Report on Conference: "Law and Human Rights in a Post Secular World" hosted by Mississippi College School of Law

(Pix from HERE)

On March 28-29, 2014, Mississippi College School of Law hosted an excellent group of scholars to consider issues of religion, the state and the international system in and through the lens of human rights.  Held at the school's campus in Jackson, Mississippi, and organized by Mississippi College's Mark the conference challenged its participants to engage with issues centering on the “return of religion” to politics and the existential crisis for secular liberalism that has followed in the West. Vigorous debate now centers on what it means for the state and the law to be “secular” or even whether secular neutrality is possible. 

This post includes the "conference overview ", and abstracts of the papers presented.

"Knowledge: Power and Production" Conference at Penn State University--Papers by Karen Wang and Nabih Haddad on Knowledge, Social Movements and Global Citizenship

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2014)

The nature and application of knowledge production and dissemination It is especially important in the context of global human rights and business where it serves as a critical link between the elaboration of individual rights and institutional obligations, on the one hand, and access to remedies for individuals and communities adversely affected, on the other. (e.g., Conference: "Business and Human Rights: Moving Forward, Looking Back").

To that end, together with Keren Wang, a PhD candidate at Penn State, Tono Teraoka, a Ph.D. student at the University of Tokyo and Nabih Hadadd, a Ph.D. student at Michigan State Universitywe produced a paper titled "Democratizing International Business and Human Rights by Catalyzing Strategic Litigation: The Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the U.N. Guiding Principles of Business and Human Rights From the Bottom Up." In it we considered a project of democratizing the project of business and human rights and developing strategies through which stakeholders at the lower ends of the human rights value and supply chains and usually the objects of human rights largesse, may more actively participate in the protection of their human rights and engage more actively in the development of those norms meant to protect them.

KerenWang and Nabih Haddad continue their work in this area.  Both will be presenting papers  at the upcoming interdisciplinary conference--Knowledge: Power and Production, sponsored through the Penn State Thought Program and held at Pennsylvania State University April 4-5, 2014.

The conference description along with the abstracts of Messrs Wang and Haddad's papers follow with links to the papers.

Up Coming Conference at Penn State--"China-Constitution-Politics"

We are happy to announce a one day conference--"China-Constitution-Politics"--to be held at the School of International Affairs, Katz Building Auditorium, from 8.30 AM to 3.45 PM April 9, 2014. Featured Speakers include Professor Zhiwei Tong, one of China's most well known public intellectuals and a Professor at the East China University of Political Science and Law. The conference will consider issues of Chinese constitutional law and politics and consider the current movement of government and popular sentiment. Anyone interested in current developments in Chinese politics, law and culture will find the proceedings of interest.  The conference is organized by Larry Catá Backer of the School of Law and International Affairs at Penn State with Keren Wang (Penn State MIA 2013, Ph.D: candidate Penn State School of Communication Arts and Sciences) and Shan Gao (candidate Penn State Law SJD) .  The conference has been made possible by the generous support of  the Center for Global Studies, the Center for Democratic Deliberation, the Rock Ethics Institute, and the Coalition for Peace and Ethics. For more detail, please contact Shan Gao or Maggie White at 814-865-3756.

Democracy Part 30: Export Controls and the Control of Speech On University Campuses and By Faculty Abroad

 

Universities have become willing partners in systems of privatized law making with global implications.  Recently, universities have extended their complicity in these public-private regulatory complexes by extending a power to monitor and regulate a faculty's engagement with "foreign visitors" and more importantly with the people that a faculty member may see and engage with while that faculty member is abroad without the prior approval of the university.  This should concern not merely faculty but anyone interested in the privatization of rights regimes to enable the state to constrain behavior indirectly that they would be unable to effect directly without public accountability, and perhaps constitutional constraint. It is no longer possible to speak of states that respect free speech and engagement and those states which restrict these.  The situation has become more complicated and somewhat more murky.  That itself should be of concern. 

Read more HERE.

Presentation and Roundtable: Jan-Hendrik Passoth and Nicholas Rowland on “The Possibility & Contours of State Multiplicity: Preliminary Findings”

The School of International Affairs of Pennsylvania State University and the Coalition for Peace and Ethics hosted a presentation and roundtable on March 18, 2014 at the Katz Auditorium at Pennsylvania State University.  

 (Jan-Hendrik Passoth )

(Nicholas Rowland)

The presentation, "The Possibilities and Contours of State Multiplicity: Preliminary Findings", featured Jan-Hendrik Passoth (Technische Universität Berlin), Nicholas Rowland (Penn State University) presenting their latest research work on state theory, and Larry Catá Backer (Penn State) as discussant.  The conference was recorded and all are welcome to watch and comment, engage.

 (Larry Catá Backer)

Rowland and Passoth are among the most innovative scholars in the field of  Science, technology and society (STS), which is also sometimes called science and technology studies.  This field examines the nexus among social, political, and cultural values affect scientific research and technological innovation, and how these affect society, politics and culture. STS has lots to say about law, legal systems and policy at the national and international levels (my role as discussant and roundtable host).  State theory is, at bottom, the study of the consequences of an organization  of these forces within a construct we have come to call the state.

The conference description and links to the video recording of the event follow:

Part 23 Mongolia Fiscal Stability Fund (MFSF)--Reimaging the State in the Global Sphere: An Inventory of Sovereign Wealth Funds as Regulator and Participant in Global Markets

(Pix (C) Larry Catá Backer 2014)

This Blog Essay site devotes every February to a series of integrated but short essays on a single theme. For 2014 this site introduces a new theme:  Reimaging the State in the Global Sphere: An Inventory of Sovereign Wealth Fund as Regulator and Participant in Global Markets.

There have been a number of studies that have sought to provide an overarching structure for understanding SWFs. The easiest way to to this is to find the largest and most influential funds and then extrapolate universal behaviors or characteristics from them. This is a useful enterprise, it may erase substantial nuance that itself might provide the basis for a deeper understanding of SWFs within globalization and in the context of a state system in which not all states are created equal. In this sense, while the large SWFs are better known, they do not define the entire field of emerging SWF activity. This study provides a brief critical inventory of the emerging communities of sovereign wealth funds. Each post will consider a different and less well known SWF. Taken together, these brief studies might suggest the character and nature of the emerging universe of SWFs, and their possible rationalization.

This post considers the Mongolia Fiscal Stability Fund (MFSF).

Article Published: Differences in Approaches to Business and Human Rights in China and India (G.W. Int'l L. Rev 45(4):615-680)

My article, "Realizing Socio-Economic Rights Under Emerging Global Regulatory Frameworks: The Potential Impact of Privatization and the Role of Companies of China and India"" has just been published and appears in the George Washington International Law Review, 45(4):615-680 (2013). My thanks to Jenna Mennona, Kelly Rojas, Rebecca Szucs and the editors and staff of the GW International Law Review for their valuable contributions to this article and for an excellent volume.

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2014 )

--> This article builds substantially on a paper presented at the International Conference on the Realization of Socio-Economic Rights in Emerging Free Markets: Perspectives from China and India, City University of Hong Kong School of Law, Nov. 29–30, 2012, to be published elsewhere as -->"The Role of Companies in Privatizing Socio-Economic Rights in India and China Under Emerging Global Regulatory Frameworks," in Socio-Economic Rights in Emerging Free Markets: Comparative Insights from India and China (Surya Deva (ed.), London: Routledge, 2014) (forthcoming) .

The abstract follows. A pre-publication version of the article may be accessed HERE.

 

-->

Part 22 State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan Republic (SOFAR)--Reimaging the State in the Global Sphere: An Inventory of Sovereign Wealth Funds as Regulator and Participant in Global Markets

(Pix (C) Larry Catá Backer 2014)

This Blog Essay site devotes every February to a series of integrated but short essays on a single theme. For 2014 this site introduces a new theme:  Reimaging the State in the Global Sphere: An Inventory of Sovereign Wealth Fund as Regulator and Participant in Global Markets.

There have been a number of studies that have sought to provide an overarching structure for understanding SWFs. The easiest way to to this is to find the largest and most influential funds and then extrapolate universal behaviors or characteristics from them. This is a useful enterprise, it may erase substantial nuance that itself might provide the basis for a deeper understanding of SWFs within globalization and in the context of a state system in which not all states are created equal. In this sense, while the large SWFs are better known, they do not define the entire field of emerging SWF activity. This study provides a brief critical inventory of the emerging communities of sovereign wealth funds. Each post will consider a different and less well known SWF. Taken together, these brief studies might suggest the character and nature of the emerging universe of SWFs, and their possible rationalization.

This post considers the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan Republic (SOFAR).

And a Naval Base in the Middle--Michael Strauss on the Legal and Political Lessons Drawn From the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Cuba for the Russia-Ukraine Crisis

Michael J. Strauss, who teaches at the Center for Diplomatic and Strategic Studies in Paris, specializing in territorial leases as phenomena of international relations and international law for resolving sovereignty disputes, and is the author of “The Leasing of Guantanamo Bay” (Praeger, 2009). His work has been considered here (e.g., Michael Strauss on 'Does Cuba Share Responsibility for Human Rights at Guantanamo Bay?', Law at the End of the Day, Aug. 2, 2012).

He has recently written a short analysis of one of the more ignored aspects of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the legal and political status of the Russian lease of the naval base at Sevastopol.  That analysis appeared as Michael J. Strauss,  Opinion: Ukraine naval base: Russia's Guantanamo? Star Tribune, March 12, 2014). It follows:

BG Group PLC v. Republic of Argentina--The US Supreme Court Extends Deferential Standard to Review of Investment Treaties

The U.S. Supreme Court has recently delivered an important decision about the parameters of arbitration under investment treaties. In BG Group PLC v. Republic of Argentina (No. 12–138. Argued December 2, 2013—Decided March 5, 2014), a majority of the justices (Breyer, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Scalia, Thomas, Ginsburg, Alito and Kagan joined , and in which Sotomayor joined except for Part IV–A–1. Sotomayor filed an opinion concurring in part. Roberts, CJ, filed a dissenting opinion, in which Kennedy, J., joined) held that when reviewing investment arbitration provisions awards (in this case that of the UK- Argentina Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT)),  U.S. courts should interpret and apply "threshold" provisions concerning arbitration using the framework developed for interpreting similar provisions in ordinary contracts. Within that framework, any local litigation requirement (place of filing and waiting periods for example) is a matter for arbitrators primarily to interpret and apply, and courts should review their interpretation with deference.

The Court's syllabus is set out below.

2013 Annual Report for the Council on Ethics for the Norwegian Government Pension Fund--Human Rights and Ethics in Investment Under Attack

The 2013 Annual Report for the Council on Ethics for the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global is now online. Here for report in English; Nedenfor til rapporten på norsk.

The Ethics Council Secretariat welcomes comments.  Write to 

Hege Havig-Gjelseth

On behalf of Eli Lund Executive Head of Secretariat 

Hege.Havig-Gjelsethfin.dep.no

This post includes excerpts from the Report, and principally the Ethics Council response to the Strategy Council’s report on the responsible management of the Government Pension Fund Global, along with my thoughts on that response.  

Considering Approaches to Institutionalizing Civil Society's Role in the Business of Human Rights-- A Dialogue on "Implementing the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: A South-Initiated North-South Dialogue."

The Watson Institute for International Studies and DeJusticia (Centro de Estudios de Derecho, Justicia y Sociedad) organized a wonderful dialogue 20-22 February at Brown University.  Entitled "Implementing the UN’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: A South-Initiated North-South Dialogue."

The dialogue was kicked off with a great public lecture delivered by John Ruggie about his work in developing the U.N. Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights as discussed in his recent book, Just Business: Multinational Corporations and Human Rights.

The remainder of the dialogue centered around discussion of a paper prepared by DeJusticia's César Rodríguez-Garavito and Tatiana Andia of Brown University, “Business and Human Rights: Beyond the End of the Beginning”. Many of the participants (listed below) presented excellent responses and considerations of the themes raised in the Rodríguez-Garavito/Andia paper. The paper analyzed the Guiding Principles within the global experimentalist governance framework, highlighting their promises, problems, and the conditions under which those problems might be solved as it has come to be developed under the leadership of UN Working Groupon the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises. The paper included an excellent exposition of the need to institutionalize the role of civil society within the framework of the U.N. Guiding Principles. The issue occupies an important part of the conversation initiated by the U.N. Working Group as it seeks to develop and implement the Guiding Principles in fidelity to its three pillars--the state duty to protect human rights, the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, and the obligation to afford remedies to those adversely affected by rights detrimental activities of business and states. The key appears to be to try to find a way of articulating a role for civil society (and the individuals they represent) within this framework.

This post includes the organizers' excellent explanation of the dialogue theme and my contribution to that discussion, "An Institutional Role for Civil Society Within the U.N. Guiding Principles?: Comments on César Rodríguez-Garavito and Tatiana Andia “Business and Human Rights: Beyond the End of the Beginning,” the abstract of which follows. The full response paper may be accessed here.

A U.N. Questionnaire on Local Government and Human Rights--Can Human Rights Move From Discourse to Practice Where It Counts?

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer)

Surveys can be very useful.  Perhaps this is one of those times.  The Civil Society Section of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has embarked on an important fact gathering endeavor.

We are pleased to forward the questionnaire on local government and human rights, pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 24/2.

Delegations are kindly requested to submit their responses to the questionnaire to the Secretariat by 11 April 2014.

The Secretariat avails itself of this opportunity to renew to the Permanent Missions to the United Nations Office at Geneva the assurances of its highest consideration.


***


Nous avons le plaisir de vous transmettre le questionnaire relatif au gouvernement local et droits de l'homme, conformément à la résolution 24/2 du Conseil des droits de l'homme.

Les délégations sont priées de soumettre leurs réponses au questionnaire au Secrétariat avant le 11 avril 2014.

Le Secrétariat saisit cette occasion pour renouveler aux Missions permanentes auprès de l'Office des Nations Unies à Genève l'assurance de sa haute considération.


***
Tenemos el agrado de remitir la cuestionario sobre la administración local y los derechos humanos de conformidad con la resolución 24/2 del Consejo de Derechos Humanos.

Se ruega a las delegaciones que presenten sus respuestas al cuestionario a la Secretaría antes del 11 de abril de 2014.

La Secretaría aprovecha la ocasión para reiterar a las Misiones Permanentes ante la Oficina de las Naciones Unidas en Ginebra las seguridades de su más alta consideración.

The research proposal was quite extensive.  It is to be hoped that at least some local governments were able to submit at least some of the answers to the questions.  The object, of course, goes to the operationalization of human rights behaviors at the local level--the success of transposing the lofty language of the grand gestures of Geneva into the everyday lives of people who might not be able to read or write, and who do not have the time to contemplate the way in which an elegantly complex interaction of international and domestic legal orders, intertwined with private governance systems operation has anything to offer them.  

The questionnaire follows:

Toward Labor-Capital Parity in the U.S.: The Limited Liability Labor Cooperative in California

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2014)

I have been considering the issue of of labor cooperatives as a central element of the reform (though quite limited and preliminary) of the Cuban economic system. (Backer, Larry Catá, The Cooperative as Proletarian Corporation: Property Rights between Corporation, Cooperatives and Globalization in Cuba. Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business, Vol. 33, 2013). 

This is part of a broader issue of the problem of labor in both capitalist and Marxist theory, both of which approach labor in surprising similar, and troubling, ways.I had suggested, as had many others over more than a century, that the aggregation of labor on a parity with that offered capital, might prove of some interest in reforming the imbalance within both capitalist (free market) and Marxist systems, between labor and capital power in economic activity. (Posted Conference Paper: "The Problem of Labor and the Construction of Socialism in Cuba").

Now California may be moving in that direction. California legislators Rob Bonta and Marc Levine introduced AB 2525 (Bonta and Levine): Limited Liability Worker Cooperative Act.  This post briefly considers this new effort in the U.S.

Part 21 Sovereign Wealth Fund of Gabon (Fonds Souverain de la Republique Gabonaise)--Reimaging the State in the Global Sphere: An Inventory of Sovereign Wealth Funds as Regulator and Participant in Global Markets

(Pix (C) Larry Catá Backer 2014)

This Blog Essay site devotes every February to a series of integrated but short essays on a single theme. For 2014 this site introduces a new theme:  Reimaging the State in the Global Sphere: An Inventory of Sovereign Wealth Fund as Regulator and Participant in Global Markets.

There have been a number of studies that have sought to provide an overarching structure for understanding SWFs. The easiest way to to this is to find the largest and most influential funds and then extrapolate universal behaviors or characteristics from them. This is a useful enterprise, it may erase substantial nuance that itself might provide the basis for a deeper understanding of SWFs within globalization and in the context of a state system in which not all states are created equal. In this sense, while the large SWFs are better known, they do not define the entire field of emerging SWF activity. This study provides a brief critical inventory of the emerging communities of sovereign wealth funds. Each post will consider a different and less well known SWF. Taken together, these brief studies might suggest the character and nature of the emerging universe of SWFs, and their possible rationalization.

This post considers the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Gabon (Fonds Souverain de la Republique Gabonaise).

Part 20 Norway SWFs (Pension Fund Global, Pension Fund Norway and Bond Fund)--Reimaging the State in the Global Sphere: An Inventory of Sovereign Wealth Funds as Regulator and Participant in Global Markets

(Pix (C) Larry Catá Backer 2014)

This Blog Essay site devotes every February to a series of integrated but short essays on a single theme. For 2014 this site introduces a new theme:  Reimaging the State in the Global Sphere: An Inventory of Sovereign Wealth Fund as Regulator and Participant in Global Markets.

There have been a number of studies that have sought to provide an overarching structure for understanding SWFs. The easiest way to to this is to find the largest and most influential funds and then extrapolate universal behaviors or characteristics from them. This is a useful enterprise, it may erase substantial nuance that itself might provide the basis for a deeper understanding of SWFs within globalization and in the context of a state system in which not all states are created equal. In this sense, while the large SWFs are better known, they do not define the entire field of emerging SWF activity. This study provides a brief critical inventory of the emerging communities of sovereign wealth funds. Each post will consider a different and less well known SWF. Taken together, these brief studies might suggest the character and nature of the emerging universe of SWFs, and their possible rationalization.

This post considers the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Funds (Pension Fund Global and Pension Fund Norway).  Also considered briefly is the Government Bond Fund

Statement of the Ukrainian Association of International Law

 

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2014))

 

At the request of a colleague I am posting the following Statement:

"From the Ukrainian Association of International Law to the people of Ukraine, the Russian Federation and the fraternal people of the neighboring States with whom we share close family ties and historical connections, as well as the international community as a whole"

It follows in Ukrainian, Russian and English.

New Paper Posted: "Sovereign Wealth Funds in Five Continents and Three Narratives: Similarities and Differences"

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2014)

Sovereign wealth funds have been proliferating since the start of this century.  They have evolved from a fairly uniformly constructed group of funds  that sought to invest in private markets outside the territory of their home states to a heterogeneous group of funding facilities that are increasingly functionally differentiated  as to funding source, governance, operation and objectives. I have been considering the issue of regional differences in the conceptualization and operationalization of sovereign wealth funds by examining a representative group of sovereign wealth funds operating on five continents  (e.g. Reimaging the State in the Global Sphere: An Inventory of Sovereign Wealth Funds as Regulator and Participant in Global Markets: Introduction). 

I have just posted a paper to the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) that considers an aspect of this issue: "Sovereign Wealth Funds in Five Continents and Three Narratives: Similarities and Differences."

The final version will appear in Research Handbook On Sovereign Wealth Funds And International Investment Law (Fabio Bassan, ed. Edward Elgar Publishing forthcoming ). The Abstract, Contents and Introduction follow.

Part 19 Venezuela SWFs (Stabilization (FEM) and Development (Fonden))--Reimaging the State in the Global Sphere: An Inventory of Sovereign Wealth Funds as Regulator and Participant in Global Markets

(Pix (C) Larry Catá Backer 2014)

This Blog Essay site devotes every February to a series of integrated but short essays on a single theme. For 2014 this site introduces a new theme:  Reimaging the State in the Global Sphere: An Inventory of Sovereign Wealth Fund as Regulator and Participant in Global Markets.

There have been a number of studies that have sought to provide an overarching structure for understanding SWFs. The easiest way to to this is to find the largest and most influential funds and then extrapolate universal behaviors or characteristics from them. This is a useful enterprise, it may erase substantial nuance that itself might provide the basis for a deeper understanding of SWFs within globalization and in the context of a state system in which not all states are created equal. In this sense, while the large SWFs are better known, they do not define the entire field of emerging SWF activity. This study provides a brief critical inventory of the emerging communities of sovereign wealth funds. Each post will consider a different and less well known SWF. Taken together, these brief studies might suggest the character and nature of the emerging universe of SWFs, and their possible rationalization.

This post considers the Venezuela Macroeconomic Stabilization Fund (Fondo para la Estabilización Económics (FEM) and the National Development Fund (Fonden).

Part 18 Fundo Soberano de Angola (Angola SWF)--Reimaging the State in the Global Sphere: An Inventory of Sovereign Wealth Funds as Regulator and Participant in Global Markets

(Pix (C) Larry Catá Backer 2014)

This Blog Essay site devotes every February to a series of integrated but short essays on a single theme. For 2014 this site introduces a new theme:  Reimaging the State in the Global Sphere: An Inventory of Sovereign Wealth Fund as Regulator and Participant in Global Markets.

There have been a number of studies that have sought to provide an overarching structure for understanding SWFs. The easiest way to to this is to find the largest and most influential funds and then extrapolate universal behaviors or characteristics from them.  This is a useful enterprise, it may erase substantial nuance that itself might provide the basis for a deeper understanding of SWFs within globalization and in the context of a state system in which not all states are created equal.  In this sense, while the large SWFs are better known, they do not define the entire field of emerging SWF activity. This study provides a brief critical inventory of the emerging communities of sovereign wealth funds. Each post will consider a different and less well known SWF.  Taken together, these brief studies might suggest the character and nature of the emerging universe of SWFs, and their possible rationalization.

This Post considers the Fundo Soberano de Angola (Angola SWF).

Part 17 Russian SWFs--Reimaging the State in the Global Sphere: An Inventory of Sovereign Wealth Funds as Regulator and Participant in Global Markets

(Pix (C) Larry Catá Backer 2014)

This Blog Essay site devotes every February to a series of integrated but short essays on a single theme. For 2014 this site introduces a new theme:  Reimaging the State in the Global Sphere: An Inventory of Sovereign Wealth Fund as Regulator and Participant in Global Markets.

There have been a number of studies that have sought to provide an overarching structure for understanding SWFs. The easiest way to to this is to find the largest and most influential funds and then extrapolate universal behaviors or characteristics from them.  This is a useful enterprise, it may erase substantial nuance that itself might provide the basis for a deeper understanding of SWFs within globalization and in the context of a state system in which not all states are created equal.  In this sense, while the large SWFs are better known, they do not define the entire field of emerging SWF activity. This study provides a brief critical inventory of the emerging communities of sovereign wealth funds. Each post will consider a different and less well known SWF.  Taken together, these brief studies might suggest the character and nature of the emerging universe of SWFs, and their possible rationalization.

This Post considers the three Russian SWFs--the National Welfare Fund, the Reserve Fund, and the Russian Direct Investment Fund.