Tom Rosenberger on "The Prince of Peace and the Sword of History: Pope Leo XIV, Just War, and the Christian Tradition"" Telos Insights

 

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It is always newsworthy when secular princes argue theology against the princes of the Church; equally interesting are those instances where the princes of the Church argue politics with secular princes.  Even more fun is when both sets of princes get judgey about each other with respect to their respect competence in the core areas of their authority. Neither is entirely out of their depth in reaching out in this way--and that dialectic always, in the long run, benefits the community of the faithful.  Or it ought to anyway. And the press is always happy to encourage this sort of thing, or at least report on it in ways that heighten the drama.

So it was with the trifle that emerged in what some hoped might have become more more extended war of words between the Trump Administration officials and Pope Leo XIV. 

With respect to that Tom Rosenberger has written an interesting essay for Telos Insights:  The Prince of Peace and the Sword of History: Pope Leo XIV, Just War, and the Christian Tradition. Whether one agrees with it or not, there is lots to chew on. Its most interesting point, however, are less its arguments than its elaboration of the quite nuanced field of work on which spats like this will ultimately flounder in any quest for certainty.  The essay follows below.

 

 

 

Comunicado conjunto sobre la situación en Cuba Brasil, España y México [Joint Statement on the Situation in Cuba] Issued by the La IV Cumbre en Defensa de la Democracia [IV Summit in Defense of Democracy] Barcelona el 16-17 Abril

 

 

ENGLISH LANGUAGE VERSION HERE.

 

 Los líderes de los gobiernos de España, México y Brasil emitieron la siguiente comunicación en el transcurso de su IV Cumbre en Defensa de la Democracia, celebrada en Barcelona los días 16 y 17 de abril de 2026. Dicha comunicación, titulada «Sobre la situación en Cuba», se produce tras los informes de que la presidenta de México buscaba articular una postura común al respecto. 

Crédito de imagen aquí

La presidenta de México, Claudia Sheinbaum, anunció el sábado, durante la IV Cumbre en Defensa de la Democracia celebrada en Barcelona, ​​que propondrá una declaración formal en oposición a cualquier intervención militar en Cuba, instando a que prevalezcan el diálogo y la paz por encima de la confrontación, en un contexto marcado por las amenazas y el bloqueo energético por parte de Estados Unidos. «A día de hoy, al referirnos a esa pequeña isla caribeña, creemos que ningún pueblo es pequeño, sino grande y estoico cuando defiende su soberanía y su derecho a una vida plena», añadió. Al intervenir en la inauguración del encuentro —convocado por el presidente del Gobierno de España, Pedro Sánchez, y el presidente de Brasil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—, Sheinbaum formuló este llamamiento ante una docena de líderes progresistas, entre los que se encontraban los presidentes de Colombia, Sudáfrica y Uruguay.

La presidenta mexicana aprovechó su intervención para reafirmar que los principios constitucionales de la política exterior de su país conservan plena vigencia en el actual escenario global. Citó la no intervención, el respeto a la autodeterminación, la solución pacífica de controversias, el rechazo al uso de la fuerza, la igualdad jurídica entre los Estados y la búsqueda permanente de la paz como los pilares de la identidad diplomática de México. Advirtió contra cualquier definición de la libertad que implique la sumisión a intereses externos o que reduzca a las naciones soberanas a la condición de colonias modernas, insistiendo en que la libertad carece de sentido sin justicia social, soberanía y dignidad de los pueblos. (aquí) 

El lenguaje empleado no se desvía de la postura que las autoridades mexicanas han mantenido desde el inicio de la actual crisis en Cuba; de hecho, sus elementos ya formaban parte del discurso de la presidenta Sheinbaum a raíz de las acciones emprendidas por Estados Unidos en Venezuela a principios de 2026. Estos tres elementos son: (1) la centralidad de la ayuda humanitaria y la mitigación del sufrimiento de la población; (2) la igualdad soberana y la integridad territorial; y (3) el respeto a los derechos humanos, el multilateralismo en el marco del sistema de las Naciones Unidas y el diálogo respetuoso.

Resulta interesante observar que estos tres elementos son compartidos, a su vez, por los Estados Unidos. El problema, por supuesto, radica en que el significado —tanto de estos principios comunes como del texto empleado para expresarlos, así como de los términos y valores con los que se invisten— separa a Estados Unidos de México, España y Brasil, tanto como el texto común parece unirlos en un proyecto compartido. Estados Unidos centra la ayuda humanitaria en la asistencia directa al pueblo de Cuba, administrada a través de organizaciones no gubernamentales, y ha realizado esfuerzos en este sentido; las premisas cognitivas institucionalistas tradicionales de América Latina, por su parte, evaluarían y operacionalizarían dicha ayuda a través de órganos estatales, procurando no emitir juicios excesivos sobre la eficiencia o las decisiones estratégicas relativas a su distribución (un problema que se repite en otras regiones, como, por ejemplo, en Oriente Medio y el Norte de África, o en el continente africano). Asimismo, Estados Unidos mantiene una postura favorable respecto a la igualdad soberana y la integridad territorial; sin embargo, este enfoque se ve moldeado por el carácter transaccional de la iniciativa «America First» (Estados Unidos Primero). Ambas posturas comparten un profundo rechazo hacia las ambiciones territoriales (con algunas excepciones... pues siempre existen excepciones). No obstante, los partidarios del enfoque transaccional aceptan la premisa de que las proyecciones de poder —incluidas aquellas de carácter violento— hacia el interior de otro Estado pueden resultar necesarias y ventajosas, siempre dentro del marco de su propia interpretación de las «normas» que rigen los ordenamientos jurídicos internos. Los institucionalistas, en cambio, tienden a no distinguir diferencia alguna entre las proyecciones externas de poder hacia otro Estado y las situaciones de tensión territorial: ya sea el libre sobrevuelo de los cielos de un Estado (como en los casos de Irán, el Líbano, etc., en el contexto de esfuerzos por negociar cambios sustanciales en las relaciones —situaciones en las que no cabe hablar de «inocencia» por parte del Estado sobre el cual se proyecta estratégicamente dicho poder—); la proyección de fuerza militar con el fin de extraer a determinadas personas (como en el caso de Venezuela, donde el Estado agresor calificó a dichas personas como miembros de una banda criminal); o bien una invasión al estilo ruso sobre otro país con el propósito de anexionarse su territorio. Este último supuesto constituye, naturalmente, el más problemático para Estados Unidos, en la medida en que representa precisamente aquello que el antiguo orden institucionalista pretendía evitar. Irónicamente, la concepción estadounidense del multilateralismo —entendida como un mero intergubernamentalismo— se asemeja más a la postura tradicional de Brasil y China que a la de las antiguas élites de Estados Unidos, o a la de países como México y España; salvo, claro está, cuando se analiza desde la perspectiva de la comunicación entendida como discurso.

 

En un sentido más general, los términos que constituyen el núcleo de la comunicación misma no solo están cargados de ambigüedad; su precisión depende, en gran medida, de las premisas cognitivas orientadoras dentro de las cuales resulta posible forjar un consenso comunitario respecto a los valores inherentes a dichos términos y a las intenciones que estos encarnan, particularmente en aquellos casos en que un Estado busca basarse en su significado para actuar o abstenerse de hacerlo. Y, por supuesto, la naturaleza de tales términos reviste un significado singularmente relevante en el Sur Global —especialmente en América Latina—, de un modo que tal vez no resuene de igual forma ni en Estados Unidos ni en China; salvo, quizás, como mero texto. Estas diferencias fueron expuestas con gran lucidez en el discurso que la presidenta Sheinbaum pronunció ante los líderes de la Cumbre, cuyo video puede consultarse debajo de la imagen que figura a continuación..

Crédito de imagen y video YouTube aquí

 

 En esencia, el texto de la comunicación invita al lector a adoptar una comunidad de significado y construcción de significado que permite una única lectura ortodoxa de su propia concepción y una única aplicación ortodoxa de sus declaraciones, sin molestarse en exponer esas premisas ni debatir su forma e interpretación. Esto es justo; también es política; y remite a la disputa más amplia e importante del control de cualquier tipo de significado colectivo y de las expectativas de comportamiento que se derivan de él, algo que, si bien se reconoce, solo se vislumbra en los márgenes y entre líneas. Esa contienda, en su forma actual, tiene una historia muy larga; y la probabilidad de una resolución decisiva es ilusoria (aunque contribuye a alimentar la intensidad de la creencia necesaria para gestionar y desplegar a los combatientes de cada bando). A pesar de ello, sigue siendo importante. Es importante porque sugiere una diferencia, quizás sustancial, en los principios de ordenamiento entre el Sur Global en América Latina (construido sobre la riqueza de sus propias experiencias y deseos, tal como los perciben, o al menos como los perciben sus élites) y los de Estados Unidos y China. Estos dos últimos se alinean cada vez más, aunque partiendo de puntos de vista fundamentalmente diferentes, y esa alineación marca cada vez más una brecha entre el Sur Latinoamericano y las dos potencias mundiales.

Nada de esto, por supuesto, tendrá un efecto sustancial en la resolución de la crisis cubana; lo que sugiere que incluso las diferencias sustanciales y fundamentales en la forma en que se ordena la realidad en función de los principios y los valores se verán atenuadas por el pragmatismo. Resulta significativo que México haya liderado esta iniciativa, manteniendo una estrategia discursiva y normativa a largo plazo, incluso adaptándose a las realidades de la situación en la que se encuentra en esta etapa del desarrollo histórico de la región (considérense los comentarios de la Presidenta Sheinbaum; Cumbre en Defensa de la Democracia: Presidenta propone programa global de reforestación y declaración contra intervención militar en Cuba. Sin embargo, este pragmatismo, por razones propias, no puede ser compartido por los actuales líderes de España y Brasil, cada uno con sus propias agendas y un bagaje histórico bastante distinto (y no irracional). En este contexto, el discurso del derecho internacional y la intervención humanitaria, adornado con los tópicos de la igualdad soberana y la integridad territorial dentro de densos marcos normativos de restricciones multilaterales que pretenden tener un efecto supraconstitucional (y, por lo tanto, legal), tendrá que enfrentarse a un problema quizás igualmente interesante: la gestión de sistemas de Estados colectivizados (ya sea desde un marco estructural transaccional o institucional). El problema de los Estados fallidos y el deber, ya sea del colectivo de Estados (independientemente de su organización y concepción) o de algunos de sus elementos, de asumir la responsabilidad (sea lo que sea que esto signifique). Es precisamente a este último aspecto al que se dirige gran parte del discurso, aunque sea de forma indirecta, y ese es, por supuesto, el problema fundamental. Se trata de un problema ideológico y cognitivo crítico para los gobiernos de México, España y Brasil, precisamente porque, en mayor o menor medida, cualquier admisión de fracaso estatal en Cuba debilitaría (o podría debilitar) el poder normativo de las ideologías que comparten y que son fundamentales para el avance de sus propias ortodoxias normativas, tanto dentro de sus países como en su papel de fundamento ortodoxo del orden internacional. Proteger a Cuba de los fracasos de su propio gobierno es, en ese sentido y hasta cierto punto, una protección de su propia legitimidad normativa. O al menos así podrían tender a pensar…

Sin embargo, a través de la lente transaccional de los EE. UU., hacia la que se dirige gran parte de esto, el desempeño discursivo tendrá consecuencias para las relaciones entre estos cuatro estados de maneras que aún no están claras, excepto que es probable que las relaciones entre los EE. UU. y España y Brasil empeoren antes de mejorar (a falta de un cambio de gobierno); las que tienen con México seguirán siendo pragmáticas y transaccionales, y es probable que sea México el que sea más eficaz sirviendo como intermediario y puente hacia otros estados. Y esos cambios afectarán sustancialmente las relaciones con Europa, pero más importante aún con China, como tal vez el actual gobierno de España ha tratado de demostrar, inadvertidamente por supuesto, al tratar de vivir los valores de su gobierno. En ese último caso, tal vez valga la pena considerar el paralelismo entre la política inconformista del Sr. Orbán en Hungría y la del Sr. Sánchez en España (Apártate Hungría: España es el nuevo mejor amigo de China en la UE). Si son miméticos, esto apunta tanto a su importancia como a su longevidad, en aquellos casos en que cualquiera de estos aspectos se halle desincronizado respecto a movimientos cognitivos más amplios y poderosos entre los órganos de los Estados colectivizados.

A continuación, se presenta el texto de la Comunicación.

Comunicado conjunto sobre la situación en Cuba Brasil, España y México [Joint Statement on the Situation in Cuba] Issued by the La IV Cumbre en Defensa de la Democracia [IV Summit in Defense of Democracy] Barcelona el 16-17 Abril

 

 VERSION en Español Aquí

 

The leaders of the governments of Spain, Mexico and Brazil issued the following communication during the course of their  IV Cumbre en Defensa de la Democracia [IV Summit in Defense of Democracy] which was held in Barcelona 16-17April 2026. The Communication, On the situation in Cuba, follows reports that the President of Mexico was seeking to develop a common position.

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Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Saturday during the IV Summit in Defense of Democracy in Barcelona that she will propose a formal declaration opposing any military intervention in Cuba, urging dialogue and peace to prevail over confrontation amid U.S. threats and energy blockade. “To this day, speaking of that small Caribbean island, we believe that no people are small, but rather great and stoic when defending their sovereignty and the right to a fulfilling life,” she added. Speaking at the opening of the gathering convened by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Sheinbaum made her call before a dozen progressive leaders including the presidents of Colombia, South Africa, and Uruguay

 The Mexican president used her address to reaffirm that her country’s constitutional foreign policy principles remain fully relevant in the current global landscape. She cited non-intervention, respect for self-determination, peaceful dispute resolution, rejection of force, legal equality among states, and the enduring pursuit of peace as pillars of Mexico’s diplomatic identity. She warned against any definition of freedom that implies submission to external interests or reduces sovereign nations to the status of modern colonies, insisting that liberty holds no meaning without social justice, sovereignty, and the dignity of peoples. (here)

The language does not deviate form a position that the Mexicans have taken from the start of the current crisis in Cuba, its elements already part of discourse of President Sheinbaum in the wake of the U.S. action in Venezuela at the start of 2026. The three elements are (1) the centrality of humanitarian aid and the minimization of popular suffering, (2) sovereign equality and territorial integrity; and (3) respect for human rights, multilateralism within the context of the UN system, and respectful dialog.

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The three elements, interestingly enough are shared  by the United States. The problem, of course, is that the meaning that these common principles and the text used to express them of the terms and the values with which they are invested separate the United States from Mexico, Spain and Brasil  as much as the common text appears to join them in a common project. The United States  centers humanitarian aid on direct aid to the people of Cuba administered through non-governmental organizations, and has made efforts in that respect; traditional Latin American institutionalist cognitive premises would  assess and operationalize that aid through State organs and make an effort not to be too judgy about efficiencies or strategic choices respecting distribution (a problem repeated elsewhere, e.g., in MENA and Africa). The United States is also positive about sovereign equality and territorial integrity; that focus is shaped by the transactionalism of the America First Initiative, Both share a strong distaste for territorial ambitions (with some exceptions. . . there are always exceptions). Transactionalists, however, accept the premise that projections, including violent projections into another State may be necessary,  and advantageous, within the ambit of their reading of the "rules" of internal law frameworks. Institutionalists tend to see no difference between outward projections of power into another state and territorial stress--whether it is freely roaming over the skies of a state (Iran, Lebanon, etc. as part of efforts to  negotiate substantially important changes in relations where there is no innocence on  the part of the state onto which such power is projected strategically) or projecting military power to extract persons (in the case if Venezuela  characterized as part of a criminal gang by the projecting state) and a Russian style invasion if another country for the purpose of annexing territory.  The last, of course is the most problematic for the U.S. in the sense that it is intended by the old institutionalist order. The US understanding of multilateralism as inter-governmentalism is ironically closer to the traditional Brazilian and Chinese position than that of the old US elites or that of Mexico and Spain--except as seen in the communication as discourse. 

More generally, the terms that form the core of the communication themselves  are not just larded with ambiguity, their precision depends in large part on the orienting cognitive premises within which it is possible to develop communal agreement as the the values inherent in those terms and the intentions that they embody where a state seeks to rely in their meaning to act or refrain from acting.   And of course, the nature of those terms is distinctly meaningful in the Global South, especially in Latin America, in ways that may not resonate either the US or China; except as  perhaps as text. Those differences were nicely elaborated in the speech of President Sheinbaum before the Summit leaders, the video of which may be accessed below the image that follows.

Pix and video posted to YouTube HERE

 

At its core, then, the text of the communication invites its reader to embrace a community of meaning and meaning making that permits only one orthodox reading of its sense of itself, and only one orthodox application of its pronouncements--without the bother of exposing those premises or debating their form and interpretation. That is fair; it is also politics; and it goes to the broader and much more important contest of the control of any sort of collective meaning and from leaning expectations of behavior, and which is acknowledged, is only visible in the margins and between the lines of text. That contest, in turn, in its current form, has a very very long history; and the likelihood of its decisive resolution is fantasy (though one that helps fuel the intensity of belief necessary to manage and deploy the foot soldiers of each of these camps).  For all that it is still important. It us important for the way it suggests a perhaps substantial difference in ordering premises between the Global South in Latin America (built on the richness of its own experiences and desires as they perceive them, or at least as their elites perceive them) and those of the United States and China. The latter two increasingly align though from fundamentally different starting points, and that alignment increasingly marks a gap between the Latin American South and the two apex powers. 

None of this, of course, will have a substantial effect on the resolution of the Cuban crisis; and that suggests that even substantial and fundamental differences in the way in which  the ordering if reality as a function of premises and values will be softened by pragmatism. In that it is telling that Mexico has been leading this endeavor, continuing to play a discursive and normative long game beyond Cuba even as it bends to the realities of the situation in which it finds itself in this stage of the region's historical development (consider remarks of President Sheinbaum Cumbre en Defensa de la Democracia: Presidenta propone programa global de reforestación y declaración contra intervención militar en Cuba). But it is a pragmatism that, for their own reasons cannot be shared by the current leaders of Spain and Brazil, each of which has their own and quite distinct (and not irrational) agendas and historical baggage. And here, the discourse of international law and humanitarian intervention, garnished with the tropes of sovereign equality and territorial integrity within dense normative frameworks of multilateral constraints that are meant to have supra-constitutional (and thus legal) effect (of some kind) will have to confront a perhaps equally interesting problem of the management of systems of collectivized States (whether from an transactional or institutional structural framework)--the problem of failed states and the duties of either the collective of states (however organized and conceived) or of some of their elements, to take responsibility (whatever that means). It is in this latter respect that much of the discourse speaks to, if only obliquely--and that, of course is the fundamental problem. It is a critical ideological and cognitive problem for the governments of Mexico, Spain, and Brasil precisely because, to some greater or lesser extent,   any admission respecting State failure in Cuba would  (or could) weaken the normative power of the ideologies that are both shared among them and central to the advancing of their own normative orthodoxies both within their own countries and as the orthodox foundation of international ordering. To protect Cuba against its failures of its own government is, in that respect and to some extent, a protection of their own normative legitimacy. Or so they might be inclined to think. . . (Cf., here, here, and here especially from the Cuban side).  

All the same, through the transactional lens of the US, to which much of this is directed, the discursive performance will  have consequences for the relations between these four states in ways that are not yet clear--except that relations between the US and Spain and Brazil are likely to get worse before they get better (absent a change of government); those with Mexico will remain pragmatic and transactional, and it is likely that it will be Mexico that will be most effective in serving as  an intermediary and bridge to other states. And those changes will substantially affect relations with both Europe, but more importantly China, as perhaps the current government of Spain has sought to demonstrate, inadvertently of course, as it seeks to live the values of its government. In that latter case it may be worth considering the parallelism between the maverick politics of Mr. Orban in Hungary and that of Mr. Sanchez in Spain (Move Over, Hungary: Spain Is China’s New Best Friend in the EU). If they are mimetic, that points both to its importance, as well as its longevity where either is out of sync with larger and more powerful cognitive movements among the organs of collectivized states.  

The text of the Communication follows below.  

Presidential Message Commemorating 250 Years of the Bible in America

 

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President Trump has been peppering the White House website with short messages around the theme of the 2050th Anniversary of the Republic. I have posted comments to some of them. The exercise is important; it would be more important if the mechanisms for projecting these messages out were perhaps more robust, and if some were to weave the aggregation of these messages together into a coherent narrative. But that may be coming. 

Many of the messages speak to important figures from the history of the Republic and equally important events that mark the history of the Republic. The most recent message  takes a slightly different turn. It focuses on a normative source of the Republic's values: Presidential Message Commemorating 250 Years of the Bible in America. It was timed to coincide with the "America Reads the Bible" initiative, a seven-day, 24/7 public reading of the entire Bible—from Genesis to Revelation—hosted at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., from April 18–25, 2026. 

The point of the message was t6o underscore what had been taken as a given as late as  three quarters of a century ago but now seems to have been overtaken by (cultural/ideological) events--specifically that from " Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World and the first permanent English-speaking settlement at Jamestown to our founding in 1776 and to the present day, the Bible has been indelibly woven into our national identity and way of life." (Presidential Message Commemorating 250 Years of the Bible in America). More importantly, the even older notion, one that was an important element of social and religious life especially among elements of the Christian community, that the United States, and the Republic created to embody its values, was to represent the purification and the striving for perfection from out of the miasma and corruption of the places from which the people of the United States were drawn   (a good portion of them, anyway).   "Nearly 400 years ago, a decade after the arrival of the Mayflower, the legendary John Winthrop powerfully invoked Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew:  “We must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill.  The eyes of all people are upon us,” Winthrop said, imploring his fellow Christian settlers to stand as a beacon of faith for all the world to see." (Presidential Message Commemorating 250 Years of the Bible in America). 

That concept, of the Republic as the incarnation of the "city upon a hill", drawn from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:14-15 ("14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.") KJV) had receded back into religion and (as Foucault liked to remind us of the way elites abstracted and essentialized them into a statistic) the "population", for a long period after Winthrop. Until the Presidency of Ronald Reagan. "A shining city on a hill. Ronald Reagan loved the phrase. He used it over and over again, perhaps most notably in his 1989 presidential farewell address." 

I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still. (David Fromm, "Is America Still the ‘Shining City on a Hill’?: If the eyes of all people are upon America now, they are not witnessing an edifying spectacle", The Atlantic (1 January 2021)).

Pix Credit New York Times

 Indeed, the President reminded on in his message: "And at the height of the Cold War and the righteous crusade that he led to defeat atheistic communism, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed 1983 to be the Year of the Bible." (Presidential Message Commemorating 250 Years of the Bible in America). The object here is to remind one of the strong connection between the Bible, and Biblical cognitive orientations, as an inextricably important part of the fabric, at least historically, of the political life of the Republic.  In a period in which the fundamental political line is built on the theme of a restoration to a golden age, that historical connection is an important element. "Together, we will honor Holy Scripture, renew our faith, usher in a historic resurgence of religion on American shores, and rededicate the United States as one Nation under God." (Presidential Message Commemorating 250 Years of the Bible in America).

Reflections on Department of Justice "Corporate Enforcement Policy for All Criminal Cases" (March 2026)

 

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In March 2026, the Justice Department of the United States distributed a revised policy document: Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy. 

By the admission in the text of the document itself. it constitute one of a number of documents in the galaxy of text that purports to be functionally regulatory but that at the same time vigorous denies its own purpose and existence ("This policy is not intended to, does not, and may not be relied upon to create, any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any person." Ibid., note 1).  It is a textual object that denies its own text and in the denial, projected outward to its targets, reinforces its textual objectivity through effect  rather than through the force of its text. That is it is text mediated by and through the techno.bureaucrats which, within their apparatus, and authorized through the projection of other text, can exercise a discretion to do or not do things or take decisions which affect the objects toward which the guidance on discretionary decision making is projected.  

This policy that is not law, this guidance that has no formal effect, on those to whom it is directed (the techno-bureaucrats) but effectively serves as notice of the probability that it will play a role in the way in which these techno-bureaucrats exercise discretion (and are thus protected against claims of abuse of administrative power in decision making) by those onto whom it is projected (the actors or processes with respect to which discretionary authority may be exercised in accordance with authoritative task delegating such authority). That, of course, is the essence of the framework of legality around which a complex and sophisticated techno-bureaucracy is constituted. It is one in which law itself is reduced to delegations of empowerment, and in which the levers of policy and guidance (without the effect of law) can be used to guide the application of legally constituted power by those onto whom such authority is vested.  The administrative state, then, clothed in legality, is operated through webs of policy/guidance, that are not law but have the effect of law not as a positive force but as a prophylactic against accountability with respect to actions taken under color of law.  

In this case, the focus is on the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. The purpose is to induce behaviors among the class of persons and transactions against which prosecutorial discretion is exercised without  the bother of mandating these behaviors through law or law making (subject to its own constraints and democratic accountability), that effectively compel behavior that the law does not technically require. None of this is new; all of it a marker of the times in the sense that the notion of legality, and its systems, has, over the course of the last several centuries continued to adhere to the cantillation of an ancient ideological ideal even as the basic structures and operations of the systems from which that ideal arose shifted from  law as command, to legality as framework within which command shifted from text to administrative decision making within guided frameworks. 

The subject of all of this is the guiding management of corporate governance, especially as a function of governmental oversight. While the ultimate object is legal compliance--with the heart of sovereign authority, its criminal law, its direct object was to reshape the forms and expectations of corporate governance through a series of punishments and rewards masquerading as policy (The New Legislation: Prosecutorial Discretion Guidelines and Corporate Compliance ("The temptations to move toward this shift of authority from the rule of law to the law of the exercise of discretion is especially irresistible where the prosecutorial organs of state power seek to protect against corruption or to further the governmentalization of enterprises through the institution of internal law systems (in the American parlance--compliance and monitoring programs designed to prevent, mitigate and avoid unlawful behaviors).  ")). In 2023, I thought about it this way: 

Pix Credit--"The Office (1999)

One of the most interesting development among those fixated on the enterprise of law has been the way that the formal structures of law making have been dissolving under the acid drip that is shift from law-command institutions (the classical operating mode of the state) to institutional systems grounded in the exercise of administrative discretion conferred on officials by law. Law, in effect, at least its classical expression, has retreated, and in its place one finds the administrator, the official, the individual (or soon the automated generative and sentient AI program) applying, enforcing, or embellishing the  structure or system making "command" of law. In the process, the direct interface between the individual who bears the burden of law (the objects of compliance) and those who impose it (traditionally legislatures and the judiciary) has also changed. The administrator--and increasingly the prosecutor--now stand between the individual and classical law. And the modalities of law do not reach the individual burdened with the responsibility for compliance. Rather, and increasingly, law's command--elaborated through the structures of regulatory governance (and effectuated through the exercise of administrative discretion)--is increasingly delegated to the individuals and entities  whose compliance are their object (e.g., here).  As a result--public legalities now wear two faces.  On the one hand, they are charged with overseeing compliance by the objects of regulation; on the other they oversee that compliance both by exercising discretion in enforcement, and by elaborating the conditions under which that discretion is to be exercised.  * * * None of this suggests judgment. None of this is sinister. It follows inevitably from the changing character of the state, and of the managerial expectations of public bodies. The incentive in compliance environments is to increasingly narrow private choice (and risk calculus) substituting for it the public policy choices of the state expressed through the administration of objectives-based regulation by its officials. ("Modern Times"--The Rise of State Managed Enterprises and the Role of the National Procuratorate in Market Economies like the United States)

 A change of Administration appears not to have slowed the pace of this transformation, though perhaps it is now targeted differently. It is with this in mind that one can read the Department of Justice Press Release which is meant (as is the style of these announcements in the current era)  to crow about some spectacular advance that brings joy to the masses:

The Department of Justice released today the first-ever Department-wide corporate enforcement policy for criminal matters, promoting uniformity, predictability, and fairness in how it pursues white-collar cases to protect the American people. “This Department of Justice is committed to transparency and fairness, and our first-ever Department-wide corporate enforcement policy is yet another example of that,” said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. “ * * * “The Criminal Division has a long and storied history of corporate enforcement, and the corporate enforcement policy announced today takes the principles the Division has long promoted — disclosure, cooperation, and remediation — and applies them uniformly across the Department,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “* * * The Department-wide Corporate Enforcement Policy (CEP) provides concrete benefits to incentivize companies to voluntarily disclose discovered misconduct, cooperate with our investigations, and timely and appropriately remediate the wrongdoing. (Press Release: Department of Justice Releases First-Ever Corporate Enforcement Policy for All Criminal Cases)

Its substance has been analyzed by some of the major law firms (example here). The effects on corporate governance within a compliance framework, however remains the same. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche made that clear enough: “Well-intentioned businesses know that, across the Department, they will be rewarded when they self-disclose wrongdoing, cooperate with our investigations, and remediate the misconduct. But for those that do not, make no mistake — we will not hesitate to seek appropriate resolutions against companies and individuals alike that perpetrate white collar offenses that harm American interests.” (Press Release)

The text of the Press Release and the Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy follow below.

 

Circulating Discussion Draft: "Blockchain Regulatory Systems—Conceptual and Operational Challenges"

 

Image created with ChatGPT

 

My co-author, Daniil Rose and I are delighted to circulate a discussion draft of a recently roughed out essay: Blockchain Regulatory Systems—Conceptual and Operational Challenges. The Abstract  gives one a fairly clear idea of our aim:

Abstract: This article challenges one of the most common assumptions in contemporary blockchain discourse: that code can be understood as a “rule” analogous to law. It argues instead that code is better conceived as a system, an environment, or even an ecology of layered rule frameworks through which regulation is produced, translated, and enforced. In the process of its creation, the human and human systemicity is displaced and subordinated. In the blockchain context, what is often described as the “Rule of Code” is not a singular rule of or by code but an interactive multilingual system of command that follows its own logic. From that premise, the article reorients the debate between Rule of Law and Rule of or by Code. The real conflict is not between two neatly opposing sovereigns, but between different regulatory ecologies that organize meaning in fundamentally different ways. The paper begins by framing blockchain as more than a technical tool, introducing it as a site where law, code, language, semiotics, and governance intersect in ways that unsettle conventional regulatory assumptions. It then develops its core argument through a series of analytical sections on the threats to the Rule of Code, the relationship between legitimacy and coded systems, and what the authors call the “Sacher-Torte” model, which shows how blockchain operates through layered communicative and regulatory environments rather than a single rule structure. Finally, the paper turns to the dialectic between traditional legal ordering and coded systems, concluding that the real challenge is not choosing between law and code, but understanding how human regulation can still operate at the points where these distinct systems meet and produce effects in the world.

The discussion draft may be accessed SSRN HERE; it may also be accessed on my personal website here: BACKER_ROSE_v1_Rule_of_Code_Blockchain4-2026. It follows below. Engagement always welcome.

 

CfP: "Metaphor and Legal Interpretation: A Rhizomatic Mapping of Law" International Journal for the Semiotics of Law

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I am delighted to pass along this announcement from my friend and colleague Ann Wagner (Lille) about an exciting call for papers (CfP) for a special issue of the Participating journal: International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique: Metaphor and Legal Interpretation: A Rhizomatic Mapping of Law. Here is the overview:

This special issue invites contributions that explore the role of metaphor in legal interpretation through the lens of law as a rhizomatic system of meaning. Moving beyond traditional, hierarchical conceptions of law as a stable structure of norms, this collection approaches law as a dynamic, non-linear, and semiotic process—one that is continuously reconfigured through interpretive practice. At the core of this project lies the proposition that metaphor is not merely a stylistic or rhetorical feature of legal language, but a fundamental cognitive and semiotic mechanism through which legal meaning is produced, structured, and transformed. Legal concepts such as rights, duties, responsibility, balance, and justice are not accessed directly; rather, they are mediated through metaphorical mappings that shape how they are understood, applied, and contested.

By situating legal interpretation within a rhizomatic framework, this issue reconceptualizes interpretation as a distributed and evolving process unfolding across multiple sites: judicial reasoning, legal doctrine, normative texts, and broader discursive environments. Legal meaning emerges through networks of connections, ruptures, translations, and reconfigurations, reflecting the multiplicity and fluidity of contemporary legal phenomena.

Suggested Topics: We welcome submissions that engage with, but are not limited to, the following themes:

--Metaphor as a cognitive and semiotic structure in legal reasoning
--The role of metaphor in judicial decision-making and doctrinal development
--Rhizomatic models of law and non-linear approaches to legal interpretation
--Metaphor and the construction of legal concepts (e.g., rights, sovereignty, responsibility)
--Dominant and alternative metaphors in legal discourse
--The transformative and disruptive potential of metaphor in law
--Legal semiotics and metaphor
--Philosophical hermeneutics and metaphor in legal interpretation
--Cognitive linguistics approaches to law
--Critical legal theory perspectives on metaphor and meaning
--Empirical analyses of metaphor in legal texts, judgments, or practice
--The role of metaphor in mediating between abstract legal norms and social realities

The full CfP follows below and may be accessed HERE. 

 

Full transcript of "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," April 12, 2026

 

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Lately  Margaret Brennan, perhaps despite herself and the apparatus within which she is embedded, has produced some very interesting exchanges in the form of interviews, or what passes for interviews these days on the old school television show, "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," a baby boomer legacy project that has been restyled to survive even as  that demographic fades into history. See, for example,  Transactional Empire; or the Problem of Language When Merchant-Types Try to Speak to Old Guard Public Official-Types: Reflections on the Transcript of Secretary of State Marco Rubio on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan," Jan. 4, 2026.

That show and its interview style remains critically important for  illustrating both the merchant-type approach to analytics and action of the Trump Administration and some of its allies, as well as the difficulty for merchant-transactional-types to communicate with the old-guard inhabitants of the cognitive cages of reality shaping that marked the old era of vanguardist, institutional (nomenklatura) types--and vice versa. That challenge was brought out in the interview given by Secretary of State Rubio  in ways that skewed, and by skewing exposed the position of the writers and perhaps the network (but that is such an ordinary occurrence that it hardly merits mention--except to the extent that it, too, exposes the conceptual rift that makes communication between ancien regime and revolutionary cognitive approaches so difficult)) and their conceptual and reality rationalizing presumptions and those of  some of the people they interview. 

This enlightening incomprehensibility was also very much evident in the most interesting interview  by Margaret Brennan of  Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Leiter. It is particularly interesting for exposing the communicative and conceptual gulfs that exist among the traditional techno-institutionalist type mindset (Interviewer Brennan) discussing issues with a transactional/warrior type (Ambassador Leiter) around the driving influence of the transactional/merchant type (U.S. President Trump) with respect to the shaping, analysis, and future of the US/Israel military confrontation with the Government of Iran. The wrinkle here is the difference between a transactional-merchant and a transactional-warrior type. They appear to share much of the orienting premises especially with respect to the iterative, mimetic and transactional character of relations that are more focused on deal making rather than broader institutional arrangements about which, at the margins, both types are indifferent (except to the extent that it threatens the environment in which transactional relationships may be undertaken. But where the deal may be  privileged among transactional-merchant types,  to be enforced and realized through transactional win-win expectations, the transactional warrior type approaches the transactional space as the privileged concept, the protection (or in the case of Israel the construction) of which serves as a predicate for the deal making which is the forte and driving impulse of the transactional merchant. This is enforced and maintained through military action--backgrounded within the cognitive cages of the transactional merchant but foregrounded for the transactional warrior. 

The transcript follows below.  What stands out most, perhaps understandably, are the gaps in the understanding of critical terms and the expectations built around conflict that separates  both the US transactionalist/merchant and techno-institutionalist from the transactional/warrior. In that respect the discussion about Lebanon and Hezbollah is particularly clarifying.

 

Text of Interview: Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Hashem Ahelbarra of Al Jazeera

 

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 On 30 March 2026 Secretary of State was interviewed by Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra: Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Hashem Ahelbarra of Al Jazeera, the full text of which follows below. Al Jazeera's website describes Mr. Ahelbarra this way:

"Hashem Ahelbarra is a roving Middle East correspondent for Al Jazeera English. He regularly reports from Afghanistan, Yemen and across the Gulf region. Hashem has covered many of the biggest international news stories in recent years and secured exclusive interviews with many of the major names in world news, including late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Afghan president Hamid Karzai and former Liberian president Charles Taylor."

The interview provided an opportunity to meet with a representative of a press organ that  does not have a reputation for uncritical coverage of the Trump Administration, and which projects in important ways into the MENA regions in ways that Western legacy press organs and their instruments cannot do with the same trustworthiness. The transcript of that interview was also projected (in English and Chinese) into China through the US Embassy in Beijing. The English version was complete; the Chinese version was curated to foreground very specific elements of that interview  (马尔科·卢比奥国务卿接受半岛电视台哈希姆·阿赫勒巴拉的采访[摘译] focusing on the Straits of Hormuz, NATO and the possible widening of operations by regional actors within the affected MENA region). The Chinese transcript also follows below. 

 The interview is interesting not just for its focus on the operations against Iran, but also on the nature of the US Israel joint operations (and their relative coordinated autonomy, and the situation in Venezuela and Cuba. Of particular interest ought to be the very very careful language about NATO and its future.

QUESTION:  Do you believe the EU and NATO countries betrayed the U.S. at this crucial moment?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I think it was very disappointing.  You have this – and again, look, the President and our country will have to reexamine all of this after this operation is over.  But one of the reasons why NATO is beneficial to the United States is it gives us basing rights for contingencies.  It allows us to station troops and aircraft and weapons in parts of the world that we wouldn’t normally have bases, and that includes in much of Europe.  And to see that in a time of need – the United States has identified a grave risk to our national security and our national interest, and we needed to conduct this operation, and we have countries like Spain, a NATO member that we are pledged to defend, denying us the use of their airspace and bragging about it, denying us the use of our – of their bases.  And there are other countries that have done that as well. 

And so you ask yourself, “Well, what is in it for the United States?”  And I’ve been a big supporter of NATO and one of the reasons why I’ve been a supporter of NATO is because I believe that these basing rights give us leverage and give us flexibility in operational capability all over the world.  But if NATO is just about us defending Europe if they’re attacked but then denying us basing rights when we need them, that’s not a very good arrangement.  That’s a hard one to stay engaged in and say this is good for the United States.  So all of that is going to have to be reexamined.  All of it’s going to have to be reexamined.

  

段 威 善于通过科学立法解决新问题 [Duan Wei Adeptly Resolving New Issues By Means of Scientific Legislation]

 

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Duan Wei (段 威), Dean and Professor, School of Law, Minzu University of China [中央民族大学法学院院长、教授] has published an interesting essay in  Qiushi [《求是》], Issue 4, 2026. It is entitled 善于通过科学立法解决新问题 [ Adeptly Resolving New Issues By Means of Scientific Legislation]. It is a reminder that the spirit of the 3rd Plenum's development and refinement of the concept of socialist modernization in the New Era of China's historical development has permeated deeply into virtually all aspects of institutional and collective life. That spirit focuses modernization on innovation and high quality production. Though its central focus may be in economic production, it is clear that the spirit of innovation and high quality production is meant to touch on all aspects of collective activity--including the production of legislation. 

To that end, Dean Duan Wei  invokes the concept of 通过科学 (scientific legislation). This is a term that is meant to convey both the spirit of innovation and the high quality production of legislative products to serve their highest purposes--to resolve new issues and in that way effectively contribute to the overall efforts of the nation  toward all around scientific modernization. That, in turn, may help reshape the notion and character of law making, and certainly its crafting--away from politics (the core function of the vanguard Communist Party rather than the legislative organs that are meant to realize or operationalize political decisions conforming to the fundamental political line). This focus on  通过科学 (scientific legislation), then, refocuses legislation from an autonomous activity to one deeply interconnected with all other aspects of socialist modernization, and an important element to ensure its appropriate fulfillment through a facilitating cage of regulation. 

Law, in this sense, assumes its fundamental character as a factor in the production of modernization. In that sense it is both an object and the closing of process that is meant to be efficient wile conforming to the normative parameters within value is assessed and understood. This shows up in four ways in the essay. The first is with respect to the inventory of legislation: "Through scientific legislation, we can resolve the thorny issues inherent in reform. We must uphold the dialectical unity of "breaking" and "establishing": actively and proactively enacting laws where needed, while—on the basis of established laws—timely dismantling outdated provisions where necessary." [通过科学立法破解改革难题。坚持破与立的辩证统一，该立的积极主动立起来，该破的在立的基础上及时破，在破立统一中推动实现改革发展蹄疾步稳。]. This invokes the ancient spirit of Guiguzi's (鬼谷子) rhetoric.

The second shows up as an interconnection between the Chinese Five Year plans (especially that of the 2025 4th Plenum) and its legislative architecture. In that sense  scientific legislation is meant as a means for aligning legislative projects with the general or principal contradiction of the New Era-- The contradiction between the people's growing needs for a better life and the unbalanced and inadequate development [人民日益增长的美好生活需要和不平衡不充分的发展之间的矛盾]."Through scientific legislation, we can resolve the "bottlenecks" and "chokepoints" hindering high-quality development. Currently, issues such as local protectionism and market fragmentation, "involuted" competition, and disparities in the business environment have emerged as pressing challenges that demand immediate attention." [通过科学立法解决高质量发展的堵点卡点问题。当前，地方保护和市场分割、“内卷式”竞争、营商环境存在差距等，已成为亟须回应的难题。].

The third aligns scientific legislation with the mass line. 群众路线是党的根本路线，这是由我们党的全心全意为人民服务的宗旨所决定的。["The Mass Line is the Party's fundamental guiding principle—a truth dictated by our Party's core purpose: to serve the people wholeheartedly. "]. "Through scientifically grounded legislation, we can effectively respond to the evolving demands of the public. By maintaining a problem-oriented and goal-oriented approach, we can drive the legislative process to extend from the macro level down to the micro level, thereby addressing the public's specific concerns with precision." [通过科学立法回应人民群众新诉求。坚持问题导向、目标导向，推动立法从宏观向微观延伸，精准回应群众关切。例如，针对医疗服务、养老服务、噪声污染防治等具体问题，通过“小切口”立法，精细化解决群众的实际困扰。]

The fourth is manifested in the utilization of law in ways that aligns with socialist development projected abroad. In that sense it is the production and deployment of objects and expectations that align with the  four main pillars of the overall policy initiative to fashion a "community with a shared future for mankind" [人类命运共同体]—Global Development (GDI), Security (GSI), Civilization (GCI), and Governance (GGI). "We will accelerate the development of a legal system applicable extraterritorially, clearly defining its scope, conditions, procedures, and enforcement mechanisms, to ensure that our law enforcement and judicial authorities have a legal basis upon which to act when addressing issues such as cross-border torts, economic and trade disputes, national security, and the protection of overseas interests," [加快推进域外适用的法律体系建设，明确适用的范围、条件、程序和实施机制，使我国执法司法机关在处理跨境侵权、经贸摩擦、国家安全、海外利益保护等问题时有法可依。]. It is this last one that will likely interest foreigners most bit it is also the manifestation that is least comprehensible without a deeper understanding of the first three.

通过科学 (scientific legislation), then, serves as an important signifier, connecting the production of legislation--as object, process, and manifestation of the fundamental line as elaborated in the 3rd and 4th Plenum of the 20th Congress--to socialist modernization, and with that to the fundamental task of Party of State in moving in the right direction along the Socialist Path.   Or, reversing the polarities of that last statement: the 3rd and 4th Plenum objectives will be signified through the intertwining of action and its cage of regulation, to those ends  the concept of  通过科学 (scientific legislation) signifies both. The full text of the essay ion the original Chinese and in an English translation follows below.  

 

Pix credit here (1976; "With Class Struggle as the Key Link, Set Off a New High Tide in Revolutionary Production)