The Week of April 11th, 2016

Care

1. A good deal to be desired

EU migrant deal

The European Union and Turkey reached a controversial deal last month on the Syrian refugee crisis. The deal includes automatic deportation of illegal Syrian refugees in Greece to Turkey and the one-for-one policy, which stipulates that for every Syrian refugee sent back to Turkey from Greece, a European country will accept and house one refugee from Turkey. Such an endeavor requires mobilizing many officials and resources, and the feasibility of the project has been questioned. Some countries, such as Poland and Hungary, sharply criticized the EU’s relatively open response to the refugee crisis.

In return for signing onto the agreement, Turkey will receive several benefits from the EU. The country will receive €6 billion (to be used as aid for the refugees), and Turkish citizens will be granted access to the Schengen zone. Turkish officials hope that the deal will “re-energize” Turkey’s EU membership appeals, especially considering the criticism the Turkish government has been receiving for increasingly strict censorship and its refusal to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide.

The deal was touted as a diplomatic win for German Chancellor Angela Merkel and as a display of Turkey’s leadership. There has, however, been backlash to the deal, mainly stemming from concerns over refugees’ safety in Turkey. Turkish laws are not do not comply with the Geneva Human Rights Convention, and Iraqi and Afghan refugees do not have the same status as incoming Syrian migrants, who have “special status” because of the Syrian civil war.

While there are many unaddressed concerns about the deal, the EU has pushed forward with the deal, adopting a trial-and-error approach. EU officials hope that, if the deal is successful, it may inspire other countries to open their doors to refugees. Ultimately, the goal for both parties, Ms. Merkel says, is to “help, above all, those most directly affected—the refugees.”

2. Less than meets the eye

Goldman Sachs settlement

Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, reached a settlement with America’s Department of Justice regarding its participation in practices that contributed to the financial crisis, including the issuing, packaging, and sale of subprime mortgages to investors. The settlement totals just over $5 billion and consists of a $2.385 billion civil penalty and $1.8 billion in aid for distressed borrowers. It also forces Goldman to admit wrongdoing. The settlement is the latest in a series of penalties levied against Wall Street firms in connection with the financial crisis. JPMorgan Chase, Citibank and Bank of America have already settled for $16.6 billion, $7 billion and $13 billion respectively.

Critics argue that the settlement is too lenient. The $5 billion penalty represents just a fraction of Goldman Sachs’s annual revenue and contains various loopholes and incentives that may reduce the total payment, such as receiving additional credit for distressed borrower relief and community investment. The settlement payments are also tax deductible, which may reduce the company’s tax liability by several hundred million dollars. In total, the incentives and tax benefits cut the total settlement value by an estimated $1 billion.

3. A bitter pill to swallow

Northern Irish abortion

A Northern Irish woman was sentenced to a three-month jail sentence after she pled guilty to inducing her own abortion. A judge in Belfast handed down the sentence, which will be suspended for one year, nearly two years after the woman’s housemates told police the woman had induced a miscarriage. The defense barrister argued that his client, who was 19 at the time of the abortion, felt isolated and desperate at the time. Without the money to travel to England, where abortions are legal, the woman was forced to order drugs online to induce the miscarriage.

Unlike in England, where abortion is legal up to 24 weeks under the Abortion Act 1967, abortion is “unlawful” in Northern Ireland. This policy adheres to the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, which was modified in England but remains strict law in Northern Ireland. Rape, incest, and fatal fetal abnormalities are not circumstances in which abortions can be performed legally, though the High Court recently ruled this was incompatible with the human rights of women. This law, however, can only be changed by legislators, which appears to be politically improbable for now. This flies in the face of a recent Amnesty International poll, which found in 2014 that 69% of the population thought abortion should be legal in these extreme cases. Several groups have recently made public statements critical of this antiquated abortion policy. Among many other voices, Northern Ireland’s largest trade union, Unite, has called for an end to the criminalization of local women who take abortion pills.

4. Failing the grade

Chicago police

It’s been a tumultuous year for the Chicago Police Department, from revelations of a secret interrogation site at Homan Square, to the officer-involved shooting death of Laquan McDonald, to the dramatic firing of Commissioner Garry F. McCarthy. On Wednesday evening, things promised to get even worse. A panel appointed last year by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in the wake of city-wide protests over Mr. McDonald’s death issued a blistering report detailing systemic and institutional racism in the Department. “The community’s lack of trust in CPD is justified,” the executive summary reported. “There is substantial evidence that people of color – particularly African-Americans – have had disproportionately negative experiences with police over an extended period of time.”

To many in Chicago’s African-American community – which constitutes about one third of the city’s total population – the report comes as no surprise. But for an already-embattled Emanuel administration and a police department evidently struggling with community relations, the report has been a bombshell. Among its findings: the department shoots detains, arrests, uses force against, and tasers black residents at disproportionate rates; the civilian review board tasked with investigating department violations routinely fails to do so; and officers have repeatedly lied about incidents involving the use of force. The executive summary makes for a quick and jarring read; Politics & Policy recommends it.

5. Courting controversy

Chinese gay marriage case

Following up on our coverage of a Chinese district court’s unexpected first encounter with an anti-discrimination lawsuit, a judge ruled against the plaintiffs’ right to marry in a succinct three hour hearing on April 13th. During the proceedings, Sun Wenlin and his partner Hu Mingliang seemed frustrated but unsurprised as the judge repetitiously cited China’s Marriage Law of 1950, which refers to marriage only in terms of “man” and “woman”. However, as Mr. Sun pointed out to deaf ears, “the fact that marriage between a man and a woman is legal does not suggest that marriage between two men is illegal.”

More important than the kangaroo court’s expected verdict was a large turnout of hundreds of gay rights activists outside the courthouse. Interviews with a number of these activists, many of whom waved small rainbow flags and are seeking non-traditional marriages themselves, revealed a sense of shared struggle, inspiration, and hope. The reaction to the case on Chinese social media was likewise immense and unusually uncensored. According to the Associated Press, this kind of open coverage “[reflects] early signs of shifting social attitudes in China on the topic of sexual orientation” Even if China’s legal norms remain socially traditional and stagnant, Mr. Sun and Mr. Hu are giving impetus to an inceptive Chinese social consciousness and tolerance towards the LGBT community.

Don’t Care

0. Giving up the ghost

Paul Ryan’s non-campaign

Of all the observers concerned with the alarming state of the Republican primary race, perhaps none are more anxious than Republican party elites. Leading candidates Ted Cruz and Donald Trump have put the Republican establishment directly in their sights, and voters have responded by giving them enormous delegate leads for the nomination. Perhaps it is understandable that the establishment is looking for a hero – a “White Knight” who can lead the party in a more palatable manner. Most often, the white knight mentioned has been Paul Ryan. Mr. Ryan seems like the perfect politician to save the party. He is young, well-liked by the party’s splintered factions – a fact which contributed to his appointment as speaker – and has relatively establishment-friendly views.

However, there are several catastrophic issues with Mr. Ryan as the nominee. The simplest is “Rule 40,” passed to stop Ron Paul’s nomination in 2012, which stipulates that the nominee must have won at least eight states. Even if this rule is voided, many are afraid of what might happen if the party so brazenly ignores the will of the voters. Mr. Trump warned that such a scenario could lead to “riots” in the convention, and he has eerily begun to support allowing guns onto the convention floor. Certainly, Cruz and Trump supporters would forsake the party by the millions if they were dismissed, even if violence were to be avoided. The biggest obstacle to Ryan 2016, however, is Paul Ryan himself. He stated repeatedly that he has no desire to be the nominee and would decline if nominated, even calling a press conference this week explicitly to forcefully say that he does not want the nomination. Although it is hard to imagine that the establishment would nominate him, his nomination is just too good a twist for some in the news to give up, and the ghost of Ryan 2016 may haunt editorial columns until the end of the race.

Sophie Chen, Daniel Ruswick, Philip Straus, Will Kirkland, Daniel Sacks, and Jose Trejos contributed