Category Archives: Law and Justice

Russia attacks fundamental freedoms and rule of law as Navalny’s network targeted

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The international community breathed a collective sigh of relief on 23 April when opposition leader Alexei Navalny ended a 24-day hunger strike in prison after finally receiving medical care. Yet ongoing efforts to suspend his political organisation and restrict other fundamental freedoms threaten to cripple Russia’s already deteriorating human rights situation.

On 26 April, the Moscow prosecutor’s office ordered Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) and its regional network to suspend all activities, pending a court ruling on whether to designate the opposition group as ‘extremist’.

The move, which would give the authorities the power to arrest FBK staff, supporters, and even crowdfunding donors, was yet another nail in the coffin for the ailing Kremlin critic, who was imprisoned in February on a range of charges shortly after returning from Berlin where he received treatment for Novichok poisoning.

Published on 24-05-21. Read on here

Lax lobbying rules leave standards in public life ‘under severe strain’

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The pandemic has laid bare the increasingly blurred lines between public and private sectors when it comes to securing coveted government contracts. As allegations of Covid-related cronyism continue worldwide, lobbying scandals highlight the urgent need for greater transparency and stricter rules governing the ‘revolving door’ between public and private office.

In March, it emerged that former UK Prime Minister David Cameron personally lobbied the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other Treasury ministers to secure Greensill Capital access to an emergency loan scheme established in the wake of the pandemic. Cameron, who acts as an adviser to the firm, claims he didn’t break any rules since former ministers are only banned from engaging in lobbying for two years after leaving office.

Separately, it has come to light that last year Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised he could ‘fix’ tax issues to enable a high-profile businessman to build ventilators in the United Kingdom. These scandals have only intensified calls to overhaul lobbying laws and raised alarm bells about the misuse of status, power and connections to improperly influence business dealings.

Published on 27-04-21. Read on here

Ukraine’s war on two fronts

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This is my latest feature piece for IBA Global Insight:

Natural gas pipeline Photo Harald Hoyer Over the past 18 months, Ukraine hit the international headlines time and again as it battled months of widespread demonstrations, bloodshed, the annexation of Crimea, snap elections, the downing of Flight MH17 and a tumbling currency,  the beleaguered hryvnia. The country’s long-running spat with Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom, which has a monopoly over the European gas market, has also been well documented since the feud first began ten years ago.

Ukraine is still largely reliant on gas from Russia and disputes over payments have crippled supply numerous times over the past decade as the two countries continue to come to contractual blows. The pipeline that transits the country also carries around half of Gazprom’s exports to the rest of Europe, meaning that the problems have also been felt much further afield.

Over the years, contracts between Russia and Ukraine have been signed, amended and restructured in an unregulated and often arbitrary way. This finally came to a head last year when Gazprom launched a case against Ukraine’s state-owned gas utility, Naftogaz, in the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC), claiming the Ukrainian company owed it billions of dollars in unpaid debts on gas delivered since 2009.

Published on 07-08-15. Read on here

Rule of law ‘critically important’ to BRICS success

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Russia will chair the BRICS’ seventh summit in July this yearHere is my latest column for IBA Global Insight:

When it was first coined in 2001, the term ‘BRIC’ seemed little more than a quirky acronym. Since then, the term has quickly become universal shorthand for the emerging markets’ ascent in the global economy.

Brazil, Russia, India and China – and South Africa since it joined the fold in 2010 – have all come a long way since former Goldman Sachs Chief Economist Jim O’Neill first spotted their potential 14 years ago. Despite riding out the global financial crisis remarkably well, the mighty BRICS have not been left completely unscathed. The average growth rate of each country has slipped by more than two percentage points over the past decade.

At a recent IBA conference, From BRICS to MINT… and Beyond!, O’Neill said that China was the only one of the original BRICS that hadn’t disappointed him, clocking an average growth rate so far this decade of eight per cent. Although he acknowledged weaker commodity prices were partly to blame for poorer performances in Brazil and Russia, he maintained his view that rule of law is vital for economic success. If all these countries can ‘succeed in doing all the things that are necessary for rule of law, then they’re going to get somewhere’, he says.

Published on 15-06-15. Read on here

Watershed moment

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Cuba carHere is my latest column for IBA Global Insight:

After years of negotiations behind closed doors, the US and Cuba finally brokered a deal last December, which saw the release of US government contractor Alan Gross and three Cuban agents convicted of spying on anti-Castro groups in Miami.

The significance of the move cannot be underestimated. Fernando Peláez-Pier is a former IBA President and a partner at Hoet Peláez Castillo & Duque in Caracas. He says:
‘It has been an enormous step to take the decision to re-establish diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba and to lift the embargo in the short term, although it is not yet envisioned that it will lead to a reopening of embassies in each country.

‘This is the most important decision since Carter and Castro decided to establish representation of each country’s interests in Havana and Washington. It’s the beginning of a new era in the relations between both countries, marking a before and an after.’

However, the process is far from over. ‘Whoever thinks this process will be fast would be mistaken and would fail to understand the complexity of the case and what it implies for the re-establishment of relations between two countries after more than 50 years,’
says Peláez-Pier.

Published on 09-04-15. Read on here