UN Climate Conferences Harbor an Institutional Conflict of Interest

Whereas people become instantly upset upon hearing that someone has self-aggrandized oneself by exploiting a conflict of interest, by, for example, embezzling funds for personal use, our species has the tendency to ignore the institutional variety of conflicts-of-interest. We don’t want to hear of another person incurring a privately-held benefit by ignoring the duties of one’s office, such as fiduciary responsibility, but we are fine with countries whose dominant industry is oil hosting the UN’s annual climate conferences. The sheer denialism entailed in assuming that the governments of such countries can be expected to steer a conference from the interests of the domestic oil companies is astounding. If there were ever a case of private benefits being at odds with the public benefit from mitigating climate change from carbon emissions by humans, this instance would be it. As had been the case of tobacco companies that promoted smoking even to minors while knowing that smoking kills or at least shortens a person’s lifespan, oil companies place their own profits, which are only a benefit to themselves, their managements, stockholders, and their external sycophants (i.e., governments) through more tax revenue and higher political contributions, above whether the planet warms more than 2C degrees—1.5, the prior limit, being passed in 2024. In other words, greed (i.e., the desire for more) can render board directors and managements oblivious to even forecasts of catastrophic impacts from global warming. In 2024, as COP29 was in progress in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, Al Gore, who had been the U.S. vice president during the eight-year Clinton administration in the 1990s, was astonished by how blatant (and undercutting relative to the conference’s goal) the institutional conflict of interest has been in allowing petro-states to be the hosts. I’m skeptical, given the lapse that seems to be inherent in the human brain when it comes to assessing and even recognizing such conflicts of interest, whether Gore’s “wake-up” call would make more than a ripple next to the power of the oil industry, given its private wealth.

With regard to allowing oil states to host COP conferences, Gore said, “I think it’s absurd to have, for example, what we had last year with the CEO of one of dirtiest oil companies on the planet serving as the president of COP.”[1] The 2023 conference had been hosted by Dubai. As though wielding a club to knock some sense into the cognitive ability of the species’ collective mind, he stated, “It’s a direct conflict of interest.”[2] Perhaps I should use only capital letters for Gore’s last point to indicate just how incredulous the human blindness to institutional conflicts of interest is. That the governments of Dubai and Azerbaijan, in 2023 and 2024, respectively, would ever use their position as hosts to protect those countries’ respective oil companies is a point that seems to allude human thinking and consciousness.

Lest there be any doubt, the president of COP29, Mukhtar Babayev, was “very much in sync with [Azerbaijan’s] reliance on fossil fuels,” given that 90% of the country’s balance of payments was coming from the sale of oil and gas.”[3] Even though Babayev had worked at the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (Socar) for two decades, he was chosen at the beginning of 2024 to preside over the conference in Baku. It was really Russia’s President Putin who “made this choice,” Gore said.[4] He continued, “One of the reforms that I have proposed is to give the [UN] secretary general a say in who hosts the COPs, and not just leave it to allow voices like Valdimir Putin’s to determine who gets this one, and let the petrostates of the Middle East decide.”[5] At the time, Russia itself was an oil producer, so its own interests were tied with those of the interests of oil.

How might such an institutional conflict-of-interest skew the output of a COP conference in line with the host’s domestic oil industry at the expense of the survival-interest of our species? “Gore singled out carbon capture and storage (CCS), which typically involves pumping CO2 underground or below the seabed into depleted gas fields” as being in the commercial interest of oil companies, who could then sell as much oil and gas as they like while counting only on technology to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere without having to curtain CO2 emissions, and thus sales.[6] CCS has “been proven to be completely ridiculous and totally ineffective,” Gore asserted, before crucially adding, “Of course, the fossil fuel companies want to pretend that that’s the solution—anything other than reducing the amount of fossil fuels that are burned or reducing their markets.”[7]

Considering that 2024 was the first year that the planet’s atmosphere surpassed the limit set by the Paris Conference in 2016, a “both-and” approach was required, but this assumes that the interests of our species are more important, even vital, than are oil profits, which are only privately-held rather than species-as-a-whole benefits. I contend that the good of a whole surpasses the private good, and thus interest, of a part, especially if the latter’s good is at odds with the former. Out of jealousy and puffed up moral outrage, we get so angry at individuals taking advantage of, and thus exploiting their respective positions, but no one blinks an eye when Mukhtar Babayev of Azerbaijan was steering the climate conference in Baku in 2024 towards a climate-strategy that is in the financial interest of the oil industry in Azerbaijan, which is state-related so there is another institutional conflict of interest, at the expense of biting hard to reduce CO2 emissions, especially given that the world had just sailed through the limit of warming from pre-industrial levels. With most countries having failed to reach their own targets of CO2-emission reductions, COP29 could ill-afford to be handicapped by being limited to means in line with the financial interests of oil companies. Unlike the tobacco case, it might not be merely a matter of more people dying from climate change; the species itself could conceivably go extinct. That oil CEOs and their governmental sycophants would put the financial “health” of oil companies above the survival of the species ought to lead the rest of us to discredit the oil interest to the point of sidelining it at climate conferences, which, by the way, have been inundated with oil-industry lobbyists. That the global population looks the other way, and may not even recognize the institutional conflict of interest, reflects very badly on our species, and might be its undoing while God, disgusted with our species, looks on in utter disbelief. If disbelief comes to inhabit God, then we really are in trouble.

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1. Robert Hodgson, “Al Gore Calls for Reform of COP Climate Process,” Euronews.com, November 15, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

China Castigates the E.U. on Taiwan

“Act prudently.” This was the warning addressed to the E.U. by China’s president Xi after the European Parliament voted 432 to 60 on October 24, 2024 on a resolution urging China to immediately cease its “continued military operations,” “economic coercion,” and “hostile disinformation” directed at Taiwan.[1] Whereas in the West, warning by shouting and slamming a fisted hand on a tabletop may be viewed as signaling vehement protest, the relative soft-spoken, be prudent connotes a very serious threat. The early twentieth-century U.S. president, Theodore Roosevelt, would likely miss the force of Xi’s intent to retaliate against the E.U. should it interfere with China on Taiwan. If my reading of Xi is correct, (and this may seem a leap), then the world coming to grips with constructing a global order commensurate to address global risks, such as climate change, starvation, and war in a nuclear age will face entrenched resistance in departing from the noxious principle of absolutist national sovereignty that has stymied collective, multilateral action. How dare you even hint that you will encroach on China’s sovereignty! This is essentially what President Xi was saying. Even in the post World War II global order of sovereign nation states, China’s claim that its sovereignty includes Taiwan is dubious, which in turn can be taken as evidence that resting the global order on the sovereignty of nation-states is problematic. In short, that principle allows for over-reaching without accountability.

In reacting officially to the E.U.’s resolution, China got right to the point, “warning that ‘the Taiwan question concerns China’s sovereignty’ and ‘it is a red line that must not be crossed.’”[2] The pith in the determination alone suggests that China would fight “tooth and nail” to hold onto all of its sovereignty rather than delegate some portion of it to a multilateral entity on the global level even so carbon-emission targets could be enforced on otherwise self-aggrandizing economic nation-states.

In explaining its warning, China also stated that it “strongly deplores and opposes this egregious breach of the one-China principle and interference in China’s internal affairs.”[3] But at the time, did the China-Taiwan dispute fall under China’s internal affairs? On the one hand, the UN Resolution 2758, which had been adopted in 1971, recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as “the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations” and removed the seat that had been assigned to the “representatives of Chiang Kai-shek” (in other words, Taiwan).[4]  Even in 2024, “the E.U., the U.S. and most” of the unitary single-states in the world maintained diplomatic relations only with the government of mainland China, “leaving [Taiwan] without official recognition.”[5] The resolution does not imply, however, that China has the UN’s permission to invade Taiwan, as the resolution does not even mention Taiwan (or the Republic of China). The E.U.’s resolution says as much, as it recommends “Taiwan’s meaningful participation” in international organizations.[6] It would be silly to say Taiwan can participate, but not exist apart from mainland China.

A more fundamental problem with China’s internal affairs claim centers on the ethical conflict of interest in one party of a dispute claiming the unilateral or sole authority to decide the question. That whether Taiwan was at the time included in China’s internal affairs was not definitely answered can be immediately realized by recalling the statement of Taiwan’s president, William Lai, that Taiwan was already de facto independent and thus did not even need to declare independence from the mainland. China’s claim of internal affair thus represents an overreach in terms of China’s beliefs and perception regarding its own sovereignty, and, by implication the lack thereof of Taiwan’s own. In other words, a nation-state’s own view of its sovereignty is subject to expansiveness and this in itself can give rise to state conflict internationally. Basing a global order on an absolutist interpretation of the sovereignty of the nation-state unit of political organization is inherently problematic. The absolutist interpretation includes the conflict of interest such as the one that China was exploiting in presuming to have the sole authority to decide what constitutes its sovereignty even in respect to territory that is in dispute with another nation-state. This is like a corporation’s management declaring that it would take over the National Labor Relations Board’s authority in the U.S. and rule on complaints made by the company’s labor union unilaterally without even bothering to put of the façade of being an impartial intermediary. At the time, Starbucks’ management would have liked to assume such a role; it could have cited China on the Taiwan question.

So in addition to the national sovereignty basis of the extant global order making enforcement of UN resolutions and international law nearly impossible, absent a voluntary “coalition of the willing” among nation-states—which can no means be relied upon even on an occasional basis—the sovereignty of nation-states is itself a problematic doctrine. Interpreted to be absolutist, national sovereignty even contains an unethical conflict of interest. I have elsewhere argued that even unexploited conflicts of interest are unethical, given the foreseeable tendencies in human nature; exploited conflicts, as evinced by China, are most definitely unethical. A global order that allows for such a thing is inherently flawed; that global-scale threats to our species have both increased and become more severe in the twenty-first century just adds to the urgency in replacing the flawed system, even if China warns us to be prudent in doing so.

It would be most imprudent to let China hold the world back from catching up with the twenty-first century. It is precisely such absolutist opportunist nation-states that justify extending sovereignty beyond the regional, or “empire-scale,” historically compounded polities, such as Russia, India, the E.U., the U.S., and China to the global level.

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “’Act Prudently’: China Slams E.U. Parliament over Taiwan Resolution, Warns of Red Lines,” Euronews.com, October 25, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid, italics added.
4. Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

The U.S. Enabled Turkey to Invade Syria: Absent the U.N.

Turkey invaded Syria on October 9, 2019 “to flush Kurds allied with the US out of northeastern Syria.”[1] Strategically, Turkey wanted to distance the Kurds from Turkey so they could not aid Kurdish separatists in Turkey should the latter rise up in attempting to establish Kurdistan. U.S. President Don Trump, who had just cleared American troops from northeastern Syria, had advanced knowledge from Turkish President Recep Erdogan that he planned to invade the area once the American troops were out. A rare bipartisan unity in Congress criticized the removal of American troops and the president’s acquiescence on Turkey’s plan to attach the Kurds, an American ally—a plan that could possibly give ISIS a toehold in the region. Both the Congress and the president had their respective rationales, yet neither side looked past the apparent dichotomy to arrive at a solution consistent with the points made by both sides.

Backing up the arguments made by the bipartisan critics in Congress, “Pentagon and State Department officials had advised Trump against making the move, arguing a US presence is needed to counter ISIS and keep Iran and Russia, both influential inside Syria, in check.”[2] Rep. Ro Khanna asked why the president would not at least have asked for a concession from Turkey. That the U.S. was turning its back on “allies who [had] died fighting for a US cause” was also objectionable.[3] Certainly some erosion of trust could be expected. Help the Americans on one of their causes and the next administration may turn on you anyway. To put friends in harm’s way and disavow any responsibility that goes with having received help points to a deep character flaw. While less obvious than is the mentality in preemptively invading another state, the U.S. President’s treatment of the Kurds was also culpable (and the U.S. Government had also preemptively invaded another state—Iraq).

President Trump’s rationale stemmed from his opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the long, senseless war that ensued. He pointed, moreover, to the eight trillion dollars spent by the U.S. and all the dead and wounded American soldiers “fighting and policing in the Middle East.”[4] He had campaigned on getting out of such long, senseless wars whose benefits to the U.S. do not justify the costs in lives and money. His solution in gradually pulling out American forces involved leaving a power-void that could be exploited or filled by adversaries. For example, ISIS could establish more of a presence in northeastern Syria under Turkish occupation. The Syrian Democratic Forces wrote that they were suspending military operations against ISIS in northern Syria following the “Turkish aggression.”[5]

I submit that both the concerns of the Congressional critics and President Trump could have been obviated had the U.S., a major financial contributor to the United Nations, sponsored a resolution in the Security Council for U.N. peacekeeping troops to replace the American forces in northeastern Syria. A contingent coalition could have been put together should Turkey have invaded anyway. American geopolitical interests would have favored a peace-keeping force over a force that could enable the spread of ISIS (like Turkey).

In general terms, the more the world organization of countries can step into troubled areas in peace-keeping roles, the less the world will have to rely on self-interested large countries, such as the U.S., to act as a global policeman. A conflict of interest exists in having one of the state-actors to be such a policeman because the temptation will be to put the state-actor’s own strategic interests above peace-keeping. I contend elsewhere that even if the state does not indulge such a temptation, the conflict-of-interest arrangement, which includes such temptation, is inherently unethical because of the existence of the temptation, given human nature.[6] In northeastern Syria, the U.S. was oriented to rooting out (and preventing) ISIS more than keeping the peace. Even if the official American objective had been peace-keeping, the U.S. would have been tempted to attack new ISIS outposts. Especially in political realism (but also in neorealism), to assume that a state would not act in its own strategic interests is naive. 

Had the U.S. pursued the U.N. option, the tension between the Congressional critics and the administration could have been avoided. This type of problem-resolution—a third way—is particularly beneficial in cases in which both sides to a dispute have good points. I suspect the human mind, whether from nature or nurture, goes to either-or dichotomies too readily. The back-and-forth in a debate is supposed to come to the better answer, but what if a third is even better?

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[1] Nicole Gaouette, “Republican Anger at Trump Grows as Turkey Launches ‘Sickening’ Attack on US Allies,” CNN.com, October 9, 2019 (accessed same day).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Skip Worden, Institutional Conflicts of Interest, available at Amazon. 

The U.S. Military in Iraq: Were Human Rights Ignored?

Philip Alston, a United Nations human rights official, warned the U.S. Government in 2006 that he had received information indicating that Iraqi reports of American troops executing an Iraqi family were true. Five of the victims were children five years old or younger. According to Alston, the troops “entered the house [after a 25 minute gun battle], handcuffed all residents and executed all of them.” He noted that the troops attacked the house in part because they suspected that the family was involved in the killing of two American troops earlier in March, 2006. If this is true, both the vengeful attack and the subsequent investigation by the U.S. military, which concluded that the report of the execution was false, demonstrate what can go wrong when conflicts of interest are ignored.

In his Two Treatises of Government, John Locke writes that government is necessary because victims cannot be trusted to act as judges in meting out sentences in their own cases. At the very least, the aggressors could be expected to receive unduly harsh punishments because of the weight of vengeance on the victims’ judgment. So too, American troops cannot be trusted to take matters into their own hands concerning the shooting of other American troops. Moreover, the U.S. military cannot be expected to judge its own. So too, regarding the massacre of 1,200 prisoners at Abu Salim prison in Tripoli on June 29, 1996, which would prompt the protests that ultimately led to the fall of Qaddafi, the question of an independent investigation even by the rebels themselves should involve making certain that the ex-guards and government officials are not allowed to vitiate an investigation or its verdict. “We want a fair investigation to discover what exactly happened,” Jamal Bashir al-Gorgi said. His brother Faraj was killed. It is the ethical principle of fairness that is so easily discarded from justice when the victims become the victimizers.

Besides the matter of a military, whether African or American, “taking care of its own,” there is a danger, moreover, in having violence itself coming to be tacitly accepted simply because vested interests eviscerate accountability—which itself can foster a culture wherein spontaneous violence is not sufficiently held back from a normative standpoint. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, it could be that the world had become so accustomed to the continued existence of standing armies that violence itself had come to be expected, or at the very least engrained in societal norms. Hence, the U.S. military was thrust into Iraq as a clumsy reaction of vengeance after the terrorist attack in New York City in September, 2001. Incredibly, the military itself was trusted to investigate “its own” while Alston’s letter that was submitted to the U.S. Embassy in Geneva 12 days after the killings in March 2006 was virtually ignored.

It could be that the very existence of a standing army relegates human rights while potential vengeance is given a ready instrument. Indeed, the U.S. is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the American union is one of the most militarized alliances in the world—ready to be engaged by a commander in chief who can de facto declare war on his own in spite of the conflict of interest. Perhaps if human rights were more valued in American society, such large standing armies as those in the U.S. would not be necessary. That is to say, perhaps there would be less hatred around the world directed at the American union.

Sources:

Richard Oppel, Jr., “Cable Implicates Americans in Deaths of Iraqi Civilians,” New York Times, September 2, 2011. 

Kareem Fahim, “Rebels Yank Open Gates of Infamous Libyan Prison, Seeking Clues to a Massacre,” New York Times, September 2, 2011.