Why Nations Fail

             This book was a best-seller when was released and says what I have been saying in this blog for many years: for a better and successful country, we need a better education, and an effective democracy with an inclusive political system. This post is a summary of the book with the incomplete title above published in 2012 at  http://norayr.am/collections/books/Why-Nations-Fail-Daron-Acemoglu.pdf

              This book is about the huge differences in incomes and standards of living that separate the rich countries of the world, such as the U.S. the U.K. and Germany, from the poor, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, Central America, and South Asia. As we write this preface, North Africa and the Middle East have been shaken by the "Arab Spring." By January, 2011, President Zine El Abidine, who had ruled Tunisia since 1987, had stepped down, but far from abating, the revolutionary fervor had already spread to the rest of the Middle East. Hosni Mubarak, who had ruled Egypt with a tight grip for almost thirty years, was ousted on February 2011. The roots of discontent in these countries lie in their poverty. 20% of the population is in dire poverty. What are the constraints that keep Egyptians from becoming more prosperous?  A natural way to start thinking about this is to look at what the Egyptians themselves are saying about the problems they face and why they rose up against the Mubarak regime. Noha Hamed, a worker at an advertising agency in Cairo, made her views clear as she demonstrated in Tahrir Square: "We are suffering from corruption, oppression and bad education. We are living amid a corruption system which has to change." The protestors in Tahrir Square spoke with one voice about the corruption of the government, its inability to deliver public services, and the lack of opportunity in their country. They particularly complained about repression and the absence of political rights. When the protestors started to formulate their demands more systematically, the first twelve were posted by Wael Khalil, a blogger who emerged as one of the leaders of the Egyptian movement, were all focused on political change. Issues such as raising the minimum wage appeared only later. To Egyptians, the things that have held them back include an ineffective and corrupt state and a society where they can not use their talent, ingenuity, and education they can get. But they also recognize that the roots of these problems are political. When they reason about why a country such as Egypt is poor, most academics emphasize different factors. Some stress that Egypt's poverty is determined primarily by its geography, by the fact that the country is mostly a desert and lacks adequate rainfall. Others instead point to cultural attributes that are supposedly inimical to economic development. Egyptians, they argue, lack the same sort of work ethic and cultural traits that have allowed others to prosper, and instead have accepted Islamic beliefs that are inconsistent with economic success. A third approach, is based on the notion that the rulers of Egypt simply don't know what is needed to make their country prosperous, and have followed incorrect policies and strategies in the past. In this book we'll argue that the Egyptians in Tahrir Square have the right idea. In fact, Egypt is poor precisely because it has been ruled by a narrow elite that have organized society for their own benefit at the expense of the vast mass of people. Political power has been narrowly concentrated, and has been used to create great wealth for those who possess it, such as the $70 billion fortune apparently accumulated by ex-president Mubarak. Countries such as Great Britain and the U.S. became rich because their citizens created a society where political rights were much more broadly distributed, where government was accountable and responsive to citizens, and where the great mass of poeple could take advantage of economic opportunities. We'll see that the reason that Britain is richer than Egypt is because in 1688, Britain (or England, to be exact) had a revolution that transformed the politics and thus the economics of the nation. People fought for and won more political rights, The result was a fundamentally diferent political and economic trajectory. Between 1820 and 1845, 40% of those who took out patents had only primary schooling or less, just like Thomas Edison. Moreover, they often exploited their patent by starting a firm, again like Edison. Just as the U.S. in the nineteenth century was more democratic politically than almost any other nation in the world at the time, it was also more democratic than others when it came to innovation. This was critical to its path to becoming the most economically innovative nation in the world. The real way to make money from a patent was to start your own business. But to start a business, you need capital, and you need banks to lend the capital to you. Inventors in the U. S. were once fortunate. During the nineteenth century there was a rapid expansion of financial intermediation and banking that was a crucial facilitator of the rapid growth and industrialization that the economy experienced. By 1914 there were 27,864 banks, with total assets of $27.3 billion. Potential inventors in the U.S. had ready access to capital to start their businesses. Moreover, the intense competition among banks and financial institutions meant that this capital was available at fairly low interest rates. The reason that the U.S. had a banking industry that was radically better for the economic prosperity of the country had nothing to do with differences in the motivation of those who owned the banks. Indeed, the profit motive, which underpinned the monopolistic nature of the banking industry in Mexico, was present in the U.S. , too. But this profit motive was channeled differently because of the different U.S. institutions. The banks also quickly got into business of lending money to the politicians who regulated them, just as in Mexico. But this situation was not sustainable in the U.S. Unlike in Mexico, in the U.S. the citizens could keep politicians in check and get rid of ones who would use their offices to enrich themselves. The broad distribution of political rights in the U.S. guarantted equal access to finance and loans. This in turn ensured that those with good ideas and inventions could benefit from them.The reason that Nogales, U.S. is richer than Nogales, Mexico, is simple; it is because of the very different institutions on the two sides of the border, which create very different incentives for the inhabitants. The U.S. is also richer today than either Mexico or Peru because of the way its institutions, both economic and political shape the incentives of businesses, individuals and politicians. It is the political process that determines what economic institutions people live under, and it is the political institutions that determines the ability of citizens, albeit imperfect, or that they have usurped, to amass their own fortunes and to pursue their own agendas. It is also necessary to consider more broadly the factors that determine how political power is distributed in society. The people of South Korea have living standards similar to those of Portugal and Spain. To the north, in the in the so-called North Korea, living standards are akin to those of a sub-Saharan African country, about one-tenth of average living standards in South Korea. These striking differences are not ancient. In fact, they did not exist prior to the end of the World War II. But after 1945, the different governments in the north and the south adopted very different ways of organizing their economies. In the North Korea not only did industrial production fail to take off, but in fact experienced also a collapse in agricultural productivity. Lack of private property meant that few people had incentives to invest or to exert effort to increase or even maintain productivity. The stifling, repressive regime was inimical to innovation and the adoption of new technologies. North Korea continues to stagnate economically. Meanwhile, in the South Korea, eonomic institutions encouraged investment and trade. South Korea politicians invested in education, achieving high rates of literacy and schooling. South Korea companies were quick to take advantage of the educated population, the policies evcouraging investment, industrialization, exports, and the transfer of technology. South Korea quickly became one of the most rapidly growing nations in the world. The economic disaster of North Korea, which led to the starvation of millions, when placed against the South Korean economic success, is striking: neither culture nor geography nor ignorance can explain the divergent paths of North and South Korea. We have to look institutions for an answer. Those in the North Korea grow up without adequate education, creativity or entrepreneurial initiative. Much of the education they receive at school is pure propaganda, meant to shore up the legitimacy of the regime. These teenagers know that they will not be able to own property, start a business. They are even unsure about what kind of human rights they will have. Those in the South obtain a good education, and face incentives that encourage them to exert effort and excel in their chosen vocation. South Korean teenagers know that, if successful as entrepreneures or workers, they can one day improve their standard of living. Inclusive economic institutions create inclusive markets, which not only give people freedom to pursue the vocations in life that best suit their talents but also provide a level playing field that gives them opportunity to do so. Inclusive economic institutions also pave the way for two other engines of prosperity: technology and education. Sustained economic growth is almost always accompanied by technological improvements that enable people to become more productive. Intimately linked to tecnology are the education, skills, competencies and know-how of the workforce, acquired in schools, at home, and on the job. All the technology in the world would be of little use without workers who knew how to operate it. It is the education and skills of the workforce that generate the scientific knowledge upon which our progress is built and that enable the adaptation and adoption of these technologies in diverse lines of business. The low education level of poor countries is caused by economic institutions that fail to create incentives for parents to educate their children and by political institutions that fail to induce the government to build, finance, and support schools and the wishes of parents and children. The price these nations pay for low education of their population and lack of inclusive markets is high. They fail to mobilize their talents. They have many potential Bill Gates and perhaps some Albert Einstein who are now working as poor, uneducated workers, being coerced to do what they don't want to do or being drafted into the army, because they never had the opportunity to realize their vocation in life. Political and economic institutions, which are ultimately the choice of society, can be inclusive and encourage economic growth. Or they can be exclusive and extractive and become impediments to economic growth. Nations fail when they have exclusive and extractive institutions, supported by extractive political institutions that impede and even block economic growth. We have to understand why the politics of some societies lead to inclusive institutions that foster economic growth, while the politics of other to extractive institutions that hamper economic growth. The fundamental problem is that there will necessary be disputes and conflict over economic institutions. Different institutions have different consequences for the prosperity of a nation, how that prosperity is distributed, and who has power. This was clear during the Indusrial Revolution in England, which laid the foundations of the prosperity we see in the rich countries of the world today. It centered on a series of pathbreaking technological changes in steam power, transportation, and textile production. Even though mechanization led to enormous increases in incomes and became the foundation of modern industrial society, it was bitterly opposed by many. Such opposition to economic growth has its own logic. Economic growth and technological change are accompanied by what the great economist Joseph Schumpeter called creative destruction. They replaced the old with the new. New sectors attract resources away from old ones. New technologies make existing skills and machines obsolete. Fear of creative destruction is often at the root of the opposition to inclusive economic and political institutions. European history provides a vivid example of the consequences of creative destruction. On the eve of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, the governments of most European countries were controlled by aristocracies and traditional elites, whose major source of income was landholdings or from trading privileges they enjoyed thanks to monarchs. Consistent with the idea of creative destruction, the spread of industries and towns took resources away from the land, reduced land rents, and increased the wages that landowners had to pay. Urbanization and the emergence of a socially conscious middle and working class also challenged the political monopoly of landed aristocracies. 

Human Rights in Latin America

               This post is a summary of three articles. The first with the title above was published at  http://ella.practicalaction.org/wp-content/uploads/files/130128_GOV_ProHumRig_GUIDE.pdf. The second was published at http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/14652.html. The third was published at http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/la/maine.html

             Human rights have played a key role in ending dictatorship in Latin America, inspiring democracy, fostering social justice and generating a more empowered and active citizenship. This guide highlights the key policies and practices that have made these advances possible. In particular, it focuses on two aspects of the Latin American experience. First, it explores the ways that states have implemented concrete legislative and public policy actions at the national and regional level to meet their obligations to protect and defend human rights. And second, highlights the impact of the activism of a vibrant civil society in using these mechanisms to promote and guarantee the realisation of human rights, and in creating oversight mechanisms to monitor states' compliance with their human rights obligations. Nowadays, Latin American countries present a contrasting panorama in terms of human rights. The 2011 Annual Report of the Inter-American Commission highlights some key advances in human rights, such as constitutional acknowledgement, protection of vulnerable groups and reparation for past crimes. But at the same time, key human rights challenges persist, such as "the demand for justice and the end to impunity, the end of security policies which ignore human rights, and failure to respect the rights of excluded groups like indigenous people, women,and children ". The variety of Latin American experiences in establishing mechanisms to meet the human rights obligations can be categorised into two types. The first has to do with states's obligations to protect and defend human rights by building a legal and institutional framework to enforce human rights at the domestic level. The second set has to do with states's obligations to promote and guarantee human rights. With the backing of legal and institutional frameworks, both governments and civil society are using these mechanisms to ensure the effective realisation of these rights. National courts have a crucial role in the implementation of the binding decisions of an international tribunal organ such as the Inter-American Court. In this process, the role of judges and and lawyers is fundamental to ensure that national courts will implement the international norms and standards at the domestic level. During dictatorships and after transition to democracy, episodes of social conflict have led to human rights violations in many Latin America countries, From this repression, groups of victims have emerged as crucial actors in transitional justice processes by calling on governments to guarantee their rights and reparation measures. These entail a range of structural and institutional reforms, as well as appropriate compensation, sanctions for violators of humsn rights and transparent efforts to reconstruct the truth. In every case, the victims demanding their rights to justice, truth and to a range of reparation measures for the abuses they had suffered is key to challenge governments to change the contexts that enable human rights violations. National human rights institutions in Latin America, also known as Public Defenders, Human Rights Commission or Human Rights Attorneys are becoming increasingly recognised for the strong and proactive role they are playing in promoting human rights. The creation of these institutions responded to the particular context of Latin America, a region emerging from the repression and armed conflict of the 1970s and 1980s, so that these institutions took on a particular shape, responding to the need for implementing mechanisms that control human rights abuses perpetrated by government authorities. Latin America's human rights institutions have become key players in promoting an innovative human rights strategy: integrating a human rights approach within public institutions' agendas and in public policies, programmes and laws within their jurisdiction. Another of their roles is mediating social conflict and fostering more active citizenship. Even if states have adopted legislative and institutional frameworks that guarantee human rights, they are essentially useless without specific public policy measures to guarantee human rights are realised, meaning that states undertake administrative, financial and even methodological changes to truly promote and guarantee the effective realisation of human rights. In Latin America over the last two decades, participation in strategic litigation has become increasingly prominent as a tactic to shape the realisation of human rights, in particular focusing on social rights. Strategic litigation deals with "issues that transcend individual circumstances to enter the judicial environment and attempts to determine human rights violations, foster legal reforms, and construct coalitions that create pressure for changes." The region is home to a number of organisations who are successfully using strategic litigation to promote human rights in their countries. To name only two, good experiences in developing strategic litigation may be represented by the Centre for Legal and Social Studies in Colombia and the Civil Association for Equality and Justice in Argentina. Both organisations are using litigation as a tool to promote human rights. They have managed to make social cases public by pointing out deficiencies in domestic frameworks to fulfil human rights. These cases demonstrate the usefulness and effectiveness of this tool when used to advance human rights and to influence public policies. Recently, some Latin America experts have pushed forward a joint agenda for anti-corruption policies and human rights based on three common principles: participation, transparency, and access to information and accountability. Based on these principles, civil society organisations (CSO) have been developing a variety of strategies to strengthen oversight mechanisms, like using the right to information to monitor the spending of public funds. CSOs can prevent corruption and may guarantee a better use and destination of public funds devoted to specific groups. The American Convention on Human Rights represented the region's first attempt at addressing human rights, establishing specific obligations for states and creating two mechanisms that may intervene in matters related to states fulfilling their human rights obligations: the Inter-American Commission and the Inter-American Court. These two organisations have pushed Latin American states to guarantee human rights by elaborating well-documented reports that denounce violations. they have also taken up individual cases and have provided precautionary measures to human rights defenders, advancing enforcement of human rights in the region.

              "Through this book Sonia Cardenas' voice emerges as that of a determined but clear-eyed optimist, willing to confort the dark realities of politics and power but inclining toward what another Latin Americanist, adopted as 'a bias for hope." ... In all, it is a remarkable compact synthesis on this sprawling subject." Said Alexander Wilde from Journal of Latin America Studies. For the last half century, Latin America has been plagued by civil wars, dictatorship, torture, legacies of colonialism and racism, and other evils. The region has also experienced dramatic, if uneven, human rights improvements. The accounts of how Latin America's people have dealt with the persistent threats to their fundamental rights, offer lessons for people around the world. Human Rights in Latin America: A Politics of Terror and Hope is the first textbook to provide a comprehensive introduction to the issues facing an area that constitutes more than half of the Western Hemisphere. Sonia Cardenas brings together regional examples of both terror and hope, emphasizing the dualities inherent in human rights struggles. Organized by three pivotal topics: human rights violations, reform, and accountability. This book offers an authoritative synthesis of research on human rights on the continent. From historical accounts of abuse to successful transnational campaigns and legal battles, this book explores the tensions underlying a vast range of human rights initiatives. In addition to surveying the roles of the U.S.A., relatives of the disappeared, and truth commissions, Sonia covers newer ground in addressing the colonial and ideological underpinnings of human rights abuses, emerging campaigns for disability and sexuality rights, and regional dynamics relating to the International Criminal Court. Engagingly written and fully illustrate, this book creates a niche among human rights textbooks. 

               The human rights situation in Latin America varies considerably country to country. Yet, if there is one violation that is common to most of the continent, it is impunity, the lack of punishment, and often even of investigation, to those who are responsible for committing the most dire human rights abuses. Impunity has the effect not only of leaving free those who have committed these abuses, but of communicating to the rest that they can do as they wish with the population, and will not have to suffer for it. We believe that exposing human rights violations is the first step in battling against them. It is much easier to kill, rape, torture and unjustly imprison under the cover of darkness. We hope that the reports there will be useful to you, and that will also encourage you to work to stop human rights violations in Latin America and the world.

Making Education a Priority in the Development Agenda

                  This post is a summary of the report published with the incomplete title above in September 2013  https://www.unicef.org/education/files/Making_Education_a_Priority_in_the_Post-2015_Development_Agenda.pdfe

             Mobilization of resources for education is identified as an important strength of the goals framework at the national and international levels. Increased spending on education has been a significant factor in positive educational outcomes, with expanding education budgets in low-income countries making a key contribution to education progress. A global education agenda is crucial to mobilizing partnerships among all actors, including civil society organizations such as NGOs. \in addition, the involvement of the orivate sector in the global education agenda is becoming more commonplace, and global frameworks are recognized as important because they facilitate the mutual accountability of all stakeholders. Nevertheless, the lack of political will to invest in education has been raised as a key concern. Adequate financing and government commitment were often cited as key obstacles to making adequate progress in achieving the global education goals. As a basic right, education is an intrinsic good in itself, leading to broadened individual capacities and freedoms. Further, it is associated with a host of positive development coutcomes that contribute to the achievement of other development goals. Education underpins all social progress. If the general education level worldwide is improved, global unemployment problems can be hugely tackled leading to improvements in poverty and general standards of living. This further emphasized that access alone is not enough, and that good-quality education is key to national development and individual well-being. In commenting on the inseparable link between education and development goals, a contributor to the online Education consultations maintained that if there were only one development agenda beyond 2015, it should be "equitable human development." This theme was echoed in the Addressing Inequalities consultation, where comments highlighted two factors - increasing access to secondary education for vulnerable groups, and the quality of education delivered - as important considerations for reducing inequity. One contribution to this consultation called for a "development agenda which should ensure sustained action and accountability for universal access to quality, comprehensive, integrated health education and services, counselling and information, with respect for human rights and emphasising equality and respect for diversity."  Good governance relies on educated citizens who are able to exercise their democratic rights, and have tolerance and respect for each other. An educated population is able to hold government to account and to participate effectively in decision making at all levels of society. The interaction of education and health is seen in the fact that learning acievement has an impact on combating disease and raising healthy families. Education has positive effects on lowering child mortality, improving child health and nutrition, and lowering the number of children per household. One of the strongest themes that emerged in the education consultations was a rights-based approach in which rights are indivisible. This suggest that all aspects of education should be considered from a rights perspective. Through omission and a skewed focus, the current global education agenda has tended to neglect the right to education of vulnerable groups and has failed to address issues of inequality in education that compromise this right. The specific roles of respective stakeholders generated much discussion in the consultations. Frequent references were made to parents's involvement in schools to ensure that schools/teachers are held accountable. There were also strong feelings that parents and local communities should have greater ownership of schools. Many contributions mentioned the importance of community involvement in raising awareness and marginalized groups. To facilitate shared responsibility, a clear framework for decentralizing education is required that recognized the differentiated role of stakeholders, including policymakers, schools administrators, teachers and parents. Civil society and NGOs have a crucial role to play in education, particularly in holding governments accountable. Effective public-private partnership requires effective coordination and regulatory mechanisms that enable dialogue and debate between governments and the private sector around a common vision of education. The role of the private sector is vital within the context of changing labour market trends and the new skills required. To ensure sustainability, programmes for education and training and skills development must endeavour to respond to learners' and labour market demands. Discussion about private sector also brought into focus the role of private schools and, in particular, low-fee private schools. While it was noted that governments and donors could improve effectiveness by subsidizing established private schools rather than starting new public schools, the role of government in regulating the private sector was also mentioned. Meaningful participation is closely associated with accountability, and the accountability of education  ministries to citizens, and schools to parents requires processes and structures that are transparent. Transparency is important in overcoming corruption and abuse of power, and in enabling stakeholders to have access to information to better understand the outcomes of education investments and hold governments accountable. Frequently Mentioned Obstacles to Good-Quality Education: 1) Social context - poverty was the major reason for children not accessing or dropping out of formal education. Tuition fees, malnutrition, poor living conditions and parental literacy levels were also connected to participation and learning levels. 2) Narrow focus on primary education - failure to consider all levels of education. 3) Inequity - failure to include and respond to the needs of children and young people socially excluded or with disabilities. Lack of attention to children living in contexts of political instability, conflict, disasters and emergencies. 4) Inputs and infrastructure - poor learning condition, such as; shortage of desks, classroom and adequate school building, lack of appropriate teaching and learning materials and poor schools environments. 5) Education process - these items included a narrow focus on assessment, shortage of qualified teachers, outdated curricula, absence of linkages to employment, and violence in schools. The consultations highlighted teachers' central role in ensuring good-quality education. Teachers' qualification, competence, commitment and motivation to deliver quality education are central in achieving any goal related to education.  The contributions also underscored the following essentials for supporting teachers' effectiveness: 1) good conditions of employment, including duration of contracts and salaries, and prospects for career progression. 2) good conditions in the work environment, based on schools contexts that are conducive to teaching. 3) high-quality pre- and in-service training for teachers, based on respect for human rights and inclusive education. 4) effective management, including teahcer recruitment. The consultations noted that a major challenge in education and training was to establish better links with employment opportunities and employability. One recurring theme was that education systems are failing to equip youth with relevant skills and competencies for securing decent work. Several imputs spoke about an education system that was not responsive to the labour market and an outdated curriculum that did not provide skills for the twenty-first century.

The Boundaries of Privacy Harm

                   This post is a summary of the essay with the title above published in 2011 at http://ilj.law.indiana.edu/articles/86/86_3_Calo.pdf

       Just as a burn is an injury caused by heat, so is privacy harm a unique injury with specific boundaries and characteristics. This essay describes privacy harm into two related categories. The subjective category of privacy harm is the perception of unwanted observation. This category describes unwelcome mental states - anxiety, embarrasment, fear - that stem from the belief that one is being watched or monitored. Examples of subjective privacy harms include everything from a landlord eavesdropping to generalized government surveillance. The objective category of privacy harm is the unanticipated or coerced use of information concerning a person against that person. These are negative, external actions justified by reference to personal information. Examples include identity theft, the leaking of classified informaton that reveals an undercover agent, and the use of a drunk-driving suspect's blood as evidence against him. The subjective and objective categories of privacy harm are distinct but related. Just as assault is the apprehension of battery, so is the perception of unwanted observation largely an apprehension of information-driven injury. The categories represent, respectively, the anticipation and consequence of a loss of control over personal information. This approach offers several advantages. It uncouples privacy harm from privacy violations, demonstrating that no person need commit a privacy violation for privacy harm to occur and vice versa. It creates a "limiting principle" capable of revealing when another value - autonomy or equality, for instance is more directly at stake. It also creates a "rule of recognition" that permits the identification of a privacy harm when no other harm is apparent. Finally, this approach permits the measurement and redress of privacy harm in novel ways. Privacy harm is a crucial but under-theorized aspect of an important issue. We should understand its mechanism and scope if only for the sake of conceptual clarity. But identifying its boundaries will also be of practical use to scholars, courts, and regulators attempting to vindicate and protect privacy and other values. If too many problems come to be included under the rubric of privacy harm, everything from contraception to nuisance, we risk losing sight of what is important and uniquely worrisome about the loss of privacy. Setting boundaries concentrates the notion of privacy harm and bolsters the case for what privacy deserves to be enforced in its own right. A hasty diagnosis may obscure a serious medical problem. But sometimes doctors look at a constellation of symptoms and see no disease. Courts, too, can resist recognition of an unfamiliar harm. Understanding the boundaries and mechanics of privacy harm may also allow for a "rule of recognition", that is, a means to identify and evidence a non-obvious problem. seeing the privacy harm in unsolicited e-mail requires looking closely at how mass spam is generated through a particular lens. As several scholars point out, spam is often targeted on the basis of purchased or misappropriated private information. Spam requires an e-mail address, generally considered personally identifiable information, to reach an inbox. This suggest a novel way to regulate spam or junk mail: directly as "objective privacy harm." at least one leading privacy scholar has questioned both the possibility and usefulness of defininf privacy or privacy harm. In a series of influential articles and books, Daniel Solove rejects the notion that privacy can or should be reduced to any one, or even multiple concepts. In this way, Solove suggest the irrelevance and improvidence of attempting to set boundaries around the concept of privacy or privacy harm. Those boundaries will always fail by including activities that do not deserve the label "privacy, " or leaving out ones that do. Solove specifically disavows the utility of isolating privacy harms from other sorts of harms. He is far more interested in identifying problems than in classifying them. Solove's criteria for inclusion involve recognition by the right sorts of authorities. His taxonomy "accounts for privacy problems that have achieved a significant degree of social recognition. It captures "the kinds of privacy problems that are addressed in various disucssions about privacy, laws, cases, constitution, guidelines, and other sources. Solove specifically turns to the law because "it provide concrete evidence of what problems societies have recognized as warranting attention. But what happens if someone disagrees with these sources? How does one go about denying that a given harm is a privacy harm? To be sure, Solove's approach makes many wise turns. It eschews the elusive search for a concept of privacy in favor of a pragmatic approach that focuses specifically on privacy problems and their resulting harms to individuals and society. Describing boundaries and core properties of privacy harm helps to reveal values, identify and address new problems, and guard against dilution. But exactly what are those boundaries and properties? I maintain that privacy harms in two categories. Subjective privacy harms are those that flow from the perception of unwanted observation. They can be acute or ongoing, and can accrue to one individual or to many. They can range in severity from mild disconfort at the presence of a security camera to mental pain and distress far greater than could be inflicted. Generally, to be considered harmful the observation must be unwanted. But actual observation need not occur to cause harm, perception of observation can be enough. The second category is "objective" in the sense of being external to the person harmed. This set of harms involves the forced or unanticipated use of information about a person against that person. Objective privacy harms can occur when personal information is used to adverse action against a person, as when the government leverage data mining of sensitive personal information to block a citizen from travel, or when there is some negative judgment about another based on gossip. Objective harms can also occur when such information is used to commit a crime, such as identity theft or murder. The subjective and objective categories of privacy harm are distinct but not entirely separate. They have different elements. The two components of privacy harm are related in an analogous way. Objective privacy harm is the actual adverse consequence. Subjective privacy harm is, by and large, the perception of loss of control that results in stress and discomfort. The two categories are distinct but related. They are two sides of the same coin: loss of control over personal autonomy and information. Subjective harms need not occur in the moment; many feelings of privacy violations have a delayed effect. Many subjective privacy harms will be backward looking insofar as the offending observation has already ended at the time of discovery ( or because of it). A different privacy harm occurs where observation is systematic, that is, part of a plan. Pervasive individual monitoring is, for instance, a key component of control of situations. It may also be that the so-called "learned helplessness" experienced by some abuse victims stems  from having internalized the feeling of being monitored. The Supreme Court has recognized the threat systematized governmental surveillance can impose on a citizenry. "The price of lawful public dissent must not be dread of subjection to an unchecked surveillance power," the court noted in a case. "Nor must fear of unauthorized official eavesdropping deter vigorous citizen dissent and discussion of Government action in private conversation." Episodic solitude, in essence, the periodic absence of the perception of observation, is a crucial aspect of daily life. People need solitude for comfort, self-development, even mental health. As Alan Westin argues:"privacy allows for respite from the emotional stimulation of daily life", to be always on surveillance would destroy the human organism." Charles Fried notes that, were our every action public, we might limit what we think and say. Indeed, the lack of any time away from others is a common feature of the modern dystopian novel. George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four continue to haunt the contemporary imagination. In Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, the buildings are completely transparent. The most frequently repeated act of mental conditioning Huxley's Brave New World is the dislike of solitude. Subjective privacy harms are injuries individuals experience from being observed. But why does the belief that one is being observed cause discomfort or apprehension? In some instances, the response seems to be reflexive or physical. The presence of another person, real or imagined, creates a state of "psychological arousal" that can be harmful if excessive. The embarrassment of being seen naked seems similarly ingrained. The two components of privacy harm are testable. Courts and regulators are capable of investigating, particularly with the help of experts, whether a person felt observed. But we do not stop here: we must multiply the degree of aversion by the extent of surveillance. In the case of massive outdoor surveillance by closed-circuit or pervasive aerial photography, especially where the footage is stored and processed, the extent of the surveillance is enormous. Thus, the ultimate harm can be quite large. Nearly every state has a data breach notification law that requires individuals or firms to notify victims or the government in the event of a breach. Data breach do not automatically lead to identity theft, blackmail, or other malfeasance. But, the exposure increases the risk of negative outcomes. As an initial matter, data breaches register as subjective privacy harms. When a consumer receives a notice in the mail telling that her/his personal information has leaked out into the open, she/he experiences the exact sort of apprehension and feeling of vulnerability the first category of privacy harm is concerned about. But what if there is a data breach or other increased risk of adverse consequence and the victim never knows about it? Then there has been neither subjective nor objective privacy harm, unless or until the information is used. We know information about us is being collected, processed, and used, sometimes against our interest. But we have no choice about, or understanding of, the underlying processes. Privacy harm in the contemporary world is less a function  of surveillance by a known entity for a controversial purpose. It is characterized instead by an absence of understanding, a discomfort punctuated by the act of disruption, unfairness, or violence. This privacy harm is not merely individual, but can lead to societal harms that are in a sense "architectural." The absence of privacy creates and reinforces unhealthy power imbalances and interferes with citizen self-actualization. There is no question that such architectural harms are important. They are not, however, best thought of as privacy harms. Rather, this harms are distinct harms, harms to societal cohesion and trust, that happen to be composed of privacy harms. Privacy harm is a distinct injury with particular boundaries and properties. This essay has argued that by delimiting privacy harm, we gain the ability both to rule out privacy harm where appropriate and to identify as they emerge. By looking at privacy harm in the way this essay suggests, we gain practical insight into the nature and range of this unique injury.  Privacy is in many ways on the cusp of a greater science. The hope is that by describing the outer boundaries and core properties of privacy harm, this essay has served to open an additional avenue of investigation.

The Rule of Law and Human Rights

               This post is a summary of the book published with the incomplete title above in 2017 at     http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/democraticgovernance/access_to_justiceandruleoflaw/rule-of-law-annual-report-2016.html The second summary is the article published at http://www.unesco.org/new/en/brasilia/social-and-human-sciences/human-rights/. The third was published at  https://kellogg.nd.edu/publications/workingpapers/WPS/256.pdf

                   2016 proved to be a challenging year in many regards, as the world witnessed worrying trends towards the closing of civic space, a rise of fear-based politics, and the increasing discriminatory acts against marginalized groups. Cohesive societies are a precursor for sustainable development, people can not realize their full potential nor actively contribute to their community without basic safety and security. To this end, UNDP's Global Programme on Strengthening the Rule of Law and Human Rights for Sustainable Peace and Fostering Development is designed to increase justice, security, and respect for human rights in contexts affected or threatened by crisis, conflict, and fragility. Over the course of many years working in complex contexts, we have learned that the cycles of violence, poverty, corruption, and impunity can rarely be escaped without programmes that are designed to mitigate the root causes of these issues. Furthermore, UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) supports national human rights institutions and civil society organizations to monitor and document abuses. This information is essential to effectively promote warning and action. Additionaly, UNDP supports transitional justice processes that serve to encourage societal healing through truth telling, provide justice and reparations for victims, and help guarantee non-recurrence. Lastly, UNDP's efforts to reform laws and integrate human rights principles into policy and practice help create institutional change to shift power dynamics, promote equality, and sustain progress. The rule of law fulfills an important stabilizing role amid the vagaries and turmoil of daily life and rapid tecnological and social developments. It is meant to be a voice of reason, especially in times of turbulence. To be true to its founding ideas of justice and equality, the rule of law also requires progressive thinking, anticipating, interpreting, and developing. It is incumbent upon us to rise to the challenge of today's world and to chart the way forward, informed by the values and principles of humanity. National leadership and government structures need to have the political will to uphold the rule of law, honor the social contract, and value social and political inclusion. Progress in these areas enables the rule of law to be embedded in socio-political culture and value and builds trust between the authorities and society at large. Rule of law institutions are frequently undermined by factors such as conflict and violence, criminality, sociopolitical marginalization, or systematic human rights violations. These circumstances, whether individually or collectively, disrupt the accessibility of effective justice and tarnish the legitimacy of the institutions responsible for delivering these services. Strengthening the rule of law through security and justice service that are inclusive, governed effectively, counter impunity and follow international standards is critical for driving development. Human rights constitute an important and objective tool to understand and address the inherent power issues underlying most contemporary development challenges. The establishment of oversight commissions can have a true impact in the reduction of human rights violations. Thus, integrating human rights principles within targeted rule of law support is key to sustaining transformative change and enhancing the rule of law, access to justice, and resilience. UNDP supports member states to expand access to justice, this includes the uses of mobile courts to resolve matters in hard-to-reach areas. Additionally, helping people to understand and enforce their rights, as well as access remedies, is crucial for long-term impact. UNDP engages in community legal awareness programmes and works directly with justice and security institutions to address the needs in accessing justice.

              The discussion on human rights and technical and political actions related to the theme have mobilized the national media. Consequently, it has increased the Brazilian society's awareness to extremely important issues for fostering citizenship and the respect for human rights. Despite considerable and innovative work in promoting human rights, Brazil still has some challenges: 1) There is no expressive understanding of the universality and indivisibility of civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights. 2) There is still a large number of people who continue to encounter major difficulties in exercising their citizenship and their basic rights. UNESCO understand that, only by mobilizing all social actors directly or indirectly involved in human rights defense, the movement can contribute to the promotion of citizenship, to the consolidation of democracy, and to widespread access to justice. Such advancements are essential in leading the country to build and strenghten a culture of human rights and a culture of peace. Human rights education is an integral part of the right to education and is increasingly gaining recognition as a human right in itself. Knowledge of rights and freedoms is considered a fundamental tool to guarantee respect for the rights of all.

            The present conjuncture of democratic consolidation, understood as continuous attention to a minimal list of prerequisites, such as: freedom of opinion, mechanisms of government accountability, and state commitment to the protection of human rights, constitutes a privileged moment to understand the persistence of authoritarian practices. Lack of transparency, lack of accountability, and impunity are the pillars of traditional economic and political domination. With the additional problem of monopolistic control over the media, transparency and the strengthening of democratic institutions become impossible. By holding elected officials and State bureucrats responsible to the voters, transparency through the media is an indispensable aspect of confronting human rights abuses. Brazilians live with the paradox of rigorously defined constitutional guarantees yet very weak citizenship. The constitution brought enormous progress to the protection of individual rights by conferring special treatment on human rights, recognizing their universality and immediate applicability. This gap between formal guarantees and violations persist because it corresponds to the discrepancy between the letter of the constitution and the functioning of the institutions charged with its protection and implementation as well as the practices of their agents. The legal framework defined by the Constitution allowed several institutions to achieve autonomy and improve their performance. A long list of new legal machanisms for enforcing constitutional provisions has come within reach. Many serious human rights violations would be drastically diminished through political reforms, better control over repressive apparatus, and improved functioning of the judiciary, even in the current legal framework. Significant improvements occurred in the structure of the federal Attorney General's office as a result of the powers and the autonomy guaranteed by the 1988 constitution. The constitution provides for federal jurisdiction over human rights violations. It is clear that no government policies and institutional reforms will have much chance for success without the mobilization of civil society. In this context the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, 1993, recognized, "the important role played by NGOs in the promotion of human rights and humanitarian activities". The Conference on Human Rights recognizes the value of the contribution of these organizations in raising public awareness of human rights issues, educational activities, training and research in this area, and in the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

140th Birthday of Herman Hesse - Part II

                 This week the tribute to Herman Hesse goes on. This post is a summary of a book published at http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1166&context=etd. The second is a summary of an article published at http://tomconoboy.blogspot.com.br/2011/04/glass-bead-game-by-hermann-hesse.html

              As Hesse's writing changes over the years, the theme of walking and wandering takes on an increasingly metaphorical role. In the early novels, walking is directly representative of the rebellion. In Glass Bead Game, the role walking plays is removed from his original method of using wandering to signify a reclamation of freedom. Yet, a reclamation of freedom is exactly what Josef Knecht achieves when he leaves the community of glass bead game in order to become a private tutor. Walking in this novel represent not his escape from a stifling intellectual environment, but rather an intellectual environment in which theory sees itself as superior to practice and where academic freedom is seemingly unending. Knecht, the protagonist, having spent his personal life in the perfection of a theoretical game, though, thirsts for experience in and of the real world. Knecht's wandering brings him to places where he can absorb knowledge that is unavailable in the pedagogical province's scholarly archives. A certain striving for individuality and feeling of urgency to develop and discern feelings for oneself seem to be the predominant way that readers identified with the author. The emphasis Hesse gave to inwardness and inmate personality gave support to the hippies and youth in their questioning of conventions and their rejection of the personas being imposed on them by authorities. Berman's definition works best for interpreting Hesse as a Modernist author, whose protagonists all rebel against the status quo in their lives. They insist on a life that serves the individual in its quest to break out of what Max Weber calls the "iron cage" into which modernity has confined such lives. Hesse's last two major novels, The Journey to the East(1932) and The Glass Bead Game(1943), taken together as halves of a whole, these books articulate Hesse's fear of extremes, both in politics and aesthetics. Written in the midst of uncertainty and fear of what the future might bring, these works assume that the political and cultural extremes of the twentieth century have been purged and buried in order to make way for new Utopian societies. Hesse is persistent in the tactics he uses to carry out his message of moderation, yet both novels convey his lifelong message to the reader, namely: that individuality is paramount. Even once Hesse removes the political and economic stains of world war from cultural and academic life in Glass Bead Game, the individual must still wrestle with and win the struggle against a powerful collective. On the second level, both novels express Hesse's ambivalence to Modernist literary themes as single works. The novels combine elements that are modernist (fragmentation, uncertainty, documentary style) with themes that Hesse resurrects from earlier literary periods (unity, wholeness, order, communion with nature and omission of modern technology). Hesse's reasons for choosing future for both novels are not immediately clear and must be extrapoled from his own words, "The creation of a cleansed atmosphere was necessary to me. The worldly culture of that time will be the same as that of today, but there will be a spiritual/intellectual culture. Living and serving it will be worthwhile, that is the picture of a dream that I'd like to paint for myself." The Glass Bead Game is the longest and final novel, set in the twenty-fifth century. Most of it takes place in the pedagogical province of Kastalien, which has been created as a holy land where intellectuals are allowed to practice scholarship without having to worry about money, food or shelter. Once its inhabitants have progressed through the schools and have joined the Order Players, they are free to pursue any kind of intellectual activity they desire. A principal part of life in the province consists of playing the Glass Bead Game. In this activity information from different fields of knowledge is converted into music. Instead of combining both modernist and traditional literary techniques as he does in earlier works, Hesse chooses to use mostly modern techniques together with Hegel's philosophy of history when he constructed this novel. Hesse refers over the course of the novel to cultural figures from the past and to his own friends and colleagues. Knecht's frist name, Josef, refers to Thomas Mann, with whom Hesse "felt the had a special affinity" and who "was publishing his series of Joseph novels, concerning the outsider intellectual who becomes the protector of his people. The old music master is a "literary portrait of Goethe, drawn by Hesse in blind devotion. The protagonist Knecht in a letter to the Order that "envisage the possibility that, once again, the generals will dominate parliament, a belligerent ideology will arise, and education will be made to serve the ends of war ." The reader has the perception that Knecht is doing the right thing leaving the theoretical world in favor of the real world. Berman writes that " modernism rebels against the culture industry, not with better or higher prose but with multifarious strategies of destroying the iron cage. Its central concern is the emancipation of the reader from the system of deception perpetuated by established culture." It seems to me that the iron cage out of which Knecht breaks is that which the ideology has been built and reinforced, a mirror of Weber's conception of the cage as a loss of meaning and freedom. If the strict notion of the crushing of the individual in the name of "highest ideal" of anonymity and theoretical knowledge of the Game does not symbolically qualify as an iron cage, it should at least qualify as an example of a "system of deception perpetrated by established culture". Hesse's continued popularity is a testament to his applicability to all kinds of identity crises by virtue of his respect for the human. Ingo Cornilswrote about Hesse in 2009 that, "this humanism is what makes Hesse relevant for the twenty-first century. His holistic view of a human being as an evolving, struggling, ever-changing individual chimes with modern experience. He confronts us with uncomfortable truths about human nature but encourages us to face them to discover what lies beneath.           

              The Glass Bead Game is a humanist commitment to the vitality of everyday existence, a plea that learning and knowledge do not become ends in themselves but are harnessed to the furtherance of human society. Hesse describes the vision as encompassing wise men and scholars harmoniously building the valued and vaulted cathedral of mind. A cathedral, then something to be venerated, but a place to enterprise, functional, reflecting the currents of human endeavour. The novel is, it initially appears, the ultimate achievement of human culture. The novel takes place in a world that has passed beyond an age which war and conflict have predominated, and in which culture is trivialised and coarsened. The action is set a province of Castalia, where the academic pursuit of knowledge has become an aesthetic discipline, personified by the Glass Bead Game. This is a philosophical game in which glass beads are used to demonstrate the progress of the players during days a game take place. The goal is to find interconnectedness in the realms of arts and knowledge. The protagonist, Knecht stands at the centre of a series of binaries: castalia and the world, the game and realpolitik, secular reason and religious observance, pedagogy and pragmatic action, teachers and students, servitude and mastery, inwardness and outwardness, the active life and the contemplative life. Castalia and society tends to exaggerate these binaries, forcing them to stand in opposition to one to another. This is the way to dogma, Hesse warns. In the case of Castalia it will lead to its inevitable decline, divorced as it is from reality. Knecht, placed between these binary opposites, cognisant of the strengths and weaknesses of each, comes to understand how a path may be established which avoids their extremes and instead achieves a state of harmony.

140th Birthday of Herman Hesse

               Today the German writer Herman Hesse would complete 140 years old. In his writings we can see his activism against all kind of totalitarianism, his fight for freedom of speech and thought, for personal freedom and the autonomy of the individual. His writings inspired many to fight against violations of human rights. So, this post is a tribute to him. This post is a summary of four articles. The first was published at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hermann-Hesse. The second was published at http://www.dw.com/en/hermann-hesse-misunderstood-but-loved/a-16152933. The third was published at http://www.dw.com/en/hesse-recognized-magic-power-of-words/a-15848265. The fourth https://www.hermannhesse.de/files/WORLDWIDE%20RECEPTION%20AND%20INFLUENCE_0.pdf

             Herman Hesse (1877-1962) was a German novelist, poet, and winner of the Nobel for literature in 1946, whose main theme deals with man's breaking out of the established modes of civilization to find his essential spirit. With his appeal for self-realization, Hesse posthumously became a cult figure to young people in the English-speaking world. At the behest of his father, Hesse entered the Maulbronn seminary. Though a model student, he was enable to adapt, so he was apprenticed in the city of Calw in a tower-clock factory and later in a Tubingen bookstore. Hesse remained in the bookselling business unitl 1904, when he became a freelance writer and brought out his first novel, Peter Camenzind, about a failed and dissipated writer. The inward and outward search of the artist is further explored in Gertrud (1910) and Rosshalde (1914). A visit to India in these years was later reflected in Siddhartha (1922), a poetic novel, set in India at the time of the Buddha, about the search for enlightenment.  During World War I, Hesse lived in neutral Switzerland, wrote denunciations of militarism and nationalism, and edited a journal for war prisoners. A deepening sense of personal crisis led Hesse to psychoanalysis with J.B.Lang, a disciple of Carl Jung. The influence of analysis appears in Demian (1919), an examination of the achievement of self-awareness by a troubled adolescent. This novel had a pervasive effect on a troubled Germany and made its author famous. Steppenwolf (1927) describes the conflict between bourgeois acceptance and spiritual self-realization in a middle-aged man. In Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) an intellectual ascetic who is content with established religious faith is contrasted with an artistic pursuing his own form of salvation. In his last and longest novel, The Glass Bead Game (1943), he again explores the dualism of the contemplative and the active life, this time through the figure of a supremely gifted intellectual.

               In 1962, just after Herman Hesse had died of a heart attack at the age of 85, the German newspaper Die Zeit wrote that the author had become absolete. The newspaper, however, would eat its words. In the meantime, Hesse's works have been translated into nearky 60 languages, and at least 125 million copies sold. Hesse was born in Calw, near Stuttgart. He grew up in a very religious household. This search for identity and the process of discovering oneself were main topics, his stories were scattered with references to his own experiences, analysis of himself. "He questioned autonomy and religion. He searched for a religion that was not militant or missionary, but open to other lifestyles, other ideas," explained Hesse's biographer, Gunnar Decker, "This is a crucial issue in the Arab world, " he adds. After returning to Europe 1914 from a travel to Asia, Hesse moved to Switzerland. But the war and its propaganda aggravated and Hesse wanted to warn the German intellectuals to turn away from their nationalist polemics and be more humane. Hesse watched with concern and disapproval as the Nazis took control of Germany. Throughout the World War II he supported German refugees, including Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht. It was during this war that he wrote his last great work, The Glass Bead Game, which won him the 1946 Nobel for Literature. At the time, the Nobel committee said the prize was "for his inspired writings which, while growing in boldness, exemplify the classical humanitarian ideals and the high art of style." After World War II, Hesse's books were very popular in Germany as the country sought a source of guidance and self-reflection.

                Herman Hesse is an author who dealt with the contradictions of the 20th century. Contradictions such as being confronted with technological developments, with outside forces which robbed him of his autonomy. He was always preoccupied with how to defend oneself against such things and how one might escape such alienating situations. He dealt with the question of an unalienated life, of finding balance internally and externally. Hesse said that his relationship to boundaries, country and state borders was highly questionable.  Added to that was Hesse's missionary background: His parents were misssionaries who lived in India for a long time. That is a form of cosmopolitanism with a paradoxically provincial complexion. This understanding and the return to questions such as "What nationality am I?" and "Which country do I live in?" has an associational quality. With Hessel it has something universal. How does the unalienated, human life that we are supposed to lead look? And how can we all live together despite all the things that divide us? 

               The fact that a writer such as Herman Hesse who, in his day, was always at odds with the political powers-that-be, and who was a social outsider, in fact, who was continually breaking free of the "ties that bind," and whose entire works were basically a big biography, the fact that such a writer have unleashed a worldwide response of such magnitude is one of the most curious phenomena in the history of literary reception. The vast majority of Hesse readers have a very precise feeling for the honesty and the credibility of the statements made by their author. The standpoint from which they value and judge is located outside the literary domain. With Camenzind, his first novel, Hesse had gripped the youth of his day. Demian captured the imagination of the generation returning from World War I, and the powers of meditation and humanity, fascinated all those seeking new forms of order in the chaos of a shattered state and lost war. Always a crucial factor shaping the willingness to accept the writings of any author is the background in terms of human levels of experience.  This background has, in fact, a major impact on overall reception. And more so among readers who see in literature something that might be able to help solve their problems in life, and consider the writer to be a kind of psychotherapist, as someone pointing the way, as someone who knows the answers for all those seeking directions in life. The American response to Hesse's works came from the America of the Vietnam War, came from a generation that was rising up against the carnage and senselessness of the war, against the omnipotence of the state, and against the increasingly soulless nature of modern life, a generation that did not want to have its life mapped out for it by others, and dared to question the belief that the age of technology would bring nothing but progress. These young people discovered in Hesse's writings the afflictions of their own souls, their problems, dreams and yearnings. Readers sensed that the focal points of their feelings and thoughts  had been expressed in compelling form in Hesse's works. It was in his criticism and his protest against anything totalitarian, his love of peace and his tenacious defence of personality and a free, personal, simple life that they found confirmation of their own ideas. For Hesse changing the world meant humanizing it. And this is a process that has to be initiated and executed by the individual. Asserting and defending the personality and the independence of the individual, and the areas in which the individual has freedom of action, these are the aims. Yet there are no magic bullets enabling one to achieve this: "Each of us is something very personal and unique, and supplanting the personal conscience with a collective one is nothing but a violation, and it is the first step towards all forms of totalitarianism." A decisive element in the reception of Hesse's works was the uncompromising openness that was a mark of his character, and which imbued his statements with sincerity, credibility, and a high degree of authenticity. To this one must add the readily comprehensible nature of his world of symbols. Yet this simplicity should not be taken to mean superficiality or innocuousness. Rather, it is the art of being able to express even complex matters in clear and simple form.