Jack Turner EPQ

Is it fair for the UK to prevent developing countries from exploiting people and resources when the UK’s development hinged on such exploitation?

Introduction

Kaldor states, “The division of the world into rich and poor areas is known to be the cumulative result of differences in the compound rates of economic growth”. 1

Throughout the development of the UK, many exploitative methods were used in order to achieve this growth. These methods include, slavery, deforestation, pollution, child labour, colonisation, overfishing, mining the land and more. However for the purpose of this project I will focus specifically on deforestation, slavery and colonisation. In order to answer this question I will define what is meant by fair, I will look into how the UK used these exploitative methods to develop and then I will research how other countries are using the same methods in order to aid their development now. I will evaluate what the UK’s response is to these countries’ exploitative methods and discuss, using the definitions I have found, whether or not the UK’s response is fair.

The dictionary definition of “fair” is for something to be free from bias, dishonesty and injustice. Another definition is when something is done without trying to achieve 2

unjust advantage. This definition fits the theme of my question as, if one country is 3

taking action to prevent another country from improving economic development, it could be in order to “gain unjust advantage” for themselves. Based on these definitions I will evaluate whether or not this is the case when it comes to the UK preventing other countries from using exploitative methods to aid their development.

Nicholas, Kaldor, CAPATALISM AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT: SOME LESSONS FROM 1

BRITAIN’S EXPERIENCE, The Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 1, No. 2, (1977) pp. 193-204

Fair, Dictionary.com, http://www.dictionary.com/browse/fair 17/10/172

Fair, Oxford Dictionary, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fair 17/10/173

RESEARCH

What did the UK do?

Deforestation

As the UK was going through the agricultural and industrial revolution, a large amount of forest was cleared in order to provide enough land for farming, providing food for the nation, and mining, providing fuel for the industrial revolution. Around 20.1% of land in England and Wales is suitable for farming activities. In 1000 BC, 4

long before there was a large population in the UK, trees covered 90% of this usable land. In 1 AD it is estimated that trees only covered 59.4% of usable land showing a 5

large decrease in the number of trees in Britain. However, by this stage, Britain was 6

yet to become developed, as we now know it to be. This trend continued and by 1850, trees only covered 1.9% of usable land, as a result of the UK becoming an industrialised global powerhouse. This figure has become even smaller today. 7

Deforestation is an example of exploiting the environment, as it removes ecosystems, affecting native animal life, and reduces a vital source of oxygen for the earth. However, deforestation was key to the growth of the United Kingdom. Agriculture and industrialisation were the main reasons for this deforestation as it was necessary to provide enough land to grow crops and build factories, these industries were the main industries at the time in the UK, without which development would have been severely hindered.

Kaplan, Jed O., Krumhardt, Kristen M., Zimmermann, Niklaus, THE PREHISTORIC AND 4

PREINDUSTRIAL DEFORESTATION OF EUROPE, (Elsevier: 2009) page 3023 Table 3

ibid5

ibid6

ibid7

�

Slavery

One of Britain’s most prominent examples of exploitation is the use of slavery. Slavery provided the wealth for many companies to start in Britain and many of these companies became companies that we now know today. An example of this is the Heywood Bank owned by the Heywood family who were slave traders. The Heywood Bank was founded in 1773 and was purchased by the Bank of Liverpool in 1883. 8

Over time the bank was sold on and is now listed as a founding bank of Barclays bank according to their website. This shows that although companies that started using the 9

wealth generated through slavery may not be around today, their legacy lives on through modern companies and without them many companies may not be the same. Another example of the importance of the slave trade to the industrialisation and development of Britain is the development of the steam engine by James Watt, which was financed by the slave trade. The steam engine played a key role in the industrial 10

revolution by hugely increasing productivity. This shows that the slave trade was likely a vital part of the development of Britain, without which we may not be where we are today.

The UK never held less than 40% of the world share of slaves traded. Between 1791

Tree cover on Usable land (%)

0

22.5

45

67.5

90

100BC 1AD 1850

Tree cover on Usable land (%)

Eric, Williams, CAPITALISM & SLAVERY, (University of North Carolina Press: 1944) p. 998

Founding Banks and Building Societies, Barclays, https://www.archive.barclays.com/items/browse?9

type=21 06/08/2017

Eric, Williams, CAPITALISM & SLAVERY, (University of North Carolina Press: 1944) p. 10210

and 1805 the UK held a 52% share of the 1.22 million slaves traded. Furthermore, 11

the average annual value of the slave trade in Britain was just under £1 million a year at £971,000 per year. This is equivalent to over £142 million today. Drescher 12 13

states, “Slave labor produced sugar and most of the other luxury goods that first reached a mass consumer market, particularly in England, and that therefore contributed to the labor incentives needed for English industrial work discipline.” In the US the situation with slave trade and an example of the value of slave trade to the development of the UK and US is that in 1860, the slave trade was worth 80% of the US GNP equivalent to $9.75 trillion today. 14

Colonisation

The United Kingdom ruled over the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947. Churchill stated, “its possession made all the difference between being a first and third-rate power.” By 1880 India was the destination for nearly one fifth of British exports, furthermore, India’s export value went from £23 million in 1855, before the UK colonised it, to £137 million in 1910. At the beginning of the 18th century India 15

had a 23% share of the world’s economy. However, by the time the UK left India this share had dropped to 4%.

Furthermore, the industrial revolution in Britain was “built on the de-industrialisation of India.” For example, when industry heads realised the potential to develop a 16

strong textile industry in the UK, cheap raw material from India was imported to the UK in order to be processed and transformed into higher value goods. These were then sold to satisfy internal demand and fulfil the huge need for these goods throughout the British Empire, including India.

What are other countries doing?

Deforestation in Brazil

Drescher, Seymour, Econocide : British Slavery in the Era of Abolition, (University of North 11

Carolina Press 2010) pp. 64

ibid pp.10512

1791 Pounds in 2017, http://www.in2013dollars.com/1791-GBP-in-2017?amount=1000000 13

07/09/2017

Drescher, Seymour, Econocide : British Slavery in the Era of Abolition, (University of North 14

Carolina Press 2010) pp.19

Ronald, Hyam, BRITAINS IMPERIAL CENTURY, 1815-1914, A STUDY OF EMPIRE AND 15

EXPANSION, THIRD EDITION (Palgrave Macmillan UK: 1976) p. 35

View Point: Britain Must Pay Reparations to India, BBC, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16

india-33618621 10/10/2017

Nowadays there are many examples of deforestation in developing countries. I will look at deforestation in Brazil. Cattle ranching, agriculture and mining are the main contributors to this deforestation. Cattle ranching currently accounts for 80% of deforestation rates. Brazil produces one quarter of the global cattle market with over 200 million cattle . This shows how important the cattle ranches are to the Brazilian 17

economy as they supply a very large portion of Brazil’s total exports. Minerals in the Amazon rainforest are estimated to be worth US$50 billion per year to the Brazilian economy. For example, around 10 tonnes of gold is extracted from the Amazon per year equating to 20% of all of Brazils gold industry. Soybean farms make up a large 18

proportion of the agricultural industry in the Amazon rainforest. In an article written by journalist Scott Wallace from National Geographic there was an example of a soybean farm that has exported close to two million tonnes of soybeans over the farm’s lifetime. Brazil’s total export value is over $191 billion; over $14 billion of 19

this is from animal exports like cattle, $22 billion from mining exports, $8 billion from raw agricultural materials and $22 billion from food products. 20

Russia Annexing Crimea

In 2014, Russia seized the Crimean P e n i n s u l a from the Ukraine. The reasons why P r e s i d e n t Putin decided

Cattle Ranching in the Amazon Region, Tale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, http://17

globalforestatlas.yale.edu/amazon/land-use/cattle-ranching 19/09/2017

Bruce Parry’s Amazon: About the Journey – Brazilian Gold, BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/amazon/18

sites/braziliangold/pages/content.shtml 25/07/2017

The National Geographic Archive: 2007, National Geographic, http://19

environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/last-of-amazon/#page=4 02/11/17

Brazil Country Profile, World Bank, http://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/BRA 10/10/1720

Brazil's Total Exports

Animal ExportsMiningRaw agricultural materialsFood products

to do this are somewhat unclear, however an article in Foreign Affairs magazine entitled “Why Putin Took Crimea” sheds some light on the situation. The author of this article states three reasons why this action was taken, the first being a response to the threat of NATO’s further expansion along Russia’s western border, preventing the dangers of the Ukraine’s government joining NATO or Kiev evicting Russia’s Black sea fleet. The second being that Putin wants to recapture the former territories of the Soviet Union and the final being that after the fall of Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, Putin saw the opportunity and made an impulsive decision to Annex Crimea. The threat that the presence of NATO in Crimea was definitely a large 21

reason for the annexation, Ivan Katchanovski states, “the NATO membership of Ukraine was an unacceptable threat to the security of Russia”.22

Overall I conclude that the annexation of Crimea was an opportunistic move that was intended to improve national security and increase wealth through the acquisition of territory.

Exploitation of Cheap Labour in China

In 1995-6 the legal minimum wage in China was between 120 and 440RMB per month, which was equivalent to $0.09 - $0.33 per hour at the time. As a result of these low wages, by 1994, China was the second largest receiver of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the world, receiving more than $300 billion per annum. When a survey of 1,066 foreign investors in China was conducted, it was found that 91.89% of them were drawn to China as a result of this cheap labour. According to the 23

China Labour Bulletin, in the year 2000 there were an estimated 11,575,000 children between the ages 10 and 14 working in China. “In many instances, punishments for factories found using child labour is simply not enough to outweigh the advantages of using children.” 24

Why Putin Took Crimea, Foreign Affairs Magazine, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ukraine/21

2016-04-18/why-putin-took-crimea 10/10/2017

Katchanovski Ivan, Crimea: People and Territory Before and After Annexation, (E-International 22

Relations Bristol, UK, 2015)

Fei-Ling, Wang, CHINESE LABOR MARKET IN THE LATE 1990s, Journal of Contemporary 23

China

Child Labour Causes and Solutions, Child Labour Bulletin, http://www.clb.org.hk/en/content/child-24

labour-china-causes-and-solutions 17/10/17

What is the UK doing to prevent exploitation in these countries?

Brazil

The UK is currently spending £10 million in order to prevent deforestation in Brazil. This is only a small part of £300 million out of a £2.9 billion fund that has already been spent on stopping deforestation in developing countries. 25

Russia

After Russia annexed Crimea, the West (including the UK) responded with many economic sanctions. According to the NATO Review Magazine there were three sanctions put in place. “The first restricts access to Western financial markets and services for designated Russian state-owned enterprises in the banking, energy, and defence sectors. The second places an embargo on exports to Russia of designated high-technology oil exploration and production equipment. The third is an embargo on exports to Russia of designated military and dual-use goods.”26

China

Article 32 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child states, there should be a minimum age for admission to employment, appropriate regulation of the hours and conditions of employment and have appropriate penalties or other sanctions to ensure the effective enforcement of the present article. This is an agreement that the UK 27

Britain Spends £10 Million to Stop Deforestation in Brazil, Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/25

news/earth/environment/climatechange/8933910/Britain-spends-10m-to-stop-deforestation-in-Brazil.html 15/10/17

Sanctions after Crimea: Have they Worked, NATO, http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2015/Russia/26

sanctions-after-crimea-have-they-worked/EN/index.htm 10/10/2017

Convention on the Rights of the Child, United Nations, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/27

ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CRC.aspx 17/10/17

has signed and agreed to. The UK is now holding companies responsible for buying products from suppliers employing children.28

Are the actions the UK is taking unfair towards these developing countries?

Brazil and the UK

Is it fair for the UK to prevent Brazil from cutting down their rainforests when the industries that stem from this activity are so prolific? As my research shows, the UK is currently spending £10 million in order to prevent the deforestation in Brazil. The industries that would be hit by a reduced level of deforestation are worth over US$66 billion, which makes up 35% of Brazil’s total export value. The reason the UK is trying to prevent deforestation is that preservation of the Amazon rainforest will positively impact climate change since trees can process carbon dioxide and turn it into oxygen. This may be a positive for the world as a whole as the effects of climate change are estimated to cost up to $25 trillion if we continue as we are now. The $66 29

billion potential loss of revenue for Brazil is hugely outweighed by the global potential loss. However, is it right that Brazil is on the receiving end of this potential loss when the UK did exactly the same thing to develop? In fact, now trees cover less that 2% of usable land in the UK, surely the UK should take some of this loss as well.

Even though there is a reduction in the amount of deforestation, the UK is not competing in the industries that Brazil is losing out on, therefore I don’t think that the UK is doing this in order to gain an unjust advantage but solely in order to protect the wellbeing of the earth as a whole. This leads me to believe that in this case the UK is not treating Brazil in an unfair way by this definition. On the other hand, the fact that Brazil has a worse loss than the UK for the same act shows a lack of justice and therefore this is unfair on Brazil.

Although the UK is preventing Brazil from expanding these specific industries, there are other areas where the UK is aiding the Brazilian economy. For example, in 2013 the UK was the fourth largest investor in Brazil with $61 billion worth of

Banning Child Labour Imposes Naïve Western Ideals on Complex Problems, Guardian, https://28

www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/aug/26/ban-child-labour-developing-countries-imposes-naive-western-ideals-complex-problems 17/10/17

Climate Value at Risk, Climate Journal, http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n7/full/29

nclimate2972.html 12/10/17

investments. Although in my opinion I do not believe that this was in order to 30

benefit Brazil but solely to benefit UK firms, as there was a total of £2.5 billion in net primary income earned as a result of this FDI. Furthermore, this investment is from private firms rather than money invested in the Brazilian economy by the UK Government. These private firms could be taking away from the possible profits of local firms, for example Brazil plans on providing sanitation services to all of its population by 2033 and to do this UK firms will partner with Brazilian firms to design and build the necessary sewage or water systems. This is good for Brazil as there will be improvements in infrastructure, but the contracts for the Brazilian firms to develop this infrastructure would be shared with UK firms so therefore income for Brazilian workers and firms is limited. This leads me to believe that although there is investment in the Brazilian economy by UK firms, it is not enough in comparison to the loss from the depleted industries.

Russia and the UK

One of the main reasons that the UK’s wealth is as large as it is now is due to the large number of countries that it once colonised. India was one of the largest parts of the British Empire and “its possession made all the difference between being a first and third-rate power.” Although the economy in India grew while it was part of the 31

British Empire, it was mainly being used to further the development of the UK. I found that the industrial revolution in the UK was “built on the de-industrialisation of India.” 32

Despite the fact that the UK’s development was so dependent on colonisation, when countries now try to expand and colonise other countries the UK now makes them pay huge reparations. For example, when Russia annexed Crimea there was sanctions put in place that the UK agreed to. Russia is restricted from trading on the Western financial markets, state owned companies can’t access many services, there is an embargo on Russian exports involving high-tech equipment from the oil industry and an additional embargo on military equipment. These sanctions led to a recession in 33

Exporting to Brazil, Gov.co.uk, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/exporting-to-brazil/30

exporting-to-brazil#uk-and-brazil-trade 8/10/17

Ronald, Hyam, BRITAINS IMPERIAL CENTURY, 1815-1914, A STUDY OF EMPIRE AND 31

EXPANSION, THIRD EDITION (Palgrave Macmillan UK: 1976)p. 35

View Point: Britain Must Pay Reparations to India, BBC, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-32

india-33618621 10/10/2017

Sanctions after Crimea: Have they Worked, NATO, http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2015/Russia/33

sanctions-after-crimea-have-they-worked/EN/index.htm 10/10/2017

Russia shown by a 2.2% decrease in Russian GDP growth in the year 2015, represented in the following diagram of Russian GDP growth rate.34

�

On the other hand, the UK has never had any economic consequences as a result of colonising India or any of the countries that were previously under the rule of Britain. In this way, given that for the same act the UK had to pay no price, and Russia had to pay a huge price. this is unfair.

However, according to some, the UK may not deserve to receive any punishment for colonising India. It is argued that the benefits that the UK brought to India outweigh the costs. One of these benefits is the English language: “The British did offer English as a unifying language, which certainly helped the survival of Indian democracy.” 35

Not only did the English language help the Indian democracy but it still helps India now. Outsourcing is heavily used in Bangalore where many call centres have been set up. If English wasn’t widely spoken, call centres wouldn’t be as easily established so in some ways colonisation of India has helped. However, this is only one small section of the Indian economy and it is difficult to say that the hugely reduced share of the world economy is counteracted by this gain.

One problem with the data I have collected is that it can be easily misinterpreted. For example, I found that at the beginning of the 18th century India had a 23% share of the world’s economy but by the time the UK left India this share had dropped to 4%. 36

Russia’s Weakness, A Divided World, http://www.adividedworld.com/economic-ideas/russias-34

weaknesses/ 10/10/2017

Viewpoint: Why Britain Does Not Owe Reparations to India, BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/35

world-asia-india-33647422 26/10/17

View Point: Britain Must Pay Reparations to India, BBC, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36

india-33618621 10/10/2017

This could say that the UK made India worse off. However, it could also show that other countries were booming at this time. The UK economy was expanding rapidly at the time and this was the case for many countries. This means that the world’s economy was more widely distributed and therefore this doesn’t necessarily mean that India became worse off.

It could also be argued that the method by which the UK colonised India was different to the way that Russia annexed Crimea, as Russia was more hostile in their approach. Furthermore there is a difference between annexation and colonisation. Annexation is where one country takes part of or the whole of another country to be their own, colonisation is where control is established over the native people of a country, but the country isn’t officially part of the ruling country.

Although the approach was different there is no doubt that the intentions were the same. The reason that the UK colonised India was to gain security by having more power and to gain wealth from the acquisition of India. The intention of Russia was exactly the same, a power move to gain security and to increase the countries wealth.

In my opinion, the consequences that Russia has had to pay for annexing Crimea are deserved, but unfair. What happened was a crime, but it is not fair that the UK, who did the same to other countries by colonising them, did not face any consequences themselves. The difficulty with punishing the UK for their acts now is that they were so long ago that the people affected in the first place are no longer around to receive compensation and the countries, like India, that were negatively affected have recovered and grown since the time that the UK left them. It would be difficult to calculate the total economic loss as a result of the colonisation of India, as India could have grown exponentially and became an economic powerhouse even more so than it already is now, but it may also have fallen behind in the world if industrialisation had not been introduced by the UK. Therefore it is hard to say whether or not India is in a better place now than it would have been if it were never colonised. For this reason it is difficult to determine if the UK should be required to pay reparations to India or not.

China and the UK

Slavery funded much of the development in the UK. I found that James Watt, inventor of the steam engine, obtained his funding through the slave trade. Slavery was cruel. 37

It is estimated that the number of slaves transported was around 10 million. The 38

conditions they had to endure were dire and it has become clear that the slave trade was very wrong. However, when it comes to cheap labour or child labour in countries like China, I found that the UK has agreed to sign article 32 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states, there should be a minimum age for admission to employment, appropriate regulation of the hours and conditions of employment and have appropriate penalties or other sanctions to ensure the effective enforcement of

Eric, Williams, CAPITALISM & SLAVERY, (University of North Carolina Press: 1944) p. 10237

Joseph E, Inikori MEASURING THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE, The Journal of African History, 38

Vol. 17, No. 4 (1976), pp. 607-627

the present article. This is ironic considering the fact that the development of the UK 39

was so dependent on the slave trade. Child labour is bad, and while it isn’t slavery, it is appropriate that it has been outlawed. If China had not made moves to protect children it may have been able to advance even faster than it already has.

The economic value of the slave trade was incredibly large, with the annual value of the slave trade just between 1791 and 1805 being over £142 million pounds in today’s currency. It is also clear that the UK was one of the main offenders of the slave 40

trade as they held over 40% of the world slave trade throughout the years that slavery was prominent. This shows that the UK can’t erase this from its history. It also 41

shows the importance that the slave trade had to the development of the UK.

It could be said that China did advance hugely due to this cheap labour, like the UK did with slavery, as China has become one of the largest economies in the world. However, we don’t know how big China’s economy could have been if cheap labour and child labour was still present. The reason that this cheap labour leads to such large growth is because it attracts firms to China, which then means that China has a larger amount of investment in the country and more countries would want to buy Chinese goods. I found that by 1994 China was the second largest receiver of FDI in the world, FDI was more than $300 billion and in a survey of 1,066 foreign investors in China 91.89% of them were drawn there as a result of this cheap labour. This is also 42

the case however with the UK, it may have also been able to develop more if labour costs were still so low due to slavery, but the abolition of slavery meant that we will never find out. Although this is not a problem as slavery was a terrible act.

The reason that the UK decided to sign article 32 is because we have realised our mistakes in the past and don’t want it to happen again. The UK isn’t trying to make labour more expensive in China in order to compete with them, but in order to aid the living and working conditions in China. This tells me that the UK isn’t trying to gain an unjust advantage over China so in this way what the UK has done is not unfair.

Furthermore, the increase in wages in China is not only due to the reduced child labour and increased laws surrounding the labour market. It is actually mainly due to the fact that China is no longer a labour surplus country. To add to this there is also an increasingly ageing population. “In 2009 there were 167 million over-60s in China,

Convention on the Rights of the Child, United Nations, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/39

ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CRC.aspx 17/10/17

Drescher, Seymour, Econocide : British Slavery in the Era of Abolition, (University of North 40

Carolina Press 2010) pp. 105

ibid. pp. 6441

Fei-Ling, Wang, CHINESE LABOR MARKET IN THE LATE 1990s, Journal of Contemporary 42

China

about an eighth of the population. By 2050 there will be 480 million.” This means 43

that there is less working age population and this is why labour supply is falling. Less labour supply means that wages can be bid up, however the wage rates are still much lower than European or American wages. Interestingly, the wages in China have risen enough for it to be worth investing in other countries with cheap labour, such as Cambodia.

On top of this, not only did the UK sign the Convention on the Rights of the Child but China also signed the convention on the 29th of August 1990, one year after it was made. The Convention was officially ratified on March 2nd 1992. This shows that 44

the UK and other UN members were not trying to enforce the convention onto China. However, China may have been pressured to sign it, as it would make the country look bad if they rejected the Convention.

This leads me to believe that the UK’s contribution to signing the Convention on the Rights of the Child had a miniscule effect on the wage rises in China. Not only did China agree to the Convention, but the increasing ageing population in China is also putting pressures on the supply of workers in the economy. Therefore it can be said that by signing the convention, the UK was trying to realise their mistake in breaching human rights in their own past by stopping it from happening again, not in order to negatively impact China. On top of this, neither the UK or China have had any real consequences for the past breaches of human rights so the UK did not have an advantage here, therefore it is fair. However, the fact that neither country had to pay reparations for using child labour or slavery is not fair to the families and people affected by either. Although the situation with slavery is different to that of child labour, as it is the exploitation of their own people in China so there is no other country or people group to pay reparations to but for the UK, slavery exploited people from other nations so it would be easier to argue that there should be some reparations.

Conclusion

There is no specific method or guidebook for how countries develop. However, when we look into the past we can see that many of the activities that contributed to the development of countries were exploitative. So if there were a list of specific methods that could be used to develop a country, they would likely be exploitative based on the experience of the past. It is the current developed countries that have created this list or “guide”, so why when a developing country tries to follow this “guide” are they punished?

In some cases the reason for laws, regulations or punishments being put in place are deserved, but there is a difference between having a deserved punishment and a fair

Rising Wages in China and Consequences, Tutor2U, https://www.tutor2u.net/business/blog/rising-43

wages-in-china-causes-and-consequences 27/10/17

Treaties, United Nations, https://treaties.un.org/pages/viewdetails.aspx?44

src=ind&mtdsg_no=iv-11&chapter=4&clang=_en 27/10/17

punishment. Fairness can only be decided with a comparison and it doesn’t have to do with the punishment one country receives, but the punishment that all countries in question receive.

When I looked at the example of deforestation, I found that the UK has already deforested near to all of its usable land, less than 1.9% of usable land has tree cover in the UK. Brazil has also been deforesting their land for the same reasons that the UK 45

deforested its own land; to create more usable land. However, the UK was allowed to deforest all of their land and is now spending millions to prevent Brazil from doing the same. It is right to try and stop deforestation as it leads to an increasing rate of 46

climate change. However, given that the UK deforested all of its land it is not fair that Brazil can’t do the same. Although it may be unfair to Brazil for the UK to take this action, it seems necessary due to the current situation with climate change looming over the future of the Earth.

On the other hand when I looked at the example of child labour and slavery in the UK compared to China, I found that both countries exploited either child labour or slavery in order to kickstart their development. The UK has signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which inhibits the use of child labour. This is the right thing to do, as children should be in school not in work. Furthermore, it is also fair as it applies both to the UK and to China. The use of slavery in the UK did accelerate development but the same happened in China through the use of cheap labour. Given that both had the same benefits, it is fair to both countries if cheap child labour and slavery is banned. However, I have found that this particular example may be less valuable to my conclusion, as the UK didn’t impose anything on China. It was China that imposed these laws on itself.

The UK’s use of colonisation to accelerate their development is a controversial issue. I found that when Russia annexed Crimea there were very serious economic sanctions. There were violent protests in the area and the way that Russia handled the situation left some protestors dead. In my opinion Russia’s actions should result in 47

punishment. However, for a very similar situation the UK has still received no punishment and has had to pay no reparations for the colonisation of India or the many other countries that were part of the British Empire. This is unfair in my opinion as I found that the industrial revolution in the UK was at least in part “built on

Kaplan, Jed O., Krumhardt, Kristen M., Zimmermann, Niklaus, THE PREHISTORIC AND 45

PREINDUSTRIAL DEFORESTATION OF EUROPE, (Elsevier: 2009) page 3023 Table 3

Britain Spends £10 Million to Stop Deforestation in Brazil, Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/46

news/earth/environment/climatechange/8933910/Britain-spends-10m-to-stop-deforestation-in-Brazil.html 15/10/17

Two Die in Rallies Outside Crimean Parliament, Kyiv Post, https://web.archive.org/web/47

20140226214735/http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/two-die-in-rallies-outside-crimean-parliament-says-ex-head-of-mejlis-337708.html 28/10/17

the de-industrialisation of India.” The punishment that Russia received for their acts 48

was therefore deserved but unfair.

Based on my research it has become increasingly clear that the UK’s development relied significantly on the exploitation of people and resources, without which the UK might not be the global powerhouse it is today. It is also clear that the UK is taking action to prevent developing countries from using the same exploitative methods to accelerate their own development, which is unfair. While this is unfair, the exploitative actions of the UK in the past should not justify other countries’ acting in the same way. The fact that UK has benefited significantly from exploitation does however raise a moral obligation for the UK to provide significant assistance to developing nations to progress using alternative means as compensation.

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