#AI ChatGPT - OpenAI: Can an investigation about crimes against human rights be suspended for political reasons?

I asked OpenAI

Can an investigation about crimes against human rights be suspended for political reasons?

OpenAI answered:

"Unfortunately, investigations into crimes against human rights can be suspended for political reasons in certain countries or contexts. This can happen when there is political pressure to halt the investigation or prosecution of individuals or groups who may be responsible for these crimes.

However, it is important to note that suspending an investigation or prosecution for political reasons is a violation of international law and undermines the principles of justice and accountability. The United Nations has repeatedly emphasized that states have an obligation to investigate and prosecute serious violations of human rights, and that these obligations cannot be set aside for political reasons.

Furthermore, the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established precisely to ensure that those responsible for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide are held accountable, regardless of their political power or influence. The ICC is an independent judicial institution that is not subject to political pressures or interference.

In short, while investigations into crimes against human rights can be suspended for political reasons, doing so is contrary to international law and the principles of justice and accountability. The international community has an obligation to ensure that these crimes are properly investigated and prosecuted, regardless of the political context."

World Bank, please dare tackle the issue of what could be considered punishable economic crimes against humanity

Could we challenge the World Bank, as the world’s premier development bank, to put on its agenda to try to qualify which economic policies could be so egregious so as to qualify as punishable economic crimes against humanity?

For instance in a country where people are dying for lack of food and medicines, could selling gas at less than US$ 1 cent per gallon be such a crime?

An Executive Director of the World Bank answered me with: “We already name and shame those who engage in outrageous subsidies of fuel”

That is good, but far from enough! That the World Bank names and shames, is sometimes in some shady circles even taken as evidence of good behavior. No, I am referring to the possibility of having an energy minister face charges in the International Court of Justice in Hague.

I have tried to raise this issue elsewhere… but yet no response.

Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein. Want to see how your client Maduro teargasses young Venezuelan students in a closed truck?

Here is what I opine on that financing

On an odious bond issue to finance an odious government

Ricardo Hausmann and Miguel Angel Santos, in their “Should Venezuela default?” refer to a “$5 billion private placement of ten-year bonds with a 6% coupon, it effectively had to give a 40% discount, leaving it with barely $3 billion” 

That in cost represents approximately the same as a $3 billion ten-year bond issue with a 13.5% coupon. 

That type of financing of a sovereign should be prohibited for two reasons: 

First, that is, as you can understand, especially when the exact placement price of the issue is rarely reported, a completely non-transparent way of financing. 

Second, in the 2nd alternative, any new government who could obtain access to better credit terms, could much easier offer to repay the $3 billion issue, and thereby free the nation from those usury rates. As is, unless it enters into a default, it has to repay the full usury interests that are hidden away in the repayment of the $ 2bn in principal not received. 

And I would also like to know… who arranged that private placement and who bought it… so that I could express my contempt for it. Do they not know that Human Right’s Watch has clearly established that in Venezuela human rights are being violated? I mean where does the limit go? Would it be right to buy bonds to finance the building of concentration camps... if the price, the risk premium, is right? 

If financiers need credit ratings to base their decisions on, we citizens need governance ratings and ethic ratings to base the permission for our sovereigns to take on debt. 

Also… speculative investors should not have the right in any restructuring to have the cake and eat it too, meaning collecting their high-risk premiums and the full principal.

If you define clearly and effectively what needs to be considered as odious credits you solve about 90 percent of the problems with odious debts.

Risk premiums and ethic ratings

And again, for the convenience of those who do not have sufficient political leadership, the government of Venezuela, and PDVSA, announced new bond issues, in order to pay for social "investments" today ... leaving the bill to the Venezuelan youth of tomorrow.

And all this while the Financial Times of London described that soaring interest rates paid, for example by Venezuela, "tempts investors to ignore the fears of civil war, crippling inflation and legal battles."

And indeed Venezuela ( PDVSA and ) pay for ten year credit interest rates that are about 10% higher rate about 10 % than the U.S.. 8% more than Mexico ! That means in essence that already after the first year we have paid the creditor an additional 10 % ... and still owe him 100% of the loan. And that means in essence that at end of the tenth year, when we have already paid the creditor additional 100% ... our children still owe 100% of the principal. This is simply something abominable.

In fact, when a sovereign country is required to pay an interest rate that exceeds by more than 4% the rate of those who pay less, the risk premium, I consider we are in the presence of an economic crime against humanity being committed, fragrantly, against future generations.

And we citizens of the world should do something about it ... for example:

All stock exchanges of the world should suspend trading of all sovereign debt that show a risk premium higher than 4%... (as that would indicate a basic incapacity of the government)

Besides credit ratings, we should develop and use a system of ethic ratings.

All those who purchase sovereign bonds carrying a risk premium of more than 4% risk, and which do not meet minimum ethic ratings, should be exposed publicly as financiers of Sovereign Evils.

We the people should refuse to pay taxes while our sovereign bonds pay a risk premium higher than 4% and do not possess some minimum ethic ratings... and that should be a clause explicitly included in all bond issues.

PS . Whoever believes that China treats us Venezuela as accommodating as we treat Petrocaribe, is a dreamer.

Translated from El Universal

You, who are about to finance Pdvsa, are you sure crimes against human rights are not committed in Venezuela? Ask your children!

Creditors of Venezuela, read our Constitution!

Odious credit

Odious debt

This is what Sean Penn, Oliver Stone, Danny Glover and Mark Weisbrot, with their deafening silence, support in Venezuela!

Imagine that this was your daughter in a country where some macho robocops, obeying instructions from Cuba, are emboldened and busy themselves confronting students, but cower when they see any real criminals ... God bless and take care of our young!

What can we say?

Thanks Amnesty International!

USA, if you are not the policeman of the world, why should we hold so mindboggling many of your “In God We Trust” dollars?

My father, arriving as a polish prisoner on the first train to Auschwitz on June 14 1940, number 245, was liberated by the Americans from Buchenwald, April 14, 1945. So I might certainly be biased, in favor of the United States acting as the policeman for the world. At least biased in favor of the United States I believe existed, and still hope and pray for that exists. (So I guess I just confessed that I might not be the so "radical of the middle" on all issues.)

And that is why I keep on warning about that if the United States reneges on being the policeman for the world, or becomes ashamed of its strength, then the world might renege on trusting the US to such an extent as to hold a mind-boggling amount of its dollars, backed by a "In God We Trust". Approximately China holds $1.3 trillion, Japan $1.1 trillion and the rest of the world $3.1 trillion. And so you see, there might be quite a lot of subconscious quid pro quo involved here.

PS. Obama ended his September 10 speech saying “America is not the world’s policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong. But when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gassed to death, and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.”

And frankly, to act only when only “modest effort and risk” is required, is not what has made America so great, at least not in the eyes of this small human being, who much owes his existence to the huge and brave sacrifices of America.

PS. It is also absolutely clear that Putin, when ending his Op-ed in the New York with “we must not forget that God created us all equal”, after referring to “big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy”, has exclusively those who are governing the countries mind, those who so often shamelessly hide behind the skirts of sovereignty; and not for a second, not even remotely, is Putin thinking about the citizens who are governed, those who were the prime concern of America's founders.

And so, if "America is not the world’s policeman"...should Europe declare a state of emergency?

And please, if as a policeman, one one occasion, for your own reasons, want or need to restrict the punishment to something symbolic, is not that it is only symbolic, sort of the last thing you would want to say? 

And this is not the first time I have raised the issue of the dollar and America's military strength... and will to exercise it. Here in a letter in Washington Post

http://subprimeregulations.blogspot.com/2013/01/handcuffed-by-triple-rating.html

Oh, and just in case. I am not talking about a war against Syria, but a war against the use of chemical weapons.

And to fight and punish the use of banned chemical weapons, requires a willing, and, hopefully a strong, firm and good policeman, with a great sense of justice.

Or, are we telling our mostly dead grandfathers, their Geneva Protocol prohibiting chemical weapons was pure nonsense? Do we now want it repealed? I pray not.

And America, please do not confuse war with servicing as a police. A police detains when there are infractions… he does not build nations.

And if the United States is not willing to be the policeman of the world, to help enforce laws they have also agreed with, would the world have to pray for some vigilantes to do that?

Surely all human rights criminals who hide behind the skirts of sovereignty, must be celebrating the USA not wanting to be the policeman of the world! 

And in reference to the case of Syria, below I quote from “Questions about Syria you were too embarrassed to ask” by Max Fisher, The Washington Post, September 1, 2013 "What’s the big deal with chemical weapons?" 

"War is going to happen. It just is. But the reason that the world got together in 1925 for the Geneva Convention to ban chemical weapons is because this stuff is really, really good at killing civilians but not actually very good at the conventional aim of warfare, which is to defeat the other side. You might say that they’re maybe 30 percent a battlefield weapon and 70 percent a tool of terror. In a world without that norm against chemical weapons, a military might fire off some sarin gas because it wants that battlefield advantage, even if it ends up causing unintended and massive suffering among civilians, maybe including its own. And if a military believes its adversary is probably going to use chemical weapons, it has a strong incentive to use them itself. After all, they’re fighting to the death.

So both sides of any conflict, not to mention civilians everywhere, are better off if neither of them uses chemical weapons. But that requires believing that your opponent will never use them, no matter what. And the only way to do that, short of removing them from the planet entirely, is for everyone to just agree in advance to never use them and to really mean it. That becomes much harder if the norm is weakened because someone like Assad got away with it. It becomes a bit easier if everyone believes using chemical weapons will cost you a few inbound U.S. cruise missiles."

The famous infamous progressive gap wideners.

Banks currently need to hold much more capital against exposures to “The Risky” than for exposures to “The Infallible”, and this even though “The Risky” already needs to pay higher interest rates, get smaller loans and accept harsher terms. That only hinders growth and widens the gap between the haves, the old, the history, the developed, “The Infallible” and the have-nots, the young, the future, the not developed, “The Risky”. 

Those who do not care about it, or even feel it is correct, are de-facto complicit of crimes against humanity. 

Among these we find some Nobel prize winners’ like Professors Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman. 

In UK some banker's knighthoods are being recalled, perhaps some Nobel prizes should be recalled too.

You, the young, you need to denounce these stodgy aprės nous le déluge baby-boomers.

Growing difficulties to enjoy the booty

During the recent meetings of the World Bank, as a result of the current mess surrounding its president Mr. Wolfowitz, some issues were unfortunately relegated to the background.

One of them refers to the announcement of the Initiative for the Recovery of Stolen Assets, which, together with other agreements such as OECD’s against corruption, shows how the world progresses, very slowly but safely, on the path of better global governance.

The ease by which until now thieves managed to hide their loot is shameful; sometimes even under the noses of their victims. There is of course still a long way for an initiative like this to become an effective instrument ... but perhaps in less time than what the outlaws in the world suspect.

Parallel to official initiatives, the technological advances that allow access, archive and send information is converting civil society, citizens, whether we like it or not, into real-time investigators. It’s not they are searching, but when they do see a knowingly corrupt, and have their cell phone with camera in hand, they will take a photo of him in his moments of enjoyment, which will swell the truth-files until these explode.

In the same way, all those concealment of ill-gotten goods services, to which some corrupt countries have been dedicated are becoming more expensive; as that international community of civil societies develops and understands they have all better row in the same direction, if they are to have a chance for survival on an ever shrinking planet.

Finally and observing how in Canada an ordinary court recently began a trial on violations of human rights (the genocide in Rwanda), the day should not be far away when one of those millions of emigrants in the world who have been much forced to emigrate as a consequence of corrupt acts by their rulers, could successfully sue one he finds enjoying ill-gotten money in their new alternative country. The tests you would need to enter your claims, would all be sent to you on the web.

Does the above threaten the sovereignty of nations? Sadly yes! So therefore it is always much better for nations to free themselves, sovereignly, from their own corrupt.

One of the 4,292,466 shadow citizens of a shadow nation. (Insolently there are still records to be scrutinized)

Translated from El Universal

Distinctively Alike

We so frequently hear about the importance of finding ones identity that sometimes we forget that our human reality is also to share so many identities and so that even though we should feel identified we also need to fight against being miniaturized and put into little boxes as is preached for better than none by Amartya Sen the Nobel Price in Economics who also a professor in philosophy, might also line up for a Nobel Peace Price.

Sen, in his most recent book Identity and Violence attacks vehemently those who seed divisions fomenting bad identities, quite frequently with bad intentions. From his own memories as a child in the India of the 40’s Sen remembers “the speed with which the broad human beings of January were suddenly transformed into the ruthless Hindus and fierce Muslims of July . . . hundreds of thousands perished at the hands of people who, led by the commanders of carnage, killed others on behalf of their ‘own people’”. Sen concludes that “Violence is fomented by the imposition of singular and belligerent identities on gullible people, championed by proficient artisans of terror”.

Unfortunately, Sen does not face difficulties finding more recent examples and Rwanda, Yugoslavia and even the prisons of Abu Graib are all places where terror find its origin in a “you know, they are so different from us”. Of course from Sen’s book to our Venezuelan reality of "pro chavistas and not chavistas”, those divisive and senseless identities that we did not even dream of less than a decade ago, there is too little distance for us not to feel deeply anguished.

Friends, let us at all times discredit those who try to instigate us buying into an identity that only looks to divide and let us instead search for with run-amok-humanity all those identities that unites us, like Venezuelan, fathers, mothers, children and our taste for arepas.

Friends, let us not allow anyone to divide us, in us and them, because as humans, in each one of us there is so much of them, and in each one of them there is so very much of us, and so that, at the moment of truth, we are all in fact distinctively alike. If this sound like a sure recipe for a collective multiple personality disorder, so be it, the mental health of our Venezuela depends on it.

Translated from El Universal, Caracas, June 1, 2006

PS. Social media, which allows polarization and redistribution profiteers to send out their hate and envy messages at zero marginal cost, has become social harmony’s worst enemy.

Other posts in which I started to fight odious polarization profiteers

Red and blue, or, red or blue

Communications in a polarized world