* On March 20th, the ECAAR Business Council held an event on the topic of "Corporate Principles for Conflict Prevention and Resolution." ECAAR's Treasurer, John Tepper Marlin, is leading an ECAAR effort to develop principles for corporate behavior with the objective of preventing and
resolving conflicts, similar to the Global Sullivan Principles, which called for multinational companies to play a role in the advancement of human rights and social justice. The goal is to create principles that could lead to standards against which multinational corporations could measure their
contribution to international sustainability. If the project is successful it would lead to auditable standards that could be certified by an organization that is internationally accredited.

Some of the principles might include support of the UN, taking steps toward avoiding acts that contribute to violence and human-rights abuses, and developing procedures that will contribute to conflict resolution within their companies and the communities in which they operate. These
principles, which have already been examined for multinationals in the extractive industry (which cannot relocate and are therefore long-term network with the countries where they locate), could include commitment to conflict-minimizing training of corporate security personnel, avoidance of
use of military personnel for security and so forth.

The Business Council event, held at Lehman Brothers offices in Manhattan, was attended by about 30 business leaders. After discussion, several of the attendees committed to work on the project.

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* Want to know exactly where your taxes are going? Check out ECAAR's Security Policy Working Group partner, the National Priorities Project website. With their InteractiveTax Chart you enter the amount of tax you paid in 2002, and it tells you how much went for military spending and how much for other budget categories. There is also a section on tradeoffs: you can see your state's share in the spending for the war in Iraq, nuclear weapons or ballistic missile defense, and compare that with other things that money might buy.

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**CALL FOR PAPERS** for the ECAAR sessions at the 2004 ASSA/AEA meetings in
San Diego, January 3-5.

ECAAR solicits suggestions for papers to be presented at the two ECAAR sessions at next year's ASSA meetings, to be held in San Diego California. The themes for the two sessions are: "Toward Real Homeland Security" and "International Peacekeeping and Peacemaking." ECAAR members with specific expertise in these fields are cordially invited to submit paper proposals, which may be routed to Kate Cell and should be submitted by May 1, 2003. The sessions will combine invited and\ contributed papers. Contributions that cannot be accommodated at the regular sessions may be asked to prepare a poster for a poster session, which we hope to hold during the ECAAR General Meeting.

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*PUBLICATIONS COMING SOON*

*Arms Trade Offsets: Theory, Policy, and Case Studies, edited by Jurgen Brauer and J. Paul Dunne, has been accepted by Routledge Publishing. The book is to be published as part of its Studies in Defense Economics series. It should be available in mid-2004. The book contains papers given at the conference on "Defense Offsets and Economic Development" in Cape Town, South Africa, September 25-27, 2002. The event was co-sponsored by ECAAR-US with funding from the Ford Foundation, ECAAR-South Africa, National Research Foundation South Africa, Institute for Social and Systemic Change, Port Elizabeth, SA, Centre for Conflict Resolution, School of Economics,
University of Cape Town, and the Middlesex University Business School. More information about the conference is available at http://www.ecaar.org/Articles/offsets.htm

*Teaching Peace: Nonviolence and the Liberal Arts has been accepted by Rowman & Littlefield publishers, Inc. http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com/. The book should be available later this summer. This is a collective volume by Bluffton College (Ohio) faculty in various liberal arts to share the ways that their discipline can be used to teach peace and to speak to current peace and warissues. ECAAR member Ron Freisen has contributed a paper entitled "Applications of Economic Analysis to Issues of War and Peace."

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*CURRENTLY AVAILABLE ECAAR PUBLICATIONS*

* The ECAAR Review 2003. This year's edition is titled, "Conflict or Development?" and has a regional focus on Africa, the site of most of the world's current armed conflicts. In its pages some of the leading economists of the day analyze and reflect on the relationships among military spending, domestic and foreign policy, security, and human welfare. Features include country studies and sections on business and conflict and "Trends in World Military Expenditure." Written in clear English, with informative maps, tables, and graphs, the series is designed to inform the
debate among policymakers, activists, journalists, academics, students, and citizens worldwide.

*You can order the Review at http://www.ecaar.org/Review_files/order.htm

*We believe the Review can be a valuable teaching tool in economics,political science, and international relations courses. If you are interested in teaching this book, please contact Kate Cell
for a copy to review.

* "The Full Cost of Ballistic Missile Defense." The study estimates that the total life-cycle cost for a layered missile defense system could reach $1.2 trillion through 2035. You can order a copy of the report from the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, the co-sponsor of the study.

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*ACTION CORNER*

*ECAAR seeks members interested in responding to one of a series of surveys. The results will be used to prepare a concise communicators' handbook for promoting responsible, effective US global leadership. Questionnaires on Weapons of Mass Destruction, Energy Policy, Global Development, and the US Global Role are available at http://www.ecaar.org/RBF/survey.htm. For more
information, contact Kate Cell.

*Anyone who would be willing to put an ECAAR flyer up on a departmentalbulletin board or similar venue, please contact Thea Harvey, Development Manager.

* HR 737, the Corporate Patriot Enforcement Act, is officially summarized as: "A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to prevent corporate expatriation to avoid United States income taxes." Even while America is involved in a costly war, a loophole allows many of the country's wealthiest corporations to shirk billions of dollars in taxes. Every year, about $70 billion dollars in revenue are lost from American corporations that have moved their corporate headquarters or subsidiaries to places like Bermuda, and from wealthy individuals moving their assets overseas. To get a sense for the size of this theft -- this is the size of ALL the state budget deficits that are creating cutbacks in school programs and difficulties meeting the requirements of the new unfunded "homeland security" mandates for local police, fire and hospital services. To call your Congressional Representative or Senators and urge them to bring this bill to a vote, click here and enter your zip code.

* A "Clean Diamond Trade Act" has been introduced in Congress (H. R. 1415 IH). The bill supports the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme and its goal is to eliminate the importation of rough diamonds without proper certification. The bill has gone to committee, but you can still call your
representative and ask him/her to support the legislation. To read the bill, follow this link. To find contact information for your Congressional representative, click here.

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We would like News Notes to be a way for ECAAR members and our community to keep in touch. In future issues we will include, if you send them to us, notices on events and publications that you are involved with.
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If members would like to have ECAAR-related activities listed in the next issue of the ECAAR NewsNet, our print newsletter, please submit information to Lucy Webster by April 21st.

*UPCOMING EVENTS*

*5 - 7 June 2003: International Confederation of Associations for Pluralism
in Economics (ICAPE) conference on "The Future of Heterodox Economics" at
the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
http://www.econ.tcu.edu/econ/icare/main.html

*June 5-10, 2003: "The Changing Nature of Peace and War" Summer Symposium,
hosted by Women in International Security . Washington, DC.
http://www.idealist.org/events/74966/82617

*June 26th to 28, 2003: the Seventh Annual International Conference on
Economics and Security, sponsored by ECAAR-UK at the University of the West
of England, Bristol, UK.
http://carecon.org.uk/Conferences/Conf2003/CONF2003.html

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