Dear all, Upon inheriting the Looking Glass from our predecessors, we identified a number of key issues. Firstly, there were simply not enough articles being published, due both to a lack of submissions from the school community and limited responsiveness from the previous Academic Team. Secondly, the Looking Glass had not been advertised or explained effectively enough to the wider school community. As a result, we plan to implement a more consistent and engaging stream of articles on the Looking Glass. As part of this initiative, we are looking to recruit a select group of keen writers from across the lower school who would be willing to produce one high-quality piece of writing, discussion, or media each month for publication on the Looking Glass. We believe this will be hugely beneficial both to the school community, which will gain access to a wider range of opinions and viewpoints, and to prospective writers, who will be able to reference their experience contributing to the Look...
HARSHAL SADWELKAR (U6)
Introduction
From a purely humanitarian perspective, it is impossible to claim that richer nations, better known as High Income Countries (HICs) owe nothing to poorer countries, referred to as Low Income Countries (LICs).
Specifically demonstrated through the distribution of international aid in the light of national disasters that tend to frequent regions of the globe that typically are home to LICs, considering the mass loss of life that would occur without any foreign intervention.
Furthermore, regarding the Climate Crisis in which all nations are expected to play a part to amend, yet the key issue of pollution as a result of production processes is significantly larger in LICs that lack the efficient, lower polluting infrastructure but also the ability to level up to cleaner, greener process.
Moreover, all nations and in turn their governments, by virtue of their sovereignty are endowed with certain rights that afford them the ability to grow and govern without foreign impedance or interference. A large number of the HICs of the modern world have engaged in a number of colonial affairs which, when examined closely, can be linked to their current prosperity and thus an argument can be made that a certain level of retribution or reparations are owed to the countries that had been colonised, by the countries that engaged in colonising.
All in all, it is apparent that having considered the modern and historical implications of the actions of HNIs towards LICs, an argument can be made to claim that richer nations owe a great deal to poorer nations, specifically in terms of foreign aid in disaster response situations, in the Climate Crisis, and in reparations for colonialism.
The Question of International Aid
International aid is distributed most nations around the world, with nearly every HNI sending foreign aid to impoverished parts of the world. This aid usually comes in the form of: money; food and supplies; disaster response in the form of medical and relief teams; and training services as part of education initiatives.
In 1970, the United Nations formalised policy on Official Development Assistance (1) (ODA) in which the richest countries in the world pledged to commit 0.7% of the Gross National Income (GNI) for the development of the Global South (2) - a term with broad terms of reference that refers to the regions of Latin America, Asia, Africa and Oceania that denotes “third world“ nations in regions outside of Europe and North America that are mostly LICs and also usually political or culturally marginalised. Furthermore, the UN Millennium development goals in 2000 (1) and the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 (1) reiterated the 0.7% of GNI commitment to international aid.
These UN initiatives reaffirmed the idea of international foreign aid as part of a “redistribution between countries” in terms of a “moral imperative in a world where global inequality has reached extreme levels” and also starts to stake make claims regarding the past, and in some circumstances, the ongoing exploitation of poorer nations.
Globalisation (3) takes the view that humanity is currently standing at the threshold of realising one single unfired community in which nearly all sources of social and political conflict disappear in a quest for the overall betterment of society. While this is certainly an idealistic perspective, it is difficult to ignore the basic notion that by working together, nations will be better able to contribute to the improvement of living standards and towards innovation for better technology. International aid is designed to alleviate pressures on the economies of impoverished nations by providing funds for social programmes - for example, seven sub-Saharan nations fund their social protection programmes entirely through international aid (1).
The concept of eudaemonia (4), more commonly understood as the flourishing of mankind, has influenced various philosophers from Aquinas to Nussbaum who have developed theories regarding this innate desire for humans to want to improve humanity, which is an imperative part of international aid in relation to the basic improvement of the lives of people worldwide. At a wider level, Micheal Marmot, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at UCL, has conducted research that has brought the idea of inequality into the centre of policymaking, which has been most impactful in the recent pandemic where all government policy need to keep eudaemonia at the forefront of decision-making in government, be it in regards to Building Back Better, or providing free school meals for schoolchildren. More importantly, this should extend to foreign policy, specifically regarding International aid where ensuring that any aid delivered is designed to increase the wellbeing of peoples lives first and foremost.
All in all, as demonstrated by the UN’s ODA to the philosophical ideas of globalisation and eudaemonia show that international aid is more than a minor decision in foreign policy, but instead a moral imperative to ensure that everyone, everywhere has the ability to flourish.
The Imbalanced Responsibility of the Climate Crisis
The Climate Crisis facing the world today is inarguably one of the greatest predicament that has faced humanity since its conception. The issue at heart stems from HNIs that had seized the opportunity to industrialise in the late 18th century onwards by exploiting the remarkable energy dense properties of coal, who now condemn LICs who are now trying to accomplish the same thing, yet are being thwarted with allegations of “dirty energy”.
This issue provides a Catch 22 situation in which these LICs can either choose to industrialise and grow their economies using coal and other fossil fuels, and face international condemnation; or push for economic growth using greener, better sources of energy yet at a significantly slower rate, and potentially risk economic catastrophe.
It is immediately apparent that this is surely unfair and no more than a thinly veiled neo-colonialist attempt to stop these nations in the Global South from utilising their vast economic resources and overtaking the West. Readdressing ideas proposed in the section on “The Question of International Aid”, this is certainly not contributory to Aristotle’s ideas of eudaemonia and human flourishing.
All in all, a case can certainly be made for HICs that had the opportunity to industrialise at an early age should bear the responsibility to help their LIC counterparts industrialise, but through greener means. This may come in the form of carbon credits, or the provision of cheap energy by providing the designs for, and also the construction of nuclear power plants, solar and wind farms or newer technologies as they come. This may not come in the form of direct international aid, but instead in foreign investment programmes as well.
The Philosophy of Sovereignty and Effects of Colonialism
All sovereign nations, and in turn their governments, are afforded the ability to govern without foreign interference with regards to domestic and foreign policy, the usage of natural resources or even how the country is run. These fundamental rights of sovereign states were developed in the contemporary sense by the writings of Machiavelli, Luther, Bodin and Hobbes. (6)
These rights were repeatedly violated by the colonial empires of various countries that can now refer to themselves as some of the richest in the world and are referred to by economists as HNIs. Certainly, it can be said that HNIs that profited and benefited from their colonial empires now owe it to LICs that were colonised to let them be and develop independently.
Moreover, this extends outside of previous colonial empires, but into countries such as China that are spending billions of dollars to curry favour in African nations. It is impossible to condone these actions as no more than neo-colonialist attitudes and that HNIs such as China owe it to LICs in places like Africa to receive foreign investment without the many strings that currently come with such investment stemming from China. (7)
Furthermore, a strong argument can be made that HNIs that had engaged in colonialism should pay reparations. This claim presents itself convincingly by debating that colonial actions, dubbed “crimes against humanity” deserve reparations to rectify past injustices against an individual, group or an entire country. (8)
Even more so, it is undeniable that these “crimes against humanity” were some of the worst in the world, and so the nations that profited must surely provide at least some settlement - and that HNIs owe LICs.
Conclusion
While there are various arguments that examine various elements of the many reasons richer nations owe poorer nations a great many things, specifically speaking: international aid; helping ease the burden of the climate crisis; the ability to exercise their sovereign right to develop unimpeded; and finally, in some cases, reparations for past colonial actions.
References
(2) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1536504212436479
(3) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/globalization/
(6) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sovereignty/#DefiSove
(8) https://www.odu.edu/content/dam/odu/offices/mun/2017/ib-2017-fourth-reparations-final.pdf
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