Ruminations 65: Good Breeding--The Racialization of Dogs and the Discourse of Differentiation

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2016)

Human organization is no stranger to the mania for classification, and the construction of hierarchy and social management on the basis of those classifications.  Every society on Earth and at all times have sorted itself out this way for a long time.  And each society approaches the legitimization of these classifications--and the organizational and regulatory consequences of the society created--through a number of devices.  Human have invoked powers beyond the individual or society, usually divine forces of some sort or other, that in some way manifests the requirements for classification and the consequences of these impositions.  Theocracy provides a quite efficient means of creating those formulas necessary for segregating people and establishing a social order based on those characteristics that are the markers of difference. Societies sometimes invoke themselves--democratic social orders, from those of the West to Marxist Leninist regimes, and form monarchies to oligarchies--each in their own way ground their segregation on themselves (the will of the people exercised directly, or through their customs and traditions, or exercised through a monarch or by a vanguard). Both theocracy and democratic orders will on occasion rely on science--however that is understood, to buttress whatever framework system of classification that are imposed.  These are meant to extract essential characteristics (the domain of the social sciences), behavioral traits and predilections (the realm of genetics and perhaps psychology), social rules for engagement (customs and traditions and their preservation), and trait development (the domain of the "practical sciences" of husbandry). 

This post considers the way that one can observe the extraordinary and unconscious strength of the propensity of human societies to build classification systems on constructed difference.  More specifically, it considers the way that the old rhetoric and "sciences" of race have been deployed unconsciously in recent efforts to ban "breeds" on dogs from particular areas. The most interesting aspects of these breed banning movement may be the way that it serves to reinforce and reapply with extraordinary strength the old mechanisms that once supported race slavery and segregation.  The ease with which our societies racialize dogs suggests the strength and depth of societal willingness--everyone, not just those at the top of particular hierarchies founded on race--to keep racial classification alive and to use its structures in ordering societal spaces (e.g., here). The dog, in this case, might well serve as a reminder of the power of racialization as a fundamental basis of human society and perhaps a litmus test of social claims to have moved beyond race in the classifications and ordering of social systems. 

On the Nature of the Foreigner and Chinese Law--Drawing a Distinction Between the National and the International in an Era of Globalization

I have been considering the issue of the foreign scholar in China--and especially in the context of the development of Chinese law and jurisprudence. That is understood, in the Chinese context as both a legal and a political engagement that has a long and turbulent history--on both sides. From the West one can discern a pattern of "types" of Western scholar engagements in China.: Missionary, Expert, Sycophant, Colonizer, Expatriot, Entrepreneur, and Company Official. On the Chinese side, the "useful stranger," the "invited influence," the "friend of China," and the "enemy of China" (HERE).

I presented a preliminary version of these ideas earlier this summer at Tsinghua University (see 中国，法律与外国人：国际舞台上的相互交往 (更新版本) Transcript of Remarks: "China, Law, and the Foreigner: Mutual Engagements on a Global Stage"). And I was delighted to have a chance to refine those ideas on September 27, 2016 at a Seminar on The Role of Foreign Scholars in the Study of Chinese Law, sponsored by the Confucius Institute, the Università degli Studi di Napoli L'Orientale and the Instituto Confucio Napoli.

This post considers an unexplored wrinkle in the development of the mapping of the terrain of engagement between China and Western scholars--and that is the quite distinct emerging interactions between Western engagements with China on its internal development, and Western engagement with China in the context of global norm making.

No.167-2 : 雷磊 : 再访拉德布鲁赫公式(下); No. 167-2 Lei Lei: Revisiting the Radbruch formula (Part 2)

This is another in the series of essays that were presented at the “来华外国人与近代中国法” 国际学术研讨会 "Foreigners and Modern Chinese Law" International Symposium Conference

No.167-2 : 雷磊 : 再访拉德布鲁赫公式(下); No.167-1: Lei Lei: Revisiting the Radbruch formula. This is Part 2 of the series. Part 1 may be accessed HERE.

The essay considers the Radbruch formula (Radbruchsche Formel) in the Chinese context.This was developed by Gustav Radbruch in reaction to the jurisprudence of the German NAZI period and suggests a relationship between the judge, the law and justice. It permits a judge to disregard a statute that cannot otherwise be interpreted as producing an unbearably unjust result or deliberately disregards human equality before the law (see e.g., here).

The essay was posted to 叁會學坊, the San Hui Fang Workshops microblog and it follows below 中国语文 only.

No.167-1 : 雷磊 : 再访拉德布鲁赫公式(上) No.167-1: Lei Lei: Revisiting the Radbruch formula

This is another in the series of essays that were presented at the “来华外国人与近代中国法” 国际学术研讨会 "Foreigners and Modern Chinese Law" International Symposium Conference

No.167-1 : 雷磊 : 再访拉德布鲁赫公式(上) No.167-1: Lei Lei: Revisiting the Radbruch formula.

The essay considers the Radbruch formula (Radbruchsche Formel) in the Chinese context.This was developed by Gustav Radbruch in reaction to the jurisprudence of the German NAZI period and suggests a relationship between the judge, the law and justice. It permits a judge to disregard a statute that cannot otherwise be interpreted as producing an unbearably unjust result or deliberately disregards human equality before the law (see e.g., here).

The essay was posted to 叁會學坊, the San Hui Fang Workshops microblog and it follows below 中国语文 only.

The Ideological Basis of a Comprehensive Treaty on Business and Human Rights: Choosing Among Status Quo, Evolutive and Transformative Visions

(Pix © Larry Catá Bacer 2016)

I have been considering the ideological foundations of the comprehensive treaty for business and human rights, the elaboration of which is the principal task of the U.N. appointed  Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group on Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises (IGWG) (Revealing Ideologies for a Comprehensive Treaty for Business and Human Rights).  The context is the broader conceptual issue of treaty elaboration in general--and more specifically on the relationship between principle and pragmatism in the conceptualization, drafting and interpretation of treaties (see Can Pragmatism Be Principled? With Application to the Elaboration to Comprehensive Treaty for Business and Human Rights).  

What has become clear is that the Mandate of the IGWG does no so much express a single set of restructuring principles for the elaboration of a comprehensive treaty so much as it  appears to invite the elaboration of such principles in the course of elaborating a treaty.  That is, form the perspective of the sort of careful work required so so complex a project either an invitation to build a monster from out of whatever mismatched parts various stakeholder groups with power can live with or use strategically (according to their calculus).  Or it will require the elaboration of a set of coherence reinforcing structuring principles as a preliminary to the elaboration of the treaty provisions that will serve to give these principles effect. 

But the mandate also constrains the choices among the universe of structuring principles that might be embraced in the treaty draft process. This post considers the three likely competing ideologies that will produce three distinct sets of structuring principles for the elaboration of the comprehensive treaty.  Together they suggest the possibilities if three radically different elaborations of a treaty for business and human rights. 

No.166-2 许小亮 : 朝向敌人本身; No.166-2 Xu Xiaoliang: toward the enemy itself

 

This is another in the series of essays that were presented at the “来华外国人与近代中国法” 国际学术研讨会 "Foreigners and Modern Chinese Law" International Symposium Conference 


No.166-2  许小亮 : 朝向敌人本身;  Xu Xiaoliang: toward the enemy itself.

The essay considers the meaning of the enemy in China. It adds another perspective first raised in No. 166-1. Both are worth reading together.

The essay was posted to  叁會學坊, the San Hui Fang Workshops microblog and it follows below 中国语文 only.

No.166-1 周林刚 : 敌人与现代政治; Zhou Lingang: Enemies in Modern Politics

This is another in the series of essays that were presented at the “来华外国人与近代中国法” 国际学术研讨会 "Foreigners and Modern Chinese Law" International Symposium Conference

No.166-1 周林刚 : 敌人与现代政治; Zhou Lingang: Enemies in Modern Politics.

The essay considers the meaning of the enemy in the context of Chinese thought. 

The essay was posted to 叁會學坊, the San Hui Fang Workshops microblog and it follows below 中国语文 only.

Principled Pragmatism in the Elaboration of a Comprehensive Treaty on Business and Human Rights

“It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.” (M. Shelley, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus (Lackington Hugh Harding Mayor & Jones, 1818); ch. 5.)

 

It has been with this image firmly in mind that I have approached the quite challenging and interesting issues around which the elaboration of a Comprehensive Treaty for Business and Human Rights will be undertaken. It is in search of a set of framing principles for this enterprise--in the Mandate of the Intergovernmental Working Group charged with treaty elaboration, or elsewhere--with which I have been wrestling.  Conceptually the problem posed, and the answer suggested are central to every effort to frame a coherent treaty and to make it effective with a strong fidelity to its framework principles. 

 

The revised paper--Pragmatism Without Principle?-- just posted for review and comment  is meant to move in that direction. The abstract follows.  The paper may be accessed through this LINK.

Roundtable: "On the Role of Foreign Scholars in the Study of Chinese Law"

It is my great delight to have been asked to participate in an upcoming Roundtable: The Role of Foreign Scholars in the Study of Chinese Law.  It is sponsored by the Confucius Institute, the Università degli Studi di Napoli L'Orientale and the Instituto Confucio Napoli.  Participants include Giuseppe Cataldi, Zhu Shaomingf, and Flora Sapio, and moderated by Paola Paderni. 

My discussion will draw on my remarks recently delivered at Tsinghua University.  

PowerPoints may be accessed HERE.

Summary text HERE: 中国，法律与外国人：国际舞台上的相互交往 (更新版本) Transcript of Remarks: "China, Law, and the Foreigner: Mutual Engagements on a Global Stage"

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Part 12 (The Social Self as a reflection/result of one's ancestors: Acts of Appropriation and Foundations of Cultural Appropriation in the West)--Dialogues on a Philosophy for the Individual: The Social Self

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2016)

Flora Sapio (FS), Beitita Horm Pepulim (BHP), and I (LCB) continue our experiment in collaborative dialogue. We move from the individual to the social self as we work toward a philosophy of the individual. While at first blush this appears to be well worn ground--who hasn't, over the course of the last 5,000 years, in every civilization with a recorded history NOT spent vast amounts of time thinking about the social self? But much of this thinking starts at the social and works through the issues of control, management and socialization of the individual. That is, they start from the core premise that the individual is the object of a project for which the social serves as an instrument and as an ends. In the spirit of the emerging philosophy of the individual, we propose to invert the conversation--to start with the individual and work through the issues of control, management, and individuation of the social.

But we move from the individual in herself, to the individual as subject and as symbol, as something which, when observed and transformed from itself to the idea or symbol of itself, assumes a quite distinct, and useful, position for the organization of selves--and for the structure and operation of the law of the social. To that end our conversation will likely flow around and through the following:

1--the social self as the reflection of the mother
2--the social self as a reflection of the family
3--social self as a reflection/result of one's ancestors
4--the social self as a reflection of God
5-the social self as a refection of the state
6--the social self as terrorist
7--the social self as orthodox
This conversation, like many of its kind, will develop naturally, in fits and starts. Your participation is encouraged.

In this post Larry Catá Backer (LCB) reflects on Flora Sapio's arguments about the Divine and from that begins to consider the issue  as a reflection/result of one's ancestors responds to earlier comments.

文：白轲 对周瑞金《反思文革万言书》的“反思” 翻译：高山 Reflections on Zhou Ruijin, "Reflections on the Cultural Revolution: A Ten Thousand Character Petition.

 By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30522776

This Post includes the Chinese translation of Larry Catá Backer's reflections on Zhou Ruijin, "Reflections on the Cultural Revolution: A Ten Thousand Character Petition." It is part of a group of reflections on Zhou Ruijin's provocative essay. English version HERE.

Introduction

Flora Sapio

Jean Mittelstaedt

Larry Catá Backer

此职位包括 文：白轲 对周瑞金《反思文革万言书》的“反思”   中国语文 版  翻译：高山

No.165:刘 猛：唐德刚先生及其口述史 ; Liu Meng: Mr. Tang degang an Oral History Project

 

This is another in the series of essays that were presented at the “来华外国人与近代中国法” 国际学术研讨会 "Foreigners and Modern Chinese Law" International Symposium Conference 

No.165:刘 猛：唐德刚先生及其口述史 .  Liu Meng: Mr. Tang Degang an Oral History Project. an impassioned review on the life of Tang Degang (pin yin) , one of the most brilliant intellectual and historian whose academic future intertwined with WWII and transition from bourgeois state into the socialist state when he was a Phd in the US; he is one of few Chinese establishing and theorizing oral history as a scholarly project.

The essay was posted to  叁會學坊, the San Hui Fang Workshops microblog and it follows below 中国语文 only.

Invitation to participate in the second session of the open-ended inter-governmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect of human rights (OEIGWG)

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2016)

I have been writing about the Inter-Governmental Working Group on Transnational Corporations and Human Rights (IGWG), and the efforts to elaborate a comprehensive treaty for business and Human Rights.

I have considered the mandate of the IGWG (here), the challenges of treaty elaboration from a conceptual and framework perspective (here and here), from the principles form which pragmatic choices will have to be made (here),  and from the perspective of coherence of visions (here).

The IGWG continues to do its work.  In preparation for its 2nd Session it has put out an invitation to participate.  The deadline for submission is 30 September.  For those interested in having their viewed posted, and perhaps considered, this is an excellent opportunity to participate in the limited engagement that is open to non-state parties in the process leading to treaty elaboration. The invitation to participation follows.  Here for the call for written contributions.

New Paper Posted: "Between the Judge and the Law—Judicial Independence and Authority with Chinese Characteristics"

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2016)

I am delighted to be participating in the 11th Annual General Conference of the European China Law Studies Association (欧洲中国法研究协会 ) will be held at the Faculty of Law of the Roma TRE University in Rome from 22 to 24 September 2016 (Conference Program HERE). 

Along with Flora Sapio, I will be participating on a panel entitled "Constructing the Judicial Role in China: Legal System Reform and Judicial Independence."

My object is to consider the ideological foundations of judicial reform, especially in the context of global harmonization of the judicial role around Western concepts of law, judge, state and rule of law.  I will suggest that transplants carry with them the ideologies that gave them their form and function and in the case of Chinese judicial reform that may be troublesome.  My specific object is to suggest the specifics of those ideologies and then contrast these to those emerging within the Chinese constitutional order. 

The paper, "Between the Judge and the Law—Judicial Independence and Authority with Chinese Characteristics" has been posted to SSRN.  The abstract follows.  PowerPoints of the presentation HERE.

Part 31 (The Constitutional Character of the General Program)--On a Constitutional Theory for China--From the General Program of the Chinese Communist Party to Political Theory

(Pix (c) Larry Catá Backer 2015)

This Blog Essay site devotes every February to a series of integrated but short essays on a single theme. For 2015 this site introduces a new theme: On a Constitutional Theory for China--From the General Program of the Chinese Communist Party to Political Theory.

This Post includes Part 31, On the Constitutional Character of the General Program.  Looking back on the analysis of the constituent parts of the General Program, it considers the systemic and self-reflexive qualities of the General Program and its role within the Chinese constitutional order.

  
Table of Contents 

No. 164 唐晓峰：亚洲视野：“边地”的主体性与多元性 No. 164 Tang Xiaofeng: Asian Vision: "frontier" Subjectivity and Pluralism

This is another in the series of essays that were presented at the “来华外国人与近代中国法” 国际学术研讨会 "Foreigners and Modern Chinese Law" International Symposium Conference 


No.164:唐晓峰：亚洲视野：“边地”的主体性与多元性 Tang Xiaofeng: Asian Vision: "frontier" Subjectivity and Pluralism.

The essay considers the meaning of borders and borderlands in Chinese history and political philosophy.

The essay was posted to  叁會學坊, the San Hui Fang Workshops microblog and it follows below 中国语文 only.

European Corporate Governance Research Foundation--Summary of Launch Conference With Links to Video

I am happy to report the launch of the European Corporate Governance Research Foundation.  The launch conference was held in Brussels on May 31, 2016.  Included below is a summary of the presentation made at the summary and links to videos of some of the events.

The work of the ECGRF is important not merely  for corporate law specialists but for those whose work intersects with advances in corporate governance theory and its contextual application within the domestic orders of states.  This is particularly the case for those who work in public law, especially regulatory governance, and those who work in transnational space, where corporate governance is as much an issue of societally constructed structures as it is of traditional stated enhanced rules. Lastly, a deep understanding of the ideologies of corporate governance and its intertwining with fundamental philosophies of national law will be a critical step in the move toward a comprehensive treaty for business and human rights, or in the present, for the operationalization of the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights.  While it is unlikely that such interfacing will come from the ECGRF itself, the principles, ideologies and approaches to law which are generated through their work will play a significant role in much that touches on the governance of business in global space.

No. 163-2 石 佳 友：治理体系的完善与民法典的时代精神 No. 163-2 Shíjiā Ju, Perfecting the Governance System and the Civil Code in the Original Spirit of the Times

This is another in the series of essays that were presented at the “来华外国人与近代中国法” 国际学术研讨会 "Foreigners and Modern Chinese Law" International Symposium Conference 

No.163-2:石 佳 友：治理体系的完善与民法典的时代精神  Shíjiā Ju, Perfecting the Governance System and the Civil Code in the Original Spirit of the Times

The essay was posted to  叁會學坊, the San Hui Fang Workshops microblog and it follows below 中国语文 only.

When Bare Legal Compliance Will Not Suffice--Corporate Responsibility to Mitigate and Environmental Damage: Norway's Ethics Council Recommends Exclusion of U.S. Duke Energy

The Secretariat of the Norwegian Pension Fund Global has just circulated the decision, taken in April 2016 by the Norwegian Ethics Council, to recommend exclusion of Duke Energy Corp. (Duke) and its wholly owned subsidiaries Duke Energy Carolinas LLC (Duke Carolinas), Duke Energy Progress LLC (Duke Progress) and Energy Progress Inc. (Energy Progress) due to the unacceptable risk of these companies being responsible for severe environmental damage.

On the surface the decision reflects the by now routine application of principles relating to environmental degradation.  Yet there are two additional wrinkles that merit consideration.  The first is the possible suggestion that mere legal compliance, and aggressive resistance to legal process, might itself constitute a breach of the Ethics Guidelines (thus aligning the Ethics Guidelines with the societal responsibility section of the U.N. Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (regrettably not taken up directly, though it should have).  The second is the continued incoherence in the Ethics COuncil's approach to remedial choice.  It remains unclear how the Ethics Council chooses to exercise discretion in choosing exclusion versus observation.  It is time for the Ethics Council to correct this quite grave deficiency in its operation.

My brief discussion of these issues follows, along with the Ethics Council Press Release  and the Council on Ethics’ recommendation here and below.

Breaches in the Walls of Corporate Autonomy, the Embedding of Regulatory Governance Mechanisms in Contract--and Corporate Liability for Upstreaming Human Rights Related Harms

 If only for a relative brief periods between the end of the First World War and the first decades of the 21st Century, there was a certain stability in the basic premises of corporate law within an international system grounded in the supremacy of states (discussed in Multinational Corporations, Transnational Law). Those basic premises were centered on the notion of corporate autonomy and its subsidiary principles, asset partitioning and entity welfare maximization.  These principles were incorporated into regulatory systems in which either the enterprise was understood as a social organ that could be managed by the state (centered in the U.S.) or as a creature of the state wholly dependent on the state for its  existence and character (flowing out of European civil law notions) (discussed in The Autonomous Global Enterprise: On the Role of Organizational Law Beyond Asset Partitioning and Legal Personality).

This post considers the continuing erosion of the doctrine of asset partitioning as a means of transforming traditional legal concepts into vehicles fopr extending liability upstream to apex corporations in supply chains for human rights related injury.

Revealing Ideologies for a Comprehensive Treaty for Business and Human Rights

(Pix © Larry Catá Bacer 2016)

Quite belatedly, I have been thinking about the relationship between framing ideologies and the production of regulatory systems.  There has been an important focus recently on the effects of governance--the framing instruments and their provisions, that produce effects.  But there is somewhat less thinking about the aggregation of these effects on the conceptualization of the object of these effects.  A strong impulse is to work backwards--to extrapolate from effects the framing ideologies that give rise to the provisions producing effects. But this sometimes does small justice to the ideologies--the principles and normative frames of reference--from out of which the provisions are conceived and against which they might be judged. These may be found in orienting documents and provisions--preambles, objectives mandates for special procedures, or in the organizing ideologies of the political community in which the project is to be undertaken.

These issues are much implicated in current efforts to elaborate a comprehensive treaty on business and human rights through the work of a U.N. appointed  Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group on Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises (IGWG). The mandate of that enterprise provides a great opportunity to think through the way that framing ideologies may be created and manage the process of rule creation. 

What follows are some preliminary observations about what the Mandate might tell us about the framing ideology of the effort, now ongoing, to elaborate a comprehensive treaty for business and human rights.

The FARC-Columbia Peace Accord: A View From Cuba--Implementation, Realpolitik and Reconciliation

René Gómez Manzano is an independent journalist and critical outsider in Cuba. He has for many years reported on changed within the Cuban state and its ruling Communist Party. Educated in Havana and Moscow he began defending dissidents in 1990 and has served time in prison for his actions. He remains active in Cuba and tolerated by the state ad PPC. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience in 1998 after his arrest and imprisonment in the late 1990s. (More on Gómez Manzano here):  

Mr. Gómez Manzano has recently written a series of essays on the recently concluded peace accords between FARC and the government of Columbia. The first, Colombia: ¡Llegaron los Reyes Magos!looks to the implementation of a document, 297 pages long, that is meant to be accessible to the people and that includes a number of aspirational goals. The fear is that the aspirational objectives of the accord can be threatened as the parties get down to operationalizing its provisions and that it is not clear that there will be substantial popular engagement. He worries that this broad list of aspirational goals will themselves threaten the stabilityof the acords on the long run. The second, El Acuerdo de Paz en Colombia: Una renuncia de las FARC a acceder al poder, raises issues about causes for the movement toward the finalization of negotiation, suggesting the realpolitik of the nacotrafficking and Chauvista path that failed FARC.  The third, Colombia: La paz bien vale un Acuerdo Final speaks to the truth and reconciliation process. The articles are in Spanish.

Conference Program: 11th Annual General Conference of the European China Law Studies Association (欧洲中国法研究协会 )

The 11th Annual General Conference of the European China Law Studies Association (欧洲中国法研究协会 ) will be held at the Faculty of Law of the Roma TRE University in Rome from 22 to 24 September 2016.

Since its founding in 2006, the European China Law Studies Association has become a major international venue for scholars and practitioners who are engaged in the study of Chinese law, from both comparative and interdisciplinary perspectives. The annual general conference provides an excellent forum for the exchange of information and ideas, as well as a platform for the development of research collaboration. Studies from disciplines other than law or interdisciplinary papers as well as submissions from young academics are expressly encouraged.

The 11th Annual ECLS Conference intends to focus on the following areas of Chinese law:

Codification of civil law and Roman law tradition in China
The Supreme People’s Court and judicial reform
Implementation and enforcement of legal reforms
Rule of law under Xi Jinping
International, national (central and local) law-making
Legal framework of the activities of NGOs
Legal consciousness and environmental challenges
Law and capital markets
Criminal Justice and human rights
China’s outbound FDI activism
Legal aspects of the developing relations between EU and PRC
Legal language and legal translation
Current issues in law and philosophy

The Conference Program follows:

Ruminations 64: Can Pragmatism Be Principled? With Application to the Elaboration to Comprehensive Treaty for Business and Human Rights

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2016)

In 2014, the UN Human Rights Council established an open-ended intergovernmental working group (IGWG) on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights, and mandated the working group to “elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises.”

The UN Human Rights Council decided that the first two sessions of the working group should be devoted to “conducting constructive deliberations on the content, scope, nature and form of the future international instrument.” At its first session, civil society refined their expectations for the scope and coverage of a treaty instrument under the mandate (¶¶ 21-105). The inter-governmental working group organized its consideration of the scope of a treaty around a number of broad concepts: (1) renewed commitment by states (¶¶37-39); (2) principles (¶¶40-54); (3) concepts and the legal nature of transnational corporations (¶¶55-61); (4) extent of human rights to be covered (¶¶ 62-66); (5) state obligations to guarantee respect for human rights by entities (¶¶ 67-77); (6) enhanced responsibilities for entities (¶¶78-87); (7) legal liability of entities (¶¶88-97); and (8) international remediation mechanisms (¶¶ 98-105). As might be expected at this early stage, there was little consensus on these questions except at a very general level.There may also be some fundamental disagreement between the position of the states supporting the treaty project and their civil society allies.

Such initial stage setting is usually of little interest except for what they might suggest of the underlying tensions that will be built into both the process and product of the treaty elaboration enterprise. This post considers these critiques--of relevance and of the contradiction of pragmatism and principle--in the context of an elaboration of a comprehensive treaty for business and human rights. The object is to consider the principles necessarily embedded in pragmatic choices, and the negative consequences--to coherence and effectiveness--of making choices about treaty specifics that neither adhere to framing principles nor are made on the basis of principles in making pragmatic choices among plausible alternatives.

Other State's Human Rights: The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) Decry China’s Repression of Civil Society and Rights Defenders

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) tends to be a good barometer of legislative thinking about China in the United States. Not that this thinking is either coherent or well directed. But it does represent the way in which U.S. "China expert" elites and their legislative masters develop "knowledge" about China. This knowledge is then used to shape U.S. policy and legislative approaches U.S. China relations. It also suggests the way that U.S. ideological thinking shapes the way in which China is viewed as understood by the United States.

This characterization is not meant to suggest a personal position on either the outlook or work of the CECC, or of its advisers. That characterization, however, does suggest that ideological blinders tend to tell us more about the U.S. (in this case) than it does about the Chinese. It is with the object of helping to understanding American construction of China, rather than of helping to understand Chinese constructions of themselves (however "flawed either exercise may be in and of itself and to itself), that this announcement is offered.

On the eve of the 2016 G 20 Meetings CECC issued a press release "Chairs Say President Should Lead G-20 Effort To Raise Concerns about China’s Repression of Civil Society and Rights Defenders" which follows below along with my brief observations.