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Type: IOCR

  • US puts Pakistan, Turkey on Child Soldier Recruiter List

    The US has added Pakistan and 14 other countries to a Child Soldier Recruiter List that identifies foreign governments having government-supported armed groups that recruit or use child soldiers.

    Who is a child soldier?

    • The recruitment or use of children below the age of 15 as soldiers is prohibited by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
    • Currently, 193 countries have ratified the CRC.
    • The CRC requires state parties to “take all feasible measures” to ensure that children under 18 are not engaged in direct hostilities.
    • It further prohibits the state parties from recruiting children under 15 into the armed forces.
    • It is considered a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
    • In addition, the Optional Protocol to the CRC further prohibits kids under the age 18 from being compulsorily recruited into state or non-state armed forces or directly engaging in hostilities.
    • The United States is a party to the Optional Protocol.

    What is US law?

    • The US adopted the Child Soldiers Prevention Act (CSPA) in 2008.
    • The CSPA prohibits the US government from providing military assistance, including money, military education and training, or direct sales of military equipment, to alleged countries.

    What is prohibited for countries on the list?

    The following types of security assistance are prohibited for countries that are on the list:

    • Licenses for direct commercial sales of military equipment
    • Foreign military financing for the purchase of defence articles and services, as well as design and construction services
    • International military education and training
    • Excess defence articles
    • Peacekeeping operations

    Criticism of the treaty

    • International treaties like CRS are valuable and necessary tools to establish international norms as they raise awareness regarding human rights abuses.
    • However, these treaties are limited in scope and nature, and they tend to be idealistic rather than practicable.
    • The UN’s mechanisms only bind state parties that ratify the treaties.
    • It, therefore, has no authority over countries that are not parties to the convention or are non-state entities, such as rebel militias recruiting child soldiers.
    • While the UN views its treaties and conventions as binding on state parties, it has no police power mechanism to enforce its decisions.
    • Therefore, the CRC and its Optional Protocol are limited by the signatories’ willingness to comply. Somalia, for example, is a signatory but it hasn’t ratified the convention.

  • OPEC+ seeks consensus on oil output

    OPEC+ has failed to reach a deal on oil output policy because the United Arab Emirates blocked some aspects of the pact.

    About OPEC

    • OPEC is a permanent, intergovernmental organization, created at the Baghdad Conference in 1960, by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.
    • It aims to manage the supply of oil in an effort to set the price of oil in the world market, in order to avoid fluctuations that might affect the economies of both producing and purchasing countries.
    • It is headquartered in Vienna, Austria.
    • OPEC membership is open to any country that is a substantial exporter of oil and which shares the ideals of the organization.
    • Today OPEC is a cartel that includes 14 nations, predominantly from the middle east whose sole responsibility is to control prices and moderate supply.

    What is OPEC+?

    • The non-OPEC countries which export crude oil along with the 14 OPECs are termed as OPEC plus countries.
    • OPEC plus countries include Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, South Sudan, and Sudan.
    • Saudi and Russia, both have been at the heart of a three-year alliance of oil producers known as OPEC Plus — which now includes 11 OPEC members and 10 non-OPEC nations — that aims to shore up oil prices with production cuts.

    Must read:

    [Burning Issue] Oil Prices and OPEC+

    Concerns for India

    • Rising oil prices are posing fiscal challenges for India, where heavily-taxed retail fuel prices have touched record highs, threatening the demand-driven recovery.
    • India imports about 84% of its oil and relies on West Asian supplies to meet over three-fifths of its demand.
    • As one of the largest crude-consuming countries, India is concerned that such actions by producing countries have the potential to undermine consumption-led recovery.
    • This would hurt consumers, especially in our price-sensitive market.

    Answer this PYQ in the comment box:

    Q.The term ‘West Texas Intermediate’, sometimes found in news, refers to a grade of (CSP 2020):

    (a) Crude oil

    (b) Bullion

    (c) Rare earth elements

    (d) Uranium

  • Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition

    At the recently concluded Leaders’ Summit on Climate in April 2021, the Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition was announced.

    LEAF Coalition

    • LEAF Coalition is a collective of the US, UK and Norway governments.
    • It is a public-private effort, thus supported by transnational corporations (TNCs) like Unilever plc, Amazon, Nestle, Airbnb etc.
    • It came up with a $1 billion fund plan that shall be offered to countries committed to arresting the decline of their tropical forests by 2030.
    • The LEAF coalition initiative is a step towards concretizing the aims and objectives of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism.

    How does this coalition work?

    • The LEAF Coalition can help reverse the trend by providing unprecedented financial support to tropical forest governments implementing forest protection, contributing to green and resilient growth through sustainable investments.
    • It empowers tropical and subtropical forest countries to move more rapidly towards ending deforestation while supporting them in achieving their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.
    • Reductions in emissions are made across entire countries or large states and provinces (“jurisdictions”) through programs that involve all key stakeholders, including Indigenous peoples and local communities.

    Why is it significant?

    • Financial impetus is crucial as it incentivizes developing countries to capture extensive deforestation and provide livelihood opportunities to forest-dependent populations.
    • The initiative comes at a crucial time when the tropics have lost close to 12.2 million hectares (mha) of tree cover year last year according to global estimates released by Global Forest Watch.
    • Most of these lost forests were located in the developing countries of Latin America, Africa and South Asia.
    • India’s estimated loss in 2020 stands at 20.8-kilo hectares due to forest fires

    What lies next?

    • Implementation of the LEAF Coalition will help pump in fresh rigour among developing countries like India, that are reluctant to recognize the contributions of their forest-dwelling populations in mitigating climate change.
    • With the deadline for proposal submission fast approaching, India needs to act swiftly on a revised strategy.
    • Although India has pledged to carry out its REDD+ commitments, it is impossible to do so without seeking knowledge from its forest-dwelling population.

    Answer this PYQ in the comment box:

    With reference to ‘Forest Carbon Partnership Facility’, which of the following statements is/ are correct?  (CSP 2013)

    1. It is a global partnership of governments, businesses, civil society and indigenous peoples.
    2. It provides financial aid to universities, individual scientists and institutions involved in scientific forestry research to develop eco-friendly and climate adaptation technologies for sustainable forest management.
    3. It assists the countries in their ‘REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation+)’ efforts by providing them with financial and technical assistance.

    Select the correct answer using the code given below:

    (a) 1 only (b) 2 and 3 only (c) 1 and 3 only (d) 1, 2 and 3

    Back2Basics: REDD+

    • REDD+ is a mechanism developed by Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
    • It creates a financial value for the carbon stored in forests by offering incentives for developing countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development.
    • Developing countries would receive results-based payments for results-based actions.
    • REDD+ goes beyond simply deforestation and forest degradation and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.
    • It aims to create incentives for communities so that they stop forest degrading practices.

  • OECD-G20 Inclusive Framework Tax Deal

    India has joining the OECD-G20 framework for a global minimum tax.

    Must read

    What is Global Minimum Corporate Tax?

    What is this tax deal?

    • The proposed solution consists of two components:
    1. Pillar One is about the reallocation of an additional share of profit to the market jurisdictions and
    2. Pillar Two consists of minimum tax and subject to tax rules
    • Some significant issues including share of profit allocation and scope of subject to tax rules, remain open and need to be addressed.
    • Further, the technical details of the proposal will be worked out in the coming months and a consensus agreement is expected by October.

    Why did India join?

    • The principles underlying the solution vindicates India’s stand for a greater share of profits for the markets, consideration of demand-side factors in profit allocation.
    • There is a need to seriously address the issue of cross border profit shifting and need for the subject to tax rules to stop treaty shopping.
    • India is in favour of a consensus solution that is simple to implement and simple to comply with.
    • At the same time, the solution should result in the allocation of meaningful and sustainable revenue to market jurisdictions, particularly for developing and emerging economies.

    What is Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS)?

    • BEPS refers to corporate tax planning strategies used by multinationals to “shift” profits from higher-tax jurisdictions to lower-tax jurisdictions.
    • It thus “erodes” the “tax base” of the higher-tax jurisdictions.
    • Corporate tax havens offer BEPS tools to “shift” profits to the haven, and additional BEPS tools to avoid paying taxes within the haven.
    • It is alleged that BEPS is associated mostly with American technology and life science multinationals.

  • Global Cybersecurity Index 2020

    India has made it to the top 10 in Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) 2020 by ITU, moving up 37 places to rank as the tenth best country in the world on key cybersafety parameters.

    Global Cybersecurity Index

    • GCI assessment is done on the basis of performance on five parameters of cybersecurity including legal measures, technical measures, organizational measures, capacity development, and cooperation.
    • The performance is then aggregated into an overall score.
    • For each of the five aspects, all the countries’ performance and commitment are assessed through a question-based online survey, which further allowed for the collection of the supporting evidence.

    India’s progress

    • As per the ranking, India has moved up by 37 places to rank as the tenth best country in the world.
    • The US topped the chart, followed by the UK and Saudi Arabia tied on the second position, while Estonia was ranked third in the index.
    • India has also secured the fourth position in the Asia Pacific region, underlining its commitment to cybersecurity.

    Its significance

    • The affirmation by the UN body of India’s efforts on cybersecurity comes just ahead of the sixth anniversary of Digital India on July 1.
    • India is emerging as a global IT superpower, asserting its digital sovereignty with firm measures to safeguard data privacy and online rights of citizens.

    Back2Basics: International Telecommunication Union

    • ITU is the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies – ICTs.
    • Founded in 1865 to facilitate international connectivity in communications networks. It is Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
    • It allocates global radio spectrum and satellite orbits, develops the technical standards that ensure networks and technologies seamlessly interconnect, and strives to improve access to ICTs to underserved communities worldwide.
    • Recently, India got elected as a member of ITU Council for another 4-year term – from 2019 to 2022. India has remained a regular member since 1952.

  • What is Chicago Convention of 1944?

    A private commercial flight was forced to make an emergency landing in Minsk by a MiG-29 fighter jet of Belarus.  The incident received considerable global attention.

    How justified was Belarus in taking such a decision?

    • The answer lies at the junction of Belarus’s domestic laws as a sovereign country and international laws governing the action that states can legitimately take to deal with threats to security, real or perceived.
    • The issue of the use of military aircraft to neutralize potential threats posed by civilian aircraft acquired a different kind of urgency in the aftermath of terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, 2001.
    • Generally speaking, international law grants sovereignty to nations over their airspace as it does in territorial waters.

    The Chicago Convention of 1944

    • The Convention on International Civil Aviation, better known as the Chicago Convention of 1944, to which Belarus is a signatory state, prohibits any unlawful intervention against a civilian aircraft.
    • At the same time, it has various provisions under Article 9 which permit a sovereign state the right to impose restrictions.
    • This includes enforced landings at a designated airport in its territory, in “exceptional circumstances or during a period of emergency, or in the interest of public safety”.
    • Once a flight has landed, Article 16 provides the host country the right to board/search the aircraft.
    • This is probably the clause that provided cover for the local authorities to board Mr. Morales’s aircraft in Austria in 2013.
    • But the Chicago Convention applies only to civilian aircraft of the contracting parties.

    Other such laws

    • International law might also have to be examined in light of the International Air Services Transit Agreement (IASTA), also concluded in Chicago in 1944.
    • According to this agreement, contracting states grant to one another the freedom of air transit in respect of scheduled international air services, that is, the privilege to fly across territories without landing.
    • Belarus is not a signatory of IASTA.

  • NATO and China

    In a communiqué issued following the June 14 summit of its member-states in Brussels, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), for the first time, explicitly described China as a security risk.

    Try answering this question:

    Q.NATO has been an ideal vehicle for power-projection around the world by the US. Critically comment.

    China as a global threat

    • China has never figured in NATO summit declarations before, except for a minor reference in 2019 to the “opportunities and challenges” it presented.
    • But China’s stated ambitions and assertive behaviour present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to NATO security.
    • China has reacted sharply. It has urged NATO to view China’s development rationally, stop exaggerating various forms of China threat theory.
    • The other two threats identified by the NATO communiqué are on predictable lines: Russia and terrorism.

    Focus over two nations

    • There is a significant difference, however, between a strategic focus on countering Russia and casting China as a “systemic challenge”.
    • This goes back to NATO’s founding mandate and subsequent history.

    What is NATO, btw?

    • NATO, the planet’s largest — and largest-ever — military alliance, was formed in 1949 by 12 Allied powers to counter the massive Soviet armies stationed in Eastern and Central Europe after Second World War.
    • According to Paul-Henri Spaak, the second Secretary-General of NATO, it was, ironically enough, Joseph Stalin who is the true father of NATO.
    • It was Stalin’s overreach — especially with the Berlin blockade of 1948-49 and the orchestrated coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948 — that convinced a diverse set of war-ravaged European nations to come together under an American security blanket.
    • The collective defence principle enshrined in NATO’s Article V states that “an attack against one ally is considered as an attack against all allies”.
    • The formation of NATO, and its Soviet counterpart, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955, inaugurated the Cold War era.

    NATO and its relevance now

    • NATO was completely successful in its mission of protecting the “Euro-Atlantic area” from Soviet expansion and preventing war between the two superpowers.
    • When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, questions were raised about NATO’s relevance and future.
    • Since the Non-aligned Movement (NAM) became irrelevant when the Communist bloc disappeared, one cannot justify the continuation of a military alliance formed to protect Europe from Communist expansion.

    Post-Cold War era mandate of NATO

    • Its bureaucracy succeeded in refashioning NATO for the post-Cold war era.
    • The refashioning rested on a paradigm shift — from collective defence, which implied a known adversary, to collective security, which is open-ended, and might require action against any number of threats.
    • The threat included unknown ones and non-state actors.
    • In other words, the elimination of one threat to Europe — communist Russia — did not necessarily mean that security risks to Europe have vanished.

    Why dismantle a beneficial arrangement

    • Another factor in the persistence of NATO is that, like all successful alliances, it has been a mutually beneficial arrangement.
    • For Europe, it was an attractive bargain where, in exchange for a marginal loss in autonomy, it enjoyed absolute security at a cheap price.
    • Not having to spend massively on defence allowed Europe to focus on building powerful economies and invest its surplus in a strong welfare state.
    • NATO also offered the added bonus of keeping Germany down — historically a major factor for peace and stability in the region.

    An effective American weapon

    • For the US, NATO has been an ideal vehicle for power projection around the world — in places beyond the Euro-Atlantic area, such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
    • It views NATO as a tool to ensure the primacy of American interests across the globe.
    • Unsurprisingly, NATO’s post-Cold War role has evolved in tandem with U.S. foreign policy priorities.
    • The NATO doctrine of “enlargement”, which Russia calls “expansion”, is essentially about extending the American military footprint by bringing in new members.
    • That is how NATO’s membership today stands at 30, having added 14 members between 1999 and 2020.

    The final truth

    • The Biden administration wants to mobilize NATO member-states behind its larger objective of containing China.
    • NATO’s European member states may view China as an economic rival and adversary, but they are unconvinced by the American line that it is an outright security threat.
    • This line also, in a way, points to the underlying logic behind NATO’s persistence in the post-Soviet world.
    • Unlike the Soviet Union, China offers no alternative vision of society that could make Western capitalism insecure.
    • In fact, its own economy is already deeply integrated into Western markets. China, nonetheless, is perceived as posing a ‘threat’.
    • It remains to be seen how far an ageing Europe would be willing to commit itself to a strategic path that prefers confrontation to collaboration like the US.

    Also read:

    India & NATO

  • World Competitiveness Ranking 2021

    India’s position has remained unchanged at 43 for the third year in a row in the World Competitiveness Ranking by Switzerland-based Institute for Management Development (IMD).

    World Competitiveness Ranking

    • The IMD World Competitiveness Ranking ranks 64 economies and assesses the extent to which a country promotes the prosperity of its people by measuring economic well-being through hard data and survey responses from executives.
    • The ranking examines four factors — economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency, and infrastructure.
    • The top-performing economies are characterized by varying degrees of investment in innovation, diversified economic activities, and supportive public policy.

    India’s performance

    • Among the BRICS nations, India is ranked second after China (16), followed by Russia (45th), Brazil (57th) and South Africa (62th).
    • Among the four indices used, India’s ranking in government efficiency increased to 46 from 50 a year ago, while its ranking in other parameters such as economic performance (37), business efficiency (32) and infrastructure (49) remained the same.
    • India has maintained its position for the past three years but this year, it had significant improvements in government efficiency.

  • G7 Open Societies Pact on Universal Rights

    India has signed off on a joint statement by G-7 and guest countries on “open societies” that reaffirm and encourage the values of “freedom of expression, both online and offline, as a freedom that safeguards democracy and helps people live free from fear and oppression”.

    What is the Open Societies Pact?

    • The ‘Open Societies Statement’ was adopted at the end of an outreach session titled ‘Building Back Together—Open Societies and Economies’, where PM Modi was invited as a lead speaker.
    • The joint statement was signed by the G-7 countries, and India, South Korea, Australia and South Africa, with host British Prime Minister Boris Johnson calling them “Democracies 11”.
    • It refers to “politically motivated internet shutdowns” as one of the threats to freedom and democracy.
    • It affirms “human rights for all, both online and offline, as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other HR instruments, and opposition to any form of discrimination, so that everyone can participate fully and equally in society”.

    Why needs such a pact?

    • Democracy and freedom were a part of India’s civilizational ethos”.
    • However, the common concern is that open societies are particularly vulnerable to disinformation and cyber-attacks.

    Impact of the pact

    • While the statement is directed at China and Russia, India has been under scrutiny over Internet curbs in Jammu and Kashmir.
    • Moreover, the center is locked in a face-off over its new IT rules with tech giants such as Twitter, which described a police search at its offices in India last month as a “potential threat to freedom of expression”.

  • Rare Earth Metals at the heart of China-US rivalry

    Beijing’s dominance in rare earth minerals, the key to the future of manufacturing, is a cause for concern for the West.

    Answer this question from CSP 2011 in the comment box:

    Q.What is the difference between a CFL and an LED lamp? 

    1. To produce light, a CFL uses mercury vapor and phosphor while an LED lamp uses semi-conductor material.
      2. The average life span of a CFL is much longer than that of an LED lamp
      3. A CFL is less energy-efficient as compared to an LED lamp.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

    (a) Only 1

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 1 and 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

    What are Rare Earth Metals?

    • The rare earth elements (REE) are a set of seventeen metallic elements. These include the fifteen lanthanides on the periodic table plus scandium and yttrium.
    • Rare earth elements are an essential part of many high-tech devices.
    • They have a wide range of applications, especially high-tech consumer products, such as cellular telephones, computer hard drives, electric and hybrid vehicles, and flat-screen monitors and televisions.
    • Significant defense applications include electronic displays, guidance systems, lasers, and radar and sonar systems.
    • Rare earth minerals, with names like neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium, are crucial to the manufacture of magnets used in industries of the future, such as wind turbines and electric cars.

    Curbing dependence on China

    • At a time of frequent geopolitical friction among those three powers, Washington and Brussels want to avoid this scenario.
    • They are investing in the market for 17 minerals with unique properties that today are largely extracted and refined in China.
    • The expected exponential growth in demand for minerals that are linked to clean energy is putting more pressure on US and Europe to take a closer look.
    • Amid the transition to green energy, in which rare earth minerals are sure to play a role, China’s market dominance is enough to sound an alarm in western capitals.

    Why such a move?

    • In 2019, the U.S. imported 80% of its rare earth minerals from China.
    • The EU gets 98% of its supply from China.