UAE's Royal Injustice

The Times, The Times January 13, 2010

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Sarah Ebner

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In many respects, especially in comparison with its neighbours, the United Arab Emirates should prompt optimism. It at least represents an economic and political alternative — including Islamic banking — to the systems of Riyadh and Tehran, founded in their different ways on theocratic absolutism. As such, it has an important role to play in integrating the Muslim world into the global free-market system.

For that reason, the UAE’s internal affairs are especially significant — making this week’s acquittal of a prince extremely disappointing. In fact, it would be hard to invent a case that exposed the UAE’s justice system to greater ridicule. In 2004, Mohammed Shahpoor, an Afghan grain trader, was struck with an electric cattle prod, beaten with whips and a plank of wood with a nail in it, and run over by a car at a desert location. Sand was shovelled into the victim’s mouth and several shots fired at the ground around him. The incident was videoed, and one of the torturers was revealed as Sheikh Issa.

But this week Sheikh Issa, who is the son of the founder of the UAE and a half-brother of the President, was acquitted of all charges. The judge did not explain the acquittal, saying that the reasoning would be published later. A lawyer for the sheikh argued that his client was in fact the victim: two former business associates, apparently, had drugged Sheikh Issa then shot the video to extort money from him. It was a version of events that appears to have been good enough for the court.

By bringing together the twin threads of nepotism and the abuse of human rights, the Issa case raises central concerns about what goes on beneath the UAE’s oil-rich veneer. It also prompts the wider question: how stable, and sustainable, are the Gulf societies and economies on which the Western consumption of oil depends?

There are signs that the UAE’s familial system of government is beginning to creak — at home and abroad. In the aftermath of the Issa case, Jim McGovern, a US congressman, has called for a freeze on US government aid to the UAE. And the controversy has delayed recertification of a US-UAE nuclear power co-operation agreement. The UAE may have saved one of its favourite sons — but at a political price.

The closed-shop mentality has caused problems at home, too. The near-collapse of Dubai World, which could have crippled the emirate, has raised serious questions about corporate governance. It took a reluctant bailout from Abu Dhabi to keep Dubai’s singular economy afloat.

The UAE has successfully handpicked some elements of the free market. Fifty years ago, the UAE was an economic backwater that relied on fishing and a declining pearling industry. But its economic miracle, essentially a gushing oil fountain with a luxury casino floating on the top, has been achieved without many of the social institutions on which sustainable capitalism usually depends.

“Commerce and manufactures can seldom flourish long”, argued Adam Smith, “in any state which does not enjoy a regular administration of justice.” The UAE may turn out to be a case study of his hypothesis.

If Smith was right — and capitalism does rely on justice — then the acquittal of Sheikh Issa exposes a faultline in the Gulf that cannot hold indefinitely.

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