000—were routine-ly marred by irregularities. TheCreole vocabulary in the 1990sreflected the troubled nature ofHaitian democracy with such termsas dechoukaj (manhunt aimed at killingsupporters of the old regime), PèreLebrun (burning someone to death bythrowing a tire filled with gasolinearound one’s neck), FRAPH, attachés,and chimères (paramilitary groups ofvarious obediences).

By 2003, Aristide had been inoffice on and off for 12 years andhad yet to make good on his oft-repeated promises to provide everyHaitian with electricity, a job, and onemeal a day. He was also reeling froma scandal involving cooperativesbacked by his government that hadruined thousands of Haitianinvestors. But he knew he could tapinto his country’s nationalist tradi-tion, especially as the celebration ofHaiti’s bicentennial approached. Ashe delivered a speech celebrating the200-year anniversary of the death ofindependence martyr ToussaintLouverture, Aristide reminded hisaudience that Haiti had had to pay a150 million franc indemnity to


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France in 1825 before France wouldrecognize her former colony’s inde-pendence. This indemnity, heexplained quite incongruously, was

still a major drag on the Haitian econ-omy 178 years later. “Restitution andreparations for us, victims of slav-ery!” he demanded.4 For Haiti toever develop itself, France wouldhave to repay the full amount, which,thanks to the magic of compoundinginterests and creative accounting,came to the most scientific amountof $21,685,155,571.48. France never

paid the $21 billion requested of her;but the fantastic claim took attentionaway from the cooperatives scandaland allowed the Aristide regime to

limp along for another year while hissupporters debated what they woulddo when the promised windfall mate-rialized.

When he was finally over-thrown by right-wing rebels in 2004,the relationship between Aristide andthe foreign powers that once herald-ed him as a champion of democracyhad soured so much that France and


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the United States were happy to pro-vide him a plane to facilitate his exile.The offer probably saved Aristide’slife, but it did little to ingratiate thetwo countries in Aristide’s eyes. Assoon as he landed in the CentralAfrican Republic, he announced thathe had in fact been kidnapped by U.S.and French troops who had takenhim out of the presidential palace atgunpoint. Aristide’s following is larg-er than that of any other Haitianpolitician, so one may assume that hisvarious barbs and conspiracy theoriesagainst the United States and Franceecho many Haitians’ own misgivings.This, after 30 years of foreign sup-port, is most unexpected.

A MODERN-DAY PROTECTORATE

(2004-2005) Aristide and his party mem-

bers were re-elected in two fraudu-lent elections in 2000, so envoys fromthe United Nations and theOrganization of American Statesremained a permanent feature inPort-au-Prince even after the end ofthe foreign military presence. Theirmission to negotiate a peaceful settle-ment between Aristide and his oppo-nents failed when Aristide was oustedin February 2004, but it did not deterthe UN and the OAS from continu-

ing their so far frustrated meddling inHaitian politics. The chaos that fol-lowed Aristide’s departure promptedthe creation of yet another peace-keeping force (this time led byBrazilian troops) that is currentlyrunning parts of Haiti, including thecapital.

Following this latest politicalconvulsion, Haitian expert GabrielMarcella went so far as to ask publiclythat Haiti be turned into a UN pro-tectorate. The suggestion was plausi-ble enough to spark a passionatedebate, but one may argue that Haitiis already a de facto protectorate sincethe Haitian treasury, police, schools,hospitals, electoral system, and road-building programs are completelyreliant on foreign charity for theirsurvival, and, in many cases, actuallyrun by foreigners. So complete is theHaitian reliance on foreign financingand advice that the Haitian Ministryof Cooperation received a $1.2 mil-lion grant from the Inter-AmericanDevelopment Bank to learn how oneshould ask for and manage interna-tional subsidies.5

Without foreign aid, one mil-lion Haitians who live off donatedforeign rice would go hungry. Theschools run by U.S. churches wouldclose. There would be no one but pri-


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vate militias to patrol the capital. Theinterim government led by PrimeMinister Gérard Latortue would runout of funds and most likely be over-thrown. Haiti is, quite literally, on lifesupport.

So far, how successful has thethirty-year international effort tochange Haiti been? Two foreign mili-tary interventions and several billiondollars in aid later, little politicalprogress can be seen. During BébéDoc’s time the aid (designed to enticethe dictator to lessen repression) wassquandered on his wife’s multi-mil-lion dollar wardrobe while democra-tization remained an elusive dream.The 1986-1990 era that followed hisdownfall was particularly unstable,with no less than six different gov-ernments in five years. Aristide, thefirst democratically elected presidentin Haiti’s history, was overthrowntwice and is currently living in SouthAfrica, while his supporters fightdaily battles with foreign peacekeep-ers and right-wing militias in theslums of Port-au-Prince.

Lack of progress on thepolitical front has had dramatic eco-nomic consequences. Massive emi-gration sent two million Haitiansabroad. This brain drain was accom-panied by deforestation, land erosion,

and an AIDS epidemic, none ofwhich the political class had time toaddress because of its sole-mindedfocus on preservation. In its 2001report, the United NationsDevelopment Program ranked Haiti134th worldwide based on hisHuman Development Index (HDI)and noted that over half of the adultpopulation was illiterate, that 62 per-cent of the population was under-nourished, that less than half of thepopulation had access to potablewater, that 5 percent of adults livedwith AIDS, and that the lifeexpectancy at birth was a mere 52years. Embezzlement of public fundshas become so endemic that Haitiwas ranked first in 2004 inTransparency International’s annualsurvey of the world’s most corruptcountries. Haiti, the richest colony inthe Americas when its war of inde-pendence started in 1791, was by farthe poorest country in the WesternHemisphere as it celebrated thebicentennial of its independence in2004. That same year, when twotropical downpours destroyedMapou and Gonaïves (killing at least3,500 people), local warlords refusedto offer help to the population,choosing instead to raid trucks fromthe World Food Program and sell the


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food to the highest bidder.

WHAT WENT WRONG?Many of the problems in

Haiti are self-inflicted. The emigra-tion movement, which has cost Haitiso many educated citizens, started asa Duvalierist campaign to rid thecountry of any person smart enoughto mount a political opposition.Political infighting between ambi-tious Haitian officers in the wake ofBébé Doc’s downfall precipitated asudden drop in the tourism industry.Similarly, the failure to make gooduse of the sudden bonanza of for-eign aid that followed the 1994 U.S.invasion can be traced back to thecontroversy within Aristide’s LavalasParty in 1997-1999 over the privatiza-tion issue that resulted in a grid-locked parliament, an ineffectualprime minister, and the cancellationof many donations for lack of a legit-imate government to administerthem.

But the foreign strategy ofinitiating change from the outside isitself not adapted to the Haitian envi-ronment. Haiti, because it was thefirst independent black republic andthe only example of a successfulslave revolt in the history of theworld when it was created in 1804, is

a unique society in which one’s raceand a prickly sense of nationalismcannot be ignored. Foreign aid pro-grams, however well intentioned, willnever bridge the gap between thepredominantly white officials whoadminister them and black national-ists such as Bébé Doc and Aristidewho benefit from them. Any Frenchor American advice on how best torun Haiti, however correct, willalways be met by sullen distrustbecause it emanates from a countrythat served as colonial ruler in 1697-1803 and another that served thesame role in 1915-1934. Such mis-steps are often unintentional on out-siders’ part, but they can undermineeven the most selfless act of charity.It is difficult for an American churchmember to understand that he isdespised, not because he donated aformer school bus to a local hospital,but because he brought his dog along(French General DonatienRochambeau used Cuban blood-hounds to chase rebellious slaves in1803, and seeing a white man with alarge dog is considered offensive toHaitians to this day). This potentnationalism, verging on xenophobiaat times, has undone many a foreignplan.

A related problem for for-


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eign-inspired reform agendas is theirlack of sustainability. Roads that arebuilt with foreign aid remain foreignin Haitians eyes despite their useful-ness and are frequently ruinedbecause of neglect within years ofcompletion. Trees planted by foreignNGO’s are not watered by localsdespite the environmental devasta-tion brought by soil erosion.Programs that make use of foreignengineers and bureaucrats, even qual-ified ones, are doomed to collapsewhen the foreigners leave becausetheir Haitian counterparts will findsome odd pride in the failure of aforeign project initiated by a whiteforeigner, even one that directly ben-efits Haitians. Already in 1915-1934,the United States presided over a 19-year protectorate that saw much eco-nomic progress, but had few lastingconsequences because an anti-American nationalist movement bornduring the occupation portrayed allcollaborators as traitors. Little haschanged since.

Last, foreign-led reform pro-grams reinforce the myth, alreadyprevalent in Haiti, that any woe thecountry is suffering from should beattributed to outside influences.Haiti’s colonial past in particular,even though two to five hundred

years distant, is still referred torepeatedly as a credible explanationfor unrelated current problems. “Infewer than fifteen years, Spainextracted fifteen thousand tons ofgold here,” Aristide wrote in his auto-biography with little regard for his-torical accuracy. “As for France, wewould never finish if we tried torecite all that it took from us…. Thecolonial powers, including the UnitedStates, must make amends for thewrong inflicted on the colony or pro-tectorate in those days. The debtexperts, when they speak of our lia-bilities, need to add up the secondcolumn of their ownaccountability.”6

Blaming the colonial legacy isa convenient cure-all for populistpoliticians like Aristide. It can beentirely attributed to outside forces,cannot possibly be modified by anyaction on their part, and can serve asa negotiating tool to obtain financialcompensation from the former colo-nial ruler, whose intercession will jointhe ongoing lore regarding the neo-imperialist meddling that only furtheraid can cure. If successful, it candeflect all criticism regarding the cur-rent ruler’s inability to lift his countryout of poverty while serving as asource of personal cash. The colonial


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legacy theory also leaves little roomfor original thinking on developmentstrategies. Aristide may complain ofthe American and French imperialistlegacies, but when pressed for a solu-tion to his countrymen’s misery, hismost potent remedies were to askone former colonial ruler to send the82nd Airborne in 1994, and the otherto give $21 billion in 2003.

CONCLUSION: A SECOND

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

During the heyday of imperi-alist expansion in the late nineteenthcentury, Western powers like France,England, and the United Statesrepeatedly intervened from theCaribbean to Africa and Asia so thatthey could “civilize” allegedly inferiorraces. Rudyard Kipling’s White Man’sBurden is a staple of history coursesfocusing on this era because it exem-plifies the racist, selfless rhetoric thatunderpinned colonialism while offer-ing a prescient warning that little suc-cess or gratitude was to be expectedfrom people being civilized againsttheir will.

What most people fail tonotice, however, is that the colonialistmindset has far from disappearedfrom Western policymaking circles.Still today, officials in the U.S. State

Department, the United Nations’New York headquarters, and theFrench Quai d’Orsay consider it theirduty to alleviate other people’s suffer-ing by sending foreign aid, peace-keepers, and election monitors tonations that have been less blessedthan they. These neo-colonialists nolonger use the heavy-handed gunboatdiplomacy of yesteryear, nor do theydisplay the naked greed of their pred-ecessors, nor do they claim thatDarwinian evolution has made thewhite man naturally suited for globalleadership, but they still believe thatprogress will not take place withoutWestern intercession, presumablybecause local rulers do not have therequired skills to choose what is goodfor their country.

The goal of spreadingWestern-style free-market democracyworldwide is as consensual today ascolonialism was in its time. In an eraof bitterly divergent diplomatic agen-das, it is one of the few things onwhich France and the United States,or Republicans and Democrats, canagree. Even George W. Bush, whowas initially reluctant to launch open-ended crusades when he was firstelected, was setting for himself “theultimate goal of ending tyranny inour world” by the time of his 2


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February 2005 State of the UnionAddress. Woodrow Wilson, whohoped to “make the world safe fordemocracy” in 1917, would beproud—though somewhat puzzledthat his dream remains a pious wish88 years after he formulated it.

This global campaign to endpoverty and spread liberty is gener-ous and idealistic. It is also misguid-ed. Just like their imperialist forebearsof centuries past, today’s anti-pover-ty and pro-liberty crusaders are suspi-cious of lesser nations’ ability toachieve meaningful progress on theirown and tend to meddle in affairsthat would be best left to local gov-ernments. Because of this paternalis-tic attitude, positive developmentsbought at high cost are often tempo-rary for lack of local support. Also,little gratitude can be expected ofpopulations that find modern-dayforeign intercession eerily reminis-cent of the colonial rule that theyexperienced in the past.

One may find examples ofsuch pitfalls in nation-building proj-ects from Iraq to Afghanistan, butnowhere is the odd mix of Westernidealism, underlying racism, massiveaid, constant political meddling, dis-appointing results, and eventualingratitude more striking than in

Haiti. No American would ever thinkof asking Canadians to fix theirhealth care system; or of hiring UNobservers to monitor electoral pollsin Southern Florida. And yet, relianceon outsiders seems to be the solutionof choice when Haiti faces similarchallenges. What is needed for Haiti,201 years after it won its independ-ence from France, is a second decla-ration of independence—not fromoutright imperial rule, but from thecolonialist mindset.

Benign neglect—lettingHaitians make their own decisions,good or bad, and get the praise orblame they deserve—would be atruly color-blind policy, one thatwould respect Haitians as capable ofself-government and give them anincentive to start bettering their lives.It would also, incidentally, forceHaitian rulers—who typically usexenophobic statements to concealtheir own inability to turn their coun-try’s fortunes around—to activelyseek solutions to their own problems.Such a second declaration of inde-pendence, if agreed to by bothHaitians and their former donors,would finally allow Kipling’s poem togather dust on the bookshelves ofhistory.


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1Jean-Bertrand Aristide, In the Parish of the Poor (New York: Orbis Books,1993), 59.2Aristide and Clinton, "US Support for Democracy in Haiti," U.S.Department of State Dispatch vol. 4, no. 12 (22 March 1993), 163.3Télévision Nationale d'Haïti, "Aristide Speaks at Funeral Ceremony, UrgesDisarmament," Federal Broadcast Information Service (14 November 1995),3-6.

Quoted in "1803-2003: restitution et réparation," Haïti Progrès vol. 21 no. 4(9 April 2003): 1. The indemnity was later reduced to 60 millions, which Haitiwas never able to pay in full.4Paul Moreno-López et al. [Inter-American Development Bank], Haiti:Country Paper (October 1996),Annex III, 15, financial assistance collection, USAID library, Port-au-Prince.5Aristide and Christophe Wargny, Jean-Bertrand Aristide: An Autobiography(New York: Orbis Books, 1993), 143. From 1500 to 1650, Spanish imports ofgold and silver from all its possessions in the New World (including Mexicoand Peru, two countries Spain invaded after failing to find much gold in theCaribbean) were 80 tons and 16,000 tons, respectively. See Henry Kamen,Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492-1763 (2002; reprint, NewYork: HarperCollins, 2004), 287.

References


XX VOLUME VII

Challenging the System: Investigating the Emergence ofNonprofit Drug Development Organizations

BY EVAN MICHELS

BIOGRAPHY

Evan Michelson has a MA in international science and technologypolicy from The Elliott School of International Affairs at The GeorgeWashington University, a MA in philosophical foundations of physics fromColumbia University, and a BA in philosophy of science from BrownUniversity.

ABSTRACT

The development of new drugs to treat some of the world’s mostdangerous and deadly diseases has, traditionally, been the sole province ofthe for-profit pharmaceutical industry. However, it has become evident thatthis market based approach to drug development has created an unwilling-ness of firms to invest the required time and money if there is little chancethat, in the end, they can recoup their investment. In order to fill this gapleft by for-profit drug developers, the nonprofit health sector has begun tomobilize its resources and has started to seek out creative solutions to theproblem. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the potential benefits, pit-falls, and challenges facing these new kinds of nonprofit drug developmentorganizations. I will conclude by noting that the emergence of a viable, not-for-profit drug development sector is a clear and significant demonstrationthat creative, socially responsi oluns to the some of the world’s most deadlydiseases can be found and implemented when a number of mutually benefi-cial ideas are brought together and designed to work in conjunction withone another.

CHALLENGING THE SYSTEM

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I. INTRODUCTION: “MAKING

DRUGS, NOT PROFITS”The development of new

drugs to treat some of the world’smost dangerous and deadly diseaseshas, traditionally been the soleprovince of the for-profit pharma-ceutical industry. Multinationalgiants, such as GlaxoSmithKline,Pfizer, Merck, and Novartis, spendhundreds of millions of dollars eachyear to develop products that addressa range of diseases and health issues,from the life-threatening, such ascancer and heart disease, to thelifestyle, such as obesity and indiges-tion. However, it has become evidentthat this market based approach todrug development—which hasallowed many companies to reaplarge profits from the sale of “block-buster” drugs such as Viagra—canlead to a significant problem. Inshort, firms have demonstrated anunwillingness to invest the necessarytime and money it takes to steer adrug through the research, develop-ment, and approval process if there islittle chance that, in the end, they canrecoup their investment and makemoney from the endeavor.Nevertheless, even though this kindof attitude should be expected in thefor-profit world—where a company’s

survival is dependent upon receivinga high rate of return on its substantialfinancial investments—this approachensures that if there is an insufficientconsumer market that is incapable ofpurchasing and paying for a certainclass of drugs, then the related dis-eases will get little attention from thepharmaceutical industry and will con-sequently remain untreated.

In particular, this kind ofmarket failure has arisen with respectto diseases that unduly affect thepoor, impoverished regions and pop-ulations of the developing world,regions and populations that tend tolie within the Earth’s tropical zones.Along these lines, a recent article inThe Lancet, a well-respected publichealth journal, has noted that “asWestern interests drifted away fromthese regions, tropical diseases havebecome progressively neglected,mainly because they do not offer suf-ficient financial returns for the phar-maceutical industry to engage inresearch and development.”i In orderto fill this gap left by for-profit drugdevelopers, the nonprofit health sec-tor has begun to mobilize itsresources and has started to seek outcreative solutions to the problem. Inparticular, there has been a growingrealization throughout the sector of a


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need for a renewed focus on develop-ing innovative drugs to treat and dealwith tropical diseases, which include,but are not limited to, Chagas’ dis-ease, visceral leishmaniasis, andtuberculosis and have, up to now,been ignored by for-profit pharma-ceutical companies. As a recentScientific American article points out,these new kinds of nonprofit organi-zations are aimed at “making drugs,not profits.”ii Therefore, the purposeof this essay is to analyze, assess, andevaluate the potential benefits, pit-falls, and challenges facing these newkinds of nonprofit drug develop-ment organizations and to provideinsightful suggestions and recom-mendations that will help theseorganizations maximize their impactand ensure that they are able to effec-tively further their missions.

II. RECOGNIZING THE NEED:ANALYZING THE CONTEXT FOR

NONPROFIT DRUG DEVELOPMENT

The recent emergence of asizable number of nonprofit drugdevelopment organizations occurredas a direct response to the failure offor-profit pharmaceutical companiesto seek out drugs for diseases thatdisproportionately affect people liv-ing in the developing world. In order

to provide quantitative support forthe idea that pharmaceutical compa-nies were ignoring the health needsof vast regions of the globe, includ-ing Africa, South America, andSoutheast Asia, the authors of TheLancet article attempted to breakdown and investigate the rate atwhich new drugs were developed fordiseases that affect these areas themost. They discovered that “only 1%of the 1393 new chemical entitiesmarketed between 1975 and 1999were registered for these diseases,”with only 13 dedicated to tropical dis-eases and only 4 dedicated specifical-ly to tuberculosis.iii Moreover, it wasdetermined that in 1999, out of the$35.3 billion invested by the pharma-ceutical industry in drug research anddevelopment, only a mere $70 millionwas spent on these tropical diseases,regardless of the fact that these dis-eases kill a disproportionate numberof people, up to 4 million, in theseregions every year.iv,v However,because drugs for these conditionslack profitability, since the poor can-not pay for them, the tropical dis-eases of the world have become the“neglected” diseases of the world.The for-profit pharmaceutical indus-try eschews investment in these areasin favor of designing drugs that


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either address diseases predominantand more common in the developedworld or that address lifestyle condi-tions that these populations are will-ing to spend money to address.

In their article, “TheEmerging Landscape of Public-Private Partnerships for ProductDevelopment,” authors AlisonSander and Roy Widdus note that therecent explosion of these nonprofitdrug development organizations hasbeen caused by a desire “to fill gapswhich other organizations could notor would not meet.”vi Part of thereason why such “gaps” exist is thatthe cost of developing drugs, fromundertaking basic scientific researchto distributing final products, is pro-hibitively high with regard to bothtime and financial expenditure. Infact, the authors estimate that thecost of developing a single drug canreach nearly $600 million over an 8-12 year time span, while other indus-try analysts, such as Merrill Gooznerof the Integrity in Science Project atthe Center for Science in the PublicInterest, place the figure closer to$800 million over a 15 yearperiod.vii,viii To counter these costs,these nonprofit drug developmentorganizations hope that by leveragingdonations—in the form of money,

volunteered expertise, and intellectu-al property rights of previously creat-ed chemical compounds—fromfoundations, governments, and theprivate sector, they will be able toreduce these numbers and developdrugs quickly and cheaply.

However, it should be notedthat while the overall missions andsocial goals of these organizations,such as helping the poor or assistingthe sick, are somewhat typical ofother social service organizations, itis clear that the novelty and unique-ness of the methods used by these“product development” nonprofitsto reach their desired ends should notbe overlooked. Of course, tradition-ally, there has been a wide variety oforganizations involved in healthcareon a nonprofit basis. These rangefrom local institutions designed tointegrate health services within abroadly-defined mission to organiza-tions like the Red Cross—large, inter-national entities designed to providespecific healthcare service in a varietyof countries throughout the world.Still, the point is that historically,nonprofit, healthcare-related organi-zations have shied away from becom-ing directly involved in the drugdevelopment process itself and,instead, have restricted their involve-


XX VOLUME VII

ment to a few key areas.

III. SEEKING ADVANTAGES:EXAMINING THE BENEFITS OF


Understanding the economicforces that have made these kinds ofnonprofit organizations necessary isnot enough to provide a full andcomplete rationale for why theseorganizations have become so popu-lar and fashionable over recent years.For instance, instead of deciding toundertake drug development in thenonprofit sector, interested partiescould persuade the for-profit phar-maceutical industry to address thehealth needs of the developing worldor advocate in favor of governmentalregulation that would force theindustry to do so. However, I con-tend that the reason why drug devel-opment nonprofits have emerged soquickly over the past few years is thatthe leaders of these organizationshave begun to reconnect the respec-tive scientists and researchers to theirunderlying love of scientific problemsolving that led them to enter thebusiness of drug development in thefirst place. In short, leaders in thenonprofit pharmaceutical sectorshould be praised as social entrepre-neurs, capable of appealing to the

passion and creativity of drug devel-opers by encouraging them to par-take in a movement that will helpreduce the ultimate burden of diseasein developing countries.

For example, in a recentinterview with The New Scientist,Institute for OneWorld Health’s(IOWH) chief executive officerVictoria Hale, a highly regarded,visionary leader in the sector, pointsout that her main reason for startingthe organization was because she felt“personally committed” to address-ing the health needs of the pooraround the globe.ix Moreover, shementions that her hope is that otherswill come to share her transforma-tional conception of how drug devel-opment should be practiced, therebymobilizing and encouraging otherscientists to join her in her quest byhaving them “get back to why theyentered this profession” in the firstplace.x In other words, Hale has real-ized the main reason why most drugdevelopers entered the field is theirpassion for discovery. Moreover, sheunderstands that scientists who workfor private pharmaceutical compa-nies are becoming increasingly disen-chanted and disillusioned with a pro-fession that is characterized by incre-mental progress, that focuses its


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attention on somewhat trivial condi-tions, such as male pattern baldness,and that ignores more serious andsevere diseases, such sleeping sick-ness and malaria. Hale’s ability toconnect with a scientist’s desire toconfront difficult challenges and,ultimately, discover cures for danger-ous diseases demonstrates that she isnot only capable of motivating indi-viduals to commit to furthering themission of her nonprofit organiza-tion, but that she is capable of har-nessing the latent motivations under-lying the scientific enterprise for thepurpose of a social good.

In addition to appealing tothe scientific community’s passionfor drug development, the nonprofitpharmaceutical sector has also bene-fited from an increase in the willing-ness of foundations and private cor-porations to become involved in theirendeavors. With respect to founda-tion support, this sector has benefit-ed from a simultaneous rise in dona-tions from the RockefellerFoundation and the Bill & MelindaGates Foundation, both of whichhave become convinced that one ofthe best ways to solve the problem ofneglected disease is to undertakedrug development in the nonprofitsector. In fact, a recent workshop

sponsored by the Initiative on Public-Private Partnerships for Health(IPPPH) has estimated that with thehelp of these two philanthropicorganizations, the nonprofit drugdevelopment sector as a whole hasreceived nearly $2 billion in funding,much of which was distributed bythese two foundations over the pastfive years.xi In fact, one of the largestrecipients of this money has beenAeras, which was recently awarded$82.9 million in grant money fromthe Gates Foundation to develop atuberculosis vaccine.

However, the correspondingrise in philanthropic giving fromfoundations would not be nearly aseffective if it was not connected withan associated trend: the willingness ofthe pharmaceutical corporationsthemselves to assist the nonprofitdrug development community bydonating chemical compounds andother scientific resources that mayhave potential benefits for curingneglected diseases. In her interview,Hale notes that this nonprofit sector“can benefit from the wealth of the[for-profit drug development] indus-try, because they have such a hugeR&D machine. They make so manymore discoveries than they can possi-bly use.”xii Not surprisingly, because


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of the overwhelming number ofchemical compounds generated bythe for-profit pharmaceutical indus-try, private companies have becomequite willing to donate some of theraw research that they cannot use tothese nonprofit organizations in

exchange for the positive public rela-tions value that these partnershipscan generate. For instance,GlaxoSmithKline recentlyannounced an agreement to provideMedicines for Malaria Venture(MMV) with access to a new class ofanti-malarial drug, primarily becausethere was no financial incentive forthe private firm to develop the com-pound any further by itself.xiii

From the perspective of the

nonprofit organizations, the drivingforce behind entering such partner-ships with for-profit pharmaceuticalcompanies is that they can haveaccess to a large database of scientif-ic information that may go unused,thereby cutting their own research

costs and creating the potential ofgenerating a large amount of “com-munity wealth” that will have an ulti-mate benefit for society. However, inthe end, while the support given tononprofit drug development organi-zations from private companies ben-efits the former in many ways, theseintellectual-property partnershipsmay ultimately benefit the latter evenmore so by having the effect ofimproving their public image and off-


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setting some of the backlash that hasoccurred against the pharmaceuticalindustry in the wake of a number ofrecent scandals, such as the Paxil andVioxx debacles.

IV. THE COMPLEXITIES OF


Nevertheless, even thoughthe nonprofit drug developmentindustry has begun to benefit fromthe renewed passion of research sci-entists and heightened levels of giv-ing from foundations and the phar-maceutical industry, a host of ques-tions and issues still remain withregard to the organization, manage-ment, and viability of these institu-tions. In order to understand some ofthese issues, I have broken my analy-sis into three broad categories—lead-ership and governance, performance,and external relations—in order togroup together similar and relatedproblems. While I do not pretendthat these categories cover the entirerange of relevant issues that haveemerged in this sector, I assert thatthey are useful in creating an agendathat will allow for an extended assess-ment of the challenges that theseorganizations are beginning, and willcontinue, to face, both now and inthe future.

Leadership and GovernanceIt is unclear how well the

leaders of institutions in the non-profit drug development sector areprepared to handle the challenges ofworking within the nonprofit frame-work. For instance, a quick inspec-tion of Figure 1, which details thebackground of the managementteam and board of directors of anumber of these organizations,shows that the individuals runningthese institutions have little to noexperience within the nonprofit sec-tor. At best, only a few organizations,such as Aeras Global TB VaccinationFund (Aeras) and Drugs forNeglected Diseases Initiative(DNDi), have some representativesfrom the donor/foundation world ontheir senior management team. Still,most organizations, including IOWHand MMV, are governed by manage-ment that faces the severe problemof lacking any nonprofit experiencewhatsoever, since their leaders havebackgrounds, either predominantlyor completely, from the for-profitworld.

Conceivably, tensions couldarise as the excessively business-ori-ented mindset of these executivedirectors, senior managers, andboards of directors comes into con-


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flict with the mission, vision, and val-ues of their nonprofit organizations.Even Hale, who previously headed aprivate drug development company,does not seem capable of steppingoutside of this for-profit mentality, asshe continually referred to her organ-ization as a “non-profit drug devel-opment company” throughout herinterview (italics added).xiv In anarticle detailing the history of thenonprofit drug development sector,Widdus highlights the identity crisesfacing these organizations by point-ing out that there is still little consen-sus regarding how these institutionsshould be named. He notes that“some describe themselves as ‘pub-lic-private partnerships,’ whereas oth-ers prefer to call themselves ‘not-for-profit pharmaceutical companies’ or‘virtual pharmaceutical companies,’and yet others ‘not-for-profit (R&D)initiatives.’”xv Even though all ofthese organizations are officially reg-istered as nonprofits, part of the dif-ficulty they have had, and will contin-ue to have, in generating their mis-sion statements and strategic plans isthat they are using business means—the development of products—tofurther a socially conscious goal. Onthe brighter side, the hope is thatthese organizations can merge the

positive characteristics of both sec-tors and, as Paul Light points out,“become business/nonprofithybrids, members of a strange newleague of organizations that may yettest the federal tax laws protectingcharitable organizations.”xvi

PerformanceAn issue related to this prob-

lem of organizational leadership,governance, and identity is how thesenew kinds of institutions decide tomeasure and determine their successin relation to their missions. Alongthese lines, it is important to notethat, as of yet, no drug developed bythe nonprofit sector has beenapproved for distribution, though anumber of compounds should reachthis stage over the next few years.Regardless, it is still unclear howthese nonprofits will measure theperformance and effectiveness oftheir organizations. Of course, for-profit companies have an easier timemeasuring performance; they canturn to product sales, profit margins,and dividend distributions. For non-profits, however, the question is notso clear cut. Potentially, one of thebest indicators may be the number ofcompounds stewarded through toapproval and distribution. However,


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it may not be enough simply to countthe number of compounds that havebeen approved for use if the drugsnever end up reaching the intendedpopulations, or if their eventual costof development is so high that theyprovide little improvement over theefforts of the for-profit industry. Onthe other hand, drug development isalready such an inherently riskyprocess that it may be too rash toconclude that an organization hasfailed in achieving its mission if itscompounds are not approved for dis-tribution

One solution is that anorganization may want to rely oncounting the number of lives saveddue to their efforts as a method forevaluation. Still, this approach mayfail because of the difficulty in attain-ing such data. A compounding prob-lem is that people living in suchpoverty are severely at risk for a num-ber of different health troubles,which could appear to override theeventual effectiveness of the drugsdeveloped by the nonprofit sector. Inthe end, if drug development on anonprofit basis proves to be unrealis-tic or unattainable, these organiza-tions may have to be content simplywith advancing research as far as pos-sible or advocating in favor of sci-

ence directed towards neglected dis-eases.

Another possible way tosolve this problem of performanceevaluation is for these organizationsto take a portfolio approach, whichwould allow them, simultaneously, toshepherd and steer a host of differ-ent projects at different stages ofdevelopment. In fact, DNDi uses thisapproach to structure its researchagenda, as it currently supports nineongoing projects staggered in differ-ent phases. Moreover, since DNDiwas initially established as a jointundertaking by a variety of govern-mental and non-governmental organ-izations based in a number of differ-ent countries, including Kenya,Malaysia, Brazil, and India, it hasalready established connections withpossible distribution partners world-wide, thereby giving its potentialdrugs greater access to people in thedeveloping world.

The point here is that thissector must resolve the difficulty ofconnecting outputs, such as the num-ber of drugs approved and devel-oped, with outcomes, such as the over-all improvement of health in peopleliving in the developing world.Clearly, the issues of performance,effectiveness, and program evalua-


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tion should be dealt with as an inte-gral part of any nonprofit’s strategicplan, and all agreed-upon solutionsshould be circulated amongst keypersonnel to encourage “buy-in”throughout the organization.

External RelationsA final concern with regard

to the management of these non-profit drug development organiza-tions is how they handle and shapetheir relationships with the externalworld. As I noted earlier, a number ofthese organizations have becomeclose partners with companies thatdevelop drugs on a for-profit basis,either by accepting grants, or by pro-viding scientific support or marketingassistance. However, nonprofit drugdevelopment organizations must becareful to closely evaluate their asso-ciation with these private corpora-tions to ensure that the potentiallydamaging business practices some-times associated with these firms donot come to tarnish their image orthe image of the nonprofit drugdevelopment sector as a whole.Organizations like MMV may notwant to become associated with acompany that is known for silencingpotentially harmful data about adrug, as was the case in

GlaxoSmithKline’s handling of evi-dence harmful to its drug Paxil, orwith other corporations that havetaken a hard-line stand against reduc-ing drug prices for developing coun-tries, as was the case with a numberof companies that fought SouthAfrica’s proposal to develop cheapAIDS drugs. Eventually, if the non-profit drug development communityis seen allying with the worst prac-tices of its for-profit counterparts, itmay be viewed by the public as hav-ing been compromised by either realor apparent conflicts of interest,making it appear to be part of theproblem rather than part of the solu-tion.

In addition, organizations inthe nonprofit drug development sec-tor must be sure to seek input fromstakeholders in developing countriesto ensure that their practices andtheir eventual products conform tothe needs of the populations thatthey are trying to serve. Roy Widdusand Katherine White emphasize theimportance of this issue with respectto the external relations componentof the nonprofit drug developmentsector by highlighting “the impor-tance of legitimate involvement ofthe various constituents from the dis-ease-endemic countries.”xvii Along


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this line of reasoning, Ridley arguesthat without such participation frommembers in the developing world,the leadership of these nonprofitdrug development organizations“may fail to understand the long-term value and indeed the socialresponsibility to engage equally withsouthern partners and to work toensure that once a project is complet-ed, there is a sustained residual capac-ity left behind to undertake similarwork in the future.”xviii Ridley hopesthat by creating “a sense of localownership of data and products,” thenonprofit drug development sectorwill encourage “the participation ofdeveloping country scientists andinstitutions as equal partners” and, inturn, accelerate progress towarddeveloping drugs for neglected dis-eases.xix This issue of ensuring par-ticipation by developing countriesbecomes even more acute when onerealizes that a large majority of non-profit drug development organiza-tions, and their associated supporters,are located in developed countries,predominantly in the United Statesand Switzerland. Without takingproactive steps to guarantee that rep-resentatives from the developingworld have a voice in directing howsuch drug development undertakings

are designed to meet the needs oftheir populations, these organizationsrun the risk of not only offending thepeople they hope to help but of alsomisdirecting the aims and goals oftheir own research projects.

V. SUGGESTIONS AND

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR

IMPROVEMENT

Having identified some ofthe key organizational, managerial,and strategic issues that haveemerged with respect to the nonprof-it drug development sector, I willprovide a short list of suggestionsand recommendations that may helpthese organizations improve theirchances for success. Once again,while this list is not meant to be com-prehensive—for a number of addi-tional options and solutions will ariseas these organizations mature—thehope is that this outline will provide afew workable options that may helpthese institutions avoid some of thepitfalls, drawbacks, and downsidesdiscussed earlier.

First, I recommend that thechief executive officer, senior man-agement, and entire board of direc-tors of these organizations make apoint to get additional training andexperience in how to lead a nonprof-


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it organization. They should willinglyinvest in and attend training sessions,seminars, and other educationalopportunities that will help providethem with the skills and expertisethat is needed to head a mission-driv-en organization. Along these lines,the directors of these organizationsmay want to take the time to “shad-ow” leaders of different kinds ofproduct and service-providing organ-izations in order to gain additionalfirst-hand experience in nonprofitmanagement. The point here is thateven though a drug developmentorganization has a different exactpurpose than, say, a local soupkitchen or a homeless shelter, theunderlying ideas of social responsi-bility and assistance are the same.Nonprofit leaders like Victoria Halecould be well-served to learn aboutsuch issues as volunteer manage-ment, fundraising, personnel man-agement, and board motivation fromthese other service and product-development organizations.

Second, it is clear that thenonprofit drug development sectoras a whole needs to diversify its fund-ing base and become less reliant ongrants from the Rockefeller andGates Foundations. As Widdus andWhite note, it is already the case that

a number of these nonprofit organi-zations are “under-resourced,” andthere is concern throughout the sec-tor that “the current base of fundersis not sufficient to sustain the existingfield.”xx One fundraising area thatcurrently remains untapped is indi-vidual donors. Individuals have yet tobe systematically targeted by this sec-tor as a source of funds, and it isclear that these organizations havemissions, such as curing tuberculosisor malaria, that would be attractive tomany individual givers. Admittedly,part of the problem is that since drugdevelopment is so costly and requiresa large amount of financial resourcesto be successful, it is unclear whetherit is worthwhile to seek out individu-als that may only be able to give a lit-tle bit at a time. However, any moneyraised from individual donors couldbe used to supplement other sourcesof income for capacity building pro-grams, such as staff development andthe maintenance of institutionalinfrastructure, thereby leaving moremoney from the foundations to godirectly into drug development.

Third, throughout the sector,there must be improved coordinationand communication between theorganizations themselves andbetween the organizations and the


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respective donors. As Figure 2 shows,there are a number of organizationsworking on drugs for the same dis-eases, creating the potential for aredundancy of effort and the wastingof donor money at the same time.One recommendation is that organi-zations in this field should considerconsolidating or partnering with oneanother. If, say, DNDi and IOWHpartner on a project to combatChagas’ disease, they would bothbecome more attractive to donorsand, in turn, not end up duplicatingresearch. Similarly, donors may wantto encourage such partnerships andpressure watchdog groups, such asIPPPH, to host conferences andmeetings that focus on how organiza-tions can better coordinate theirefforts. Once again, while thisprocess of synchronization may havethe effect of “weeding out” organiza-tions that support a general, wide-ranging drug development portfolio,it may also push these all-purposedrug developers to operate more effi-ciently and enter niches ignored bythe rest of the sector.

A fourth suggestion is thatthe sector as a whole should make apoint to develop common perform-ance measures that could help donorsbetter evaluate the operations of

each organization. As I mentionedearlier, measuring performance andoutcomes in this sector is a difficultprocess and may be hard to imposeacross a varied spectrum of organiza-tions. However, as Widdus and Whiteobserve, even when one takes intoaccount these differences, there arebenefits for all parties—the organiza-tions, the donors, and the public atlarge—in establishing a set ofagreed-upon “quantitative and quali-tative measures of performance.”xxi

The authors suggest that such per-formance measures could include“estimates of potential public healthimpact, cost utility of new products,[and] quantitative productivitygoals.”xxii Conceivably, these non-profit pharmaceutical organizationswould be willing to establish suchbenchmarks in order to provideinvolved parties with evidence thattheir model of drug development isnot only successful, but that it mayeven improve upon the practice ofthe for-profit pharmaceutical indus-try.

Finally, the nonprofit phar-maceutical sector must work to con-nect with the disease-endemic anddeveloping countries early in the drugdevelopment process. These organi-zations must make a point to sponsor


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roundtable discussions in the affect-ed countries to allow for interestedstakeholders, including citizens, sci-entists, and disease advocacy groups,to voice their opinions, hopes, andconcerns. These organizationsshould also meet with local pharma-ceutical manufacturing and distribut-ing partners to make certain thatthese players are willing to cooperateand participate as associates.Additionally, these organizationsshould begin negotiating with variousnational and international regulatorybodies, including the World HealthOrganization and the World Bank, tohelp tackle questions related to intel-lectual property protection, theimplementation of drug access pro-grams, and the requirements for gain-ing drug approval. These stepstoward open dialogue and trans-parency with all concerned partieswill help these nonprofit organiza-tions avoid some of the potentialaforementioned public relations haz-ards and missteps.

VI. CONCLUSION: CHANGING THE

LANDSCAPE OF DRUG

DEVELOPMENT

It is clear that the movetoward developing drugs on a non-profit basis has the potential to pro-

foundly alter the landscape of thepharmaceutical industry in particular,and, eventually, the healthcare indus-try as a whole. If this model suc-ceeds, diseases that have been tradi-tionally neglected will be the subjectof a new round of attention thatcould lead to their ultimate cures. Infact, a recent article in the FinancialTimes has pointed out that these non-profit drug development organiza-tions have already caused enough ofa stir that their for-profit counter-parts are taking notice. The articlenotes that “industry has respondedwith its own initiatives…[companieslike] AstraZeneca have opened newinfectious disease laboratories, whileNovartis has set up a research insti-tute in Singapore to work on TB anddengue fever.”xxiii While increasedcompetition from the for-profit sec-tor may threaten the viability of non-profit drug developers, it does guar-antee that a new level of responsive-ness directed toward ignored diseaseswill emerge. The ultimate impact ofthese organizations may not be in thedrugs that they develop but in theawareness they raise.

Hopefully, these organiza-tions will be able to navigate throughthe challenges posed by questionsrelated to leadership and governance,


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performance, fundraising, and exter-nal relations and, in turn, succeed intheir missions of curing some of theworld’s most damaging and deadlydiseases, which that affect the lives ofmillions of people annually.Organizations like IOWH, MMV,DNDi, and Aeras have already begunthis process, and there are highexpectations that they will encourageother passionate individuals to jointheir causes in the future. Funders,such as the Rockefeller Foundationand the Gates Foundation, mustremain committed to these organiza-tions, even as the organizations startto seek out new sources of revenuefrom individuals and governmentsalike. Stakeholders in developingcountries must encourage theseorganizations to continue workingtoward fulfilling their missions andparticipate by providing inputthroughout the drug developmentprocess. If it continues to progressand adapt to its changing environ-ment, the nonprofit drug develop-ment sector will improve the healthof those in need throughout thedeveloping world.


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FIGURE 1(Sander and Widdus, “The Emerging Landscape of Public-Private

Partnerships for Product Development,” p. 111)


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FIGURE 2(Sander and Widdus, “The Emerging Landscape of Public-Private

Partnerships for Product Development,” p. 104)


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i Patrice Trouiller, et al., “Drug Development for Neglected Diseases: ADeficient Market and a Public-Health Policy Failure,” The Lancet, Volume359, June 22, 2002, pp. 2188-2194, p. 2188.ii Gary Stix, “Making Drugs, Not Profits,” Scientific American, May 2004,accessed November 15, 2004, available athttp://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0006B5F7-A926-1084-A92683414B7F0000.iii Trouiller, et al., p. 2189.iv Trouiller, et al., p. 2189.v Alison Sander and Roy Widdus, “The Emerging Landscape of Public-Private Partnerships for Product Development” in Roy Widdus andKatherine White, ed., Combating Diseases Associated with Poverty (Geneva,Switzerland: The Initiative on Public Private Partnerships for Health,November 2004) p. 102, accessed November 18, 2004, available athttp://www.ippph.org/index.cfm?page=/ippph/publications&thechoice=retrieve&docno=109.vi Sander and Widdus, p. 102.vii Sander and Widdus, p. 103.viii Merrill Goozner, The $800 Million Pill: The Truth Behind the Cost of NewDrugs (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004).ix “Cures before Cash: Interview with Victoria Hale,” New Scientist,September 22, 2004, accessed October 1, 2004, available athttp://www.newscientist.com/opinion/opinterview.jsp?id=ns24661.x “Cures before Cash: Interview with Victoria Hale.”xi “Not-for-Profit Approach Improves Prospect of Vaccines and Drugs forthe Poor: US$2 Billion Investment Yields Significant Progress, but MoreFunders Required,” (Geneva, Switzerland: The Initiative on Public PrivatePartnerships, September 16, 2004), accessed November 10, 2004, availableat http://www.ippph.org/index.cfm?page=/ippph/newsmedia/news&the-choice=show&id=521.

References


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xii “Cures before Cash: Interview with Victoria Hale.”xiii “Medicines for Malaria Venture and GlaxoSmithKline Collaborate toFight Malaria,” (Geneva, Switzerland, Medicines for Malaria Venture,November 11, 2004), accessed November 20, 2004, available athttp://www.mmv.org/FilesUpld/205.pdf.xiv “Cures before Cash: Interview with Victoria Hale.”xv Roy Widdus, “Historical Context: Why Public-Private Partnerships forProduct Development Emerged and How?” in Combating Diseases Associatedwith Poverty, pp. 3-20, p. 12.xvi Paul Light, Pathways to Nonprofit Excellence (Washington, DC: BrookingsInstitution Press, 2002), 24.xvii Roy Widdus and Katherine White, “Areas for Future Attention” inCombating Diseases Associated with Poverty, pp. 35-39, p. 37.xviii Robert Ridley, “Product Development Public-Private Partnerships forDiseases of Poverty” in Combating Diseases Associated with Poverty, pp. 196-205,p. 205.xix Ridley, p. 204 and 205.xx Widdus and White, p. 38.xxi Widdus and White, p. 35.xxii Widdus and White, p. 35.xxiii “Non-profit Groups Hunt for Cures,” Financial Times, March 1, 2004,accessed November 20, 2004, available at http://www.accessmed-msf.org/prod/publications.asp?scntid=4320041356293&contenttype=PARA&.


XX VOLUME VII

A New Paradigm in Trans-Atlantic Space Relations

by NICOLAS PETER

BIOGRAPHY

Nicolas Peter is a Master’s degree candidate in International Scienceand Technology Policy at the Elliott School of International Affairs, GeorgeWashington University (GWU). He is also Research Associate at theLaboratoire Communication et Politique in Paris and Research Assistant atthe Space Policy Institute at GWU.

ABSTRACT

The United States since the 1970s has had a long history of signifi-cant cooperation with Europe on scientific and human space flight programs.The pattern of trans-Atlantic cooperation has evolved over time. At thebeginning of Europe’s space programs, cooperation was a scientific and tech-nological necessity. Trans-Atlantic cooperation is not as mandatory today as itwas 30 years ago. The European space context has changed dramatically sinceits pioneering times of space activities, and it is now entering its fourth insti-tutional evolution with the emergence of the European Union (EU) as themain European space actor. After an initial period of European dependencevis-à-vis the U.S. due to an asymmetry in capabilities and resources, a recentreduction in this “capacity-gap” will change the traditional space cooperationrelationship between the two powers. Europe has become a substantial spacepower with an increasing range of technological capabilities despite limitedpublic money allocated to space programs. The U.S. is still Europe’s preferredpartner for space cooperation, as long as that cooperation is carried out on anequitable basis, Europe is no longer interested in this asymmetric space rela-tionship. With these recent developments in the European space landscape,new perspectives are arising that need to be taken into consideration by theU.S. as it develops its space strategy. Europe could be a capable partner or aserious competitor for the U.S. The next administration needs to define aclear policy both on the civilian and military agendas regarding Europe. Thatpolicy will have to oscillate between cooperation and competition, and thatmay have long-term consequences.

A NEW PARADIGM IN TRANS-ATLANTIC SPACE RELATIONS

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INTRODUCTION

Since the end of the ColdWar and the collapse of the U.S.S.R,the United States has been the domi-nant geopolitical actor in the world,with the Western European states asits allies. Furthermore, trans-Atlanticrelations were an important axis ofcooperation in foreign policy, theeconomy, science and technology,and especially space activities. TheU.S. policy regarding internationalspace activities has in the last fewdecades evolved and fluctuatedbetween cooperation and competi-tion, depending on the topic and thetimes. The US has a long history ofcooperation with the EuropeanSpace Agency (ESA) and individualEuropean countries on scientific andhuman space flight programs, includ-ing the space shuttle and theInternational Space Station (ISS).However, the European space land-scape is currently undergoing multi-ple changes that will need to be takeninto consideration by the secondBush Administration. An under-standing of these changes in policy,organizational structure, and fundingat the European-level is important,since they will undoubtedly affect thenature of traditional European – U.S.space relations.

A NEW GEOPOLITICAL CONTEXT

U.S.-European relations,which have for a long time been thecornerstone of U.S. foreign policy,have experienced significant strainsin recent years. Recent geopoliticalevents, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the KyotoProtocol, and the European Union’sefforts to defend the InternationalCriminal Court, have caused tensionsbetween the U.S. and Europe.Nevertheless, focusing on the con-tentious aspects of U.S.-Europeanrelations should not obscure the pos-itive trans-Atlantic cooperation thatstill exists in many areas, includingpeacekeeping efforts in the Balkansand Afghanistan, the substantialtrade and investment that link theUnited States to Europe, as well asthe underlying commonality of dem-ocratic values and culture.

U.S. AND EUROPE IN SPACE: TWO

DIFFERENT REALITIES

There is a wide range of reasons whygovernments engage in space activi-ties. The basic justifications have dif-fered for different countries at differ-ent times.


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The U.S. in SpaceThe U.S. is currently the

largest space actor. It combines apolitical vision of space with a finan-cial commitment to space-relatedactivities that is without parallel in theworld. The U.S. has a coherent spacepolicy, sharing responsibilitiesbetween two major public agencieswhich manage most of the spacebudget, namely the NationalAeronautics and SpaceAdministration (NASA) and theDepartment of Defense (DoD).Although the DoD acts mainly as aclient while NASA has historicallybeen an agency for research anddevelopment, an important rap-prochement between the two institu-tions is currently taking place. Inaddition to these two major actors,more specialized actors such as theNational Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration (NOAA) play a dedi-cated role although closely coordinat-ed with those of the two major play-ers.

The U.S. is the country thatinvests the most money in spaceactivities in both the civilian and mil-itary fields. The ambition of the U.S.is clearly to build and maintain ahegemony based on technical superi-ority, and space has a prominent role

in this strategy. The U.S. space civil-ian budget for FY2003 was estimatedto be $16.5 billion USD, of which$15.3 billion USD was for NASA,$762 million USD was for NOAAand approximately $400 million USDwas for other organizations involvedin space (DoC, DoE etc.) (1). It isestimated that the U.S. accounts for96% of the world’s public funding inmilitary space programs. Moreover,its technical capabilities allow the U.S.to be the only state to be involved inthe complete spectrum of spaceactivities.

EUROPE IN SPACE

Space has become a newstrategic challenge for Europe, sincespace activities have raised the tech-nological and industrial capabilities ofthe Member states. European spaceactivity is complex partly becausethere are a myriad of stakeholders.The major institutional actors in theEuropean space landscape today aresplit into three levels: the EuropeanUnion , the European Space Agency,and the national space agencies.Europe as a whole has become a sub-stantial space power with an increas-ing range of technological capabili-ties despite limited public moneyallocated to space programs. Europe


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is the second largest space poweraccording to budget. The totalEuropean public expenditure forcivilian activities, which is the sum ofthe ESA budget, the EU contribu-tion, the national budgets and theEuropean countries’ contributions toEUMETSAT (the EuropeanOrganization for the Exploitation ofMeteorological Satellites), is estimat-ed at about €5.3 billion Euro in 2003.The military space budgets for all ofEurope totaled only €650 millionEuro in 2003 including the countriesthat have declared military spaceprojects (France, Germany, UnitedKingdom, Italy and Spain) (1).

Space activities are still orga-nizationally and financially fragment-ed in Europe, but since the pioneer-ing times of the various NationalAgencies, including the French spaceagency (CNES), the European SpaceResearch Organization (ESRO), theEuropean Launcher DevelopmentOrganization (ELDO) in the 1960sand the creation of ESA in 1975, theEuropean space environment haschanged dramatically. The Europeanspace sector is now entering itsfourth institutional evolution withthe emergence of the EuropeanUnion as the main European spaceactor (2). Space technology and its

applications are now widely seen askey elements in EU policies andobjectives. EU space policy currentlyfocuses on Earth-oriented applica-tions of direct public benefit, fromthe environment to agriculture toinformation technology to defenseand security.

The second level, which wasthe top level of European spaceactivity until recently, is occupied bythe European Space Agency. TheESA was created in 1975 and origi-nally aimed to be a research anddevelopment organization withoutany military implications. It devel-oped independently from theEuropean integration process.Traditionally, the ESA has been themain framework for developingEuropean space activity outside ofthe national space programs. It wasestablished by European govern-ments with the stated goal of devel-oping a European space capabilityand promoting a European spacepresence. This organization pools thespace interests as well as the financialand industrial resources of severalcountries, and has become the mainauthority in the European spaceindustry.

The third level is made up ofthe national-level space programs.


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However, not all states have a dedi-cated space agency, and there are dif-fering ambitions and capabilitiesamong the existing national spaceagencies.

THE RECENT EUROPEAN EVOLU-TION

While the ESA is not anagency of the European Union, thetwo organizations have forged a closeworking relationship in recent yearsdue to the important role of space inmaintaining Europe’s political andeconomic strength. The future ofEuropean space activity will be builton the growing relationship betweenthe EU and ESA. The “EC-ESAFramework Agreement” that enteredin force in May 2004 is an importantstep in developing a closer relation-ship between the current and theanticipated future dominant spaceauthorities in Europe. This frame-work agreement, besides regulatingcooperation in the years ahead, rec-ognizes both parties’ specific, com-plementary, and mutually reinforcingstrengths (for the EU, setting policydirectives for Europe; for the ESA,providing the scientific and techno-logical capabilities to implementspace programs in the service ofthose directives).

There is a consensus in theEuropean space community thatESA will continue to be the organiza-tion for developing and implement-ing space and associated ground proj-ects and for managing associatedindustrial contracts, while the EU’srole will be to identify user needs insupport of European policies. Thiscollaboration will allow the develop-ment of a coherent and progressiveEuropean space policy and supplyspace systems and infrastructure nec-essary to meet European Communitydemand. EC space policy will followa user-driven approach focusing onEarth-oriented applications withdirect public benefits, such as Galileo(the European Satellite NavigationSystem), GMES (the GlobalMonitoring for Environment andSecurity), the telecommunicationsinitiative reducing “the digital divide,”the use of space capabilities in sup-port of Europe’s Common Foreignand Security Policy (CFSP), and theEuropean Security and DefensePolicy (ESDP). The real advantagesof EU-ESA co-operation are alreadybeing seen in the global navigationsatellite system Galileo, since itdemonstrates the real synergies thatcan be developed between theESA(coordinating supply-side access


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to space) and the EU (consolidatingwidespread, demand-side applica-tions).

Furthermore, the proposedEU Constitution includes spaceamong the EU’s shared competen-cies. The fact that space is referred tospecifically in the Constitutionreflects the growing recognitionamong EU leaders that space systemsand related technologies can be usedto provide beneficial products andservices to European citizens whilealso delivering a powerful competi-tive edge to European industry in theglobal marketplace. This concretestep acknowledges that space activi-ties are of strategic importance forthe implementation of a wide rangeof more general European policies inareas like transport, information,environment, security, and foreignpolicy.

To underscore the EU’s newspace interests, control over EUspace matters has been transferredwithin the Barroso Commissionfrom the Research Directorate to theDirectorate of Enterprise andIndustry, illustrating Europe’s newposition that space activity goesbeyond research into a strong indus-trial dimension, including defenseand security policy.

In overall terms, the EU hasseen its interests in space grow fortwo distinct reasons: in order todevelop and maintain a solid industri-al base in Europe and also to be moreactive on the international scene.

U.S.-EUROPEAN COOPERATION

The U.S. from 1957 onwardhas used its achievements in space tosymbolize its technological, econom-ic, military and political strengths andhas used space cooperative programswith its allies as one means ofdemonstrating its leadership.Although the U.S. space program wasestablished to meet a competitivechallenge from the U.S.S.R, theNational Aeronautics and Space Actidentifies international cooperationas a fundamental U.S. goal. The“Space Act” of 1958 (4), which led tothe establishment of NASA, codifiedinternational cooperation. In Section205, it is stated that: “TheAdministration, under the foreignpolicy guidance of the President, mayengage in a program of internationalcooperation in work done pursuantto the Act, and in the peaceful appli-cation of the results thereof, pur-suant to agreements made by thePresident with the advice and con-sent of the Senate.” Since that time,


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the agency has engaged in thousandsof cooperative arrangements, diversein scope and complexity.

The U.S. and Europe havebeen cooperating in space for morethan four decades. This history ofcooperation has survived significantgeopolitical, economic and techno-logical changes including the end ofthe Cold War, the pressure of budgetcuts, and the difficulties of coopera-tion in several projects. Both Europeand the U.S. have learned from oneanother, acquired and developed aknowledge base, and most impor-tantly have established a legacy ofcooperation on both sides of theAtlantic. The results of such cooper-ation are numerous, including theSolar & Heliospheric Observatory (alarge mission managed at the agencylevel)and Topex-Poseidon (a smallerscale mission managed by variousprincipal investigators). More thanone hundred missions have involvedvarious levels of US-European coop-eration1 in space research which varygreatly in scope, complexity, and suc-cess.

A NEW TRANS-ATLANTIC SPACE

CONTEXT

NASA’s traditional Europeanpartner since the 1970s on large

space cooperation projects has beenthe ESA. However, that organizationand the European space landscape ingeneral are undergoing multiplechanges with the emergence of theEU as the main European spaceactor. At the beginning of theEuropean space programs, coopera-tion was a scientific and technologicalnecessity. Today, trans-Atlantic coop-eration is not mandatory as it was 30years ago, but it is still considered anefficient means of diversifying flightopportunities, sharing cost and devel-oping large and complex systems.

The pattern of cooperationbetween Europe and the U.S., partic-ularly NASA, has evolved over time.In the initial years of European spaceactivities cooperation took the formof free launches provided by the U.S.in exchange for payload sharing onthe spacecraft. The cooperationchanged in the 1970s with the directpurchase of U.S. launches. With theincrease of European capabilities, aperiod of more intense and complexcooperation began. Thus, roughly 50percent of the ESA program wasconducted in cooperation withNASA (ISPM, Hubble Space tele-scope etc.). While in general thecooperation with NASA has been anessential element in the successful


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development of European space sci-ence, it has also involved difficultiesdue to the unequal power of the part-ners.

However, after an initial periodof European dependence vis-à-visthe U.S. due to an asymmetry in capa-bilities and resources, a recent reduc-tion in this “capacity-gap” willchange the traditional space coopera-tion relationship between the twopowers. Europe has become a sub-stantial space power with an increas-ing range of technological capabili-ties despite limited public moneyallocated to space programs.European capabilities in expendablelaunch vehicles, space sciences,telecommunications and remotesensing satellites are often consideredto be as or more successful than theirU.S. counterparts. Therefore, cooper-ation with the U.S. may no longer bethe preferred solution for Europe,especially with aspects of U.S coop-eration are still framed in a Cold Warmentality. Furthermore, the motiva-tion on the part of the U.S. to reducecost is often incompatible with exter-nal partners’ motivations to developindigenous technological capabilities.The U.S. is still Europe’s preferredpartner for space cooperation, if thatcooperation is carried out on an equi-

table basis. Europe is no longer inter-ested in an asymmetric space rela-tionship where its contribution istotally dependent on the U.S. for suc-cess.

FUTURE TRANS-ATLANTIC CHAL-LENGES

Several civilian and militaryspace activities will test the solidity ofthe historical trans-Atlantic links inspace affairs. Among others, theVision for Space Exploration and therise of Europe as a new security actorwill be particularly challenging for thenext U.S. administration.

THE VISION FOR SPACE

EXPLORATION

On January 14, 2004President Bush announced a newvision for human and robotic spaceexploration named “A RenewedSpirit of Discovery”. This new spaceexploration policy called for “a sus-tained and affordable human androbotic program to explore the solarsystem and beyond” (5) and seeksalso to “promote international andcommercial participation in spaceexploration to further U.S. scientific,security, and economic interests” (5).However, as noted by aCongressional Budget Office (CBO)


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study, NASA will face a number ofsignificant technical hurdles. Theagency might not be able to achieve italone (6). In this context Europeanparticipation is an important asset forthe U.S.

President Bush’s “Vision forU.S. Space Exploration” encompass-

es a major redirection of NASA’sobjectives and budget to explorespace and extend a human presenceacross the solar system. This planposes both a challenge and an oppor-tunity to all other space-faring coun-tries. Other countries, particularly theInternational Space Station (ISS)

partners, have made ISS utilizationthe centerpiece of their planning forat least the next decade. Now they arebeing asked if they can join the U.S.in another new project while theycontinue their plans for ISS.

Europe had some solar sys-tem exploration activities planned

before President Bush’s announce-ment. Planetary exploration is notnew to the ESA. Not only has theESA successfully flown missions toMars, the Moon, comets, Titan,Saturn and soon Venus, it also hassignificant experience in humanspaceflight, currently focused on the


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ISS. Furthermore, the ESA initiatedthe Aurora program in 2001 to for-mulate and implement “a Europeanlong-term plan for the robotic andhuman exploration of solar systembodies holding promise for traces oflife.” It is a decades-long programfeaturing multiple robotic missions tothe moon and Mars, a Mars sample-return attempt, and ultimately, astro-nauts to those bodies. However, nowEurope has to decide whether or notit wants to join the U.S. explorationprogram, and if so, how they woulddo it.

Individual European coun-tries through the ESA or even theEU could participate in the explo-ration initiative at many levels, suchas providing launch capacity, buildingand operating robotic and humanspacecraft, providing scientificinstruments and astronauts, etc. Butthe possibility of European participa-tion in the U.S. Vision for SpaceExploration comes at a challengingperiod since the partners cannotduplicate their efforts. Characteristicof this issue is the debate overwhether Britain can take part in theAurora program. British scientistshad considered investing in NASA’sSpace Exploration Initiative, but thatoption was viewed as less attractive

because Britain’s small contributionwould not afford it any leverage overthe NASA program’s direction.

Future cooperation on explo-ration will also depend on the direc-tion that the ISS program takes. Thenew space exploration policy saysthat the U.S. will complete its com-mitments to the ISS, but theEuropeans would like to know whatU.S. plans are after the completion ofthe ISS, in light of the retirement ofthe space shuttle. Moreover, the abil-ity of European partners to benefitfrom their contribution to the stationis currently totally dependent on howthe U.S. fulfills its commitments tothe ISS partnership. There are conse-quences to the delays in the assemblysequence of the ISS for theEuropeans since they are dependenton the space shuttle for the launch oftheir contribution: the ColumbusModule. The launch date forEurope’s contribution has shifted byat least two years from the plannedOctober 2004 date because of delaysin the return to flight of the U.S.space shuttle fleet. So the shift onU.S. policy may impact ISS utilizationand Europe directly since they relyon the U.S. to access the station.

The Vision for SpaceExploration will require international


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cooperation to be sustainable, flexi-ble and robust. In this context,European participation can be a crit-ical enabler for the U.S. programsince going to the moon, Mars andbeyond will not be the journey of asingle country. However, when think-ing about future cooperation with theU.S., Europe wants to avoid findingitself in another situation where itssuccess is totally dependent on theU.S. (as in the case of the ISS) andwhere its funds are used to supportU.S. exploration objectives ratherthan European ones. If Europe is tobecome a significant cooperativepartner in the Vision for SpaceExploration, concerns with respectto the future of the space shuttle andthe ISS have to be addressed. Europewill not enter into another partner-ship with the U.S. if such a partner-ship is not based on a solid and equi-table foundation In this regard thereneeds to be an increased dialoguebetween Europe and the U.S.

EUROPE AS A NEW SPACE SECURITY

ACTOR

Military activity in space hasbeen a constant for the U.S. since thebeginning of the space age, and itsuse of space for military purposes

has steadily increased. The first Iraqwar highlighted the crucial contribu-tion of military space systems;Arthur C. Clarke among others calledit the world’s first satellite war. Recentconflict has shown how space is use-ful for military activity. U.S. spaceassets were integrated deeply intovarious military operations. Space hasnow become the fourth dimension ofthe U.S. national security apparatus,along with air, ground and sea opera-tions.

The diplomatic and militaryleverage that space technologies canprovide did not go unnoticed byother countries, especially in Europe.Recent events have demonstratedconvincingly the importance ofinformation supplied by space tech-nologies, both in peace and in war.Today, information superiority is anessential requirement for defense andsecurity, and space is the best settingfor worldwide observation and datacollection. Meanwhile, sinceSeptember 11, 2001, security hasbeen pushed to the top of the agen-da in Europe and across the globe.The EU is faced with a number ofsecurity challenges, including externalborder controls and peacekeepingduties. Whereas the current EU spacestrategy focuses on the areas of


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transport, environment and research,the European leadership hasacknowledged that space has a secu-rity dimension and has developed thepolitical will to do act on it.

In a major shift, Europe nowofficially recognizes space as a strate-gic asset and views space not only asa tool for maintaining Europe’s polit-ical and economic strength but alsoas a support to its emerging securityrole, since space based systems andderived information can bring strate-gic capabilities and autonomous deci-sion-making to support the CFSPand the ESDP. It is widely acceptedthat space-based technologies have amajor role to play in ensuring thesecurity of European citizens, includ-ing a better reinforcement of bordercontrol and conflict prevention aswell as improving humanitarian mis-sions and fighting crime and terror-ism.

However, the argument thatEurope should develop its own secu-rity related space capabilities is notnew. In particular, France has been aconsistent advocate since the 1980sof the need to have consistent space-based Earth Observation capabilitiesindependent of the U.S. (7).

Europe has significant assetswhich give it the credentials of a rec-

ognized civilian space power. Eventhough European governments havecombined their non-military activi-ties, since the 1960s defense pro-grams and assets have remainedessentially confined to national ven-tures. This means that space securityactivities have been fragmented bothorganizationally and financially andwere accorded different degrees ofimportance in various countries. InEurope, to date, space security activ-ities have always resided exclusively atthe national-level along with somelimited multi-lateral security spacecooperation (e.g.: France’s develop-ment of the optical observation sys-tems Helios with participation fromItaly and Spain). But as the cost ofmilitary systems continues to rise, nosingle European country can affordto develop a wide range of spaceassets on its own. As a result,European defense ministries arestarting to realize that if they wantaccess to a greater variety of space-based military systems they need toshare and develop some of thesetechnologies together (8). Currentcoordination, harmonization, andconsolidation efforts of the differentspace activities within Europe arenow taking place (Galileo, GMES).

Furthermore, one of the


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most important evolutions of theEuropean position regarding spacesecurity in recent years is the evolu-tion of the ESA’s position on militaryactivities. According to the terms ofits founding convention (Article II),the purpose of the ESA shall be to“provide for and promote, for exclu-sively peaceful purposes, cooperationamong European States in spaceresearch and technology and theirspace applications, with a view totheir being used for scientific purpos-es and for operational space applica-tions systems” (9). Traditionally, gov-ernments have interpreted this tomean that the ESA could not runprograms with any military contentand that ESA is solely a civilian spaceagency. But they have since revisedthis interpretation. Due to theabsence of a clear definition of“peaceful purposes,” the phrase isnow interpreted as “non-aggressive”rather than “non-military”, whichmeans that military uses are allowedand lawful so long as they remain“non-aggressive”. European govern-ments now agree that the ESA maydevelop systems and run space pro-grams, such as those involving moni-toring and surveillance satellites,which European armed forces coulduse for non-aggressive military activ-

ities like peacekeeping (10). Thegrowing “European” level approachto security may soon provide a linkbetween the European and nationallevels of space activity; this wouldhave important implications fortrans-Atlantic relations (11).

CONCLUSIONS

The Cold War competitionfor space has now almost totally dis-appeared; international cooperationdriven by foreign policy and cost-sharing considerations have takencenter stage, with international, polit-ical and economic competition alsofactoring into the equation. ForNASA, cooperation was not only apolicy decision, it was also a means tosecure support for its mission inCongress. For Europe and the ESAin particular, cooperation with theUnited States offered more opportu-nities to participate in missions whichthey could not achieve alone. Hence,there was a mutual interest in cooper-ation. However, fundamental differ-ences in current motivations andambitions, as well as recent coopera-tive results, have led to trans-Atlanticcooperation difficulties.

With the re-election to a sec-ond term, U.S. President Bush hasanother three years to get his Vision


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for Space Exploration off to a solidstart. But even with election resultsthat put the Republican Party firmlyin control of the Congress, the long-term space exploration strategy laidout in January 2004 still faces consid-erable challenges. One is convincingthe U.S. Congress to continuallyapprove the funding that NASA isseeking to complete the effort.However, the short term challenge isto convince various internationalpartners(especially Europe), to jointhis Vision for Space Exploration. Asuccessful agreement on the futuredirection of the International SpaceStation is the prerequisite to any sig-nificant European participation inthis program. If the U.S. wants tobegin its journey it should seriouslyconsider Europe as an important andequally capable partner.

Cooperation between ESAand NASA in scientific projects rep-resents the traditional mode of trans-Atlantic cooperation. However, theevolution of the space context inEurope, especially with the ESA’sevolving position on security issues,will be challenging for future trans-Atlantic relations. This has beenclearly illustrated by the tensionbetween the United States andEurope over Galileo. The emergence

of new concerns regarding space andsecurity within the EU and the ESAwill thus involve a new axis of trans-Atlantic discussion involving a U.S.partner, the Department of Defense.

The changes in policy, orga-nizational structure, and funding atthe European level and the develop-ment of a European level securityspace architecture will affect thenature of traditional European – U.S.space cooperation. The newEuropean dipole consisting of theEU and the ESA could either be acapable partner or a serious competi-tor for the U.S., depending on theU.S. attitude. The second Bushadministration needs to define a clearpolicy on the civilian and militaryagendas regarding Europe that willhave to oscillate between cooperationand competition. The trans-Atlanticspace relationship is at a crossroads.Europe and the U.S. have been closepartners in space activities since the1970s. Yet key trends on how eachside approaches space may pose sig-nificant challenges to this partnershipthat may reinforce or exacerbateexisting structural differencesbetween the U.S. and the EU. Will the21st century see a growing trans-Atlantic rift in space policy?


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(1) ESA, “The European Space Sector in a Global Context. ESA’s Annual Analysis2003” January 2004(2) Nicolas Peter, “What’s Next for Trans-Atlantic Space Relations?” SpaceNews. Op-Ed. January 10, 2005. Volume 16 Issue 1(3) Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, accessible athttp://european-convention.eu.int/amendemTrait.asp?lang=EN(4) National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, accessible athttp://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/spaceact.html(5) The Vision for Space Exploration, accessible athttp://www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/explore_main.html(6) Congressional Budget Office (CBO), “CBO Study: A Budgetary Analysis ofNASA’s New Vision for Space Exploration”. September 2004.(7) John M. Logsdon, “ A security space capability for Europe? Implicationsfor U.S. policy”. Space Policy. November 2002(8) Xavier Pasco 2004, “Ready for take off ? European defence and space technology”in Europe in Space. Center For European Reform. October 2004(9) ESA convention accessible at http://www.esa.int/convention/(10) Carl Bilt and Matt Dillon, “Europe’s final frontier” in Europe in Space.Center For European Reform. October 2004(11) Stefano Silvestri (Ed), “Space and Security Policy in Europe”. InstitutoAffari Internazionali. November 2003.(12) ESA, “Agenda 2007” October 2003.

1 For the purpose of this paper cooperation is used as a generic term denot-ing international participation in a project.

References


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Documents

NJIA Winter 2007