Against EUrocentrism II: The need for a new European Union strategy towards regional integration all around the world

The second and final part of former Argentine MP Fernando Iglesias’ examination of the mistakes of the EU’s foreign strategy and proposal for a new way forward for Latin-American integration. Part I can eb read here.

Transnational Organized Crime and New Forms of Genocide

Reading Latin-American newspapers is enough to understand that the proliferation of groups dedicated to transnational organized crime is the crucial Latin-American social problem, a political threat to democracy and the main obstacle for its economic development. Just to take a case: 43 students protesting against a local government have disappeared in Mexico this year by an order given by the Mayor to the local Police Department, who captured them and subsequently gave them over to a criminal gang, the ‘Guerreros Unidos’. Two months after that, only one of the victims’ corpses appeared. By investigating the case, dozens of common graves were discovered, full of ashes of unknown people, presumably the victims of organized crime. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Mexican civil society organizations who fight against organized crime report that 60,000 to 120,000 people are either dead or missing during the last ten years. This is the magnitude of what is happening. These are the new forms of genocide in Latin-America, which are not included in the kind of crimes prosecuted by any international court.

The uncontrollable situation in Mexico is only the national piece of a regional context. The growth of “Maras” in Central-America, the co-opting of large parts of political and economic life by the hands of criminal organizations, the arrival of many Latin-American capitals to the top ten of the most insecure cities in the world, and the general increase of drugs, arms and people trafficking create a regional problem of enormous repercussions in the lives of all Latin-Americans, allowing the most flagrant violations of their human rights, render mere utopian any form of citizen security, express Latin-American abyssal social inequalities in terms of different rights to survive, incarnate the most devastating conflicts in the region, promote corruption and menace democracy as the population perceives their representatives as an elitist cast corrupted by organized crime. Aside from holding the sad record of being the most socially unequal region in the world, Latin-America has become the most violent region as well. If we use the European experience as a guide, this –and not economic integration- must be the focus of the Latin-American regional integration process, as stopping war was the European priority in 1951.

We now have a goal: preventing conflict and allowing the normal development of Latin-American societies by fighting the proliferation of transnational organized crime in the region. But, which are the countries and social forces able to push such an agenda? The European regional integration experience helps by suggesting that a ‘Coalition of the Willing’ (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxemburg, like 1951, the beginning of the European Coal and Steel Community) is a better and stronger choice than any illusory “Everybody onboard!” option. If it works, the states that decide not to be part of the start will be later willing to be included. If not, who cares?

However, the way of pushing forward regional integration by creating some kind of economic community is not useful for fighting against criminality. In this case, it is not European History which helps us but the process that led to the constitution of the first institutional step towards a universal global justice: the International Criminal Court (ICC). Condensing a thrilling story in few words: after the Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia genocides, a small group of activists and NGOs retook the old dream of a permanent and independent court able to judge crimes against humanity; by 1995 they created a common organization (the Coalition for an International Criminal Court) and pushed a campaign for the creation of the ICC. In a few years, they were able to obtain the political and economic support of many countries; and in less than three years (1998) the Rome Statute was signed by 120 countries and was enforced by 2002. Less than a decade had passed from the beginning of the process.

Why not figure out something similar could occur in Latin-America?, say: the creation of a Latin-American Criminal Court against Transnational Organized Crime (COPLA, according to the Spanish abbreviation: Corte Penal Latinoamericana contra el Crimen Transnacional Organizado) able to tackle the challenges that organized crime poses to the citizens and governments of the region. Let us think about it.

A Latin-American Court against transnational organized crime

Organized crime is no longer purely national; it has become regional, at least. Regional issues require regional policies. Regional policies require regional institutions in order to overcome succumbing to the ineffectiveness of national states, power imbalances among nations and international arbitrariness. Hopefully, a Latin-American Criminal Court against Transnational Organized Crime (COPLA) may be effective in the persecution of crimes which are internationally organized and executed, which does not imply a limitation of national sovereignties. On the contrary, its success would reinforce nations’ ability to exercise local and national power, currently weakened by criminal networks to which they are progressively losing ground, as well as improving the autonomy and self-determination of Latin-America and its citizens first: by demonstrating the region is capable of dealing with regional problems, second: by establishing a clear limit on extra-regional influence, and third: by improving the scenario for further forms of regional integration. In addition, the creation of a multilateral, pluralistic, and effective Latin-American Criminal Court against Transnational Organized Crime (COPLA) could promote the international cooperation among polices and prosecutors, help to improve national legislations, protect victims and witnesses and disjoin the link between organized crime and political organizations, promoting transparency, thus defending democracy and advancing citizen security and human rights.

On another hand, a juridical corpus against transnational organized crime does already exist: the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (CTOC) signed in Palermo (2000), to which almost all countries of the region have adhered. The creation of a Latin-American Criminal Court against Transnational Organized Crime (COPLA) could be founded on this juridical context, and its feasibility be reinforced by the adhesion of the large majority of Latin-American countries to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which implies a more ambitious approach to the introduction of international right and rule of law within national constitutional frames than any regional court.

Recapitulating: the European strategy of promoting regional integration by avoiding conflict and building a coalition of willing countries could be replicated in Latin-America. It would help the continent to solve its main problem and empower its political autonomy, as well as moving forward other strategies of regional integration. And the good news is this: a campaign in favor of the establishment of a Latin-American Criminal Court against Transnational Organized Crime already exists. It has been carried out for a year by a small Argentine NGO, Democracia Global, and recently recognized as the basic strategy for Latin-America by the World Federalist Movement, the organization of the global civil society that started the campaign for the International Criminal Court.

So, now the question is: must the European Union be indifferent to the problem and the campaign on behalf of an illusory Latin-American autonomy that is collapsing under the weight of organized crime, or should it be the first in helping Latin-American citizens and governments to recover its real autonomy? After decades of pushing its own model without taking into account the immense differences between European and Latin-American geography and history, will the European Union abandon the democratic and civil forces of Latin-America to the power of criminal organizations that are overcoming them and threatening democracy? Should it not be a flagrant betrayal of the fundamental values on which the EU is based, such as peace, justice, cosmopolitanism and equality of rights? Should it not have heavy consequences on the EU situation, by increasing the traffic of drugs and sexual and labor slaves form Latin-America to Europe, and promoting uncontrolled migration?

Conclusion

The European process of integration has always been characterized by internal successes and external flops. Since the failure of the European Defense Community project (1954), Europe has never been able to elaborate and deliver a common external policy. Anti-European forces argue the differences in national interests make render it merely utopian. Even if this were correct, nothing impedes European Union’s countries agreeing on the worldwide promotion of the EU’s fundamentals: the building of regional political institutions able to prevent conflicts, keep the peace, protect human rights and empower the rule of law. This is what the creation of a Latin-American Criminal Court against Transnational Organized Crime (COPLA) is about, and it possibly opens the way for a new and reinvigorated EU strategy towards regional integration for Latin-America and all around the world, neither Eurocentric nor EUrocentric. Do the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European External Action Service have nothing to say?
 

Fernando A. Iglesias (former Argentine, Mercosur and Latin-American MP) is a writer and journalist, the founder of Democracia Global, the director of the campaign for a Latin-American Criminal Court against Transnational Organized Crime, the World Federalist Movement council chairman and the director of the Altiero Spinelli Cathedra on regional integration (CUIA-Buenos Aires).