Femmes et questions de genre

The scale of global mobility is staggering: according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), there were 258 million international migrants in the world in 2017, equivalent to almost 3.5% of the global population (GMDAC and IOC 2018). Another 66 million adults had plans to move permanently to another country in 2015. People leave their home countries for a host of reasons, often in combination and often for different reasons at different points along the journey: in search of a better life for themselves and their families; to support families back home through remittances; for a better education; or, for the 25 million refugees in the world today, to escape violence, war, and persecution. For many of these people, their journeys are costly, hazardous, or even deadly: in 2017, at least 6,000 migrants lost their lives or went missing during their journey. Thousands more are vulnerable to abuse, detention, harassment, trafficking, and modern slavery. One study on Darfuri migration to Europe documented systematic abuse, exploitation, discrimination, and physical violence at every stage of the journey from Sudan (Jaspars and Buchanan-Smith 2018).

Sustainable economic growth is essential to improve people’s living standards. International trade and investment are important engines of growth and development. While multilateral rules for trade exist, establishing multilateral rules on investment and linking these rules with trade has been challenging. Paradoxically, global economic governance started on the right foot, with the 1948 Havana Charter for an International Trade Organization (ITO) containing provisions on both trade and investment. In particular, art. 12 used language that still sounds relevant today. It was based on the recognition that a stable, non-discriminatory international trading system could be better achieved through a single set of legally binding multilateral rules. It also referred to the value of common principles “regarding the conduct, practices and treatment of foreign investment”.

At the UN General Assembly in September 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were approved. They replaced and broadened the scope of the goals for the millennium that were issued at the end of the 1990s in order to prepare countries for the 21st century. More ambitious than the previous goals, the SDGs address new problems afflicting the planet. Although there have been improvements in some social indicators and a slight reduction in the damage we are causing to the environment and to our planet’s future, the slow pace of policy and the lack of political boldness and creativity in the solutions provided by decision makers have been exacerbated by the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

It has been almost three years since I returned to Tsinghua University after serving more than eight years as a member at the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO). I miss the WTO dispute settlement mechanism, which has earned a reputation as the ‘crown jewel’ of the WTO system, as well as my former colleagues and friends at the Appellate Body. Since the decision-making process in dispute resolution evolved from a ‘consensus’ approach under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) to a ‘negative consensus’ approach under the WTO, it has become almost automatic for panels to be established and reports to be adopted. In 1995, an independent Appellate Body was set up to hear and correct any legal errors, particularly in relation to legal interpretation and application, in the panel reports.

When we first broached the topic of Womenomics and Japan’s need for greater gender diversity in 1999, our argument was not social or cultural, but rather a simple economic one. After all, the three key determinants of economic growth for any country are: labour, capital, and productivity. Since Japan’s population is shrinking, capital is finite, and productivity gains will take time, unless radical steps are taken quickly, we argued that the nation not only faced the risk of a further decline in its productivity and potential growth rate, but eventually, lower standards of living as well.

We are living at the intersection of three tectonic shifts: a digital revolution, which is changing the way we produce, trade, and work; an environmental revolution, as the strained ecological boundaries of our planet oblige us to review how we produce and consume; and a social revolution, as economic insecurity drives angry politics and a mismatch between expectations and reality fuels voter dissatisfaction across the world. On top of these three revolutions, geopolitics are back: growing strategic competition between the United States and China threatens to derail progress achieved in the last 70 years. How we respond to these changes will shape our future.

This volume would not exist without the continuing support of Nneka Henry and Evelyn Seltier, who have been efficient correspondents with us and this publication’s numerous contributors. The volume also benefited from the assistance of Ines Ayari and Pippa McDougall.

Macroeconomic stability and financial stability are the key preconditions for building investor confidence. All investors, portfolio and direct alike, invest in those countries that can guarantee a certain level of policy predictability and whose economies are largely resilient to shocks. Meeting these two conditions reduces the macroeconomic risks for projects, allowing a country to attract more long-term investments as well as investors from the complex sectors of the economy. On the other hand, portfolio investments themselves can be a source of volatility. Therefore, in order to guarantee price and financial stability, central banks should have a consistent and predictable monetary policy framework in place that includes a range of financial stability instruments and can manage risks to both domestic and reserve currency liquidity.

Globalisation has been roiling labour markets for two centuries. The face of human suffering in global supply chains is sometimes horrific, as in the 2013 building collapse at Rana Plaza, in which more than 1,100 Bangladeshi apparel workers were crushed to death. Equally troubling is the quiet but devastating erosion of the wellbeing of whole communities due to China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), an event that has been costly in terms of lives lost to suicide, opioid addiction, children living in poverty, and single-parent households (Autor et al. 2018). Our collective failure to address the human consequences of globalisation is now, in turn, eroding a commitment to democratic values and basic human decency and increasing polarisation in domestic politics.

Taxation is a critical source of domestic revenue for all governments. This is particularly the case for developing countries, which generally raise far less revenue from tax, relatively speaking, than developed countries. Developing countries struggle to raise sufficient revenue to provide basic services such as road infrastructure, healthcare, and public safety. Research indicates that revenue equivalent to at least 15% of GDP is necessary to finance these basic services, but in almost half of the world’s 75 poorest countries, tax revenues are below this threshold. Revenue generation is impacted directly by tax evasion, which is a particularly acute problem in developing countries. Strengthening tax policy and administration, and providing tools to fight tax evasion, therefore takes centre stage in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework.

The fact that multilateralism is in crisis should hardly come as a surprise. The fractured trust in globalisation comes in large part from the dominant model of global trade and the resulting inequality it has created over the last 40 years. The exploitative model of global supply chains has taken a machete to the social contract in country after country and perpetrated unbalanced development to the point where inequality is now a global risk. Notwithstanding this, I am still shocked to hear government ministers and trade negotiators say regularly “but trade is not responsible for this” or “the wealth can be distributed afterwards”!

Globalisation influences our lives, our work and economy, our food and clothing, our communication and, yes, even the way we think. It is precisely for this reason that many people feel overwhelmed by it. I hope that, instead of focusing on the risks of globalisation, we can perceive and take advantage of the opportunities it presents.

The multilateral institutions established following World War II provided a framework that supported the reconstruction and development of countries devastated by the war, and in recent decades has helped many developing countries to pursue policies that reduced the incidence of poverty and per capita incomes. Increases in trade and foreign direct investment flows, official development assistance, regional integration efforts by nations in all parts of the globe, and technological changes that reduced transport costs for goods, services, and people have been drivers of growth.

Humanitarian aid workers can often be exposed to risks to their security. Some risks are inherent to the context, such as situations of armed conflict. In 2016, the greatest number of incidents of aid workers killed, injured or kidnapped occurred in Syria, with at least 132 documented incidents. In armed conflict, international humanitarian law prohibits attacks, harassment, intimidation and arbitrary detention of humanitarian relief personnel. In his report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict (2017), the UN Secretary-General called for enhanced protection of humanitarian workers and assets. Globally, the number of aid workers killed, injured, assaulted and arrested increased in 2016 compared with 2015. The number of aid workers kidnapped remained about the same in 2015 and 2016, but the number of kidnapped aid workers released in 2016 decreased by approximately 43 per cent. Of the documented weapons used in incidents where aid workers were killed, injured or kidnapped, the use of explosive weapons experienced the greatest increase between 2015 (38 incidents) and 2016 (133 incidents).

The number of political conflicts has increased since 2006. As of 2016, 402 conflicts were ongoing, compared to 278 in 2006. Of the 402 conflicts in 2016, 38 were documented as high-intensity conflicts, including war. Conflicts in Syria and Yemen escalated to full-scale war in 2016. Since 2006, medium-intensity conflicts have experienced the greatest increase in number: from 83 in 2006 to 188 in 2016. On average, Asia and Oceania records the most conflicts per year (118) and has experienced the greatest increase in the number of conflicts since 2006.