The Garibay Institute’s Founder Fernando Garibay At The United Nations Conference Of The Parties (COP28)

How Music Could Preserve Traditional Knowledge of Indigenous Peoples

Originally Published on TheMessenger by Fernando Garibay and James Cooper

Amauta Indigenous People take part in a ritual of gratitude to Mother Earth in Bolivia on Nov. 8, 2023.JORGE BERNAL/AFP via Getty Images

Recent reports of the lithium “gold rush” trampling Indigenous rights in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile are no surprise. Long a victim of unrestrained extraction, systemic discrimination, and cultural imperialism, Indigenous Peoples around the world have suffered from chronic underdevelopment. They have shorter life spans, are more prone to illness, and languish in poverty more than non-Indigenous Peoples do. This is true throughout Latin America but also for the First Nations in Canada, Native Americans in the United States, and Aboriginal Peoples in Australia, as well as other parts of our planet.

Even more troubling is that with centuries of colonization, pillaging of natural resources, and rampant urbanization, the Traditional Knowledge of Indigenous Peoples, cultivated from millennia of co-existence with their environment, is at risk of being lost. Without celebrating, archiving, preserving, and extending their collective wisdom and legacy, we face the loss of their profound wisdom, a possible tragedy to the detriment of all of humanity.

Music can play a critical role to counter this potential outcome. Long the primary technology and conduit for the preservation and stewardship of Indigenous innovation, music historically has been the language of Indigenous Peoples to share their cosmovision. Those who have inhabited the Amazon basin transferred their innovative ways for human survival and approaches to sustainable development through a musical dialogue with the actual fauna and flora. Indigenous Peoples have long been the voices of our environment; it is time we all started listening.

It is no secret that we are all experiencing unpredictable disruption of our environment, punctuated by increasing glacial melts, attendant rising seas, flooding, land erosion, soil depletion, hurricanes, fires and other catastrophic climate events. Many around the world are struggling to achieve or create a more conscious way of life and, in this context, it is our responsibility to not disrupt or destroy Earth’s most vulnerable communities, especially the Indigenous ones.

Working with stakeholders and cultural leaders from around the world, we are building a musical project for this year that brings in Indigenous voices. As global capital seeks new green technology to reverse the trends affecting our climate, we have much to learn from Indigenous Peoples and aim to engage a new generation of artists. New channels that encourage harmonized traditions and facilitate dialogue are critical. Music as a conduit for connecting us can be a major factor. By coupling the wisdom and technology of Indigenous music with the novel aesthetics and mechanisms that are prevalent in pop, hip hop, and electronic dance music, we can transcend languages, cultures, and even economic models.

But we need the participation of everyone who wants to honor the past and be a co-creator of a sustainable and creative future. There is still time to make a difference. In the dwindling rainforests throughout our planet there exists secret technology, unique methodologies that leverage music as a conduit for stewardship of ancestral and cultural best practices. Our natural environment has its own symphony. Corporations, impact investors, family offices, philanthropic foundations, and individuals need to listen more to Indigenous Peoples and to their pleas for more sustainable approaches to human development.

But these efforts have to be sustainable, not just the development itself. We have seen enough feel-good initiatives that start and end with a big event. Events like COP 28 and other do-good initiatives are just a start. The world’s largest and most successful corporations are welcome to join the movement of restoring the balance disturbed by major commercial initiatives and their impacts. They helped to facilitate our lives, to empower the capital, and now can be of great assistance in finding solutions — even at a profit — to solve the challenges we face.

This initiative will help us all. It moves beyond traditional corporate quarterly earnings results and into seven generations of impact and planning. As we struggle with the future of artificial intelligence, we must reconnect with what makes us smart: Learning from the wisdom of the past. In this we can be post-Industrial and pre-Industrial all at once.

Our planet’s Original Nations who populate the rainforests, wetlands, highlands, coastal lowlands and, too often, the cities because of deforestation and chronic underdevelopment, deserve better. The transformative power of music can help bring back balance, and it feels so good too.

Fernando Garibay is a hit record producer and the founder of the Garibay Institute, a global creativity think tank.

James Cooper is a professor of law at California Western School of Law in San Diego and vice president of the Garibay Institute.

Celebrating a quarter-century of anti-bribery law

Originally Published on THE HILL BY JAMES COOPER AND FERNANDO GARIBAY, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS - 02/14/24 11:00 AM ET

On Feb. 15, 2024, it will be 25 years since the Anti-Bribery Convention went into force among members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a leading multilateral institution dedicated to the development of policies and the setting of international standards that bring prosperity, equality, opportunity and well-being for all members of society in all countries. One of the scourges that prevent the attainment of these goals is bribery, the corruption of public authorities for private gain.

There is much data that proves corruption sucks resources, lessens efficiencies, creates distrust in public institutions, diminishes the tax base, and tears at the fabric of the social contract in general. While estimates vary, according to the World Bank Group, corruption around the world is estimated to cost more than $2.6 billion — 5 percent of the global gross domestic product — annually. It is no wonder that corruption breeds conflict and abets political dysfunction.

In short, bribery and corruption are a cancer and place impediments in front of sustainable development and economic growth. In the face of this, a quarter-century ago countries, large and small, worked together to hammer out a treaty that criminalizes corruption and ensures that those involved in these illicit activities are investigated, prosecuted and sentenced to prison.

The Anti-Bribery Convention builds on the pioneering work of the United States in this area of rule of law. Long before Europe legislatively recognized that there was a bribery problem among its multinational corporations, the U.S. Congress passed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1977, outlawing payoffs and other advantages provided to foreign public officials by U.S. persons and listed companies. It took almost 25 years for the rest of the developed, northern-industrialized world to get on board, to develop transnational rules that proscribe this abhorrent behavior.

Finally, the OECD treaty provided for a level playing field in the international business environment. Until then, payoffs, bribes and other rent-seeking behavior were actually used as business expenses in many countries, deducted from taxes owing. This was, to say the least, an unfair business practice and acted as a competitive advantage in international procurement processes for European countries; it put U.S. businesses at a disadvantage, because only they could not bribe foreign officials to win contracts.

Officially called the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, the OECD treaty required signatory countries to criminalize bribery of foreign public officials. By criminalizing acts of offering or providing bribes to foreign public officials by companies or individuals, this international agreement focused on the supply side of bribery. The Anti-Bribery Convention also provided an open-ended monitoring system to make sure that the international obligations that all countries agreed to are actually implemented in their respective domestic legislation.

While the treaty was signed in December 1997 by members of the OECD (fundamentally by developed countries with modern economies), over the years all 38 member countries have signed and implemented the treaty. Another seven non-member countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Peru, Romania, Russia and South Africa, have ratified or attorned to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention. Yes, even Russia and South Africa — neither paragons of probity, fiscal exactitude or good corporate governance — have signed on.

Corruption disrupts international trade benefits, creates a culture of lawlessness, and undermines trust in public authorities. It is also economically inefficient as it adds transactions costs that get passed along supply chains, injuring consumer welfare and putting at risk product safety and public security. There is a reason why 190 parties signed on to the United Nations Convention against Corruption in 2003.

These last 25 years have been important to stem corruption, but as we have seen in so many cases — from Japan’s military procurement graft case in the 1970s, to “Operation Car Wash” in Brazil a decade ago, and to the “Fat Leonard” scandal in the U.S. just a few years ago, to name a few — this is an ongoing problem that is not going away any time soon.

All members of the international community should sign, ratify, deposit and implement the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention in their respective domestic legislation regimes. Only by snuffing out corruption can the benefits of free trade, sustainable development and economic growth be enjoyed across all societies. Trust in government officials and confidence in public institutions help build a system for accessing remedies and sanctions for bad behavior. It is the backbone of the rule of law. And bribery and corruption corrode the rule of law.

James Cooper is professor of Law at California Western School of Law in San Diego, where he serves as director of International Legal Studies. Fernando Garibay is an award-winning record producer, polymath, and founder of the Garibay Institute.