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The recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, striking down a previous agreement that granted immunity from prosecution for corruption to thousands of bureaucrats and politicians, was greeted with cheers by Pakistanis, both in the streets of Karachi and amongst the diaspora in London, but with discomfort in the West.

More astute analysts, however, are concerned that the Supreme Court ruling doesn’t herald a step forward, but rather a descent back into the tussle of recriminations and accusations that have long characterized Pakistani politics.  Worse, it threatens to distract national attention from far more pressing problems.

The court struck down the National Reconciliation Order (NRO) that was passed in 2007 under Western-backed President Musharraf and was billed at the time as a step towards restoring Pakistan to multiparty democracy. Although political players of all parties benefited from the deal, observers saw it largely as a compromise aimed at enabling the return to Pakistan of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Pakistan’s current president, Asif Ali Zardari.

After Mrs. Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007, a wave of sympathy for her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) helped Zardari take over de facto leadership of the PPP and the presidency of the country in quick succession. But Zardari hardly enjoyed a honeymoon with voters or, for that matter, even his own party leadership. Lacking what some would term the demagogic charisma of his late wife or father-in-law, Zardari was hardly Obama-esque.

His reputation as Mr. Ten Percent—earned by his penchant for demanding bribes while serving as his wife’s minister for investment and minister for the environment in the mid-1990s—won him many enemies and, along with his appointments of cronies to top government and party posts, grated on members of the PPP itself.

Upon taking office, Zardari’s reluctance to restore the popular and respected ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry—widely seen as a last-ditch attempt to avoid prosecution for corruption—further eroded what little support he did enjoy. Only after mass, nation-wide protests did Zardari eventually relent and agree to the restoration of the chief justice to his office.

The repeal of the NRO, then, comes as a long-awaited victory for many sections of Pakistani society, from secular middle-class civil society activists to mullahs fed up with Zardari’s poor record and aggravated by his repeated evasion of corruption charges.

The concern, however, is that on a deeper level, the hoopla over the NRO shows just how much Pakistan’s political life is stagnating. Read the rest of this entry »

Sudanese multibillionaire Mo Ibrahim said his foundation’s decision to withhold the 2009 African Leadership Prize, now in its third year, was not an act of disrespect. It would have been nice to hand out in November in Tanzania the prize of $5 million (with promissary notes of $200,000 for life after that). But what do you do when the candidates fall short? The news headlines across the continent echo surprise, indifference and sadness, but they downplay the two biggest questions—why and what next?

It’s no laughing matter that two favorites for the prize—John Kufuor of Ghana and Thabo Mbeki of South Africa—failed to make the grade. Kufuor’s personal aide told a radio station in Ghana that the former president had no regrets. That is regrettable. In many respects, Ghana and South Africa under the leadership of Kufuor and Mbeki had been held up as shining examples to the rest of Africa. Both countries seemed to rate well on such criteria as good governance and democratic handover of power—key requirements for the prize.

For nearly eight years, Ghana ran a largely transparent and accountable government, investing heavily in economic reforms. Kufuor’s party, the New Patriotic Party, lost the last general elections not because the government had become wayward and badly corrupt—common vices on the continent—but largely because the pains of reform had been intensified by the government’s slow and confused response to the fallout from higher energy prices. Angry voters who felt they had been taken for granted lost their patience and voted for the opposition in the January 2009 runoff.

For its part, South Africa seemed to be doing well, especially given that country’s difficult post-apartheid legacy. Under Mbeki, though unemployment and crime remained major challenges, the economy was robust, posting an annual growth rate of 4.5 percent, while foreign investment surged, at least through the last quarter of 2006. Mbeki’s downfall could be laid first to his own obtuse style, and later, to his own party, which ousted him in a palace coup.

Given these achievements, therefore, it would appear that the top contenders, Kufuor and Mbeki, had been judged harshly when they were denied the African Leadership Prize, or that the award committee had been too idealistic in setting the bar this last round. What exactly was the committee looking for? I don’t think it was looking for angels. But if we consider objectively the key values of good governance and democratic handover of power, it clearly would have been difficult for either Kufuor or Mbeki to step forward for a leadership prize. Read the rest of this entry »

Many countries in the developing world look to energy and mining to bring in foreign investment. The contracts that these countries sign with extraction companies often offer lop-sided terms when it comes to money, transparency, information, or in certain cases, environmental protection to the host country—all of which heighten the problems of the resource curse.

The International Senior Law Project (ISLP) is a non-profit organization which volunteers world-class legal counsel globally on economic development, human rights, and access to justice. The group works with governments who need their services but are too poor to pay, and partners with large established non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to bring their skills to developing world civil society groups. They also offer commercial law skills training. They have worked on projects to deal with extraction related problems in several poor countries, including in Mongolia and Liberia.

ISLP’s roster includes about 600 lawyers from the United States, Canada, and other countries. Jean Berman, the executive director, says, “We’ve been very lucky in finding the perfect lawyers for the situation.”

Joseph Bell is the Secretary of the Board for ISLP.  He is also a senior law partner at Hogan and Hartson, and chair of the Advisory Board at Revenue Watch Institute, an NGO which works to counter the resource curse. His background is in commercial and regulatory practice, focusing on energy and mining. Recently, he led the ISLP team(s) that renegotiated several important contracts between the government of Liberia and interested multinational corporations, resulting in a great improvement of terms for the government.

The following is an interview with him on negotiating with extraction companies for the world’s poorest countries.

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Jodi Liss (JL): What problems do developing countries face when negotiating contracts with these huge multinational corporations?

Joseph Bell (JB): There’s the problem of asymmetry—in knowledge, information, capacity—between the government and the company. Some countries recognize this and hire outside counsel, which sometimes can help.

JL: Do these countries have the existing legal frameworks to guide these contracts?

Read the rest of this entry »