Two 500 Pound Gorillas- Soros and Chavez- Dominate the OAS Court and Latin American Politics
October 7, 2007 Generally speaking, even handed justice is hard to come by in Latin America for all parties. Does anyone seriously still not believe that Chavez's kangaroo courts dispense justice at all? One wonders why he even bothers with such a charade. And why the people of Venezuela permit him to pretend that his patsies dispense justice. But Hugo Chavez is a large funder of the Inter American Court of Human Rights, the sole arbiter of non arbitral justice of the OAS.
The OAS fears to have Chavez take his cash wads and waltz out the door no matter how Chavez has destroyed justice in his own climes.
For its part, the United States has spent a lot of effort encouraging the application of commercial disputes being settled by choice under international arbitration under what it calls Bi Lateral Investment Treaties. The Bi Lateral Investment Treaties [BIT] are in varying degrees of operability across the hemisphere and treaty language varies somewhat. As a vehicle, the BIT grants an option to domestic justice or international arbitration, typically a choice between the UN or World Bank courts. Latins call this the CIADI courts. Canadians are often not covered strongly under their BITs which are weaker than US language. The BIT language is also housed inside NAFTA, CAFTA and FTAs. Any arbitration is expensive- very expensive- and the process can endure between 4 to 7 years. This is true about the OAS court in Costa Rica also.
To grasp the concept that even handed justice is hard to come by, we know well that this is not just about badly trained and underfunded judges, which is mostly the case. It is also correct to note that decriminalization of many crimes, de facto, has led to rampant and soaring crime even as law enforcement - never good- remains badly paid and poorly trained as well. In Venezuela, goon squads target whomever and whenever. No one really calls "911" for fear of reprisals.
The sole, so called juridical arm for some legal relief from some "human rights" injury from OAS member states...or arms thereto ....ostensibly to assist in relief or justice where not necessarily obtained directly inside an OAS member nation is under the Commission which holds court in Costa Rica.
To any survey there has not yet been one meaningful or enforceable legal challenge in this Costa Rican court to enforce the OAS Democracy Charter. Many of the claims in this court circle around the different core components of democracy's pillars but even as the core tenants of what is or is not included in the pillars of democracy, so too remains the enforceability or relief for same when the engine of democracies/the operating systems of democracies are truncated or malfunction or....are removed leaving a state vehicle called a democratically elected national governance but with no meaningful operating system or governance.
Here is a summary from the OAS "official" site on its donors to this Commission. Some rumor- just that- that the Commission and its court are still underfunded and cannot begin to cover all that is now before them on their agenda. We do not have the facts on their budget needs. What the OAS funding stream shows is a massive non state, politically biased group punching in....a lot of money. Venezuela and Soros impact the Commission by outstripping USA funds.
Soros and Chavez are the two five hundred pound gorillas impacting the OAS court system in Costa Rica.
Comes now the debate on the USA signing the Treaty of the Seas with the UN. Jim Baker advocates this. It is a move not unlike the USA joining the UN international criminal court system. We mention this because the UN arbitral systems are said by US businesses to be less effective than the World Bank arbitral systems. That means expensive and time consuming. We are not commenting on the judiciousness of the court actors or their capacity to enforce or serve independently. To be sure, the UN, OAS and World Bank court systems depend on all parties acting honorably to abide by the final rulings. There is no remedy for nation states that refuse to abide by any summary judgment. The core opinion is that the OAS or World Bank or UN would have to remove or sanction reluctant deadbeats. None of these 3 groups hold positions today to sanction or remove under the theory that once married with the group, however dysfunctional or reprehensible, no break up or sanctions should be levied due to the sanctity of the union, so to speak.
What is important - and for this season should the issue arise, is not the political in fighting and debate but this: a few nations in South America today insist that the normative 12 mile sea rights be amended to 200 mile radius.
You may laugh at this and claim they can not do anything about it or....take their issues before the OAS. Or the UN or the World Bank.
Right now Ecuador claims a 200 mile sea territorial right. You may call this meaningless. This gifts Ecuador a 200 mile sea lane....a corridor not only on continental waters but extends its sea lane about 700 to 900 miles around and out to the Galapagos Islands. This sea lane is already used for passage to Mexico through the Panama Canal....or not. Extending Chavez another 200 miles out of Venezuela is like extending Cuban territorial rights past South Florida and up towards Palm Beach. You may say....the USA will never let that happen. You may say that the USA will defend its sea rights. Hugo Chavez has just purchased around 10 nuclear subs...the rumor holds that these will be based at the Manta Base in Ecuador and will circle Latin America. The menace and the danger is that Hugo Chavez is not honest and is not accountable to anything or anyone. This includes the OAS, the UN and the World Bank.
Soros supports projects to legalize narcotrafficking, reduce Israel's legitimacy, euthanasia, abortions and revamped or re done constitutions. He also is a huge funder of political candidates that are in his pocket such as Hillary Clinton plus numerous support efforts to keep it that way, called a variety of pro left activities. Soros dearly wants to keep oversight, transparency and taxation away from his primary activity: making money offshore by speculating and sometimes investing. Soros himself states that he will never, ever engage in development, which is of course deeply needed in South America. We know exactly why Chavez is a 500 pound gorilla at the OAS. But we ask why such a person - a non state actor who is beholden to nothing but his wallet....even as Chavez is beholden to nothing but his collective wallet- be permitted to dredge the halls of justice, such as it may be, in Costa Rica?
Do you know where your justice comes from today?
-Pedro Camargo, ECrisis
-------------
Figures below taken from here:
http://www.cidh.oas.org/financiro.eng.htm
The OAS fears to have Chavez take his cash wads and waltz out the door no matter how Chavez has destroyed justice in his own climes.
For its part, the United States has spent a lot of effort encouraging the application of commercial disputes being settled by choice under international arbitration under what it calls Bi Lateral Investment Treaties. The Bi Lateral Investment Treaties [BIT] are in varying degrees of operability across the hemisphere and treaty language varies somewhat. As a vehicle, the BIT grants an option to domestic justice or international arbitration, typically a choice between the UN or World Bank courts. Latins call this the CIADI courts. Canadians are often not covered strongly under their BITs which are weaker than US language. The BIT language is also housed inside NAFTA, CAFTA and FTAs. Any arbitration is expensive- very expensive- and the process can endure between 4 to 7 years. This is true about the OAS court in Costa Rica also.
To grasp the concept that even handed justice is hard to come by, we know well that this is not just about badly trained and underfunded judges, which is mostly the case. It is also correct to note that decriminalization of many crimes, de facto, has led to rampant and soaring crime even as law enforcement - never good- remains badly paid and poorly trained as well. In Venezuela, goon squads target whomever and whenever. No one really calls "911" for fear of reprisals.
The sole, so called juridical arm for some legal relief from some "human rights" injury from OAS member states...or arms thereto ....ostensibly to assist in relief or justice where not necessarily obtained directly inside an OAS member nation is under the Commission which holds court in Costa Rica.
To any survey there has not yet been one meaningful or enforceable legal challenge in this Costa Rican court to enforce the OAS Democracy Charter. Many of the claims in this court circle around the different core components of democracy's pillars but even as the core tenants of what is or is not included in the pillars of democracy, so too remains the enforceability or relief for same when the engine of democracies/the operating systems of democracies are truncated or malfunction or....are removed leaving a state vehicle called a democratically elected national governance but with no meaningful operating system or governance.
Here is a summary from the OAS "official" site on its donors to this Commission. Some rumor- just that- that the Commission and its court are still underfunded and cannot begin to cover all that is now before them on their agenda. We do not have the facts on their budget needs. What the OAS funding stream shows is a massive non state, politically biased group punching in....a lot of money. Venezuela and Soros impact the Commission by outstripping USA funds.
Soros and Chavez are the two five hundred pound gorillas impacting the OAS court system in Costa Rica.
Comes now the debate on the USA signing the Treaty of the Seas with the UN. Jim Baker advocates this. It is a move not unlike the USA joining the UN international criminal court system. We mention this because the UN arbitral systems are said by US businesses to be less effective than the World Bank arbitral systems. That means expensive and time consuming. We are not commenting on the judiciousness of the court actors or their capacity to enforce or serve independently. To be sure, the UN, OAS and World Bank court systems depend on all parties acting honorably to abide by the final rulings. There is no remedy for nation states that refuse to abide by any summary judgment. The core opinion is that the OAS or World Bank or UN would have to remove or sanction reluctant deadbeats. None of these 3 groups hold positions today to sanction or remove under the theory that once married with the group, however dysfunctional or reprehensible, no break up or sanctions should be levied due to the sanctity of the union, so to speak.
What is important - and for this season should the issue arise, is not the political in fighting and debate but this: a few nations in South America today insist that the normative 12 mile sea rights be amended to 200 mile radius.
You may laugh at this and claim they can not do anything about it or....take their issues before the OAS. Or the UN or the World Bank.
Right now Ecuador claims a 200 mile sea territorial right. You may call this meaningless. This gifts Ecuador a 200 mile sea lane....a corridor not only on continental waters but extends its sea lane about 700 to 900 miles around and out to the Galapagos Islands. This sea lane is already used for passage to Mexico through the Panama Canal....or not. Extending Chavez another 200 miles out of Venezuela is like extending Cuban territorial rights past South Florida and up towards Palm Beach. You may say....the USA will never let that happen. You may say that the USA will defend its sea rights. Hugo Chavez has just purchased around 10 nuclear subs...the rumor holds that these will be based at the Manta Base in Ecuador and will circle Latin America. The menace and the danger is that Hugo Chavez is not honest and is not accountable to anything or anyone. This includes the OAS, the UN and the World Bank.
Soros supports projects to legalize narcotrafficking, reduce Israel's legitimacy, euthanasia, abortions and revamped or re done constitutions. He also is a huge funder of political candidates that are in his pocket such as Hillary Clinton plus numerous support efforts to keep it that way, called a variety of pro left activities. Soros dearly wants to keep oversight, transparency and taxation away from his primary activity: making money offshore by speculating and sometimes investing. Soros himself states that he will never, ever engage in development, which is of course deeply needed in South America. We know exactly why Chavez is a 500 pound gorilla at the OAS. But we ask why such a person - a non state actor who is beholden to nothing but his wallet....even as Chavez is beholden to nothing but his collective wallet- be permitted to dredge the halls of justice, such as it may be, in Costa Rica?
Do you know where your justice comes from today?
-Pedro Camargo, ECrisis
-------------
Figures below taken from here:
http://www.cidh.oas.org/financiro.eng.htm
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