Global Financial Integrity

A 3-Day Conference Co-Hosted by ASAP, GFI & Yale

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Overview

Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP), the Yale Global Justice Program, and Global Financial Integrity (GFI) are proud to present Justice in Development. This conference will bring together academics, policy makers, activists, and artists to discuss two critical global justice issues: illicit financial flows and climate change.

Among the many distinguished individuals scheduled to speak are

• Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Columbia Earth Institute;
• James Hansen, Former Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; and
• Amartya Sen, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

Justice in Development will provide an opportunity for people of all backgrounds to educate themselves about climate change and illicit financial flows and the challenges they pose for development. For individuals already engaged with these issues, this conference will provide an opportunity to connect, hear new perspectives, and discuss future efforts for change.

Participation is free and open to all. You can submit questions to the conference team via e-mail to justiceindevelopment@gmail.com.

Video footage of the conference proceedings will be posted to the ASAP website after the event.

Click here to view a copy of the agenda and here to register for the conference.  Learn more about the conference on the ASAP website here.

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Topics

The conference program is divided into two portions, one dedicated to each issue.

Illicit Financial Flows

Global Financial Integrity estimates that annual illicit financial outflows from the economies of the less developed countries totaled $946.7 billion in 2011 (13.7% more than in 2010) and totaled $5.9 trillion cumulatively from 2002 to 2011, a sum many times greater than the total amount of official development assistance during that period. Facilitated by a lack of transparency in the global financial system, illicit financial flows reduce tax collection, drain hard currency reserves, heighten inflation, worsen income gaps, cancel investment, and undermine trade. They are, arguably, the single most damaging economic condition harming the global poor.

Illicit financial flows and their effects on development require immediate attention by experts and activists. Fortunately, a movement to bring illicit financial flows under control is emerging. This conference will bring together scholars and practitioners at the forefront of that movement to look to the future of and exchange ideas about what must be done next to bring this scourge under control. Panel topics will include future research priorities for understanding illicit financial flows; how to ensure that illicit financial flows are prioritized in the Sustainable Development Goals; and key policy processes for advancing financial transparency.

Climate Change

Efforts to bring climate change under control are in crisis. December will mark twenty years of annual climate summits under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and yet 2013 saw the fastest rate of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in thirty years. Thermal expansion and the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps and many of the world’s glaciers may cause sea levels to rise three feet before century’s end, according to the Fifth Assessment Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Emissions continue to track worst-case projections, eroding the chances of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celcius, the internationally recognized threshold for dangerous climate change.

People living in extreme poverty are outstandingly vulnerable to harm from natural disasters and climate-induced changes to the local environment, and yet their greenhouse gas emissions are in general relatively small. Future generations will also face diminished life chances as a result of climate change and are powerless to stop the damage. Commitment to basic fairness across national boundaries and across generations demands that we strive to bring this threat under control.

The months ahead may offer opportunities to put the pursuit of a global climate solution onto a new path. The inefficiency of the UNFCCC process has prompted UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to call together world leaders for a special climate summit, and in response, activists organized the largest climate march in history. In 2015, the international community will commit to a new development framework and a new climate change agreement, each off which has the potential to drive the dramatic emissions reductions we need. With our conference, we aim to provide to those leading efforts to confront climate change with the chance to discuss the road ahead and consider which actions are both realistic and radical enough to make a difference.

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Agenda

Friday, November 7

2:00 – 2:30 pm Opening Address

• Raymond Baker, President of Global Financial Integrity

2:30 – 4:00 pm Understanding Illicit Financial Flows: Research Priorities for the Future

• Dev Kar, Chief Economist at Global Financial Integrity
• James Henry, Senior Adviser to the Tax Justice Network
• Joe Kraus, Policy Manager for Transparency and Accountability at the ONE Campaign
• Moderated by Zorka Milin, Legal Adviser to Global Witness

4:00 – 4:15 pm Break

4:15 – 5:45 pm Securing a Place for Tax Justice and Transparency on the Post-2015 Development Agenda

• Niko Lusiani, Director of the Human Rights in Economic Policy Program at the Center for Economic and Social Rights
• Helen Dennis, Senior Adviser, Poverty and Inequality, at Christian Aid
• Jo Marie Griesgraber, Executive Director of the New Rules for Global Finance
• Moderator TBD

5:45 – 6:00 pm Closing

• Tom Cardamone, Managing Director of Global Financial Integrity

Saturday, November 8

9:00 – 10:30 am Civil Society Perspectives on the Outlook for Change

• Zorka Milin, Legal Adviser at Global Witness
• Tom Cardamone, Managing Director of Global Financial Integrity
• Harold Crooks, Writer and Director of The Price We Pay
• Moderator: Miguel Pulido, Executive Director of Fundar

10:30 – 10:45 am Break

10:45 – 11:40 am Presentation of Amartya Sen Prize

11:40 – 11:45 am Remarks

• Amartya Sen, Thomas W. Lamont University Professor at Harvard University

11:45 – 12:45 pm Lunch

12:45 – 1:45 pm Address

• Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University

2:00 – 2:45 pm Address

• Jaap Spier, Advocate-General of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands

2:45 – 3:30 pm Address

• Simon Caney, Professor of Political Theory at the University of Oxford

3:30 – 3:45 pm Break

3:45 – 4:30 pm Address

• Ellen Gabriel, Indigenous Human Rights Activist

4:30 – 5:15 pm Address

• Anthony Leiserowitz, Director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication

5:15 – 5:30 pm Closing

Sunday, November 9

10:00 – 11:00 am Address

• James Hansen, Director of the Program in Climate Science, Awareness, and Solutions at Columbia University

11:00 – 11:15 am Break

11:15 – 11:45 am Address

• Mitu Sengupta, Associate Professor of Politics at Ryerson University

11:45 – 12:30 pm Address

• Andrew Light, Senior Adviser to the Special Envoy on Climate Change in the US Department of State

12:30 – 12:45 pm Closing

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Notes

• This event is made possible by support from the Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Memorial Fund.
• Image Credit: UN Photo / P Mugabane