Natural Resources and Violent Conflict - WaterWiki.net

where did it come from? 143of insurgents like the National Union for the Total Independence ofAngola and Mozambique National Resistance.If a tracking system is also intended to monitor commodity flowsfrom conflict zones, intelligence gathering requires an entirely differentlevel of involvement, commitment, and courage. Some enterprise crimesmay also be inseparable from human rights abuses, especially those derivedfrom place-based operations that directly affect the health andwell-being of local populations.Government Transparency. Political, economic, and social featuresof the countries of origin or transit have a direct impact on howfreely and effectively a tracking system will be able to function. Inparticular, monitoring will be stymied when confronted with uncooperativenational governments that are reluctant to allow foreign interferencein “sovereign” trade practices. For example, monitoring laborstandards in some countries is frustrated by the reluctance of officialsto permit external verification. In contrast, some countries, such asIndia and Pakistan, are more amenable to external observation ofworkplace practices. Monitoring of work practices in India is also assistedby civil society and nongovernmental organizations that conductindependent investigations.World Trade Organization Implications. Any restrictions on trade,including labeling requirements, tariffs and taxes, potential embargos,or other forms of discrimination, are potentially subject to the disciplineof the various multilateral trade agreements administered by theWorld Trade Organization (WTO). Virtually all the CTRs mentionedin this chapter require parties to control or restrict trade in variousways, including imposing requirements for licensing requirements orrequiring different forms of informed consent for trade to occur.WTO jurisprudence shows a number of simple lessons from previousdisputes and adjudications:• The less trade-disruptive the measure, the lower the chance of asuccessful WTO challenge—a requirement simply for labeling or for agovernment procurement policy would be less likely to fail than a banon imports.• The more it can be shown that less trade-disruptive measures—such as preferential tariffs—have been attempted and have not provedeffective, the greater the chance more trade-disruptive measures haveof being found acceptable. This may even extend to non-trade-relatedefforts, such as capacity-building assistance to the exporting countriesconcerned.