open Democracy News Analysis - Accountability's global thread , Simon Zadek - Comments

Peter Verhezen on "Accountability's global thread "

Peter Verhezen — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 07:56:19 +0100

Simon made it clear that without accountability, any society or corporation for that matter will unravel. Citizens will face serious global challenges which needs to be addressed by those in power but also by ordinary citizens who cannot hide behind personal irresponsible behavior. Claiming rights is one thing, but without taking one's own responsibility and being accounted for one deeds (either on an individual or corporate level), one makes a joke of "political democracy".

Okey on "Accountability's global thread "

Okey — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:18:07 +0000

Mr. Zadek’s article describes non-profit organisations as failing to mobilize significant progress in some aspects of the accountability campaign. Essentially, non-profits, such as NGOs, are facing many constraints and a tough battle ahead of them. With the Internet as an alternative public sphere however, NGOs are mobilizing the spirit of accountability and enhancing their crucial role as “watchdogs” over governments, businesses and organisations in public and private sectors. For example, various NGO staff members have contributed relevant texts to the Better Aid Blog, part of a campaign which aims to hold governments and multilateral agencies accountable for many commitments they have made to make aid more effective for Southern countries. In essence, this campaign is indeed enhancing much needed pressure on relevant institutions, which will eventually lead to positive and significant action (hopefully sooner, rather than later).

Visit the blog at: http://www.betteraid.org/blog/

douglas-jones on "Accountability's global thread "

douglas-jones — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 23:04:40 +0000

Surely the writer has forgotten how accountable we have been over Saddam and his henchmen. Tore the head off one according to reports.
Like Nuremberg Victors justice but we sure made him accountable. Needles to say we are doing our best to make the Taliban accountable to the will of the West. They were only in part our creation but designers must be allowed to correct their mistakes.
There are a few who are trying to bring some accountability for the Iraq war, making known the Downing Street memoranda, the most well known of Government documents. There are others and plenty of writers revealing claimed inside knowledge.
Except in America where bringing accountability by impeachment under their constitution since America does not acknowledge the ICC, accountability is an attempt to use the Rome Statute incorporated in most National jurisdictions.
But yes the media is less than informative in fact uninformative giving only reports and opinions relevant to maintenance of the elite.
Somebody mentioned trust. I would be grateful for suggestions as who we might trust.
Academics? Gary Olsen of the political Science department Moravian College Bethlehem PA, has published www.zcommunications.org/znet/ViewArticlePrint/16246 bringing together the latest on research into empathy, claimed to be a possible solution to our problems if we can arrange to have empathy rather than dominance inculcated in our kids and ourselves.

alfredo.bremont on "Accountability's global thread "

alfredo.bremont — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 20:44:15 +0000

well it is time to read a one dimensional men by Herbert Marcuse, just to celebrate the 40 years of 1968 revolution, it might be time to recognize Erich Froom and the many of that time that were negleted. or rather have we become so automatize that consciousness has cease to be. how about bertrand russel letter to AE.

In the tragic situation which confronts humanity, we feel that scientists should assemble in conference to appraise the perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction, and to discuss a resolution in the spirit of the appended draft.

We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent or creed, but as human beings, members of the species man, whose continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts; and overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between Communism and anti-Communism.

Almost everybody who is not politically conscious has strong feelings about one or more of these issue; but we want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings and consider yourselves only as members of a biological species which has had a remarkable history, and whose disappearance none of us can desire.

We shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than to another. All, equally,, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that we may collectively avert it.

We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever military group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: What steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?

The general public, and even many men in positions of authority, have not realized what would be involved in a war with nuclear bombs. The general public still thinks in terms of the obliteration of cities. It is understood that new bombs are more powerful than the old, and that, while one A-bomb could obliterate Hiroshima, one H-bomb could obliterate the largest cities, such as London, New York and Moscow.

No doubt in an H-bomb war great cities would be obliterated. But his is one of the minor disasters that would have to be faced. If everybody in London, New York and Moscow were exterminated, the world might, in the course of a few centuries, recover from the blow. But we now know, especially from the Bikini test, that nuclear bombs can gradually spread destruction over a very much wider area than had been supposed.

It is stated on very good authority that a bomb can now be manufactured which will be 2,500 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima.

Such a bomb, if exploded near the ground or underwater, sends radioactive particles into the upper air. They sink gradually and reach the surface of the earth in a form of a deadly dust or rain. It was this dust which infected the Japanese fishermen and their catch of fish.

No one knows how widely such lethal radioactive particles might be diffused, but the best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with H-bombs might quite possibly put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death--sudden only for a minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration.

Many warnings have been uttered by eminent men of science and by authorities in military strategy. None of them will say that the worst results are certain. What they do say is that these results are possible, and that no one can be sure that they will not be realized.

We have not yet found that the views of experts depend in any way upon their politics or prejudices. They depend only, so far as our researches have revealed, upon the extent of the particular expert's knowledge. We have found that the men who know most are the most gloomy.

Here, then is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful, and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race, or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war.

The abolition of war will demand distasteful limitations of national sovereignty. But what perhaps impedes understanding of the situation more than anything else, is that the term mankind feels vague and abstract. People scarcely realize in imagination that the danger is to themselves and their children and grand children, and not only to their dimly apprehended humanity. They can scarcely bring themselves to grasp that they, individually, and those whom they love are in imminent danger of perishing agonizingly. And so they hope that perhaps war may be allowed to continue provided modern weapons are prohibited.

This hope is illusory. Whatever agreements not to use the H-bombs had been reached in time of peace, they would no longer be considered binding in time of war, and both side would set to work to manufacture H-bombs as soon as war broke out, for, if one side manufactured H-bombs and the other did not, the side that manufactured them would inevitably be victorious.

Although an agreement to renounce nuclear weapons as part of a general reduction of armaments would not afford an ultimate solution, it would serve certain important purposes.

First: Any agreement between East and West is to the good because it serves to diminish tension. Second: The abolition of thermonuclear weapons, if each side believed that the other had carried it out sincerely, would lessen fear of a sudden attack in the style of Pearl Harbour, which at present keeps both sides in a state of nervous apprehension. We should therefore, welcome such an agreement, though only as a first step.

Most of us are not neutral in feelings, but, as human beings, we have to remember that, if the issues between East and West are to be decided in any manner that can give any possible satisfaction to anybody, whether Communist or anti-Communist, whether Asian or European or American, whether white of black, then these issues must not be decided by war. We should wish this to be understood both in the East and in the West.

There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal, as human beings, to human beings: Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.

RESOLUTION

We invite the congress [to be convened], and through it, the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution:

"In view of the fact that in any future world war, nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly that their purposes cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them."

Besides Einstein and Russell, eight scientists had signed the declaration at the time of its release. They were: Percy B. Bridgeman and Herman Muller of the USA; Cecil F. Powell and Joseph Rotblat of England; Frederick Joliot-Curie of France, Leopold Infeld of Poland; Hideki Yukawa of Japan and Max Born of Germany. Linus Pauling's name was soon added. Of the eleven 9 were Nobel Prize winners, and Rotblat would later receive the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions including founding the Pugwash movement.

tezcatlipoca on "Accountability's global thread "

tezcatlipoca — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:55:06 +0000

I agree wholly with both Simon and jdubow above, and I want to add something. Although it may be simplistic, I believe that Americans should be held accountable for their apathy and compliance. I have met more and more people over the years that are fed up with the way things are and the overwhelming majority of people I have talked to, for example, think Bush should be impeached. Yet, he remains in office, currently on his hubristic tour of the Mid East. And look at the options we have for the upcoming elections! I believe that Americans need to hold themselves accountable, like it was stated about the 'toxic toys', we are getting what we pay for.

And I think Hermann Hesse would kill himself if he was alive today.

jdubow on "Accountability's global thread "

jdubow — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 19:46:03 +0000

I agree with Zadek's sense of alarm at the global loss of faith in governing institutions. Yet he neglects three components of that loss that are crucial and whose absence may preclude a solution.

One component a loss of faith that people are getting the information needed to assess accountability. Educated people on all sides of the political spectrum, especially those in the Center and the Right, have a well documented belief that the media and academia are constrained in what they can cover and how they can cover it by a group of social forces grouped into the label of "political correctness". Thus even shocking revelations are tempered in their impact by the perception that the messingers are deliberately distorting the messages. This makes it impossible to develop a consensus around who is or isn't accountable.

The second component is the absence of principles or standards to which institutions can be held. A consensus can't be formed on even the most core issues of civilization. Thus the killing of innocent civilians and mass killings, which should be one thing we all could agree on, is considered good if your favored group does it and bad if the "other" does it. This applies to the environment, to geopolitics and to most other subjects.

The third component is the loss of the social space of compromise. All too often various groups of people, countries or industries are cast as absolute villians that need to be beaten down or, at a minimum, have their feet "held to the fire". The failure of the Kyoto agreements and the failure of the International Criminal Courts in the US is a case in point. In large measure these were defeated because of the perceptions of American leaders that the rules would be applied very unequally and that the institutions would be used as clubs against the US by competitors and enemies. The history and behavior of the UN only reinforced those suspicions.

These three factors, lack of credible information, binary classifications of peoples, and unwillingness to compromise undercut the foundation upon which accountablity can be identified and enforced. The media and the academic communities have much to contribute here. After all, Hermann Hesse got the Nobel Prize in literature for his book "The Glass Bead Game", a human and literate depiction of the failures of the Academic, Religious and Media communities in Germany to identify and respond to Nazism. I wonder what he would say today.

Accountability's global thread , Simon Zadek

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 07:04:15 +0000

The foundation of a healthy public realm is effective accountability of governments, businesses and organisations. Each day, there are reminders of how much goes wrong when this quality is absent - not least in corroding the trust of citizens, employees and consumers in those who govern, employ, or sell to them. When accountability practices fail, individual rights quickly erode in the face of those in power pursuing personal agendas and enrichment over the common good.

Simon Zadek is chief executive of AccountAbility, a senior fellow at the Centre for Government and Business of Harvard University's Kennedy School, and an honorary professor at the University of South Africa

Among Simon Zadek's articles in openDemocracy:

"Reinventing accountability for the 21st century" (11 September 2005)

"China's route to business responsibility" (30 November 2005)

"Accountability: the other climate change" (31 October 2006)

"Davos: changing the world from within"(22 January 2007)

"The four faces of the World Economic Forum" (9 February 2007)

"Reinventing global trade: the MFA Forum" (15 April 2007) The absence of effective accountability is the trigger that eventually leads societies to fail - sometimes in dramatic ways (civil unrest, wars, and disease), sometimes via incremental decline (involving a series of "small" steps - withholding savings from banks or critical health details from insurers for fear of penalty, giving up voting) that has the same cumulative effect.

If societies work best when people at the sharp end of power are able to civilise those who hold it, then an accountability health-check for 2007 suggests that it was a pretty uncivilised year. The period ahead promises a critical challenge: how to entrench accountability in principle and in practice as part of the common sense of the age. The stakes - from global public health to political corruption, from corporate responsibility to a new climate-change regime - are very high.

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