Communism, Settler Colonialism and the American Way: Reflections on Independence Day Remarks of President Trump at Mt. Rushmore and Mayor Mamdani in New York City

 

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July 4 is celebrated in the United Sates as Independence Day--the day when the Continental Congress is said to have ratified the Declaration of Independence. In past years I have posted U.S. Independence Day  reflections to this site (here. here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here) as a way to commemorate the event and celebrate the holiday.

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For this year I again offer a reflection. This year the focus is on President Trump's July 3th message to the nation from Mt. Rushmore (Transcript: President Trump Remarks at Mount Rushmore, Jul. 3, 2026) and Mayor Mamdani's equally interesting message to the nation from behind the desk once used by George Washington in New York City (Transcript: Mayor Mamdani’s Address Marking America’s 250th Birthday). The text of both addresses follow below. They are twins of sorts.They are best understood as the  quintessentially American form of creating in the other a sort of semiotic monstrosity against which each offers themselves as some sort of advance guard of protection and a core of leadership whose guidance will bring the uninformed and undeveloped masses to an appropriate relationship with the essence of the4 meaning of their relationship to power and society. Each, in their own way continue the process of peddling the sort of Leninist oversight the trajectories of which have only accelerated since the end of the 19th century, and the naming of which honors the Soviets who were first able to develop what ultimately become a pathetically failed effort (like that of the Cuban proteges today) of a style of governance that appears at its most ruthlessly successful when encased in the Priestly Leninism of an (Iranian) Mullah-Mamluke state or as practiced in the more dynamic and culturally sensitive version of Marxist Leninism as practiced in China today (for Iranian Leninist constitutionalism here; for Chinese Marxist Leninist constitutionalism here). 

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American liberal democratic Leninism, like the politics of the United States, is, if anything, a study in contrasts. It is more than that. Those contrast converge around the art, psychology and semiotics of "othering"-- people, religion, ethnicity, race, sex, habits, size, diet, car choices. . . . it doesn't really matter, the "othering" is what matters. There is no shame in othering and it has no affinity to political. social, cultural, ethnic, racial, or other categories form and through which "othering" becomes both sport and politics--with social consequences and Leninist aspirations (in the sense of using  othering in the service of identifying what passes in the United States for vanguards of social, religious, political, academic or other forces all eager to lead and guide everyone else toward whether ideal has captured their fancy or through which they have come to order the world and insist that everyone else partake in the glory of that vision). the political left or right, whether from the position of social expectations or religious premises, race, or something else. . . it doesn't really matter, the "othering" is what matters.  Education may supply the language; it is not a predicate for the convergence of the habits of othering that have become, in a sense, the great identifier of the American spirit in 2026. 

That becomes clear when one compares two political figures who might be styled exemplars of the art of othering--not just each other--but as a means of signifying actions, events, and characteristics as the spyholes through which worlds can be constructed, concepts and objects can be signified, and the "other shoe" of othering--its fatal attraction to the Leninist impulse to view humans as clay (and dumb or uneducated, or unenlightened lumps of possibility) that may be molded to suit some vision or other than they assume each embodies.  Yet the self-appointed drivers of American values, belief, actions, expectations, different in every generation but always interested in influence--of belief, of the ordering of a rationalization of (political but also social and economic) of reality and thus its forms of approaching challenging and envisioning an ideal (the signification of the otherwise abstracted notions that constitute the normative framework of the Republic). 

 

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From a semiotic perspective the speeches are remarkably similar. Each invokes old political-cultural objects and signifies them in ways that align with underlying foundational presumptions about an idealized version of the United States that then serves as the basis through which one can elaborate those expectations, including expectations of belief, that then serves as a means of othering heretics and identifying apostasy.  In this case they seek to other each other and in the process invoke the very sort of Leninist settler colonialist palette that each finds useful when deployed against the other. Settler colonialism, usually deployed as a semiotic fetish in shaping discourse and the significs of power relations among differentiated groups within and among polities (especially among certain political elements of intellectual elites and their claques but by no means limited in its utility to them and their narrow political-social-cultural agendas), might also be thought useful as a way of framing, more generally, the dynamics of settler-indigenous relations not just historically but as a contemporaneous expression of the political-social-cultural consequences of migration as a function of particular ways of approaching the meaning and application of core abstract concepts of a liberal democratic polity as populations are displaced, engorged, and thus transformed. It is migrant-colonialist in the sense of the notion that waves of migrations have an inherent or natural right or expectation of embedding their own signification of politics-economic-religion etc, into the territories which they then occupy or gather in. At its limit it suggests the assimilation of indigenous populations into the lebenswelt of migrants; but it also is embedded in the idea of migrant contributions to (re)shaping their lands of settlement through the contributions of their own cognitive cages into and now as part of the fabric of an expanded indigenous colonial space. It is Leninist in the sense that it also embraces the notion of vanguard leadership the purpose of which is to shape or direct  (and accelerate) this process of political reshaping of indigenous socio-culture to suit a re-imagined ideal that is the product of this assimilation. 

For the President that colonialist experience became hard wired with the founding of the Republic; for New York's Mayor settler colonialism is an ongoing experience  lubricated by and through waves of migration  that reshape the Republic more to their liking. Each then defines patriotism with respect to their sense of the temporality of settler colonialist power. 

The Mayor's settler colonialism is worth a little more examination if only because it raises some interesting issues the resolution of which  may not be possible (or may expose the subtextual premises or objectives that drive analysis). It is possible to read in the Mayor's text the suggestion that colonialism is shaped differently in every generation and in context, but that that migration represents a form of settling colonialism that is very much in the spirit of the founding ideology of the Republic--which itself is, for him perhaps, grounded in the notion of constant revolution driven by waves of migrants who reshape the Republic in a sort of dialectic with the indigenous population into which they are embedded or will displace (the latter for example in the subtext of the discursive oddity of identifying and counting discrete groups as objects signifying power to project and impose cultural-social-economic-and political norms against shifting collective ideals).  What makes the Mayor's settler colonialism good is the conceit that the waves of migrants were forced to the Americas against their will in one way or another. Notice the passive voice: "For generation after generation, we have been told that when the world has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent its best." Any yet that appears to be, one might suggest, the traditional patterns of migration of peoples all over the world. It is a thin reed indeed to distinguish similar consequences from migration--indeed it is not intent but perhaps effect that might be a useful additional consideration. In any case, the New York Mayor consciously represents the ruling forces of such displacement as an elite (and therefore leading element) of the  the newer waves of colonialist migration (as he mentions) in which role one can view that collective as a vanguard element of the rationalizing reshaping of the Republic more in the image of that current wave of colonialist migration. He represents good settler colonialism among as opposed to others against some of which he has campaigned. 

 The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional because here, nothing is fixed into place. The frontier may be closed, we may have walked on the moon, but the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence — that work endures and it belongs to us all. It belongs too to our newest Americans, those standing here with me today, all of whom were recently naturalized. Nearly a decade ago, I too felt what you feel, the joy of no longer being just a New Yorker, but an American too. You each hold a special power, the power to determine what America means. (Mamdani Remarks)

The President references a colonialist experience locked in time: 

You do not have to be born here, but you do have to love what we have built. You must love our country. There has never been anything like us anywhere on Earth, and we are not going to let anyone take that away. . . . Yet, as we approach this magnificent anniversary, we see our American identity under a renewed attack. A generation after we fought and won the Cold War against the menace of communism, there is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success. . . As for those who peddle Marxist lies about our heritage, tell our children that we live on stolen land or that our heroes were oppressors, they’re doing something much worse than slandering our past. They are slandering and attacking our future. Not going to let that happen. They’re trying to tear down the great American character to destroy the people who declared independence, who crossed the Delaware, who settled the West and conquered the skies. You know who those people are. But we will never let that happen. (Trump Remarks)

These then shape their sense (the semiotics) of patriotism, and in the process provide a window onto its political expression within  the MAGA and Democratic Socialist (both so-called) camps.  For the New York Mayor it follows that the Republic, as a function of migration as a constant, is a social-ethnic state of settler colonialist revolution/transformation, in the style of Trotsky:

There are some who respond to those who ask for more from America with a simple refrain. “Love it or leave it,” they say. But patriotism has never been about pretending our nation is without flaws. Patriotism is every act of righteous dissent. It is every march led under the heavy sun. It is every protest held a decade before its time. It is precisely because we love this nation that we will not leave it. After all, who loves America more than those who have sacrificed so much to make it free?(Mamdani Remarks)

For the President, this  state of transformation and dialectic, and certainly one grounded in the inherent transformative nature of migration, is  the essence of subversion:

For generations, it was understood that the core patriotic duty of every American was to pass this culture on to our children and to preserve the nation for centuries and centuries to come. But in recent years, there’s been an undeniable attempt to change this exceptional character, to beat the American spirit out of us, alienate us from our history, and to make it impossible to even answer the question, what does it mean to be an American? (Trump Remarks)

And both embrace quite distinct significations of the fundamental principles that each extracts from the founding documents. That is the most fascinating part of the comparison--the evocation of common text into which are infused substantially distinct significs made possible because the grounding cognitive starting points of each is to some extent largely incompatible--and deliberately so.  

Taken together one begins to see the shape of the Republic that may be emerging. It is one in which old text objects have been revivified as the representation of contemporary desire; in which the impulse of settler colonialism remains strong--especially in newer waves of migration, and in which the impulse to identify and vest authority in vanguards of leading social forces that are dedicated to reshaping the cognitive cages in which the Republic knows itself, and against which contemporary deviance is monitored, assessed, and corrected, appears as string now as when these notions first came into modern style play after the violence of 1861-65. The United States will no doubt emerge the stronger for it; yet semiotically it will also emerge as something that, true to itself, will redefine its present by recasting its past toward a reimagined future  solidarity with which will distinguish future patriots from counterrevolutionary or subversive forces that recertification of whom will engage our new leading forces. 

 

Secretary Rubio Terminates Legal Status of Cuban Communist Foreign Influence Operative

 

 

 This week, three Cuban nationals were apprehended by federal agents following Secretary Rubio’s termination of their legal status. Carlos Antonio Lloga Dominguez – who spent more than a decade working as a foreign subversive for the Communist Cuban regime’s premier influence and intelligence front group in the United States – and his wife and son are now in federal custody pending removal from our country. Lloga Dominguez spent more than a decade employed by the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People (ICAP). He has continued to maintain ties to the transnational communist subversion network throughout his time residing in our nation. (Press Statement: Secretary Rubio Terminates Legal Status of Cuban Communist Foreign Influence Operative )

What makes this interesting is not just that the migration and residence status of certain individuals was terminated as a function of their relationship with a sanctioned at least formally civil society organ, but that the template it creates will be as usefully applied elsewhere as it has been applied to the Cuban situation.  It is a template that can be used with respect to anyone involved in the domestic operations of any entity, whether or no so formally constituted, that is designated as an organization that might be sanctioned under authority vested in the Executive branch or otherwise. In the case of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People (ICAP), for subversive activities, on 4 June 2026 (see here). The only thing that is left, and one that is politically charged, especially in the current efforts to discredit courts  (using their own actions) as political instruments of domestic (or foreign) factional politics. 

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 The Cuban Institute of Friendship with the People (ICAP) is of a type that is well known globally, the structure, objectives, and functioning of which might be understood to owe its inspiration from the quite brilliant work of the Communist International before the start of the wider theater of war in Europe in 1939, now refined to suit the times. In its current form and following the Chinese model elaborated in its current form with, for example, the Belt & Road Initiative, it is focused on people to people exchanges in ways that promote solidarity and more intimate and positive relations among peoples and people's collective organizations.  It is from these that the spirit of those exchanges can then be projected inward. That model applies not just between Marxist-Leninist and liberal democratic entities but also within the broad Marxist-Leninist camp as well (example here). 

It is i  this sense that organizations like ICAP might be understood by some to be both embedded within the constitutionally protected web of discourse in liberal democratic states and also aligned, or connected, with extra-national elements including elements connected to state organs of other states. There is nothing inherently wrong with this in liberal democracy, though in Marxist-Leninist States like Cuba and China those connections would be viewed as anti-patriotic, subversive and to a large extent illegal within their domestic legal orders and certainly within their normative and ideological ordering. Much of the discussion in liberal democracy centers on transparency--that is, the source of the "speech acts" that are projected into one way or another the Republic. And transparency is intimately connected with liberal democracy's abhorrence of fraud, deception and manipulative practices (though of course every application is more or less uniquely contextual and every principle is riddled with exception).  Suppression, as in this case, requires subversion or other acts that the political organs of the United States  deem inimical to the political health of the Republic or in the service of its interests, domestically and abroad, and always subject to the intervention of the courts, though, again, here too judges  with less than total fidelity to neutrality in their choices of interpretive position harm that institution as much as they may advance their own ideologically important (to them) ideological interpretive cage. This later point, is deeply embedded into the fabric of the Republic and its operation. Though it suggests consequence (as it has since the 1790s), it does not suggest that those consequences are necessarily or invariably structural or fatal in their effect. . . .  in the longer run. But it also suggests that the nature and presumptions of cross border exchanges, even those undertaken by and through state organs, directly or indirectly, are no longer, as they were at the start of the century, presumed benign actions. One can expect both greater scrutiny and more action by all states.

 The text of the 4 June Sanctions designation of ICAP follows below also with the Department of State Press Statement on the Termination of Legal Status. 

The Limited Edition Patriot Passport for the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence

 

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Officials in the United States announced the availability of a limited edition "Patriot Passport" as part of the memorabilia commemorating the 250th anniversary of the formal declaration of independence issued by the representatives of representatives of colonial powers assembled in a continental congress in 1776.  It is part of a broader effort to reduce the challenge of obtaining a U.S. passport.

As the country heads into the Fourth of July weekend, President Donald Trump unveiled a new rendering of a special commemorative U.S. passport bearing his portrait to mark America's 250th anniversary. "The U.S.A.’s New Passport, which says, 'Welcome, but be good!'" Trump wrote alongside the designs in a June 26 post on Truth Social. The new passport shared by Trump features an image of him standing over the Resolute Desk with the text of the original Declaration of Independence in the background and his signature on the bottom on one of the pages, while the other page has an image of the "The Declaration of Independence" painting by John Trumbull. The White House also shared an image of the new passport with the caption: "PATRIOT PASSPORT." (USA Today).

The text of Secretary of State Rubio's announcement of the Patriot Passport at a Reception for the Consular Affairs Patriot Passport Launch follows below and may be accessed HERE. Its semiotics was quite elegantly rendered by the Secretary of State in those remarks:

There some features in here that a lot of people haven’t picked up on yet but you’ll notice as you work through it. We have these – well, I don’t know if you guys are going to care about it or not, but when you flip the pages – when you – I can’t flip the pages. When you flip the pages, this image here will start to move, so you’ll see it’s like a moving image along the way. But here’s the coolest part. I know, isn’t that amazing? (Laughter.) Who invented that?

But the one thing that’s not a feature on this yet but will be a feature in the future – again, I’m giving away a lot of great secrets. But there’ll actually be like a QR code attached to it. So each one of these images that are on here – and they’ll be different for the permanent passports – will have a QR code. And when you go on that QR code, it will prompt you to like a video presentation of that moment in American history. And so what we’re thinking is that because flights are so often delayed, people are going to be bored out of their minds – (laughter) – and they can go on the QR code and it will pull up these key moments in American history, which obviously will continue to be replenished and added. (HERE.)

More information about the passport and its availability follows below and may also be accessed here. 

 

Another Effort at Mandatory Human Rights Due Diligence: "Commercial Organisations and Public Authorities Duty (Human Rights and Environment)" Bill (2026)

 

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 It is always interesting to see examples of the now almost 20 year effort to transform the 2nd Pillar (corporate responsibility to respect) human rights due diligence provisions of the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights into a First Pillar (state duty to protect) set of corporate legal obligation overseen through regimens of regulatory supervision and judicial intervention (on thios effort and its relñaiton to the UNGP, see,  Backer, Larry Catá, Human Rights Due Diligence in the U.N. Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (May 04, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5241321 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5241321). A recent effort, long in the making, comes form the United Kingdom. Introduced to the House of Lords as a Private Members' Bill (Starting in the House of Lords) by the Baroness Young of Hornsey, the Commercial Organisations and Public Authorities Duty (Human Rights and Environment) Bill means to provide yet another national effort at the legalization of human rights due diligence.  It is described this way: 

Long title: A Bill to place a duty on commercial organisations and public authorities to prevent human rights and environmental harms, including an obligation to conduct human rights and environmental due diligence, in their own operations, subsidiaries, and value chains in line with international standards; to make provision for civil liability, access to justice for victims, an enforcement body, penalties, and a criminal offence for failures to comply with the duty; and for connected purposes.

It is not an unusual effort. It seeks to effectively subject relevant entities to obligations and penalties for violations of rules, norms, and measures that may not constitute legal obligations within the UK's domestic legal order. It extends the regulatory scope of administrative organs deeply within the micro decision making context of economic enterprises; it erodes notions of privity grounded in a strict liability regime sounding in tort (human rights and environmental impacts) that loosens standing rules in a manner similar to those embraced under OECD proceedings, and extends the reach of the provisions extraterritorially.

 One can make what one likes from this effort--driven by politicos, ideology, norms, pragmatism and the like. What it is not possible to argue is that the UNGP itself either requires legalized mandatory human rights due diligence, or that the UNGP has established the ideal form the human rights due diligence is to take beyond the general framework provided.

What emerges from a close reading of the UNGP with respect to HRDD may be summarized this way. First, HRDD is to be distinguished from State efforts to create a legal basis for HRDD within their domestic legal orders. HRDD was designed as an expectation, routed in core behaviors of enterprises in markets and relating to their economic activities. Second, HRDD exists autonomously of whatever legal frameworks a State may should to embrace or ignore with respect to a State’s binding obligations under international law, or which may be absent from or an element of a State’s domestic legal order. Third, HRDD in the 2nd Pillar is put forward as a /lexible framework. It was not written as or in substitution of legislation. It is not meant to be read as law, but rather as operating instructions that are grounded in discretionary decision making, in /lexible processes, and in contextual variation. These variations revolve around the organizing core of the HRDD process— the foundational objectives of UNGP Principles 11-15. But a simple transposition of the UNGP
HRDD Principles into and as law is unrealistic. Fourth, States are free to transpose whatever parts or forms of HRDD that they, in accordance with their democratic processes, deem worthy of inclusion in their domestic orders. That transposition can take a variety of forms and be manifested as law, regulation, policy, or encouragement. The transposition may be limited to the spirit of HRDD as manifested in the UNGP’s 2nd Pillar, or it may be a faithful transposition of its terms and operating rules. One would necessarily expect that national mandatory HRDD regimes would vary, and sometimes vary widely, as a function of the political-economic system of the legislating State. Fifth, whether to not transposed into law as a mandatory measure of some kind, HRDD is intimately connected with the State duty to protect human rights. The State duty exists autonomously of, and is grounded in norms and expectations that may vary widely from, the uniform rules, norms, and expectations on which HRDD processes and objectives are grounded. But with respect to States HRDD serves as a critical instrument for ful/illing its duty in contextually relevant ways. Whatever that may be, what clearly emerges is that HRDD constitutes a critical element of a State’s smart mix
of measures, and that those smart mixes may vary widely from State to State and still adhere to the spirit of the UNGP. Sixth, HRDD is also intimately connected to the Access to Remedy provisions of UNGP Principles 25-31. The remedial provisions are an integral part of the critical objective of HRDD to prevent and mitigate actual or potential adverse impacts where possible, and to provide remedy as quickly, fairly, and directly as possible in the circumstances. (Backer, Larry Catá, Human Rights Due Diligence in the U.N. Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (May 04, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5241321 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5241321)

 The text of the Bill follows below. 

Just Published: Iuris Dictio Dossier N° 37: Educación jurídica en América Latina: retos y desafíos

 

I am delighted to pass along notice of the publication of Iuris Dictio vol. 37 (June 2026; e-ISSN 2528-7834).  

Juris Dictio es una publicación arbitrada que se orienta al estudio del Derecho. Su objetivo es difundir investigaciones originales y recientes que contribuyan al análisis y discusión del complejo fenómeno jurídico.Con el objetivo de que el debate se difunda de modo extenso, periódico y en el marco de una academia internacional socialmente responsable, Iuris Dictio se publica de manera semestral y todos sus artículos son de libre acceso y circulación.La revista fue fundada en 1998 y etstá adscrita al Colegio de Jurisprudencia de la Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ. Se basa en la filosofía de Artes Liberales y, en tal virtud, acoge a especialistas de diversas instituciones y experiencias académicas como parte de su equipo editorial.

En su afán de entender al mundo contemporáneo, la revista intenta que cada uno de sus números conjugue el análisis generalista del Derecho con la espe-cialización requerida por determinados temas jurídicos, a través de la publicación de artículos y reseñas innovadores y de calidad por parte de personas interesadas en el quehacer académico. Iuris Dictio se orienta a un público especialista en el Derecho. No obstante, la sección de Entrevistas busca tener un alcance más divulgativo que apunta a que personas que no necesariamente conocen a profundidad el derecho puedan acercarse al quehacer jurídico.

This issue includes a set of articles on legal education pedagogy:

El presente dossier recoge cinco aportaciones de académicos reunidas fundamentalmente entorno a dos líneas de estudio, a saber: i) la promoción de estudios trans e interdisciplinarios en la formación jurídica y, ii) nuevas metodologías en la enseñanza del derecho que promuevan la investigación y adquisición de destrezas comunicativas como forma de acceso a la justicia. Cada uno de los artículos seleccionados ofrece desde diversas perspectivas -ya sean teóricas, prácticas o interdisciplinarias- casos de estudio que permiten un acercamiento a la experiencia docente regional de la educación jurídica.
This issue presents five contributions from academics, centered primarily on two lines of study: i) the promotion of trans- and interdisciplinary studies in legal education, and ii) new methodologies in law teaching that foster research and the acquisition of communication skills as a means of access to justice. Each of the selected articles offers—from diverse theoretical, practical, or interdisciplinary perspectives—case studies that provide insight into the regional experience of legal education.

Alba Nidia Morín Fñores's introductory article., which follows below and may be accessed here, situates the  set of related articles in this issue around legal education pedagogy and its reform:

Ahora bien, aunque la educación jurídica actual en el contexto latinoamericano ha experimen-tado algunos cambios que han dado lugar a rediseñar y actualizar los planes de estudio de las universi-dades más relevantes del continente, en donde se puede advertir una apertura interdisciplinaria2, o bien, el acercamiento a la realidad social a través de la práctica jurídica3, a la fecha se siguen cuestionando las metodologías de enseñanza/aprendizaje y la respuesta de los juristas ante los constantes desafíos sociales4.Aun cuando la formación universitaria en la disciplina se ha masificado, es decir, ha alcan-zado niveles de cobertura importantes, puesto que se contabiliza cerca de 3.5 millones de abogados en la región a la fecha, se advierten pocos cambios en la pedagogía jurídica. Existe una continuidad en la aplicación de métodos de enseñanza tradicionales, de la que somos herederos, los cuales no do-tan al jurista de habilidades ni herramientas para enfrentar las problemáticas recurrentes en América Latina como la desigualdad, la corrupción, la violación a los derechos humanos y el autoritarismo.Ante esta realidad es necesario repensar el papel que tiene la educación jurídica como arma de transformación y poner en debate las metodologías de enseñanza/aprendizaje, asimismo, se hace impres-cindible la socialización y comunicación de resultados de las experiencias universitarias de corte conti-nental que permitan generar un cambio en la educación jurídica ante las constantes demandas sociales.

 However, although current legal education in Latin America has undergone changes leading to the redesign and updating of curricula at the continent's leading universities—evidenced by an interdisciplinary opening and a closer engagement with social reality through legal practice—questions remain regarding teaching and learning methodologies and how legal professionals respond to ongoing social challenges. Even though university-level legal training has expanded significantly—reaching high levels of coverage, with the region now home to nearly 3.5 million lawyers—there has been little change in legal pedagogy. Traditional teaching methods persist as a legacy; yet, these methods fail to equip legal professionals with the skills or tools needed to address recurring issues in Latin America, such as inequality, corruption, human rights violations, and authoritarianism. Given this reality, it is essential to rethink the role of legal education as an instrument of transformation and to critically examine teaching and learning methodologies; furthermore, it is imperative to share and communicate the results of university experiences across the continent to drive change in legal education in response to persistent social demands.

 In addition the table of contents with links to the articles follows below.

Global SWF 2026 GSR Scoreboard Best Practices among Sovereign Investors

 

 

I am delighted to pass along the Press Release announcing the availability of the Global SWF 2026 GSR Scoreboard: Best Practices among Sovereign Investors, along with the Executive Summary and main conclusions from the Report, which follows below. 

 Here is the Press Release: 

Happy July!

Global SWF was born eight years ago today, out of a small apartment in New York City, with the mission of contributing to a better understanding of, and connectivity into Sovereign Investors. We celebrate the milestone with the launch of the seventh edition of our GSR Scoreboard, which assesses every July 1 the efforts of Sovereign Investors around Governance, Sustainability, and Resilience.

The annual assessment has become the yardstick for the industry’s best practices as it is independent, quantitative, objective, and dynamic. This year’s main takeaways include:

The average GSR score of the 200 funds assessed slightly increased to 60%. Sustainability and Resilience scores improved, while Governance including transparency stayed flat. Nine institutions achieved a perfect score of 100%: Canada’s La Caisse, BCIand OTPP, Norway’s NBIM, Nigeria’s NSIA, Singapore’s Temasek, Australia’s Future Fund and Rest, and NZ Super. Three elements were modified to account for the increasing importance of relative financial performance, carbon emission statements, and adoption of and/or investment in AI. Two thirds of the assessed funds are already adopting and/or investing in artificial intelligence; and half of those, reported their first interaction with AIduring the past 12 months. Governments around the world, several from deficit economies, continue to establish new strategic vehicles, which makes it paramount to promote role models and best practices in the industry.

The report also includes a market update of what we saw during the first half of 2026, in our normal fashion: plenty of data to digest, naming names, and with absolutely no lag in time.

The War in Iran and the subsequent rise in oil prices intensified market volatility; however, the rapid recovery propelled the industry’s AuM to historical levels: a total of US$ 62.5 trillion in assets. State-Owned Investors deployed US$ 143.6 billion in 366 deals, with most groups of investors (Canada’s Maple 8, Singapore funds, Gulf SWFs) investing more than in the previous period. Gulf SWFs committed US$ 53.9 billion in 108 transactions, a historical record. Almost half of the capital went to the USA, followed by China and the UK, while the most popular sector was tech, fueled by AI. The ranking of most active funds was topped once again by Mubadala, which invested US$ 15.2 billion at group level, and the rest of Gulf 7 funds showed no sign of slowdown either. There is increased activity in the establishment of new SWFs and offices all around the world, but also a concerning amount of funds and offices being shut down due to cost-cutting efforts.

Attached to this email you will find an Executive Summary with the main conclusions of the report. The full 44-page document can be accessed by our subscribers at https://globalswf.com/reports/2026gsr. And our team will provide a discussion on it at a webinar next Tuesday, July 7 at 8am ET – register now at https://bit.ly/gsr26.

Please do not hesitate to reach out if you would like to discuss any of the topics in detail.

Best wishes,

The Global SWF Team

 

OMFIF: Global Pubic Investor 2026 Report--"a world in which volatility is no longer a phase to get through, but a condition to be managed"

 

 

Happy to pass along information about the OMFIF's "Global Public Investor 2026" Report. They note: "For the 13th edition of the report in 2026, we address key questions including: how will the interest rate outlook shape fixed income portfolios? Will the dollar retain its dominant role in global reserves? Are central banks set to diversify further into other currencies and asset classes, including gold, equities, green bonds and digital assets? And how are technology and artificial intelligence beginning to influence reserve management operations?" (here). Their Press Release explains:

Investing amid shifting tides
Every year, OMFIF’s Global Public Investor captures a moment in the evolution of official investment, with some years defined by a single shock and others by a turning point in markets. This year’s report is different because it points to something more durable: a world in which volatility is no longer a phase to get through, but a condition to be managed.

The title of this year’s report, ‘Riding the wave’, reflects that shift. Public investors are not standing still, but neither are they making reckless moves. Instead, they are adjusting cautiously, testing new tools, diversifying where possible and holding on to the principles that have always defined official investment on safety, liquidity and long-term value. (emphasis supplied)

Some "sneak peaks":

 KEY FINDINGS
--For the first time since the GPI series began recording reserve managers’ long-term intentions in 2023, more central banks plan to decrease their dollar holdings than increase over the next 10 years.
--A net 30% plan to increase their gold allocation over the next one to two years, while 61% expect the price to settle between $5,000 and $6,000 per ounce by June 2027. Only 28% say the current price is discouraging further purchases.
--The motivation behind gold purchases is increasingly strategic rather than purely financial. Protection against geopolitical risk is cited by 51% of respondents, up 11% from 2024.
--29% of respondents indicated a desire to increase euro holdings in the long term, up from 22% last year.
--89% of developed economy central banks report some form of artificial intelligence implementation, compared with 44% of emerging market peers.
--For public funds, the US and China are the most attractive developed and emerging markets, driven by leadership in AI.

ACCESS REPORT HERE

 

Of Highways, Commodities and Toll Booths--The "Contradictions" of America First and (Un?) Principled Transactionalism, Thoughts on the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Piece, "Iran Is Winning the Battle of Hormuz :Tehran is using force to gain control over traffic through the Strait"

 

Pix credit here (OPen.ai Faulty Reward Functions in the Wild)

 

One can only watch the battle between merchants and priests, between Rome and the Sassanian Empire (both ended badly though they survived in altered forms), between principled apocalyptic institutionalists managing the Divine word to earthly ends and unprincipled transactionalists (in the sense  not of bad principles but rather in the sense of no normative cage beyond the confines of an unanchored principle of transaction itself as the foundation and rationalization of the world in time, space or place), with a great deal of wonder. What passes for negotiation by other means in the form of the current version of the unending conflict between a priest-Mameluke theocratic system and a Merchant praetorian liberal democratic one, in the form of the physical phase of the negotiation between the Iranians and the United States, remains fluid as concepts, actions, text, imagery and intent become as fluid as necessary to extract whatever it is either side wishes, and the commodification of extraction changes (as a function of changing versions of success) among them. . . 

But over what? 

That remains as malleable as the tactics that either side has been using over the past decade and now intensified  by actors who face, in their own distinct ways as much internal as external pressure to provide "results" that suit the way in which they have rationalized the world. The rest is just collateral damage or the measure of the success of managing collectives in shared beliefs and thus in shared sacrifices for the greater glory of those doing the directing, But it has always been so--just the dressing as been altered to suit the times. And even now this is a bit a a retro game as our machine intelligence systems have been undertaking this increasingly for us (and to the profit of those deploying them where profit is measured by things and authority).  What had come to corrupt the rationalization of the human rights institutional establishment a decade ago (Fractured Territories and Abstracted Terrains: Human Rights Governance Regimes Within and Beyond the State) has now infected priestly-institutional and merchant-transactional spaces as well and soon the space created for the management of the human by machine system intelligence (even with the overlay, as for example Anthropic continues to assure us, is a human face to machine  ethics). Even human societies are quite capàble of reward hacking to suit themselves. 

One might have thought, for example, that a core consequence of the fundamental postulate of merchant-transaction types (that the space and forms of transactional spaces must be protected, expanded, and  managed to protect deal making among equally situated participants, see discussion here) would have been (as it had been a core element of American trade policy in the 19th century--something to which some American political ideologies sometimes reference) to place at its core the construction, protection, and functioning of trade routes facilitation individual transactional activity that would inure to the greater glory of merchant collectives (to similar effect the Chinese Belt & Road though from a centralized bureaucrat-institutional framework that puts state economic organs at its core). That, one might have assumed, applied in a principled way, would have justified recent U.S. activity and advocacy of free and unfettered international movement within the South China Sea, and perhaps through the Panama Canal. At its core, it tends to view with suspicion actions that close off trade routes to the benefit of the trading states attempting to control trade highways.  

Yet one might have been wrong about that. Perhaps, at least from a certain way of approaching the merchant-transactional type, there is no such thing as "free use" or "open" spaces for trade; there is no such thing as a trading platform that is not or cannot be wholly or partially proprietary. The focus of that form of transactional approach mimics, in large part, the state-institutional approach, and that of the warrior imperialist tropes of the 19th century in the sense that each, in its own way commodifies all elements of human activity, including its pathways and spaces for interaction. There is nothing that is not or cannot be a commodity; there is nothing with respect to which competition in offering commodities is constrained; and there is nothing that suggests that every element of human activity cannot be turned to particular advantage as a commodity, as a point of control, and as a means of limiting access to markets and market activity, including by controlling or profiting from control or management of trade highways. On this sense, and applied in this way, America First and the Chinese Global Initiative (of which the Belt & Road project now forms a part) converge in much more intense and interesting ways. The fact that one advocates infrastructure does not necessarily means that such infrastructure is available to all, it like the trade it supports, is a business, a point of monetization, and an element of control that both enhances market insiders and penalized outsider. Infrastructure can be understood itself as a business for which there are markets, as a commodity to be bought and sold, and as an an expression of the monetization of activity, as a sort of toll booth. None of these are innovative, all have ancient roots. The trick now is to find a discursive way of convincing collectives that they are "naturally" and seamlessly embedded in the national political economic ideologies.  

It brings the idea of America First, and its Chinese analogue (with the rest of the world dutifully if grudgingly following) into new territory -- to use Chinese political terminology with some bite, it brings the state of affairs of both systems into alignment with the fundamental principles of people's democratic dictatorship (人民民主专政) to trade and trade infrastructure--dictatorship and obedience to unpatriotic and enemies of the political economic (or trade) model; democracy and freedom for the patriotic forces of trade. That, for example, explains the context in which the United States and China have been approaching the infrastructures of technology, and now the infrastructures of trade. It is, one might now surmise, a perhaps plausible explanation for the decision by elements of the America First Trump Administration to sell the Straits of Hormuz to the Iranian priest-Mameluke state, each now appearing to contribute to the resurrection of the old cultures of Raubritter (the Robber Barons/knights) as a new form of transactional-institutional actor in the post-global, or at least, in mimicry of the original that reached its peak during the Holy Roman Empire's Great Interregnum (1250–1273), during that period of transition from the global (1945-2014) to whatever it is that awaits us in the age of the machined human.  

All of that might come to mind as one reads that exercise in lower order mass management that found itself printed at the top of the opinion page of the Monday issue (29 June 2026) of the Wall Street Journal: Iran Is Winning the Battle of Hormuz: Tehran is using force to gain control over traffic through the Strait. The good people at the WSJ, proceeding from their own cognitive cages as mouthpieces of an elite institutionalist "brain trust" vanguard perspective true to whatever it is they recollect of or have refashioned out of the cognitive cages of 1945-2014 globalization under American leadership, put it in traditional geopolitical institutional terms.  

Vice President JD Vance has been touting  Iran's "transformed" Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders ready to "turn over a new leaf" with the U.S. He even reached "gentlemen's agreements" with them outside the memorandum, Mr. Vance  assured critics. Well, these are no gentlemen. It's the same terrorist regime, and this is the Battle of Hormuz that Mr. Trump thought  he had ducked. In case there is any doubt, foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that Iran is solely responsible for managing the Strait under the memorandum. He said, "no other country has any responsibility in that regard." Mr. Araghchi is Iran's chief negotiator with Mr. Vance. . . . The regime wants to conquer the trait and turn it into a toll booth, with transit by permission only. . .  It may offer [the Gulf States] a cut of the spoils from the tolled Stait, but that hardly sweetens the foul deal for the rest of the world. The question is why Iran still gets the cash.  In the bigger strategic picture, the regime is leaving the President a choice: surrender Hormuz to Iranian terror or fight for  it, like he always should have once he started the war, and reopen the Strait by force. (Iran Is Winning the Battle of Hormuz:)

And from that perspective, of course, they are quite right. The entire structure and management of the deal appears dopes not suggest a sharply drawn transactional approach, and that skewing may have as much to do with the politics of succession to Mr. Trump (at least in the form of giving Mr. Vance some sort of performative space to demonstrate whatever it is they sought to have demonstrated).  Still, it displays the traditional profound refusal to ascribe political agency to the priests who run it, pretending, as they must, that Irans' RGs run the state, something that may happen (recalling the manner of the overthrow of the Ayyubid Dynasty in 1250 by their Mamelukes) but which is at the moment a premature hope on the part of some.  

And yet from a different transactional perspective "toll boothing" trade routes sounds like a great idea, especially if one can receive a cut of the transaction. One might, from a certain perspective, understand the actions and reactions as a product of transactional reward hacking within the parameters of America First. In this case the reward is not in winning the game but in acquiring enough "rewards" by other means to satisfy the requirements of amassing a high score.  In this sense the Americans might convince themselves that they are not losing anything, and that even principle (open trade routes as cricial principle of America First) can be understood as a commodity to be bargained where the gain is sufficiently alluring in the short, medium or long term, What is left, then, is not the deal but the fiduciary duty of the negotiators to the Republic whose interest (rather than their own) they represent. 

In this sense the WSJ may have the wrong of it. There is no further choice for the Trump Administration. It has, indeed, already made its choice. The only question is whether in the marketplace  of states Mr. Trump through Mr. Vance and company secured the better deal--not for them but for the Republic they serve now and for its progeny whose inheritance they have a duty to protect. For the moment, and to those of us not privy to "gentleman's agreements, side deals and the other usual stuff that marks the barrier between those who control risk for the Republic and those who must bear it, it would appear that the deal has been made and that what is harvested for America First is the hope that some of the money released will go to U.S. firms and perhaps as well that the U.S. has protected the primacy of the dollar as the supreme trading instrument. In the current context, however, it is not clear how that will happen or whether these hopes will materialize. But at least in them there is something that connects the actions of the Trump Administration to its merchant transactional principles, that tolling Hormuz advances America First.

 

Pix credit here

The WSJ Opinion piece follows in full below.

Full text of Israel-Lebanon ‘framework’ (26 June 2026)

 

(Pix credit here)

8. The two countries affirm that they share the objective of a secure, rebuilt Lebanon, under full Lebanese state sovereignty, in which no non-state armed group poses a threat to Israel, Lebanon, or citizens of either country. Furthermore, the two countries recognize that the restoration of security in South Lebanon through the deployment of the LAF, the safe return of its civilian population, and the security of Israel’s northern communities, are essential to long-term stability and peace. (Israel-Lebanon ‘framework’ )

"Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Friday that Israel and Lebanon had reached a framework agreement aimed at achieving “lasting peace and security.” The agreement, which came as a result of talks mediated by the United States, calls for the implementation of a ceasefire between the two nations." (here)

The Framework Agreement speaks for itself. What initially caught my attention were what may be two elements of the Framework. The first and perhaps perhaps most significant portion of the agreement is in Paragraph 1, which can be parsed in a variety of ways all of which lead away from the discursive situation between the states from 1947 to this century. One way or another. The other, and perhaps more interesting element is the "othering" of Hezbollah as a collective that is not necessarily any longer plausibly Lebanese. The nature and consequences of this "othering" will likely produce a lot of smoke and perhaps some fire, but that is is embedded is certainly quite noteworthy. 

Beyond that it is a useful exercise to read the text and approach its meaning from any framework and towards whatever goals the reader desires--the trick, as always is at least self.transparency in that act of hermeneutics and in that effort at semiotic social construction of a collective interpretive positioning. 

The full text follows below, along with the a remarks of the heads of delegation of the US, Lebanon and Israel. 

十四届全国人大常委会第二十三次会议有关法律案前瞻 [Preview of Legislative Bills for the 23rd Session of the 14th NPC Standing Committee]

 

Pix credit here (celebrate the 4th NPC, 1970)

 

 The National People's Congress has posted to its website in a report distributed by Xinha News Agency on 22 June 2026,  十四届全国人大常委会第二十三次会议有关法律案前瞻 [Preview of Legislative Bills for the 23rd Session of the 14th NPC Standing Committee]. It is the textual summary of the June 22 NPC media briefing on the legislative bills scheduled for deliberation at this session delivered by Huang Haihua, spokesperson for the Legislative Affairs Commission of the NPC Standing Committee ["6月22日，全国人大常委会法制工作委员会发言人黄海华就本次常委会会议拟审议的法律案有关情况进行介绍"]. It appears below in the original Chinese and in a crude English translation.

It is short but worth a read. It includes summaries of the following measures

1.  商标法修订草案二审 [Second Review of the Draft Amendment to the Trademark Law]. It is aimed at tightening regulation of a category of trademark which will be included in the category  “心机商标” [deceptive trademark, sometimes translated as "scheming" trademarks]. 

黄海华介绍，为加大对“心机商标”的打击力度，这次商标法修改拟规定，商标注册申请人明知标志带有欺骗性，容易使公众对商品的质量等特点或者产地产生误认的，仍作为商标申请注册，造成不良影响的，由负责商标执法的部门给予警告，可以并处十万元以下的罚款。[Huang Haihua explained that, to intensify the crackdown on "deceptive trademarks," the proposed amendment stipulates the following: if a trademark applicant knowingly applies to register a mark that is deceptive—likely causing the public to be misled regarding characteristics such as product quality or place of origin—and this results in adverse effects, the department responsible for trademark enforcement shall issue a warning and may impose a fine of up to 100,000 yuan.]

It also tightens rules on trademark use and trademark hoarding.

且明显超出正常生产经营需要申请商标注册的，不予注册；完善对商标使用的要求，规定注册商标没有正当理由连续三年不使用的，国务院商标管理部门可以撤销。[Furthermore, applications for trademark registration that clearly exceed the needs of normal production and business operations shall be rejected; requirements regarding trademark use shall be refined, stipulating that the trademark administration department under the State Council may revoke a registered trademark if it has not been used for three consecutive years without a legitimate reason.]

The former is a consumer protection measure, the second is meant to enhance innovative production by those who would otherwise be denied access to critical elements for engaging in economic activity of value to the state. As is the norm, the measures empower enforcement and supervision by administrative organs who may exercise a substantial discretion within the boundaries of the legislation and the relevant regulations, working rules, etc.. 

2.  注册会计师法修正草案二审 [Second Review of the Draft Amendment to the Law on Certified Public Accountants]. These amendments strengthen the integrity of the gatekeeping role of accountants within the Chinese economic system. "注册会计师对于维护市场经济秩序，保护社会公众合法权益具有独特的作用。" [Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) play a unique role in maintaining the order of the market economy and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the public. ]. The revisions are meant to update a statutory scheme that has remained relatively untouched for several decades and around which there appears to be a general consensus of the need for updating.  The first part is normative, and like their Western counterparts, focuses on guiding principles of professional conduct. “修正草案完善执业原则、强化诚信建设，增加规定会计师事务所、注册会计师坚持诚信、客观、独立、公正的原则。”黄海华说，国家支持注册会计师行业加强诚信建设，提高审计质量，拓展服务网络，提升职业活动规范化、专业化水平，促进行业健康发展。["The draft amendment refines professional practice principles and reinforces the cultivation of integrity, adding provisions that require accounting firms and CPAs to uphold the principles of integrity, objectivity, independence, and impartiality," said Huang Haihua. The state supports the CPA industry in strengthening integrity, improving audit quality, expanding service networks, enhancing the standardization and professionalization of practice activities, and fostering the industry's healthy development. ].

The second part focuses on specific proscribed conduct, based on profession expectations. “此外，修正草案二审稿进一步规范职业行为，增加执业禁止性规定，比如明确注册会计师不得出具虚假报告、不得冒用他人名义执业、不得采用不正当方式招揽业务等，并加大责任追究力度，提高违规出具报告的罚款数额，加大对串通、唆使出具虚假报告的处罚力度。[Furthermore, the draft amendment further regulates professional conduct by introducing prohibitions—such as explicitly forbidding CPAs from issuing false reports, practicing under another person's name, or soliciting business through improper means. It also intensifies accountability measures by raising fines for the issuance of non-compliant reports and increasing penalties for collusion or incitement regarding the issuance of false reports.]。

Again, the substance of the measures vests administrative organs with supervisory and enforcement roles grounded in their exercise of discretion within regulatory guardrails. 

3.  检察公益诉讼法立法 [Legislation on Procuratorial Public Interest Litigation]. This may be of special interest to foreigners and international institutions including private international organizations as it may or may not align with their broad objectives and methods. It authorized public interest litigation for livelihood related cases of broad public concern [明确对社]. It seeks to ecpanfd and refine the role of the procuratorates in public interest litigation. 

会普遍关注的民生案件可提起公益诉讼　　近年来，人民检察院积极稳妥推进检察公益诉讼工作、拓展检察公益诉讼领域，在促进依法行政、守护民生福祉方面取得积极成效。[In recent years, people's procuratorates have actively and steadily advanced procuratorial public interest litigation and expanded its scope, achieving positive results in promoting law-based administration and safeguarding the well-being of the people.]

The provision and its amendments are driven under the guidance of the Constitution and Law Committee of the National People's Congress. It is guided by a principle of prudence as guided by decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee. It balances "the constitutional positioning of procuratorial organs, while considering the practical needs of public interest protection and focusing on the public's expectations regarding livelihood issues" [依据宪法关于检察机关的性质定位，考虑公益保护的实践需要，聚焦民生所盼，审慎稳妥确定。] .

The second draft of the Law on Procuratorial Public Interest Litigation clarifies that people's procuratorates may initiate public interest litigation in accordance with the law regarding cases in areas of public concern related to people's livelihoods—such as the protection of the rights and interests of specific groups (including minors, women, the elderly, and persons with disabilities), the combating of telecom and online fraud, the infringement of the legitimate rights and interests of numerous workers, and the unlawful handling of personal information. [检察公益诉讼法草案二审稿明确，对社会普遍关注的民生领域案件，如未成年人、妇女、老年人和残疾人等法律规定的特定群体权益保障，反电信网络诈骗，侵害众多劳动者合法权益，违反法律规定处理个人信息等相关案件，人民检察院可以依法提起公益诉讼。].

 The draft also includes a variety of procedural rules and expectations. 

4. 立法加强国家消防救援人员职业保障 [Legislation to Strengthen Occupational Protections for State Fire and Rescue Personnel]. The draft focuses on work conditions revisions, including the establishment of a system of rest and leave, annual leave and family visitation leave rules. It also enhances enhanced occupational health protections, with a focus on regular health check-ups and the provision of psychological counseling and support. Of greater interest to foreigners might be the provisions 为各地制定管理办法提供上位法依据 [serves to provide a legal basis for local authorities to establish their own management measures]. The revisions include a new provision allowing provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government to formulate management regulations for such personnel by referencing the relevant provisions of national law, which in this sense serves as a framework for delegated law making and systems of administrative discretion by officials in local organs.

 草案二审稿拟增加规定“省、自治区、直辖市可以参照本法有关规定，对地方政府专职消防员的管理作出规定”，为各地制定管理办法提供上位法依据。 [The second draft proposes adding a provision stating that "provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities directly under the Central Government may, by reference to the relevant provisions of this Law, formulate regulations regarding the management of full-time firefighters employed by local governments," thereby providing a statutory basis for localities to draft their own management measures.]