Thursday, March 02, 2023

Perspectives | China wants the Line D pipeline. Can Central Asia deliver?

The long-planned construction of Line D of the Central Asia-to-China pipeline is not yet clinched. / CNPC-AktobeMunaiGas

By Joe Webster for Eurasianet March 2, 2023

China is signalling that it wants to move forward with a Central Asian natural gas pipeline project that’s been discussed for decades. But does Central Asia have gas to fill the pipeline, known as Line D?

The region is facing its own increasingly undeniable gas shortages, as well as competition from Russia and liquefied natural gas (LNG) suppliers. So, the long-planned construction of Line D of the Central Asia-to-China pipeline, while increasingly likely, is not yet clinched.

Beijing: Making moves in natural gas markets

China’s total natural gas consumption jumped more than 1,000 percent in the first two decades of this century as it became the world’s largest importer. It imported about 42% of its total natural gas consumption in 2021, receiving supplies via LNG, Central Asia pipeline natural gas, Russia and Myanmar. Flows from Turkmenistan accounted for about 75% of all import volumes from Central Asia in the same year (China has not released volumes for 2022 imports).

That gas flowed through the Central Asia-to-China pipeline network, which began operations with Line A in 2009; Line B came online the following year. The two have a combined capacity of 30bn cubic metres (bcm) per year and connect to Turkmenistan’s Bagtyyarlyk gas field. Line C, with a capacity of 25 bcm/year, entered service in 2014, with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan each providing 10 bcm and Kazakhstan contributing 5 bcm.

There are signs that Beijing plans to expand these links.

After launching a new gas field in Turkmenistan last summer, Beijing announced it would add a fourth pipeline to its domestic West-East Pipeline (WEP) network. While PipeChina claimed this was to ensure domestic gas supplies from the western province of Xinjiang, it seems instead that Beijing is seeking to accommodate more natural gas inflows along Line D. That’s because, while China is developing production in Xinjiang’s Tarim basin, the gas there is in ultra-deep reservoirs that pose technical and economic challenges. Analysts are sceptical that the WEP’s expansion is only to deliver domestic gas.

Indeed, due to Turkmenistan’s relatively competitive production costs, Beijing has continued to court Ashgabat, and the two sides issued a joint statement in early January explicitly committing to accelerate “construction of Line D” and to “intensify cooperation in the gas industry.”

Beijing would take some risk by accepting more Central Asian natural gas, as the region has often struggled to fulfil its production obligations, sparking mini-energy crises in China. During the winter of 2017/2018, production failures in Turkmenistan led to outages in China.

The unreliability of Central Asian gas exports continued over the last two winters. In January 2022, Uzbekistan paused exports to China during Kazakhstan’s unrest; Tashkent also reportedly suspended exports in November 2022 amid surging domestic demand, although some accounts hold that Uzbek officials quietly maintained (politically unpopular) exports. Also in November 2022, China sought assurances that Kazakhstan would maintain gas deliveries. Yet last week Kazakhstan vowed to end winter exports.

And in January, Turkmenistan suspended gas exports due to extremely cold weather. A week later, Ashgabat undertook yet another “constitutional” overhaul, which brought former president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov back in charge, demoting his son and injecting yet more doubt about stability in the secretive country.

Central Asia’s (somewhat) competitor: Russia

Fortunately for Ashgabat, its biggest competitor in the region, Russia, is having its own troubles supplying China. In October, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said that the Russia-to-China Power of Siberia (PoS) pipeline, which opened in 2019, will reach its full capacity only in 2027, not 2025 as originally agreed.

Additionally, Moscow’s proposed Power of Siberia-2 pipeline (PoS-2) is still stuck in negotiations, despite Gazprom’s desperation to replace Europe-directed volumes.

While the proposed Line D and PoS-2 pipelines are both directed at Chinese markets, the two do not compete with one another – necessarily.

The PoS-2 would supply north China, especially Beijing, complimenting flows on Gazprom’s existing pipeline. Chinese policymakers, conversely, appear to be planning for Line D to service southern and central China.

The reality is likely to be messier. Currently, Central Asian gas also supplies north Chinese markets, so greater production from Turkmenistan could pressure Russian exports.

China’s maritime LNG import capacity competes with overland pipeline routes and is also expanding this year, leaving Beijing with greater sway over both Ashgabat and Moscow.

In other words, Beijing is in the driver’s seat: It can leverage supplier competition to secure favourable terms from Central Asia, Russia and LNG producers further afield.

It all comes down to Turkmenistan

While the West might prefer that China commit to larger LNG purchases, as these agreements would benefit Western exporters and provide energy leverage vis-à-vis Beijing, it will also seek to deny Moscow revenues – including by supporting Central Asian exports when appropriate.

Kazakhstan could incentivise natural gas production by limiting the role of state monopolies and, most of all, rationalising market prices. Kazakhstan is gradually and cautiously lifting consumer prices, but these reforms could easily run afoul of popular sentiment – and Astana botched the last liberalisation initiative, which sparked massive protests. Uzbekistan’s natural gas sector, meanwhile, suffers from astonishing levels of corruption.

Greater regional natural gas exports to China will therefore likely hinge on additional production in Turkmenistan. Whether Ashgabat has sufficient governance capacity remains an open question.

Joe Webster is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a contributor at The China Project, and editor of The China-Russia Report. Opinions in this article are his own.

OPINION

A Geoeconomic Tsunami

By Marc Saxeril

The world economy is currently going through a lot of turmoil. The re-organization is in full swing. To survive, not only companies but entire nations need to adapt their development models.

BERLIN, Mar 2 2023 (IPS) - When tectonic plates shift, the earth shakes. Tsunamis race around the globe in the form of shock waves. The global economy has experienced three such earthquakes in recent years. The Covid-19 pandemic has made us aware of the vulnerability of a globally integrated economy.

When important components are stuck in quarantine in China, production lines in Germany come to a halt. Thus, in the organization of global supply chains – which for decades have been trimmed down for efficiency (‘just in time’) – resilience (‘just in case’) will play a more important role in the future.

After the end of the unipolar moment, larger and smaller powers are vying for the best positions in the new world order. In the hegemonic conflict between China and the United States, the government under Joe Biden has verbally disarmed, but its export controls in the high-tech sector have all the more bite.

This politicizes the framework conditions for investment decisions. Market access, infrastructure projects, trade agreements, energy supplies and technology transfers are more and more being evaluated from a geopolitical point of view.

Companies are increasingly faced with the decision of choosing one IT infrastructure, one market and one currency system over the other. The major economies may not decouple from each other across the board, but diversification (‘not all eggs in one basket’) is gaining momentum, especially in the high-tech sector. As this develops, we cannot rule out the possibility that economic blocs will form.

Marc Saxer

The experience with the ‘human uncertainty factor’ in the pandemic is also resulting in the acceleration of digital automation. Robots and algorithms make it easier to protect against geopolitical risks.

In order to bring these vulnerabilities under control, the old industrialized countries are reorganizing their supply chains. It remains to be seen whether this is purely for economic or logistical reasons (re-shoring or near-shoring), or whether geopolitical motives also play a role (friend-shoring).

Bloc formations

China must respond to these challenges. The fate of the People’s Republic will depend on whether it succeeds in charging to the head of the pack in worldwide technology, even without foreign technology and know-how. Anyone who believes that Beijing has no countermeasures up its sleeve will soon be proven wrong.

In order to compensate for the closure of the developed export markets, the Silk Road Initiative has been opening up new sales markets and raw material suppliers for years. At the last party congress, the Chinese Communist Party officially approved a reversal of its development strategy.

From now on, the gigantic home market will be the engine of the ‘dual circular economy’. Export earnings are still desired, but strategically they are being relegated to a supportive role.

One impetus behind China’s massive build-up of gold reserves serves is the goal of having its own (digital) currency take the place of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Because China benefits more than anyone else from open world markets, it is continuing to rely on a globally networked world economy for the time being. Alternatively, Beijing could also be tempted to create its own economic bloc.

The foundations for this have already been put into place, with the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), the BRICS Development Bank (NDB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Silk Road Initiative (BRI) and bilateral cooperation in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.

The difficulties that Western companies face in the Chinese market should provide just a sample of what is looming if China makes market entry into such a bloc contingent on good political will.

But it is not just China. Generally, for all of Asia as the new center of the world economy, these geoeconomic disruptions are tantamount to a tsunami. And the disruptions could hit developing countries particularly hard.

Whether they are being cut from global supply chains for the sake of resilience or due to geopolitical factors, this brings equally devastating results. Of course, some economies are hoping to benefit from the diversification strategies of developed countries (i.e. the ‘China plus one’ strategy).

But digital automation neutralizes what is often their only comparative advantage – cheap labor costs. Why should a European medium-sized company have to deal with corruption and power cuts, quality problems and sea routes lasting weeks, when the robots at home produce better and cheaper?

Algorithms and artificial intelligence are also likely to replace millions of service providers in outsourced back offices and call centers. How are developing countries supposed to feed their (sometimes explosively) growing populations if, in the future, simple jobs are to be performed by machines in industrialized countries? And what do these geoeconomic disruptions mean for the social and political stability of these countries?

As with Europe, most Asian states depend on China’s dynamism for their economic development – and on the guarantees of the US for their security. Therefore, to varying degrees, they resist pressure to choose sides.

Whether it will be possible to escape the pull of geoeconomic bi-polarization over the long term, however, is still an open question. If the splitting of IT infrastructures continues, it could be too costly to play in both technological worlds.

American regulations prevent products with certain Chinese components from entering the market; but those who want to play on the Chinese market will not be able to avoid a steadily increasing share of Chinese components.

Reducing economic vulnerabilities through diversification

This type of global economy would also pose an existential challenge to export nations such as Germany. Even the short-term cutting off of Russian energy is a Herculean task. Decoupling from China at the same time seems difficult to imagine. But burying one’s head in the sand will not be enough.

Neither nations nor businesses will be able to escape the pressure from Washington and Beijing. In the future, important economic, technological, and infrastructural decisions will increasingly be subject to geopolitical considerations. Therefore, reducing one-sided vulnerabilities through diversification is the right thing to do.

On the other hand, some of the lessons drawn from the over-reliance on Russian energy before the war seem short-sighted. For decades, the German economy has integrated itself more deeply into the world economy than many other countries, with the goal of avoiding violent conflicts through interdependence.

It cannot break out of these interdependencies from one day to the next. Reducing economic vulnerabilities through diversification is therefore the right move, while decoupling for ideological reasons is the wrong one. Germany should therefore beware of sacrificing its economic future to an overly ambitious value-based foreign policy.

This is because losses of prosperity translate into fears of the future and social decline at home – a fertile breeding ground for right-wing populists and conspiracy theorists.

The geopolitical race, digital automation and the reorganization of supply chains according to resilience criteria are mutually reinforcing processes. It is not only companies that have to rethink their business models – entire national economies need to adapt their development models in order to be able to survive in a rapidly changing global economy.

The particular difficulty lies in having to make investment decisions today without being able to foresee exactly what the world of tomorrow will look like. Looking into the crystal ball, some think they can see an age of de-globalization. And in fact, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the peak of globalization, as measured by the volume of world trade and capital exports has already passed.

However, de-globalization is not synonymous with a relapse into autarkic national economies. A stronger regionalization of the more networked global economy is more likely. In view of the political, social and cultural upheavals of turbo-globalization, this need not be the worst of possible outcomes.

One thing is certain: A geoeconomic tsunami will roll around the globe, crushing old structures in its path. The hope is that out of the ‘creative destruction’ that Joseph Schumpeter spoke of, there will emerge a more resilient, sustainable and diversified global economy.

However, without political shaping of the new world economic order, the opposite could also occur. Politically, this means adapting the rule-based world order so that it remains a stable framework for an open world economy because even the organization of a regionalised world economy needs global rules of the game that everyone adheres to.

Therefore, with few exceptions, nearly all nations have a great interest in the functioning of rules-based multilateralism. However, in the Global South, there is already a great deal of distrust towards the existing world order.

In reality, according to some, this amounts to the creation of the old and new colonial powers, whose supposedly universal norms do not apply to everyone but are instead violated at will by the permanent members of the UN Security Council.

In order to break through current blockages, such as those of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the emerging powers must be granted representation and a voice in the multilateral institutions that would be commensurate with their newfound importance.

Europe will have to accept a relative loss of influence because, as a rule-based supranational entity, its survival and prosperity depend on an open, rule-based world (economic) order.

Instead of morally elevating itself above others, Europe must concentrate all its energies on maintaining the conditions for the success of its economic and social model. In order to prevent the regionalization of the world economy from turning into the formation of competing blocs with high prosperity losses for everyone, there is a need for new partnerships on an equal footing beyond the currently popular comparisons of democracies and autocracies.

In order for new trust to develop, the global challenges (climate change, pandemics, hunger, migration) that particularly affect the Global South must finally be tackled with determination.

Marc Saxer coordinates the regional work of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in the Asia Pacific. Previously, he led the FES offices in India and Thailand and headed the FES Asia Pacific department

Source: International Politics and Society (IPS)-Journal published by the International Political Analysis Unit of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Hiroshimastrasse 28, D-10785 Berlin

IPS UN Bureau

FIFA ‘tone deaf’ for appointing supermodel as ambassador, says former women’s international

By Amy Woodyatt, CNN
Thu March 2, 2023

Supermodel Lima was announced as FIFA's global fan ambassador on Monday.

CNN —

FIFA’s decision to appoint Brazilian supermodel Adriana Lima as its global fan ambassador ahead of the Women’s World Cup has been derided as “tone deaf” and “truly baffling” by former Australian international Moya Dodd.

Soccer’s world governing body announced Monday that Lima, a former Victoria’s Secret model, would “develop, promote and participate in several global initiatives involving fans from all over the world,” while FIFA President Gianni Infantino said the 41-year-old Brazilian “lives and breathes ‘futebol.’”

Dodd, the former vice-captain of Australia’s women’s football team, said on Wednesday that Lima’s public image “looked an odd fit for an organisation that says it wants to empower girls and women, and whose President is required to be “a vanguard” for promoting gender equality (yes, that’s in the FIFA Governance Regulations).”

Dodd, who previously led Fifa’s taskforce on women’s football, wrote on Linkedin: “[W]hen a girl plays football, the world sees her differently. Instead of being complimented on her nice looks or her pretty dress, she is valued for her game-saving tackles and brilliant goal-scoring.

“She’s admired for what she can DO, rather than how she looks, putting her on a more equal footing with her brothers in a way that can alter the whole trajectory of her life’s ambitions.

Dodd said that when a girl plays football, "she's admired for what she can DO, rather than how she looks".Stuart Franklin/FIFA/Getty Images

A member of the FIFA’s executive committee from 2013 to 2016, Dodd expanded on her comments, adding that her own research on Lima “showed that this model specifically was known for crash-diet eating & drinking,” and referenced a 2006 GQ article, where the Brazilian is quoted as saying abortion is a crime.

“What will this ambassador represent to the large and growing population of aspirational #womensfootball players and fans who love the game because it shows us what empowerment and equality can look like?” asked Dodd.

Lima’s publicist, Laurent Boye, said the model’s stance had changed since she made those comments 17 years ago.

“We can proudly say that Ms Lima has been promoting a healthy lifestyle for several years and like many people, her position on many LGBTQIA+ and women issues has evolved and she is considered an ally,” Boye said in a statement, Reuters news agency reported.

'We know what's on the line': Megan Rapinoe looks to third World Cup win ahead of this year's tournament

In a follow-up post, Dodd said that Lima’s view’s on abortion still hadn’t been addressed.

“To be clear, there is no criticism of Lima’s personal choice - everyone should have that right. But denouncing abortion as a crime means that you think others who make a different choice should be treated as criminals and punished accordingly.

“That is a terrifying prospect, and not consistent with women’s empowerment or right to control their own bodies and futures, imho,” Dodd wrote.

CNN has reached out to FIFA for further comment.

In a statement Monday, Lima said she was ” very thankful and honoured to have been chosen by FIFA to be the first Global Fan Ambassador and to be given such a platform to help fans get even closer to the game.”

Ouarda Coussay, a representative for model management agency Elite World Group, which represents Lima, declined further comment when contacted by CNN.

The 2023 Women’s World Cup runs from July 20 to August 20 in Australia and New Zealand.

CNN’s Sammy Mngqosini contributed reporting.

Here’s how European countries contemplating legal gender recognition can follow Spain’s lead

Spain is the most recent European country to adopt a self-determination model for legal gender recognition. The legislative process and surrounding conversation were explosive, but a smoother, less harmful path to recognising the right to gender self-determination is possible

Activists celebrate outside Spain’s parliament after approval of a law that will make it easier for people to self-identify as transgender | Alamy

By Katrin Hugendubel

Katrin Hugendubel is the advocacy director for ILGA-Europe

02 Mar 2023

khugendubel

On 16 February, when the Spanish senate passed an omnibus bill to expand protections and entrench rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI) people, including legal gender recognition (LGR) with a self-determination model, the reaction from civil society was largely one of relief. They felt the government had done its job in the face of a long and, at times, explosive process.

The passage of the law represents a major victory, but the campaign was often painful. As more and more EU Member States look to adopt LGR with a self-determination model, we would like to offer some observations about how the legislative process and surrounding media coverage can unfold in a less harmful, more constructive way.

First, some definitions. Both the Council of Europe and the United Nations assert that LGR should be fast, accessible, affordable, without discrimination on any grounds, and based on self-determination. Self-determination simply means that a person can decide what is written on their own identity documents. This is in contrast to other models of LGR, where a person needs a third party to verify information about their gender, such as a doctor, judge, spouse or ex-spouse. At its core, self-determination is about the right to privacy and autonomy.

That's where the effort to move toward self-determination really is heading. It is about the appropriate role of the state.

Every person needs documents that show who they are in order to function in their everyday lives. The state's job is to make sure a person has those documents and to keep track of its citizens. It is not the job of the state to tell people which boxes they belong in and to keep them there by force. That's where the effort to move toward self-determination really is heading. It is about the appropriate role of the state.

That being said, Spain’s newly passed law is about much more than LGR. It's a ban on conversion therapy ban and intersex genital mutilation; it's about access to sexual and reproductive health and rights for all LGBTI people. However, as we have seen elsewhere, dropping trans issues when the politics get too hard has become a long-term pattern in these sorts of legislative processes.

The challenge that Spanish Minister for Equalities Irene Montero and her colleagues faced during the process of passing this legislation was that those opposing LGR based on self-determination refused to offer solutions to the problems they were presenting. Frequently, opponents to this aspect of the legislation weren't even presenting concrete problems so much as suggesting that problems may exist. This is a recognised tactic of anti-rights actors: they create ambiguous problems without any desire to seek solutions. Governments and activists try to engage in these supposed problems in good faith, looking for solutions, but these actors are not interested in such an exchange. They're simply interested in stopping the process.

In this case, the Spanish government was able to see through this tactic and stay focused on the prize, which was securing human rights protections for LGBTI people in Spain based on international law.

Currently, there are eight EU Member States who have LGR based on the self-determination model, while the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Cyprus are in the process of attempting to reform towards self-determination. Whether they will get all the way there or not isn’t straightforward.

For politicians in these countries and in countries that will in the future move towards LGR based on self-determination, it is vital to be aware of tactics that can derail the conversation, like asking inflammatory questions or putting forward strawmen. It's also very important for policymakers and politicians to be proactively vocal in supporting the rights of trans people.

We often see a few very vocal anti-rights actors whose voices are disproportionately elevated compared to pro-rights voices, particularly on social media but also in general media coverage. The impact of this can have devastating effects on the wellbeing of trans people.

In this year's ILGA-Europe Annual Review of the Human Rights Situation of LGBTI People, we saw a significant rise in reported suicides among LGBTI people in Europe. We concluded that this tragic uptick is in part due to the media’s role in elevating anti-trans views while at the same time not providing adequate responses.

It is vital to insist that we're not talking about two opposing views that come from equal places here. We don't hear about people who vocally wish to exclude trans people committing suicide. When trans people are forced into spaces that don't match their gender expression, they routinely experience sexual violence. In fact, half of all trans people have been subjected to sexual violence. We don't hear that part of the conversation; we only hear about how trans people are monsters.

How our societies treat LGBTI people highlights where their deepest fragile. When politicians bow to anti-trans arguments, either afraid to enter the discourse or because they haven’t taken the time to research and articulate their own arguments, they are bowing to forces that are much larger than the anti-trans movement. They’re bowing to diversionary tactics that ultimately seek to instrumentalise LGBTI people as an attack on everyone’s rights.

The Spanish government, together with civil society organisations, did a phenomenal job in keeping all the pieces together and finally getting a bill that adequately protects all LGBTI people through the legislative stages. It is also a huge win that the LGBTI movement was able to stay together and focused on getting a comprehensive bill passed. They did so in the face of well resourced, well organised and subversive forces.

WAIT, THEY STOLE WHAT?!

‘Professional’ shoplifters who stole printer ink cartridges fled to Ireland

Judge Geraint Walters told the defendants they had been “operating as a profession team” and it was clear they had been “making a living simply by stealing”

Alexandru Zamfir
Neil Fetherstonhaugh

Sunday World

Today

Two men who targeted Welsh Tesco stores during a “professional" shoplifting spree were only arrested four months later when they stepped off a ferry from Ireland.

Robert Pascu and Alexandru Zamfir fled after they made off with thousands of pounds worth of printer ink cartridges, nicotine patches, toothbrushes and beauty products in a matter of hours before disappearing last September.

Swansea Crown Court heard the pair were not arrested until January of this year when they tried to enter the UK at Holyhead port having just arrived on a ferry from Ireland.

The robberies began just after 4pm on September 23 last year when the defendants entered the Cardigan branch of Tesco and removed security tags from packs of printer ink cartridges.

“They then put them in their trolleys, and placed items of clothing over the top,” Georgia Donohue, prosecuting, told the court.

They added a tray of Nicorette products to one of the trolleys along other small items, then left the shop with the total value of goods stolen estimated to be around £800.

They then arrived at around 5.30pm at the Tesco in Haverfordwest where they repeated the tag-and-trolley routine.

On this occasion they stole goods to the value of £1,500, before moving on the Milford Haven branch of the supermarket.

The court heard they again removed tags from printer cartridges and put them in their trolleys.

However, this time they spotted acting suspiciously as they pulled clothing over the contents of their trolleys whenever members of staff were nearby.

They quickly escaped without the trolleys and leaving the £1,000-worth of stock in them.

Just 45 minutes later, Pascu and Zamfir were at Tesco in Pembroke Dock at 6.15pm where they again removed security tags from £1,000-worth of printer cartridges.

They then put them into a trolley along with toiletry items before leaving without paying.

Robert Valentine Pascu (20) and Alexandru Zamfir (24) both of Moore Street, Cobridge, Stoke-on-Trent, had previously pleaded guilty three counts of theft and one count of attempted theft when they appeared in the dock for sentencing.

Pascu has previous convictions for shoplifting, going equipped for theft with a foil-lined carrier bag, and handling stolen goods.

Zamfir has previous convictions for seven counts of shoplifting at Ayr Sheriff Court in Scotland - for which he received a term of imprisonment - and for shoplifting and assaulting a police officer on Merseyside. These latter offences were committed three days after the west Wales spree.

The court heard that the printer ink cartridges had been stolen as they had a high re-sale value, and it is believed that the defendants were considering whether they could sell them to tattoo parlours.

Pascu’s legal representative, Ian Ibrahim, said his client was a Romanian national who had come to the UK looking for work.

He said the defendant had carried out "back-breaking" seasonal agricultural work for between £1,300 and £1,500 a month.

After spending some £400 a month on rent, he would send what he could back home to help support his mother and sisters.

But he said Pascu had accepted what he did on the day in question, and was remorseful for his actions.

Matt Murphy, for Zamfir, said the defendant was a qualified forklift truck driver who had come to the UK hoping to secure better paid employment than was available in Romania or in other European countries.

He had travelled to Stoke, where he has family, before arriving in Kilmarnock to see his uncle where he committed the Scottish offences.

He then returned to Stoke and on to west Wales and Merseyside before going home to Romania.

He had then gone to Ireland where Pascu has relatives before both defendants had attempted to re-enter the UK at Holyhead port.

Judge Geraint Walters told the defendants they had been "operating as a profession team" and it was clear they had been "making a living simply by stealing".

The men were given one-third discounts for their guilty pleas and sentenced to eight months in prison for the Welsh offences.

Zamfir was also sentenced to four months for the Merseyside offences, to run consecutively with the Welsh offences, making an overall sentence in his case of 12 months in prison.

The defendants will serve up to half their sentences in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community. The judge told the defendants that any subsequent deportations would be a matter for the Home Office.

Deterring the Next Invasion: Applying the Accumulation of Events Theory to Cyberspace

02.03.23

[Michael McLaughlin is a cybersecurity attorney and policy advisor in the Washington, D.C. office of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, P.C. He is the former senior counterintelligence advisor for United States Cyber Command and a research affiliate for the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security. He holds a Bachelor of Science from the United States Naval Academy and a juris doctorate from the University of Maryland School of Law.]

After years of conducting destabilizing activities worldwide with impunity, Russian forces crossing the Ukrainian border proved to be a bridge too far. With a firm and united hand, the international community is finally pushing back against Russia’s brazen hybrid war. Nations, global corporations, and hacktivist groups have all turned their sights on Moscow, landing significant blows to the Russian economy that will reverberate for years to come.

After a year of open warfare in Ukraine, the world must ask: why did it take a military invasion of a European nation’s sovereign territory to stir the world to action? Russian aggression in Ukraine is merely the kinetic expression of the types of malicious activities the Kremlin has been orchestrating for over a decade in cyberspace. As the crisis in Ukraine continues its sprint towards chaos with increasing entropy, the question must be asked: what could the international community have done differently, and—more importantly—how can international law be applied more effectively address patterns of irresponsible behavior going forward?

Russia’s Hybrid War

Russian cyber actors are most adept at exploiting the digital grey-zone of international law—the area below the level of armed conflict where traditional rules and principles do not apply clearly to the cyberspace domain. For years, Russia has injected ambiguity into the legal analyses of other nations. This ambiguity has caused delay or failure by victims to respond for fear that any use of force in self-defense or as a countermeasure might itself be viewed as a violation of international law. As a result – despite sanctions, indictments, and public attribution for numerous intrusions – Russia’s malicious cyber activities have continued unabated.

Russia has been able to freely execute its brand of hybrid warfare because the international community failed to levy a consequence sufficient to alter the risk calculus of aggressor states conducting malicious activities in cyberspace. In other words, international law has yet to make the juice of cyber-enabled malicious activities no longer worth the squeeze. The result of this legal inadequacy is the present chaotic spiral where nation-state conduct and escalatory responses have created a global digital warzone wherein the line between combatant and non-combatant ceases to exist. Without legal deterrence, the spiral will only broaden as developing nations and non-state proxies harness cost-effective cyber alternatives to conventional military capabilities.

To effectively deter cyber-enabled malicious activities, the global community must reimagine how international law applies to cyberspace. While individual cyber operations may be strategically framed to stop short of a “use of force” or an “armed attack,” the consequences of the totality of an aggressor state’s campaign of malicious cyber activities can have far-reaching impact on the peace and security of the international community. The cyber campaign undertaken by Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) Sandworm Team provides a case in point:

In October 2020, a Pennsylvania grand jury returned an indictment charging Russian cyber actors for deploying “destructive malware and tak[ing] other disruptive actions, for the strategic benefit of Russia, [including] cyber-enabled malicious actions aimed at supporting broader Russian government efforts–regardless of the consequences to innocent parties and critical infrastructure worldwide – to undermine, retaliate against, or otherwise destabilize: (1) Ukraine; (2) the country of Georgia; (3) France’s elections; (4) efforts to hold Russia accountable for its use of a weapons-grade nerve agent on foreign soil; and (5) the 2018 Winter Olympics[.]”

The Sandworm Team’s individual operations were designed to brush against the threshold of armed conflict without clearly breaching it, preventing the international community from legally responding to any individual act with force sufficient to forestall Russia’s continued malicious activity. The immediate result of this inaction was Sandworm’s deployment of NotPetya–considered the most damaging cyberattack in history with damages surpassing $10 billion. The long-term effect of the international community’s neutered response was the Kremlin’s belief that the global community would fail to muster more than a similarly muted response to a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Considering the destabilizing effect Russian aggression has on the international community, international law must evolve to address not just individual actions, but campaigns of cyber-enabled malicious activities. Such an evolution would afford victims the ability to aggregate the consequences of multiple breaches conducted by a single aggressor to most effectively defend themselves.

Aggregating Consequences

The principle of aggregation is well understood when applied to other areas, such as criminal law. For example, an individual who follows his co-worker home on a single occasion may draw the co-worker’s ire, but likely would not violate a criminal statute. If the individual continues to follow his co-worker home on multiple occasions after having been asked to stop, he might be liable for harassment. If the individual follows his co-worker home on multiple occasions, makes threatening comments, and generally instills a reasonable fear of bodily harm in his co-worker, the aggregation of individual wrongful acts could elevate the actions to the crime of stalking. This is called normative aggregation, and it occurs where two or more claims – the individual normative weights of which are insufficient to establish liability–are aggregated, and the combined weight of all claims is sufficient.

When applied to malicious cyber activities in the context of international law, normative aggregation may be appropriate where a series of acts can be attributed to a single State. As with normative aggregation in domestic criminal law, individual malicious cyber activities do not have to constitute a standalone wrongful act if, in the aggregate, the consequences of state action constitute a breach of an international obligation. Under international law, this theory of aggregation is called the Accumulation of Events Theory, or Nadelstichtaktik (needle prick).

During the 1970s, Israel invoked Nadelstichtaktik to justify its bombardment of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) strongholds in Lebanon as being in response to a series of small-scale attacks by the PLO. Under Israel’s theory, though each individual act of terrorism by the PLO may not have risen to the level of armed attack triggering an Article 51 right to self-defense, the sum of the combined consequences of the campaign of terrorist attacks crossed that threshold. The primary thrust of this theory is that the actions taken in self-defense to a series of wrongful acts should not be judged through the limited scope of an immediate response to an isolated attack; rather, the actions should be viewed as a response to the total consequences.

For Israel’s claim, the Security Council refused to aggregate the PLO’s series of attacks and deemed Israel’s actions to be in violation of international law. Conducting a strict reading of the language of Article 51, the Security Council could only scrutinize Israeli action taken in response to particularized attacks by the PLO. However, in 2002, the U.N. adopted the Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA), which asserts that a “breach of an international obligation by a State through a series of actions or omissions defined in aggregate as wrongful occurs when the action[,] . . . taken with the other actions or omissions, is sufficient to constitute the wrongful act.” This resolution gives significant support to the application of the Accumulation of Events Theory.

Legal Options for Cyber Deterrence

Unfortunately, there exists limited opinio juris or customary international law to assist in determining whether normative aggregation of the consequences of cyber operations can be used to establish a predicate for self-defense options or countermeasures. However, since the mass adoption of the Internet worldwide – and certainly since Israel’s failed Nadelstichtaktik claim, the types and scale of belligerent actions that are executed in the digital-grey zone of international law continue to increase significantly. As evidenced in multiple International Court of Justice (ICJ) rulings and enshrined in the ARSIWA, a general rule has coalesced regarding the aggregation of actions under international law. Where there exists a series of connected acts which are cumulative in nature and attributable to a State, a breach of an international obligation occurs when the combined consequences of the acts are sufficient to constitute an internationally wrongful act. Whether the internationally wrongful act constitutes an armed attack depends on the scale and effect of the consequences.

To this end, the ICJ has provided a patchwork of guidance by implication from which a framework may be discerned. In Nicaragua, the ICJ indicated that when determining the existence of an armed attack, “customary international law continues to exist alongside treaty law. The areas governed by the two sources of law thus do not overlap exactly, and the rules do not have the same content.” The Court further explained that there exist varying degrees of uses of force, not all of which constitute an armed attack. In ruling on Nicaragua, the ICJ analyzed whether incursions by Nicaragua “singly or collectively” amounted to an armed attack. Ultimately, the Court found the information provided to be insufficient to make a determination. Similarly, in the Oil Platforms case, the ICJ analyzed whether an Iranian attack, “either in itself or in combination with the rest of the ‘series of. . . attacks’ cited by the United States can be categorized as an ‘armed attack’ on the United States justifying self-defence.” Ultimately, the ICJ ruled that Iran’s actions, “taken cumulatively . . . do not seem to the Court to constitute an armed attack on the United States, of the kind that the Court, in the case concerning Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua, qualified as a ‘most grave’ form of the use of force.”

To invoke the right of self-defense by aggregating the consequences of multiple cyber-enabled malicious activities, the ICJ provides insight into several key notions:

First, uses of force are governed by the UN Charter and other treaties, as well as by customary international law. “[L]aws on the use of force can be interpreted, re-interpreted, or even superseded by subsequent State practice pointing to emerging customary international law.” This allows for some flexibility in the evolution of the right to self-defense due to advancements in the use of cyberspace for both warfare and statecraft.

Second, the gravity of different uses of force is a spectrum, with the “most grave” form consisting of armed attack. While the gravest forms of the use of force would, by definition, trigger a right to self-defense (or collective self-defense), less grave forms may be aggregated if the individual actions are connected temporally and causally and have a common source.

Third, it is not required that actions being aggregated consist solely of uses of force. The Court in Nicaragua pointed to the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States to describe actions that may constitute less grave uses of force. The resolution is a far-reaching statement on international norms, and includes principles such as: “the duty to refrain from the threat or use of force to violate the existing international boundaries of another State[;]” “the duty to refrain from organizing, instigating, assisting or participating in acts of civil strife or terrorist acts in another State[;]” and that all States have “an inalienable right to choose its political, economic, social and cultural systems, without interference in any form by another State.” However, the consequences of accumulated acts must still reach the de minimis threshold of armed attack in order to satisfy the UN Charter’s requirement for invoking the right to self-defense.

Finally, proportionality of actions taken in self-defense must not surpass that which is necessary to forestall the cumulative effects or the continuation of the individual wrongful acts.

The foundational test for when a cyberattack constitutes an armed attack triggering a right to self-defense is whether the consequences are comparable with those resulting from a kinetic weapon. To aggregate the cumulative effects of cyber-enabled malicious activities that do not individually reach this threshold, the consequences and actions must be causally and temporally related and attributed to a single source. The accumulation of events begins with the first identifiable wrongful act in the series and continues until the activity ceases. Any action taken in self-defense must be both proportionate and necessary to the effective exercise of self-defense. In responding to cyber-enabled malicious activities, proportionality and necessity are predicated on that which is required to affect either the ability or the will of the nation in violation to continue its wrongful actions.

Conclusion

Despite the understandable reluctance by States to respond to cyber activities with what might constitute a use of force, it is crucial for global leaders to be reminded that international law was not intended to be a suicide pact. States are expected to enforce international obligations by inflicting an adequate punishment for violations of international law. It is therefore incumbent upon nations to enforce the guiding principles underpinning the international community where there exist grey zones consistently being exploited at the expense of international peace and security.

Malicious cyber activities by states such as Russia persist because their leaders perceive there to be an insufficient risk of blowback. To this end, Russia has consistently tested legal boundaries for signs of resistance and, finding none, has proceeded to execute increasingly unrestrained cyber-enabled malicious activities against nations and organizations worldwide. And Russia’s blueprint is being followed by Iran and North Korea, amongst others. It is impractical for the international community to hope for a change in this strategy. To remedy the failure of international law and adequately deter and punish egregious campaigns of cyber-enabled malicious activities requires that States be able to respond with something more than retorsion. The application of the Accumulation of Events Theory to such campaigns might reshape the calculus of other nations seeking to execute Russia’s brand of low-intensity cyber warfare.

No ban on students using AI tool ChatGPT for schoolwork, but ethical use will be taught: IB

An IB spokesman said banning the use of AI software was the wrong way to deal with innovation.

PHOTO: AFP

Gabrielle Chan and Michelle Chin

SINGAPORE - Students enrolled in International Baccalaureate (IB) programmes in Singapore will now be allowed to use content created by artificial intelligence (AI) tool ChatGPT in their schoolwork.

But any content generated by ChatGPT that students use in their essays should be credited and appropriately referenced, said IB, an organisation based in the Swiss city Geneva.

In response to queries, an IB spokesman said on Monday: “The IB will not ban the use of artificial intelligence software... That is the wrong way to deal with innovation.

“It is more sensible to adapt and teach students how to use these new tools ethically.”

The spokesman said that over the next few years, the use of this kind of software will become as routine as calculators and translation programmes.

And even if students use AI technology to produce content for their work, they are still expected to produce authentic work that represents their individual abilities, she added.

She said: “The use of ChatGPT or any other AI tool should be in line with the IB’s academic integrity policy, and we expect all of our schools to discuss with students the various types of academic misconduct.

“This means that students need to be aware that the IB does not regard any work produced – even only in part – by such tools, to be their own.

“Therefore, as with any quote or material from another source, it must be clear that any AI-generated text, image or graph included in a piece of work has been copied from such software.”

To avoid plagiarism, students must credit the software in the body of the text and appropriately reference it in the bibliography, she added.

The IB spokesman said teachers in IB schools will continue to hold regular meetings with students and use the opportunity to ask them about their ideas and expand on their arguments.

“This ensures the students’ works are true reflections of what they understand,” she said.

ChatGPT was launched by the artificial intelligence research laboratory OpenAI last November. It is a software application designed to mimic human-like conversations based on user prompts and can respond to a large range of questions while imitating human speaking styles.

According to a study done by Swiss bank UBS, ChatGPT is estimated to have reached 100 million monthly active users in January, just two months after launch, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history. In January alone, a daily average of about 13 million unique visitors used ChatGPT.

In a blog post on Monday, Mr Matt Glanville, head of IB’s assessment principles and practice, said: “We need to adapt and transform our educational programmes and assessment practices so that students can use these new AI tools ethically and effectively.”

He added that AI essay writing tools may tempt some students to “test the boundaries of what is acceptable”, but teachers have to ensure that students can sufficiently explain their work and be clear when they are quoting other people’s ideas.

Mr Glanville said: “The IB is focused on exploring the educational opportunities that this software has created and is now trying to imagine what a world in which AI software is routinely used would look like.”

IB is a global organisation that operates in more than 150 countries and 5,600 schools. In Singapore, there are 21 schools that offer the IB programme, including Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) and St Joseph’s Institution, as well as several International schools.

A total of 2,276 students in Singapore took the IB exams in November 2022.

In response to queries, several schools that run IB programmes said they will seek to take advantage of this latest development in the AI field for future learning and teaching.

Deputy academic head (senior school) of Tanglin Trust School Claire Russell said that although students are discouraged from citing AI platforms like ChatGPT as a main source of research, the development in AI technology offers exciting opportunities for them.

Tanglin Trust is a British international school in the Buona Vista area that takes in children from ages three to 18.

Ms Russell said: “The challenge here is in communicating to students that AI isn’t a replacement for real thinking or critical analysis, and that heavy reliance on such platforms can lead away from genuine learning.”

Also, because AI platforms like ChatGPT retrieve information from multiple unknown sources, and the accuracy of the information cannot be guaranteed, students need to be wary about using the chatbot’s content, she added.

But students who still choose to use AI in their research should always practice academic integrity and credit their sources, she said.

At Westbourne College Singapore in River Valley – which offers an IB programme to students aged 15 to 18 – ChatGPT is seen as a supportive tool in enhancing education and the schooling experience.

Dr Gerard Griffiths, global education director at Westbourne College, said: “We are living in an age where innovations such as ChatGPT are going to disrupt how we do things, and we are going to have to learn how to adapt to such significant and rapid changes.

“The technology will not be used as a crutch, but as a trampoline to launch standards to even greater heights.”

On Feb 6, in response to questions in Parliament, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing said educators in schools and institutes of higher learning (IHL) will be given guidance and resources to effectively use the software to enhance learning.

He added that educators will continue to teach students how to understand fundamental concepts and guide them on how to use these technological tools responsibly.

He also said schools and IHLs have practices in place to guard against the misuse of this technology and students are taught the consequences of plagiarism.

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