Suchergebnisse

The rapid growth in Islamic Finance Industry such as in Islamic banking, takaful, waqf, and sukuk gain more awareness and interest from around the world including Islamic countries and non-Islamic countries such as Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Europe, Australia, Brazil, and America Latin. Based on Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) and Ernst & Young Report in 2016 it stated that Islamic finance industry had reached a gross value USD 1.88 trillion in 2015. In addition, it also maintained double-digit growth rates despite sustained low energy prices, geopolitical conflicts and economic uncertainty. Meanwhile, Global Islamic Finance Report 2017 reported that in December 2016 global Islamic financial service industry stood at USD2.293 trillion. According to El-Qorchi (2005) that highlights there have three motivation of shifting to Islamic finance because strong demand for Shariah compliant products and services, demand from Gulf region or oil rich nation for Shariah compliant investment and lastly non-muslim investor also attracted with competitiveness of Shariah compliant products and services. Furthermore, there have numerous capital structure modern theories that have been developed since 1958 begin with MM Irrelevance Theory and continue with Trade-off Theory, Pecking Order Theory, Agency Theory and Market Timing Theory. As an example, trade-off theory is encouraging the firms to use debt financing rather than retained earnings and equity financing in order to utilise the tax deduction benefit from interest on debt financing. Each of this theory has different vi approach to manage and oversee the capital structure decision. Unfortunately, not all these theories explain adequately the effect of capital structure on corporate performance for Shariah compliant companies. Therefore, the question that can been arisen which is the most appropriate and suitable capital structure theory under Shariah principles? Firstly, this study intends to determine until to what extent the capital structure of Shariah compliant companies (SCC) can be different from Non Shariah compliant companies (NSCC). Many studies have been done on capital structure. However, most of the studies focused on the capital structure determinants, impacts of capital structure on financial performance, how the tax affected capital structure and short-term debt during financial crisis period. All of these past studies using financial institution, small and medium enterprises (SME) and public listed companies (PLC) as samples in their study. Nevertheless, there are few studies relate to the impact of capital structures on corporate performance during financial crisis. Shariah compliant companies presume to be more resilent during financial crisis based on their characteristic. However, there is no study on how SCC manages their capital structure during financial crisis period. Therefore, in order to fill the research gap, it is necessary to carry out a study on impact of capital structure on corporate performance during financial crisis by using SCC as sample. The main objective of this study is to investigate the impact of capital structure on corporate performance of SCC predominantly during financial crisis period. To the best of our knowledge, there is no such empirical study that has been conducted until nowadays. As information, Shariah compliant companies (SCC) are deemed to comply with Shariah principles, rules, values and restrictions when dealing with the financing activities. In order to ensure SCC comply with all the Shariah principles and free from prohibited elements such as interest (riba), gambling (masyar) and speculation (gharar), Shariah advisory board (SAC) are established to monitor the SCC's activities. Besides, before being listed in Islamic index all the firms must be complying with the qualitative and quantitative criteria for screening process that are set by the index provider. This study will take the sample from FTSE Shariah global index series, therefore under this index provider, Yasaar Ltd is an impartial consultancy and leading authority on handling Shariah matters including the screening process. Under quantitative screening, there have several financial vii benchmarks that the firms need to follow in order to acquire the shariah-compliant status. According to Haron and Ibrahim (2012) due to the benchmark that are set by index provider, it leads SCC to raise capital via equity financing. Empirically, firms that rely more on equity-based financing tend to be more resilient during financial crisis period. Gitman and Zutter (2012, p.508) defines the capital structure as "the mix of debt and equity maintained by the firm". Thus, the main concern is how the firm decision to optimize the capital structures by combining debt and equity financing. There have a number of previous studies that explored how the firms or financial managers determine the optimum capital structure to ensure they can maximize the firm's corporate performance. Based on the empirical results it shows that there has numerous factor that influenced the firms and financial manager in order to make the capital structure financing decision such as profitability, growth, size, tangibility, tax, leverage, liquidity, and industry. Meanwhile, this study will focus on some financial benchmarks in order to achieve the objective of this study. Such example this study uses corporate performance, debt to equity ratio, debt financing ratio (short-term debt ratio and long-term debt ratio), tangibility ratio, cash plus account receivables ratio, growth ratio, and size ratio. Corporate Performance In this study, two proxies will be used to measure the corporate performance of the firm. Firstly, this study decides to use profit before tax and zakat over total asset or it called pre-tax return on assets (Pre-tax ROA) to measure the firm's corporate performance. This ratio is to measures how the efficiency of the firm can earn on its investment in its assets. In other words, how the firm used its assets effectively to generate the income or profit from that assets. Like the previous study that have been used earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) over total assets and profit before interest and tax to measure the firm's corporate performance. Initially, this study intends to show the different significant impact to the firm's corporate performance if the firm paying taxes or zakat or both. It is due to the SCC has special taxes that are called 'zakat' under Shariah term and it viii has fixed-rate 2.5 percent from the net profit or income. However, until nowadays zakat still voluntary basis in most of the Muslim countries. Based on the sample in this study, Malaysia is the only country that implemented zakat system however it based on voluntary basis and none of the samples shows the zakat amount in their financial statement. The second proxy in this study for dependent variables that represents for firm's corporate performance is return on equity ratio (ROE) ratio. Based on the previous studies, there has been used net income after tax over total equity to measure the ROE in their studies. Therefore, this study also decides to use the same measurement as the prior studies. This ratio will measure by the firm's profitability using net profit after interest, tax and preference dividend divided by ordinary share capital plus reserves at the end of the financial year. ROE ratio is one of the main profitability ratios that concentrate on the firm's ordinary shareholders and compares the profit that has been earned and its capital. Some of the investors are using this ratio to measure the firm's ordinary shares desirability. Debt to Equity Ratio Some of the Islamic index provider set the financial benchmark that the total debt must be less than 33 percent from the total equity. Such an example, Dow Jones Global Islamic Index (DJIM) set the debt to equity ratio as one of their financial benchmarks. However, FTSE Global Equity Shariah Index does not include this benchmark under their screening process. Therefore, this study intends to use this benchmark to see whether there have significant differences between SCC and NSCC. This study decides to use total debt divided by total equity as a measurement of debt to equity ratio. It supported by other studies such as Margaritis and Psillaki (2010) and Memon et al., (2012) that also used the same measurement in their studies. This ratio is to evaluate a firm's financial leverage by measuring the degree of firm financing based on debt to equity or wholly-owned funds. In case if the company downturn, it measures the ability of the shareholder equity to cover all the debts in the firms. ix Debt Financing Under FTSE Global Equity Shariah Index quantitative screening, the debt ratio must be less than 33 percent of total assets. Due to this study's objective to determine the impact of capital structure on corporate performance during financial crisis, therefore the debt ratio divided into two categories, which are short-term debt financing and long-term debt financing. Based on Fosberg (2013) conducted a study on public listed companies in US and found that short-term debt financing increased from 1.3 percent in 2006 to 2.2 percent in 2008 which represent $34 million increase due to the financial crisis that are happened in 2008. It supported by numerous studies (see Brealey et al., 2008; Almeida et al., 2011; Federal Reserve, 2012; Fosberg, 2013) that during the stock market collapsed in 2008, the borrowing power of firms becomes fewer than before due to the credit supply was limited. Therefore, firms intend using more STD financing during financial difficulties. Hassan and Samour (2016) added that it highlighted that capital structure financing decision were impact during financial crisis period. Cheema et.al (2017) and Shahar and Shahar (2015) found that SCC using long-term debt (LTD) financing more than short-term debt (STD) financing. It might be due to the restriction for limited interest and risk sharing under Shariah guidelines. However, for NSCC, they are using more STD in order to meet the working capital requirement. On the other hand study by Sahudin, Ismail, Sulaiman, Rahman, and Jaafar (2019) found that SCC using more STD financing compared to LTD financing. STD financing is more widely used compared to LTD financing by the SCC in Malaysia because the majority of Islamic debt instruments issued short-term debt rather than long-term debt (Aggarwal & Yousef, 2000). This also supports agency theory whereby it justifies the function of STD financing as a mechanism to control the debt and mitigate the agency problem. Therefore, this study intends to examine the significant differences in financing patterns particularly before, during and after the financial crisis period. x Tangibility Ratio Tangibility assets become more popular as a measurement for bank viability after the financial crisis occurred. Bank viability means the bank's judgment on the ability of the firms to meet ongoing financial obligation with the additional investment and financing such as from the banks and investors. One of the reasons because tangible assets are liquid compared to intangible assets. It supported by Charalambakis and Garrett (2012) that stated tangible assets are the main point in explaining the capital structure within the firms. As a result, tangible assets have a higher value in the market and even if firms have financial problem or going to bankrupt, the firms can easily and quickly in selling their tangible assets. Scott (1977) and Titman and Wessels (1988) stated that less profitable firm intends to have a high value of tangible assets and the firms will use tangible assets as collateral in order to get more debt financing. Therefore, any firm that has higher tangibility ratio will issue more debt financing. This is in line with trade-off theory that highlight, firms need to enjoy the advantage of tax with issuing more debt financing while having more profit to the firm. Ahmad and Azhar (2015) added that this would give assistance to the firms that have default in their debt to use the tangible asset to avoid being bankrupcy. Cash plus Account Receivables Ratio Most of the previous studies used the liquidity ratio in order to measure the firm's ability to meet the short-term financial obligation. Even Thabet and Hanefah (2014) found in their study that liquidity were one of the factors that have the impact on the corporate performance to the firm. This ratio is important to ensure the firms have cut limit for total cash and account receivables in one time in order to avoid excess or lack of cash in the firms. In addition, it also to reduce the agency cost. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that examines the impact on total cash plus account receivables over total assets (CashAR) to the corporate performance. This variable is chosen as an independent variable for this study due to the characteristics for SCC must be following and passed the benchmark in order to be listed in the Islamic index. Farooq xi and Alahkam (2016) also mentioned that the Islamic financial system was more stable and resilient because of the economy based on Islamic guidelines. Growth Ratio This study decides to use the different amount of this year sales minus last year sales divided by this year sales as a proxy of firm growth ratio. It is supported by prior studies (Salim and Yadav, 2012; Bundala, 2012; Proença et al., 2014; Cheema et al., 2017) that are also used the same measurement for growth ratio in their studies. According to Titman & Wessel (1988) and Rajan & Zingales (1995) shows that the firms with high future growth turns out to be used less leverage in the financing decision. It is because the firm will shift from debt financing to equity financing. In addition, growth ratio are influence by the profitability of the firm. This study will be focused on selected countries from Southeast Asia, which are Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, and Thailand. The selection sample is justified that Southeast Asia is the most progressive region in the Islamic capital market in the Asia region (Yakcop, 2002). Initially, this study has identified 595 samples of Public Listed Companies under industrial sector in Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, 114 samples have been excluded due to the several reasons such as incomplete financial statement and change of accounting year during the period of study. Thus, the final samples selected are 197 PLC from Shariah-compliant companies and 284 PLC from Non-shariah compliant companies. All the sample are collecting through DataStream that is published by Thomson Reuter Eikon. This study gathers all the financial statements such as balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement in order to achieve the objective of this study. The unique for this study, the data is analyzed using Python Pandas programming software. This is the first study using Python Pandas to analyze the impact of capital structure on corporate performance during the financial crisis. As information, Pandas are the software library written for the Python programming language for data manipulation and analysis. Undoubtedly, Pandas offer data structures and operations for manipulating numerical tables and time series. Therefore, the first step to do to analyze the data by creating the coding system that is xii required for this study. In order to accomplish the objective in this study, the regression equations have been developed as follows: 1. Y (Pretax ROA) = β0 + β1D/Eit + β2Tangit + β3STDit + β4LTDit + β5CASH/ARit + β6GRWit + β7SIZEit + β8(X) + ε 2. Y (ROE) = β0 + β1D/Eit + β2Tangit + β3STDit + β4LTDit + β5CASH/ARit + β6GRWit + β7SIZEit + β8(X) + ε Whereby: Pre-tax ROA = Return on asset before tax ratio ROE = Return on equity ratio D/E = Debt to equity ratio STD = Short term debt ratio LTD = Long term debt ratio TANG = Tangibility ratio CASHAR = Cash plus account receivable ratio GRW = Growth ratio SIZE = Size ratio ε = Error term X = dummy variable 0: Non-Shariah Compliant Companies (NSCC) 1: Shariah Compliant Companies (SCC) The analysis begins with the multicollinearity test and the purpose of this test to ensure there is no problem of multicollinearity among the variables. Based on the result, none of the tolerances value is less than 0.2 and none of the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) is greater than 10. As a result, it found that there is no multicollinearity problem in this study. The analyses continue with the descriptive statistic analysis that found the corporate performance of Shariah compliant companies (SCC) is higher than Non Shariah compliant companies (NSCC) during the financial crisis and after the financial crisis for both proxies, pre-tax return on assets (Pre-tax ROA) and return on equity (ROE). However, for independent variables those are debt to equity ratio, short-term debt ratio, long-term debt ratio, cash plus account receivables ratio shows that SCC has lower ratio through out the periods which are before, during and after financial crisis. These results have been expected due to the benchmarks that are set xiii by index providers during the quantitative (financial) screening process. Furthermore, SCC requirements to follow all the time the benchmark in order to be listed in Shariah index and maintain as shariah status. Due to this reason, we can observe that SCC always has a lower leverage ratio compare to NSCC. In addition, firms that have lower ratio are better because high leverage ratio or debt financing ratio contributes to the high risk of solvency and instability of the firms. Tangibility ratio for SCC is higher than NSCC before, during and after the financial crisis period. This ratio becomes more important after the financial crisis period. It is because it uses as a measurement for bank viability and indicate the firm's collateral level. Therefore, SCC with a higher tangibility ratio can issue more debt financing. It becomes more secure in case of bankruptcy; the firm can sales its tangible assets in order to pay their debt financing. Cash plus account receivables ratio is lower than NSCC before, during and after financial crisis period. Even though high liquidity can attract more lender and manager to make investment easily however there have high risk of bankruptcy and high risk of non-payment. Besides, the lower liquidity can contribute to the lower agency problem. Growth ratio shows before and during financial crisis period NSCC have higher ratio than SCC. However, after financial crisis period, SCC demonstrates higher ratio than NSCC. It indicates that SCC's growth better after financial crisis period. In addition, it proved that SCC gets more attention from the investor after financial crisis period. The second major finding are from multiple regression analysis based on pre tax ROA as the first proxy for corporate performance. It found that all the independent variables are significant except for debt to equity ratio before the financial crisis period. However, during the financial crisis period, only long-term debt ratios not significant and after the financial crisis period both short-term debt and long-term debt do not significant. Shariah-compliant companies only have a significant level after the financial crisis period. The impact of capital structure on corporate performance, pre-tax ROA for SCC is 1.6617 times higher than NSCC after financial crisis period. xiv Second proxy of corporate performance is a return on equity (ROE). All the independent variables are significant with the ROE except for debt to equity ratio and cash plus account receivable ratio before the financial crisis period, while long-term debt ratio during and after the financial crisis period. SCC significantly with ROE before the financial crisis and it shows that the impact of capital structure on SCC for corporate performance, ROE is -2.9264 times lower than NSCC. However, after the financial crisis period, the impact of capital structure on corporate performance, ROE for SCC is 4.3171 times higher than NSCC. The findings in this study posed an important implications for academicians, researchers, regulatory bodies as well as the management of the firms particularly Shariah compliant and non-shariah compliant companies, as they pave for further exploration. It offers knowledge to the regulatory bodies and related government agencies to come out with the guidelines and framework regarding shariah compliant status. Therefore, in order to set up with the new regulations and guidelines, these agencies need to understand the needed of investors and the characteristics of SCC itself in order to develop new guidelines to attract more investors. Such cases in Malaysia, the government give incentive to the new shariah compliant companies with five years tax exemption. Other, in UK and France they have amended their tax structure to compatible with Islamic finance guidelines. There have several limitations encountered in conducting this study. This study did not take into consideration the effects of the Asian financial crisis because there have different impact between the countries due to the different level of development in the financial market, the policies of the government and the sensitivity of that country to external incidents. In addition, due to this was the cross country study, therefore the differences are expected due to difference law system and regulation, bureaucracy, dissimilar costs and benefits that the companies face in each country. These limitations have paved the way to future research. Therefore, in the future it hopes to take consideration for these limitations in order to fill the research gap in this area ; slami finans özellikle son zamanlarda, İslami bankacılık, tekaful, vakıf ve sukuk gibi bir çok alanda hızlı bir büyüme göstermektedir. İslami finans İslam ülkelerinin yanında, Singapur, Güney Kore, Japonya, Avrupa, Avustralya, Brezilya ve Amerika Latin gibi İslami olmayan ülkeleri de kapsayacak şekilde dünyanın dört bir yanından, gittikçe daha fazla farkındalık ve ilgi kazanmaktadır. İslami Finansal Hizmetler Kurulu (IFHK) ve 2016'da Ernst & Young raporuna dayanarak, İslami finans sektörünün 2015 yılına kadar brüt 1,88 trilyon ABD doları değerine ulaştığını belirttimektedir. Üstelik bu sektörün büyüme hızı, düşük enerji fiyatlarının sürmesine, jeopolitik çatışmalara ve ekonomik belirsizliğe rağmen, çift haneli büyüme oranlarını korumuştur. Örneğin, 2017 yılına ait Küresel İslami Finans Raporunda, Aralık 2016'da küresel İslami finansal hizmet sektörünün 2,293 trilyon ABD doları bulduğu raporlanmıştır. El-Qorchi'ye (2005) göre İslami finansa geçiş konusunda üç motivasyon bulunduğu vurgulamaktadır: Şeriat uyumlu ürün ve hizmetlere yönelik güçlü talep, Körfez bölgesindeki petrol zengini uluslardan gelen Şeriat uyumlu yatırım için talep ve ve son olarak Şeriat uyumlu ürün ve hizmetlerin rekabet gücünden etkilenen gayrimüslim yatırımcıların ilgisi. Ayrıca, 1958'den bu yana geliştirilen ve MM Teorisi ile başlayan ve Takas Teorisi (Trade-Off Theory), Finansman Hiyerarşisi Kuramı (Pecking Order Theory), Vekâlet Maliyeti Teorisi (Agency Theory) ve Piyasa Zamanlama Teorisi (Market xvi Timing Theory) ile devam eden çok sayıda sermaye yapısı teorisi vardır. Örnek olarak Takas teorisi, firmaları borcun faizinden faydalanmak için birikmiş karlar ve özkaynak finansmanı yerine, borç finansmanı kullanmaya teşvik etmektedir. Bu teorilerinin her birinin sermaye yapısı kararını yönetmek ve denetlemek için farklı bir yaklaşımı vardır. Bu çalışmanın temel amacı, finansal kriz döneminde sermaye yapısının kurumsal performans üzerindeki etkisini incelemektir. İlk olarak, bu çalışma Şeriat uyumlu şirketlerin (ŞUŞ) sermaye yapısının Şeriat uyumlu olmayan şirketlerden (ŞUOŞ) ne kadar farklı olabileceğini belirlemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Sermaye yapısı üzerinde çok sayıda çalışma yapılmıştır. Bununla birlikte, çalışmaların çoğu sermaye yapısı belirleyicileri, sermaye yapısının finansal performans üzerindeki etkileri, verginin finansal yapıdaki sermaye yapısını ve kısa vadeli borçları nasıl etkilediğine odaklanmıştır. Bu geçmiş çalışmalarda örneklem olarak, finansal kurumlar, küçük ve orta ölçekli işletmeler ve halka açık şirketler kullanmaktadır. Ancak Şeriate Uygun Şirketlerin sermaye yapıları ve sermaye yapısının finansal performans üzerindeki etkisi konusunda az sayıda çalışma vardır. Özellikle ŞUŞ'lerin sermaye yapıları göz önünde bulundurulduğunda, bu şirketlerin kriz döneminde daha avantajlı olmaları beklenmektedir. Ancak ŞUŞ'lerin finansal yapılarının, fiannsal kriz döneminde onlar için nasıl bir avantaj sağladığı bugüne kadar bir araştırma konusu yapılmamıştır. Bu nedenle, araştırma boşluğunu doldurmak için, ŞUŞ'lerin örnek olarak kullanıldığı, finansal kriz sırasında sermaye yapısının finansal performans üzerindekini araştıran bir çalışma yapılması gerektirmektedir. Bildiğimiz kadarıyla, bugüne kadar yapılmış böyle bir ampirik çalışma yoktur. Şeriat uyumlu şirketler (ŞUŞ), finansman faaliyetlerini yürütürken Şeriat ilkelerine, kurallarına, değerlerine ve kısıtlamalarına uymaktadır. ŞUŞ'in tüm Şeriat ilkelerine uyması, ayrıca riba, masyar ve gharar gibi yasaklanmış unsurlardan arındırılmasını sağlamak için, Şeriat Danışma Kurulu (ŞDK) ŞUŞ'lerin faaliyetlerini izlemek üzere kurulur. Bunlara ek olarak İslami endekste listelenmeden önce, tüm şirketler, endeks sağlayıcısı tarafından belirlenen tarama süreci için nitel ve nicel kriterlere uymalıdır. Bu çalışmada kullanılan örneklem, FTSE şeriat küresel sermaye endeksinde yer alan şirketlerden oluşturulmuştur. Bu endeks sağlayıcısı altında, xvii tarama süreci de dahil olmak üzere Şeriat konularının ele alınmasında Yasaar Ltd. tarafsız bir danışmanlık ve lider otorite olarak kabul edilmektedir. Şirketlerin Şeriat uyumlu statüsünü elde edebilmesi için, nicel tarama başlığı altında, uyması gereken bir dizi finansal kriterler de vardır. Haron ve Ibrahim'e (2012) göre, endeks sağlayıcı tarafından belirlenen kriter nedeniyle, ŞUŞ'ler sermaye arttrırımı yoluyla finansmanı tercih etmek durumunda kalmaktadır. Ampirik olarak, özkaynağa dayalı finansmana daha fazla ağırlık veren firmalar, finansal krizler sırasında daha dirençli olma eğilimindedir. Gitman ve Zutter (2012, s.508) sermaye yapısını "firma tarafından tutulan borç ve özkaynak karışımı" olarak tanımlar. Bu tanım doğrultusunda asıl amaç, borç ve özkaynak finansmanını çeşitli bileşimleri ile sermaye yapılarının nasıl optimum hale getirileceğidir. Ayrıca, sermaye yapıları aslında borç sahiplerini borç sahipleri olarak, özkaynakları ise hissedarlar veya hissedarlar olarak temsil etmektedir. O halde ortaya çıkan soru, şeriat ilkeleri uyarınca en uygun sermaye yapısı teorisi hangisidir? Firmaların veya finansal yöneticilerin, şirket performansını en üst düzeye çıkarabilmelerini sağlamak için optimum sermaye yapısını nasıl belirlediğine dair daha önce yapılmış çok sayıda çalışma vardır. Ampirik sonuçlar, kârlılık, büyüme, büyüklük, maddi varlık, vergi, kaldıraç, likidite ve sanayi gibi finansman kararını vermek için firmayı ve finans yöneticisini etkileyen çok sayıda faktöre sahip olduğunu göstermektedir. Bu arada, bu çalışmada, çalışmanın amacına ulaşmak için bazı finansal ölçütlere odaklanılacaktır. Bu örnekte, bu çalışmada kurumsal performans, borç / özsermaye oranı, borç finansman oranı, maddi duranlık oranı, nakit artı hesap alacakları oranı, büyüme oranı ve büyüklük oranı kullanılmıştır. Kurumsal Performans Bu çalışmada, kurumsal performansı ölçmek için iki bağımlı değişken kullanılmıştır. Şirketin kurumsal performansını ölçmek için il olarak vergi ve/veya zekat öncesi karın toplam varlığa olan oranıyla elde edilen ve varlıkların vergi öncesi getirisi (Vergi Öncesi Varlık Getirisi- Pre-tax Return of Asset) denilmektedir. Bu oran, işletmenin varlıklarına yaptığı yatırımdan elde ettiği getiri ile işletmenin xviii etkinliğini ölçer. Diğer bir deyişle, işletmenin varlıklarını gelir veya kârı elde etmek içine ne kadar etkin kullandığını gösterir. Önceki çalışmalarda olduğu gibi şirketin finansal performansını ölçmek için toplam aktifler üzerinden faiz ve vergi öncesi kazanç (faiz ve vergi öncesi kâr) kullanılmıştır. Öncellikle, bu çalışma, şirketin vergi veya zekat veya her ikisini birden ödemesi durumunda, işletmenin kurumsal performansının bundan önemli derecede etkilendiğini göstermeyi amaçlamaktadır. ŞUŞ'lerin Şeriat yönergelerine göre 'zekat' olarak adlandırılan, kâr veya gelirden yüzde 2,5 sabit oranda ödenen özel vergilere tabidir. Ancak, günümüze kadar zekat Müslüman ülkelerin çoğunda hala gönüllü olarak kullanılmaktadır. Bu çalışmadaki örneklem ile ilgili olarak, zekat sistemini uygulayan tek ülke Malezya'dır. Ancak burada da gönüllülük temeline dayanmaktadır ve örneklemdeki şirketlerin hiçbiri mali tablolarında zekat miktarını göstermemektedir. Bu çalışmada, firmanın kurumsal performansını temsil eden ikinci bağımlı değişken, özkaynak karlılığı (ÖKK) oranıdır (Return Of Equity-ROE). Önceki çalışmalara dayanarak, çalışmalarında ÖKK'nı ölçmek için vergi sonrası toplam özsermaye üzerinden net kar kullanılmıştır. Bu nedenle, bu çalışma daha önceki çalışmalarla aynı ölçümü kullanmaya karar verilmiştir. Bu oran, faiz, vergi ve imtiyazlı temettü sonrası net karın kullanılması suretiyle şirketin kârlılığına göre hesaplanır. ÖKK oranı, firmanın olağan hissedarlarına odaklanan ve kazanılan kar ile sermayelerini karşılaştıran ana karlılık oranlarından biridir. Bazı yatırımcılar bu oranı firmanın adi hisse senedinin cazibesini ölçmek için kullanmaktadır. Borç / Varl k Ora Bazı İslami Finans Endeksleri, örneğin Dow Jones Küresel İslam Endeksi (DJIM) tarafından yapılan nicel gözetimde, finansal kriterlerden biri özkaynak oranıdır. Toplam borç, toplam özkaynağa göre % 33'ten az olmalıdır. Bununla birlikte, bu çalışmanda kullanılan 'FTSE Global Equity Shariah Index' serisi bu oranın gözetim sürecine dahil etmemektedir. Bundan dolayı, bu çalışmada, ŞUŞ'ler ve ŞUOŞ'ler arasında önemli farklılıklar olup olmadığını genel olarak görmek için, bu oranın kullanılmasına karar verilmiştir. Toplam borcun toplam özkaynağa bölünmesiyle bulunan özkaynak oranını, bağımsız bir değişken olarak çalışmada yer xix almıştır. Margaritis ve Psillaki (2010) ve Memon ve diğerleri, (2012) gibi diğer bazı çalışmalar özkaynak oranı için, aynı ölçümü kullanmışlardır. Bu oran, borç / özkaynak veya tamamen sahip olunan fonlara dayalı şirket finansman derecesini ölçerek, bir şirketin finansal kaldıracını değerlendirmektir. Bu gösterge, şirketin bir finansal sorun yaşaması halinde, özkaynakların şirketteki tüm borçları karşılama kabiliyetini ölçer. Borç Fi a s a FTSE Global Equity Shariah Index nicel gözetimi kapsamında borç oranı, toplam varlıkların yüzde 33'ünden az olmalıdır. Bu çalışmanın amacı nedeniyle, finansal kriz sırasında etkisini daha ayrıntılı görmek amacıyla, borç oranı ikiye ayrılmıştır. Nitekim Fosberg (2013), ABD'de borsada işlem gören şirketler üzerinde bir çalışma yürütmüş ve kısa vadeli borç finansmanının 2006'da yüzde 1,3'ten 2008'de yüzde 2,2'ye yükseldiğini ve bunun 2008'de meydana gelen finansal kriz nedeniyle 34 milyon dolarlık bir artışı temsil ettiğini bulmuştur. 2008 yılında borsada çöktüğünde, kredi arzının sınırlı olmasından dolayı, şirketlerin borçlanma gücünün daha önce olduğundan daha zayıf hale geldiği sayısız çalışma ile desteklenmiştir (bakınız Brealey ve ark., 2008; Almeida ve ark., 2011; Federal Rezerv, 2012; Fosberg, 2013). Bu nedenle, firmalar finansal zorluklar sırasında KVYK finansmanını daha çok kullandılar. Hassan ve Samour (2016) sermaye yapısı finansman kararının finansal kriz sırasında etkili olduğunu açıkça belirtmişlerdir. Cheema ve arkadaşları (2017) ve Shahar ve Shahar (2015), ŞUŞ'lerin uzun vadeli borç finansmanını kısa vadeli borç finansmanından daha fazla kullandığını bulmuşlardır. Bunun nedeni, Şeriat yönergelerine göre sınırlı ilgi ve risk paylaşımının kısıtlanması olabilir. Bununla birlikte, ŞUOŞ'ler, işletme sermayesi ihtiyacını karşılamak için daha fazla KVYK kullanmaktadır. Ancak Sahudin, Ismail, Sulaiman, Rahman ve Jaafar (2019) tarafından yapılan çalışma, ŞUŞ'lerin UVYK'a kıyasla daha fazla KVYK kullandığını buldurmuştur. Malezya'daki ŞUŞ'ler uzun vadeli borcuna kıyasla daha yaygın olarak kısa vadeli borç kullanılmaktadır, çünkü İslami borçlanma araçlarının çoğu uzun xx vadeli borçtan ziyade kısa vadelidir (Aggarwal ve Yousef, 2000). Bu aynı zamanda, kısa vadeli borç fonksiyonunun, borcu kontrol etme ve acente sorununu azaltma mekanizması olarak haklı kıldığı kurum teorisini de destekler. Bu nedenle, bu çalışma özellikle finansal kriz öncesinde, sırasında ve sonrasında finansman modellerindeki önemli farklılıkları incelemeyi de amaçlamaktadır. Maddi Varl k Ora Maddi duran varlıklar, bankaların finansal krizden sonra işletmelerin yaşayabilirliğini ölçtükleri için daha popüler hale gelmektedir. Bunun nedeni maddi duran varlıkların maddi olmayan duran varlıklara göre daha fazla likidit olmasıdır. Charalambakis ve Garrett (2012) maddi duran varlıkların firma içindeki sermaye yapısını açıklamada ana nokta olduğunu belirtmiştir. Sonuç olarak, maddi duran varlıklar piyasada daha yüksek değere sahiptir ve firmalar finansal problemleri olsa veya iflas ederse bile, firmalar maddi varlıklarını kolayca ve hızlı bir şekilde satabilmektedirler. Scott (1977) ve Titman ve Wessels (1988), daha az kârlı firmanın maddi duran varlıkların yüksek değerine sahip olma eğiliminde olduğunu ve firmaların maddi duran varlıklarını daha fazla borç almak veya daha fazla borç almak için teminat olarak kullandıklarını belirtmiştir. Bu nedenle, daha yüksek somutluğu olan herhangi bir firma daha fazla borç alacaktır. Bu işletmenin daha fazla borç finansmanı sağlayarak verginin avantajından faydalanması gerektiğini vurgulayan değiş tokuş teorisine uygun şekilde, işletmenin daha fazla kâr elde etmesini sağlar. Ahmad ve Azhar (2015) bunun borcunda temerrüde düşüren işletmelere, iflastan kaçınmak için bu maddi varlığı kullanmaları için bir seçenek oluturduğunu eklediler. Naki e Alacak Topla Ora Önceki çalışmaların çoğu, işletmelerin kısa vadeli finansal yükümlülüğünü yerine getirme kabiliyetini ölçmek için likidite oranını kullanmıştır. Thabet ve Hanefah (2014) da çalışmalarında likiditenin işletmelerin kurumsal performansı üzerinde etkili olan faktörlerden biri olduğunu bulmuşlardır. xxi Bu oran, işletmenin aşırı nakit veya nakit eksikliğinden kaçınmak için, nakit ve alacakları için bir limit belirlemek açısından önemlidir. Buna ek olarak, temsil maliyetini de düşürmektedir. Bildiğimiz kadarıyla bu çalışmamızda, nakit ve alacaklar toplamı, toplam varlıklar içindeki yerinin (CashAR) kurumsal performansa etkisini inceleyen ilk çalışmadır. Bu değişken, ŞUŞ için İslami endekste listelenmesi için yerine getirmesi gereken bir ölçüt olduğu için, bu çalışmada bağımsız bir değişken olarak seçilmiştir. Farooq ve Alahkam (2016), İslami esaslara dayanan ekonomi nedeniyle, İslami finansal sistemin daha istikrarlı ve dayanıklı olduğunu çalışmalarıyla desteklemişlerdir. Büyüme Ora Bu çalışmada, cari yılki satış eksi geçmiş yılki satışların cari yılki satışlara bölünmesi, işletme büyüme oranının bir göstergesi olarak kullanılmıştır. Çalışmalarında büyüme oranı için aynı ölçümü kullanan önceki çalışmalar (Salim ve Yadav, 2012; Bundala, 2012; Proença ve diğerleri, 2014; Cheema ve diğerleri, 2017) bulunmaktadır. Titman & Wessel'e (1988) ve Rajan & Zingales'e (1995) göre, gelecekteki büyümesi yüksek olan firmaların finansman kararlarında daha az kaldıraç kullanıldığını göstermektedir. Çünkü firma borç finansman yerine özkaynakla finansmanı tercih edecektir. Ayrıca, büyüme firmanın karlılığını etkileyecektir. Bu çalışma Güneydoğu Asya'dan Malezya, Endonezya, Vietnam, Singapur ve Tayland gibi seçilmiş ülkelere odaklanacaktır. Örneklem seçimi, Güneydoğu Asya bölgesindeki İslami sermaye piyasasının en ilerici bölgelerini içermektedir (Yakcop, 2002). Bu çalışmanın başlangıcında, Güneydoğu Asya'da sanayi sektörü altındaki Halka Açık Şirketlerden 595 örnek tespit edilmiştir. Bununla birlikte, tamamlanmamış finansal tablolar ve hesap dönemi boyunca muhasebe yılı değişikliği gibi çeşitli nedenlerden dolayı 114 şirket, örneklemden çıkarılmıştır. Bu nedenle, seçilen son örnekler ŞUŞ'lerden 197 ve ŞUOŞ'lerden 284 halka açık şirketten meydana gelmektedir. Tüm örnekler, Thomson Reuter Eikon tarafından yayınlanan DataStream aracılığıyla toplanmıştır. Bu çalışma, amacına ulaşmak için bilanço, gelir tablosu ve nakit akım tablosu gibi tüm finansal tabloları bir araya getirmektedir. Bu çalışmada veriler, Python Pandas yazılımı kullanılarak analiz edilmiştir. Bu, sermaye yapısının xxii finansal kriz sırasında kurumsal performans üzerindeki etkisini analiz etmek için Python Pandas'ın kullanıldığı ilk çalışmadır. Pandas veri işleme ve analiz için Python programlama dili için yazılan yazılım kütüphanesidir. Pandas sayısal tabloları ve zaman serilerini değiştirmek için veri yapıları ve işlemler sunar. Bu nedenle, bu çalışma için gerekli olan kodlama sistemini oluşturmak, verileri analiz etmek için ilk adım olarak gerçekleştirilmiştir. Bu çalışmada amacına ulaşmak için regresyon denklemleri aşağıdaki gibi geliştirilmiştir: 1. Y (Pretax ROA) = β0 + β1D/Eit + β2Tangit + β3STDit + β4LTDit + β5CASH/ARit + β6GRWit + β7BOYUTit + β8(X) + ε 2. Y (ROE) = β0 + β1D/Eit + β2Tangit + β3STDit + β4LTDit + β5CASH/ARit + β6GRWit + β7BOYUTit + β8(X) + ε Vasıtasıyla: Pre-tax ROA = Vergi oranından önce varlığın getirisi ROE = Özkaynak karlılığı D/E = Borç / Özkaynak oranı STD = Kısa vadeli borç oranı LTD = Uzun vadeli borç oranı TANG = Maddi varlık oranı CASHAR = Nakit artı alacak oranı GRW = Büyüme oranı BOYUT = Boyut oranı ε = Hata terimi X = kukla değişken 0: Şeriat Uyumlu Olmayan Şirketler (ŞUOŞ) 1: Şeriat Uyumlu Şirketler (ŞUŞ) xxiii Analiz, çoklu doğrusallık testi ile başlar ve bu testin amacı, değişkenler arasında çoklu doğrusallık sorunu bulunmadığından emin olmaktır. Sonuçlara göre, tolerans değerlerinin hiçbiri 0,2'den az ve hiçbir Varyans Enflasyon Faktörü (VIF) 10'dan büyük değildir. Bu nedenle, bu çalışma için çoklu bağlantı sorunu yoktur denilebilir. Analizlere, tanımlayıcı istatistik analizleri ile devam edilmiştir. Şeriat uyumlu şirketlerin (ŞUŞ) kurumsal performansının mali kriz sırasında ve her iki bağımlı değişken için de, vergi öncesi varlık karlılığı (vergi öncesi AK) ve özkaynak kârlılığı (ÖKK), finansal krizden sonra şeriat uyumlu olmayan şirketlerde (ŞUOŞ) daha yüksek olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Ancak bağımsız değişkenler, borç / özkaynak oranı için kısa vadeli borç oranı, uzun vadeli borç oranı, nakit artı hesap alacakları hesap oranı, SCC'nin finansal öncesi, sırasında ve sonrasındaki tüm dönemler için daha düşük bir orana sahip olduğunu göstermektedir. Bu sonuçlar, niceliksel tarama işlemi sırasında endeks sağlayıcı tarafından belirlenen koşullar nedeniyle beklenen bir durumdur. Ayrıca Şeriat endeksinde yer almak ve Şeriat statüsü kazanmak için bir ŞUŞ'in, her zaman söz konusu koşulların yerine getirildiği takip etmesi gerekir. Bu nedenle, ŞUŞ'lerin ŞUOŞ'lere kıyasla her zaman daha düşük kaldıraç oranına sahip olduğunu gözlemleyebiliriz. Bu oranların düşük olması daha iyidir, çünkü yüksek kaldıraç oranı veya borç finansman oranı, şirketin ödeme gücü ve istikrarsızlık riskini arttırabilir. ŞUŞ için maddi varlık oranı finansal kriz öncesinde, sırasında ve sonrasında ŞUOŞ'lerden daha yüksektir. Bu oran mali kriz döneminden sonra, daha da önem kazanmaktadır. Çünkü, bankalar şirketin yaşama yeteneği için bu oranı dikkate alırlar ve şirketin teminat seviyesinin göstergesidir. Bu nedenle, daha yüksek maddi varlık oranına sahip ŞUŞ'e daha fazla borç verebilir. İflas durumunda daha güvenli hale gelir, şirketler, borçlarını ödemek için maddi duran varlıklarını satabilir. Toplam nakit ve alacak oranı, finansal kriz öncesinde, sırasında ve sonrasında ŞUOŞ'den daha düşüktür. Her ne kadar yüksek likidite ile daha fazla kredi hacmine ulaşmayı ve yöneticilerin yatırım yapmasını kolaylaşsa da, bu durum yüksek bir iflas riskini ve yüksek ödeme yapmama riskini beraberinde getirir. Ek olarak, düşük likidite temsil sorununun artmaması açısından bir avantaj sağlar. xxiv Öncesinde ve mali kriz döneminde ŞUOŞ'lerin ŞUŞ'lerden daha yüksek bir büyüme oranına sahip olduğunu göstermektedir. Ancak, mali kriz döneminden sonra ŞUŞ'ler, ŞUOŞ'lerden daha yüksek bir büyüme oranına sahiptir. Finansal kriz döneminden sonra ŞUŞ'lerin daha iyi büyüdüğünü göstermektedir. Ayrıca, finansal kriz döneminden sonra ŞUŞ'lerin yatırımcıdan daha fazla ilgi gördüğü kanıtlanmıştır. Kurumsal performans için ilk bağımlı değişken olarak, vergi öncesi AK'na dayalı çoklu regresyon analizinden elde edilen ikinci önemli bulgu, finansal kriz döneminden önceki borç / özkaynak oranı hariç tüm bağımsız değişkenlerin istatistiksel olarak önemli olduğunu ortaya koymuştur. Ancak finansal kriz döneminde sadece uzun vadeli borç oranları anlamlı değildir ve finansal kriz döneminden sonra hem kısa vadeli borç hem de uzun vadeli borç değişkenleri istatistiksel olarak önemli değildir. Şeriat uyumlu şirketler ancak finansal kriz döneminden sonra önemli bir seviyeye sahiptir. Sermaye yapısının vergi öncesi AK için ŞUŞ üzerindeki etkisi, finansal kriz döneminden sonra ŞUOŞ'lerden 1,6617 kat daha yüksektir. Kurumsal performansın ikinci bağımlı değişkeni ÖKK'dır. Finansal kriz döneminden önce borç / özsermaye oranı ve nakit artı hesap alacak oranı hariç, finansal kriz dönemi içinde ve sonrasında uzun vadeli borç oranı hariç tüm bağımsız değişkenler ÖKK açısından istatistiksel olarak önemlidir. Finansal krizden önce ÖKK ile ŞUŞ önemli ölçüde artmakta ve sermaye yapısının ÖKK için ŞUŞ üzerindeki etkisinin finansal kriz döneminden önce ŞUOŞ'lerden -2.9264 kat daha düşük olduğunu göstermektedir. Ancak, finansal kriz döneminden sonra, sermaye yapısının ÖKK için ŞUŞ üzerindeki etkisi ŞUOŞ'lerden 4.3171 kat daha fazladır. Bu çalışmada elde edilen bulgular, akademisyenler, araştırmacılar, düzenleyici kurumlar ve özellikle ŞUŞ ve ŞUOŞ gibi şirketlerin yönetimi için daha fazla araştırma yapmalarının gerektiğini sonucunu doğurmuştur. Bu çalışma düzenleyici kurumlara ve ilgili devlet kurumlarına, şeriat uyumlu statüye ilişkin yönergeler ve çerçeve çıkarmaları rehber olabilir. Bu nedenle, yeni düzenleme ve kılavuz ilkeler oluşturmak için, bu kurumların daha fazla yatırımcı çekmek için yeni kılavuzlar geliştirmek amacıyla yatırımcıların ihtiyaçlarını ve ŞUŞ'lerin özelliklerini anlamaları gerekmektedir. Malezya'da hükümet beş yıl vergi muafiyeti ile yeni xxv ŞUŞ'lere teşvik vermektedir. Ayrıca, İngiltere ve Fransa'da ŞUŞ'ler de dahil olmak üzere İslami finans sektörü için vergi yapılarını değiştirdiler. Bu çalışmanın yürütülmesinde bazı sınırlamalar bulunmaktadır. Bu çalışmada, finansal piyasadaki farklı düzeylerde gelişme, hükümet politikaları ve o ülkenin dış olaylara duyarlılığı nedeniyle Asya'daki finansal krizin ülke genelinde farklı olduğu göz önünde bulundurulmamıştır. Buna ek olarak, ülkeler arası bu çapraz çalışma nedeniyle, farklı hukuk sistemleri ve düzenlemeleri, bürokrasi, şirketlerin her ülkede karşılaştığı farklı maliyetler ve faydalar nedeniyle farklılıklar beklenmektedir. Bu sınırlamalar gelecekteki araştırmaların yolunu açmaktadır. Dolayısıyla, gelecekte sermaye yapısı alanındaki araştırma boşluğunu doldurmak için bu sınırlamaları dikkate alınmalıdır

El objetivo principal de esta Tesis Doctoral es evaluar el desempeño financiero de las inversiones socialmente responsables (ISR). En las últimas décadas, la gestión de inversiones ha experimentado un proceso progresivo de adaptación en el que los objetivos financieros convencionales se han complementado con atributos no financieros como los criterios medioambientales, sociales y de gobernanza (ESG). Esta tendencia refleja una creciente conciencia sobre cuestiones ambientales, sociales y éticas que influye de manera importante en las decisiones de compra de los inversores (Mollet y Ziegler, 2014). La ISR atrae a inversores que desean ir más allá de la utilidad financiera de sus inversiones y que esperan una utilidad no financiera que refleje sus valores sociales (Auer, 2016; Auer y Schuhmacher, 2016). Los aspectos ESG se están convirtiendo en una parte importante del proceso de toma de decisiones de los inversores al ayudarles a identificar oportunidades y riesgos en el largo plazo. De acuerdo con el Global Sustainable Investment Review de 2016, en 2016 hubo 22,89 billones de dólares gestionados profesionalmente en el marco de estrategias de inversión responsable a nivel mundial, lo que representa un aumento del 25% desde 2014. En 2016, el 53% de los gestores en Europa utilizaron estrategias de inversión responsable, siendo esta proporción del 22% en EE.UU. y del 51% en Australia/Nueva Zelanda. Esta tendencia se ha ratificado para los dos últimos años. Los gestores de activos estadounidenses consideraron criterios ESG en su gestión por valor de 11,6 billones de dólares, un 44 por ciento más que los 8,1 billones de dólares de 2016 (USSIF, 2018). El informe EUROSIF (2018) también revela un crecimiento sostenido en Europa de las estrategias de inversión sostenibles. Los dos últimos años (2016-2018) muestran signos manifiestos de que la ISR se está convirtiendo en parte integrante de la gestión de los fondos europeos. La idea básica de la ISR es aplicar un conjunto de filtros al universo de inversión disponible con el fin de seleccionar o excluir activos en función de criterios ESG (Auer, 2016). En la práctica, existen diferentes estrategias ISR, como la integración, la selección positiva/best-in-class, la selección ética/negativa, la gobernanza, el compromiso, etc., todas ellas con el objetivo de dirigir los fondos hacia empresas socialmente responsables con proyectos y políticas constructivas y sostenibles. Desde la perspectiva de los inversores, la cuestión crítica es si la selección de acciones socialmente responsable conduce a ganancias o pérdidas en términos de rendimiento financiero. Por parte de las empresas, la cuestión es si el gasto de recursos en prácticas de responsabilidad social de las empresas (RSE) redundará en beneficio de la empresa y aumentará su valor. Si hacer el bien (social y medioambiental) está vinculado a hacerlo bien (financieramente), las empresas podrían verse incentivadas a comportarse de manera más sostenible. Una relación positiva entre el desempeño social y el financiero legitimaría incluso la RSE sobre razones económicas (Margolis et al. 2009). El crecimiento de la ISR y sus consecuencias ha estimulado la realización de estudios empíricos evaluando su comportamiento financiero. Una parte importante de la literatura se ha centrado en el rendimiento financiero de los fondos de inversión ISR. En general, estos estudios encuentran que no hay diferencias significativas en el desempeño financiero de fondos ISR y fondos de tipo convencional (Leite et al. 2018)2. Sin embargo, la evaluación del impacto financiero de la ISR mediante el análisis del rendimiento de los fondos de inversión ISR gestionados activamente presenta algunas deficiencias. Por ejemplo, como señalan Brammer et al (2006) y Kempf y Osthoff (2007), existen efectos confusos -como las habilidades de gestión del gestor y los honorarios y tasas por la gestión- que pueden dificultar la identificación del rendimiento de las ISR. Además, la evidencia de Utz y Wimmer (2014), Humphrey et al. (2016), y Statman y Glushkov (2016) sugiere que la etiqueta "socialmente responsable" puede ser una estrategia de marketing de los fondos, lo que suscitaría dudas entre los inversores sobre si un fondo ISR es realmente socialmente responsable. En consecuencia, los inversores pueden tener dificultades para saber en qué medida un fondo ISR tiene realmente en cuenta los criterios sociales en su proceso de selección. Para superar las limitaciones asociadas a los estudios sobre fondos de inversión ISR gestionados activamente, un enfoque alternativo para evaluar los efectos financieros de la ISR consiste en analizar el rendimiento de carteras sintéticas formadas utilizando características sociales, medioambientales y de gobernanza de las empresas. En esta Tesis Doctoral, seguimos este enfoque para evaluar las inversiones socialmente responsables. Esta Tesis Doctoral está organizada en dos secciones. La primera incluye los capítulos 1 y 2 en los que se evalúan algunos aspectos metodológicos relacionados con una medida de rendimiento financiero que se utiliza para evaluar el rendimiento financiero de la ISR en la sección dos. La segunda sección incluye los capítulos 3, 4, 5 y 6 en los que se evalúa el desempeño financiero de la ISR desde diferentes perspectivas. Primera Sección. En el Capítulo 1 se evalúa la utilidad de una estrategia de inversión sectorial basada en el modelo de tres factores de Fama y French (1992). En este capítulo desarrollamos un proceso de inversión, que hasta donde sabemos es nuevo, incluyendo en una cartera acciones que están infravaloradas con respecto a sus índices sectoriales, es decir, tomamos como factor de mercado relevante el índice sectorial al que pertenecen las empresas. Nuestro principal objetivo en este capítulo es comprobar si es posible conseguir de forma consistente una rentabilidad extraordinaria mediante una estrategia sectorial basada en el modelo de Fama y French (1992) para la toma de decisiones de inversión. En el Capítulo 2 se evalúa si el modelo Fama y French (1992) puede convertirse en una herramienta más versátil y flexible, capaz de incorporar las variaciones en las características de las empresas de una forma más dinámica. Específicamente, prestamos atención al procedimiento que siguen Fama y French (1992) para formar los factores de riesgo. Ellos toman datos anuales y evalúan las carteras de valor y tamaño una vez al año, manteniéndolas invariables durante todo el período. Sin embargo, observamos que las características de las empresas pueden variar durante un periodo de 12 meses. Argumentamos que en ese periodo la valoración de una empresa puede cambiar como resultado de, por ejemplo, variaciones en su precio de mercado, su tamaño o su precio en libros; sin embargo el modelo de Fama y French (1992) no refleja con precisión esta dinámica. Nuestro principal objetivo en este capítulo es probar la eficacia del modelo tomando datos mensuales y reformando las carteras de valor y tamaño al final de cada mes para desarrollar una herramienta más dinámica y adaptable. Segunda Sección. En el Capítulo 3 se evalúa el rendimiento financiero de carteras que pueden formar inversores minoristas con conciencia social en comparación con inversiones convencionales. Observamos que la mayoría de los estudios previos que evalúan el rendimiento financiero de la ISR se llevan a cabo desde la perspectiva de las decisiones de inversión de los inversores institucionales y no desde la perspectiva de los inversores particulares que desean mantener carteras ISR. Sin embargo, ha habido un aumento considerable de la popularidad de la ISR entre los inversores minoristas (Benijts, 2010). Nilsson (2015) destaca que los inversores particulares optan por dedicar al menos una parte de sus fondos a inversiones que incluyan algún tipo de preocupación social o medioambiental, convirtiéndose así en un factor importante en la configuración de la ISR. Según el Global Sustainable Investment Review de 2016, aunque el mercado ISR en la mayoría de las regiones está dominado por inversores institucionales profesionales, el interés de los inversores particulares por la ISR está adquiriendo relevancia. De hecho, la proporción relativa de inversiones en ISR al por menor en Canadá, Europa y Estados Unidos aumentó del 13 por ciento en 2014 al 26 por ciento a comienzos de 2016 (GSIA, 2016). El objetivo de este capítulo es evaluar el rendimiento de las carteras que pueden formar los inversores minoristas socialmente responsables en comparación con las inversiones convencionales. Utilizamos varias medidas de rendimiento financiero; entre otras, la desarrollada en el capítulo 2 de esta Tesis Doctoral. Como punto relevante para los inversores minoristas, para la selección de las empresas socialmente responsables acudimos a una fuente de información de acceso libre al público a la que puede acceder cualquier inversor minorista. Adicionalmente, en este capítulo analizamos el impacto que pueden tener diferentes estados del mercado (alcistas y bajistas) sobre el rendimiento financiero de las carteras ISR. Investigaciones recientes muestran que el rendimiento de fondos de renta variable ISR (Nofsinger y Varma, 2014; Becchetti et al., 2015, Leite y Cortez, 2015), fondos de renta fija de ISR (Henke, 2016) y empresas socialmente responsables (Brzeszczyński y McIntosh, 2014; Carvalho y Areal, 2016) son sensibles a diferentes estados del mercado. En el Capítulo 4 evaluamos el desempeño financiero de carteras de acciones construidas con criterios de RSC a nivel internacional. Observamos que los estudios previos que abordan el desempeño de las carteras sintéticas socialmente responsables adolecen de algunas limitaciones e inconsistencias, a saber: (1) la mayoría de los estudios previos se centran en los mercados bursátiles de EE.UU. y Europa; (2) con la excepción de Badía et al. (2017), los estudios anteriores no comparan el desempeño de las carteras de ISR de diferentes regiones del mundo; (3) existen estudios que miden la RSC sólo a través de una de sus dimensiones individuales, mientras que otros consideran medidas agregadas de la RSC; (4) la mayoría de los estudios no evalúan la influencia de la industria en el desempeño financiero de las carteras de acciones ISR; (5) en varios de los estudios que evalúan a empresas europeas, se utilizan muestras de tamaño reducido; (6) falta evidencia actualizada; y (7) algunos investigadores simplemente dividen los períodos de análisis en subperíodos para evaluar el ―efecto de tiempo‖, sin embargo, es posible que se haya descuidado un efecto importante, el impacto de diferentes estados del mercado sobre el rendimiento financiero. Nuestro principal objetivo en este capítulo es evaluar el rendimiento financiero de carteras construidas sobre la base de criterios RSC superando las limitaciones previas. Formamos carteras de acciones con valoraciones de sostenibilidad altas y bajas e investigamos el rendimiento de dichas carteras utilizando modelos multifactoriales. En este capítulo, ampliamos el análisis sobre el impacto de la utilización de filtros socialmente responsables en el rendimiento de las carteras de inversión a otras áreas geográficas (Norteamérica, Europa, Japón y Asia-Pacífico); comparamos el rendimiento financiero de las carteras ISR de estas regiones entre sí; formamos carteras basadas en una medida agregada de RSE, así como en tres de sus dimensiones específicas ESG; evaluamos la influencia de la industria en el rendimiento financiero de las carteras de acciones ISR; y, por último, evaluamos el rendimiento financiero de las carteras de acciones ISR en diferentes estados de los mercados: alcistas, bajistas y períodos de mercados mixtos. En el Capítulo 5 evaluamos el rendimiento financiero de carteras de deuda pública formadas según criterios ESG. Observamos que, aunque el concepto de ISR se relacionó originalmente con la selección de acciones, la proporción de inversores que aplican criterios ISR a bonos ha crecido significativamente en los últimos años. Según el Foro Europeo de Inversión Sostenible (EUROSIF, 2016), la renta variable representaba más del 30% de los activos de ISR en diciembre de 2015, lo que supone un descenso significativo respecto al 50% del año anterior. Por otra parte, se ha producido un fuerte aumento de los bonos, que han pasado del 40% registrado en diciembre de 2013 al 64%. Tanto los bonos corporativos como los bonos gubernamentales experimentaron un crecimiento notable. En este sentido, las implicaciones financieras de los procesos de selección ESG sobre bonos corporativos pueden estar estrechamente relacionadas con la selección de acciones, ya que los bonos corporativos están asociados a empresas. De hecho, estudios previos (por ejemplo, Derwall y Koedijk, 2009; Leite y Cortez, 2016) que evalúan el desempeño financiero de fondos que invierten en bonos de renta fija socialmente responsables, encuentran que en promedio tuvieron un desempeño similar al de los fondos convencionales. Estos resultados están en línea con la mayoría de los estudios empíricos sobre el desempeño de los fondos ISR que muestran que tienden a tener un desempeño similar al de sus pares convencionales (Revelly y Viviani, 2015). Sin embargo, los procesos de selección ESG sobre bonos gubernamentales, dado que no están relacionados con las empresas, pueden ayudar a comprender las consecuencias de la ISR para activos alternativos. A pesar del crecimiento del mercado de deuda pública ISR y del desarrollo de calificaciones de los países basadas en factores ESG en los últimos años, se ha pasado por alto el vínculo entre la rentabilidad de la deuda pública y el rendimiento de los países en términos de preocupaciones ESG. De hecho, hasta donde sabemos, ninguna investigación previa ha evaluado el rendimiento financiero de las inversiones responsables en bonos gubernamentales. El objetivo principal de este capítulo es llenar este vacío. Evaluamos el rendimiento financiero de carteras de deuda pública formadas según criterios ESG. A diferencia de estudios previos, en los que se aplican calificaciones de sostenibilidad de las empresas, se utilizan calificaciones de sostenibilidad relacionadas con los países. En el capítulo 6 se estudia un aspecto poco evaluado de la RSE: la distinción entre inversiones en cuestiones de sostenibilidad materiales e inmateriales. Sólo las empresas que se centran en cuestiones de sostenibilidad material asociadas a sus operaciones principales deberían lograr una ventaja competitiva y obtener un mayor rendimiento social y financiero. Las actividades de RSE y las innovaciones relacionadas deben realizarse sobre aspectos materiales, ya que de lo contrario no se debería espera un efecto positivo en el rendimiento financiero. De hecho, las inversiones en cuestiones inmateriales pueden implicar costes empresariales adicionales sin un rendimiento social y financiero asociado. Para las empresas es importante centrarse en las cuestiones materiales ya que de este modo invierten en aspectos sociales que realmente afectan a sus operaciones. A pesar de que temas como la seguridad de los productos, el cambio climático y la intensidad en el uso de los recursos tienen impactos en varias industrias, como señalan Herz and Rogers (2016), esos efectos a menudo varían en gran medida de una industria a otra. Los riesgos pueden estar en todas partes, aunque también son particulares. Como consecuencia, las empresas de diferentes industrias tienen sus perfiles de sostenibilidad particulares. Es probable que una empresa que invierte sobre temas de sostenibilidad material en su industria logre un desempeño financiero positivo. Mientras tanto, es probable que una empresa que invierte en cuestiones de sostenibilidad materiales pero también inmateriales no logre un rendimiento financiero superior. En este capítulo, el objetivo principal es evaluar el rendimiento financiero de carteras de acciones formadas en función de cuestiones de RSC materiales e inmateriales. Khan et al (2016) muestran que las empresas estadounidenses con un fuerte desempeño en aspectos materiales superan a las empresas con un desempeño pobre en temas materiales. Nuestro conjunto de datos incluye empresas de estadounidenses y Europa. De este modo, ampliamos las pruebas anteriores de Khan et al. (2016) a las empresas europeas. La evaluación de las empresas estadounidenses y europeas es particularmente interesante dada la heterogeneidad de las pautas de desarrollo de la ISR en los distintos países (Neher y Hebb, 2015). En este capítulo utilizamos las puntuaciones de las empresas a partir de un conjunto de datos original que integra los estándares del Mapa de Materialidad SASB que, hasta donde sabemos, no se ha utilizado antes en este contexto. ; The main objective of this Doctoral Thesis is to evaluate the financial performance of socially responsible investments (SRI). In recent decades, investment management has undergone a progressive adaption process in which conventional financial objectives are increasingly being complemented by non-financial attributes such as environment, social and governance (ESG) criteria. This trend reflects an increasing awareness of environmental, social, and ethical issues that is strongly influencing the purchase decisions of investors (Mollet and Ziegler, 2014). SRI appeals to investors who wish to go beyond the financial utility of their investments and also derive non-financial utility from holding securities that reflect their social values (Auer, 2016; Auer and Schuhmacher, 2016). Additionally, ESG issues are becoming an important part of investors' decision-making process by helping them to identify firms' long-term opportunities and risks. According to the 2016 Global Sustainable Investment Review, in 2016 there were $22.89 trillion of assets being professionally managed under responsible investment strategies globally, representing an increase of 25% since 2014. In 2016, 53% of managers in Europe used responsible investment strategies, this proportion being 22% in the US and 51% in Australia/New Zealand. This tendency has been ratified recently for the last two years. US asset managers considered ESG criteria across $11.6 trillion in assets, up 44 percent from $8.1 trillion in 2016 (USSIF, 2018). The EUROSIF (2018) report discloses sustained growth for most sustainable and responsible investment strategies. The past two years (2016-2018) show manifest signs of SRI becoming integral to European fund management. The basic idea of SRI is to apply a set of screens to the available investment universe, in order to select or exclude assets based on ESG criteria (Auer, 2016). In practice, there is a range of SRI strategies, such as integration, positive/best-in-class screening, ethical/negative screening, governance and engagement, etc. All of these aim to drive funds towards socially responsible firms with constructive sustainable projects and policies. From an investors' perspective, the critical issue is whether socially responsible stock selection leads to gains or losses in terms of financial performance. On the firms' side, the question is whether spending resources on corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices will render benefits for the firm and increase its value. If doing good is indeed linked to doing well, firms may be led to behave in a more sustainable way. A positive relationship between social and financial performance would even legitimize CSR on economic grounds (Margolis et al. 2009). The growth of SRI and its consequences has stimulated empirical studies assessing financial behaviours. An important stream of the literature has focused on the financial performance of SRI mutual funds. In general, these studies find that there are no significant differences between the performance of SRI mutual funds and conventional funds (Leite et al. 2018). However, assessing the financial impact of SRI by evaluating the performance of actively managed SRI mutual funds has some shortcomings. For instance, as Brammer et al. (2006), and Kempf and Osthoff (2007) point out, there are confounding effects - such as fund manager skills and management fees - that may make it difficult to identify the performance that is due to the social characteristics of the underlying holdings. Furthermore, the evidence of Utz and Wimmer (2014), Humphrey et al. (2016), and Statman and Glushkov (2016) suggests that the 'socially responsible' label may be more akin to a marketing strategy, thus raising doubts among investors that an SRI fund is really socially responsible. As a consequence, investors may find it difficult to know the extent to which an SRI fund is really considering social criteria in its selection process. To overcome the limitations associated to studies on actively managed SRI mutual funds, an alternative approach to evaluate the financial effects of SRI involves evaluating the performance of synthetic portfolios formed on assets' social characteristics. In this Doctoral Thesis, we follow this approach to evaluating socially responsible investments. This Doctoral Thesis is organized in two sections. The first includes chapters 1 and 2 in which we evaluate some methodological aspects related to a financial performance measure which is used to assess the financial performance of SRI in Section two. The second Section includes Chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6 in which we evaluate the financial performance of SRI from different perspectives. First Section. In Chapter 1 we assess the usefulness of a sector investment strategy based on the three-factor Fama and French (1992) model. We develop an investment process that is, as far as we know, new by including stocks that are undervalued with respect to their sector indices in a portfolio. We take as the relevant market factor the sector index to which firms belong. We base the strategy on the difficulty entailed in effectively choosing the appropriate market portfolio (Roll, 1977).Our main objective in this chapter is to test whether it is possible to consistently achieve extra-financial returns by means of a sector strategy using the Fama and French model (1992) as a basis for decision-making. In Chapter 2 we evaluate whether the Fama and French (1992) model may be adapted to become a more versatile and flexible tool, capable of incorporating variations of firms characteristics in a more dynamic form. We pay attention to the procedure that Fama and French (1992) follow to form the risk factors. They take annual data, and the value and size portfolios are assessed once a year, maintaining invariability during the whole period. However, we note that firms' characteristics can change during any given 12-month period. We argue that, over time, firms' valuation may change as a result of variations in its market price, size or book price, and we are aware that the Fama and French (1992) model does not accurately reflect these dynamics. Our main objective in this chapter is to test the effectiveness of the model by taking month-to-month data and reforming the value and size portfolios at the end of each month, aiming to develop a more dynamic and adaptable tool. Second Section. In Chapter 3 we evaluate the financial performance of portfolios that can be formed by socially conscious retail investors compared to conventional investments. We note that most previous studies evaluating the financial performance of SRI are conducted from the perspective of institutional investors' investment decisions and not from the perspective of retail investors who wish to hold SRI portfolios. Nonetheless, there has been a considerable increase in the popularity of SRI among retail investors (Benijts, 2010). Nilsson (2015) highlights that retail investors choose to devote at least part of their funds to investments that include some kind of social or environmental concerns, thereby having become an important factor in shaping SRI. According to the 2016 Global Sustainable Investment Review, although the SRI market in most of the regions is dominated by professional institutional investors, retail investors' interest in SRI is gaining relevance. Indeed, the relative proportion of retail SRI investments in Canada, Europe and the United States increased from 13 percent in 2014 to 26 percent at the start of 2016 (GSIA, 2016). Furthermore, over one third of SRI assets in the United States come from retail investors. The objective of this chapter is to assess the performance of portfolios that can be formed by socially responsible retail investors compared to conventional investments. We use several financial performance measures. Among others, that developed in chapter 2 of this Doctoral Thesis. As a relevant point to retail investors, we use stocks listed on a source freely available to the public that any retail investor may access. Additionally, we analyse the impact of different market states on the financial performance of SRI portfolios. Recent research shows that the performance of SRI equity funds (Nofsinger and Varma, 2014; Becchetti et al., 2015, Leite and Cortez, 2015), SRI fixed-income funds (Henke, 2016), and socially responsible stocks (Brzeszczyński and McIntosh, 2014; Carvalho and Areal, 2016) is sensitive to different market states (e.g., expansion and recession periods). In Chapter 4 we evaluate the financial performance of international stock portfolios based on CSR criteria. We note that previous studies that address the performance of socially screened synthetic portfolios suffer from some limitations and inconsistencies, namely, (1) the majority of prior evidence only refers to the US and European stock markets; (2) with the exception of Badía et al. (2017), previous studies do not compare the performance of SRI portfolios of different regions worldwide; (3) there are studies that measure CSR through one of its individual dimension only, whereas others consider an aggregate construct of CSR; (4) most studies do not evaluate the influence of specific industries on the financial performance of SRI stock portfolios; (5) in several studies assessing European firms, undersized samples are used; (6) up-to-date evidence is lacking; and (7) some researchers who split sample periods merely into sub-periods to evaluate a 'time effect', i.e., whether SRI returns were better in earlier years and yet declined in more recent periods, may have neglected an important effect, specifically, the impact of different market states. Our main objective in this chapter is to evaluate the financial performance of international stock portfolios based on CSR criteria aiming to overcome previous limitations in the evaluation of SRI stock portfolio performance. We form portfolios of stocks with high and low sustainability scores and investigate the performance of such portfolios using multi-factor models. In this chapter, we extend the analysis on the impact of including socially responsible screens on investment portfolios performance to additional geographical areas (North America, Europe, Japan, and Asia Pacific); we compare the financial performance of SRI portfolios of these regions to each other; we form portfolios based on an aggregate measure of CSR as well as on three of its specific ESG dimensions; we evaluate the influence of specific industries on the financial performance of SRI stock portfolios; and finally, we assess the financial performance of SRI stock portfolios over different market states: bear, bull and mixed market periods. In Chapter 5 we evaluate the financial performance of government bond portfolios formed according to ESG criteria. We note that although the concept of SRI was originally related to stock selection, the proportion of portfolio investors applying SRI criteria to bonds has grown significantly in recent years. According to the European Sustainable Investment Forum (EUROSIF, 2016), equities represented over 30% of SRI assets in December 2015, a significant decrease from the previous year's 50%. Meanwhile, there was a strong increase in bonds from the 40% registered in December 2013 to 64%. Both corporate bonds and government bonds underwent a remarkable growth. The former rose from 21.3% to 51.17% of the bond allocation, while the latter increased from 16.6% to 41.26%.In this regard, the financial implications of ESG screening processes on corporate bonds may be closely related to stock selections since corporate bonds are associated with firms. Indeed, previous studies (e.g., Derwall and Koedijk, 2009; Leite and Cortez, 2016) which evaluate the financial performance of mutual funds that invest in socially responsible fixed-income stocks, find that the average SRI bond funds performed similarly to conventional funds. These results are in line with most empirical studies about the performance of SRI funds, which show that they tend to have a similar performance to their conventional peers (Revelly and Viviani, 2015). However, ESG screening processes on government bonds, since they are not related to firms, can help gain an in-depth understanding of SRI consequences for alternative assets. Despite the SRI government bond market growth and the development of country ratings based on ESG factors in recent years, the link between government bond returns and country performance in terms of ESG concerns has been overlooked. In fact, to the best of our knowledge, no previous research has evaluated the financial performance of responsible government bond investments. The main objective of this chapter is to fill this gap. We assess the financial performance of government bond portfolios formed according to ESG criteria. We thus open a discussion on the financial performance of SRI for an alternative asset to firms.In contrast to previous studies, which apply firm sustainability ratings, we use sustainability ratings related to countries. In Chapter 6 we ascertain a less assessed aspect in CSR: distinguishing between investments in material versus immaterial sustainability issues. We note that only firms focused on material sustainability issues associated with their main operations should achieve a competitive advantage and obtain a higher social and financial performance. CSR activities and innovations should be performed on material aspects since otherwise a positive effect on financial performance is not expected. Indeed, investments on immaterial issues may involve additional corporate costs without a social and financial performance associated return. Focusing on material issues is important for firms since they do investments in social aspects that truly affect their operations. Despite issues as prod¬uct safety, climate change, and resource intensity have impacts across several industries, as Hertz et al. (2016) note, those effects often vary to a great extent from one industry to the next. Risks may be everywhere, although they are indeed also particular. As a consequence, firms of specific industries have their particular sustainability profiles. Thus, a firm investing and reporting on material sustainability issues is likely achieved positive financial performance. Meanwhile, a firm investing on material but also on immaterial sustainability issues is likely not achieved superior financial performance. In this chapter, the main objective is to assess the financial performance of stock portfolios formed according to material and immaterial CSR issues. Khan et al. (2016) show that US firms with strong performance on material aspects outperform firms with poor performance on material topics. Our dataset includes companies from US and Europe. We thus extend the previous evidence of Khan et al. (2016) to European firms. Evaluating firms from US and Europe is particularly interesting given the heterogeneity in the patterns of development of SRI across countries (Neher and Hebb, 2015). Furthermore, we use firm' scores from an original dataset that integrates the SASB Materiality Map standards which, to our knowledge, has not been used before.

Theory Talk #75: Tarak Barkawi on IR after the West, and why the best work in IR is often found at its marginsIn this Talk, Tarak Barkawi discusses the importance of the archive and real-world experiences, at a time of growing institutional constraints. He reflects on the growing rationalization and "schoolification" of the academy, a disciplinary and epistemological politics institutionalized within a university audit culture, and the future of IR in a post-COVID world. He also discusses IR's contorted relationship to the archive, and explore future sites of critical innovation and inquiry, including the value of knowledge production outside of the academy. PDF version of this TalkSo what is, or should be, according to you, the biggest challenge, or principal debate in critical social sciences and history?Right now, despite thinking about it, I don't have an answer to that question. Had you asked me five years ago, I would have said, without hesitation, Eurocentrism. There's a line in Chakrabarty's Provincializing Europe where he remarks that Europe has already been provincialized by history, but we still needed to provincialize it intellectually in the social sciences. Both sides of this equation have intensified in recent years. Amid a pandemic, in the wreckage of neoliberalism, in the wake of financial crisis, the defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan, the events of the Trump Presidency, and the return of the far right, the West feels fundamentally reduced in stature. The academy, meanwhile, has moved on from the postcolonial to the decolonial with its focus on alternative epistemologies, about which I am more ambivalent intellectually and politically. Western states and societies are powerful and rich, their freedoms attractive, and most of them will rebound. But what does it mean for the social sciences and other Western intellectual traditions which trace their heritage to the European Enlightenments that the West may no longer be 'the West', no longer the metropole of a global order more or less controlled by its leading states? What kind of implications does the disassembling of the West in world history have for social and political inquiry? I don't have an answer to that. Speaking more specifically about IR, we are dealing now with conservative appropriations of Eurocentrism, with the rise of other civilizational IRs (Chinese, European, Indian). These kinds of moves, like the decolonial one, foreground ultimately incommensurable systems of knowing and valuing, at best, and at worst are Eurocentrism with the signs reversed, usually to China. I do not think what we should be doing right now in the academy is having Chinese social sciences, Islamic social sciences, Indian social sciences, and so on. But that's definitely one way in which the collapse of the West is playing out intellectually. How did you arrive at where you currently are in your thinking about International Relations?By the time you get to my age you have a lot of debt, mostly to students, to old teachers and supervisors, and to colleagues and friends. University scholars tend not to have very exciting lives, so I don't have much to offer in the way of events. But I can give you an experience that I do keep revisiting when I reflect on the directions I've taken and the things I've been interested in. When I was in high school, I took a university course taught by Daniel Ellsberg, of the Pentagon Papers. As many will know, before he became involved in the Vietnam War, and later in opposing it, he worked on game theory and nuclear strategy. I grew up in Southern California, in Orange County, and there was a program that let you take courses at the University of California, Irvine. I took one on the history of the Roman Empire and then a pair of courses on nuclear weapons that culminated with one taught by Ellsberg himself. I actually had no idea who he was but the topic interested me. Nuclear war was in the air in the early 1980s. Activist graduate students taught the preparatory course. They were good teachers and I learned all about the history and politics of nuclear weapons. But I also came to realize that these teachers were trying to shape (what I would now call) my political subjectivity. Sometimes they were ham handed, like the old ball bearings in the tin can trick: turn the lights out in the room, and put one ball bearing in the can for each nuclear warhead in the world, in 1945 this many; in 1955 this many; and so on. In retrospect, that's where I got hooked on the idea of graduate school. I was aware that Ellsberg was regarded as an important personage. He taught in a large lecture hall. At every session, a kind of loyal corps of new and old activists turned out, many in some version of '60s attire. The father of a high school friend was desperate to get Ellsberg's autograph, and sent his son along with me to the lecture one night to get it. It was political instruction of the first order to figure out that this suburban dad had been a physics PhD at Berkley in the late '60s and early '70s, demonstrating against the Vietnam War. But now he worked for a major aerospace defense contractor. He had a hot tub in his backyard. Meanwhile, Ellsberg cancelled class one week because he'd been arrested demonstrating at a major arms fair in Los Angeles. "We stopped the arms race for a few hours," he told the class after. I schooled myself on who Ellsberg was and Vietnam, the Cold War, and much else came into view. Meanwhile, he gave a master class in nuclear weapons and foreign policy, cheekily naming his course after Kissinger's book, I later came to appreciate. I learned about RAND, the utility of madness for making nuclear threats, and how close we'd come to nuclear war since 1945. My high school had actually been built to double as a fallout shelter, at a time when civil defense was taken seriously as an aspect of a credible threat of second strike. It was low slung, stoutly built, with high iron fences that could be closed to create a cantonment. We were not far from Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station and a range of other likely targets. All of this sank in as I progressed in these courses. Then one day at a strip mall bookstore, I discovered Noam Chomsky's US foreign policy books and never looked back. At Cambridge, I caught the tail end of the old Centre of International Studies, originally started by an intelligence historian and explicitly multi-disciplinary. It had, in my time, historians, lawyers, area studies, development studies, political theory and history of thought, and IR scholars and political scientists. Boundaries certainly existed out there in the disciplines. But there weren't substantial institutional obstacles to thinking across them, while interdisciplinary environments gave you lots of local resources (i.e. colleagues and students) for thinking and reading creatively. What would a student need to become a kind of specialist in your kind of area or field or to understand the world in a global way? Lots of history, especially other peoples' histories; to experience what it's like to see the world from a different place than where you grew up, so that the foreign is not an abstraction to you. I think another route that can create very interesting scholars is to have a practitioner career first, in development, the military, a diplomatic corps, NGOs, whatever. Even only five years doing something like that not only teaches people how the world works, it is intellectually fecund, creative. People just out of operational posts are often full of ideas, and can access interesting resources for research, like professional networks. How, in your view, should IR responding to the shifting geopolitical landscape?  The fate I think we want to avoid is carrying on with what Stanley Hoffmann called the "American social science": the IR invented out of imperial crisis and world war by Anglo-American officials, foundations and thinkers. Very broadly speaking, and with variations, this was a new world combination of realism and positivism. This discipline was intended as the intellectual counterpart to the American-centered world order, designed, among other things, to disappear the question of race in the century of the global color line. The way it conceived the national/international world obscured how US world power worked in practice. That power operated in and through formally sovereign, independent states—an empire by invitation, in the somewhat rosy view of Geir Lundestad—trialed in Latin America and well suited to a decolonizing world. It was an anti-colonial imperium. Political science divided up this world between IR and comparative politics. This kind of IR is cortically connected to the American-centered world fading away before our eyes. It is a kind of zombie discipline where we teach students about world politics as if we were still sitting with the great power peacemakers of 1919 and 1944-45. It is still studying how to make states cooperate under a hegemon or how to make credible deterrence threats in various circumstances. Interestingly, I think one of the ways the collapse of US power is shaping the discipline was identified by Walt and Mearsheimer in their 2013 article on the decline of theory in IR. In the US especially but not only, IR is increasingly indistinguishable from political science as a universal positivist enterprise mostly interested in applying highly evolved, quantitative or experimental approaches to more or less minor questions. Go too far down this road and IR disappears as a distinct disciplinary space, it becomes just a subject matter, a site of empiricist inquiry. Instead, the best work in IR mostly occurs on the edges of the discipline. IR often serves as cover for diverse and interdisciplinary work on transboundary relations. Those relations fall outside the core objects of analysis of the main social science and humanities disciplines but are IR's distinctive focus. The mainstream, inter-paradigm discipline, for me, has never been a convincing social science of the international and is not something I teach or think much about these days. But the classical inheritances of the discipline help IR retain significant historical, philosophical and normative dimensions. Add in a pluralist disposition towards methodology, and IR can be a unique intellectual space capable of producing scholars and scholarship that operate across disciplines. The new materialism, or political ecology, is one area in which this is really happening right now. IR is also a receptive home for debating the questions thrown up by the decolonial turn. These are two big themes in contemporary intellectual life, in and beyond the academy. IR potentially offers distinct perspectives on them which can push debates forward in unexpected ways, in part because we retain a focus on the political and the state, which too easily drop out of sight in global turns in other disciplines. In exchange, topics like the new materialism and the decolonial offer IR the chance to connect with world politics in these new times, after the American century. In my view, and it is not one that I think is widely shared, IR should become the "studies" discipline that centers on the transboundary. How do we re-imagine IR as the interdisciplinary site for the study of transboundary relations as a distinct social and political space? That's a question of general interest in a global world, but one which few traditions of thought are as well-equipped to reflect on and push forward as we are.That's an interesting and forceful critique which also brings us back to a common thread throughout your work: questions of power and knowledge and specifically the relation between power and knowledge in IR and social science. I'm interested in exploring this point further, because so much of your critique has been centered on how profoundly Eurocentric IR is and as a product of Western power. Well, IR's development as a discipline has been closely tied to Western state power. It would seem that it has to change, given the shifts underway in the world. It's like Wile E. Coyote in the Road Runner cartoons - he's run off the cliff. His legs are still moving, but he hasn't dropped, yet. That said, there's no singularly determinate relation between power and the historical development of intellectual traditions. Who knows what kind of new ideas and re-imagining of IR's concepts we might see? As I say, I think one reflection of these changes is that we're already seeing North American IR start to fade into universal quantitative social science. As Hoffmann observed, part of IR's appeal was that the Americans were running the world, that's why you started a social science concerned with things like bipolarity and deterrence, and with analyzing the foreign policy of a great power and its interests and conflicts around the world. Nowadays the Americans are at a late Roman stage of imperial decline. Thinking from the command posts of US foreign policy doesn't look so attractive or convincing when Emperor Nero is running the show, or something altogether darker is waiting in the wings. IR is supposed to be in command of world politics, analyzing them from on high. But what I've seen over the course of my education and career is the way world politics commands IR. The end of the Cold War torpedoed many careers and projects; the 1990s created corps of scholars concerned with development, civil war and humanitarian intervention; in the 2000s, we produced terrorism experts (and critical terrorism studies) and counterinsurgency specialists and critics, along with many scholars concerned in one way or another with Islam. What I have always found fascinating, and deeply indicative, about IR is the relative absence until relatively recently of serious inquiry into power/knowledge relations or the sociology of knowledge. In 1998 when Ole Waever goes to look at some of these questions, he notes how little there was to work from then, before Oren, Vitalis, Guilhot and others published. It's an astounding observation. In area studies, in anthropology, in the history of science, in development studies, in all of these areas of inquiry so closely entangled with imperial and state power, there are long-running, well developed traditions of inquiry into power/knowledge relations. It's a well-recognized area of inquiry, not some fringe activity, and it's heavily empirical, primary sourced based, as well as interesting conceptually. In recent decades you've seen really significant work come out about the role of the Second World War in the development of game theory, and its continuing entwinement with the nuclear contest of the Cold War. I'm thinking here of S.M. Amadae, Paul Erickson, and Philip Mirowski among others. The knowledge forms the American social science used to study world politics were part and parcel of world politics, they were internal to histories of geopolitics rather than in command of them. Of course, for a social science that models itself on natural science, with methodologies that produce so-called objective knowledge, the idea that scientific knowledge itself is historical and power-ridden, well, you can't really make sense of that. You'd be put in the incoherent position of studying it objectively, as it were, with the same tools. IR arises from the terminal crisis of the British Empire; its political presuppositions and much else were fundamentally shaped by the worldwide anti-communist project of the US Cold War state; and it removed race as a term of inquiry into world politics during the century of the global color line. All this, and but for Hoffmann's essay, IR has no tradition of power/knowledge inquiry into its own house until recently? It's not credible intellectually. Anthropologists should be brought in to teach us how to do this kind of thing. You've been at the forefront of the notion of historical IR, and in investigating the relationship between history and theory – why is history important for IR?Well, I think I'd start with the question of what do we mean when we say history? For mainstream social science, it means facts in the past against which to test theories and explanations. For critical IR scholars, it usually means historicism, as that term is understood in social theory: social phenomena are historical, shaped by time and place. Class, state, race, nation, empire, war, these are all different in different contexts. While I think this is a very significant insight and one that I agree with, on its own it tends to imply that historical knowledge is available, that it can be found by reading historians. In fact, for both empiricism and historicism there is a presumption that you can pretty reliably find out what happened in the past. For me, this ignores a second kind of historicism, the historicism of history writing itself, the historiographical. The questions historians ask, how they inquire into them, the particular archives they use, the ways in which they construct meaning and significance in their narratives, the questions they don't ask, that about which they are silent, all of these, shape history writing, the history that we know about. The upshot is that the past is not stable; it keeps changing as these two meanings of historicism intertwine. We understand the Haitian revolution now, or the indigenous peoples of the Americas, entirely differently than we did just a few decades ago.That raises another twist to this problem. Many IR scholars access history through reading historians or through synthetic accounts; they encounter history by and large through secondary sources. One consequence is that they are often a generation or more behind university historians. Think of how Gaddis, for instance, remains a go to authority on the history of the Cold War in IR. In other disciplines, from the 1980s on, there was a historical turn that took scholars into the archives. Anthropologists and literary scholars used historians' tools to answers their own questions. The result was not just a bunch of history books, but entirely new readings of core questions. The classic example is the historical Shakespeare that Stephen Greenblatt found in the archives, rather than the one whose texts had been read by generations of students in English departments. My point here is that working in archives was conceptually, theoretically significant for these disciplines and the subjects they studied. For example, historical anthropology has given us new perspectives on imperialism. While there is some archival work in IR of course, especially in disciplinary history, it is not central to disciplinary debates and the purpose is usually theory testing in which the past appears as merely a bag of facts. In sum, when I say history and theory, I don't just mean thinking historically. I mean actually doing history, being an historian—which means archives—and in so doing becoming a better theorist. Could you expand on these points by telling us about your recent work on military history? I think that military history is particularly interesting because it is a site where war is reproduced and shaped. Military history participates in that which it purports only to study. Popular military histories shape the identities of publics. Staff college versions are about learning lessons and fighting war better the next time. People who grow up wanting to be soldiers often read about them in history books. So our historical knowledge of war, and war as a social and historical process, are wrapped up together. I hope some sense of the promise of power/knowledge studies for larger questions comes through here. I'm saying that part of what war is as a social phenomenon is history writing about it. It's in this kind of context that the fact that a great deal of military history is actually written by veterans, often of the very campaigns of which they write, becomes interesting. Battle produces its own historians. This is a tradition that goes back to European antiquity, soldiers and commanders returning to write histories, the histories, of the wars they fought in. So this question of veterans' history writing is in constitutive relations with warfare, and with the West and its nations and armies. My shorthand for the particular area of this I want to look into is what I call "White men's military histories". That is, Western military history in the modern era is racialized, not just about enemies but about the White identities constructed in and through it. And I want to look at the way this is done in campaigns against racialized others, particularly situations where defeats and reverses were inflicted on the Westerners. How were such events and experiences made sense of historically? How were they mediated in and through military history? I think defeats are particularly productive, incitements to discourse and sense making. To think about these questions, I want to look at the place of veterans in the production of military histories, as authors, sources, communities of interpretation. My sandbox is the tumultuous first year of the Korean War, where US forces suffered publically-evident reverses and risked being pushed into the sea. In a variety of ways, veterans shape military history, through their questions, their grievances, their struggles over reputation, their memories. This happens at many different sites and scales, including official and popular histories, and the networks of veterans behind them as well as other, independently published works. Over the course of veterans' lives, their war throws up questions and issues that become the subject of sometimes dueling and contradictory accounts. Through their history writing, they connect their war experience to Western traditions of battle historiography. They make their war speak to other wars. This is what military history is, and how it can come to produce and reproduce practices of war-making, at least in Anglo-American context. Of course, much of this history writing, like narrations of experience generally, reflects dominant ideologies, in this case discourses of the US Cold War in Asia. But counter-historians are also to be found among soldiers. The shocks and tragic absurdities of any given war produce research questions of their own. At risk of mixing metaphors, the veterans know where the skeletons are buried. They bear resentments and grievances about how their war was conducted that become research topics, and they often have the networks and wherewithal to produce informed and systematic accounts. So as well as reproducing hegemonic discourses, soldier historians are also interesting as a new critical resource for understanding war.This shouldn't be that surprising. In other areas of inquiry, amateur and practitioner scholars have often been a source of critical innovation. LGBTQ history starts outside the academy, among activists who turned their apartments into archives. Much of what we now call postcolonial scholarship also began outside the academy, among colonized intellectuals involved in anti-imperial struggles. Let me close this off by going back to the archive. There are really rich sources for this kind of project. Military historians of all kinds leave behind papers full of their research materials and correspondence. The commanders and others they wrote about often waged extended epistolary campaigns concerned with correcting and shaping the historical record. But more than this, by situating archival sources alongside what later became researched and published histories, what drops out and what goes in to military history comes into view. What is silenced, and what is given voice? We can then see how the violent and forlorn episodes of war are turned into narrated events with military meaning. What is the process by which war experience becomes military history?Given the interdisciplinary nature of your work, what field you place yourself in? And are there any problems have you encountered when writing and thinking across scholarly boundaries?In my head I live in a kind of idealized interdisciplinary war studies, and my field is the intersection of war and empire. Sort of Michael Howard meets Critical Theory and Frantz Fanon. This has given me a particular voice in critical IR broadly conceived, and a distinctive place from which to engage the discipline. The mostly UK departments I've been in have been broadly hospitable places in practice for interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching, so long as you published rather than perished. Of course, interdisciplinary is a complicated word. It is one thing to be multi-disciplinary, to publish in the core journals of more than one discipline and to be recognized and read by scholars in more than one discipline. But work that falls between disciplinary centers, which takes up questions and offers answers recognized centrally by no discipline, that's something harder to deal with. I thought after Soldiers of Empire won prizes in two disciplines that I'd have an easier time getting funding for the project I described earlier in the interview. But I've gotten nowhere, despite years of applications to a variety of US, UK, and European funders. Of course, this may be because it is a bad project! My point, though, is that disciplines necessarily, and even rightly, privilege work that speaks to central questions; that's the work that naturally takes on significance in disciplinary contexts, as in many grant or scholarship panels. I think another point here is the nature of the times. Understandably, no one is particularly interested right now in White men's military histories. What I think has really empowered disciplines during my time in the UK academy has been the intersection with audit culture and university management. Repeated waves of rationalization have washed over the UK academy, which have emphasized discipline as a unit of measurement and management even as departments themselves were often "schoolified" into more or less odd combinations of disciplines. Schoolification helped to break down old solidarities and identities, while audit culture needed something on which to base its measures. The great victory of neoliberalism over the academy is evident in the way it is just accepted now that performance has to be assessed by various public criteria. This is where top disciplinary journals enter the picture, as unquestionable (and quantifiable) indicators of excellence. Interdisciplinary journals don't have the same recognition, constituency, or obvious significance. To put it in IR terms, Environment and Planning D or Comparative Studies in Society and History, to take two top journals that interdisciplinary IR types publish in, will never have the same weight as, say, ISQ or APSR. That that seems natural is an indicator of change—when I started, RIS—traditionally welcoming of interdisciplinary scholarship—was seen as just as good a place to publish as any US journal. Now RIS is perceived as merely a "national" journal while ISQ and APSR are "international" or world-class. This kind of thing has consequences for careers and the make-up of departments. What I'm drawing attention to is not so much an intellectual or academic debate; scholars always disagree on what good scholarship is, which is how it is supposed to be. It is rather the combination of discipline with the suffocating culture of petty management that pervades so much of British life. Get your disciplinary and epistemological politics institutionalized in an audit culture environment, and you can really expand. For example, the professionalization of methods training in the UK has worked as a kind of Trojan Horse for quantitative and positivist approaches within disciplines. In IR, in the potted geographic lingo we use, that has meant more US style work. Disappearing is the idea of IR as an "inter-discipline," where departments have multi-disciplinary identities like I described above. The US idea that IR is part of political science is much more the common sense now than it was in the UK. Another dimension of the eclipse of interdisciplinary IR has been the rise of quantitative European political science, boosted by large, multiyear grants from the ERC and national research councils. It's pretty crazy, strategically speaking, for the UK to establish a civilizational scale where you're always behind the US or its European counterparts. You'll never do North American IR as well as the North Americans do, especially given the disparity in resources. You'll always be trending second or third tier. The British do like to beat themselves up. Meanwhile, making US political science journals the practical standard for "international excellence" threatens to make the environment toxic for the very scholarship that has made British IR distinctive and attractive globally. The upshot of that will be another wave of émigré scholars, which the British academy's crises and reform initiatives produce from time to time. Think of the generation of UK IR scholars who decamped to Australia, an academy poised to prosper in the post-covid world (if the government there can get its vaccination program on track) and a major site right now of really innovative IR scholarship. To return to what you mentioned earlier regarding the hesitancy to go to the archives, this is also mirrored in a hesitancy to do serious ethnography, I think as well. Or there's this "doing ethnography" that involves a three-day field trip. This kind of sweet-shop 'pick and mix' has come to characterize some methodologies, because of these constraints that you highlight…A lot of what I'm talking about has happened within universities, it's not externally imposed or a direct consequence of the various government-run assessment exercises. Academics, eagerly assisted by university managers, have done a lot of this to themselves and their students. The implications can be far reaching for the kind of scholarship that departments foster, from PhDs on up. More and more of the UK PhD is taken up with research methods courses, largely oriented around positivism even if they have critical components. Already this gives a directionality to ideas. The advantage of the traditional UK PhD—working on your own with a supervisor to produce a piece of research—has been intellectual freedom, even when the supervisor wasn't doing their job properly. It's not great, but the possibility for creative, innovative, even field changing scholarship was retained. PhD students weren't disciplined, so to speak. What happens now is that PhD students are subject to a very strict four year deadline, often only partially funded, their universities caring mainly about timely completion not placement and preparation for a scholarly career, a classic case of the measurement displacing the substantive value. The formal coursework they get is methods driven. You can supervise interdisciplinary PhD research in this kind of environment, but it's not easy and poses real risks and creates myriad obstacles for the student. A strange consequence of this, as many of my master's students will tell you, is that I often advise them to consider US PhDs, just in other disciplines. That way, they get the benefit of rigorous PhD level coursework beyond methods. They can do so in disciplines like history or anthropology that are currently receptive both to the critical and the transnational/transboundary. That is not a great outcome for UK IR, even if it may be for critically-minded students. Outside of a very few institutions and scattered individuals, US political science, of course, has largely cleansed itself of the critical and alternative approaches that had started to flower in the glasnost era of the 1990s. That is not something we should be seeking to emulate in the UK.So yes, there's much to say here, about how the four year PhD has materially shaped scholarship in the UK. There is generally very little funding for field work. Universities worried about liability have put all kinds of obstacles in the way of students trying to get to field work sites. Requirements like insisting that students be in residence for their fourth year in order to write up and submit on time further limit the possibilities for field work. The upshot is to make the PhD dissertation more a library exercise or to favor the kind of quantitative, data science work that fits more easily into these time constraints and structures. Again, quite obviously, power sculpts knowledge. It becomes simply impossible, within the PhD, to do the kinds of things associated with serious qualitative scholarship, like learn languages, spend long time periods in field sites and to visit them more than once, to develop real networks there. Over time this shapes the academy, often in unintended ways. I think this is one of the reasons that IR in the UK has been so theoretic in character—what else can people do but read books, think and write in this kind of environment? As I say, the other kind of thing they can do is quantitative work, which takes us right back to the fate Walt and Mearsheimer sensed befalling IR as political science. Watch for IR and Data Science joint degrees as the next step in this evolution. Political Science in the US starts teaching methods at the freshman level. They get them young. We have discussed the rather grim state of affairs for the future of critical social science scholarship, at least in the UK and US. To conclude – what prospects for hope in the future are there?Well, if I had a public relations consultant pack, this is the point at which it would advise talking about children and the power of science to save us. I think the environment for universities, political, financial, and otherwise may get considerably more difficult. Little is untouchable in Western public life right now, it is only a question of when and in what ways they will come for us. The nationalist and far-right turns in Western politics feed off transgressing boundaries. There's no reason to suspect universities will be immune from this, and they haven't been. In the UK, as a consequence of Brexit, we are having to nationalise, and de-European-ise our scholarships and admissions processes. We are administratively enacting the surrender of cosmopolitan achievements in world politics and in academic life. This is not a plot but in no small measure the outcome of democratic will, registered in the large majority Boris Johnson's Conservatives won at the last general election. It will have far reaching consequences for UK university life. This is all pretty scary if you think, as I do, that we are nearer the beginning then the end of the rise of the right. Covid will supercharge some of these processes of de-globalization. I can already see an unholy alliance forming of university managers and introvert academics who will want to keep in place various dimensions of the online academic life that has taken shape since spring 2020. Often this will be justified by reference to environmental concerns and by the increased, if degraded, access that online events make possible. We are going to have a serious fight on our hands to retain our travel budgets at anywhere near pre-pandemic levels. I'm hoping that this generation of students, subjected to online education, will become warriors for in-person teaching. All of this said, it's hard to imagine a more interesting time to be teaching, thinking and writing about world politics. Politics quite evidently retains its capacity to turn the world upside down. Had you told US citizens where they would be on January 6th, 2021 in 2016, they would have called you alarmist if not outlandish. I think we're in for more moments like that. Tarak Barkawi is a professor of International Relations at LSE. He uses interdisciplinary approaches to imperial and military archives to re-imagine relations between war, armed forces and society in modern times. He has written on the pivotal place of armed force in globalization, imperialism, and modernization, and on the neglected significance of war in social and political theory and in histories of empire. His most recent book, Soldiers of Empire, examined the multicultural armies of British Asia in the Second World War, reconceiving Indian and British soldiers in cosmopolitan rather than national terms. Currently, he is working on the Korean War and the American experience of military defeat at the hands of those regarded as racially inferior. This new project explores soldiers' history writing as a site for war's constitutive presence in society and politics.PDF version of this Talk

Dieses Buch zeigt, wie die Balanced Scorecard eingesetzt werden kann, um personalpolitische Kernziele des Unternehmens zu definieren und zu messen. Dabei werden die folgenden wesentlichen Aspekte des Personalmanagements berücksichtigt:o Personalauswahl und -einsatzo Entwicklung einer Unternehmens- und Feedbackkulturo Führungsqualität und Mitarbeiterengagemento Spezielle Instrumente des Personalmanagements: Mitarbeiterbeurteilung, Mitarbeitergespräch, Zielvereinbarung, Potenzialanalyse, Nachwuchs-, Team- und OrganisationsentwicklungDurch ihren gezielten Einsatz im Personalmanagement wird die BSC zu einem Motor der lernenden Organisation und trägt wesentlich zum Unternehmenserfolg bei.

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Policies that enable rural communities to participate in expanding economic opportunities can be central to inclusive growth in Myanmar. Rural communities are home to the majority of Myanmar's population, the majority of its many ethnic groups, and 70 percent of its poor. Development in rural areas is constrained by low returns to agriculture, and significantly lower levels of public service delivery and human development outcomes relative to urban areas. Reforms to enhance agriculture productivity are necessary though not sufficient for improving the welfare and livelihoods of rural communities. These have to be complemented with increased access to social and economic services that can raise human and physical capacity to create the conditions necessary for the growth of a dynamic rural non-farm sector. These reforms could help to not only reduce the drag on rural growth and poverty reduction, but also contribute to structural economic transformation so that the welfare of all people in Myanmar can grow together.

Social protection schemes can contribute to poverty reduction objectives pursued through current community-driven development (CDD) platforms in Myanmar by building household and community resilience. In turn, existing CDD platforms provide viable options to promote a transition to government-led social protection delivery. Making infrastructure development more pro-poor andproviding communities with an expanded menu of options, including social protection schemes, can be a first step in enhancing the poverty reduction potential of CDD platforms.

Although keeping bank supervision independent from macroprudential supervision may ensure more checks and balances, placing bank supervision in the central bank could exploit synergies with macroprudential supervision. This paper studies whether placing microprudential supervision of banks, typically the systemic part of the financial system, under the same roof as financial stability policy, typically entrusted to the central bank, can improve financial stability. Specifically, the paper analyzes whether having bank supervision in the central bank mitigated the likelihood of banking crises during 2007–12. The analysis conditions on crisis indicators commonly found in the early-warning models of banking crises, the quality of microprudential supervision, and the quality of macroprudential supervision. The authors find that countries with deeper financial markets and those undergoing rapid financial deepening can better foster financial stability when they put bank supervision in the central bank.

This 2014 Report on the Observance of Standards and Codes in Accounting and Auditing (ROSC A&A) is the second review for Ghana. Its main objectives are to: assess the degree to which the policy recommendations of the 2004 review have been implemented, identify any emerging issues since the last review and develop policy recommendations that, once implemented, would further enhance the quality of financial reporting in the country. While growth has been spurred by favorable commodity prices for gold and cocoa, the start of commercial production of oil and a booming services sector, there is still room for improvement in the business environment, business confidence and financing of the economy. The implementation of the policy recommendations contained in this report will contribute to improved business environment and investor confidence, an essential factor for economic growth.

The Beras untuk Rakyat Miskin (Raskin) program was introduced as an emergency food security program in 1998; it delivers rice to be purchased at subsidized prices, prioritized to poor and near-poor households. In terms of government expenditure, Raskin remains the largest permanent social assistance transfer targeted to poor households in Indonesia. Though developed as a response to crisis, Raskin has become a permanent program and in real expenditure terms is one of the few social assistance programs with a larger budget in 2010 than in 2005. In 2010 Raskin accounted for nearly 53 percent of all household-targeted social assistance spending carried out by the central government. Over 2000 to 2010, the amount of rice allocated by the Raskin program has averaged over 2 million tons per year; in 2010 the almost 3 million tons allocated could have delivered between 30 and 40 kilograms per month to the approximately 6.2 million households at or below the poverty line. The distribution of Raskin rice does not closely align with the objectives laid out in program manuals and official documentation for at least three reasons. First, not all of the rice procured for the Raskin program makes it to households. In the three most recent years for which there is audited budget data (2007 through 2009), nationally representative household surveys indicate that only half (or less) of the rice procured for Raskin is purchased by households. The readily-available budget and administrative records cannot indicate where the bulk of this "missing" rice exits the delivery chain, and no single agency or authority is in charge of Raskin rice from procurement to household purchase. This note assesses the operation and implementation of the Raskin program to determine how well poor households are served by the program and the overall cost of program resources. The note provides quantitative analysis of the coverage, incidence, and average benefit levels of Raskin to determine both the progressivity of the program's targeting and the adequacy of benefit levels. Qualitative information on program delivery and program operations will also shed light on areas for reform. An evidence-based appraisal of the household-based transfer currently consuming over 50 percent of the entire social assistance budget envelope can provide inputs to the Government of Indonesia (GOI) as it continues to try to achieve both Pro-Poor development for all Indonesians and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The issue of the regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the significant challenges faced by the EU at present. Most researchers focus on the substantive scope of AI regulation, including state law, ethical norms and soft law. In addition to the substantive and legal scope of the regulation, it is worthwhile considering the manner of such regulation.1 Since AI is an algorithmic code, it seems correct to regulate (restrict) AI not so much with traditional law established in natural (human) language as with one implemented into algorithms. They may operate as a tool supporting traditional legislation (RegTech), but it is possible to go further with the issue and create regulation algorithms which implement the law as the effective law. 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Background and aims of the research The research for this report was commissioned by the Historical Child Abuse Team of HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS), to inform its response to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). Their aim was to enhance HMPPS's institutional memory, and to suggest avenues for improved practice in safeguarding children in custody. The research set out to review the operation of past safeguarding frameworks within what is now known as 'the secure estate for young people'. Research methods The initial research strategy was twofold: to conduct an orienting review of risk factors for institutional abuse using existing research and the reports of child abuse inquiries; and to review which kinds of establishment held children sentenced to custody for criminal offences by the courts, and under what policy and legal frameworks they did so. These reviews framed our consideration of inspection reports, archival records, and other primary records concerning institutions of interest. The latter were selected according to where known allegations of sexual abuse have been made. All were male-only; to ensure that female custody was included in our analysis, we added the small number known to have held girls to the list. Systematic catalogue searches were then carried out to identify relevant records in the two principal repositories used for the study (the Radzinowicz Library in Cambridge and The National Archives). The results of these searches were uneven. Archival records for the earlier period (1960 to the 1990s) were sparse, and some issues and institutions of interest were not well-covered. We therefore adopted a more pragmatic strategy, pursuing 'leads' by browsing the archive catalogues, following cross-references in archival records, drawing inferences about institutions for children using available information (for example, by reviewing how complaints were handled in adult prisons where information was lacking for complaints by children) and turning to academic literature where archival sources lacked information relevant to certain issues. Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were also made to access relevant closed archival records but no files of interest were opened in time for inclusion in the report. The review of records covering the later period (1990s onwards) faced a contrasting challenge: the volume of documents published on secure institutions for children is enormous. Due to the three-month time limit for the whole project, it was not possible to comprehensively review the available material on specific institutions, and we therefore focused on published reviews of the children's secure estate overall, and on overviews of the running of all establishments (such as annual reports and thematic inspection reports). References to specific institutions were then chased up in inspection reports. Summary of key developments in safeguarding in the secure estate Safeguards against abuse from 1960 to the 1990s Changes in the nature and scope of the secure estate (and the youth justice system more generally) during this period were highly complex. Between 1960 and 1998, there was particular turbulence; since 1998 things have stabilised somewhat. The period as a whole, however, remains one in which there have been frequent revisions of institutional aims, management problems, resourcing pressures and cycles of expansion, reorganisation and decline. This turbulence is part of the context for historical abuse; it has not been uncommon, at different times, for institutions to become detached from their original aims, and instead to 'drift', sometimes with the result that the duty of care was diluted or suspended. In general, from 1960 until at least the 1980s, policies of all kinds were ill-developed, and often poorly implemented. Responses to abuse were reactive and often failed to recognise or counteract the potential harms which custody might inflict on children. It was common for staff to use their power in irregular ways, and penal institutions often featured violent cultures, in which victimisation of some inmates by others was routine, and sometimes carried out with the tacit consent of staff. Systems aiming to balance children's interests against those of staff (for example, by enabling them to complain) were often ineffective because they failed to correct the disparities in power that were inherent to institutional life. In penal institutions, complaints could be dangerous to raise: there were significant formal and informal barriers to raising a complaint, and significant risks of formal or informal reprisal from staff members. Investigative procedures were also weak, usually relying on investigation within the institution, or (rarely) external investigation by Boards of Visitors. The independence of Boards from prison authorities was not guaranteed. Arrangements to protect the 'welfare' of children were also hampered by resourcing, and by the narrow definition of the issue: Welfare Officers were, for the majority of this period, probation officers mostly responsible for heavy resettlement caseloads, and with limited time for other tasks. In the care system, checks and balances against abuse were often weak, left the same people and organisations responsible for the administration and oversight of institutions, and led to serious conflicts of interest. By the 1970s and 1980s, secure custody within the care system was developing along different lines to that in penal institutions. New justifications for custody were being advanced: that it was not a deterrent, or a training opportunity, but a form of treatment. These ideals were not always achieved in practice, but they led to a shift in official thinking whereby secure conditions were reframed as a way of meeting children's needs, rather than compelling their compliance. One result was to increase awareness of the risks that could be posed by inadequate safeguards. Catalysts for change, 1990-2000 New discourses and practices regarding child protection emerged in the care system during the 1980s and 90s, most particularly as the result of a series of public inquiries which exposed abuses in residential homes. Increasingly, it was recognised that residential institutions possessed their own risks and were particularly vulnerable to certain characteristic risks of abuse. The new practices were formalised into a single legislative framework by the Children Act 1989, which transformed the regulation of the care system. However, its applicability to children in YOIs was legally uncertain until a High Court ruling in 2002. Legal ambiguity did not prevent observers of the prison system making strong criticisms of YOIs (and later, STCs) a major plank in their prison reform agenda. These criticisms were powerful because they drew on the general rights and protections which the 1989 Act had created for children and which, it could be argued, they were denied in custody. These calls for reform applied the 1989 Act to child imprisonment in novel ways, leading to a 'new orthodoxy' in safeguarding. The implementation of a 'new orthodoxy', 2000-2016 Since 2000, there have been further developments in the policy framework for the secure estate, but also new indications that policies have not been perfectly implemented. Imbalances of supply and demand for places in the secure estate, and a gradual shift towards a more vulnerable and damaged population, have been among the factors making implementation challenging. Even so, some safeguards are undoubtedly more effective than previously. For example, greater controls are applied through staff vetting, and several custodial practices such as restraint and strip-searching have been reassessed in light of children's lived experience of these forms of power. Yet these new policies have also been circumvented in new ways. Abuses have come to light which possess both new features and others familiar from past inquiries. Most fundamentally, the arrival of new safeguarding policies has led to the recognition of forms of abuse which went unrecognised before. This has had an unforeseen effect: it has expanded the boundaries of what can potentially be considered abusive. The outcome of this shift remains unclear. Conclusions The safeguarding of children in secure institutions can only be evaluated fully through close attention to organisational culture, as well as the actions and motivations of 'bad' individuals. Cultural beliefs affect day-to-day decision-making and are not always congruent with what is laid down formally in policy; indeed, in some circumstances culture is used to justify the circumvention or relaxation of standards which are officially sanctioned. This is particularly likely in residential institutions for children, which feature inherent disparities of power. Race and learning difficulties added to vulnerability, though it is unclear whether this resulted in an increased likelihood of sexual abuse. The apparent absence of allegations of sexual abuse in establishments for girls is difficult to explain using the evidence we have reviewed, but does not appear to be because girls in custody were less vulnerable. New safeguarding policies implemented since the 1990s contain their own vulnerabilities and have generated their own forms of illegitimacy. It is difficult for institutions to recognise these. It is a consistent pattern, throughout the history we have reviewed, that abusive practices had often seemed unlikely or unthinkable, but later became visible. Thus while preventive safeguards are, in themselves, important, it is also important that institutions do everything possible to promote trusting, positive relationships between staff members and the children in their care, and to ensure that both staff and children are able to make meaningful challenges to aspects of custodial practice. The size of institutions appears relevant here, as do structures of accountability which avoid excessive formality. It is also important that institutions are open to outside scrutiny. This is not merely a question of regular inspection: it is clear from the historical record that those responsible for scrutinising the secure estate could become acculturated, so that their ideas about what is 'normal' and acceptable began to reflect those of the culture around them. Contemporary arrangements for inspection and oversight need to retain awareness of this risk. Abusive cultures develop largely because it is relatively easy for staff, in the context of organisations with steep power differentials, to present certain practices as justifiable means to legitimate ends. Over the long term, the operational context for the secure estate is always likely to be characterised by fluctuations in resourcing, and imbalances between supply and demand. Shifting priorities (of the sort which have been associated with the development of abusive cultures) are likely always to affect provision. In consequence, cultural blind spots will always be possible, and identifying them will always impinge on the interests of those who hold power. This makes protections for whistleblowers a key measure to protect children against abuse. In short, despite safeguarding policies and frameworks and inspection regimes, the potential for abusive practices to develop must be viewed as evolving, and thus always possible. This points to three final reflections: • the use of custody for children should be limited as far as possible, because of the inherent tensions in residential institutions where there is a marked disparity of power and an element of coercion in the allocation of residents; • there are distinct benefits to historical research in this area, because it enables a long view to be taken on present-day safeguards and abuses, and reveals continuities in the kinds of risks affecting the implementation of safeguards; • child safeguarding must be understood as an ongoing, iterative process, rather than as the attainment of a defined standard of practice. ; The report was commissioned by HM Prison & Probation Service and funding for the project came from them. Their aim was to improve their institutional memory and prepare their evidence to the Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse. Further details of the research questions agreed with them can be found in the appendices of the report at page 69.

What do we know about the links between economic development and corporate governance in emerging markets? Stijn Claessens and Burcin Yurtoglu have sifted through scores of academic studies on various countries, sectors, and business organizations - from state-owned enterprises to publicly listed companies - to determine how corporate governance can influence economic development and well being, and what is needed to promote good practices. The Focus 10 draws on new evidence that has become available since Focus 1: Corporate Governance and Development was published in 2003. While the paper reviews research literature, it is written to be accessible to the nonacademic audience: board members, investors, government regulators, development professionals, and other CG practitioners. Research findings sited in the Focus include: 1) improved corporate governance practices increase firm share prices; 2) operational performance is higher in better corporate governance countries; 3) well governed companies have less volatile stock prices in times of crisis; 4) companies with boards composed of a higher fraction of outsider or independent directors usually have a higher market valuation; 5) improvements in corporate governance quality lead to higher GDP growth, productivity growth, and the increased ratio of investment to GDP; 6) when a country's overall corporate governance and property rights systems are weak, voluntary and market corporate governance mechanisms have limited effectiveness; 7) large, more concentrated ownership can be beneficial, unless there is a disparity of control and cash flow rights; 8) the quality of shareholder protection positively correlates with the development of countries' capital markets; and 9) better corporate governance leads to a better developed financial system. The paper concludes by identifying several main policy and research issues that require further study. For example, more research is needed on family-owned, state-owned or controlled firms that predominate in many sectors and economies. For more publications on IFC Sustainability please visit www.ifc.org/sustainabilitypublications.

Il lavoro è volto a mettere in luce le problematiche connesse all'attività delle imprese multinazionali e alla sussistenza in capo alle stesse di una responsabilità sociale internazionale (RSI). Nell'attuale panorama economico e politico mondiale, caratterizzato dalla globalizzazione e dalla stretta interdipendenza dei mercati, dalla sempre più frequente internazionalizzazione dei processi produttivi e aziendali e dalla contestuale operatività delle società in più Paesi, dalla accresciuta consapevolezza del consumatore circa il rispetto, nei processi produttivi, di istanze ritenuti fondamentali dalla società civile, come i diritti fondamentali dell'uomo e dei lavoratori o la protezione dell'ambiente, l'impresa multinazionale assume un ruolo fondamentale sia nell'indirizzare i trends economici globali (si pensi al fatto che alcune società hanno profitti superiori al PIL di buona parte degli Stati della comunità internazionale); la configurazione di una responsabilità sociale in capo a tali società vuol dire mescolare la libertà di impresa e il libero mercato con l'etica. La necessità di inserire la questione dell'etica negli affari nasce, dunque, dalla convinzione - sempre più diffusa in ambito internazionale e nazionale - che l'attenzione dell'impresa verso le istanze sociali, ambientali ed etiche delle comunità umane costituisca una condizione imprescindibile per uno sviluppo durevole e sostenibile. In tale prospettiva, dunque, il concetto di responsabilità sociale d'impresa richiama le imprese a considerare attentamente - nella definizione della propria strategia, nell'articolazione delle politiche e nelle procedure gestionali quotidiane - gli interessi diffusi della collettività, nonché l'impatto delle proprie attività, non solo in termini economici, ma anche sociali, ambientali ed etici. La responsabilità sociale rappresenta, quindi, per l'impresa uno strumento utile ed efficace per rispondere alle istanze e alle esigenze della società civile. Con la RSI nasce quindi una teoria di impresa che vede la produzione di beni non solo come strumento di profitto ma anche come occasione di realizzazione del benessere sociale; lo stesso operato dell'impresa inizia ad essere valutato globalmente non solo in rapporto ai risultati economici della stessa ma anche in base alla qualità del prodotto, alla qualità dell'ambiente lavorativo e alle istanze ambientali, seconda i dettami di quella scuola di pensiero del cd. business ethics per cui le imprese sono chiamate a compiere azioni che contribuiscano ad eliminare e prevenire le iniquità sociali e a promuovere lo sviluppo della collettività. Tale necessità è stata anche consequenziale a comportamenti ed abusi messi in atto dalle società transnazionali che hanno arrecato gravi danni alle comunità umane degli Stati ospiti delle attività produttive. Gli abusi commessi dalle imprese, non sempre riconducibili a precise violazioni degli ordinamenti nazionali, sono stati progressivamente interpretati e costruiti come violazioni o mancanze nei confronti di un complesso di principi definiti come appartenenti ad una ampia sfera di responsabilità sociale internazionale dell'impresa, che implica la perdita di reputazione e, quindi, la possibile riduzione delle sue quote sul mercato qualora gli stakeholders più interessati riescano a mobilitare l'opinione pubblica su larga scala. Fin dagli anni '70, diverse organizzazioni internazionali hanno iniziato ad occuparsi della regolamentazione dell'attività delle imprese transnazionali, evidenziando il ruolo che le imprese multinazionali sono chiamate a rivestire nei processi di tutela dei diritti umani e dell'ambiente che emergono nello svolgimento delle loro attività economiche; appare evidente come sia basilare, nel piano dell'opera, definire l'impresa multinazionale, analizzando i diversi strumenti adottati dalle organizzazioni internazionali e i contributi dottrinali in materia, alla luce dei quali sembra potersi dire che il carattere di "multinazionalità" o "transnazionalità" è dato dalla presenza di diverse unità operative, dislocate in più Paesi, che si trovano sotto il controllo (azionario o di gestione) di un'unica società holding; tale distinzione tra unità operative si estende fino al profilo giuridico, in quanto le singole consociate sono autonomi soggetti di diritto sottoposti, relativamente ai profili della regolamentazione e della costituzione, all'ordinamento giuridico dello Stato di nazionalità. Ciò spesso comporta che le società scelgano come sede un Paese sulla base della convenienza che ciascuno di essi offre in relazione al trattamento fiscale, al costo della manodopera e delle materie prime, alla regolamentazione in materia di protezione dell'ambiente. Sembra quindi necessario un tentativo di regolamentazione da parte di organismi sovranazionali, a fronte del numero sempre maggiore di imprese operanti in più mercati (più di 80.000 società con circa 900.000 società sussidiarie), al loro peso economico e occupazionale (si stimano circa 80.000.000 di posti di lavoro) e a seguito di numerosi episodi che hanno coinvolto tali imprese dagli anni '70 ad oggi, come nei casi della Drummond o della Del Monte, accusate di gravi repressioni dei diritti sindacali e sociali dei lavoratori, o della Chevron/Texaco e della Union Carbride, responsabili di disastri ambientali tra cui quello di Bophal, in India, fino al caso, recentissimo, del disastro ambientale causato dalla piattaforma Deepwater Horizon al largo delle coste della Florida e della Louisiana tra il 2010 e il 2011, o i casi di violazioni dei diritti umani e commissione di crimini internazionali (arresti arbitrari, torture, violenze sessuali, trattamenti inumani e degradanti), commesse da società transnazionali operanti nel settore estrattivo e minerario in Africa e nel Sud Est Asiatico, commessi direttamente o a mezzo di milizie assoldate per la protezione degli impianti. L'attività delle Organizzazioni internazionali, a partire dagli anni '70, si è focalizzata sul tema; l'OCSE, l'Organizzazione internazionale del lavoro, la Camera di Commercio internazionale hanno adottato in quegli anni raccomandazioni e dichiarazioni rivolte agli Stati membri e alle imprese per l'adesione a certi principi e diritti già sanciti da altri strumenti convenzionali; le Nazioni Unite, prima attraverso l'attività della Commissione sulle imprese multinazionali e poi della Sottocommissione per la protezione e promozione dei diritti umani, si sono occupate della materia, giungendo alla elaborazione di un Codice di condotta per le imprese multinazionali (mai adottato) e di Norme sulla responsabilità delle imprese multinazionali e altre imprese in relazione ai diritti umani, che si affiancano alla partnership pubblico-privata del Global Compact. Ancora, anche altre organizzazioni internazionali, come l'Organizzazione mondiale della sanità, l'OMC, la Banca mondiale, l'International Standard Organisation, hanno adottato atti che invitano le imprese a svolgere la propria attività produttiva nel pieno rispetto dei diritti fondamentali della persona, delle comunità locali e dell'ambiente, e quindi prendendo in considerazione non solo interessi e diritti dei soci ma di tutti i soggetti a vario titolo coinvolti o toccati dall'attività aziendale. In ultimo, è il lavoro del Rappresentante Speciale del Segretario Generale ONU John Ruggie ad elaborare un quadro normativo (denominato Protect, Respect, Remedy) generale relativo al rapporto tra business e diritti umani. La caratteristica degli strumenti analizzati è la loro natura non vincolante, quindi meramente esortativa e ad applicazione volontaria. Tale situazione si ricollega sostanzialmente a due ragioni: la discussa soggettività internazionale delle imprese multinazionali e le opposte visioni dei Governi in materia (con evidenti difformità di vedute tra Paesi in via di sviluppo e Paesi industrializzati). Riguardo alla soggettività delle imprese multinazionali, ovvero lo status di essere titolari di diritti e obblighi nascenti dal diritto internazionale, la dottrina internazionalistica è fortemente divisa. Secondo un primo orientamento, le IMN non sarebbero soggetti di diritto internazionali in quanto sono solo destinatarie di norme, e quindi "oggetto" del diritto internazionale; sarebbero soggette solo alla giurisdizione dello Stato, e vincolate dal diritto internazionale solamente in virtù del richiamo da parte dell'ordinamento giuridico interno. Dagli anni '60, inizia a farsi largo un diverso filone dottrinale che, partendo dal noto parere della Corte internazionale di giustizia Reparations for Injuries, considera l'impresa quale soggetto di diritto internazionale, in virtù di una serie di diritti e obblighi che le vengono attribuiti dal diritto internazionale, soprattutto in materia di investimenti e di contratti internazionali (tra tutti, il diritto di adire un'istanza arbitrale o giurisdizionale a carattere arbitrale). Inoltre, la costante attenzione per l'attività delle IMN da parte delle Organizzazioni internazionali, potrebbe testimoniare la nascente opinio juris di conferire una, seppur limitata, soggettività internazionale alle imprese. Dall'analisi della prassi internazionale si sono tratte conclusioni provvisorie, in particolare che l'impresa, soprattutto nel settore del diritto economico e degli investimenti, possegga una personalità giuridica internazionale limitata e soprattutto derivata dalla volontà degli Stati, ma soprattutto funzionale, poiché contenuta nei limiti stabiliti dal trattato internazionale (BITs) o del contratto internazionale che stabilisce diritti e obblighi per la stessa. Negli ultimi anni anche l'Unione Europea ha iniziato a promuovere una adesione delle imprese ai valori fondamentali dei diritti dell'uomo, dei lavoratori e dello sviluppo sostenibile. A partire dal Libro Verde del 2001, l'UE ha elaborato progressivamente una strategia europea per la responsabilità sociale di impresa, qualificata come adozione spontanea di prassi volte a contribuire al miglioramento della società e alla qualità dell'ambiente. La strategia dell'UE si caratterizza per avere una dimensione sia interna all'impresa, stabilendo una serie di programmi d'azione e l'adozione di sistemi di gestione dei processi produttivi, sia esterna alla stessa, prevedendo il coinvolgimento di comunità locali, partner commerciali, clienti, fornitori, ONG, autorità statali. A tali fini, l'UE lanciò una serie di iniziative, quali i sistemi EMAS e ECOLABEL di certificazione ecologica e di audit ambientale, il Multistakeholders' forum, per formare un quadro giuridico regolamentare in materia di appalti pubblici e sostenibilità ambientale, di tutela del consumatore, di pubblicità ingannevole, nonché l'adozione di codici di condotta settoriali, ispirato ai principi della RSI. L'attività di regolamentazione della RSI ha ricevuto un contributo dalle stesse imprese multinazionali, nel senso di una autoregolamentazione delle proprie attività, attraverso dei codici di condotta autonomamente adottati dalla singola impresa in funzione delle proprie strategie e valori. Tali codici si distinguono nettamente dalle linee guida adottate dalle Organizzazioni internazionali perché in essi l'impresa si fa creatrice e destinataria di norme, create non perché la necessità provenga dal diritto, ma dall'interesse dell'impresa (che, in molti casi, si caratterizza per essere meramente reputazionale). Tali codici, di chiara natura volontaristica, garantiscono il rispetto degli standard di tutela e di promozione dei principi in esso contenuti, stabilendo il più delle volte un meccanismo di monitoraggio e controllo del rispetto delle norme in esso contenute, meccanismo che può essere a carattere interno (gestito quindi da un ufficio interno all'impresa) o a carattere esterno (gestito, il più delle volte, da una ONG o da un sindacato). Infine, la ricerca si conclude con l'analisi dei principali temi che riguardano la RSI negli ultimi anni, ovvero quelli relativi ai profili di responsabilità delle imprese per violazione dei diritti fondamentali e per danni ambientali (con particolare riguardo alla disciplina statunitense contenuta nell'Alien Torts Statute), con particolare riferimento agli obblighi internazionali che incombono sugli Stati attraverso la ricostruzione della prassi internazionale. Inoltre, ulteriore profilo di studio è quello che si concentra sulla possibile estensione della giurisdizione dei tribunali internazionali per crimini internazionali alle persone giuridiche, con particolare riguardo ai lavori preparatori della Conferenza di Roma che ha portato all'istituzione della Corte Penale Internazionale. In conclusione, oggetto della ricerca è stato la ricostruzione del concetto di RSI, il quale è un prodotto degli ordinamenti nazionali ed in particolare degli ordinamenti giuridici degli Stati industrializzati, identificando un framework giuridico che include strumenti normativi di varia natura e in svariati settori, come quelli che disciplinano le società commerciali; le normative nazionali di prevenzione e repressione della corruzione; le normative del settore finanziario ed in particolare quelle sulle borse valori; le discipline a tutela del lavoro, dell'ambiente e del consumatore. Negli Stati più avanzati dal punto di vista economico e istituzionale la RSI, dunque, non è codificata in uno specifico settore regolamentare ma rappresenta un sistema complesso di normative che regolano i diversi aspetti di quelle attività di impresa; nei PVS, invece, tali normative sono spesso frammentarie o addirittura assenti: questa situazione ha permesso alle IMN di avvantaggiarsi dei vuoti legislativi o delle regole stringenti presenti in questi Paesi. Appare evidente come la comunità internazionale abbia constatato la necessità di regolare l'attività delle imprese multinazionali, per la promozione e la protezione dei propri valori fondamentali e di uno sviluppo in un'ottica di sostenibilità ambientale, nell'intenzione di creare un quadro giuridico internazionale che permetta alle imprese di perseguire le proprie finalità aziendali senza perdere di vista le esigenze collettive (in particolare dei Paesi in cui operano). Per raggiungere tale obiettivo, appare inevitabile un'evoluzione del diritto internazionale vigente, i cui processi di formazione, gestiti sostanzialmente dai Governi, non possono non tenere conto dell'accresciuto ruolo e peso delle IMN e della società civile. ; In today's economic and political world characterized by globalization and interdependence of markets, by an increasingly internationalization of production processes and by business operations of the company conducted simultaneously in several countries, by an increased consumer awareness regarding compliance of production processes to values that are considered essential by civil society, as fundamental human rights and labour and environmental protection, MNEs have a fundamental role in addressing the global economic trends. In this perspective, then, the concept of corporate social responsibility attracts companies to consider carefully - in the definition of its strategy and in the articulation of policies and procedures daily management - the various interests of the community, as well as the impact of its activities, not only in economic terms but also in social, environmental and ethical issues. Social responsibility is, therefore, a useful tool for the enterprise and effective way to respond to the needs and demands of civil society.With the CSR arises, therefore, a theory of business that sees the production of goods not only as a means of profit, but also as an opportunity for the realization of social welfare, as dictated bythe school of thought of thebusiness ethics, which invite companies to take action in orderto eliminate and prevent social inequities and promote community development. This need was also consequential to the abusescommitted by transnational corporations that have caused serious damage to human communities of their host countries. Abuses committed by companies, not always related to specific violations of national laws, have been gradually interpreted and constructed as a violation or misconduct against a set of principles defined as belonging to a broad spectrum of social responsibility international, which implies loss of reputation and, therefore, the possible reduction of its share on the market where the key stakeholders concerned can mobilize public opinion on a large scale. Since the 70s, several international organizations have begun to deal with the regulation of transnational corporations, highlighting the role that multinational corporations are called to play in the process of protection of human rights and of the environment that emerge in the course of their economic activity. Is fundamental for the work plan, define the multinational enterprise, by analysing the various instruments adopted by international organizations and doctrinal contributions on the subject, the light of which it seems possible to say that the character of "multinationality" or "transnationality" is the presence of various operating units, located in different countries, which are under the control (equity or management) of a single holding company; the distinction between operational units extends to the legal point of view, as the individual subsidiaries are independent legal entities subject, relatively to the profiles of the regulation and constitution, subjected to the legal system of the State of nationality. It often means that companies choose the host country on the basis of convenience that this country provides in relation to the tax treatment, labour costs and raw materials, to the rules on environmental protection. It therefore seems necessary to attempt to regulate multinational enterprises by supranational bodies, in relation to the increasing number of companies operating in multiple markets (more than 80,000 companies with about 900,000 subsidiaries), to their economic and employment (an estimated 80 million job opportunities) and following several incidents involving such companies from the '70s to today, as in the case of Drummond or Del Monte, accused of severe repression of trade union rights and social rights of workers, or Chevron/ Texaco and Union Carbide, responsible for environmental disasters including that of Bhopal, India, to the case of the environmental disaster caused by the Deepwater Horizon rig off the coast of Florida and Louisiana between 2010 and 2011, or cases of human rights violations and commission of international crimes (arbitrary detention, torture, rape, inhumane and degrading treatment) by transnational corporations operating in the mining industry in Africa and South East Asia, made directly or through the militias hired to the protection of plants. The activities of international organizations, from the 70s, focused on the theme, the OECD, the International Labour Organization, the International Chamber of Commerce adopted in those years, recommendations and declarations addressed to the Member States and the companies for adherence to certain principles and rights already provided by other conventional instruments; also the United Nations, first through the work of the Committee on Multinational Enterprises and then through the subcommittee for the protection and promotion of human rights, have dealt with the matter, coming to the elaboration of a Code of Conduct for Multinational Enterprises (never adopted) and rules on the responsibilities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights, alongside to the public-private partnership of the Global Compact. Still, other international organizations such as the World Health Organization, the WTO, the World Bank, the International Standards Organization (which as a private nature), have taken actions that invite businesses to carry out its production activities in full respect of fundamental human rights, of local communities needs and of the environment, and then taking into account not only the interests and rights of the shareholders but to all those involved in various ways affected the activity or business. Finally, it is the work of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General John Ruggie to develop a framework (called Protect, Respect, Remedy) concerning the relationship between business and human rights. The characteristic of the analysed tools is their non-binding nature, then merely hortatory and voluntary application. This situation is linked mainly to two reasons: the disputed international subjectivity of multinational enterprises and the opposing views of Governments on the subject (with obvious differences of views between developing countries and industrialized countries). Regard to the subjectivity of transnational corporations, or the status of being holders of rights and obligations arising from international law, international legal theory is strongly divided. According to one view, MNEs would not be subject to international law as they are only recipients of rules, and then the "object" of international law would be subject only to the jurisdiction of the state, and bound by international law only by virtue of the reference made by the domestic legal system. Since the '60s, a different doctrinal trend began to make his way starting from the known opinion Reparations for Injuries of the International Court of Justice, and then considering the company as a subject of international law, by virtue of a series of rights and duties which are assigned to it by international law, especially in the field of investment and international contracts (among them, the right to appeal an arbitration tribunal or judicial character arbitration). In addition, the constant attention to the activities of MNEs by international organizations, could witness the nascent opiniojuris to give ainternational subjectivity to businesses, albeit limited. An analysis of international practice have taken provisional findings, in particular that the company, especially in the field of economic law and investment, possesses an international limitedlegal personality and mainly derived from the will of the States, but above all functional, as contained in limits established by international treaty (BITs) or international agreement that establishes rights and obligations for the same. In recent years the European Union has begun to promote adhesion of the companies core values of human rights, labour standards and sustainable development. From the Green Paper of 2001, the EU has developed progressively a European strategy for corporate social responsibility, described as spontaneous adoption of practices to contribute to the improvement of society and the quality of the environment. The EU strategy is characterized by having an internal dimension to the company, establishing a series of action programs and the adoption of management systems, processes, and external to it, calling for the involvement of local communities, commercial partners, customers, suppliers, NGOs, state authorities. To this end, the EU launched a series of initiatives, such as EMAS and Ecolabel certification ecological and environmental audit, the multi-stakeholder forum, to form a legal framework to regulate public procurement and environmental sustainability, protection of consumer, misleading advertising, and the adoption of sectorial codes of conduct based on the principles of CSR. The regulatory activities of CSR has received a grant from the multinational enterprises themselves, in the sense of a self-regulation of their activities, through codes of conduct adopted by each company independently according to their own strategies and values. These codes can be clearly distinguished from the guidelines adopted by international organizations because in them the company is the creator and recipient of rules, created not because the need comes from the law, but by the company (which, in many cases, characterized by being merely reputational). These codes, clearly voluntary, ensure compliance with standards for the protection and promotion of the principles contained therein, setting most of the time a mechanism for monitoring and enforcement of the rules it contains, a mechanism that may be internal character (then managed by an office inside the company) or external character (managed, in most cases, an NGO, or a trade union). Finally, the research concludes with an analysis of the main issues concerning CSR in recent years, namely those related to the profiles of corporate responsibility for violation of fundamental rights and environmental damage (especially with regard to U.S. regulations contained in the Alien Tort Statute), with particular reference to international obligations on states through the reconstruction of the international practice. In addition, further study is to profile that focuses on the possible extension of the jurisdiction of international tribunals for crimes under international law to legal persons, with particular reference to the drafting history of the Rome Conference that led to the establishment of the International Criminal Court. In conclusion, the object of the research was the reconstruction of the concept of CSR, which is a product of national law and in particular the legal systems of the industrialized countries, identifying a legal framework that includes legal instruments of various types and in various sectors, such as those governing commercial companies, national regulations for the prevention and combating of corruption; regulations of the financial sector and in particular those on stock exchanges; disciplines to protect labour, the environment and the consumer. In the most advanced in terms of economic and institutional CSR, therefore, is not encoded in a specific sector regulation but it is a complex system of regulations governing various aspects of the business activities, in developing countries, however, these rules are often fragmentary or even absent: this situation has allowed MNCs to take advantage of loopholes in the law or stringent rules present in these countries. It is evident that the international community has identified the need to regulate the activities of multinational enterprises, for the promotion and protection of its fundamental values and development in a sustainable environment, with the intention to create an international legal framework that allows companies to pursue their own business purposes without losing sight of the collective needs (in particular in the countries in which they operate). To achieve this goal, it is inevitable evolution of international law, whose formation processes, managed largely by governments, cannot fail to take into account the increased role and weight of MNEs and civil society. ; Dottorato di ricerca in Persona, impresa e lavoro: dal diritto interno a quello internazionale (XXV ciclo)

Threats To International Peace And Security. The Situation In The Middle East ; United Nations S/PV.8233 Security Council Seventy-third year 8233rd meeting Saturday, 14 April 2018, 11 a.m. New York Provisional President: Mr. Meza-Cuadra . (Peru) Members: Bolivia (Plurinational State of). . Mr. Llorentty Solíz China. . Mr. Ma Zhaoxu Côte d'Ivoire. . Mr. Tanoh-Boutchoue Equatorial Guinea. . Mr. Ndong Mba Ethiopia. . Mr. Alemu France. . Mr. Delattre Kazakhstan. . Mr. Umarov Kuwait. . Mr. Alotaibi Netherlands. . Mrs. Gregoire Van Haaren Poland. . Mr. Radomski Russian Federation. . Mr. Nebenzia Sweden . Mr. Skoog United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . Ms. Pierce United States of America. . Mrs. Haley Agenda Threats to international peace and security The situation in the Middle East This record contains the text of speeches delivered in English and of the translation of speeches delivered in other languages. The final text will be printed in the Official Records of the Security Council. Corrections should be submitted to the original languages only. They should be incorporated in a copy of the record and sent under the signature of a member of the delegation concerned to the Chief of the Verbatim Reporting Service, room U-0506 (verbatimrecords@un.org). Corrected records will be reissued electronically on the Official Document System of the United Nations (http://documents.un.org). 18-10891 (E) *1810891* S/PV.8233 Threats to international peace and security 14/04/2018 2/26 18-10891 The meeting was called to order at 11.10 a.m. Adoption of the agenda The agenda was adopted. Threats to international peace and security The situation in the Middle East The President (spoke in Spanish): In accordance with rule 37 of the Council's provisional rules of procedure, I invite the representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to participate in this meeting. The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. I wish to warmly welcome His Excellency Secretary-General António Guterres, to whom I now give the floor. The Secretary-General: I have been following closely the reports of air strikes in Syria conducted by the United States, France and United Kingdom. Last night at 10 p.m. New York time, the United States President announced the beginning of air strikes with the participation of France and the United Kingdom, indicating they were targeting the chemical-weapons capabilities of the Syrian Government to deter their future use. The statement was followed by announcements from Prime Minister May and President Macron. The air strikes were reportedly limited to three military locations inside Syria. The first targets included the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Centre at Al-Mazzah airport in Damascus, the second an alleged chemical-weapons storage facility west of Homs and the third an alleged chemical-weapons equipment storage site and command post, also near Homs. The Syrian Government announced surface-to-air missile responsive activity. Both United States and Russian sources indicated there were no civilian casualties. However, the United Nations is unable to independently verify the details of all those reports. As Secretary-General of the United Nations, it is my duty to remind Member States that there is an obligation, particularly when dealing with matters of peace and security, to act consistently with the Charter of the United Nations, and with international law in general. The Charter is very clear on these issues. The Security Council has the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. I call on the members of the Security Council to unite and exercise that responsibility, and I urge all members to show restraint in these dangerous circumstances and to avoid any act that could escalate matters and worsen the suffering of the Syrian people. As I did yesterday (see S/PV.8231), I stress the importance of preventing the situation from spiralling out of control. Any use of chemical weapons is abhorrent, and the suffering it causes is horrendous. I have repeatedly expressed my deep disappointment that the Security Council has failed to agree on a dedicated mechanism for ensuring effective accountability for the use of chemical weapons in Syria. I urge the Security Council to assume its responsibilities and fill that gap, and I will continue to engage with Member States to help to achieve that objective. A lack of accountability emboldens those who use such weapons by providing them with the reassurance of impunity, and that in turn further weakens the norm proscribing the use of chemical weapons, as well as undermining the international disarmament and non-proliferation architecture as a whole. The seriousness of the recent allegations of the use of chemical weapons in Douma requires a thorough investigation using impartial, independent and professional expertise. I reaffirm my full support for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and its Fact-finding Mission in the Syrian Arab Republic in undertaking the required investigation. The team is already in Syria. I am informed that its operations plan for visiting the site is complete and that the Mission is ready to go. I am confident it will have full access, without any restrictions or impediments to its performance of its activities. To repeat what I said yesterday, Syria represents the most serious threat to international peace and security in the world today. In Syria we see confrontations and proxy wars involving several national armies, a number of armed opposition groups, many national and international militias, foreign fighters from all over the world and various terrorist organizations. From the beginning, we have witnessed systematic violations of international humanitarian law, international human rights law and international law in general, in utter disregard of the letter and spirit of the Charter of the United Nations. For eight long years, the people of Syria have endured suffering upon suffering. They have lived 14/04/2018 Threats to international peace and security S/PV.8233 18-10891 3/26 through a litany of horrors, atrocity crimes, sieges, starvation, indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, the use of chemical weapons, forced displacement, sexual violence, torture, detention and enforced disappearances. The list goes on. At this critical juncture, I call on all States Members to act consistently with the Charter of the United Nations and international law, including the norms against chemical weapons. If the law is ignored, it is undermined. There can be no military solution to the crisis. The solution must be political, and we must find ways to make real progress towards a genuine and credible political solution that meets the aspirations of the Syrian people to dignity and freedom, in accordance with resolution 2254 (2015) and the Geneva communiqué (S/2012/522, annex). I have asked my Special Envoy to come to New York as soon as possible to consult with me on the most effective way to accelerate the political process. The President (spoke in Spanish): I thank the Secretary-General for his valuable briefing. I shall now give the floor to those Council members who wish to make statements. Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): Russia has called this emergency meeting of the Security Council to discuss the aggressive actions of the United States and its allies against Syria. This is now our fifth meeting on the subject in a week. President Putin of the Russian Federation made a special statement today. "On 14 April, the United States, with the support of its allies, launched an air strike on military and civilian infrastructure targets in the Syrian Arab Republic. An act of aggression against a sovereign State on the front lines in the fight against terrorism was committed without permission from the Security Council and in violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms and principles of international law. Just as it did a year ago, when it attacked Syria's Al-Shayrat airbase in Syria, the United States took a staged use of toxic substances against civilians as a pretext, this time in Douma, outside Damascus. Having visited the site of the alleged incident, Russian military experts found no traces of chlorine or any other toxic agent. Not a single local resident could confirm that such an attack had occurred. "The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has sent experts to Syria to investigate all the circumstances. However, a group of Western countries cynically ignored this and took military action without waiting for the results of the investigation. "Russia vehemently condemns this attack on Syria, where Russian military personnel are helping the legitimate Government to combat terrorism. "The actions of the United States are making the already catastrophic humanitarian situation in Syria even worse, inflicting suffering on civilians, for all intents and purposes enabling the terrorists who have been tormenting the Syrian people for seven years, and producing yet another wave of refugees fleeing the country and the region in general. The current escalation of the Syrian situation is having a destructive effect on the entire system of international relations. History will have the last word, and it has already revealed the heavy responsibility that Washington bears for the carnage in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya." Russia has done everything it could to persuade the United States and its allies to abandon their militaristic plans threatening a new round of violence in Syria and destabilization in the Middle East. Today, and at the Council meeting we called yesterday (see S/PV.8231), the Secretary-General expressed his concern about how events are developing. Washington, London and Paris, however, preferred to let the calls for sanity go unheard. The United States and its allies continue to demonstrate a flagrant disregard for international law, although as permanent members of the Security Council they have a special duty to uphold the provisions of the Charter. It was a disgrace to hear an article of the United States Constitution cited as justification of this aggression. We respect the right of every State to honour its own fundamental law. But it is high time that Washington learned that it is the Charter of the United Nations that governs the international code of conduct on the use of force. It will be interesting to see how the peoples of Great Britain and France react to the fact that their leaders are participating in unlawful military ventures that invoke the United States Constitution. These three countries constantly lean towards neocolonialism. They scorn the Charter and the Security Council, which they attempt, shamelessly, to use for their own unscrupulous purposes. They do no serious S/PV.8233 Threats to international peace and security 14/04/2018 4/26 18-10891 work in the Council. They refuse to consult with us, while falsely assuring everyone of the opposite. They are undermining the Council's authority. The alleged use of chemical weapons in the Syrian city of Douma has been cited as the excuse for this aggression. After an inspection by our specialists, Russia's representatives stated unequivocally that no such incident took place. Moreover, people were found to have taken part in staging the incident, which was inspired and organized by foreign intelligence services. After the matter emerged, the Syrian authorities immediately invited experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to try to establish all the circumstances through a field mission to Douma. The visa formalities were dealt with quickly and security guarantees given. As the air strikes began, the specialists were already in Syria and preparing to begin their work. I would like to remind Council members and everyone else that on 10 April (see S/PV.8228), when our draft resolution (S/2018/322) on ensuring the security of the work of the OPCW's special mission was blocked, we were assured that there was no need for such a document. They said that no additional effort on the part of the Security Council was necessary to ensure that the mission could reach Douma and conduct an investigation of the chemical incident. Now, however, we can see that we were absolutely right. Yesterday, some of our colleagues — some out of naivety and others out of cynicism — told us that this situation had allegedly arisen owing to the lack of an independent investigative mechanism. The aggression today has shown, as we said, that this had nothing whatever to do with it. The OPCW-United Nations Joint Investigative Mission (JIM) was in place during last year's attack on the Al-Shayrat airbase, but that did not stop the United States from launching a missile attack. After that, the JIM spent six months tailoring its conclusions to justify the strike. We have said over and over again that they do not need any investigations. They did not need them then and they do not need them now. The organizers of the aggression did not even wait for the international organization that is authorized to establish the basic facts to do so. Apparently they had established and instantly identified the perpetrators, after disseminating rumours about them through social networks with the help of the militias they sponsor and the non-governmental organizations that are their clients. This was backed up by mythical secret intelligence. Their masks — or rather the White Helmets — have come off once again. We have become accustomed to the fact that their efforts to achieve their dubious geopolitical aims, the aggressor countries deliberately blame the so-called Assad regime for every evil. There has been a trend recently to shift the blame onto Russia, which, as they tell it, has been unable to restrain Syria's so-called dictator. All of this goes according to a tried-and- true formula, whereby a provocation results in a false accusation, which results in a false verdict, which results in punishment. Is that how these people want to conduct international affairs? This is hooliganism in international relations, and not on a petty scale, given that we are talking about the actions of key nuclear Powers. Several missiles were aimed at the research centre facilities in Barzeh and Jamraya. There have been two recent OPCW inspections there with unrestricted access to their entire premises. The specialists found no trace of activities that would contravene the Chemical Weapons Convention. Syria's scientific research institutions are used for strictly peaceful activities aimed at improving the efficiency of the national economy. Do they want Syria to have no national economy left at all? Do they want to kick this country — only a few years ago one of the most developed in the Middle East — back into the Stone Age? Do they want to finish whatever their sanctions have not yet accomplished? And yet they still contrive false breast-beating about the sufferings of ordinary Syrians. But they have no interest in ordinary Syrians, who are sick of war and glad about the restoration of the legitimate authorities in the liberated territories. Their aggressive actions merely worsen the humanitarian situation that they claim to care about so deeply. They could end the conflict in Syria in the space of 24 hours. All that is needed is for Washington, London and Paris to give the order to their tame terrorists to stop fighting the legitimate authorities and their own people. The attacks were aimed at Syrian military airfields that are used for operations against terrorist organizations, a highly original contribution to the fight against international terrorism, which, as Washington never tires of saying, is the sole reason for its military presence in Syria, something that we are extremely doubtful about. Rather, it is becoming increasingly clear that those in the West who hide 14/04/2018 Threats to international peace and security S/PV.8233 18-10891 5/26 behind humanitarian rhetoric and try to justify their military presence in Syria based on the need to defeat the jihadists are in fact acting in concert with them to dismember the country, a design confirmed by the categorical refusal of the United States and its allies to assist in the restoration of the areas of Syria that have been liberated by Government forces. Their aggression is a powerful blow and a threat to the prospects for continuing the political process under the auspices of the United Nations, which, despite the real difficulties, is moving forward, albeit at varying speed. Why do they bother endlessly pinning all their hopes on the Geneva process when they themselves are driving it straight towards yet another crisis? We urge the United States and its allies to immediately halt their acts of aggression against Syria and refrain from them going forward. We have proposed a brief draft resolution for the Council's attention on which we request that a vote be held at the end of this meeting. We appeal to the members of the Security Council. Now is not the time to evade responsibility. The world is watching. Stand up for our principles. Mrs. Haley (United States of America): I thank the Secretary-General for his briefing today. This is the fifth Security Council meeting in the past week in which we have addressed the situation in Syria. A week has gone by in which we have talked. We have talked about the victims in Douma. We have talked about the Al-Assad regime and its patrons, Russia and Iran. We have spent a week talking about the unique horror of chemical weapons. The time for talk ended last night. We are here today because three permanent members of the Security Council acted. The United Kingdom, France, and the United States acted not in revenge, not in punishment and not in a symbolic show of force. We acted to deter the future use of chemical weapons by holding the Syrian regime responsible for its crimes against humanity. We can all see that a Russian disinformation campaign is in full force this morning, but Russia's desperate attempts at deflection cannot change the facts. A large body of information indicates that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons in Douma on 7 April. There is clear information demonstrating Al-Assad's culpability. The pictures of dead children were not fake news; they were the result of the Syrian regime's barbaric inhumanity. And they were the result of the regime's and Russia's failure to live up to their international commitments to remove all chemical weapons from Syria. The United States, France and the United Kingdom acted after careful evaluation of those facts. The targets we selected were at the heart of the Syrian regime's illegal chemical-weapon programme. The strikes were carefully planned to minimize civilian casualties. The responses were justified, legitimate and proportionate. The United States and its allies did everything they could to use the tools of diplomacy to get rid of Al-Assad's arsenal of chemical weapons. We did not give diplomacy just one chance. We gave it chance after chance. Six times. That is how many times Russia vetoed Security Council resolutions to address chemical weapons in Syria. Our efforts go back even further. In 2013, the Security Council adopted resolution 2118 (2013), requiring the Al-Assad regime to destroy its stockpile of chemical weapons. Syria committed to abiding by the Chemical Weapons Convention, meaning that it could no longer have chemical weapons on its soil. President Putin said that Russia would guarantee that Syria complied. We hoped that this diplomacy would succeed in putting an end to the horror of chemical attacks in Syria, but as we have seen from the past year, that did not happen. While Russia was busy protecting the regime, Al-Assad took notice. The regime knew that it could act with impunity, and it did. In November, Russia used its veto to kill the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism, the main tool we had to figure out who used chemical weapons in Syria. Just as Russia was using its veto (see S/PV.8107), the Al-Assad regime used sarin, leading to dozens of injuries and deaths. Russia's veto was the green light for the Al-Assad regime to use these most barbaric weapons against the Syrian people, in complete violation of international law. The United States and our allies were not going to let that stand. Chemical weapons are a threat to us all. They are a unique threat — a type of weapon so evil that the international community agreed that they must be banned. We cannot stand by and let Russia trash every international norm that we stand for, and allow the use of chemical weapons to go unanswered. Just as the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons last weekend was not an isolated incident, our response is part of a new course charted last year to deter future use of chemical weapons. Our Syrian strategy has not changed. S/PV.8233 Threats to international peace and security 14/04/2018 6/26 18-10891 However, the Syrian regime has forced us to take action based on its repeated use of chemical weapons. Since the April 2017 chemical attack at Khan Shaykhoun, the United States has imposed hundreds of sanctions on individuals and entities involved in chemical-weapons use in Syria and North Korea. We have designated entities in Asia, the Middle East and Africa that have facilitated chemical-weapons proliferation. We have revoked the visas of Russian intelligence officers in response to the chemical attack in Salisbury. We will continue to seek out and call out anyone who uses and anyone who aids in the use of chemical weapons. With yesterday's military action, our message was crystal clear. The United States of America will not allow the Al-Assad regime to continue to use chemical weapons. Last night, we obliterated the major research facility that it used to assemble weapons of mass murder. I spoke to the President this morning, and he said that if the Syrian regime should use this poison gas again, the United States is locked and loaded. When our President draws a red line, our President enforces the red line. The United States is deeply grateful to the United Kingdom and France for their part in the coalition to defend the prohibition of chemical weapons. We worked in lock step; we were in complete agreement. Last night, our great friends and indispensable allies shouldered a burden that benefits all of us. The civilized world owes them its thanks. In the weeks and months to come, the Security Council should take time to reflect on its role in defending the international rule of law. The Security Council has failed in its duty to hold those who use chemical weapons to account. That failure is largely due to Russian obstruction. We call on Russia to take a hard look at the company it keeps, live up to its responsibilities as a permanent member of the Council, and defend the actual principles the United Nations was meant to promote. Last night, we successfully hit the heart of Syria's chemical weapons enterprise, and because of these actions we are confident that we have crippled Syria's chemical weapons programme. We are prepared to sustain this pressure if the Syrian regime is foolish enough to test our will. Ms. Pierce (United Kingdom): These are uncertain times and today we deal with exceptional circumstance. Acting with our American and French allies, in the early hours of this morning the United Kingdom conducted coordinated, targeted and precise strikes to degrade Al-Assad's chemical weapons capability and deter their future use. The British Royal Air Force launched Storm Shadow missiles at a military facility some 15 miles west of Homs, where the regime is assessed to keep chemical weapons in breach of Syria's obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention. A full assessment has not yet been completed, but we believe that the strikes to have been successful. Furthermore, none of the British, United States or French aircraft or missiles involved in this operation were successfully engaged by Syrian air defences, and there is also no indication that Russian air defence systems were employed. Our action was a limited, targeted and effective strike. There were clear boundaries that expressly sought to avoid escalation, and we did everything possible, including rigorous planning, before any action was undertaken to ensure that we mitigated and minimized the impact on civilians. Together, our action will significantly degrade the Syrian regime's ability to research, develop and deploy chemical weapons and deter their future use. The United Kingdom Prime Minister has said that we are clear about who is responsible for the atrocity of the use of chemical weapons. A significant body of information, including intelligence, indicates that the Syrian regime is responsible for the attack we saw last Saturday. Some of the evidence that leads us to this conclusion is as follows. There are open source accounts alleging that a barrel bomb was used to deliver the chemicals. Multiple open source reports claim that a regime helicopter was observed above the city of Douma on the evening of 7 April. The opposition does not operate helicopters or use barrel bombs. And reliable intelligence indicates that Syrian military officials coordinated what appears to be the use of chlorine in Douma on 7 April. No other group could have carried out this attack. Indeed, Da'esh, for example, does not even have a presence in Douma. The Syrian regime has been killing its own people for seven years. Its use of chemical weapons, which has exacerbated the human suffering, is a serious crime of international concern as a breach of the customary international law prohibition on the use of chemical weapons, and that amounts to a war crime and a crime against humanity. Any State is permitted under international law, on an exceptional basis, to 14/04/2018 Threats to international peace and security S/PV.8233 18-10891 7/26 take measures in order to alleviate overwhelming humanitarian suffering. The legal basis for the use of force for the United Kingdom is humanitarian intervention, which requires that three conditions to be met. First, there must be convincing evidence, generally accepted by the international community as a whole, of extreme humanitarian distress on a large scale, requiring immediate and urgent relief. I think that the debates in the Council and the briefings we have had from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and others have proved that. Secondly, it must be objectively clear that there is no practicable alternative to the use of force if lives are to be saved. I think that the vetoes have shown us that. Thirdly, the proposed use of force must be necessary and proportionate to the aim of relief of humanitarian suffering. It must be strictly limited in time and in scope to this aim. I think we have heard both in my intervention in Ambassador Haley's how that has also been met. The history of the Syrian conflict is a litany of threats to peace and violations of international law. The Security Council has met 113 times since the Syrian war started. It was therefore not for want of international diplomatic effort that we find ourselves in this position today. After a pattern of chemical-weapons use since the outbreak of the conflict, Al-Assad defied the international community in 2013 by launching a sarin gas attack on eastern Ghouta, which left more than 800 people dead. Despite the adoption of resolution 2118 (2013) and despite four years of patient engagement, Syria continues to use chemical weapons against its people and has failed to answer a long list of serious questions. The only conclusion we can reach is that Syria has not declared or destroyed all of its chemical weapons, despite its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention. This is not assertion on our part but a matter of record, and I draw the Russian Ambassador's attention to his points about Barazan and Jimrya. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) still has unanswered questions and discrepancies. He knows this. We all know this. The Council was briefed by the OPCW Director-General. Resolution 2118 (2013) decides in the event of non-compliance to impose measures under Chapter VII of the Charter. Yet on 28 February 2017, when the United Kingdom together with France, proposed a draft resolution (S/2017/172) taking measures under Chapter VII short of the use of force, Russia vetoed (see S/PV.7893). The very least the Security Council should have been able to do was to follow up on the findings of the report of the Joint Investigative Mechanism by extending its mandate. Yet four times Russia vetoed different proposals from different Council Members to do just that. The Syrian regime and it supporters are responsible for the gravest violations of international humanitarian law in modern history. They have used indiscriminate weapons, notably barrel bombs and cluster munitions, against civilians, and they have deliberately targeted medical facilities and schools, as well as humanitarian personnel and civilian objects. They have used sieges and starvation as methods of warfare, accompanied by attacks on opposition-held civilian areas. The regime has persistently obstructed humanitarian aid and medical evacuations. Tens of thousands of people have been illegally detained, tortured and executed by the regime. This is one of the most serious challenges to the international non-proliferation regime we have ever faced. A State party has violated the Chemical Weapons Convention, it has defied the Security Council, and it has broken international law. Repeated attempts over several years to hold them to account have been met with Russian obstruction and resistance. In the Security Council, we have repeatedly attempted to overcome this obstruction without success. We are faced with a litany of violations, no sense of guilt, no sense of regret, no sense of responsibility, a shameful record, wrapped in a mix of denial, deceit and disinformation. I would invite those like the Russian Ambassador who speak about the Charter to consider the following. It is hard to believe that it is in line with the principles and purposes of the Charter to use or condone the use of chemical weapons, and in the United Kingdom's view it cannot be illegal to use force to prevent the killing of such numbers of innocent people. I will take no lessons in international law from Russia. Despite all the foregoing, we would like to look forward. The United Kingdom, together with France and the United States, will continue to pursue a diplomatic resolution to the Syrian crisis. My French colleague will say more about our work in a few moments. We believe that it must comprise four elements. S/PV.8233 Threats to international peace and security 14/04/2018 8/26 18-10891 First, Syria's chemical weapons programme must be ended and the chemical weapons stockpiles destroyed once and for all. Secondly, there must be an immediate cessation of hostilities and compliance with all Security Council resolutions, including those that mandate humanitarian access. Thirdly, the regime must return to the Geneva talks and agree to engage on the substantial agenda put forward by the United Nations Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura. Fourthly and finally, there must be accountability for the use of chemical weapons and other war crimes in Syria. The Secretary-General rightly highlighted the political process. We propose that, as we members of the Security Council will all be together next weekend in the retreat with the Secretary-General very kindly hosted by Sweden, we use that opportunity to reflect on next steps and the way back to the political process. And with our allies, we stand ready to work with all members of the Security Council towards this end. Mr. Delattre (France) (spoke in French): A week after the chemical massacre in Douma and a day after last night's strikes, I want to say again straight away to those who pretend to wonder that France has no doubt whatsoever about the responsibility of the Al-Assad regime in this attack. This morning we made public a notice comprising information collected by our intelligence services. We dismiss those who try once again to challenge what is obvious and to disguise the facts before the world. For years now, Bashar Al-Assad, with the active support of his allies, has been devising a strategy of destruction designed to crush any opposition with contempt for the most basic principles of humanity and at the cost of the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Syria. We saw it in Aleppo, in Homs, in eastern Ghouta. For years, the Syrian regime has used the most terrifying weapons of destruction — chemical weapons — to massacre and terrorize its civilian population. We had another demonstration of this in Douma, as we had seen before in Khan Shaykhun, Sarmin, Telemens and Qaminas, where its responsibility was clearly established by the Joint Investigative Mechanism of the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). No one can say he or she did not know. For years, the Syrian regime has systematically and repeatedly violated all its international obligations. The list of such violations is long; it is overwhelming. We all know them: violations of all international chemical-weapons obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, to which Syria has been a party since 2013, and the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which prohibits the use of such weapons against civilians; violations of the very foundations of international humanitarian law, namely, the principles of distinction, precaution and proportionality; violations of successive Security Council resolutions 2118 (2013), 2209 (2015) and 2235 (2015) and, by the same token, of its obligations under the Charter of the United Nations; finally, the use of chemical weapons against civilian populations constitutes a war crime within the meaning of the Statute of the International Criminal Court. In August 2013, the Secretary-General even described the use of chemical weapons as a crime against humanity. In view of the repeated and proven violations by the Damascus regime of all the rules on which our security is based, France has consistently called for strong action by the international community. We have made every effort to ensure that these horrors do not remain without consequences at the United Nations and the OPCW and that they are stopped. The Security Council had undertaken by successive resolutions 2118 (2013), 2209 (2015) and 2235 (2015) to impose coercive measures within the meaning of Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations in the event of new violations. It has been prevented from acting in conformity with its commitments because of the vetoes systematically used by Russia. By making such systematic use of its veto in the Security Council, Russia has betrayed the commitment it made to the Council in 2013 to ensure the destruction of the Syrian chemical arsenal. The Security Council's blockade of the mass atrocities committed in Syria is a deadly and dangerous trap from which we must escape. When it ordered the 7 April chemical attack, the Syrian regime knew exactly to what it was exposing itself. It wanted to once again test the international community's threshold of tolerance and it found it. In the face of this attack on the principles, values and rights that are the basis of United Nations action, silence is no longer a solution. We cannot tolerate the downplaying of the use of chemical weapons, which is an immediate danger to the Syrian people and to our collective security. We cannot let the deadly genie of proliferation out of its bottle. We had clearly warned Al-Assad's regime and its supporters that such a transgression would not remain without reaction. We have acted in 14/04/2018 Threats to international peace and security S/PV.8233 18-10891 9/26 accordance with our role and responsibility. We have done so in a controlled, transparent framework, taking care to avoid any escalation with the actors present on the ground. The President of the Republic and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of France have spoken on this subject. Some who for years have flouted the most elementary rules of international law now assert that our action is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations. I would remind them that the Charter was not designed to protect criminals. Our action is fully in line with the objectives and values proclaimed from the outset by the Charter of the United Nations. The Organization's mission is "to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained". This action was indeed necessary in order to address the repeated violations by the Syrian regime of its obligations — obligations stemming from the law, treaties and its own commitments. Finally, our response was conceived within an proportionate framework, with precise objectives. The main research centre of the chemical weapons programme and two major production sites were hit. Through those objectives, Syria's capacity to develop, perfect and produce chemical weapons has been put out of commission. That was the only objective, and it has been achieved. My country, which knew at first hand the devastating effects of chemical weapons during the First World War, will never again allow impunity for their use. We will never stop identifying those responsible, who must be brought to justice. That is the purpose of the International Partnership against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons, which we launched last January. Allow me to stress this point: last night's strikes are a necessary response to the chemical massacres in Syria. They are a response in the service of law and our political strategy to put an end to the Syrian tragedy. To be more specific, we have four imperatives on the Syrian issue that are in the immediate interest of Syrians, but also in the interest of the entire international community, as the Secretary-General reminded us, and I want to thank him for his briefing. Let me recall those four imperatives. First, the Syrian chemical-weapons programme must be dismantled in a verifiable and irreversible way. We must spare no effort to establish an international mechanism for establishing responsibility, to prevent impunity and to prevent any repeat attempts to the Syrian regime to use chemical. Secondly, terrorism must be eradicated by permanently defeating Da'esh. That is a long-standing commitment that still requires genuine effort to ensure a definitive victory. Thirdly, there must be a ceasefire throughout the Syrian territory and humanitarian access to the civilian populations, as required by Security Council resolutions. We need full and unhindered humanitarian access in order to help people in need, in accordance with resolution 2401 (2018). In particular, it is essential and urgent that humanitarian convoys safely reach eastern Ghouta on a daily basis. Fourthly, we need a crisis-exit strategy, with a lasting political solution. We can sustainably resolve the Syrian crisis only through an inclusive political solution on the basis of the full implementation of resolution 2254 (2015). We have been calling for that for seven years. It has never been so urgent to implement it and to relaunch genuine negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations with a view to achieving a political transition in Syria. Only that road map will allow us to finally emerge from the Syrian impasse. France is ready to tackle it, as of today, with all those who are ready to put all their efforts to that end. In that spirit, at the initiative of France and in line with President Emmanuel Macron's statement tonight, we will submit as soon as possible a draft resolution on those different aspects with our British and American partners. Today I ask Russia, first and foremost, to call on the Damascus regime to enter into a plan for a negotiated solution so that the long-lasting suffering of Syrian civilians can finally be brought to an end. Mr. Ma Zhaoxu (China) (spoke in Chinese): I would like to thank the Secretary-General for his briefing. Just yesterday we were gathered in this Chamber for a meeting on the situation in Syria, during which China made clear its position on the issue of Syria, expressed profound concern about the further escalation of the tensions in Syria and made a clarion call for a political solution to the issue of Syria (see S/PV.8231). I would like to restate the following. S/PV.8233 Threats to international peace and security 14/04/2018 10/26 18-10891 China has consistently stood for the peaceful settlement of disputes and against the use of force in international relations. We advocate respect for the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of all countries. Any unilateral military actions that circumvent the Security Council contravene the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, violate the basic norms enshrined in international law and those governing international relations, and would hamper the settlement of the Syrian issue with new compounding factors. We urge all the parties concerned to refrain from any actions that may lead to a further escalation of the situation, to return to the framework of international law and to resolve the issue through dialogue and consultation. China believes a comprehensive, impartial and objective investigation of the suspected chemical-weapons attack in Syria is necessary in order to arrive at a reliable conclusion that can withstand the test of history. Until that happens, no party must prejudge the outcome. There is no alternative to a political settlement in resolving the Syrian issue. The parties concerned in the international community should continue to support the role of the United Nations as the main mediator and should work together unremittingly towards a political settlement of the Syrian issue. I would like to restate that China stands ready to continue its positive and constructive role in the efforts to achieve a political settlement of the Syrian issue in the interests of peace and stability in the Middle East and in the world at large. Mr. Umarov (Kazakhstan): Kazakhstan expresses its serious concern about the sharp escalation of the situation in Syria. We call on all parties to prevent further military escalation and take effective steps aimed at restoring confidence and establishing peace and ensuring security in the long-suffering land of Syria on the basis of the Charter of the United Nations and the relevant resolutions of the Security Council. We called yesterday and the day before yesterday, and every time when we have observed increasing tensions, in this Chamber for responsible action in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and international law. Who else, if not Council members, should show the world an example of compliance with the principles and provisions of the Charter? We are telling others to strictly follow international law and order, but sadly, yesterday we witnessed a different example. Whatever action taken under whatever good pretext cannot and will not justify the military use of force. Violence carried out against violence will never bring about peace and stability. Kazakhstan's position has always been, and continues to be, that military action is the last resort, to be used only in cases approved by the Security Council. There was no approval by the Council of the military strikes that took place yesterday. "Humanity hoped that the twenty-first century would herald a new era of global cooperation. This, however, may turn out to be a mirage. Our world is once again in danger and the risks cannot be underestimated. The threat is a deadly war on a global scale. Our planet is now on the edge of a new cold war that could have devastating consequences for all humankind." (S/2016/317, annex, p.2) That is an exact quote from the manifesto of my President, entitled "The World. The Twenty-First Century", of 31 March 2016. Just yesterday Secretary- General António Guterres confirmed, to our regret, that the Cold War is back with a vengeance (see S/PV.8231). Kazakhstan appeals to the parties to adhere to both the Charter of the United Nations and international law. We think that the time has come for serious talks encouraging the United States and the Russian Federation, given their standing as the co-Chairs of the International Syria Support Group and their respective influence on the parties, to move actively in the direction of finding middle ground and a political settlement to the conflict in Syria. The United Nations has a vital role to play in convening those negotiations and helping the parties resolve their disputes. My delegation is also extremely concerned about recent developments and the lack of unity among Security Council members with regard to the chemical attack in Syria. From its early days of independence, through a series of practical steps, Kazakhstan has consistently promoted peace initiatives in the international arena to achieve disarmament, non-proliferation and the prohibition of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical weapons, and strongly condemns their development, testing and use. I repeat: Kazakhstan strongly condemns the use of chemical weapons. 14/04/2018 Threats to international peace and security S/PV.8233 18-10891 11/26 It is important to conduct a thorough, objective and impartial investigation into all aspects of the alleged chemical attack in Douma so as to enable the international community to render a fair verdict against the perpetrators, in full compliance with international law. The Government and other parties must thoroughly execute their obligations to comply with the relevant recommendations made by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations by accepting designated personnel, while providing for and ensuring the security of the activities undertaken by such personnel. We would like to remind the members of the Council that Kazakhstan's principled position is not only to condemn in the strongest terms the use of weapons of mass destruction by anyone, in particular against the civilian population, but also to resolve conflicts exclusively by peaceful means. President Nazarbayev stressed in his manifesto that the main tools for resolving disputes among States should be peaceful dialogue and constructive negotiations on the basis of equal responsibility for peace and security, mutual respect and non-inference in the domestic affairs of other States. Preventing the escalation of conflict and ending wars are the most challenging tasks; there are no other reasonable options. World leaders must treat such tasks as the highest priority on the global agenda. We must also respect the sovereignty of States Members of the United Nations and the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter. We urgently need a political solution. Only a political, diplomatic approach, dialogue and confidence-building measures in the spirit of the Charter and Security Council documents on preventive diplomacy and sustaining peace can bring about proper results. We therefore call upon the international community to show political will to overcome differences and resume negotiations, in the belief that only a United Nations-led political transition in accordance with resolution 2254 (2015) can end the Syrian conflict, which, in turn, can advance only if the Council is united. There is great need to continue to support the aims of the Astana talks and further the Geneva negotiations in order to see positive results. All parties at the international, regional and Syrian levels should support an immediate ceasefire and seriously and objectively move forward without any preconditions within the framework of the International Syria Support Group, under the auspices of the United Nations Office in Geneva. We believe that the Syrian people are capable of determining their own future. However, achieving their aspirations for democracy, reconstruction and stability is impossible without genuine international support to contain the negative impact of spoilers and to help Syrians combat terrorism and build their State on a firm and stable foundation. Kazakhstan has always stood for dialogue and the resolution of international conflicts. All parties must ensure that the situation does not further deteriorate. Military means will not work; only political solutions will succeed. My President warned that there will be no winners in any modern war, as everyone will be on the losing side. He proposed to work towards the total elimination of war and a world without conflict. Finally, we again call upon all relevant parties to persist in diplomatic efforts, seek political solutions, engage in dialogue and support the United Nations as the main mediation channel. Kazakhstan is ready to work with all colleagues to preserve peace and security on the basis of mutual understanding, goodwill and determination to make the world a safer place. Mr. Radomski (Poland): I would like to thank the Secretary-General for his briefing. Poland views the recent events in the context of repeated chemical-weapons attacks against Syria's civilian population as a consequence of the impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators so far. The lack of an appropriate response encourages a greater number of attacks with the use of weapons that are both banned under international law and blatantly inhumane. In such circumstances the international community cannot remain passive. It should take all the necessary measures to prevent such attacks from being repeated in the future, in particular against a defenceless civilian population. At the same time, the competent international bodies should take decisions that will enable the perpetrators to be identified and brought to justice. We fully understand the reasons behind the action taken last night by the United States, the United Kingdom and France against Syrian chemical-weapons capabilities. We support that action, as it is intended to deter chemical-weapons attacks against the people of Syria. Let me underline that it is the primary responsibility of the Security Council to set up an S/PV.8233 Threats to international peace and security 14/04/2018 12/26 18-10891 investigative mechanism to examine the use of chemical weapons in Syria. In that context, we reiterate our disappointment with the politically motivated Russian veto on the proposal for establishing an independent, impartial investigative mechanism on the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Poland will continue its international efforts aimed at the complete elimination of chemical weapons. The use of such weapons is unacceptable and should be prosecuted vigorously in every instance and location in which they are used. Poland calls for refraining from actions that could escalate the situation. Mr. Skoog (Sweden): I thank you, Sir, for convening today's important meeting. I also thank the Secretary- General for his briefing. The conflict in Syria is now in its eighth year. That is longer than the Second World War. President Al-Assad is responsible for one of the worst and most enduring humanitarian disasters of our time. From the beginning of the crisis, we have witnessed terrible violations and violence and a flagrant lack of respect for international law, in particular by Syrian Government forces. We must also never forget the atrocities committed by Da'esh. As the Secretary-General stated yesterday, we have witnessed "systematic violations of international humanitarian law, international human rights law and international law tout court — in utter disregard for the letter and the spirit of the United Nations Charter". Indeed, there are numerous and flagrant violations of Security Council resolutions, international protocols and conventions Chemical weapons have been used repeatedly in Syria. The Joint Investigative Mechanism concluded that the Syrian authorities were responsible for four chemical-weapons attacks, and Da'esh for two. The use of such weapons is abhorrent, intolerable, a war crime and a crime against humanity. That is why, as has been noted here before, the international community banned their use in the international armed conflict more than a century ago. Subsequent developments have confirmed the prohibition of the use of chemical weapons as a norm of customary international law. We will spare no effort to end the use and proliferation of chemical weapons by State or non-State actors anywhere in the world. Those responsible for such crimes must be held accountable; there can be no further impunity. The Security Council has the primary responsibility to act in response to threats to international peace and security. It is our joint responsibility to uphold the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons in armed conflict. It is our common legal and moral duty to defend the non-proliferation regimes that we have established and confirmed. That is best done through true multilateralism and broad international consensus. In that regard, we welcome the deployment of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapon's Fact-finding Mission to Syria and we look forward to its findings. It is regrettable that the Council was unable to come together and agree on a timely, clear and unified response to the repeated use of chemical weapons in Syria. We regret that Russia, again this week, blocked the Council from setting up a truly impartial and independent attribution mechanism. That has contributed to the situation in which we find ourselves now. The use of chemical weapons is a serious violation of international law and it constitutes a threat to international peace and security. Deterrence and prevention of their use is the concern of the entire international community. We therefore share the rage and anger and are appalled by the repeated use of such weapons in Syria. It is necessary to rid Syria of chemical weapons once and for all, and hold those responsible accountable. At the same time, as the Secretary-General said in his statement yesterday, there is an obligation, particularly when dealing with matters of peace and security, to act consistently with the Charter of the United Nations, and international law in general. We are at a dangerous moment. We call for restraint and for avoiding any acts that could escalate, or further fuel, tensions. We need to avoid the situation spiralling out of control. Over the past few days, we have tried to ensure that all peaceful means to respond are exhausted. We worked tirelessly so that no stone was left unturned in efforts to find a way for the Council to shoulder its responsibility in accordance with the Charter. We have shared a proposal with Council members to achieve that objective by inviting the Secretary-General to come back to the Council with a proposal. In order to be successful, diplomacy needs to be backed by clear demands. The Secretary-General called on the Council to take action, but regrettably the Council could not unite. It was indeed a missed opportunity, but we stand ready to continue those efforts. 14/04/2018 Threats to international peace and security S/PV.8233 18-10891 13/26 In the light of all that has now happened, it is more critical than ever to avoid an escalation and revert to the track of diplomacy for a political solution in line with resolution 2254 (2015). We reiterate our total support for the United Nations-led political process, which urgently needs to be reinvigorated, as well as the efforts of Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura and the full implementation of resolution 2401 (2018) for the cessation of hostilities. Humanitarian access can wait no longer. A sustainable political solution is the only way to end the suffering of the Syrian people. Let us all then rally around that objective. Let us redouble our efforts and put an end to the long, brutal and meaningless conflict once and for all. Mrs. Gregoire Van Haaren (Netherlands): I would like to begin by thanking the Secretary-General for his briefing today. Both yesterday and today, he spoke of the litany horrors that the Syrian population has experienced in the past seven years, of which the chemical-weapons attacks are among the most gruesome. The world hardly needs reminding of the unspeakable suffering that countless Syrian men, women and children have endured. It is a suffering that comes at the hands of Al-Assad and his allies. The Syrian regime has left the world no doubt as to its willingness to unleash terror on its own population. The repeated use of chemical weapons counts as the most cynical expression of that campaign. Just a week ago, the world was yet again confronted with reports of chemical-weapons use — that time in Douma. All the while, the Russian Federation has made clear to the world its readiness to stand by Al-Assad every step of the way. It has blocked draft resolutions in the Council that could have stopped the violence. I call upon all members of the Security Council to support a collective, meaningful response to the use of chemical weapons. But even if the Council fails to act, it should be clear to the world that the use of chemical weapons is never permissible. Against the background of past horrors and the unabated risk of recurrence, the response by France, the United Kingdom and the United States is understandable. The response was measured in targeting a limited number of military facilities that were used by the Syrian regime in the context of its illegal chemical-weapons arsenal. The action taken by those three countries made clear that the use of chemical weapons is unacceptable. Last night's response was aimed at reducing the capabilities to execute future chemical attacks. But do not let the Syrian regime and the Russian Federation think for a moment that we will waver in our pursuit of full accountability for the perpetrators of past chemical attacks. We will not settle for anything less than an independent, impartial attribution mechanism, so that the culprits of those heinous attacks can be identified and held accountable. We call on the Russian Federation to stop opposing that. The use of chemical weapons is a serious violation of international law and may constitute a war crime or crime against humanity. The Kingdom of the Netherlands strongly believes that the international community must fully uphold the standard that the use of chemical weapons is never permissible. Impunity cannot, and will not, prevail. However, should the Council continue to suffer from the paralysis inflicted by a single permanent member, we must not forget that the United Nations is bigger than the Council alone. We have strong leadership at the top of the United Nations Organization, and we have a powerful General Assembly. Both have to consider all instruments to advance accountability for the use of chemical weapons. The Kingdom of the Netherlands welcomes every option to establish an independent and impartial mechanism, whether within the framework of the United Nations framework or of other relevant international organizations, as long as it results in a mechanism that can establish who is responsible, so that the perpetrators can subsequently be held to account. Any new mechanism should build upon the important work of the Joint Investigative Mechanism and the ongoing Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Fact-finding Mission. It is therefore crucial that the Mission have complete and unhindered access to all information and sites it deems necessary to conduct its investigations with regard to the attack with chemical weapons in Douma last weekend. The international norms against the use of chemical weapons must be respected, and the Syrian people must be relieved from the violence, hardship and injustice that has haunted them for so long. To that end, we call for a political solution and an immediate cessation of violence, as agreed upon earlier by the Council, as well as full, unhindered and immediate humanitarian access. We reiterate our determination to achieve justice for the victims. The need to collectively stand up for the fate of the Syrian people is now more apparent than ever. Mr. Llorentty Solíz (Plurinational State of Bolivia) (spoke in Spanish): My delegation would like to thank the Secretary-General for his presence and participation S/PV.8233 Threats to international peace and security 14/04/2018 14/26 18-10891 in this meeting. Bolivia would also like to thank the Russian Federation for its initiative in convening this emergency meeting of the Security Council. Today is a dark day in the history of the Council. Three permanent members have made the decision, in violation of the Charter of the United Nations, to take unilateral action against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another State Member of the Organization. Bolivia would like to clearly and categorically express its condemnation of the use of chemical weapons or the use of chemical substances as weapons, as it is unjustifiable and criminal wherever and whenever it happens, by whomever, given it constitutes a serious crime against international law and international peace and security. Those responsible for committing such terrible and criminal acts must be identified, investigated, prosecuted and punished with the utmost rigour. Bolivia continues to demand a transparent and impartial investigation to determine who the culprits are. Aside from that topic, the purpose of this meeting is linked to the fact that, as I stated, three permanent members of the Council have used force in breach of the Charter. It is impossible to combat the alleged violation of international law by violating international law. Bolivia is surprised by the fact that, given that, they have a greater a greater responsibility for maintaining international peace and security, the permanent Council members bypass the United Nations when it suits them. They advocate for multilateralism as long as it serves their purposes and then simply discard it. When multilateralism is no longer in their interest, it no longer concerns them. This is not the only case in which, sadly, unilateral action has been used. We recall, and will not tire in recalling, such use in Iraq in 2003 and in Libya in 2011. Any such action must be authorized by the Security Council under the Charter of the United Nations. All unilateral actions run counter to international law, as well as to the values and principles of the Charter. Bolivia rejects the use and the threat of the use of force. Unilateral actions not only respond to the specific interests of those who carry them out, but are also measures that are — allow me to use the word — imperialist. It so happens that the empires that we mentioned earlier consider themselves morally superior to the rest of the world. They consider themselves exceptional and indispensable, and therefore believe that they are above the law and international law, but in reality the interest of those who unilaterally use force and violate the Charter is not to advance democracy or freedom or to combat the use of chemical weapons. Their goal is to expand their power and domination. What we have witnessed over the past few hours is an attack on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism, which has not begun the work that was scheduled to begin today. A unilateral attack is an attack on multilateral organizations, such as the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. It is an attack on the Council and its primary responsibility of maintaining international peace and security. It is an attack on the Charter, and it is an attack on the entire international community. I wonder, with regard to the permanent members that used force just a few hours ago, how much money have they invested in arming and training the armed groups in Syria? What natural resources are they after? With what moral authority will they be able invoke the Charter in the future? Sadly, the history of violating the purposes and principles of the Charter is a long one. We mentioned Libya and Iraq, which were recent cases. The unilateral decision concerning Jerusalem also sent another absolutely clear signal of the lack of respect for international law. Who are the ones selling weapons to those who are bombing civilians in Yemen? Who are the ones who rejected the Paris Agreement on climate change? Who are the ones who stepped away from the global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration? Who are the ones who build walls? We nevertheless believe that it is also important to talk about history over the long term. Above all, we have been experiencing the consequences of the havoc wreaked by some of the colonialist Powers and of their disdain for international law in the Middle East that dates back over 100 years. We are currently reliving the same scenario in Syria, characterized by total disregard for international law. To a certain extent, we relived it, for example, when the United Kingdom refused to return the sovereignty of the Malvinas islands to Argentina or when the Chagos Archipelago issue was not resolved. I hope that the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice concerning that matter will be respected. In other words, we are talking about a whole range of policies that are detrimental to international peace and security. 14/04/2018 Threats to international peace and security S/PV.8233 18-10891 15/26 The Permanent Representative of the United States said that the United States, her country, has its finger on the trigger — "locked and loaded". Of course, we clearly heard her words with a great deal of concern and sadness. We know that the United States has aircraft carriers, satellites, smart bombs and an arsenal of nuclear weapons, and we also know that it has nothing but scorn for international law. But we have this — we have the purposes and principles of the Charter, and ultimately, as history has shown time and again, those principles will prevail. Mr. Alotaibi (Kuwait) (spoke in Arabic): At the outset, we thank Secretary-General António Guterres for his briefing at the beginning of this meeting. The State of Kuwait believes in and is committed to the Charter and principles of the United Nations, respect for the sovereignty of States, non-interference in the internal affairs of other States, and the peaceful settlement of disputes. Article 24 of the Charter of the United Nations confers upon the Security Council the responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, whereby it can act on behalf of Member States to carry out that mandate. Article 25 stipulates that the Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council. What we have witnessed in the Syrian crisis is an impasse concerning the international community's efforts and the flagrant violation of its resolutions. We have followed very closely and with great concern the dangerous developments in Syria relating to recent military operations in response to the use by the Syrian authorities of chemical weapons prohibited by international law. We underscore that those developments are the result of the impasse in the international community's efforts embodied by the Security Council to reach a political settlement to the bloody conflict in Syria, which has gone on for more than seven years. It has led to hundreds of thousands of casualties and millions of displaced Syrians and resulted in the major destruction of civilian infrastructure in several cities. The chemical weapons issue long enjoyed a unified approach in the Council, which condemned the use of all chemical weapons in Syria regardless of who uses such weapons. Moreover, the Security Council adopted resolution 2118 (2013) unanimously, imposing measures under Chapter VII of the Charter in case of the non-compliance of various parties with its provisions or the continued use in Syria of chemical weapons, which, as we have said, are internationally banned weapons. In order to ensure the implementation of that resolution, in August 2015 the Security Council adopted resolution 2235 (2015), established the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism to determine those responsible for any crime involving the use of chemical weapons in Syria. In fact, the Mechanism identified the perpetrators of such crimes on several incidents. The unfortunate divide in the positions of the Council encouraged the parties to the crisis to continue their violations of resolutions of international legitimacy, international human rights law and international humanitarian law, as well as relevant Security Council resolutions. The most recent resolution 2401 (2018), adopted unanimously, is another example of resolutions being violated. It calls for the immediate cessation of hostilities in order to allow for humanitarian access to the besieged areas. Unfortunately, that humanitarian resolution was not implemented, as we know. The State of Kuwait regrets this escalation and calls on members to overcome their differences within the Security Council and to restore the unity of the Council so that it can shoulder its responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. We also call on members to bridge the existing gap by establishing a new, independent, impartial and professional mechanism to investigate the use of any chemical weapons in Syria and to determine who is accountable for such crimes. We reiterate our full readiness to participate in any effort aimed at achieving a compromise among the positions of members of the Council so as to ensure that those who are responsible for these crimes will be held accountable and punished, and to preserve the non-proliferation regime. It is certain that there is no military solution to the Syrian crisis. Intensive efforts must be made to spare the Syrian people further suffering. We reiterate our principled and firm position regarding the Syrian crisis, which is in line with the position of the League of Arab States calling for the preservation of the unity, sovereignty and independence of Syria; putting an end to acts of violence and the killing; avoiding bloodshed; saving Syrian lives; and reaching a peaceful settlement under the auspices of the United Nations on the basis of the 2012 Geneva First Communique, and resolution 2254 (2015), through a process of political transition S/PV.8233 Threats to international peace and security 14/04/2018 16/26 18-10891 with the involvement of all Syrian parties so that the Syrian people can achieve their legitimate aspirations. Mr. Alemu (Ethiopia): I would like to thank the Peruvian presidency for responding quickly to the request for the holding of this meeting, and we would like to express our appreciation to Russia for making the request. It would have been a serious dereliction of duty on the part of the Council if it had failed to meet in the light of what transpired yesterday. We also thank the Secretary-General for his briefing and his presence today. For those of us who are elected members of the Security Council, the responsibility is indeed extremely heavy, to the point of being unbearable. Let us not forget that we are here representing 193 countries, to which, like permanent members, we have made solemn promises that are generally encapsulated in the Charter of the United Nations. For those of us who are members of the African Union, an organization that for obvious historical reasons attaches huge importance to scrupulous adherence to the principles of the Charter, the obligation that we have to tell the truth and to stand up and be counted for peace is also enormously heavy — all the more so when the parties involved, from our own national perspective, are friends. It was only yesterday that the Secretary-General urged Member States to act responsibility in these dangerous circumstances and stressed the need to avoid the serious situation from spiralling out of control (see S/PV.8231); indeed, he repeated the same sentiment today. We have also been repeatedly expressing our concern that the dynamic in Syria could lead to devastating consequences not only nationally, but regionally and internationally. No doubt, the strike undertaken by the three countries yesterday appears not to have led to the situation spiralling out of control. We do not take that lightly, even though it might be difficult to be consoled by that fact in the light of the potential danger we still face. That is why we call for maximum restraint, the exercise of wisdom and a quick return to dialogue among the major powers that have enormous influence on the current situation in Syria. As we stressed yesterday and previously, it is absolutely vital to resume the path of diplomacy. The alternative is without a doubt catastrophic beyond our imagination. We hope that no one wants to see that happen, but it could if we do not act together with a huge sense of urgency to defuse the current tension and reduce further military escalation. By no means do we overlook the genesis of this tragedy we are facing. It has to do with the alleged use of chemical weapons in Douma. At least, that is what ratcheted up the tension, leading to what took place yesterday, which is difficult to defend as being consistent with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations. But there is also one point that makes it difficult for us to understand what took place yesterday. The Fact-finding Mission of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is arriving, or, as just said by the Secretary-General, has already arrived in Syria to investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons, which is the cause of all this tension. In the light of that, you must excuse us, Mr. President, if we were a little perplexed. While the priority of the time is clearly to avert the further escalation of the latest development, we are not underestimating the importance of ensuring accountability for any confirmed use of chemical weapons in Syria. In that regard, the OPCW Fact-finding Mission should be allowed to conduct a thorough investigation to establish the facts related to the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma. The sustainable way to end impunity, which we believe is extremely important, to deter and stop the use of chemicals as weapons is through united and concerted action, including through an attribution mechanism that the Council could and must set up. That has become all the more critical now, when, as we all know, truth is becoming very difficult to establish. An opportunity has been created for parties and even individuals to claim the veracity of their own facts. We know that we are all disappointed by the current deadlock, but that should not justify overlooking the obligation to adhere to the principles of the Charter. Let me conclude by referring to what the Secretary-General said yesterday. I wanted to refer to it again because it reflects the truth and is, therefore, worth repeating: "[T]he Cold War is back with a vengeance — but with a difference. The mechanisms and the safeguards to manage the risks of escalation that existed in the past no longer seem to be present." (S/PV.8231, p. 2) That is why we must appeal to the members of the Security Council, especially the Permanent Five, to help create a situation where diplomacy would have the upper hand and the primacy of politics will be our guide for coming out of what is a troubled moment in our 14/04/2018 Threats to international peace and security S/PV.8233 18-10891 17/26 recent history. The Geneva process and Special Envoy de Mistura need the unqualified support of the Council. Mr. Ndong Mba (Equatorial Guinea) (spoke in Spanish): I thank Secretary-General Guterres for his statement, which clearly illustrates the perspective of the United Nations on this issue. What took place last night was clearly not a surprise to any member of the Security Council. It remained to establish only the day and the time. In fact, as we said in our statement yesterday (see S/PV.8232), we are concerned about the rhetoric that we are hearing and where it will lead us. It has now led us to where we feared and did not want to go — military attacks against Syria. Yesterday in this Chamber, Secretary-General António Guterres spoke about the memory of the Cold War, which in fact returned with a vengeance in the early hours of the morning, reminding the peoples of the world of the conflict of interests that still exists between two blocs. The Republic of Equatorial Guinea has followed with great concern the reports on the attacks carried out by the United States, with the support of the armed forces of France and the United Kingdom. According to estimates, the coalition fired more than 100 cruise missiles and air-to-ground missiles from two United States naval ships stationed in the Red Sea, as well as from tactical warplanes that overflew the Mediterranean and B-1B bombers from another area. The coalition launched a coordinated attack on three targets, which included a scientific research centre in an area of Damascus, a facility to the west of Homs and a command post near that facility. While surgical and very selective, last night's strikes are a violation of Chapter V of the Charter of the United Nations and of the principles and norms of international law. It is important to recall that, according to Article 24 of the Charter, the Security Council has the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. Members of the Council must therefore refrain from creating situations of insecurity and instability. The Security Council should not highlight or disregard the fact that those strikes may have unpredictable and potentially tragic consequences for the Middle East by encouraging or justifying the development of nuclear programmes in order to prevent any further aggression. Experts of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) are already in Douma to carry out investigations. Until we have reliable and irrefutable proof of the alleged chemical attack in Douma last week, the Republic of Equatorial Guinea is of the view that no aggression can be justified. Our delegation also reiterates that, in accordance with Article 33 of the Charter, in the case of any dispute that is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, it is imperative to seek a solution first and foremost through negotiation, mediation or other peaceful means. History continues to show us that military interventions never resolves conflicts but, instead, cause them to proliferate and to continue, causing devastation and destruction. We must ensure that that does not happen again in the case of the Syrian Arab Republic. We again point out that the military intervention in Libya in 2011 and its consequences today should be a clear lesson to the international community. The Republic of Equatorial Guinea opposes the use of force in international relations. We accept its use only when it is in line with the principles of international law and the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations. As we have already said, in the case of Syria, it would not bring about any substantial change in the overall situation in the country. We reiterate that political agreement is the only viable way to find a lasting solution to the Syrian problem. All the parties involved must resolve their differences through dialogue, agreement and consultation. That process requires the support of the international community. The failure of diplomacy only exacerbates the suffering of the Syrian people and is the highest expression of the Security Council's failure. Equatorial Guinea continues to believe that, in order to fully clarify the 7 April events in Douma, a thorough, impartial and objective investigation must be carried out in order to reach a reliable conclusion. We urge the OPCW Fact-finding Mission in the Syrian Arab Republic to promptly carry out an investigation and to report to the Security Council on its conclusions as soon as possible. We also again reiterate the urgent need to establish, under the auspices of the Secretary- General, a professional, independent and transparent investigative body to attribute responsibility for and identify the perpetrators of the use of chemical weapons so that those responsible, whoever they are, are brought to international justice. Only in that way can that thorny issue achieve consensus and unity among the members of the Security Council. S/PV.8233 Threats to international peace and security 14/04/2018 18/26 18-10891 I conclude my statement by reiterating the unequivocal position of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, which is that we wholeheartedly condemned the use of chemical weapons by whomever. Mr. Tanoh-Boutchoue (Côte d'Ivoire) (spoke in French): The delegation of Cote d'Ivoire would like to thank the Secretary-General for his presence and for his briefing on the latest developments in Syria following the air strikes carried out by certain members of the Security Council during the night of Friday, 13 April. Côte d'Ivoire requests all the actors involved in the Syrian conflict at the various levels to show restraint and not to further complicate the disastrous situation in which the Syrian people find themselves. Weapons and bombs have struck Syria too often in disregard for our collective action towards peace. Is it necessary to recall that, by signing the Charter of the United Nations in 1945, the founding Members sought to establish a new world order based on multilateralism and its resolve to make peace a universal common good, the maintenance of which was entrusted to the United Nations and the Security Council as its primary responsibility? The Secretary- General has just reminded us of that. In every situation in which the Charter of the United Nations has guided the action of the international community, respect for its principles has always enabled us to overcome the most inextricable challenges, thereby preventing many disasters for humanity. Based on its strong conviction in the virtues of multilateralism, my country therefore believes that resorting to force in order to maintain international peace and security must be authorized by the Security Council in order to preserve its essential legal authority and to thereby prevent any deviation or abuse. Only a Security Council that is strong and representative of our time will be able to mobilize all Member States of the United Nations in support of its primary responsibility of maintaining international peace and security. Côte d'Ivoire would therefore like to express its deep concern over the inability of the Council to relaunch the dialogue in Syria and to sideline the supporters of a military solution. Côte d'Ivoire would like to take this opportunity to reiterate its unequivocal condemnation of the use of chemical weapons, no matter who is responsible, and we call for the establishment of a multilateral mechanism to attribute responsibility and to bring those responsible for the use of chemical weapons to justice in the appropriate international tribunals. In that context, my delegation reiterates its support for the investigation to be conducted by the Fact-finding Mission of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in order to shed light on the allegations of the use of chemical weapons in Douma in eastern Ghouta. Côte d'Ivoire once again urges the members of the Security Council to unite with a view to putting an end to their differences and to effect the establishment of this mechanism to establish responsibility, which all the members of the Council would like to see set up. Côte d'Ivoire would like to reassert its conviction and its position of principle that the response to the crisis in Syria cannot be a military response. Quite to the contrary; it must be sought in the framework of dialogue and an inclusive political process, as envisioned in the road map set out in resolution 2254 (2015). The time has come to decisively give every opportunity for dialogue a chance and to make sure that the Council is in step with history. The President (spoke in Spanish): I shall now make a statement in my capacity as the representative of Peru. Peru notes with great concern the developments in Syria. In the face of military action, as a response to information on the use of chemical weapons against the civilian population in the country, we reiterate the need to keep the situation from spiralling out of control and causing a greater threat to stability in the region and to international peace and security. Peru condemns any use of chemical weapons as an atrocity crime. For that reason, we have supported the urgent deployment to Syria of an Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Fact-finding Mission, as well as the establishment of a dedicated, independent, objective and impartial attribution mechanism. We regret the stalemate in the Security Council and our inability to take a decision on the issue. In that regard, Peru encourages the Secretary-General to redouble his efforts in accordance with the prerogatives entrusted to him in the Charter of the United Nations with a view to helping to resolve the stalemate in the Council and to establish the attribution mechanism. Peru believes that any response to the crimes committed in Syria, as well as a solution to the conflict in Syria overall, must be consistent with the Charter, with international law and with the Council's resolutions. 14/04/2018 Threats to international peace and security S/PV.8233 18-10891 19/26 As the Secretary-General has reminded us, the Council is the organ with the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and it is up to its members to act in unity and to uphold that responsibility. Peru joins the Secretary-General's urgent appeal to all Member States to act with restraint in these dangerous circumstances and to avoid any act that could escalate the situation and worsen the suffering of the Syrian people. My delegation reaffirms its commitment to continue working in order to achieve sustainable peace in Syria, to guarantee protection for the civilian population, to ensure that there is no impunity for atrocious crimes, as well as to help defuse the situation. I now resume my functions as President of the Council. The representative of the United Kingdom has asked for the floor to make a further statement. Ms. Pierce (United Kingdom): I should like to respond to the remarks made by the Ambassador of Bolivia about the United Kingdom. We have no doubt about the sovereignty of the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, South Sandwich Islands and surrounding maritime areas. Successive British Governments have made clear that sovereignty will not be transferred against the wishes of the Falkland Islands. The Falkland Islanders voted overwhelmingly to maintain their current constitutional arrangements with the United Kingdom. Turning to the Chagos archipelago, the United Kingdom is participating in the proceedings before the International Court of Justice, even as we disagree with jurisdiction in that case. The President (spoke in Spanish): The representative of the Plurinational State of Bolivia has asked for the floor to make a further statement. Mr. Llorentty Solíz (Plurinational State of Bolivia) (spoke in Spanish): I will be very brief and limit myself to reading out what it says in the special declaration on the question of the Malvinas Islands, signed by all the Heads of State and Government of Latin America and the Caribbean. The Heads of State and Government: "Reiterate their strongest support for the legitimate rights of the Argentine Republic in the sovereignty dispute over the Malvinas, South Georgias and South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime areas and the permanent interest of the countries of the region in the Governments of the Argentine Republic and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland resuming negotiations in order to find — as soon as possible — a peaceful and definitive solution to such dispute, pursuant to the relevant resolutions of the United Nations .". That would include in particular General Assembly resolution 2065 (XX). The President (spoke in Spanish): I now give the floor to the representative of the Syrian Arab Republic. Mr. Ja'afari (Syrian Arab Republic) (spoke in Arabic): I welcome the presence of the Secretary- General at this very important moment in the history and the work of the Security Council. In his important statement yesterday, the Secretary-General warned that the Cold War had returned (see S/PV.8231). That is exactly right. We all agree with the relevance of this remark. I take this opportunity to recall those who relaunched the logic of the Cold War. Of course, we all remember, following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, that a number of philosophical books were published here in this country, including The End of History and the Last Man, by Francis Fukuyama. Another author, American thinker Samuel Huntington, wrote an essay entitled The Clash of Civilizations. Those two works marked the return of the Cold War logic. Indeed, the message of those two books was as follows: To the people of the world, you must take the American approach and surrender to the American will or we will attack you. "My way or the highway", as the American saying goes. That marked the return of the Cold War philosophy. Lies serve no purpose. They serve the person who lies once and only once. Lies deceive only once. When a lie is repeated it becomes exposed and exposes the person who is lying. My colleague the Ambassador of France announced that the aggression of his country, along with the United States and the United Kingdom, was carried out on behalf of the international community. If that is the case, I wonder which international community my colleague the French Ambassador is speaking of. Is he speaking of a real international community that S/PV.8233 Threats to international peace and security 14/04/2018 20/26 18-10891 actually exists? Has the international community that he represents authorized this tripartite aggression against my country? Did their Governments obtain a mandate from this international community to attack my country? My American, French and British colleagues claimed that they have bombarded centres for the production of chemical weapons in Syria. If the Governments of these three countries knew the actual location of these production centres that they claim to have bombarded, why did they not share that information with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)? Why did they not share this information with the Fact-finding Mission in Damascus before attacking my country? It is just a question I am putting to the Security Council. Furthermore, I would like to assure Council members that the OPCW investigation team arrived today at noon. Obviously, the team was delayed for a full day getting from Beirut to Damascus before the attack, for reasons that we do not know, as though the team was asked not to go to Damascus until after the bombing took place. But the team did reach Damascus today at noon and will hold a meeting in two hours, at 7 p.m., Damascus time, with the local authorities. My Government will, of course, provide every support to the team so that it may carry out its mission successfully. The facility of the Barzah Research and Development Centre, the building that was targeted by the tripartite aggression, was visited twice last year by experts from the OPCW. They inspected it, after which they gave us an official document stating that Syria had complied with its obligations under the OPCW and that no chemical activities had taken place in the inspected building. If the OPCW experts gave us an official document confirming that the Barzah Centre was not used for any type of chemical activity in contravention to our obligations with respect to the OPCW, how do Council members reconcile that with what we have heard this morning? How do they reconcile that with all the accusations and claims that the aggression targeted a chemical-weapons production centre? My American colleague said that the time for discussion is over — that it was over yesterday (see S/PV.8231). If that is so, then what are we doing today as diplomats an ambassadors at the Security Council? Our mission here is to speak, to explain what happened, to shed light on all the issues. We are not here in the Security Council simply to justify an aggression. How can we state that the discussion is over? No, the discussion is continuing in this Chamber, if the idea is to put an end to aggressions or to implement the provisions of the Charter and international law. That is why we are here. My British and French colleagues spoke of a plan of action and have invited the Secretary-General to implement it before the Council and the Syrian Government have agreed to it. Their plan of action is in fact a very strange one. But I would like to present on behalf of my Government a counter plan of action, which, I assume, should have been presented today. First, we should read the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations and define and recall the responsibilities of the three States in maintaining international peace and security, rather than threatening it. I happen to have three versions of the Charter, two in English and one in French. Perhaps these three States should read what the Charter actually states. Secondly, these three States must immediately stop supporting the armed terrorist groups that are active in my country. Thirdly, they should put an end to the lies and fabrications being used to justify their aggression against my country. Fourthly, these three States should realize that, after seven years of a terrorist war that was imposed on my country, Syria, a war carried out by these three countries and their agents in the region, their missiles, airplanes and bombs will not weaken our determination to defeat and destroy their terrorists. This will not prevent the Syrian people from deciding their own political future without foreign intervention. I will repeat this for the thousandth time — the Syrian people will not allow any foreign intervention to define our future. I promised yesterday that we will not remain inactive in the face of any aggression, and we have kept our promise. I will explain how we have kept our promise. Allow me now to address those States that remain committed to international law. I would tell them that the Syrian Arab Republic and its many friends and allies are perfectly capable of dealing with the brutal aggression that my country has had to face. But what we are asking the diplomats and ambassadors today who are committed to international legitimacy and the Charter to call on the United States, Britain and France to read the provisions of the United Nations Charter, in particular those pertaining to respect for 14/04/2018 Threats to international peace and security S/PV.8233 18-10891 21/26 the sovereignty of States and to the non-use of force in international relations. Perhaps the Governments of these three countries will realize, if only once, that their role in the Security Council is to maintain international peace and security rather than to undermine it. As I just said, I have three copies of the Charter, and I would ask the Council's secretariat to distribute them to the three delegations so that they might enlighten or awaken themselves from their ignorance and their tyranny. In flagrant violation of the principles of international law and the United Nations Charter, the United States, Britain and France, at 3:55 a.m. on Saturday, 14 April, Damascus time, attacked the Syrian Arab Republic by launching some 110 missiles against Damascus and other Syrian cities and areas. In response to this terrible aggression, the Syrian Arab Republic has exercised its legitimate right in line with Article 51 of the Charter to defend itself, and we have defended ourselves against this evil attack. Syrian air defences were able to intercept a number of rockets launched by the tripartite aggression, while some of them reached the Barzah Centre in — not outside — the capital Damascus. The Centre in that location that includes laboratories and classrooms. Fortunately, the damage was only material. Some of those modern, charming and smart rockets were intercepted, while others targeted a military site near Homs, wounding three civilians. The Governments of these three States prepared for this evil attack by issuing aggressive statements through their senior officials, saying that their only excuse for preventing the advance of the Syrian Arab Army against armed groups was these allegations of the use of chemical weapons. Indeed, in a race against time, the armed terrorist groups did receive instructions from those aggressors to fabricate this charade of the use of chemical weapons in Douma. They found false witnesses and manipulated the alleged crime scene as they did before, which served as the pretext for this scandalous aggression. This can only be explained by the fact that the original aggressors — the United States of America, Britain and France — decided to interfere directly in order to avenge the defeat of their proxies in Ghouta. In fact, those who fabricated the charade of the chemical attack in Ghouta were arrested and admitted on television that it was a fabricated attack. We have a video of that if the presidency wishes to see it. I would like to draw the attention of those who align themselves with the Charter of the United Nations and international legitimacy to the fact that this evil aggression sends another message from those three aggressors to the terrorist groups that they can continue using chemical weapons in the future and committing their terrorist crimes, not against Syrian civilians only but in other countries. There is no doubt about that. In 146 letters we have drawn the Council's attention to the plans of the terrorist groups to use chemical weapons in Syria. There are 146 letters that have been sent to the Council and the Secretariat. Today, some Council members are suddenly reinventing the wheel. The Council knows that this aggression took place just as a fact-finding team from the OPCW was supposed to arrive in Syria at the request of the Syrian Government to examine the allegations of a chemical attack in Douma. Obviously, the main message that these aggressors are sending to the Council and to the world is that they are not actually interested in the Council's mandate and that they do not want a transparent and independent investigation. They are trying to undermine the work of the investigative mission and anticipating the results. They are trying to put pressure on that mission to conceal their lies and fabrications, just as happened six years ago, in 2013, when Mr. Sellström went to Khan Al-Assal from Damascus, as I have explained in a previous statement to the Council. This morning's attack was not just an attack on Syria, as my dear friend, the representative of Bolivia said; rather, it was an attack against the Charter, the Council, international law and 193 members of this Organization. The attempt by Washington, D.C., London and Paris to ensure the failure of the United Nations working groups and fact-finding missions is systematic. While those three States boast of their support for these bodies, behind the closed doors of the Organization they pressure and blackmail them not to carry out the mandates for which they were established. We recall what took place with the investigative missions in Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia and Africa. No investigative mission can be successful if it is subjected to political blackmailing. It cannot succeed. Of the three aggressors, I say they are liars. They are compulsive liars. They are hypocrites. They are attempting to ensure the failure of any action of the Organization that does not serve their interests. Ever since the Organization was established, they have tried to undermine the efforts of international investigative bodies. They have tried to exploit them. I need only mention Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria, and Africa. The aggressors exhausted the Council agendas for decades S/PV.8233 Threats to international peace and security 14/04/2018 22/26 18-10891 with their attempts to divert its attention from its role in the maintenance of international peace and security. They used the Council to pursue their aggressive policy of interference and colonialism. Yesterday, in the press of the United States and of the West, the main theme was lying in the context of a campaign that was claiming success, but they know it was a lie. While these three Governments were launching their evil aggression against my country, Syria, and while my country's air defence system was countering the attacks with a great deal of bravery — one hundred missiles were destroyed and did not reach their target — the American Secretary of Defense and the Army Chief of Staff were before the American and international press in an outrageous surrealist scenario. They were not actually able to answer objective questions. Millions of television viewers must have pitied those two men because they were like dunces, repeating phrases without any meaning, and were unable to respond to the legitimate questions of a journalist about their attempts to target chemical weapons facilities and the danger that posed to civilians if the alleged chemical weapons were to spread. They did not respond. They were also unable to respond to a journalist who asked the Secretary of Defense, "You said yesterday that you had no proof that the Syrian Government was responsible for the attack in Douma. What happened in the past few hours? What made you change your mind?" His answer was that he received confirmation from intelligence services. The Syrian Arab Republic condemns in the strongest terms this tripartite attack, which once again shows undeniably that those three countries pay no heed to international legitimacy, even though they repeatedly say they do. Those countries have revealed their belief in the law of the jungle and the law of the most powerful even as they are permanent members of the Security Council, an organ entrusted with maintaining international peace and security and with stopping any aggression, in accordance with the principles and purposes of the Charter. The Syrian Arab Republic is disgusted by the scandalous position of the rulers in Sheikhdom of Qatar, who supported this Western colonial tripartite aggression by allowing planes to take off from the American Al Udeid air base in Qatar. It is not surprising that the little boys of the Sheikhdom of Qatar took that position. They have supported terrorist gangs, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and others, in a variety of ways in order to destabilize Arab countries, including Syria. The Syrian Arab Republic is asking the international community, if it exists — we have heard a new definition of the international community today — and the Security Council to firmly condemn this aggression, which will exacerbate the tensions in the region and which is a threat to international peace and security throughout the world. I call upon those who are committed to international legitimacy to imagine with me the meeting in which the United States National Security Council decided to carry out this attack. I cannot help wondering what was said. "We have no legal basis for attacking Syria. We have no proof that a toxic chemical weapons attack took place in Douma, but let us set that aside. We did not need international legitimacy or any legal argument to conduct military interventions in the past." I am just imagining the discussion that might have taken place among them yesterday. "This military action is necessary for us and for our allies in order to distract public attention in our countries from the scandals involving our own political elite and ensure that the corrupt system in some Gulf States pays the price of such aggression. Most important is how to protect the terrorism that we have sponsored in Syria for years." The President (spoke in Spanish): Members of the Council have before them document S/2018/355, which contains the text of a draft resolution submitted by the delegation of the Russian Federation. The Council is ready to proceed to the vote on the draft resolution before it. I shall put the draft resolution to the vote now. A vote was taken by show of hands. In favour: Bolivia (Plurinational State of), China, Russian Federation Against: Côte d'Ivoire, France, Kuwait, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America 14/04/2018 Threats to international peace and security S/PV.8233 18-10891 23/26 Abstaining: Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Peru The President (spoke in Spanish): The draft resolution received 3 votes in favour, 8 against and 4 abstentions. The draft resolution has not been adopted, having failed to obtain the required number of votes. I now give the floor to those Council members who wish to make statements after the voting. Mr. Skoog (Sweden): We voted against the draft resolution submitted by the Russian Federation (S/2018/355) because we believe that its language was unbalanced. It was not comprehensive and failed to address all of our concerns about the current situation. At the same time, we agree with the Secretary-General that actions must be consistent with the Charter of the United Nations and with international law in general. In our national statement delivered earlier today, we explained our view on the current situation in Syria and condemned the use of chemical weapons and the many other flagrant violations of international law in Syria. We also underscore the importance of a sustainable political solution. As members of the Security Council, we reiterate that we must unite and exercise our responsibility with regard to the situation in Syria. If there is any encouragement today, it is that it appears that everyone around the table insists on a sustainable political solution as the only way to end the suffering of the Syrian population. We therefore reiterate our full support for the United Nations political process, which must now be urgently reinvigorated, including through strong support for the efforts of Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura. Mr. Alemu (Ethiopia): We would like to explain why we abstained in the voting on the draft resolution proposed by Russia (S/2018/355). We abstained not because the text does not contain a great deal of truth — indeed it does — or because it does not adhere to principles to which we should all adhere; it does. We abstained on the grounds of pragmatism. We know that even if it had received nine votes, it would have been vetoed. Therefore it would have had only symbolic value. Nonetheless, that is not unimportant. However, for us, it is critical to defuse tensions and prevent the situation from spiralling out of control. We would like to play a constructive role in that regard. Mr. Umarov (Kazakhstan): Kazakhstan abstained in the voting today on draft resolution S/2018/355 because we believe that all disputes among States should be resolved through peaceful dialogue and constructive negotiations on the basis of equal responsibility for peace and security. As I mentioned in my statement earlier today, we call for all parties to refrain from actions that could aggravate tensions and cause the situation to spiral out of control. Mr. Ndong Mba (Equatorial Guinea) (spoke in Spanish): Our abstention reflects the frustration of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea with regard to the failure to adopt a resolution to establish an attribution and accountability mechanism to identify those responsible for the use of chemical weapons. We reiterate our call for a consensus-based resolution that would establish that mechanism and prevent a repeat of the action we witnessed yesterday. In that regard, we recall that the Swedish initiative was endorsed by the 10 elected members of the Council. We could introduce the required changes into the draft resolution to enable its adoption by consensus, which would allow the mechanism to be established under the auspices of the Secretary-General. Mr. Delattre (France) (spoke in French): The draft resolution submitted by Russia (S/2018/355) has just been categorically rejected. The result of the voting sends a clear message that the members of the Council understand the circumstances, reason for and objectives of the military action taken yesterday. The Council understands why such action, which has been acknowledged as proportional and targeted, was required. No one has refuted the fact that the use of chemical weapons cannot be tolerated and must be deterred. That is the key point. It is important that we now look towards the future. As I have just said, the air strikes were necessary and served to uphold international law and our political strategy to end the tragic situation in Syria. It is for that reason that, together with our American and British partners, France will work with all members of the Security Council to submit a draft resolution on the political, chemical and humanitarian aspects of the Syrian conflict with a view to devising a lasting political solution to the conflict. Mrs. Gregoire Van Haaren (Netherlands): The Kingdom of the Netherlands voted against the draft resolution proposed by the Russian Federation S/PV.8233 Threats to international peace and security 14/04/2018 24/26 18-10891 (S/2018/355) because the text does not provide for the urgent action that the Security Council must take in response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria. It ignores the very essence of the action that must be taken by the Council. It should condemn the use of chemical weapons in Syria, protect its people and hold accountable those responsible. Today's draft resolution does none of the above. Mr. Alotaibi (Kuwait) (spoke in Arabic): Kuwait voted against draft resolution S/2018/355. At the time when the State of Kuwait reiterates its adherence to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, which prohibits the threat or use of force as a means to settle disputes and requires them to be settled by peaceful means, yesterday's use of force was the result of efforts to disrupt the will of the international community, specifically by hindering the Security Council in its determination to take measures at its disposal to end the ongoing use of internationally prohibited chemical weapons in Syria. That is a flagrant violation of resolution 2118 (2013), which unequivocally expresses the Security Council's intention to act under Chapter VII of the Charter when one party or several parties fail to comply with its provisions or in the case of the continued use of chemical weapons in Syria. The Council must once again show its unity and bear its responsibility for maintaining international peace and security, in accordance with the Charter. It must agree on a new independent, impartial and professional mechanism for investigating any use of chemical weapons, bring those responsible for such crimes to account, and ensure that they do not enjoy impunity. We call for intensified efforts and a return to the political track, under the auspices of the United Nations, with the aim of reaching a peaceful settlement to the crisis based on the first Geneva communiqué (S/2012/522, annex) and resolution 2254 (2015). Mr. Ma Zhaoxu (China) (spoke in Chinese): China has always opposed the use of force in the context of international relations. We advocate for respecting the sovereignty, independence, unity, and the territorial integrity of all countries. Any unilateral military action bypassing the Security Council runs counter to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, violates the principles of international law and the basic norms governing international relations and, in the present case, will further complicate the Syrian issue. Based on that principled position, China voted in favour of draft resolution S/2018/355, proposed by the Russian Federation. I would like to emphasize here that a political settlement is the only viable pathway to solving the Syrian issue. China urges the parties involved to remain calm, exercise restraint, return to the framework of international law and resolve issues through dialogue and negotiations We support the role of the United Nations as the main channel for mediation, and we will spare no effort to reach a political settlement of the situation in Syria together with the international community. Mr. Nebenzia (Russian Federation) (spoke in Russian): Today is the day when the Security Council and the world community should raise their voices in the defence of peace, security, the Charter of the United Nations and international law. Every delegation in this Chamber is a sovereign country, and no one should attempt to pressure or dictate to any of us how to interpret international law and the Charter of the United Nations, or how to consult our own consciences. We have never hesitated to vote in accordance with the dictates of international law, the Charter, our conscience and truth. Today's meeting confirms that the United States, Britain and France, all permanent members of the Security Council, continue to plunge world politics and diplomacy into a realm of myths, myths that have been created in Washington, London and Paris. That is dangerous work, representing a kind of diplomacy that traffics in myths, hypocrisy, deceit and counterfeit ideas. Soon we will arrive at the diplomacy of the absurd. These three countries create these myths and try to force everyone to believe in them. We counter their myths with facts and a true picture of what is going on. But they do not want to see or hear. They simply ignore what they are told. They have come up with a legend about Russia as a constant wielder of the Security Council veto whom they purposely provoke into using the veto so as to then present themselves in a favourable light, especially right now. They are distorting international law and replacing its concepts with counterfeits. They are unabashedly hypocritical. They demand an investigation, and before the investigation has even started they name and punish the guilty parties. Why did they not wait for the result of the investigation that they themselves all called for? The Security Council is paralysed because of these countries' persistent deceptions both of us 14/04/2018 Threats to international peace and security S/PV.8233 18-10891 25/26 and the international community. They are not only putting themselves above international law, they are trying to rewrite it. They violate international law and try to convince everyone that their actions are legal. The representative of the United Kingdom gave three reasons justifying the missile strikes based on the concept of humanitarian intervention. They are trying to substitute them for the Charter. That is why we and other countries did not support it then and do not support it now, because we do not want it to become the justification for their crimes. We demand once again that that they halt this aggression immediately and refrain from the illegal use of force in the future. Today we once again showed the whole world how we play our underhanded games. In Soviet times there was a pamphlet entitled Where Does the Threat to Peace Come From? that described Washington and the NATO countries' military preparations. Nothing has changed. The threat to peace comes from exactly the same place. Look at what they say and listen to the war drums that they are beating in Washington today in the guise of hypocritical concern for democracy, human rights and people in general. The five-minute rule in the latest presidential note's rules of procedure (S/2017/507) will not allow me to list them, because the list is too long. I could cite other examples, as for example how the President of France showed interest in a conversation with President Putin in an investigation in Douma and was ready to send French experts there when that idea suddenly disappeared. Because a different algorithm was put forward. That is obvious. Today is a sad day. It is a sad day for the world, the United Nations and its Charter, which has been blatantly violated, and the Security Council, which has shirked its responsibilities. I should like to believe that will not see another day as bad as today. The President (spoke in Spanish): I shall now make another statement in my national capacity. Peru abstained in the voting because we believe that the draft resolution did not adequately reflect the need to guarantee due accountability for the use of chemical weapons throughout Syrian terrority and because its language is imbalanced and would not help to restore the Council's unity, which is critical to addressing the events in Syria in a comprehensive manner. I now resume my functions as President of the Security Council. The representative of the United Kingdom has asked to make another statement. Ms. Pierce (United Kingdom): I think it is obvious why we voted against the draft resolution. We support completely what the French representative laid out about next steps and we will work tirelessly to that objective, along with partners on the Council. The Russian Ambassador referred to myths. These are not our myths. The way forward in the Council has been blocked. The second of our own criteria for taking this action on an exceptional basis must be objectively clear. There is no practicable alternative to the use of force if lives are to be saved. In the 113 meetings of the Council on Syria, I think that has been demonstrated absolutely crystally clear. The United Kingdom believes that it cannot be illegal to prevent the use of force to save lives in such numbers as we have seen in Syria. The reason we took this action — our legal basis — was that of humanitarian intervention. We believe that that is wholly within the principles and purposes of the United Nations. The President (spoke in Spanish): The representative of the Syrian Arab Republic has ask for the floor to make a new statement. I now give him the floor. Mr. Ja'afari (Syrian Arab Republic) (spoke in Arabic): I apologize for requesting the floor once again. The scene that we have just witnessed is quite sad. There are those in the Council who prefer to overlook an enormous elephant that we have spoken of before. The elephant is the direct American military occupation of one-third of my country's territory — a direct American military occupation of one-third of the Syrian Arab Republic territory. However, there are those who speak of minor details which they believe to be pivotal. No, the political scene is far more dangerous than that. We are a State whose sovereignty has been facing a direct military violation by a permanent member of the Council. That is the true scene, and not the allegations and the film prepared by the terrorist organization known as the White Helmets established by British intelligence. We need to focus on the main scene here. Some would claim that they are fighting Da'esh in Syria and Iraq. However they have given air cover to Da'esh. Whenever the Syrian Arab Army makes advances against Da'esh, United States, British and French war planes bombard our military sites. Why? To prevent our decisive victory against that entity. However, they failed S/PV.8233 Threats to international peace and security 14/04/2018 26/26 18-10891 and we were able to achieve victory against Da'esh with our brothers in Iraq in three years and not in thirty, as former President Obama predicted. We understand that the capitals of the three countries that launched the aggression against my country are frustrated. Some colleagues who voted against the Russian draft resolution (S/2018/355) claim to support a political settlement. We tell them now, after their shameful vote against the draft resolution, that those who voted against it are no longer partners of the Syrian Government in any political process. The British Ambassador explained things about the Malvinas Islands. That testimony reveals the facts about the imperialistic policies of Britain. I am actually the Rapporteur of the Special Committee on Decolonization (C-24) and I work under the agenda of the United Nations and the Secretary-General. My task and that of my colleagues in the C-24 is to end colonialism throught the world. The Malvinas are on the list of territories that do not enjoy self-governance. We are working in accordance with the United Nations agenda to end the British occupation of the Malvinas. As for my colleague the Ambassador of Kuwait, I remind him — although he and his Government are well aware of it — that when my country participated in the liberation of Kuwait, we did not justify our principled position to the people of Kuwait. Our position was a principled one. We did not need draft resolutions, meetings or any tripartite aggression. We did not look into the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations or undermine our national obligations to our brothers in Kuwait, nor did we join any bloc that was hostile to Kuwait. We fulfilled our national duty towards our brothers in Kuwait. The Ambassador of Kuwait will also recall that my country could have played a different role at the time and could have negatively impacted the peace, safety and security of Kuwait, but we chose not to do so. We acted pursuant to a national principled position that was not subject to negotiation or discussion. The meeting rose at 1.50 p.m.