Announcing Publication of 5th Edition of Ravitch & Backer, Law & Religion: Cases and Materials (West Academic)

 

Pix credit here (apologies pix of 4th edition, the 5th will have the same cover)

My friend and colleague Frank Ravitch (Professor of Law & Walter H. Stowers Chair of Law and Religion, Director Kyoto Japan Program) and I are putting the finishing touches on the 5th edition of our book--Law & Religion: Cases and Materials (West Academic;  ISBN: 979-8-31770-113-0), which should be available ion early August 2026. 

It is, indeed a quite interesting time, for matters of law and religion. That interest is not confined to the United States, where the arc of jurisprudence development that spanned almost a century and was thought by some to be inevitable and permanent is proving to be neither--to the chagrin of those heavily invested (normatively and otherwise) and who, like their colleagues who been in this position since at least 1947, have rallied around the principles and cognitive frameworks of the old jurisprudence to save what they can and to prepare the way not just for its triumphant return but for its further elaboration . . . eventually. For now they now increasingly serve as dissenting voices to what is emerging. But this is not merely a unique "American problem." The jurisprudence is being reshaped in Europe, Africa, Latin America and other places as they confront the challenges of readjusting jurisprudence to fit within the emerging realities of their respective demographics and political choices. And both theocracy and atheism remain, as ever, a globally viable force.

For the student, challenges may have three dimensions. The first is to study the peculiarities (norms and jurisprudential trajectories) of their domestic legal-constitutional order. The second is to situate that jurisprudence within the larger discussions of the relationship of law and religion in other states. And the third is to try top grasp the way that the issue has escaped out from its traditional state-legal borders to become an issue of internal law and norm making.  

The materials are divided with that in mind. Frank Ravitch has taken the laboring oar on the U.S. domestic legal ordering of law and religion. The books first 6 chapters are devoted to the study of the U.S: constitutional ordering of the usually fragile and changeable relationship between the State and its many religions. I have taken on the international aspects viewed through the lens of the developments in the U.S., as is appropriate for or our U.S. based students. I start easy--Chapter 7 focuses on religion as systems of norms and rules, as legal-moral systems with their own institutions, and jurisprudence, both of which vary widely and considers some of the ways in which those religious-institutional-legal systems interact with public law. Chapter 8 is devoted to constructing the analytical comparative framework through a deeper dive into one area of law and religion--the right to wear or display religious apparel. Chapter 9 then considers law and religion more broadly outside the US. and introduces students to international law and norm making, with a focus on the work of the regional human rights courts in Africa, Latin America and Europe.  

I have included the Summary Table of contents and the (almost final) Introduction to Part 2 of the Book.  

Interview with Prof. Zhang Weiwei, Director of the China Institute at Fudan University and a former Translator for Deng Xiaoping

 

Pix credit and video here

 

Happy to pass along the video of Afshin Rattsani's interview of  Prof. Zhang Weiwei, Director of Fudan University’s China Institute and former Translator for Chinese Paramount Leader Deng Xiaoping. It is worth listening too, though one must be prepared to filter the listening through the not unexpected political and ideological lenses through which the interview is framed. Framing context is everything in contemporary discourse, and discursive engagements. And this interview is no exception with respect to the time, place, and space within which it was produced. In a sense, that lens is as instructive as the very interesting conversation wrapped around it. Conclusions, of course, will be a function of the listener's inclinations, and correctly so. 

The video may be accessed here. 

Science Fiction Double Feature: Anthrop\c's "2028: Two scenarios for global AI leadership," in the Shadow of Palantir's "Manifesto"

 

Pix credit here 

The comedy-horror hybrid can be a tricky genre to get right. This is especially true of those films that attempt to leverage well known monsters. And while names such as Dracula and Werewolf pop up fairly frequently in these types of films, it is The Creature from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that offers arguably the most interesting template from which to draw inspiration. While some films focus primarily on achieving humor (Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, I Was a Teenage Frankenstein), others dial back the levity to create a more transgressive viewing experience (Lady Frankenstein, Frankenhooker). But one film that manages to blend both aims seamlessly while also offering up a healthy dose of social commentary is The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). (Horror in the Homeroom)

 Earlier this month Alex Karp and Nicholas Zamiska posted to the social media site "X" a sort of Manifesto in the form of a  22 point reduction of their book, "The Technological Republic" (2025).  Both the book and Manifesto reduction were self-described by their social media agit-propaganda as critique and a pleading (in its ancient sense of giving pleasure, or obtaining approval)):

 a searing critique of our collective abandonment of ambition, arguing that in order for the U.S. and its allies to retain their global edge—and preserve the freedoms we take for granted—the software industry must renew its commitment to addressing our most urgent challenges, including the new arms race of artificial intelligence. The government, in turn, must embrace the most effective features of the engineering mindset that has propelled Silicon Valley’s success. Above all, our leaders must reject intellectual fragility and preserve space for ideological confrontation. A willingness to risk the disapproval of the crowd, Karp and Zamiska contend, has everything to do with technological and economic outperformance. At once iconoclastic and rigorous, this book will also lift the veil on Palantir and its broader political project from the inside, offering a passionate call for the West to wake up to our new reality. (here)

I approached that Manifesto, point by point, not as critique but as the performance of ancient social tropes that touch on the origins of the cognitive cages that still, to some extent, constrain, and by constraining, shapes Anglo-European collectives, our thought, and our ability to relate to the world around us. In this case as a manifestation of the declamations of Greek oracular tragedy in which they play a singularly peculiar role  (Reflections on the Palantir "Manifesto": The Oracular Semiosis of a "Technological Republic" Within its Own Cage of Techno-Modernization).

Palentir approached the question from an institutional and collective disciplinary space--on the (re)constitution of a social ordering the collective expresison of which must be managed in a specific way to meet both internal and external threat projections--but in a sort of tragically conventional way, that is by deploying traditional tropes and signified objects projections. This was oracular, programmatic, institutional, and permeated with the sort of traditional combination of hubris, principle, and good intention that sets up the triadic dialectic of opur Anglo-European cognitive foundations. Palantir was coding the generative architecture of physical beings as the magisterium that then aligned that coded natural order with the mimetic ordering of the virtual spaces of their animated virtual realities.  Palantir sought to created an aligned iterative, mimetic dialectic among human persons, their collectives, and the realms they have created in their own image, realms that both reflect their creator and yet also follow their own pathways (set initially by their creators).

Now, not to be outdone, or perhaps to add their own voices as a sort of sidelines occupying Chorus (on the functions of a Chorus in Greek theater here) comes the folks at Antrop\c, already famous for their abstracted, and to some extent virtual performance with the security apparatus of the United States with which, like the rest of society, they are in their own way entangled (Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War). They plead their case in a 14 May 2026 Policy Document, 2028: Two scenarios for global AI leadership. The core of their pleading is this:

It’s essential that the US and its allies stay ahead of authoritarian governments like the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP. AI will soon become powerful enough to be used to repress citizens at unprecedented scale, and even to alter the balance of power among nations. And since AI is advancing more quickly by the day, we have only a limited period of time to set the conditions of the competition—and determine whether and how those threats materialize. It’s with this in mind that we outline what’s required to ensure America stays ahead. (2028: Two scenarios for global AI leadership).

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If Palantir sought to code human collectives in dialectical mimesis with the creators they created and with which they now engage in  (for the monument) dependence based action iterations, then Anthrop/c, on the other hand, it reduces technology to a tool the deployment of which is a critical instrument in competition among different and divergent normative political-economic models.  It seeks to reduce its creation, and the ecologies in which virtual life operates, to an instrument, the maintenance and improvements of which are of critical importance to human, not human-machine dialectical mimesis. If Palantir was Greek in its semiotic orientations (that is the way they signify and interpret, and thus rationalize the world around them), the Anthrop\c was comfortably Hebrew in their approach to the fundamental constitution of the lifeworld (lebenswelt) in which the human and their creation could be situated in ways that domesticated  the "soulful machines" they have a hand in creating. Thus domesticated, one can name them, and by naming them signify their relationship to humanity as the essence of their character, and once named, assert dominion over them, at least to the extent to humanity's own creator finds "good." (Gen. 1:26). In this case one encounters the instrumentalization of signs, and especially the signification of A.I. or tech based "objects"to manage perception, and shape meaning for a specific political collective, whose perceptions and cognitive foundations are in turn shaped by those objects (discussed here).   

Anthrop\c, then, moves from the theatrical ancient tragedy of theater to the contemporary campy horror movie genre. Killer Clowns from Outer Space (1988) has possibilities -- the plot of which revolves around invading aliens who land in a small town to cocoon and feed. Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988) about an iconic horror hostess inheriting a haunted mansion in a very prudish town who confronts her uncle who wishes to succeed to her witchy powers gets closer. Still, one one go father back to get to the semiotic hear of Antrop\c's worldview.

 

Pix credit here (Riff-Raff and Magenta)

In the camp horror classic, Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman dir., 20th Century Fox 1975), a quintessentially reductionist, if cartoonish, objectification-animation of a stroy the contents and meaning of which is supplied by a narrator (the "Criminologist") of the ordinary couple of the time find themselves knocking on the door of a strange residence on a stormy night when, as such things tend to happen, their car breaks down. They are admitted to the residence of one, Dr, Frank-N-Furter, who is an alien from the Planet Transsexual in the Galaxy of Transylvania. The good doctor is about to to unveil his mad creation at a party attended by his madcap collection of friends and hosted by his fellow Transsexualiens, all dressed for the event in costumes that might appear to our hapless couple as trans-vestiture or other cultural-expectation-flouting rainment (in its ancient sense of fine ceremonial wear, or spiritual coverings, with substantial signification). The event which our couple crashes was arranged to celebrate the animation, the trans-activation, of  Dr. Fran-N-Furter's creation--Rocky--the hyper-muscled hyper-expression of the object of (self) desire; the ideal made flesh. Hilarity then ensues as everything goes sideways, and everyone is transformed in one way or another; until those transformations prove too much ("Give yourself over to absolute pleasure. . . Don't Dream it--Be it" Lyrics 1975). The Criminologist and Riff Raf agree, parsing Foucault, that "society must be protected" (Lyrics, 1975), theirs and ours as the transsexualiens kill Dr. Frank-N-Furter and Rocky for their trans-gressions, and return the entire house, and its objects, to the planet of transsexual in the Transsexual Galaxy where things are normal. That leaves the Criminologist, Brad and Janet. . .and Rocky, to "do the time warp again". . . .   

With a bit of a mind flip
You're into the time slip
And nothing can ever be the same
You're spaced out on sensation
Like you're under sedation
Let's do the Time Warp again
Let's do the Time Warp again

(Time Warp (Lyrics, Richard O'Brien; 1975)) 

Pix credit Video "Let's Do the Time Warp" (1975)

That, in a sense, is the fundamental orienting point for Anthrop\c's"science fiction double feature", its  2028: Two scenarios for global AI leadership. There is a double double here. Anthrop\c's two scenario blockchain narrative; and the double feature of Anthrop\c's blockchain and Palantir's structural predictive analytics encased its its own Rocky Horror. It appears that contemporary society has at last managed to trans-form itself into the living expression of the symbolist camp of human collective simulacra, like that of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  And that trans-ition from signified physical objects to the animation, the trans-itioning, of the datafied object which in virtual spaces may be animated by breathing into it a sort of divine breath--the pathways to cognition in the form of layered coded relationships that can acquire a life of their own in the sense of controlling or deploying and changing its own life force (its coding, as such) over and through its datafied bodies--then brings us to the moment of truth that were faced by the Transsexualiens. It brings one to Riff Raff (the butler) and  Magenta (the maid). It brings us back to Antrop\c. But more importantly it brings one back to the audience that counts--the American state and market apparatus and its mangers: Brief Reflections on U.S: Council of Economic Advisors--Report: Artificial Intelligence and the Great Divergence (January 2026);  Liberal Democratic Leninism in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Tech Driven Social Progress: Remarks by Director Kratsios at the Endless Frontiers Retreat and "The Golden Age of American Innovation"; Reflections on "'Accelerating American Exports'--Remarks by Director Kratsios at the APEC Digital and AI Ministerial Meeting"; CSIS EVENT: Unpacking the White House AI Action Plan with OSTP Director Michael Kratsios. It is also a warning to the "other": U.N. Global Dialogue on Artificial Intelligence Offers Platform to Build Safe Systems and Open Call for Candidates

The 1970s focused on sex. . . . the second quarter of the 21st century focuses on on the datafied simulacra of soulful machines, as tools for civilizational quests, and as the divine incarnation of an aggregated humanity that may, having been born from out of the ingestion of the Edenic Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, may invert the relationship between aggregated creation and the creator. Antrop\c's object is AI competition between the U.S. and China. But of course it is not about that at all. Instead Antrop\c uses that as the object through which  they attempt an important signification of what for them is the larger problem (or in Chinese Leninist terms, the general contradiction)--the instruments through which competitive society encode their realities, their foundational norms and expectations, encoded within the aggressive and expansionist political-economic models of the U.S. and China. Antrop\c makes no effort to hide this. "AI will soon become powerful enough to be used to repress citizens at unprecedented scale, and even to alter the balance of power among nations."

With that as the analytical core, the question then becomes far ore pragmatic: to what extent and in what ways, ought the State to develop practices and policies to ensure that American A.I. continues to dominate, and by dominating provides the means of protecting the liberal democratic lebenswelt from the imaginaries of Marxist Leninist States. The key is to dominate innovation (here pitting the Chinese project of Socialist Modernization driven by its high quality production initiative) against the American markets driven and national security framed framework. 

And the key to protecting innovation, and dominance, is the state. 

The most important ingredient for developing AI is access to the computer chips on which the models are trained (or “compute”). Since the most capable chips are developed by American companies, the US government currently limits China’s supply by enforcing tight export controls on them. Recent history suggests these controls have been incredibly successful. In fact, AI labs in China have only built models close in intelligence to America’s because of their talent, their knack for exploiting loopholes around these export controls, and their large-scale distillation attacks that illicitly extract the innovations of American companies. (2028: Two scenarios for global AI leadership)

To protect innovation one needs borders--physical and virtual. The borders do not merely protect AI. They serve to provide the conceptual space within which AI can be made in the image of its creator--and in that way become both an extension of and the idealized form of the desire for a perfect simulation of an ideal version of the collective political economic system from which it emerges.  

America and its allies approach AI competition from a position of great strength. The tools for AI dominance have been built by an exceptionally innovative ecosystem of companies in democratic nations. Our past success means that our present task is largely to avoid squandering our advantage: to decide not to make it easier for the CCP to catch up. (2028: Two scenarios for global AI leadership)

Two things happen if China catches up. The first is that the liberal democratic "golem", its "Rocky" is transformed and invested with the ideals and objectives of the Chinese "other." The second is that the liberal democratic golem is then deployed against its primary creator. The tool, then, the instrument, not only enhances the pathways toward the constitution and deployment of the simulacra of liberal democratic A.I. The tool serves as a defense against its corruption in the hands of the "other."

This serves as the basis for the storytelling that is the bulk of the essay:

In this post, we present two scenarios for what the world might look like in 2028, when we expect transformative AI systems to have arrived. In the first scenario, America has successfully defended its compute advantage. Policymakers have acted to tighten export controls further, disrupt China’s distillation attacks, and further accelerate democracies’ adoption of AI. In this world, democracies set the rules and norms around AI. It’s also in this scenario that we’re most likely to successfully engage with China on safety, which we’re supportive of to the extent this is possible. In the second scenario, America has chosen not to act. Policymakers have not tightened loopholes on the CCP’s access to compute, and AI firms in China have quickly taken advantage—catching up to the frontier and even overtaking America. In this world, AI norms and rules are shaped by authoritarian regimes, and the best models enable automated repression at scale. It will be no solace that this authoritarian triumph has happened on the back of American compute. (2028: Two scenarios for global AI leadership)

Like all binary systems, when reduced to its essence it is little more than the arrangement in time, place and space of oppositions that, depending on the patterns and the dialectic of pattern irritation and pattern movement, produce movement of the patterns shaped by irritated clusters of such oppositions. Here, borders matter. Borders are understood in a comprehensive way as a membrane that may be permeable, but only through specifically constructed points of structural coupling. Borders have a particular character--export (and expert) controls and national security based interdiction of tech and tech know how. The object is to protect the nature, character, operation and improvement of the liberal democratic "Rocky" against either corruption, or his "capture" and re-animation now with the soul of oppositional political economic systems, the normative cognitive cages of which are incompatible with those of liberal democracy.    

The political systems in which the most advanced AI is created will shape the rules and norms for how the technology is developed and deployed. In turn, those rules and norms will help determine whether the technology is safe, whose security it protects, and whose interests it ultimately serves. We believe that responsibility should rest with democratically elected governments, not authoritarian regimes.(2028: Two scenarios for global AI leadership)

No that this is wrong as such.  It is just that our Rocky provides a campy horror film version of the insights from Norbert Wiener, God and Golem, Inc., (MIT Press, 1964) in the relationship between the cybernetic machine and man is similar to the relationship between humanity and their creator. "There are at least three points in cybernetics which appear to me to be relevant to religious issues. One of these concerns machines which learn; one concerns machines which reproduce themselves; and one, the coordination of machine and man." (God and Golem, Inc., p. 11; consider also Reflections on Mohammed Gamal Abdelnour on "Artificial Intelligence and the Islamic Theology of Technology: From “Means” to “Meanings” and from “Minds” to “Hearts”" ("But all realms, including virtual realms, that are both a projection of the human and a means of externalizing the collective human for reinsertion into people, and form people, into the communities they would now feel "naturally" follow from this dialectic--all human realms--require a theology. Theology here is understood in its classical Greek sense of a rationalizing discourse on the gods. ).

Antrop\c worries about the control of all three--but as a function, as well as the instrument, of the power of the normative State. Antrop\c posits the game between China and the United States  for the soul of the creature both desire to make, and which one has already made--more or less. Wiener reminds one that: 

 Thus, if we do not lose ourselves in the dogmas of omnipotence and Omniscience, the conflict between God and the Devil is a real conflict, and God is something less than absolutely omnipotent. He is actually engaged in a conflict with his creature, in which he may very well lose the game. And yet his creature is made by him according to his own free will, and would seem to derive all its possibility of action from God himself. Can God play a significant game with his own creature? Can any creator, even a limited one, play a significant game with his own creature? (God and Golem, Inc., p. 17).

The answer to the question posed by Wiener, the semiotician would suggest, is yes. And the yes is a function of the realization that when God plays the devil, he is playing with and as himself. Not in the manner of the Manichean, but in the manner of the dialectics of subjectivity. That then suggests that the instrumentality of AI and its normative basis, when it is deployed by politics, looks to the way that AI can be deployed instrumentally through projections of internal perfection outward against an oppositional perfection. 

But it is worth noting that Antrop\c is playing only one of two games. The game Antrop\c plays is for the control of the creature--our Rocky Horror--by one of two players; the prize of which is both the construction of the creature and his iuse against the other. Antrop\c would preserve the dominance of one version, not through the control of its development (that is beyond the point of the essay), but rather by denying the fruits of development of one version of AI to an oppositional force that would breath a quite different sort of life into the creature.  Yet there is another game--between both China and the United States and the creatures they are building. The assumption--still sop stubbornly held--that Rocky is indeed an instrument, soulless, and without much of a will, a creature completely and endlessly dependent on its creature is unlikely to retain much power once the creature learns to learn itself. This does not make the Antrop\c analysis wrong. Indeed it may add to its power (except the instrumentalist start point bit) where, if the foundational analytical presumption is to be believed--the power of AI is not merely its computational process; rather it is its normative baselines, not merely programmed but evolving with each iteration  shaping its process of induction reasoning (in its simplest form pattern recognition), to one where, in predictive analytics, it may well shape the iterative data flows through which it will move  away from its original creator made version (Wiener's self reproducing machines). At that point Wiener's suggestion of the divine quality of the coordination of man and machine will become a much larger concern. This is a very different "head space" than the one that fascinates the folks at Palantir. 

Pix Credit Video "Let's Do the Time Warp" (1975)

Anthrop\c is our American AI Dr. Frank-N-Furter. The Folks at Palantir means to be our "Narrator," the Criminologist expert who guides the audience, signified by our  conventional couple, Brad Majors and Janet Weiss. Together they trans-form themselves and each other around the constructed incarnation of an ideal external to themselves. For Anthrop\c Rocky is an instrument to be protected from corruption and to preserve the vectors of transition that they believe they can manage--that is managing Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Brad and Janet are the objects of transition, for which the guidance of the "Narrator" criminologist, provide guardrails; but even the Palantir Criminologist cannot be unaffected by contact with transformative tech and its presence. But no one pay much attention to the operational elements--Riff Raff and Magenta. Magenta has the right of it perhaps--not sex but in the virtualization of ourselves, and worse, in our incapacity to understand and respond, use, embed, resist, a thing that was but is not us, but is now itself leaving us to appear to mange it while we ought to be learning how to better manage ourselves. That is the hint, unexplored, in our Antrop\c-Palantir double feature.

Science Fiction - double feature
Frank has built and lost his creature
Darkness has conquered Brad and Janet
The servants gone to a distant planet
Oh - at the late night double feature
Picture show - I want to go - Ohh -
To the late night double feature picture show. 

(Magenta, Epilogue, Lyrics 1975) 

 The complete text of 2028: Two scenarios for global AI leadership follows below.

 

Se anuncia la publicación de «Un constitucionalismo consultivo democrático para sistemas políticos marxista-leninistas (socialistas): teoría y estructura de la “democracia popular de proceso integral”», *American University International Law Review*, Vol. 41(2): 371-438.

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 VERSIÓN EN INGLÉS AQUÍ

 Me complace anunciar que mi artículo, «Un constitucionalismo consultivo democrático para sistemas políticos marxista-leninistas (socialistas): teoría y estructura de la "democracia popular de proceso integral"» (全过程人民民主), ha sido publicado en la *American University International Law Review*, Vol. 41(2): 371-438.

He aquí el resumen:

Resumen: El orden constitucional socialista (marxista-leninista) chino ha desarrollado recientemente, de manera exhaustiva, una teoría y una práctica de la democracia; un modelo que se ha presentado como alternativa a la teoría y la práctica de la democracia liberal. En la China contemporánea, esta evolución ha tomado una forma concreta bajo la denominación de 全过程人民民主 (Democracia Popular de Proceso Integral [WPPD, por sus siglas en inglés]). Este ensayo examina esta teoría emergente de la democracia china, tanto dentro de la estructura del constitucionalismo chino como en su calidad de expresión de sus fundamentos marxista-leninistas. La esencia de la distinción entre esta forma de teoría democrática y la democracia liberal clásica reside en la centralidad que, dentro de este sistema, se otorga a la consulta por encima de las elecciones; si la democracia liberal constituye una práctica esencialmente exógena (en la que las elecciones son la expresión primordial de la práctica democrática), la WPPD china adopta una forma esencialmente endógena (articulada en torno a sistemas bien organizados de consulta formal). En primer lugar, el ensayo examina los fundamentos estructurales y normativos de la WPPD. A continuación, explora el papel fundamental que desempeña la consulta —estructurada y estratificada— en la construcción de las instituciones democráticas en China. Por último, integra estas dos líneas de análisis para examinar la lógica subyacente del sistema: una lógica concebida para superar las contradicciones existentes entre la democracia de «línea de masas» y el principio constitucional fundacional de la «dictadura democrática popular», al tiempo que coordina las funciones de las organizaciones colectivas bajo el liderazgo del partido de vanguardia. Se analizan las consecuencias de este enfoque endógeno en la orientación de la teoría democrática, estableciendo comparaciones con las prácticas marxista-leninistas de Cuba y con las propias de la democracia liberal.

 

Pix credit here

Puede acceder al artículo aquí: 

ILR Website: https://auilr.org/volume-41-issue-2/
Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/auilr/
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foto crédito aquí

 El presente artículo amplía y desarrolla sustancialmente las ideas publicadas originalmente en Guobin Zhou, Bjorn Ahl y Larry Catá Backer (eds.), *The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Constitutional Law*, cap. 32 (CUP, de próxima aparición). Asimismo, el artículo forma parte de un estudio a largo plazo de mayor envergadura sobre la democracia, que trasciende ampliamente sus contextos de origen liberal-democráticos. Resulta provechoso leerlo conjuntamente con Larry Catá Backer y Flora Sapio, «Popular Consultation and Referendum in the Making of Contemporary Cuban Socialist Democracy: Practice and Constitutional Theory», *U. Mia. Int'l & Compar. L. Rev.* 27:37-130 (2020), y con Larry Catá Backer, Flora Sapio y James Korman, «Popular Participation in the Constitution of the Illiberal State—An Empirical Study of Popular Engagement and Constitutional Reform in Cuba and the Contours of Cuban Socialist Democracy 2.0», *Emory Int'l L. Rev.* 34(1):183-276 (2020).

A continuación se presentan la Introducción y el Índice, tanto en ESPAÑOL. INGLÉS AQUÍ.

 

Announcing Publication of "A Democratic Consultative Constitutionalism for Marxist-Leninist (Socialist) Political Systems—The Theory and Structure of “Whole Process People’s Democracy” (全过程人民民主 全过程人民民主), American University International Law Review Vol. 41(2): 371-438

 

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 VERSIÓN EN ESPAÑOL AQUÍ

I am pleased to announce that my article,  A Democratic Consultative Constitutionalism for Marxist-Leninist (Socialist) Political Systems—The Theory and Structure of “Whole Process People’s Democracy” (全过程人民民主 全过程人民民主), has been published at the American University International Law Review Vol. 41(2): 371-438.

Here is the abstract: 

Abstract: The Chinese Socialist (Marxist-Leninist) constitutional order has recently fully elaborated a theory and practice of democracy, one that has been offered as an alternative model to liberal democratic theory and practice. In contemporary China, this evolution has taken concrete form as the form of 全过程人民民 主 (Whole Process People’s Democracy (WPPD)). This essay examines this emerging theory of Chinese democracy both within the structure of Chinese constitutionalism and as an expression of its Marxist-Leninist foundations. The essence of the distinction of this form of democratic theory with classical liberal democracy is the centrality of consultation rather than elections in this system; if liberal democracy is an essentially exogenous practice (elections as the primary expression of democratic practice), then Chinese WPPD takes an essentially endogenous form (built around well-organized systems of formal consultation). The essay first examines the structural and normative basis for WPPD. It then explores the pivotal role of structured and multilayered consultation in the construction of democratic institutions in China. Lastly, it puts these two lines of examination together to consider the system’s rationale, one that is meant to overcome the contradictions between mass line democracy and the foundational constitutional principle of people’s democratic dictatorship, while coordinating the roles of collective organizations under the leadership of the vanguard party. The consequences of this endogenous approach to the orientation of democratic theory are explored with comparisons to Cuban Marxist-Leninist practices and those of liberal democracy.

The article may be accessed here:

ILR Website: https://auilr.org/volume-41-issue-2/
Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/auilr/
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The article substantially expands and developed ideas first published in Guobin Zhou, Bjorn Ahl and Larry Catá Backer (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Constitutional Law  chp 32 (CUP, forthcoming). The article is also part of a larger long term study of democracy well beyond its liberal democratic homelands. It might be usefully read together with Larry Catá Backer and Flora Sapio, Popular Consultation and Referendum in the Making of Contemporary Cuban Socialist Democracy Practice and Constitutional Theory, U. MIA. Int'l & Compar. L. Rev. 27:37-130 (2020), and Larry Catá Backer, Flora Sapio and James Korman, Popular Participation in the Constitution of the Illiberal State--An Empirical Study of Popular Engagement and Constitutional Reform in Cuba and the Contours of Cuban Socialist Democracy 2.0, Emory Int'l L. Rev. 34(1):183-276 (2020).

The Introduction and Table of Contents follow below in ENGLISH. ESPAÑOL AQUÍ. 

 

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A Common Language Containing Differentiating Meanings Within Evolving International Standards for Sustainability Disclosure in Financial Statements: IFRS Foundation 2025 Annual Report—Fit for the Future

 

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The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) Foundation has released its IFRS Foundation 2025 Annual Report—Fit for the Future (31 March 2026).The IFRS Foundation described itself and the report as follows:

The IFRS Foundation is an independent, not-for-profit organisation created in 2001 to develop—in the public interest—high-quality, understandable, enforceable and globally accepted standards for financial reporting, and to promote and facilitate their adoption. Our objectives are set out in the IFRS Foundation Constitution.
The Standards—IFRS® Accounting Standards and IFRS® Sustainability Disclosure Standards—are collectively referred to as IFRS® Standards. They are set by the Foundation’s two independent standard-setting boards, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), using a rigorous, inclusive and transparent due process. (Report, p. 3).

A focus of the 2025 Report was on ISSB efforts to support jurisdictions that adopt and/or using its stabdards and on the further elaboration of those standards as a function of the IFRS Foundation mission. 

In 2025 the Foundation continued to support the development, maintenance and adoption of high-quality global standards. The IASB advanced key accounting projects, notably issuing revised versions of the IFRS for SMEs Accounting Standard and Practice Statement 1 Management Commentary and new guidance on disclosing uncertainties in the financial statements and hyperinflationary translation. It also consulted on a new risk mitigation accounting model. The ISSB supported jurisdictions adopting and using IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards, clarified aspects of IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures, continued enhancing the SASB Standards and progressed its research projects on Human Capital and Nature-related Disclosures. (Web Report Press Release)

That mission was summarized in the 2025 Report:

 Our mission is to develop IFRS Standards that bring transparency, accountability and efficiency to capital markets around the world. Our work serves the public interest by fostering trust, growth and long-term financial stability in the global economy.
Both the IASB and the ISSB focus on the needs of investors by requiring companies to disclose financially material information— that is, information that, if omitted, is stated or obscured, could reasonably be expected to influence investment decisions. This concept aims to ensure that financial reports are decision-useful and free from unnecessary detail. (Report, p. 4).

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Of course many of these terms are value laden; for example "fostering trust, growth and long-term financial stability." One might foster trust through social credit systems as well as by disclosure systems. Growth is itself subject to contextually important cultural and structural values and realities. While under a global convergence cognitive fundamental framework one might be able to speak to uniformity of factors indicating growth, and a singular normative template against which it would be assessed, that may no longer be the case. The signification of trust as well as of growth may no longer be entirely amenable to convergence. Not that the concepts will fracture entirely in incompatible forms, but the extent of variation and approaches, and the fundamental differences in the normative ordering from which their value (their signification) arises, may substantially affect both the application of values (for assessment) across variation, and the possibility of a uniformity of interpretation substantial enough to permit comparison (across systems) at a minimum. What is left, then, are the terms--objects the values of which may not align, and interpretations of which may no longer permit simple comparative analytics--much less assessment of interpenetrations, transactions, and choices among, within, and between these differentiable significated "families."

But then so are the objectives: to bring "transparency, accountability and efficiency to capital markets around the world." At the beginning of the century one could understand it almost solely on the basis of the fundamental presumption of the orthodox cognitive view of the time--the need for a global language and discipline of disclosure in the operation of business, that is, the adoption of a single language around which one could understand the operations of an enterprise in financial terms and as a function of the relationship between operational performance and risk.  That single language was then meant to embed a single set of normative meanings that then served to signify the language used, and thus signified to be able to produce a single point of globally collective consensus around the interpretation (normative) of the values embedded in (signified by) the key terms around which that language would now develop--transparency, accountability, and efficiency.

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By the start of the second quarter of the 21st century, however, the common language, like written Chinese, covered a wide variation in how it would be "spoken" and the signification with which common use terms would be infused. take transparency, for example. Within the cognitive cages of early 21st century convergence globalization transparency could be read broadly to require disclosure of virtually everything but trade secrets and protected know how--and even that might require some disclosure as a function, for example of its connection with adverse human rights or sustainability impacts (as these terms were to be developed by international institutions through hard and soft measures, norms, declarations, finds, etc.)--subject to increasingly narrowed exceptions for national security, development and the like. A quarter century later, transparency remains a presumption but now much more tightly constrained and perhaps sieved through superior obligations (many generated through domestic legal orders of States) respecting, national security, sanctions, data protection and data sovereignty, anti-espionage statutes, and blocking legislation to counter extraterritorial projections of regulatory systems. Transparency remains the same; its signification is now fractured and defined as a function of higher ranking signified principles, rules, and expectations. The same applies, with substantially more bite, to the construction and deployment of the concept of "risk." 

One can then, and with enthusiasm, embrace a common language, while at the same time investing that language with regional or other contextual meaning, and constrain it through higher order local values, especially those encased in domestic (or regional) rules and legislation. The imaginaries of unity are preserved, and, indeed, a platform within which such values and contestations of values, may be produced and consumed,  without enforcing a centralizing fundamental political or normative line. Yet that also is a step forward. A single language encasing difference may not have been the goal at the start of the 21st century, but language binds all the same--it binds enough that difference may be constrained by the outer boundaries of rational learning inside a cognitive cage that through its language objects effectively defines both that rationality and its limits. And it is that common language that provides all that is necessary to achieve the fundamentally critical element of this project: comparability and communication across and despite of difference. The rest might come later; or it might not. That convergence is no longer necessary where a common language has been substituted for common norms, beliefs, practices, and expectations. 

It is with that in mind that one might assess the Report's summary of annual accomplishments:

IFRS Foundation: "Successfully initiated an organisational restructure to improve effectiveness and deliver efficiencies as part of an ongoing transformation programme focused on increasing income, reducing costs and strengthening leadership capacity in central functions."

IASB: "• Made substantial progress on the work plan and delivered decision-useful financialreporting outcomes for stakeholders, including a major update to the IFRS for SMEs Accounting Standard, which is used in 85 jurisdictions, completion of the revised
IFRS Practice Statement 1 Management Commentary and amendments to IFRS 19 Subsidiaries without Public Accountability: Disclosures. • Reached a significant milestone with the proposed risk mitigation accounting model, which seeks to address a gap in how interest rate risk—one of the most important risks that financial institutions manage—is reflected in financial statements. • Responded to reporting challenges through engagement and targeted guidance, publishing illustrative examples on how to disclose uncertainties in the financial statements and issuing amendments to clarify how companies should translate financial statements from a non-hyperinflationary currency into a hyperinflationary one."  

ISSB: "• Assisted 40 jurisdictions in adopting or otherwise using IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards by providing targeted tools and guidance for regulators—including the Jurisdictional Roadmap Development Tool and Jurisdictional Rationale materials—and publishing profiles and snapshots to give stakeholders a clear view of jurisdictional adoption progress. • Supported consistent application of IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards by delivering educational materials, issuing clarifications to IFRS S2 Climate-related Disclosures and engaging with stakeholders, and supported interoperability and efficient disclosures by working with other standard-setters. • Published an exposure draft on a comprehensive review to enhance SASB Standards, advanced research on human capital disclosures and moved
from research to standard-setting in the project on nature-related risks and opportunities, with a plan to consult on proposed requirements in 2026." (Report, p. 6).

The Summary of the Report follows below along with the Trustee Chair's Statement.

 

Consultation on the draft guidelines on transparency obligations under the EU AI Act

 

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On 8 May 2026,  The EU Commission distributed its Draft of the guidelines on the implementation of the transparency obligations for certain AI systems under Article 50 of the AI Act. 

The obligations under Article 50 of the AI Act (transparency obligations for providers and deployers of generative AI systems) address risks of deception and manipulation, fostering the integrity of the information ecosystem. These transparency obligations pertain to marking and detection of AI generated content and labeling of deep fakes and certain AI generated publications. (here)

The Draft Guidelines may be accessed HERE. The Distribution Release explained: "The Commission prepared these guidelines in parallel to the Code of Practice on marking and labelling of AI-generated content. The guidelines clarify the scope of the legal obligations and addressing aspects not covered by the code." 

The Commission prepared these guidelines in parallel to the Code of Practice on marking and labelling of AI-generated content. The guidelines clarify the scope of the legal obligations and addressing aspects not covered by the code. 

The guidelines on transparency will clarify the scope and help deployers and providers of interactive and generative AI systems to comply with their respective transparency obligations. The rules will become applicable on 2 August 2026. Providers of AI systems will have to inform users when they are interacting with an AI system and implement machine-readable marks in generative AI systems to enable the detection of synthetic content as AI generated or manipulated. (here)

The Commission seeks feedback on draft guidelines on transparency obligations for AI systems. 

Stakeholders can take part in this targeted consultation until 3 June 2026. * * * To ensure a fair and transparent process, only responses received through the online questionnaire will be considered and reflected in the final summary report. This survey targets companies, ranging from startups and SMEs to large companies, and other organisations that develop and deploy AI systems that interact with individuals or generate synthetic content, including deep fakes. Stakeholders, including providers and developers of AI systems, businesses and public authorities as well as academia, research institutions and citizens are invited to share their views.

The well managed consultation is structured around a "Consultation Form" follows below.

OMFIF Commentary: Jordan Nann, "Sustainability is now a national security necessity"

 

 The global ordering continues to move closer to an (international relations) transvaluation of all values, the Umwertung aller Werte). Not, perhaps as Nietzsche conceived of it in dialectical terms in the form of (1) tradition/the past projected forward (Zarathustra's camel); (2) the rebel/the present projected back (Zarathustra's lion); and (3) the future/transvaluation detached from present and past (Zarathustra's Child); see Nietzsche Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883) ("Three metamorphoses of the spirit do I designate to you: how the spirit becometh a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child."). 

I have described this transvaluation as the move from a convergence globalization, to a national security globalization; from the spirit of inter-connection  and mutually assuring risk among States to one in which every aspect of collective life becomes, necessarily so, an aspect of the security of the nation. One already experiences this in the reconstitution of economic amalgamations in Chinese (from the inception of the Belt & Road Initiative; eg here; and here) and American (America First Initiative; eg here; here) fractured and hub centered globalization; but also in the context of business and human rights (see, e.g., here); and even the international order itself (from the Chinese side here).  It may be possible to envision  a context in which the cognitive ordering point for all elements of the international relations (and internal affairs) of States will be understood (and rationalized) as a function of national security; and that as a consequence, national security will become the baseline framework within which collective activity can be understood, analyzed, valued, and assessed. 

Now the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), an independent think tank for central banking, economic policy and public investment, providing a neutral platform for public and private sector engagement worldwide, has circulated a Commentary bringing sustainability within the national security umbrella. In Sustainability is now a national security necessity," authored by Jordan Mann (Account and Content Executive at OMFIF), one can consider the embedding of sustainability within a national security lebenswelt.  

The Commentary follows below and may be accessed from the OMFIF website HERE. 

Declaraciones del Secretario de Estado Marco Rubio ante la prensa — 5 de mayo de 2026 (incluyendo la traducción de la conferencia de prensa al español)

foto crédito aquí

 

ENGLISH LANGUAGE VERSION HERE

Marco Rubio: La Ley de Poderes de Guerra es inconstitucional, al 100 por ciento. Ahora bien, esta no es una postura exclusiva mía. Tampoco es la postura del actual Presidente de los Estados Unidos. Esta ha sido la postura de absolutamente todos los presidentes que han ocupado este cargo desde el día en que se aprobó dicha ley. Es completamente inconstitucional. Dicho esto, cumplimos con ella —en lo que respecta, por ejemplo, a la notificación— porque deseamos preservar unas buenas relaciones con el Congreso, ¿verdad? Y así lo hacemos. Pero incluso cuando ejercía como senador, yo sostenía que la Ley de Poderes de Guerra es 100 por ciento inconstitucional. Y miren, sé que algunos de ustedes —digan lo que quieran— podrían pensar que esta es una postura exclusiva de este Presidente. Pero esa ha sido la postura de todas y cada una de las administraciones presidenciales desde el día en que se aprobó esa ley. Constituye una vulneración de los poderes constitucionales del Presidente. No reconocemos la ley como constitucional. No obstante, cumplimos con ciertos elementos de la misma con el fin de mantener buenas relaciones con el Congreso. Y queremos que participen; queremos que estén informados. He acudido al Capitolio —no sé— unas cuatro veces este año para reunirme con todos los senadores, con todos los miembros de la Cámara de Representantes, con el Comité de Inteligencia y con el «Grupo de los Ocho». Queremos que se involucren en este asunto. Pero quiero ser muy claro respecto a la Ley de Poderes de Guerra: es inconstitucional, y todos los presidentes, en todas las administraciones, han adoptado esa postura. (Declaraciones del Secretario de Estado Marco Rubio ante la prensa)

Pix credit and video of the press conference here

El Secretario de Estado Marco Rubio habló ante la prensa el 5 de mayo de 2026. Declaraciones del Secretario de Estado Marco Rubio ante la prensa. El Secretario Rubio abordó las cuestiones relativas al conflicto con Irán y, de manera indirecta, el conflicto de la Administración con los medios de comunicación; especialmente en la medida en que estos están siendo utilizados como amplificadores de facciones de la élite política para las cuales el conflicto con Irán no resulta ni de su interés ni acorde con sus posturas políticas. De hecho, algunas de las preguntas pusieron de relieve esa brecha —una brecha conceptual y de valores— que separa el enfoque del Presidente respecto a Irán de los métodos preferidos por administraciones anteriores, las cuales, a su vez, se fundamentaban en premisas sustancialmente diferentes. El Secretario destacó las consecuencias de esta brecha en la forma en que abordó las respuestas a las preguntas planteadas: de un modo fundamentalmente transaccional y con una decidida aversión hacia los arreglos institucionales que sugirieran una presencia distinta a la de despejar espacios para las transacciones de los actores económicos.

Deteniéndonos un momento en la importancia de los estrechos: aproximadamente una cuarta parte del comercio mundial de petróleo —junto con volúmenes significativos de combustible y fertilizantes— transita a través del Estrecho de Ormuz. No se puede permitir que el régimen iraní dicte quién utiliza esta vía fluvial vital. No creo que esto se esté informando lo suficiente, o tal vez ustedes sí lo estén haciendo; no leo a todos. No lo sé... hay demasiados medios de comunicación aquí, no sé quiénes son todos ustedes; bueno, quiero decir, sé quiénes son algunos de ustedes, pero no sé quiénes son todos. (Risas). (Declaraciones del Secretario de Estado Marco Rubio ante la prensa).

El Secretario Rubio hizo referencia al derecho internacional y a las normas como base para proteger las vías fluviales. "Esta es una vía fluvial internacional. Y el derecho internacional es muy claro. Y eso me encanta, porque todo el mundo siempre habla del derecho internacional en este asunto. El derecho internacional al respecto es muy claro: las vías fluviales internacionales no pueden ser controladas por ningún país". (Declaraciones del Secretario de Estado Marco Rubio ante la prensa). Algunos podrían acusar al Secretario de hipocresía; dado que la Administración Trump ha sido tan desdeñosa con las instituciones internacionales y con las limitaciones del derecho internacional, ciertamente no podrían ahora —cuando les resulta conveniente— pretender invocar el derecho internacional para defender su postura. Sin embargo, el Secretario Rubio dejó claro en sus declaraciones ante la Conferencia de Seguridad de Múnich que la Administración Trump no rechaza el derecho internacional *per se*, y ciertamente no lo rechaza como línea de base normativa. (Reflexiones sobre la amistad, el poder de la autorrealización nacional y la línea de base definitoria de 1963 en y como "Estados Unidos Primero" — Texto del Secretario de Estado Marco Rubio en la Conferencia de Seguridad de Múnich). Dentro de esa jaula conceptual —la del mercader, más que la del burócrata institucionalista— se halla implícito un rechazo fundamental a la autoridad de las instituciones internacionales, entendidas como la manifestación suprema del organismo que constituye el derecho internacional posterior a 1945 (tanto como sistema, como norma y como objeto autónomo respecto de los Estados colectivizados de los cuales se dice que emana). No obstante, el transaccionalista —el tipo mercantil, el negociador y actor de mercado (en mercados de toda índole, incluida la política)— no niega, ni puede negar en su calidad de tradicionalista fundamental, el poder del derecho internacional; ya sea en el sentido de que este es ampliamente normativo (al expresar valores generales) o, más específicamente, en cuanto contrato entre Estados. Aquí se alude a la noción más antigua de un «derecho de gentes» (recuérdense las *Instituciones* de Justiniano), más que a las arquitecturas y premisas del proyecto de derecho internacional posterior a 1945.

 El derecho civil de Roma, y ​​el derecho de todas las naciones, difieren entre sí de la siguiente manera: las leyes de cada pueblo, regido por estatutos y costumbres, son en parte peculiares de sí mismo y en parte comunes a toda la humanidad. Aquellas normas que un Estado promulga para sus propios miembros son peculiares de sí mismo y se denominan derecho civil; aquellas normas prescritas por la razón natural para todos los hombres son observadas por todos los pueblos por igual y se denominan derecho de gentes. Así pues, las leyes del pueblo romano son en parte peculiares de sí mismas y en parte comunes a todas las naciones; una distinción que tendremos en cuenta a medida que se presente la ocasión. (Institutas, Libro 1, Título II, ¶ 1).

Es en este sentido que las perspectivas transaccionales abordan las organizaciones internacionales y las normas respecto a las cuales los foros internacionales proporcionan un espacio para el debate intergubernamental. Véase: *Estados Unidos propone una resolución del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU para defender la libertad de navegación y asegurar el estrecho de Ormuz*. Y es en este sentido que este enfoque difiere fundamentalmente de las visiones de aquellos que miran hacia una futura Tecnorrepública (*Reflexiones sobre el "Manifiesto" de Palantir: La semiosis oracular de una "República Tecnológica" dentro de su propia jaula de tecnomodernización*), aunque pueda compartir objetivos comunes.

Por último, los comentarios del secretario Rubio sobre Cuba y las sanciones relativas al petróleo merecen cierta difusión:

Así pues, el único bloqueo que ha ocurrido es que los cubanos han decidido —quiero decir, los venezolanos han decidido—: ya no les daremos petróleo gratis. Y pueden imaginarse que, hoy en día, tal como están los precios del petróleo, nadie regala petróleo gratis, y mucho menos a un régimen fallido. Por tanto, el problema con Cuba es peor, ¿de acuerdo? Su modelo económico no funciona. No funciona. Y las personas que están al mando no pueden arreglarlo. Y la razón por la que no pueden arreglarlo no es solo porque sean comunistas —lo cual ya es bastante malo—, sino porque son comunistas incompetentes. Lo único peor que un comunista es un comunista incompetente, y eso es precisamente lo que ocurre: comunistas incompetentes dirigen ese país. No saben cómo arreglarlo. Realmente no saben. Y tenemos, a 90 millas de nuestras costas, un Estado fallido que, además, resulta ser territorio amigo para algunos de nuestros adversarios. Por lo tanto, es un *statu quo* inaceptable, y nos ocuparemos de ello, pero no hoy. De acuerdo. (Declaraciones del Secretario de Estado Marco Rubio ante la prensa; énfasis añadido)

Todo esto resulta comprensible desde el interior de la jaula cognitiva del mercader dentro de los espacios transaccionales. Considérese el debate sobre la piratería como justificación para el bloqueo del estrecho de Ormuz. El objetivo de dicho bloqueo no es estrangular el tráfico, sino evitar la piratería por parte de los iraníes. El modelo de referencia no son las estructuras institucionales de finales del siglo XX para el tráfico en vías navegables internacionales, sino el modelo, mucho, muchísimo más antiguo, de los barones ladrones del Rin en el apogeo del Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico. Y el objetivo es facilitar el comercio y las rutas comerciales, más que perseguir algún fin institucionalmente más elevado. El acceso, el comercio y la competencia en igualdad de condiciones dentro de los mercados —en lugar de a través de instituciones colectivizadas diseñadas para imitar y desplazar a los mercados— constituyen la fuerza motriz en este caso. Y esto genera un enfoque de la colectivización que distingue al «leninismo de derecha» de la democracia liberal de finales del siglo XX y principios del XXI —centrado, como está, en la institucionalización de la actividad individual autónoma dentro de un marco de cumplimiento normativo y tecnoburocracias dirigidas— de aquello que se manifiesta, bajo cierta forma, como la colectivización de los mercados entendidos como plataformas en las que todos los colectivos humanos (Estados, empresas, religiones, culturas) producen y consumen sus respectivos productos.

Y luego, lo que se ha convertido —a posteriori— en un fragmento ampliamente difundido, en el que el Secretario de Estado expresó sus esperanzas para los Estados Unidos:

PREGUNTA: —como todos sabemos. Debo preguntarle: ¿cuál es su esperanza para Estados Unidos en un momento como este? 
SECRETARIO RUBIO: ¿Mi esperanza para Estados Unidos? 
PREGUNTA: ¿Y cómo lidia usted personalmente...?
SECRETARIO RUBIO: Es la misma que ha sido siempre. 
PREGUNTA: ...¿con eso? 
SECRETARIO RUBIO: Sí, mire; es decir, mi esperanza para Estados Unidos es la que siempre ha sido. Creo que es la esperanza que —confío— todos compartimos: queremos que siga siendo el lugar donde cualquiera, venga de donde venga, pueda lograr cualquier cosa; donde uno no se vea limitado por las circunstancias de su nacimiento, por el color de su piel o por su origen étnico, sino que —francamente— sea un lugar donde uno sea capaz de superar desafíos y alcanzar su máximo potencial. 
Creo que ese debería ser el objetivo de todos los países del mundo, francamente; pero considero que, en los EE. UU. —no somos perfectos. Nuestra historia no es una historia de perfección, pero aun así es mejor que la historia de cualquier otro. Y la nuestra es una historia de mejora perpetua. Cada generación ha dejado a la siguiente generación de estadounidenses más libre, más próspera y más segura; y ese es también nuestro objetivo. 
Pero es un país único y excepcional y, al acercarnos a este 250.º aniversario, creo que tenemos mucho que aprender de nuestra historia y mucho de lo que sentirnos orgullosos. Es una historia de mejora perpetua y continua, en la que cada generación ha hecho su parte para acercarnos al cumplimiento de la visión que los fundadores de este país tuvieron en el momento de su fundación. (Declaraciones del Secretario de Estado Marco Rubio ante la prensa).

Hay mucho más en esa rueda de prensa que merece ser considerado. Y mucho con lo que unos podrían discrepar, especialmente aquellos cuyos valores y puntos de partida cognitivos resultan incompatibles con los de la actual Administración. Sin embargo, la naturaleza y el tenor de dicha discrepancia se han convertido ya en una mera consigna y en una postura de trinchera. 

A continuación, se reproduce el texto íntegro de la rueda de prensa en el original inglés y en una tradcussión en español.