Raphael Cohen-Almagor received his DPhil in political theory from Oxford University. He is Professor/Chair in Politics, and Founder and Director of the Middle East Study Group, University of Hull. He was the Director of the Center for Democratic Studies, University of Haifa, Fulbright-Yitzhak Rabin Visiting Professor at UCLA School of Law, Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins University, and Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.  Raphael is the author of more than 200 publications in politics, law, media and ethics, including most recently Confronting the Internet’s Dark Side (NY and Washington DC.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University Press, 2015), the first comprehensive book on social responsibility on the Internet. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/book/confronting-the-internets-dark-side-moral-and-social-responsibility-the-free-highway. Blog: http://almagor.blogspot.com Twitter: @almagor35

This interview examines the rise of hate speech on the Internet, how it can be countered and how the battle against hate speech can be balanced with freedom of expression.

Q. Your recent book, Confronting the Internet’s Dark Side: Moral and Social Responsibility on the Free Highway, examines the dark side of the internet and the issue of social responsibility on the net. Why did you choose to examine this subject as a research project?  

In answering the question, I will explain three issues: Why I chose to write about the Internet? Why I emphasise the concept of responsibility? Why the themes of terrorism, child pornography, hate and cyberbullying are at the center of attention? 

Why the Internet?

This is my fifth book in a series of books in the fields of tolerance, freedom of expression and media ethics. It started with The Boundaries of Liberty and Tolerance (1994) continued with Speech, Media and Ethics: The Limits of Free Expression (2001) and then The Scope of Tolerance (2006) and The Democratic Catch (2007). Upon completing my research for the last two books in 2006, it was clear to me that my next big project would concern the Internet, a fascinating growing phenomenon that required close probing. I wished to examine the extent to which the mode of communication makes a difference, and whether the Internet constitutes a totally different issue that makes the theory that I have been developing over the years, the Democratic Catch, irrelevant.

Why responsibility?

I have done the majority of research during 2007-2008, when I was a Fellow at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC. The United States puts great emphasis on freedom of expression. The First Amendment is enshrined in the nation’s psyche. I was looking for a way to connect with my American colleagues in addressing the very delicate issue of boundaries to Internet’s freedom of expression. My book acknowledges the great importance assigned to the value of freedom of expression and supports balancing it against no less important value: social responsibility.

The forefathers of the Internet had the vision of creating a free highway, a public space where everyone can say what he or she has in mind. This wonderful innovation of unfettered platform has backfired. The Internet is open for use but unfortunately also for abuse. We should provide and promote responsible use and we should also fight against those who abuse. The abuse corrupt public space and has posed many challenges on all levels: individual, the community, the state and the international community. We are in the early stages of learning how to cope and how to combat Internet abuse. Slowly we are developing the necessary tools to enjoy innovation and freedom while, at the same time, we are adopting safeguards and rules of responsible conduct.

Confronting the Internet’s Dark Side makes a distinction between Netusers and Netcitizens. The term “Netuser” refers to people who use the Internet. It is a neutral term. It does not convey any clue as to how people use the Internet. It does not suggest any appraisal of their use. On the other hand, the term “netcitizen” is not neutral. It describes a responsible use of the Internet. Netcitizens are people who use the Internet as an integral part of their real life. That is to say, their virtual life is not separated from their real life.

Even if they invent an identity for themselves on social networks, they do it in a responsible manner. They still hold themselves accountable for the consequences of their Internet use. In other words, netcitizens are good citizens of the Internet. They contribute to the Internet’s use and growth while making an effort to ensure that their communications and Net use are constructive. They foster free speech, open access and social culture of respecting others, and of not harming others. Netcitizens are Netusers with a sense of responsibility.

Why the themes of terrorism, child pornography, hate and cyberbullying are at the center of attention?

At the outset, it was clear to me that I cannot possibly tackle all the problematic information that we find on the Internet. I asked myself: What troubles you the most, and what issues may present a compelling case for social responsibility? I thought that if I am able to reach some conclusions and suggestions about confronting some highly problematic issues, maybe the discussion can then serve as a spring-board to drive forward a motion for Internet social responsibility. After long and careful probing I decided to concentrate attention on violent, anti-social forms of Internet expression: hate speech and racism, use of the Internet by terrorist organizations, and child pornography. Later, another concern was added: Cyberbullying.

When I started my research for this book in 2006, cyberbullying was not on my radar. In 2010, I could no longer ignore it. Cyberbullying became a major concern. I changed the book structure to accommodate comprehensive research on this sensitive and most tragic topic.

Q. Sometimes the line between free speech and hate speech is not as clear cut as we would like it to be. How do you identify hate speech?

There is no single definition of hate speech and hate speech legislation varies from one country to another. The same speech might be illegal in the United Kingdom and legal in the United States. The United Kingdom passed the Public Order Act 1936 to protect minorities from hate speech and harassment while the United States permits the American Nazi Party and allowed them to march in Skokie, a Jewish neighbourhood that was heavily populated with Holocaust survivors. I find it hard to believe that such a march would be allowed in the UK. My definition of hate speech is: Bias-motivated, hostile, malicious speech aimed at a person or a group of people because of some of their actual or perceived innate characteristics. Hate speech expresses discriminatory, intimidating, disapproving, antagonistic and/or prejudicial attitudes toward those characteristics which include sex, race, religion, ethnicity, colour, national origin, disability, or sexual orientation. Hate speech is intended to injure, dehumanize, harass, debase, degrade, and/or victimise the targeted groups, and to foment insensitivity and brutality towards them.

Q. There could be a counter argument made that much information could be interpreted as “bias-motivated, hostile, malicious”. So, for example, a person could publish a study or statistics on the internet which claims that a certain racial, ethnic or religious group is less intelligent or commits more crime than another group. It is highly likely that some individuals would see this as “bias-motivated, hostile, malicious” behaviour. Yet the publisher of the data might simply claim that they are merely presenting their evidence and that they had no intention to “injure, dehumanize, harass, debase, degrade, and/or victimise the targeted groups”.  Where would a case such as this fall in the hate speech/free speech distinction?

This is a very interesting question. Let me answer it with an example. For many years, I have related in my teaching on freedom of expression the case of Jean-Philippe Rushton, a Canadian psychology professor who has argued about hierarchy of races: Asians are smarter than whites, who are in turn smarter than blacks. In his 1999 book Race, Evolution, and Behavior, Rushton explained that brain and genital size are inversely related, and that races differ in brain size, intelligence, sexual behaviour, fertility, personality, maturation, lifespan, crime and in family stability. He explained that blacks are less intelligent than Orientals and Whites and they are more involved in criminal activities. While the IQ of Orientals is about 106, the IQ of Black people is around 70 to 75. Black people are also more sexually promiscuous and they lack social organization.

The science behind these assertions is debatable. Rushton’s theory evoked much criticism and has been perceived as racist. His theory attempts to explain everything by the sole criterion of race. It ignores social circumstances and social construction. It does not take into account other, no less important factors, such as individual abilities, class, poverty, education and family infrastructure. But is it hate speech?

In the spirit of the liberal marketplace of ideas, the search for the truth and open disputation of ideas with contrasting ideas, one may think that Rushton’s theory is problematic but it should be tolerated and debated. Its scientific facade needs to be exposed and simultaneously the true motives that guide Rushton should be explored. This, indeed, is my belief. Rushton’s theory is a hard case. It is opened to interpretations but it should not be silenced.

I also believe that Rushton’s theory was not guided only by scientific methods, that it had underpinning agenda which was not innocent, that it was motivated by other reasons rather than the urge to discover a scientific truth. Rushton was asked “Weren’t theories about race differences the reason for racism, genocide and the Holocaust?” Rushton answered: “The Nazis and others used their supposed racial superiority to justify war and genocide. But just about every idea – nationalism, religion, egalitarianism, even self-defence – has been used as an excuse for war, oppression or genocide. Science, however, is objective. It can’t give us our goals, but it can tell us how easy or difficult it will be to reach our goal. Knowing more about race differences may help us to give every child the best possible education and help us to understand some of our chronic social problems better”.

With this answer, Rushton was trivializing the Nazi crimes. Nazism was equated with nationalism, religion, egalitarianism, “even self-defence”. Rushton says nothing about the evil ideas of Nazism per se but how they were used for evil deeds, in the same way that other ideas, including noble ideas such as egalitarianism and well-established ideas such as self-defence, have been used for evil deeds. Then Rushton declares that his science is objective. His commitment is to scientific truth, no matter how crude that truth might be. And then he goes on to argue that his ideas may better children education. But surely not the education of every child. No matter how much you invest in the education of black children, they would not be able to escape their lot. They belong to the inferior race and therefore they are doomed to suffer the consequences of their brute luck.

What can help us understand Rushton’s reasoning is his behaviour and conduct outside the scientific world. Rushton was embraced by anti-black associations, by racists and bigots. Rushton not only did not flinch; he accepted their attention and the honour of being their star scientist.

In 2002, Rushton was appointed president of the Pioneer Fund, which has for decades funded dubious studies linking race to characteristics like criminality, sexuality and intelligence. Pioneer has long promoted eugenics, or the “science” of creating “better” humans through selective breeding. Set up in 1937 and headed by Nazi sympathizers, the Pioneer Fund’s mission was “to advance the scientific study of heredity and human differences”. It strove to improve the character of the American people through eugenics and procreation by people of white colonial stock. Rushton has spoken on the alleged IQ deficiencies of minorities at conferences of the racist American Renaissance magazine and website, and he has published a number of articles in the group’s newsletter. His work is often published on racist websites, including the anti-immigrant hate site, Vdare.com.

While appearing before and in support of racist groups, the above-mentioned sensitive and debatable statements then amount to hate speech. The context, as we learned from JS Mill’s theory On Liberty makes a great difference. A questionable race theory when invoked in Nazi and other radical extremist rallies is the fuel for their raging hatred, the validating force for their twisted beliefs, the scientific cloth that legitimized crude beliefs about hierarchy of races. Expressed in such forums, Rushton’s ideas become hate speech.

Q. Staying with the distinction between hate speech and free speech, religious criticism is commonly seen as an area where the lines become blurred. For example, sometimes actual bigotry towards religious minorities is dressed up as critique of religious beliefs and scripture. Where do you see the line being drawn on this issue?   

Two separate issues are relevant:

1. A speaker uses religion to incite violence against others.
2. A speaker defames and offends a certain minority because of its religion.

Both have taken place in Britain. As for the first scenario:

The state cannot sit idly by while religious authorities incite violence. Such public figures need to decide: either they are public servants who adhere to the laws and values of the state or they incite to violence. If they chose the latter, they should resign immediately. And if they do not see the necessity in doing so, then the state should discharge them from all public responsibilities. This is true for all religious authorities and more so for popular public figures with a large crowd of adherents. The justice system should act and crack down on the phenomena that might lead to violence. Violent religious preachers might pose a real danger to the well-being of society.

As for the second scenario, I think offence should be taken more seriously than it is considered today. Much blood was shed unnecessarily because of the Danish cartoons. We should be respectful of all religions, understand and appreciate the power of religion to bring about change, positive and negative. One of Karl Marx’s greatest mistakes was underestimating the power of religion. Religion can motivate people to help others, and it can motivate people to destroy. This is true for any religion. Pushed to its extreme, fundamental religion can create a lot of damage. As extremes tend to feed each other, speakers should be cautious of the power of the word and avoid inflaming tensions, emphasising those things that bring people together, not that divides them, creating bridges rather than obstacles and alienation.

In this age, many terrorists were Muslim. But, of course, not all Muslims are terrorists. Only a small number of Muslims are terrorists and they represent Islam to the same extent that the KKK represents Christianity and the Kahane movement represents Judaism. To tag Islam as a terrorist religion is to defame religion unjustly. Such statements are unwarranted and only inflame an already tense environment.

Let me mention the work of organisations such as ‘TELL MAMA’, an Anti-Muslim Hatred group that seeks to consider and takes forward proposals to tackle anti-Muslim hatred. Its action plan aims to create an environment that prevents hate crime from happening.

Free expression is not a recipe for lawlessness. The balance between free speech and protecting the public should not, on such matters, lean to the former. Liberal democracies have an obligation to secure the well-being of its population, especially vulnerable minorities. Indeed, the litmus test of a decent or civilized liberal democracy is the status of minorities.

Q. In your research, have you observed a connection between hate speech and violent acts?

Yes, I did.

In 1999, 21-year-old Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, an avowed Aryan supremacist, went on a racially-motivated shooting spree in Illinois and Indiana over the July 4th weekend. Targeting Jews, African-Americans, and Asian-Americans, Smith killed two and wounded eight before taking his own life, just as law enforcement officers prepared to apprehend him. Smith embarked on his killing spree after being exposed to Internet racial propaganda. He regularly visited the World Church of the Creator (WCOTC) website, a notorious racist and hateful organisation founded in Florida in the early 1970s. Smith was so consumed by the hate rhetoric of WCOTC that he was willing to murder and to take his own life in pursuit of his debased hate devotion.

The same year there were two other hate-motivated murders. Buford Furrow used to visit hate sites, including Stormfront.org and a macabre site called Gore Gallery, on which explicit photos of brutal murders were posted. Whether inspirational or instructional, the Internet supplied information that clearly helped fuel the explosion of a ticking human time bomb. Furrow decided to move to action. He drove to the North Valley Jewish Community Center and shot an elderly receptionist and a teenage girl who cared for the young students attending the summer day school. He continued shooting, hitting three children, one as young as 5 years old, before leaving the facility. Shortly thereafter Furrow fatally shot a Filipino American postal delivery worker because he worked for the federal government and was not White.

In turn, Matthew Williams, a solitary student at the University of Idaho, turned to the Internet in search of a new spiritual path. Described as a “born fanatic” by acquaintances, Williams reportedly embraced a number of the radical-right philosophies he encountered online, from the anti-government views of militias to the racist and anti-Semitic beliefs of the Identity movement. He regularly downloaded pages from extremist sites and continually used printouts of these pages to convince his friends to also adopt these beliefs. At age 31, Matthew Williams and his 29-year-old brother, Tyler, were charged with murdering a gay couple, Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder, and with involvement in setting fire to three Sacramento-area synagogues. The police discovered boxes of hate literature at the home of the brothers.

In early 2001, Richard Baumhammers, another Aryan supremacist, shot down six people, all members of minorities, in suburban Philadelphia, inspired by material on the Internet. Tim Haney of the Allegheny County Police Department in Pennsylvania testified that computer records confiscated at Baumhammers’ home indicated his frequent visits to white supremacist Internet sites.

Michael Brad Magleby burned a cross on an interracial couple’s property. He also visited hate sites prior transmitting this hateful message. In 2002, Michael Kenneth Faust, a  white supremacist who spent several hours a day on the Internet soliciting teens to take his classes on firearm use, shot and killed a teenager.

More recently, a 22-year-old man Keith Luke murdered two black people, and raped and nearly killed a third, on the morning after Barack Obama was inaugurated as president (January 21, 2009). When he was captured, Luke told police that he intended to go to a synagogue that night and kill as many Orthodox Jews as possible. Luke told the police that he had been reading white power websites for about six months (in other words, from about the time that Obama won the Democratic nomination) and had concluded that the white race was being subjected to a genocide in America. Therefore he had to act. This is a clear-cut case of propaganda translating directly into criminal violence.

Later the same year, on June 10, 2009, James von Brunn entered the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC and opened fire, killing Security Guard Stephen Tyrone Johns before he was stopped by other security guards. Von Brunn, a die-hard white supremacist anti-Semite, was an active neo-Nazi for decades long before the Internet became a viable public platform during the early 1990s. He utilized the Internet to publish his tracts and to spew hatred. Von Brunn ran a hate website called holywesternempire.org and had a long history of associations with prominent neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers. For a period of time, he was employed by Noontide Press, a part of the Holocaust denying Institute of Historical Review, which was then run by Willis Carto, one of America’s most prominent anti-Semites.

In Canada, Craig Harrison was found guilty of an assault causing bodily harm to an individual whose race he did not like and was sentenced to two years less a day in jail. Observing the content of messages posted on the Net by him, the Canadian Human Rights Commission concluded that the materials were likely to expose those of the Jewish faith, Aboriginal peoples, francophones, blacks and others to hatred and contempt: “They are undoubtedly as vile as one can imagine and not only discriminatory but threatening to the victims they target”.

In 2014, The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) published a two-year study that details incidents in which active users on one website, Stormfront.org, murdered nearly 100 people in the last five years. These incidents include: (a) the killing of three Pittsburgh police officers by Richard Poplawski in 2009. (b) Two years later, in 2011, Anders Behring Breivik’s murderous journey in which he detonated a truck bomb in front of a government building in Oslo, killing eight, and then went on a shooting spree in Utoya Island, murdering 69 others. (c) In May 2012, Jason Todd Ready killed four people before killing himself. (d) That same month, Eric Clinton Kirk Newman, also known as Luca Rocco Magnotta, was accused of torturing and dismembering a Chinese immigrant; (e) three months later, Wade Michael Page shot and killed six people at a Sikh temple before killing himself during a shootout with police.

Q. What practical actions can be taken to counter hate on the Internet and are there any promising initiatives currently underway to tackle this issue?

Speech v. Speech – This is the favourite American response, espoused by many Internet experts and human rights activists who argue that the way to tackle hate on the Net is by more communication, by openness and by exposing the problem. We need to show that all human beings deserve respect and concern, all have dignity, and that a racially based society negates liberal-democratic values that we all hold dear: pluralism, diversity, individuality, liberty, equality, tolerance, justice. Counter-speech includes expressive support for the targets of hate, highlighting the values of tolerance, pluralism, individualism and respect for others.

Education – activity at primary and high schools alerting about hate on the Internet; its forms and attractions (music, video games, activities for kids); why racism is logically incoherent, empirically unattainable, anti-democratic and inhumane; why it is harmful; who is targeted; history of hate and the connection between hate and some of the most horrific human catastrophes men inflicted upon other men.

In the USA, Partners Against Hate, an innovative collaboration of the Anti-Defamation League, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund, and the Center for the Prevention of Hate Violence, offers promising education and counteraction strategies for young people and the wide range of community-based professionals who work and interact with youth, including parents, law enforcement officials, educators, and community/business leaders. In turn, Family Online Safety Institute focuses on making the online safer for kids through the promotion of best practices, tools and education.

Adopting and enforcing school, university and workplace policies – institutions and organizations should adopt policies that exclude hate and bigotry off and online. They should ascertain that their computers are not used for purposes that are incompatible with these policies. Students and workers should not abuse their time at the education system and at the workplace and exploit the technology that is made available to them to preach hatred against others, or to engage in expressions that contravene and undermine civility and respect for others. Hate is destructive. There is no reason to provide scope for hate speech in schools and the workplace.

Netcitizenship – the term “Netcitizenship” means good citizenship on the Internet. It is about developing responsible modes of conduct when surfing the Internet which include positive contributions to debates and discussions, and raising caution and alarm against dangerous Net expressions. Netcitizenship encourages counter-speech against hate speech, working together to provide a safe and comfortable virtual community, free of intimidation and bigotry. One example is Wipeout Homophobia (WHOF) which was originated as a response to gay hatred on the Internet. Wipeout Homophobia provides communal support and promotes a vision of a more tolerant and just world. In 2012, this Facebook page had more than 300,000 members and 6 million visitors.

ISPs’ responsibility – ISPs and web-hosting companies should develop standards for responsible and acceptable practices for Net users. They should adopt clear and transparent hate speech policies and include them in their terms of service. ISPs should also devise friendly and easy-to-use mechanisms for Netusers to report violations of their terms of service. With continued development of technical solutions and innovation and with increased awareness of and adherence to basic Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) we will assure a certain security level on the Internet, like in any other industry. What is required is more structure. CSR should be part of the web company’s strategy, in the frame of mind of the day-to-day operations. Indeed, CSR is a continuous living process.

Social media companies have teams of only a few hundred employees to monitor networks of billions of accounts. This is insufficient and it is also irresponsible. Social media companies need to address the problem far more seriously. Each company should have a group of highly-talented software engineers to devise a search algorithm that would flag out a string of words that may indicate that a person is engaged with anti-social and dangerous expressions. Facebook has such a team of specialists to deal with suspected fake identities. Facebook takes this issue very seriously. It is suggested to adopt a similar attitude to combat radical, extremist expressions as human lives are no less significant than fake identities. After flagging a string of violent words, a team of people who monitor social networks will then look at the context and, if they come to believe that the speech is dangerous, they will swiftly intervene, remove the dangerous content and block the extremist from continuing the dangerous activity. By such proactivity, social media companies can save many lives.

Affecting search engines results — If you Google the words “Martin Luther King”, one of the results you will receive is http://www.martinlutherking.org/, a hate site masquerading as an objective historical source about the American human rights leader. High school students who are asked to conduct research on the life and leadership of Mr King are likely to come across this site. Some of them might think this is a legitimate site, with credible eye-opener information. The Google algorithm used to determine search ranking does not evaluate the accuracy of information thus the site’s high ranking can potentially mislead many users, especially young users who conduct their very first research.

Google was under pressure to manipulate its search engine so as to boost or reduce websites’ page ranking. The controversy revolved around a clearly anti-Semitic website, http://www.jewwatch.com/, which sometimes was ranked first if you searched the word “Jew”. Thousands of netusers petitioned Google to remove the site.

Labelling, naming and shaming – Web-hosting companies like First Amendment, Go Daddy and Xanga.com (blog hosting) that are friendly to racial propaganda should be named and shamed.

International cooperation – In Europe, a continent that suffered a great deal from the horror of hate and bigotry, much less tolerance is afforded to such phenomenon compared to the United States. In 1996, a governmental organization in Germany, Jugendschutz.net, and a non-governmental organization in the Netherlands, Stichting Magenta, were the first organizations in the world to start a dedicated team to address the problems of racism, anti-Semitism, hate against Muslims, gays, and other discrimination or incitement to hatred, each in their own country.

In 2002, they founded the International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH) whose vision is the international co-operation between complaints bureaus against discrimination, which allows the sharing of knowledge, the exchange of best practices and coordinated measures against hate speech, promoting respect, citizenship and responsibility, enabling Internet users to exercise their right of freedom of speech with respect for the rights and reputations of others, and to freely use the Internet without experiencing cyber hate. The mission of INACH is to unite and empower organizations fighting cyber hate, to create awareness and promote attitude change about on-line discrimination and to reinforce the rights of all Internet users. INACH monitors the Internet and publishes overviews and reports about the situation in different countries. INACH acts as an umbrella organization for hotlines specializing in racist and hateful content.

Other notable organizations fighting against hate are LICRA.org and the Dutch Centre Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI). LICRA is the French International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l’Antisémitisme). It was created in May 1926 in Paris. LICRA fights discrimination, racism and xenophobia especially as they are manifested on the electronic and print media. CIDI is the Netherlands’ prime source of information about Israel and the Jewish people. CIDI has published instructions explaining how to get anti-Semitic material removed from the Internet. CIDI believes that individual surfers have a responsibility to take action against hate.

Publishing overviews and reports on a regular basis –- publishing names of hate sites, highlights of their content, their locations, their ISPs, both successful and unsuccessful attempts to curtail their activities.

Law and adherence to international conventions — On global issues such as hate there is a need for international cooperation to respond to global concerns. As the Internet is an international medium, countries realize the urgency for transnational coordination. The Ministerial Council Decision 9/09 of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) of December 2, 2009, on Combating Hate Crimes calls on the participating States to seek opportunities to co-operate and thereby address the increasing use of the Internet to advocate views constituting an incitement to bias-motivated violence including hate crimes and, in so doing, to reduce the harm caused by the dissemination of such material, while ensuring that any relevant measures taken are in line with OSCE commitments, in particular with regard to freedom of expression.

Further research may analyse the ways social media apps are used in spreading hate speech, the way modern technologies are exploited to spread hate speech and whether search engines and social networking sites should continue to assist hate groups in their agenda.

Future research may also compare between the utilization of the Internet to spout hatred to the way the Internet is being utilized to other anti-social groups: criminals, paedophiles and terrorists. There seem to be many commonalities between the modes of operation of these groups. Such comparative studies may help security agencies in the fighting against these phenomena.

 

As the long running tensions over the set of islands in the East China Sea appear to be coming to a head, the time for thinking through the alternatives to the militarisation of this conflict seems to be well and truly upon us.

The conflict raises interesting issues about sovereignty claims based on offshore territories, particularly as we face a climate-constrained future as well as the increasing importance of competition over scarce resources. The latter is fast becoming one of the most important global trends if one thinks about the potential ‘drivers’ of conflict and even war.

Spiralling naval spending in the region has been tracked by analysts for some years now, and flashpoints such as the dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands could show rampant military spending and arms racing for the dangerous trends that they are if things deteriorate rapidly. Arms racing helps to reinforce security dilemmas (the problems of interpreting the motives of potential adversaries and responding in-kind by arming yourself thus creating a spiral towards ever increasing militarisation). Arms racing also discourages the development of what Ken Booth and Nicholas Wheeler refer to as ‘security dilemma sensibility’ – the ability to “perceive the motives behind, and to show responsiveness towards, the potential complexity of the military intentions of others. In particular, it refers to the ability to understand the role that fear might play in their attitudes and behaviour, including, crucially, the role that one’s own actions may play in provoking that fear.”

But what is particularly important to note in relation to this crisis is the interaction between the trends of increasing militarisation and competition over resources. The potential hydrocarbon resources beneath the ground around the islands as well as the rich fishing grounds in the surrounding waters gives the competing claims to sovereignty a particular strategic bite.

Imposed on top of this is the effect of unresolved historical tensions and fierce nationalist sentiment in some quarters of both Japan and China. The coverage of the dispute in the media has been particularly important. Kevin Clements and Ria Shibata have noted that “this might be expected in China, which has a state-run media. In democratic Japan and Taiwan, however, the media have also promoted official and unofficial nationalist positions on the conflict. This has been accompanied by a marginalising or silencing of moderate voices favouring negotiated non-violent solutions to the conflict.” Interestingly, the most constructive voices calling for calm who have been able to cut through the jingoism and sabre rattling have been the business community concerned with the bigger picture issues of losing trade and tourism between China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.

Clements and Shibata have outlined five initial steps that could be used to de-escalate the issue and begin the difficult but unavoidable process of a negotiated solution. In the longer-term, both regional powers and important external players will need to put addressing the inter-linked trends of militarisation and increasing competition over strategic resources at the heart of any attempts to avoid the worst case scenarios playing out.

Ben Zala is a Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester.

Image source: Al Jazeera English.

Generally, the Arctic has elicited only minor attention outside the countries whose borders or territories fall within the loosely-defined region. But that is changing rapidly. As Kuupik Kleist, the former Prime Minister of Greenland, put it,

 “The Arctic used to be the last frontier. Now it seems we are at the center of the world.”

While rapidly deteriorating environmental security in the region poses a grave threat to many regions of the world, the focus on militarized control of the area masks the very real need to mitigate further damage to the climate and increase our adaptive capacities to the inevitable climatic changes that will come in the 21st century.

Realpolitik or Environmental Security?

Indeed, much has been made lately about the ongoing and profound changes that are reshaping the Arctic region. There is no shortage of reports that detail the ways that climate change is forcing the region’s physical, social, and political environments into flux. Arctic sea ice is melting at an increasingly rapid rate, with the very real possibility that sometime between 2020-2050, the Arctic will soon experience its first (and undoubtedly not its last) sea ice-free summer. The effects of warming temperatures are likely to be dramatic: it will degrade habitats for vulnerable species, including polar bears and seals, and will accelerate and compound the effects of climate change, like volatile weather patterns and rising sea levels. A recent article in the journal Nature concluded that the long-term economic costs from a warming Arctic could reach $60 trillion, almost equal to the entire economic value of the world economy in 2012.

But in the face of these worrying trends, discussion has instead focused on the economic opportunities offered by the ‘opening up’ of the Arctic, including the creation of new shipping routes and increasing the accessibility of fossil fuel reserves. The area north of the Arctic Circle is said to contain about 30% of the world’s undiscovered gas and 13% of the world’s undiscovered oil. The Governance of newly opened shipping lanes like the Northwest Passage will remain a contentious political question. While the region has thus far suffered from general neglect and inattention, it is unrealistic to expect that to continue in the future.

Indeed, it is already becoming clear that the Arctic is the site of ongoing militarization. Recent security maneuvers have increased state control over the farthest reaches of state territory. In 2007, Russia planted its flag underneath the North Pole and resumed strategic bomber patrols over the area, echoing  its Cold War past. Canada’s official Arctic Foreign Policy proclaims “the first and most important pillar towards recognizing the potential of Canada’s Arctic is the exercise of our sovereignty over the far north.” Border disputes in the Arctic have led to strained relations for decades between Canada and Denmark as well as between Russia and Norway. Both cases have been peacefully resolved in the last few years. Yet, sovereignty and security have both been used to justify the proliferation of military ice-breakers, patrol ships, the creation of new deep water ports, and the deployment of military personnel including the Northern Rangers in Canada and the Danish Arctic command (which are both relatively small in terms of active personnel). Joint military operations conducted by Arctic countries (excluding Russia) such as Operation Cold Response and Operation Nanook have also contributed to the militarization of the Arctic.

It is worthwhile then to examine how sustainable forms of security are useful in the Artic context. What is needed principally is an increased awareness of the integrated connections between the natural environment and security. Large-scale changes to the natural environment are security threats.  Whether through an increase in extreme weather events causing enormous health and economic costs; rising sea levels leading to coastal flooding and climate-induced migration; or desertification, which devastates crop production, the effects of environmental change are severe. The task then in the Arctic is to combat the tendency to view environmental degradation as an opportunity for national gain, which will do little to counter-act the severe global effects. Such conventional, strategic responses inevitably lead only to further suspicion, distrust, and discord. The Arctic is one of the clearest manifestations of this tendency.

The Arctic will be without question a region of high strategic importance in the 21st century. Unfortunately, countries are likely to view the Arctic with an eye to using the region to bolster domestic support for increased militarization, surveillance, and sovereign control over vast, distant, territorial ‘frontiers’.  All told, Arctic security remains wedded to traditional, state-centric military threats despite the fact that the threat of outright conflict is as remote as the farthest reaches of the Arctic region itself. These approaches may be predictable, but they will contribute little to alleviating the complex, interrelated, and underlying drivers of insecurity in the Arctic region.

Demilitarizing the Arctic

So is the goal then to “demilitarize” the Arctic? Would the diverse sets of international issues arising from changes in the Arctic be better positioned in political terms, away from the exceptional demands that military thinking requires? Perhaps strengthening political institutions like the Arctic Council can alleviate the Arctic “rush” and ensure a lawful forum for state and indigenous negotiations in the Arctic. Formed in 1996, the Arctic Council has been the primary diplomatic forum used to facilitate cooperation, discussion, and negotiation. It was formed by eight Arctic countries (Canada, Denmark [Greenland], Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States) and includes six Arctic indigenous organizations and other Arctic inhabitants. Recently, the Council accepted six new non-Arctic states as non-voting Observer states, joining six others already granted observer status. The new inclusions, China, India, Italy, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, may appear at first glance to be curious admissions. Certainly they represent important economic and military powers but most exist far from region itself. However, after initial reticence from members like Canada, the Council accepted their inclusion on the basis of strengthening the Council’s legitimacy by undercutting any emerging alternative organizations, like the Arctic Circle Forum from usurping its authority.

We should celebrate the decision by Council members to include new observer states: it allows these states to increase their awareness of Arctic issues and vulnerabilities, it opens up new avenues for cooperation and confidence-building measures, and it rightly spreads the responsibility for protecting the Arctic across the world. But while the Arctic Council remains an enduring and hopeful sign for managing political relations, the Council alone should not be expected to transform the underlying logic that continuously renders environmental security in strategic terms, obscuring the practices which have led to Arctic insecurity in the 21st century.

The driver of Arctic insecurity is not simply the continued militarization or the politicization of the region by its encircling states. The reality is much more complex and multifaceted. In effect, by continuously focusing on security in these strategic terms, we can’t see the forest for the trees. The Arctic “great game” is not simply a metaphor we might use to romanticize geopolitical maneuvers; it is an expression of the profound material environmental shifts that are occurring rapidly and are a result of anthropogenic drivers related to modern carbon-based societies. The continual free-fall in terms of Arctic ice levels and the fact that the region has been warming twice as fast as lower latitudes is likely to have far more important, long-lastingand damaging global effects than a hypothetical, always-over-the-horizon conflict between states competing to protect their localized interests. That is a popular story that obscures the much more difficult and insidious problems related to diagnosing and combatting climate change.

The fact that most states view the opening up of new Arctic sea lanes as a means to exploit vast and newly accessible energy sources reflects long-dominant understandings of both security and the environment. If our understanding of both Arctic security and the Arctic environment continues to be reduced to the international scramble for untapped resources and for newly opened “shipping lanes” (or melted sea ice, if you will), it is unlikely that the hugely alarming and damaging environmental effects of climate change will ever be truly overcome.

It is essential then that environmental security in the Arctic is recast away from traditional and dominant security practices of resource development, national sovereignty promotion, and increased surveillance. While these practices will remain in the future, we still should encourage a much more profound rethink that places greater value not simply on increasing cooperative intergrovernmental forums (though these are important), but on greater collaboration with indigenous populations, on studying the global environmental interconnections between the Arctic and other regions, and on aggressively combatting climate change. Adaptation to the inevitable changes occurring in the region will of course require coordination and strategic planning, and the potential for conflict will be ever-present. But an overreliance on familiar narratives of climate change-induced conflict obscures the much more complex drivers of Arctic insecurity, namely our destructive relationship with the environment and its connection to conventional, strategic security logic.

Cameron Harrington is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at King’s University College and Brescia University College, at Western University (Canada), where he teaches in the areas of environmental politics and international relations. His Ph.D thesis, (pending completion September 2013) builds a framework to combat water insecurity in the 21st century by focusing on the ethics of security.

Cameron tweets via @camharrington and can be reached at [email protected] 

Image source: lafrancevi (HMCS CORNER BROOK on arctic patrol during Operation Nanook)

Shortly after the lunar New Year, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon challenged the Conference on Disarmament to run with the ‘spirit of the blue horse’ towards substantive engagement on multilateral nuclear disarmament in 2014. While the regime may not achieve this speed, there are initiatives underway this year that may well help nuclear disarmament dialogues pick up speed ahead of the 2015 NPT review conference.  

On 21 January, on his way to the Geneva Conference on Syria, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stopped in at the Palais des Nations to address the Conference on Disarmament (CD). In doing so, the UNSG affirmed his support for multilateralism and encouraged the CD—the single multilateral disarmament forum—to break the deadlock and commence substantive negotiations. On the occasion of the lunar New Year, the Secretary-General challenged the CD delegations to ‘arm yourself with the spirit of [the] blue horse and…run fast and run far’.  But instead of running fast or far, the current status of the multilateral global nuclear disarmament dialogue is ‘in piaffe’ – trotting elaborately on the spot.

However, some, including Angela Kane, the UN’s High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, question whether a nuclear disarmament regime even exists. In her prepared speech to the 2013 EU Non-proliferation and Disarmament Conference, Kane argued that the current “system of institutions and norms to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, coupled with a promise to pursue the elimination of such weapons at some uncertain but distant time—if ever—subject to preconditions” should be more accurately called a ‘Partial Nuclear Arms Control Regime’ rather than a nuclear disarmament regime.

Kane posited that the “negotiated ceilings on deployments of strategic nuclear weapons of two countries, with no international verification, and no participation by the other three recognized nuclear-weapons States…or the non-NPT states” are not global, nor constitute disarmament or a regime. The sustainability of the nuclear non-proliferation regime and the credibility of the NPT review process is often questioned in light of efforts which ‘seek just to tighten non-proliferation controls’ and address horizontal proliferation. In her September 2013 speech, Kane warned that such an approach ‘would erode what is left of the legitimacy of the regime’.

The CD’s impasse continues…

In 2014, the continuing deadlock in the CD may lead to such erosion of legitimacy, as well as frustration with existing forums for dialogue and progress. This year’s President of the first session of the CD, Israeli Ambassador Eviatar Manor, met with lack of consensus on a programme of work for 2014, due to diverging views. The formal programme of work at the CD remains deadlocked over the inclusion of a call for measures to start negotiation for a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), a proposed international agreement that would prohibit the production of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium. Pakistan objects to this as it would cap its fissile material stocks at a disadvantageous level vis-à-vis India.

As US Acting Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, Rose Gottemoeller, declared at the CD on 4 February, the FMCT is ‘the next logical – and necessary – step in creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons’ and remains ‘an essential prerequisite for global nuclear disarmament’. Gottemoeller reminded the CD that Action 15 of the 2010 NPT Review Conference (RevCon) Action Plan mandated that the CD begin immediate negotiation of the FMCT. As the 2015 NPT RevCon approaches, this Action seems to remain aspirational.

The Nayarit Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons

Many NPT non-nuclear weapon states (NNWS) remain frustrated with the lack of transparency and progress around the P5’s implementation of NPT Article VI commitments. These stipulate that all NPT states parties shall pursue negotiations towards ending the arms race and to nuclear disarmament ‘in good faith’. They see the ‘humanitarian dimension’ initiative on nuclear disarmament and the Open Ended Working Group, a UN General Assembly initiative to develop proposals for multilateral nuclear disarmament, as alternative means to address such concerns. The lack of engagement with —and arguable outright dismissal of – such initiatives by the P5 will continue to widen existing fissures and discord in the NPT review process.

The Second Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons was held in Nayarit, Mexico on 13-14 February. The conference aimed to deepen ‘our understanding of the effects of nuclear weapons, by approaching the global and long-term consequences of a nuclear detonation, accidental or deliberate, from the perspective and variables of the 21st Century society’. As in its 2013 inaugural conference in Oslo, government officials, IGOs and civil society participated with ‘multi-sectorial delegations, at expert-level, with specialists in areas such as public health, humanitarian assistance, environmental issues, and civilian protection, among others, as well as diplomats and military experts’. As clarified on the official website, the Nayarit Conference did ‘not produce a negotiated outcome, but a factual summary under the responsibility of the Chair’.

146 states participated in the Nayarit Conference, including India and Pakistan. Notably, as in the Oslo conference, the five NPT nuclear weapons states did not attend.  In 2013, the P5, in solidarity and following consultations amongst each other, boycotted the conference in what could be described as bloc policy, claiming the Oslo conference would ‘divert discussion away from practical steps to create conditions for further nuclear reductions’. This P5 declaratory rationale is also expressed in relation to the Open Ended Working Group and the humanitarian initiative more broadly. Many perceive the lack of P5 engagement with such initiative as a P5 concern that the initiative is a fast-track to a ban on nuclear weapons – as advocated by many civil society groups and some NNWS.

This concern was confirmed by the UK FCO Minister Hugh Robertson who on 12 February elaborated that the UK remains ‘concerned that some efforts under the humanitarian consequences initiative appear increasingly aimed at pursuing a Nuclear Weapons Convention prohibiting nuclear weapons outright’. UK MPs, including James Arubuthnot, the Chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, and Sir Nick Harvey have already strongly criticized the UK government’s decision not to participate in Nayarit.

The final five paragraphs of the Chair’s “factual” summary from the Nayarit conference, which veer off to include the chair’s perceptions certainly lend some validity to the perceptions, confusion, and concerns voiced by the P5 about the aims of the initiative. However, to be clear, such support for pre-emptive ‘outlawing’ of nuclear weapons was not representative of views and interventions voiced by several states that participated in the Nayarit conference, including Germany, Australia, the Netherlands and Canada. Such mixed signalling and conflicting narratives about the conferences and the broader purpose of the initiative may have implications for the future continued—and broader engagement—by those NNWS who support the ethos of the humanitarian dimension initiative but who are not on board the ‘ban-express’.

In a January 2014 statement to the CD by Ambassador Alexey Borodavkin, the Russian perspective is expressed clearly: ‘the catastrophic character and unacceptability of any use of nuclear weapons is self-evident and requires no further discussions’. Ambassdor Borodavkin, further warned that ‘we should not be distracted by the discussion of humanitarian consequences from the primary goal of creating due conditions for further nuclear reductions’. Highlighting the diverse perspectives on what constitutes obstacles to progress towards dialogue on nuclear disarmament, Russia, as outlined by Borodavkin last month, considers plans to build a global missile defence system as a ‘negative factor which is undermining strategic stability’, and ‘the most tremendous challenge standing in the way to [a] nuclear-free world’.

P5 preference for the ‘step-by-step’ process

The consensus among the P5 is that progress in fulfilling NPT Article VI commitments, is via the P5 ‘step-by-step’ process in line with the 2010 NPT Action Plan.  As Rose Gottemoeller, declared in February at the CD, ‘there are no shortcuts to reaching our shared goal of a world without nuclear weapons’ and the pathway is an ‘incremental process’. She describes these P5 conferences as ‘essential means for laying the foundation for future agreements’ that could envelope NWS beyond the bilateral arms control process. The Chinese government will host the fifth conference of the P5 process in April 2014 ahead of the third Preparatory Committee to the 2015 NPT RevCon.

The P5 are developing a common glossary of nuclear weapons-related terms. Gottemoeller admits this ‘may not sound important or interesting, until you consider that verifiable multilateral nuclear disarmament will require clear agreement on the definitions and concepts for the vital aspects that must be covered in future treaties.’

Transitioning from piaffe to trot

While dialogue on nuclear disarmament is currently in piaffe, and Ban Ki-moon’s ‘fast run’ in 2014 may remain aspirational, engagement and confidence-building measures could yet advance dialogue to a forward ‘trot’ ahead of the 2015 NPT Review Conference. Significant regime measures which could catalyse a shift towards improved dialogue and consensus-building on multilateral nuclear disarmament include:

• Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) ratifications (or overtures towards ratification) by Annex 2 states—the eight states remaining (China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, US) for CTBT entry into force;
• Adoption of a programme of work at the CD; or even
• Progress on the Helsinki conference for an establishment for a Weapons of Mass Destruction-Free Zone in the Middle East (including CWC accession by Israel).

In support of restoring legitimacy and boosting credibility in the non-proliferation regime beyond this NPT review cycle, there is an underlying need to bridge existing divides and boost engagement between the two separate constituencies on the nuclear weapons policy debate: those advocating for nuclear deterrence postures and those advocating for nuclear disarmament. Both constituencies ultimately seek security, but there is a distinct lack of informed, respectful and frank dialogue.

The two constituencies rarely engage in sincere dialogue on core issues at the basis of each posture, including on how security is provided. Their discourses remain distinct and divergent. One could characterise them as being engaged only in ‘enclaved deliberation’. By addressing key assumptions, social constructs and understandings of each policy posture on the nuclear weapons debate — including an assessment of notions of what constitutes strategic stability and options for security not based on an ultimate reliance on nuclear weapons—perhaps honest dialogue can take shape instead of mere regurgitation and mutual dismissal of postures.

Jenny Nielsen is a Research Analyst with the Non-proliferation and Disarmament Programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). Previously, she was a Programme Manager for the Defence & Security Programme at Wilton Park and a Research Assistant for the Mountbatten Centre for International Studies (MCIS) at the University of Southampton. At MCIS, Jenny was tasked with the co-editing the 2004-2012 editions of the NPT Briefing Book. She holds a PhD from the University of Southampton which focused on US nuclear non-proliferation policy vis-à-vis Iran in the 1970s.

Featured image:   UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon speaks at the  High Level review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-proliferation on Nuclear Weapons (NPT) Source: United Nations Photo