American Abroad

One-on-one with the Grandfather of Green Investment

With the growth of ethical businesses like Fairtrade, and a greater focus on corporate social responsibility (CSR) within multinational corporations, ethical investment is gradually gaining popularity. People want to know where their money is going. And that’s when ethical independent financial advisors (IFAs) like Giles Chitty come in.

“We are a fee based, wealth management service for private clients, trusts and charities with a specialty in ethical, environmental and climate change investment” says the Holden and Partners website, the financial advising firm where Chitty has based himself.

Giles Chitty, age 66, is well placed to speak about ethical investment, as the title he’s been given, “the grandfather of green investment”, says it all.

Chitty started the first ever ethical investment company, The Financial Initiative Ltd in 1984. He then went on to launch the first green IFA, Barchester Green Investment, with Geoff Griffiths in 1989. But he left after a disagreement with his partner on cooperatising the company.

His next move was to join the leading firm Holden Meehan. But after 7 years working at the company it was sold to Bradford and Bingley in 2003, which prompted many of Holden Meehan’s partners to start up Holden and Partners, which Chitty joined two years later.

Holden and Partners deals with both conventional and ethical investment, though according to Chitty, ethical and green investment is the fastest growing sector.

“We don’t sell ourselves primarily as ethical, we sell ourselves as innovative. But the fastest growing area of our business is ethical and sustainable investment,” he says.

In the last four years 75 per cent of new customers at Holden and Partners have been ethical and sustainability clients, and out of the total number of clients more than half have sustainability or ethical criteria as an important part of their value system and objectives.

However despite the growth in ethical investment, there are still many people that question the logic of choosing ethical funds (of which there are far less) than conventional ones, since there are less options to spread financial risk.

Chitty challenges this widely held belief, pointing out that such thinking “reflects a false impression about restricting your investment range.”

“It all boils down into sensible, common-sense advice: diversify geographically in the industrial sector; make sure you’ve got some property in cash and some equity; and keep a big chunk of cash to see you through a difficult time. And this is basically investment one-o-one. We’ve stuck with that very strongly.”

Holden and Partners’ focus on transparency has been one of the key features to see them through the current financial crisis, which many blame on financial institutions’ reliance on complicated structures like derivatives.

Chitty explains that while it may appear to be common-sense, many other financial advising firms fail to apply Holden and Partners primary principle: never sell anything you don’t understand.

“When there’s a crisis like now, we don’t have all our clients ringing up worrying, because they trust what we’ve done with them in the past. We’re not trying to sell things to them they don’t understand, let alone things that we don’t understand,” says Chitty.

Funds dubbed ethical can also be misleading says Chitty, as there are in fact many “ethical” funds that support companies which fail to meet certain ethical standards.

In a 2008 report produced by Holden and Partners it was found that ‘ethical’ funds often invested in financial institutions such as the Royal Bank of Scotland, or telecoms, like Vodafone, which do not have particularly ethical policies.

This is due to the negative screening factor. Often ethical investment funds simply rule out companies that are not ethical, while promoting companies that do less damage than others.

It is also common practice to apply the rule of ‘best practice’ to companies that are more ethically-minded than other companies in that sector. This has resulted in controversial firms such as the mining company Rio Tinto, or agricultural company Monsanto Co being included amongst the list of companies within ethical funds.

For instance, the fund Aberdeen Ethical Engagement UK’s top 10 companies within its 2006 portfolio included Royal Dutch Shell, BP, HSBC Holdings, Royal Bank Of Scotland Group Plc, British American Tobacco, Vodafone Group, BT Group, Barclays, and Rio Tinto among others.

Holden and Partners avoids this pitfall by offering clients “a mixture” of the best ethical and conventional funds available, says Chitty.

“We’ve tended to move people toward a mixture of sometimes more conventional funds that don’t invest heavily in banks and mines and oil. Plus some more radical, high-risk if you like, purer ethical or sustainability funds. I think the big finding of our first reports was that ethical funds weren’t that ethical.”

So what does the future hold for ethical investment?

According to Chitty, as green and ethical finance continue to move beyond the niche alternative market and spill into the mainstream, ethical investment will gradually shift toward ‘sustainable investment’ that takes into account both environmental factors and the long-term sustainability of company policies.

“Climate change is affecting us very directly and materially, and as a result [green investment] is being embraced as a more mainstream thing. But there is a growing need to address sustainability,” says Chitty.

“It’s not okay to do something that preserves the environment if it means trans-migrating indigenous people out of African forests that are making a sustainable living. Ethical investment is of the past, and sustainable investment is of the present and the future.”

Balancing Act of the ICC prosecution?

This article was orginally published in the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. The article can be found here on the IWPR website.

As International Criminal Court, ICC, judges prepare to consider a case brought against Sudanese rebel leaders, the prosecution has rejected claims that the case was opened in order to seem impartial in its approach to the conflict.

Special advisor to the ICC prosecution Béatrice Le Fraper du Hellen says the Office of the Prosecutor, OTP, would “strongly challenge” criticism that the case lacks the same level of gravity as others put before the court.

“As a judicial institution, we can only apply the criterion which is in the [ICC’s founding document, the Rome] Statute, and we can only follow the evidence,” Le Fraper du Hellen said. “For us [this case] ranks very high in the crimes committed since 2003 in Darfur.”

In November last year, ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo requested that judges issue a summons for three Sudanese rebel commanders to appear before the court, accusing them of an attack against African Union, AU, peacekeepers in 2007.

Pre-Trial Chamber 1, which is handling the case, will decide on whether the accused rebel leaders should be issued with a summons or an arrest warrant, depending on their willingness to appear before the court.

A hearing on the case took place on April 21, and the prosecution expects ICC judges to make their decision in the coming weeks.

But Darfuris and Sudanese activists have questioned the motives of the prosecution in pursuing the case, which they say involves crimes less grave than the atrocities allegedly committed by Sudanese officials indicted by the ICC.

Many believe that the prosecution has targeted rebel leaders in order to appear impartial in the eyes of the international community and African governments.

“I think this is a tactical move by the prosecutor to show balance and put more pressure on the government and its backers [rather] than a serious case,” Ahmed Abuzaid, a journalist from the south Darfur regional capital of Nyala, said, expressing a widespread view.

At least twelve peacekeepers were killed, and eight others seriously wounded when up to 1,000 Sudanese rebels connected to the Justice and Equality Movement, JEM, allegedly attacked AU peacekeeping troops, known as AMIS, at the Haskanita military base in north Darfur.

The prosecution accuse the rebel commanders of war crimes, including violence to life, pillaging, and directing attacks against personnel, installations, material units or vehicles involved in a peacekeeping mission.

Hafiz Mohamed, head of the Sudan programme for Justice Africa, said, “There are many cases of this kind of attack, even more severe than the Haskanita one.

“I think he [the chief prosecutor] wants to show the world or public opinion, generally, especially inside Sudan, that he is also targeting government opponents, not only government officials.”

But the prosecution denies any political considerations in its decision-making.

“Equidistance between the parties is not a criterion under the [Rome] Statute,” Le Fraper du Hellen said. “That’s a political consideration, and the prosecutor of the ICC cannot follow this kind of consideration.

“Even if we did that, of course, the judges would never grant us an arrest warrant or summons to appear on this basis, so I don’t think people should be too worried about that.”

Mohamed told IWPR that while Justice Africa approved of the case, an indictment of Sudanese rebels “will not be welcomed” in Darfur. Many people will wonder why the ICC is “going after armed groups and not holding [Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir] responsible [for the crimes he is accused of by enforcing the court’s decision to arrest him]”.

The ICC issued an indictment against Bashir on March 4 for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Since the arrest warrant was issued, the president has defied the ruling and expelled at least 13 aid agencies from the country.

The ICC “has to do everything possible now to get him [Bashir] arrested without wasting time and efforts on other cases”, said Yasin Barra, a Darfuri refugee based in the Abunabak camp in eastern Chad.

Some NGOs have welcomed the prosecutor’s decision to bring a case against the rebel leaders, however, in the hope that it will prevent further attacks against peacekeepers.

“The scale and the magnitude of the atrocities don’t compare to those committed by government forces, but because these crimes could have serious effects on the ability of peacekeeping operations to carry out their work, they are serious crimes that should be prosecuted,” Sara Darehshori, senior counsel member of the Human Rights Watch International Justice Programme, said.

Mariana Pena, representative of the International Federation for Human Rights, FIDH, says that bringing the case against the rebels could be a significant deterrent against further attacks.

The case, she said, is also important for “showing the impartiality” of the ICC, as “from our point of view, it’s very good that he [the prosecutor] goes after all parties involved, because it’s not only about being impartial, but also about being perceived as impartial”.

The case was opened following mounting criticism against the ICC from African countries, which accused the court of failing to look at all sides of the conflict.

“A lot of African countries have said [the ICC] is just focused on the government side, but the rebels also committed crimes,” Ahmed Mohammedain, head of the Darfuri community organisation Darfur Call, said.

“The ICC is in a position that in order to divert the emphasis of criticism that is put on it, [it] is now trying to find some kind of balance.”

Lorraine Smith, from the International Bar Association based in The Hague, told IWPR that though the number of victims in the Haskanita attack was small, the case seemed to be designed “to send a much larger message” that the international community will not accept attacks against peacekeepers.

“But the timing and the fact that it is the first case of its kind before the ICC has raised questions in people’s minds,” she said.

While the intentional targeting of peacekeepers is considered a war crime under article 82C1 of the Rome Statute, to date, no similar cases have been brought before the court.

According to Smith, this is because so far the OTP appears to have used a “quantitative gravity assessment” when deciding whether to bring a case forward.

“In the past…they’ve taken [a] more quantitative assessment of gravity: the number of victims, scale of the violence, and that sort of thing,” she said.

In the case against the rebels, the OTP has focused on the impact of attacking a peacekeeping force rather than the scale of the atrocity.

“For us, gravity is not only the scale, the number of crimes, you have also to include what we would call ‘qualitative factors’, like the nature of the crime, the manner of commission, and the impact,” Le Fraper du Hellen said.

According to the ICC prosecution, militant groups frequently make the calculation that an attack against peacekeepers will prompt their withdrawal from the country – enabling them to target the civilian population, no longer under the watchful eye of the international community.

“We really hope to show very clearly to the perpetrators, ‘well, that’s not a calculation you can have any longer’,” the advisor to the prosecution said.

“When you attack peacekeepers, you attack indirectly the whole population. Those AU peacekeepers were there to protect the 2.5 million displaced in Darfur. Attacking the AU peacekeepers put in danger all of the civilians that were under their care.”

Some believe that deciding on the gravity issue has been stalling the judges’ decision. This comes after the prosecution’s request for the case to be expedited was refused on March 2 because, according to the public redacted statement released by the Pre-Chamber 1, “it raises a number of issues of particular complexity”.

“Gravity may well be one of the complex issues that the chamber is grappling with,” Smith said, “but without public access to the confidential documents it is hard to say.”

The OTP believes that the delay is related to resolving technical legal problems. IWPR understands that judges must be satisfied that peacekeepers involved are protected persons under the Rome Statute and that the AU base was not a legitimate military objective.

The prosecution has continually pushed for a speedy ruling on the case in order to take advantage of the accused rebel leaders’ apparent willingness to appear before the court.

Sudanese NGOs Demand Justice

It was late in the afternoon when the letter arrived at the Sudan Social Development Organization, SUDO, headquarters in Khartoum.

Signed by the Sudanese government’s Humanitarian Assistance Commission, HAC, it sounded the death knell for the largest Sudanese humanitarian organisation operating in Darfur.

Claiming that SUDO had been working outside its humanitarian mandate, the letter called for its immediate closure. It wasn’t long before security forces arrived to ensure that all of SUDO’s ten offices, computers, documents and furniture were handed over to the government. Its bank accounts were instantly frozen.

“We have no access to our funds, so we can’t even pay our employees,” said SUDO’s head, Mudawi Ibrahim Adam.

“The government shut us down because we are an independent organisation. They want their own organisations, organisations that are following the line of the government.”

SUDO is among many NGOs that have fallen victim to a recent government crackdown, which led to the expulsion of 13 foreign aid agencies and the closure of two other local human rights organisations.

An NGO representative close to SUDO said “the human rights scene in Sudan has been wiped off the map” since the International Criminal Court, ICC, indicted Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir for war crimes on March 4. Bashir said the NGOs were targeted because they “threatened the security of Sudan”, accusing them of collaboration with the ICC.

Only two hours after the warrant was issued, security forces shut down the Khartoum-based Amel Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture. The centre works to inform people of their rights and provide psychological and medical assistance to victims of human rights violations. According to the Amel Centre director Najib Najm El Din, the organisation had been seeing up to 30 new torture victims a month.

“We don’t know what is going on with our clients, because we can’t reach them,” said Najib. “For those that went to court, now nobody is following their cases. We are trying to do something through other organisations, but we don’t have enough money to offer care and pay for victim’s treatment.”

The Khartoum Centre for Human Rights and Environmental Development, KCHRED, was targeted on the same day, with security forces raiding the offices and confiscating a safe, computers and classified documents. KCHRED provides legal aid to victims of torture and human rights training to lawyers.

The organisation’s staff has since fled Sudan, including legal aid coordinator, Ali M Agab who is in the United Kingdom. He told IWPR that files containing the names and details of thousands of victims are now in the hands of HAC, which works closely with the security forces. “Those people’s lives are in danger now,” he said.

SUDO, which had 300 members of staff, has provided clean drinking water, health services and sanitation to 700,000 internally displaced persons.

A major project was the construction of a much-needed health clinic at the Zam Zam refugee camp in north Darfur. Several international aid agencies IWPR spoke to said they don’t know how the clinic will survive.

Selena Brewer from Human Rights Watch said the closure of SUDO and the other NGOs is having a massive impact. “It’s basically closing down that sector of Sudanese civil society. For anybody that works on human rights in Darfur or anywhere else in the country, the situation is really terrifying,” she said.

But the NGOs are determined to challenge the government over the closures. On March 10, the activists appealed the HAC decision. Their case will be heard on April 13 at the Administrative Court of Justice in Khartoum. And, they say, if that is unsuccessful, they will take their case to a higher court.

“We are not going to give up on our supporters. We have to go to the courts,” said Najib.

While outwardly bullish, some are concerned about their prospects, as there are doubts about whether Adam will be able to turn up for the appeal. He is due to appear in court on corruption charges the day before, accused of embezzling 40,000 US dollars of SUDO funds in 2004.

“They have found this out now? I don’t think they have any case, and I’m not at all scared about what they are saying,” he told IWPR.

The closure of the Sudanese NGOs follows years of state pressure on civil society activists. “The pattern of repression has been getting worse and worse, and it’s becoming impossible for people to speak out,” said Brewer.

Both SUDO and Adam have previously been subject to government intimidation. In March 2003, officials closed two of the organisation’s offices and froze its bank accounts. Adam was arrested the same year for alleged anti-state crimes. After no evidence could be produced, he was released. He was arrested again without charge in 2005, and released on bail.

Though the outcome of their appeal is uncertain, Brewer is cautiously hopeful that the NGOs will be allowed to resume their work. “I don’t think the government wants to take on providing food and water for a million people, and they certainly don’t have the capacity to do it,” she said. “So I’m hoping that the appeals process will give them a way to back down without losing face.”

This article was orginally written for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. To see the orginal article, please visit the IWPR website.

Chavez calls for meeting of ALBA

Chavez has called for a meeting of member countries within the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) regional trading bloc to come to agreement in preparation for the Fifth Summit of the Americas.

Representatives from ALBA are scheduled to meet in Caracas from April 14th to April 15th, shortly before the summit  held in Trinidad and Tobago on April 17.

Members of ALBA currently include Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Honduras.

President Chavez has also said that he will use the summit to restore ties between Venezuela and the US, which increasingly deteriorated during the Bush years. “I’ll be willing to press the reset button,” he said during a recent visit to Iran. “I hope that will be the policy of President Obama,” he added.

This will be the first meeting between Latin American leaders and US president Obama.
Chavez has further criticised the exclusion of Cuba from the summit, saying: “It is the only country of the hemisphere excluded from the Summit of the Americas; this fact needs to be analyzed during the regional meeting. Cuba is part of Latin America. It doesn´t make sense that after having joined the regional institutions, summits and mechanisms, it is excluded from the Summit of the Americas.”

G20 Climate Camp protest turns violent

What began as a peaceful protest of over 3,000 people at Bishopsgate Street turned violent after police cordoned in demonstrators until the early hours of the morning.

Protestors arrived at Bishopsgate at 12.30pm in what was described as “a swoop” by the Climate Camp, the group that staged the demonstration. Protestors came with pop up tents, music, food, instruments, and bikes in an attempt to take over the street and camp out for 24 hours.

After a brief 10 minute confrontation with the Metropolitan police, who attempted to forcefully remove protestors from their tents, the Climate camp demonstrators were allowed to set up camp.

A Legal observer at the protest, Estelle M. said police pulling people out of tents was “a real issue of concern.” She added: We are questioning why police felt the need to go in. There is a legal protest going on today, so we are wondering why they decided to take that action.”

Demonstrators at the Climate Camp were there to demand that G20 leaders take climate change seriously, though the atmosphere was one of fun and light-hearted entertainment. Festivities occurred throughout the day, including workshops, picnicking, arts and crafts and a planned ceilidh- traditional Scottish dancing-in the early evening.

Many people came dressed in costumes and wearing face paint. Two such protestors dressed as mermaids said: “We come from the ocean to tell people about the effects that climate change and pollution is having on the ocean. We’re here to tell people to rethink how they do things.”

One of the organizers of the Climate Camp, Josh M. from the group Plane Stupid, said: “I think its important that as a group and as a community we demonstrate our presence to the government, businesses and industries that we’re not happy with what they’re doing and if they’re not going to take action to prevent runaway climate change than as a community and as a people we have to do that for them.”

Tying the issue of climate change to the problems facing the economic world system, Marcelo Duchen, 28, from Bolivia said that he had come to the event to “support all organizations in their fight against capitalism.” Having moved to London four years ago, Duchen explained that he was keen to go back to Bolivia where an alternative to capitalism is being pushed forward by President Evo Morales since his election victory in 2006.

People enjoyed the sunshine and participated in workshops ranging from a history of legal action to environmental sustainability, with many families bringing along their young children.

But by the early evening the atmosphere became tense as riot police arrived at 7pm and began pushing the crowd inward from both ends of the street. At least 3 protestors were hit with riot shields as they attempted to push against the police, while one girl was crushed in the crowd and had to be pulled out by legal observers.

Protestors reacted by sitting down and refusing to move, passing the time by singing songs. The situation grew worse overtime as the police refused to allow protestors to leave the vicinity, which caused concern that those who needed restrooms, food, and water were unable to access them.

People shouted “shame on you!” and “this is not a riot” to police forces, with one demonstrator shouting vehemently “why are you doing this?”

A legal observer said that the action by the police was “completely unnecessary, completely over the top.”

A member of the riot police squad that refused to be identified said the exit strategy designed by the police was flawed, and could have been organized better. He suggested that people should complain to their MP’s about the practice of cordoning in peaceful protestors for long hours against their will.

He also said that the reason police forces had moved in was due to violent action being taken by protestors from outside the Climate Camp.

At 11.30pm trained dogs were brought out to contain the crowd, as clashes with riot police escalated. People threw rubbish at the police forces, and demanded to be released. Many people in the crowd also began to fight with one another.

One protestor, Monica Roberts, 22, said: “I was expecting to leave a lot sooner, I just came with some friends to celebrate and join in some of the dances going on. I didn’t think I’d get locked in. We’ve been standing here for nearly four hours, and everyone just wants to go home.”

Finally, at 1pm the crowd was dispersed.

Other protests occurred throughout the city. Some of the most violent clashes between police and protestors took place at the Bank of England resulting in the death of one man. At least 85 people have been arrested so far.