#142 THE G|O BRIEFING, JUNE 15, 2023
Acrimonious disputes over LGBTQ rights rock the ILC—and are here to stay | China resumes construction of the future, literally, figuratively, and with Geneva on the map | Switzerland celebrates a successful first-ever Security Council presidency
This is an onsite, slightly edited excerpt of the G|O Briefing newsletter sent on June 15, 2023.
The multilateral system is changing at warp speed; as Western dominance is eroding globally, new alliances and coalitions are being formed, sometimes between countries with diverging interests that, nevertheless, decide to band together. Today in The Geneva Observer, we come back to the International Labour Conference, where the ILO budget negotiations almost collapsed over a massive pushback against the protection of LGBTQ rights. The effort was spearheaded by Pakistan and Morocco, leading a coalition of African and Islamic countries. In the end, the ILO budget survived, thanks to a last-minute diplomatic effort, but the episode has left many convinced that this was the first of many storms to come for the labour organization—and possibly for the entire UN system.
As China attempts to kickstart its economy after the COVID-19 pandemic, Jamil Chade reports on how International Geneva is likely to be a key battleground in its development strategy. While the massive construction drive is the most obvious sign of China’s mission to “build the future,” diplomatic maneuvers in patent registration, health strategy, and telecoms are equally important parts of the project.
A “first class act” is how a senior UN official described Switzerland’s first-ever presidency of the UN Security Council. By all accounts, Swiss Ambassador Pascale Baeriswyl and her team deftly navigated the many challenges of presiding over the Council in these unruly times. Stephanie Fillion joined the tired but happy Swiss Mission team as they popped the champagne to celebrate their success. She also takes a look at the achievements that earned Switzerland its kudos.
Want to find out more about Switzerland’s role in the world as it redefines its neutrality? Our partner, the Swiss Association for Foreign Policy, is organizing a day-long seminar in Montreux on June 22. You can register here.
Profound cultural differences over LGBTQ protections rocked the ILO’s budget discussions, but they’re here to stay—and will probably intensify
By Philippe Mottaz
The budget of the International Labour Organization (ILO) was accepted on Tuesday (June 13), by 477 votes in favor, 11 against, and 7 abstentions. But these numbers don’t tell the full story of what diplomatic sources described to The Geneva Observer as the most acrimonious debate they have witnessed in years at the ILO. Some even fear the row over the protection of LGBTQ rights that erupted over the last few days could eventually mutate into a challenge to the organization’s very legitimacy. It pitted Western states against a coalition of African states and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) which for days managed to de facto stall the negotiations of the International Labour Conference’s finance committee.
In the past, issues have traditionally been decided by consensus. But this year, the negotiations assumed a new stridency, seen by ILO watchers as the sign of a worrisome, growing, and unprecedented polarization within the labor organization. For instance, last Saturday evening (June 10), heated negotiations at the Conference’s finance committee ended up at an impasse and had to be suspended as it became clear that further discussions would not break the deadlock.
The dispute was prompted by attempts from African states and the OIC to oppose the mention of specific vulnerable groups covered by the ILO’s remit to fight discrimination and to reject all reference to sexual orientation and gender identity in the program and budget documents. The minutes of the meeting offer a toned-down, carefully worded summary of discussions described as highly acrimonious by some of the participants.
An emergency meeting was called for Monday morning, finally paving the way to the compromise that allowed the close-to-$885m ILO budget to be accepted.
The adopted text specifically refers to people suffering discrimination on “the grounds of race, sexual orientation, and gender identity.” But in a face-saving formulation for the African States and the OIC, the final document “recognizes the difference expressed on some issues,” according to the ILO’s official statement on the budget. Similarly, the screens in the plenary room announcing the final vote stated that the ILO was “taking note of divergent positions and voting” in its various organs.
But if the deal is widely saluted in Geneva as a diplomatic achievement of significance—considering that a rejection of the budget would have risked paralyzing the organization—on the substance, however, it appears that irreconcilable differences remain between the two sides, and that the debate about gender will not only resurface at the ILO but also possibly at other Geneva-based international organizations. “By opposing the provisions about the LGBTQ [community], the message that the African and Muslim states were sending is that they are now willing to openly challenge the Western-centric values of the ILO,” a North-African diplomat told The Geneva Observer.
Other sources go further: “Beyond the gender issue, what is being challenged is the legitimacy of the organization. All the ILO’s bodies and instruments, including its tripartite governance, derive from the international human rights regime. This is what being questioned now,” a highly experienced ILO watcher told The G|O.
Many diplomats here believe, indeed, that the polarization of the debates and the divisions that have come to light about the ILO’s values point to what might well turn into a true constitutional crisis within the organization.
For some, the ILO’s showdown could prefigure a growing effort to ban references to sexual orientation and gender identity across the entire United Nations system. They also warn about an increasingly hostile posture towards the normative role of some international organizations. Since its creation more than a hundred years ago, the ILO brings together governments, employers and workers to set labour standards.
-PHM
China resumes its construction of the future, amid debt, dilemma, and a new diplomatic strategy
By Jamil Chade
Suspended by cables, more than 20 meters above a river, a welder is hard at work on a new bridge. Next to him, in choreography rehearsed across hundreds of other construction sites, workers carry steel bars by hand and fix them to the ground.
The construction could be any one among thousands in a China that has consumed a record volume of cement and experienced a shortage of cranes. But in this case, the project is a different one: it is the construction of a road of the future, designed for cars that do not even exist yet. The aim is to install technology which will, in the near future, allow autonomous vehicles to drive on these roads, which will run from Beijing to the Xiong'an region.
While the road may only pass through Chinese territory, the project behind it will run through the heart of International Geneva: The huge construction drive is just one example of the many ways in which the $18 trillion economy is, after the impact of COVID-19, resuming its project to become the main player of the 21st century. And this time, the bet is that China’s future-building will have a strong technological and environmental component, led by an unprecedented intensification of diplomatic actions in redefining international rules.
Since 2019, China has become the world leader in patent registration, a kind of barometer of the innovation produced by each country. In 2021, its patent office received 1.5 million patent applications, out of a total of 3.5 million worldwide. In the same year, China registered 74% of global new patents related to Artificial Intelligence, totaling more than 340,000. This new reality is leading the Chinese to seek a more prominent role in the debates at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a space that has been dominated for decades by American and European interests.
The effort also involves working behind the scenes to shut down, once and for all, any attempt by strategic adversaries to keep the pressure on Beijing over the origin of SARS-CoV-2. Not coincidentally, at the WHO, China is attempting to pivot from a defensive position to one where it can influence the institution’s agenda.
And in the human rights arena, the order is to shield this new stage of Chinese growth from criticism, and to prevent the issue of human rights from being used as a way to isolate or embarrass the country. Easier said than done—as one diplomatic source puts it, any pressure is justified when it comes to holding trading partners account for human rights abuses. The US administration, meanwhile, wants the new High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, to keep the office’s eyes firmly on the situation in China.
A project resting on uncertainty
In many ways, the work going into the road of the future could serve as an analogy for the country’s own moment. The Chinese goal is to develop a system in which vehicles will be fully monitored by 5G networks, satellites, and sensors placed every 30 meters along more than 60 kilometers of highway. However, for now, legislation for the operation of these cars does not even exist—and nor do the vehicles themselves.
While waiting for the drivers of the future, the engineers at the construction site are ensuring that the ‘smart road’ can still play a role for the vehicles of today. With the help of an app, anyone entering the digitally-connected lanes will receive instant information about possible accidents, speed reductions due to traffic, weather conditions, and an immediate rescue system.
“We don’t have the regulation yet for autonomous cars. But the technology already exists,” explains site manager Chen Yang, who showed The G|O the road’s command center with giant screens scattered about. “We have a system in which there is very high precision [information] about each car, connected to the Beidou satellite network,” he said.
Liu Ying Pei, an engineer at the site, believes that the first tests with autonomous vehicles could start begin as early as the end of 2023.
Destination: The Future
The road itself, however, is not the future. It leads there: it is literally the road that will connect the Chinese capital to a new city, currently under construction, which will be inaugurated in 2035.
Swamped by an unprecedented expansion, Beijing is experiencing what many in China call “Big City Disease.” It is a condition afflicting the whole of China: In 2000, 36% of its population lived in cities; in 2019, that rate has reached 60%. In 2017, under Xi Jinping’s orders, the government decided to create a new city to unburden the capital, transferring some of its functions from Beijing.
The Brasilia of the 21st century will be composed of 70% green areas and will be divided into neighborhoods of 50,000 people each. It will also represent the final signature in the mandate of Xi Jinping, who has made it an important part of his government to redefine the state’s role in society. In announcing the project, the President stressed that it had “world vision, international standards, Chinese characteristics, and high ambition.”
Though China has seen the construction of new cities in past decades—such as Shenzhen in the 1980s, and Shanghai Pudong in the 1990s—this one will serve not only as an example of a sustainable and highly technological community, but also as a symbol of the confidence and pride of a new generation of Chinese.
Shu, a young entrepreneur, says that his grandfather was very proud of what China had become, in his last years of life. He died in 2020 at the age of 91, and even fought as a soldier during the 1940s, one of the most chaotic periods in the country’s history.
The pride of this gentleman whose life had charted the 20th and 21st centuries was mirrored in his son, who left his village in the interior of China on a bicycle, looking for work opportunities. He worked as a laborer on construction sites throughout the country until he had saved enough money to open a garment factory. At the age of almost 70, he returned to the countryside to retire—but this time, driving an Audi.
Accumulating wealth is not enough
For China’s economic planners, however, basing the country’s economy and international identity solely on its ability to sell and produce cheap goods is not enough.
Beijing makes no secret of the fact that it wants to redraw the international rules, establishing its own ‘China Standard’ for technology and influencing the debate at the ITU. The effort would involve complete sovereignty in telecoms and artificial intelligence by 2035, with its model able to compete for markets with the Americans, Japanese, and Europeans. In rewriting the world rules, China sends a message: those who had hegemony in the 20th century can no longer dictate how standards will be set.
However, foreign analysts view with skepticism the ability of the Chinese Communist Party to make room in the market for a new standard. In a recent article, Foreign Council Relations claimed that the plan is in part just more propaganda from Beijing.
Another obstacle is how far from their American competitors China’s internet giants still are. Those that have shown spectacular growth, such as Alibaba, generated fears in the Xi government that they could shadow the Communist Party’s own political power. In late March, authorities demanded that Alibaba split into six smaller companies, in a sign of regulatory turmoil.
Mountains of Debt
In the process of resuming their construction of the future, the Chinese have also discovered that capitalism has its limits.
In recent years, municipalities and provincial governments have accumulated mountains of debt in the face of a collapse of the construction industry. For years, 70-year sales of public land to developers had become one of the main sources of income for municipalities and local governments. Thus, when the real estate market plummeted, so did the revenue of entire cities.
The collapse also led to the beginning of social chaos, including protests. Families who had paid half or even 80% of their mortgages were informed by builders that the work would not be completed.
Of course, just as revenue disappeared, the government was then forced to spend more to curb COVID-19. By 2022, the Ministry of Finance pointed out that the budget for health care had increased by 18 percent, to a total of more than 280 billion euros.
The net result of all this has been an explosion of public debt. According to S&P Global Ratings, debt rates now exceed 120% of GDP, the mark set as tolerable by central government. According to the IMF, local government debt in China more than doubled in just five years to a total of $5 trillion.
In an effort to generate new sources of income, municipalities have begun auctioning off concessions at high prices to companies that want to install bicycles in the streets, as well as proliferating the issuance of debt bonds.
Another bet is to put the state itself back in the driver’s seat of the recovery, opening the tap once more for construction and construction sites all over the country. However, many foreigners in China wonder whether that bet will succeed. By 2023, the country’s growth rate is expected to be 5%, far below the average of the first decade of the 21st century.
Meanwhile, the financial market continues to watch the construction sector closely, to try to understand if the real estate crisis has really been averted, or merely postponed. By the end of the first quarter of 2023, some signs of stabilization had been identified. But no one believes anymore that the next few years will repeat the expansion that China experienced until 2015.
Whatever the reality, the turbulence is now part of the official government discourse. Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, has already made warnings about the systemic risks, while his cabinet has been instructed to “prevent and dismantle” the risks of a new crisis.
During China’s rapid expansion, billionaire Bill Gates caused an earthquake when he pointed out that the country had consumed the same amount of concrete between 2011 and 2013 as the US has consumed in a hundred years. Now, the material on which the future will be built will have to be reinvented. In the words of a Chinese proverb: “All the past died yesterday. The future was born today.”
-JC
‘First-class’ and tech-savvy: Switzerland pops the champagne for the end of its first-ever Security Council presidency
By Stephanie Fillion
June 1 was a sunny, early summer day, and a group of Swiss diplomats organized a gathering to mark the end of the first Security Council presidency in the country’s history.
They decided not to do so at their usual venue—Switzerland’s mission to the UN on Third Avenue, nearby—but inside the United Nations Headquarters, in the outdoor space of the Dutch-designed Delegates Lounge, the UN’s most popular diplomatic lounge overlooking the blooming rose garden. The sun was shining, the team popped a bottle of champagne, raised their glasses to cheer with some reporters, and took a sip, sitting down and releasing the pressure after a stressful and closely-watched month in the world of global diplomacy.
Through May, Switzerland had a press statement and two resolutions passed, and held 25 formal meetings, on issues ranging from South Sudan to a more polarized meeting on the protection of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
The presidency had been years in the making, and has involved people in all spheres of Switzerland’s political establishment—going as high up as President Alain Berset, who visited New York on May 23 for a signature meeting on the protection of civilians.
Drinking their champagne, the team looked like they were in a celebratory, “mission accomplished” mode. By all accounts, Switzerland “sailed smoothly” throughout its presidency, and the team seemed to be highly satisfied with how it went. But some observers go further: one senior Security Council official called the Swiss presidency a “first-class” one. Bern has not only led meetings professionally, but also had special surprises and events in their back pocket, including some innovative uses of technology.
Taking over from Russia
On May 1, Switzerland took over a Security Council embattled by Russia’s presidency. In a way, Russia’s divisive leadership of the Council played in Switzerland’s favor, as countries were craving a normal, somewhat neutral president to take over. “People are coming to understand what neutrality means for Switzerland,” an observer noted. “I think some people thought it meant sort of passive, and I think that this presidency showed people that it can be dynamic neutrality, but it felt neutral because everyone was feeling that the Russian presidency was so partisan and detrimental to the Council's image.”
While Russia tends to follow rules and procedures very strictly during its presidencies, Moscow’s April presidency was more controversial than usual, as it was its first since launching the invasion of Ukraine.
In the traditional press conference kicking off Switzerland’s presidency, Pascale Baeriswyl, Switzerland’s Ambassador to the UN, promised to conduct “polarized discussions,” especially those on Ukraine, “in a calm way.”
While Baeryswil definitely did not lose her cool throughout the month, Switzerland’s team was also able to deal with obstacles coming their way. One tricky request the Swiss had to handle was a letter sent by Albania, France, the US and the UK, asking to allow NATO to speak at the May 23 open debate on the protection of civilians in armed conflicts. According to an observer, other elected members, like Malta or Gabon, made mistakes and faced criticism when faced with such a situation in the past, while Switzerland did the right thing. Ultimately, NATO wasn’t allowed to speak and instead shared their remarks in written form—the appropriate thing to do, procedurally. “This alternative of them having their statement published came as a compromise,” the observer said, “I wouldn't say Switzerland was behind it, but Switzerland managed that controversial request well.”
A spokesperson for the mission told The G|O that “with regard to this request, as with all the others, [Switzerland] checked past practice.” Hence the suggestion to submit the contribution in writing, which follows the practice of 2022.
Did Switzerland's relatively easy presidency also have something to do with current affairs? The United Arab Emirates has now taken over the presidency of the Security Council. On June 6, a dam in Ukraine was destroyed and the UAE had to organize an emergency meeting on the difficult issue. Bern did hold several meetings on the conflict during the presidency, but they were arguably of a less urgent nature. Still, those meetings were organized and passed without issue—except for the usual politicization of the file.
Holy cow! Going beyond the traditional role
Switzerland not only sailed smoothly through its presidency, but also went above and beyond in preparing some surprises to go with it—some of them involving tech and artificial intelligence.
At its opening press briefing, Switzerland’s team brought with it iconic wooden Happy Lilly cows, handcrafted and hand painted, with a QR code printed on it that could be used to access the mission’s website.
Since the beginning of its term on the Security Council, it’s been obvious that a lot of resources have been allocated to marketing merchandise: Switzerland has personalized wine bottles, pillows, chocolates, and pens that it distributes during events. It’s a normal way of conducting diplomacy at the UN—though the branded wine is perhaps less usual. The resources, however, are being used carefully: The New York mission employs just under 50 staff, according to a spokesperson, including the administration which also works with the Consulate general. The staff members include transferable diplomats, military advisors from the Federal Department of Defense, locally employed technical experts, and assistants. Around 20 staff members are mainly involved in Security Council affairs.
Midway through the presidency, the press team also organized a special briefing from inside the presidency office close to the the Security Council chamber—a room that is usually used mostly for diplomats. Many journalists attended, and the small room was crammed with people as the Swiss team briefed the gathered reporters about their work at the Security Council to date, as part of their transparency agenda. However, it was also used as another opportunity to show off the softer side of Switzerland’s diplomacy, as they had redecorated the room with Swiss landscapes and branded cuckoo clocks. It was likely no accident that the media were invited at 9:45, just in time for everybody to be surprised at 10 when the birds started singing.
Alongside the Swiss-Maltese DiploFoundation, Switzerland also featured the use of artificial intelligence in diplomacy, by using a tool called DiploGPT to summarize a Security Council meeting on May 3. The tool transcribed speeches and summarized the reasoning and key points expressed by the speakers. Foreign minister Ignazio Cassis said of the experience “Science and new technologies offer us opportunities to better anticipate and understand the risks of today and the opportunities of tomorrow. We must respond to the challenges of the 21st century with 21st century solutions.”
Following in Norway’s footsteps, Switzerland also made use of a digital calendar, built by Oslo during its 2022–2023 term on the Council, which had been abandoned by other Council members.
While some Security Council members tend to reject, as far as possible, the integration of new technologies into the Council’s work, Switzerland has embraced new technologies, and the difficult conversations that come with them, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence.
However, to officially finish the presidency on May 31, Switzerland opted for traditional instead of modern: Baeriswyl organized a surprise musical event that featured Romansh language music.
June is a good month to end a presidency, as many members of the team are going off for vacation soon. Upon their return, it’s unlikely that they will get much of a rest, with the September’s UN General Assembly high-level week just around the corner. Plus, the team has set a high bar for Switzerland’s second presidency of their two-year term in October 2024, so those Happy Lilly cows are also likely to be back at work before long.
Elsewhere in the Ecosystem, but staying with the ILO
Are the numbers of child laborers underestimated? A recent study says yes.
Since 2002, the ILO has made June 12 World Day Against Child Labor. The ILO describes child labor as “any work or economic activity that deprives children of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular schools, and is mentally, physically, socially, or morally harmful.” Some 160 million children worldwide are still being put to work, according to the organization, including 72 million children in sub-Saharan Africa alone.
Using novel research methods, including satellite imagery, a recent academic paper, however, estimates that the actual number of children could be closer to 375 million. The figures used by ILO, UNICEF and other UN agencies could actually “significantly underestimate the magnitude of the problem,” says Guilherme Lichand, a researcher at the department of economics at the University of Zürich and lead author of the study, written with University of Pennsylvania’s Sharon Wolf.
The gap, Lichand says, is in large part due to the fact that the ILO largely relies on surveying parents who have no incentive to disclose child labor. He says that the ILO admits that its methodology has limitations, and that his study is meant to point out a serious underestimation of the global problem in order to better remedy it.
-PHM
Amnesty International claims that Qatar and FIFA are denying justice to hundreds of migrant workers employed during the World Cup
Amnesty International claims Fifa and the Qatari authorities have failed to properly address a “pattern of abuse against migrant workers” at the World Cup, some of whom worked 12-hour shifts for up to 38 days in succession without any time off.
“It’s six months since the tournament concluded but FIFA and Qatar have yet to offer an effective and accessible scheme to enable abused workers to receive the justice and compensation they are owed. FIFA must now step in and offer immediate and meaningful remediation for the human rights abuses suffered by workers,” says Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s Head of Economic and Social Justice.
Amnesty International
The claims are based on a new investigation conducted by the NGO which conducted interviews with 22 migrant workers employed by Teyseer, a Qatari company, as security guards during the World Cup.
“FIFA understands that there are different perceptions and views” regarding some of the allegations, football’s governing body told Amnesty, according to a report in The Guardian, adding, however, that “it is the primary responsibility of the respective companies as well as the Qatari authorities to rectify possible adverse impacts on workers.”
-PHM
Today's Briefing: Philippe Mottaz - Jamil Chade - Stephanie Fillion
Edited by: Dan Wheeler
