Anna Ikeda. Credit: Soka University of America Photography
By Anna Ikeda
NEW YORK, Apr 10 2023 (IPS)
The current war in Ukraine has shown that nuclear deterrence is deeply flawed. It relies on the assumption of “rational actors” in power and credibility of threats, which we know are far from reality, especially in times of conflicts.
Beyond their potential use, nuclear weapons continue to threaten us through their mere presence. For instance, resources spent on those weapons hinder the advancement towards achieving the SDGs and building the post-pandemic world. Therefore, they tangibly affect other priority areas to be addressed at the G7 summit.
Thus, this year’s G7 summit presents an opportunity to seriously rethink our understanding of security and international peace.
The 2022 SGI Peace Proposal, authored by our international president Daisaku Ikeda, urges that we must “detoxify” ourselves from current nuclear-dependent security doctrines. Based on this, I offer some recommendations on controlling nuclear weapons:
1. Adopt a No First Use policy
To reduce current tensions and create a way toward resolving the Ukraine crisis, the nuclear-weapon states must urgently initiate action to reduce nuclear risks. With nuclear arsenals in a continuing state of high alert, there is a considerably heightened risk of unintentional nuclear weapon use.
For this reason, SGI has renewed its commitment to advocate for the principle of No First Use to be universalized as the security policy of all states possessing nuclear weapons as well as nuclear-dependent states.
We believe that adopting the doctrine of No First Use by nuclear-armed states would significantly stabilize the global security climate and help create a much needed space for bilateral and multilateral dialogue toward ending the conflict.
A No First Use policy would also operationalize the recent statement by the G20 leaders that the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible, as well as the statement by the P-5 countries in January 2022 that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
Certainly, such declaratory policy must be accompanied by changes in actual postures and policies, such as taking all nuclear forces off hair-triggered alert, in order to build mutual trust.
Overall, No First Use would be a critical step toward reducing the role of nuclear weapons in national security and serve as an impetus to advance nuclear disarmament. We therefore urge G7 leaders to seize the opportunity to discuss and announce strategies of risk reduction, de-escalation, and disarmament, particularly by declaring the policy of No First Use.
2. Engage productively in multilateral disarmament discussions and take bold leadership
It is critically important that G7 leaders take bold leadership and renew their commitment to fulfill obligations for disarmament stipulated under Article VI of the NPT.
Equally important would be to further explore the complementarity between the NPT and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). We especially hope Japan will fulfill its commitment as a bridge-builder by engaging productively in the TPNW discussions, recognizing that, despite divergent approaches, all countries share grave concerns about the potential use of nuclear weapons.
We strongly urge G7 countries to work cooperatively with the TPNW States Parties by committing to attend meetings of states parties to the treaty in the future.
3. Commit to work towards the elimination of nuclear weapons
It is often said that a world without nuclear weapons is the “ultimate goal.” However, we have to be sure this goal is achieved before nuclear weapons destroy our world. There have been some calls by experts to set the year 2045 as the absolute deadline for the elimination of nuclear weapons. At the Hiroshima Summit, G7 leaders could possibly agree on setting such a timeline and determine to begin negotiations accordingly.
4. Support disarmament and nonproliferation education initiatives
Lastly, we call on G7 leaders to demonstrate their support for educational initiatives at every level. We strongly hope that they set an example by visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and meeting the atomic bomb survivors, to directly hear from them, and learn from their experiences.
To shift the current security paradigm, we must transform the way people think about peace and security, and challenge the dominant narrative that nuclear weapons keep us safe. We need to raise the public’s awareness that the surest way to avoid a nuclear war is by eliminating these catastrophic weapons.
A 2009 nuclear abolition proposal by the SGI president states that, if we are to put the era of nuclear terror behind us, we must confront the ways of thinking that justify nuclear weapons; the readiness to annihilate others when they are seen as a threat or as a hindrance to the realization of our objectives.
For this reason, we ask for the G7 leaders’ commitment to make available the opportunity for everyone, especially but not limited to young people, to learn about the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons.
We welcome Prime Minister Kishida’s initiative for the Hiroshima Action Plan, and establishing a “Youth Leader Fund for a world without nuclear weapons.” We hope Japan will exercise its leadership to affirm that the purpose of such initiatives is not to provide only the education about disarmament, but education for disarmament.
To close, the current tensions and uncertainties in the global security climate elevates, not undermines, the value and role of dialogue and diplomacy. Forums like the G7 and the United Nations serve more important functions than ever.
Anna Ikeda is representative to the United Nations of Soka Gakkai International (SGI), and the program coordinator for disarmament of the SGI Office for UN Affairs, where her work focuses on nuclear abolition and stopping killer robots. This is a slightly shortened transcript of her paper presented to the conference on ‘Advancing Security and Sustainability at the G7 Hiroshima Summit‘ at Soka University, Tokyo on March 29, 2023.
IPS UN Bureau
Follow @IPSNewsUNBureauA Boris Johnson volt miniszterelnök vezette, kettővel ezelőtti brit kormány tavaly áprilisban jelentette be, hogy új migrációs egyezményt kötött Ruanda kormányával. E megállapodás – amely tartalmaz egy 120 millió fontos brit gazdaságfinanszírozási csomagot is Ruanda számára – lehetővé teszi, hogy mindazokat, akik illegálisan lépnek brit területre és ezután menedékjogért folyamodnak, a brit hatóságok áttelepíthessék a közép-afrikai országba.
Az egyezménynek nincs felső számbeli korlátja. London szerint Ruandának megvannak a kapacitásai akár több tízezer ember letelepítésére a következő években. A brit kormány azzal indokolta a megállapodást, hogy az „innovatív megközelítés” biztonságos és törvényes lehetőséget teremt a menedékkérvényezésre, ugyanakkor felborítja az embercsempész bűnszervezetek üzleti modelljét, mivel a brit menedékjogi rendszert kihasználni kívánó gazdasági bevándorlók nem maradnak Nagy-Britanniában.
A brit belügyminiszter kijelentette: meggyőződése, hogy Ruanda biztonságos ország a Nagy-Britanniából áttelepítendő illegális bevándorlók számára. Arra a riporteri felvetésre, hogy a ruandai hatóságok nemrégiben éles lőszert használtak az élelmiszerellátásuk csökkentése ellen tiltakozó külföldi menekültek ellen és tizenkét embert megöltek, Braverman úgy válaszolt, hogy az eset 2018-ban történt, „mi pedig 2023-ra és még tovább tervezünk”. Hozzátette: a londoni felsőbíróság is alaposan megvizsgálta az egyezményt, amelyet törvényesnek talált, és szintén biztonságos célországnak minősítette Ruandát.
A londoni felsőbíróság decemberi végzésében valóban jogszerűnek ítélte a Nagy-Britanniában menedékjogért folyamodó illegális határátlépők áttelepítését Ruandába, és a megállapodásnak azt az elemét is, hogy menedékjogi folyamodványaikról az afrikai országban szülessen döntés. A határozat kimondta, hogy az áttelepítési program nem sérti az ENSZ menekültügyi egyezményét, sem az emberi jogi törvényeket. Az egyezményt bírósági útra terelő emberi jogi szervezetek előzőleg azzal érveltek a londoni felsőbírósághoz beterjesztett keresetükben, hogy Ruandában önkényuralmi rezsim van hatalmon, amely nem riad vissza a kínzástól, sőt a gyilkosságtól sem, ha valaki szembefordul vele.
Braverman ugyanakkor a vasárnapi BBC-műsorban elmondta: Ruanda eddig is százezer menekültet fogadott be a közelebbi térségből, és ők „csakis a hála és a köszönet szavaival beszélnek” a ruandai kormány által érvénybe léptetett letelepítési programról. Arra a felvetésre, hogy az ENSZ megállapítása szerint Ruanda nem biztonságos ország, a brit belügyminiszter azzal reagált, hogy „a londoni felsőbíróság szerint viszont az”. London arra hivatkozva kötötte az áttelepítési megállapodást Ruandával, hogy minden évben több ezren próbálnak illegálisan átjutni az európai kontinensről a La Manche-csatornán a brit partokra, többnyire embercsempészek által szervezett csoportokban, amelyek gumicsónakokkal kelnek útra.
Tavaly 45 ezren próbáltak így bejutni Nagy-Britanniába, csaknem kétszer annyian, mint egy évvel korábban. A brit kormány érvelése szerint a ruandai áttelepítés kilátása elrettentő erővel hat majd az illegális bevándorlásra.
The post Brit belügyminiszter: biztonságosan áttelepíthetők Ruandába az illegális bevándorlók appeared first on .
Technology increasingly sits at the intersection of many aspects of our lives: how we work and learn, how we interact with the people in our lives and the world around us, and how we access and consume the products and services we use every day. Diversity in engineering and technology is critical to ensuring different perspectives are considered when we identify and solve problems with technology and results in more creative solutions. Credit: United Nations
By Padmini Sharma
MILAN, Italy, Apr 10 2023 (IPS)
Excessive reliance on algorithmic management has raised concerns regarding its opaque decision-making mechanisms and implication for workers.
In less than a decade, digital platforms have evolved from a niche market to engulf diverse industries and services across the globe, in developed and developing nations alike.
Defined as online mechanisms that enable exchanging goods, services, or information between different actors, these include the likes of Amazon, eBay, Uber, Deliveroo and Airbnb.
In India, both location-dependent jobs like ride-hailing, food delivery and caregiving to location-independent jobs like crowd work have grown due to the high demand for these services in the market, coupled with huge labour reserves comprising both local and migrant labour forces.
As more than 88 per cent of the total employees in India is engaged in the informal economy, some considered the rise in the platform economy to hold significant potential in addressing existing economic and social disparities.
The term ‘platform economy’ encompasses the growing digital platforms, the models of which are gaining significance over other traditional setups as they offer the possibility to save significantly on structural and labour costs, reduce transaction costs and eliminate barriers.
These have constrained labour force participation across disadvantaged groups and ensure a high degree of autonomy for workers to decide about their workload, work portfolio, time and place of work.
Thus, many workers consider these platforms to extend viable opportunities for earning a living, whether at home or abroad. However, despite these advantages, these platforms have raised concerns over deteriorating working conditions.
Pitfalls of algorithmic management
These platforms depend on algorithmic management to mediate labour relations. In practice this means that algorithms manage labour through certain practices like assigning orders to specific workers, optimising delivery routes, calculating income and incentives, and monitoring and evaluating the performances of workers.
Initially, algorithmic management was seen as a positive development for workers due to its comparison with previous job experiences. Most workers found it to be less stressful, offering them more autonomy and flexibility and above all the belief that the algorithm is more ‘reliable’ in allocating tasks or calculating their income.
Compared to dealing with humans as managers, dealing with apps was a more rewarding experience in the pre-Covid19 era. Undoubtedly, introducing algorithms has its advantages.
When extracting and using massive real-time data, algorithms can execute faster and make more accurate decisions, therefore enhancing workers’ productivity and efficiency while reducing transaction costs.
The use of algorithmic management is seen to have indirect negative implications on the physical and mental health of the workers, which, to meet the targets, are working 14 to 17 hours per day.
Positive as it may seem at first glance, algorithmic management has also introduced certain risks. Although most workers are aware that platforms such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo are strategically leveraging workers’ data to calculate remuneration or assess performances, many workers find it hard to understand the functioning of these apps, in particular the techniques that go into the programming.
This lack of understanding results in doubts about the claimed ‘logical’ and ‘unbiased’ mechanisms of these apps;
‘It does not understand what problems we face on the road […] like when we go to deliver the order to the customer, if there is any problem on the way like a bike accident or anything, then that is not considered […] the company does not understand that […] if I have taken the order, it means I have to deliver it […] and if I am not being able to deliver it, then the app will directly deduct the amount of the order or even its double from the pay-out’, explains a Mumbai delivery worker.
The excessive reliance on algorithmic management has raised concerns regarding these opaque decision-making mechanisms, their implications for workers, their random and inscrutable logic that leaves less room for human comprehension and for workers to contest as well as the high potential for them to propagate existing biases and discrimination.
In addition to this, the use of algorithmic management is also seen to have indirect negative implications on the physical and mental health of the workers, which, to meet the targets, are working 14 to 17 hours per day on average — severely disrupting their work-life balance.
Linking the delivery time to ratings, moreover, makes workers jump traffic signals and ride at high speed, often ignoring the risks associated with such decisions. The assignment of tasks based on several often ‘beyond controllable’ factors by the algorithm increases stress among workers.
These highly controlled unilateral relations with the app are further seen to be disrupting the social relations among the workers which restricts their potential to engage in collective resistance.
Many platform workers are thus moving towards individualistic approaches such as waiting at specific locations or maintaining good terms with the team leaders to make themselves more visible to possibly secure higher orders and income.
Even when some workers are resorting to digital means in uniting, it is not clear whether such mechanisms can contribute towards arousing significant pro-working-class consciousness among the workers.
The challenge of regulating platforms
At the EU level, with multiple cases coming up against algorithmic manipulation and discrimination, and the inaccessibility of data, significant attention is devoted to regulating the rights and interests of platform workers by introducing new governing mechanisms.
As platform workers, with or without support from unions, have brought up several cases against these platforms relating to algorithmic functioning. For example, in Italy, based on the cases filed against app-based delivery platforms, the Courts of Palermo and Courts of Bologna have agreed that the work in these platforms is highly managed via algorithms, the deliveries are assigned based on criteria that are not related to the workers’ preferences or their general interests and that it runs on principles that violate Italian law prohibiting discrimination against employees or self-employed.
The debate in India has mostly centred around including platform workers under the proposed Code on Social Security to ensure more uniform coverage for workers engaged across different platforms.
However, unlike in the European context, the Judiciary in India has not been able to extend recommendations to protect and regulate the interests of the platform or the gig workers. Instead, the debate has mostly centred around including platform workers under the proposed Code on Social Security to ensure more uniform coverage for workers engaged across different platforms.
However, this Code is criticised on several grounds, as it does not solve the main issues concerning workers’ classification and minimum wages and because of its approach to social security, which is still not enough to address existing concerns.
The Code also does not mention any timelines to implement the schemes, thereby adding to the uncertainties of workers. Lastly, the division of powers is also a problem since there is no clear demarcation of responsibilities between the central and state government on labour issues.
A further attempt at regulation in the Motor Vehicles Act of 2020 has sought to place obligations on platforms to maintain transparency over the ‘functioning of the app algorithm’, however, it has not incorporated the ‘right to explanation’, meaning that workers still do not have access to understanding the mechanisms that go into calculating their income, allocating tasks or evaluating their performances.
As workers are coming up with multiple complaints concerning threats to personal data, a lack of transparency, unaccountable algorithmic programming, as well as algorithmic manipulation, there is a strong need to create a more robust governing structure that ensures platform workers greater access to data and to the mechanisms involved in designing their work practices.
Padmini Sharma is a PhD Candidate in Economic Sociology and Labour Studies at the Universita Degli Studi di Milano.
Source: International Politics and Society (IPS), published by the Global and European Policy Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin.
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