Friday, February 26, 2021

International Symposium: "Globalization in a Post-COVID World: Retreat or Revival?" Organized by the Foundation for Law and International Affairs and the School of Foreign Studies, East China University of Political Science and Law

 

 

I am delighted to announce the International Symposium: "Globalization in a Post-COVID World:  Retreat or Revival?" which has been organized by the Foundation for Law and International Affairs and the School of Foreign Studies, East China University of Political Science and Law.

Description of the Event: The worldwide pandemic caused by the COVID-19 has had a significant impact on international finance, trade, politics, and other related fields. Will these consequences change the fate of globalization? Some scholars believe that we will see a further retreat from hyper-globalization as citizens increasingly look to national governments to protect them and states and firms seek to reduce future vulnerabilities. Others believe that if the pandemic shocks us into recognizing our real interest in cooperating multilaterally on the big global issues facing us, it will have served a useful purpose.

Symposium participants include 39 speakers from 11 countries in the fields of law, trade, politics, environment, education, foreign studies, youth actions, international development, and other related fields. They will facilitate dialogues and try to unravel the uncertainties facing us and work towards a clearer picture on the fate of globalization.

The program including links to attend follow below.  Also included is the text of my opening remarks.

Zoom recording of the event:
https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/y_-Zs2rINQG0qrb-CAMZ-qV5thHgzoIJA42ZNdkzH1aoXxowDHPjeLGMsiuFC-2I.1z17vypTGHkHiaBn Passcode: MVx3DQ+D

Thursday, February 25, 2021

"Transparency, Good Governance at the African End of China's Silk Road—Challenges and Opportunities," PowerPoint of Presentation at the Conference: Belt and Road Initiative in Africa: Addressing the Issues of Debt, Dispute Resolution, and Transparency

 


I have written about the excellent conference, Belt and Road Initiative in Africa: Addressing the Issues of Debt, Dispute Resolution, and Transparency An online conference | 23-25 February 2021, sponsored by  the Centre for Comparative and Public Law, the University of Hong Kong Law Faculty, and the University of Victoria Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives

I participated in the Panel on Transparency and Good Governance. Our task for this panel was to "highlight the crucial importance of entrenching and upholding globally acceptable business ethical standards in the implementation of the (BRI) in Africa for shared prosperity. Relying on international and transnational legal and quasi-legal frameworks, discussants may talk about effective approaches to tackle potential opacity and poor governance in the BRI in Africa."

The PowerPoint of my contribution to this effort, "Transparency, Good Governance at the African End of China's Silk Road—Challenges and Opportunities," follows below along with the panel concept note and participants, who together produced a marvelous discussion around the panel themes. Happy to continue the conversation offline.

Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Belt and Road Initiative in Africa: Addressing the Issues of Debt, Dispute Resolution, and Transparency An online conference | 23-25 February 2021


 


 I am happy to announce the Conference: Belt and Road Initiative in Africa: Addressing the Issues of Debt, Dispute Resolution, and Transparency, which is taking place 23-25 February online.

More information about the conference (Speakers, topics, panels, concept note and the like) follow.

JOIN THE SEMINAR BY CLICKING HERE


 

Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Sneak Peek Chapter 20: "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems': Essays from the Year that Transformed the Hong Kong SAR (June 2019 – June 2020)--Open-Shut (bai he 稗閤) Strategies: 习近平;止暴制乱 恢复秩序是香港当前最紧迫的任务 [Xi Jinping; Stopping the storm and restoring order is Hong Kong's most urgent task at present]

 


 

For the last several months I have been sharing sneak peeks of a book to be published in early 2021: Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems':  Essays from the Year that Transformed the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (June 2019 – June 2020)  (Little Sir Press).  The essays are presented in the form of a diary that marks an intellectual progression that matches the march of events. Each was written as events unfolded (each essay is dated to the time of its initial writing) and lightly edited for the book.  The object is to capture not just the strategic and normative developments that produced the new order for Hong Kong in June 2020, but also to give a sense of the uncertainties and anticipations as the events themselves unfolded during the course of the year.  The process of ideological genesis over the course of the year  is best captured from a state of anticipation without the benefit of foresight. The essays , then, do not look back on events after the fact, but speculate, discover, and captures moments that from June 2020 look inevitable but which from the perspective of June 2019 appeared far less so. 
 
In an effort to avoid the prohibitive cost of hard copies, the book will be made available first as an EPub (iBook, Kindle, Amazon) (ISBN: 978-1-949943-03-0 (ebk). My thanks to the Coalition for Peace & Ethics for making this possible. I have previously shared an early drafts of the preface (here), and chapters 2 (here; June 2019) and 9 (here; August 2019).   
 
Here I wanted to share a draft of Chapter 20 ("Monday 18 November 2019)-- " Open-Shut (bai he 稗閤) Strategies: 习近平;止暴制乱 恢复秩序是香港当前最紧迫的任务 [Xi Jinping; Stopping the storm and restoring order is Hong Kong's most urgent task at present] ".

As we get closer to publication summaries of each of the 29 essays will be posted along with the table of contents.
 

Saturday, February 20, 2021

Platform Government--The Emerging State of Contests for Control of Society From Jack Ma and China to Mark Zuckerberg and Australia



Good innovation can coexist with regulations, but not regulations of yesterday. We cannot manage an airport the way we manage a train station, nor can we manage the future the way we managed yesterday. (Jack Ma, Jack Ma’s speech at the Bund Summit 2020 in Shanghai," Apple News (11 August 2020))

There are four interrelated stories that have tended to be treated as distinct affairs by what passes for the press and their academic organs.  That s a pity, because in their intense desire to vindicate their own view of the way the world is (or ought to be ) understood, these organs of authoritative societal sharpers of meaning continue to miss one of the most important trajectories of power emerging in the last decade--the fusion of state, governance, and markets rough platforms

From this fusion, new forms and approaches are emerging to the control and management of the productive forces of society, and of the shaping of the human factors of production organized in well behaved communities manifesting values through behaviors that advance the interests, obligations or perceived responsibilities of  (market, political, societal or other) vanguards. What appears to be the relationship between consumables and consumers is effectively reversed.  Individuals now serve as the ultimate consumable for the production of communal stability and prosperity that is understood as the product of metrics measured against aggregate ideals applied to ensure the maximization of value from the societal, economic, and political consumption of human activity. 

What then becomes critically important as a site of politics is not what passes for democratic expression (voting, engagement, etc.-these are carefully managed for all the right reasons in the context of the political model in which they are manifested). Instead first tier politics now centers on the control of the machinery of consumption, that is on the data (Foucault's now updated notion of "statistics" of importance to his theory of governmentality, to suit the technologies of the times) through which the ordering and control of social, political, religious, and economic production may be retained and enhanced.  

The interrelated stories are these: (1) the disciplining of Jack Ma; (2) the completion of the first cycle of data protection and cybersecurity laws in China; (3) the detachment of data services from Ant; (4) the glimmerings of the Western parallel developments in the contest between Australia and Facebook. Each is briefly considered below.  Together they suggest the intertwining of platforms as a governance space, and its power to bring together within its "spaces" all of the coordinate parts necessary for the management and consumption of human production in the service of the stability ad prosperity of collectives overseen by those given that task under contextually different political-economic models.

From the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Thomas Carothers and Andreas Feldmann, (eds.) "Divisive Politics and Democratic Dangers in Latin America"

 


In Latin America, the coronavirus pandemic has raised the already high temperature of divisive politics. In Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, managing polarization will be key to preserving democracy.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has recently released a collection of essays edited by
Thomas Carothers and Andreas Feldmann, (eds.): "Divisive Politics and Democratic Dangers in Latin America" (17 February 2021). From their announcement:

Divisive politics have hit many Latin American countries hard in recent years, fueled by numerous underlying fissures and issues including economic inequality and exclusion, corruption, ideological differences, high levels of violence, and chronically weak state capacity. The coronavirus pandemic has only intensified these pressures. Latin America thus enters 2021 shadowed by an ominous sense that democracy is under extraordinary strain.

To help shine a light on these troubled waters and chart the risks ahead, this collection of essays by a notable set of regional experts examines recent developments in six key countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. Taken together, the different country accounts present a sobering picture, though not an unrelievedly negative one. Divisions are deep, economic troubles are widespread, and the pandemic continues to devastate the lives of countless people in the region. The risks for democracy are serious, ranging from the rupture of basic democratic structures to the potential emergence of new illiberal political figures and forces. Remedial steps are possible, but they will be challenging to carry out. The collection seeks to help engaged actors and observers throughout the region and beyond better understand the troubling dynamics of rising political division and formulate effective responses.

The Carnegie Endowment gratefully acknowledges support from the Ford Foundation that helped make this compilation possible.

 The table of Contents with LINKS follows below.

Much of the work provides a valuable updating of the long term structural tensions that manifest in contextually distinct ways in the states examined.  Of significant interest in the manifestation of what I have been calling the "COVID Accelerator Effect" ("The Metamorphosis of COVID-19: State, Society, Law, Analytics," Emancipating the Mind 15(2):261, 264-276).  Carothers and Feldmann note in their Conclusions: "on the whole, the pandemic has in fact accelerated confrontational political dynamics, embodied by surging protests, deepening polarization, more populism, and a growing distrust in existing institutions. The case studies in this collection affirm that this pattern of confrontation largely holds true in Latin America."

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Xin He: "Divorce in China: Institutional Constraints and Gendered Outcomes" (European Chinese Law Research Hub)

 


 

The folks over at the European Chinese Law Research Hub (with thanks to Marianne von Blomberg, Editor ECLR Hub, Research Associate, Chair for Chinese Legal Culture, University of Cologne) have posted Xin He's (Law Faculty at the University of Hong Kong)  marvelous summary essay around his recent book.

Marianne von Bloomberg explains:

Why are women still at a disadvantage in Chinese divorce courts? And why is domestic violence frequently disregarded by judges? Xin He observed divorce proceedings for over more than a decade and in his new monograph presents a first-ever study on divorce cases based on fieldwork conducted inside Chinese courtrooms. He finds: The judiciary's slogan “achieve the combination of both legal and social effects” may turn into a vehicle for the reinforcement of patriarchal decision-making.

Xin He is Professor at Hong Kong University's Law School and a pioneer in studying China’s legal systems from a socio-legal perspective. 'Gendered Divorces in Chinese Courts', published by NYU Press in 2020, is his second book.

Enjoy the read and as always, we would love to hear your comments, criticism and ideas.
With the kind permission of the ECLRH I am cross posting the essay below. The original ECLRH post may be accessed HERE. And as a plug for the marvelous work at the European Chinese Law Research Hub: iIf you have observations, analyses or pieces of research that are not publishable as a paper but should get out there, or want to spread event information, calls for papers or job openings, or have a paper forthcoming- do not hesitate to contact Marianne von Bloomberg,

Tuesday, February 16, 2021

ASCE Webinar Series 2021: "Cuba's new monetary and exchange rate system; How are they progressing"?"

 

 

 

The Association for the Study of the Cuba Economy (ASCE) with the support of the Coalition for Peace and Ethics (CPE), has undertaken a webinar series. The object of this series is to draw attention to the work of leading scholars and actors involved in the examination of current issues of Cuban society, culture, politics, law, and economics from a national, regional or international perspective.


The first ASCE 2021 webinar was held 16 February 2021. It was entitled "Cuba's new monetary and exchange rate system; How are they progressing"?" For this program Carmelo Mesa Lago, Pavel Vidal, and Ricardo Torres discuss issues around the recent changes to the Cuban exchange rate and monetary unification, and the continuing challenges for the public and private sectors, for exports and foreign direct investment, and generally for Cuban macro-economic policy.

 We hope you find the discussion interesting and thought provoking We welcome your views. The video is posted to the CPE YouTube Channel (ASCE 2021 Interview Series Playlist) and the specific webinar may be accessed HERE.

Monday, February 15, 2021

Michael Strauss on The Possibility of Closing Guantanamo

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Michael J. Strauss, who teaches at the Center for Diplomatic and Strategic Studies in Paris, and an invited professor at the Belarusian State University in Minsk, specializes 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).

 

 
We have spoken about the the long and quite interesting history of the Guantanamo Naval Base from its creation in 1903 through current times.  What appears at first glance to be a straightforward issue--the lease of another sovereign's territory, turns out to have produced complex issues of international law, international relations, and internal operations for the US military services.  The politics of the closing of the Naval Base during the very brief movement to normalization that ended in 2017 is also discussed. We discussed as well legal issues around the use of Guantanamo as a detention center for prisoners from the Iraq and Afghan campaigns.

Recently it was reported that "President Joe Biden’s aides have launched a formal review of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, reviving the Obama-era goal of closing the controversial facility with the aim of doing so before he leaves office, the White House said on Friday. . . Asked whether Biden would shut the high-security prison located at the Guantanamo Naval Station by the time his presidency ends, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters: “That certainly is our goal and our intention.” But such an initiative is unlikely to bring down the curtain anytime soon on the offshore facility, due largely to the steep political and legal obstacles that also frustrated efforts by his ex-boss, former President Barack Obama, to close it." (Biden launches review of Guantanamo prison, aims to close it before leaving office).

I asked Professor Strauss what he thought about this.  is quick but quite revealing response follows. 

 

Saturday, February 13, 2021

"Senators did what the former president failed to do. We put our constitutional duty first": Two Views of the Acquittal of Former President Trump After his 2nd Impeachment

 



The Senate acquitted former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial Saturday, voting that Trump was not guilty of inciting the deadly January 6 riot at the US Capitol, but the verdict amounted to a bipartisan rebuke of the former President with seven Republicans voting he was guilty. The final vote was 57 guilty to 43 not guilty, short of the 67 guilty votes needed to convict. But the Republican senators who voted against Trump amounted to a number higher than even Trump's legal team had expected, marking a stark departure from the first impeachment trial where only one Republican, Mitt Romney of Utah, found Trump guilty. (Trump acquitted for second time following historic Senate impeachment trial).

For the moment, the saga of the relationship of former President Trump to the Republic has come to an end.  Like the beginning of that engagement with this Republic, the actions left no one particularly satisfied, though it left everyone touching on these events in a heightened state of emotion.  

One will leave it to endless debate (like most thing in American politics) about the legal, political, societal, moral and other arguments thrown into the stew pot that is the debate about Mr. Trump to others. That subject will continue to feed the divisions that, perversely enough, produced the phenomenon that is Mr. Trump in the first place. Yet that appears, over the course of its ore than 200 year history, to be the "American way."

Much more interesting, and touching on the great nodal point that marks the moment when the Republic passes from its recent past to the potential of its future (such as Americans will make of it) are the speeches delivered after the fact by the Senate majority and minority leaders  These tell us more about what is to come than much of the drama (and its dramatic broadcasting) of the last several weeks. 

Mr. McConnell and Mr. Schumer, both in their own ways, remind us that there is much work to be done--assuming there is a taste for that sort of work beyond the necessary and catechismic rhetoric expected for public performances by elected political leaders (one of the lessons learned from the events of the last several months). But first the period of national purging--at least by the representatives of the elites now elected to legislative and executive positions in the federal government.  These remarks are quite telling for a nation embedded in cultures that values the therapeutic ("In 1909 when Sigmunf Freud, Carl Jung, William James, G. Stanley Hall, and others met at Clark University, the age of the 'therapeutic man' was about to dawn" Clarence J. Karier, "The Ethics of a Therapeutic Man: C.G. Jung," Psychoanalytic Review 63(1):115, 121 (1976)) That age of the therapeutic is here now with a vengeance in the political sphere. And that therapeutic turn in this age is drizzled with a healthy dose of righteousness (a necessary declaration of separation from Mr. Trump and what he now represents)--and a singular lack of humility.

Whoever has been awakened and shaken by world history since the first collapse of the peaceful world will never be entirely free from the feeling of complicity, although it is more appropriate to the young, for age and experience should have taught us that this question is the same as that of our share in original sin and should not disquiet us; we can leave it to theologians and philosophers. But since within my lifetime the world in which I live has changed from a pretty, sportive, somewhat self-indulgent world of peace to a place of horror, I will no doubt suffer occasional relapses into this state of bad conscience. (Herman Hesse, Autobiographical Writings (New York: Farrar, STraus & Giroux, 1972); p. 286, and quoted in Karier, supra). )

Decide for yourselves.  The text of both remarks follow. The reality of the new order will only slowly emerge.


Friday, February 12, 2021

Business and Human Rights Workshop Series Black Star Line, Inc.: Race in the Historical Life of the Corporation (18 February 2021 1300 US East Coast Time)

 


 

 

 

Join the Business and Human Rights Initiative at the University of Connecticut on Thursday, Feb. 18 1:00-2:30 PM EST for our first Business and Human Rights Workshop with Aaron Dhir@OsgoodeNews @YaleLawSch "Black Star Line, Inc.: Race in the Historical Life of the Corporation" - to register:  https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dFcWMGvfT3eBsxwWMmgurw.


This promises to be a very interesting presentation for which I am delighted to serve as discussant. Professor Dhir promises an important conversation around not just an important figure who remains controversial, but an equally controversial position taken at the time of the case that sent Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr. to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary-- that the promise of investment in a corporation need not be limited to the generation of paltry profits but that investment might have powerful social value as well, especially in the individual and collective lives of African-Americans.   To get there one has to reframe the conception of the enterprise, at least at first blush.  That first blush then implicates a set of wider questions about corporate law and policy, about the instrumentalism of the corporate form, and its politics.

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Resources on Cuba's Reform of the Administraiton fo the Non-State Sector; February 2021

 


 

The Cuban government announced, as is its habit now, through the show "Mesa Redonda", a set of potentially far ranging reforms of the non state sector and its regulation. It appears to expand the scope  of work available.  It is too early to tell how this will affect the shape and character, must less the operation, of the Cuban economy.  It is also too early to determine how this may affect the relationship between government, in its role as oversight, monitoring and regulatory functions, and non state economic actors.  But it is not too early to begin to consider the documents that are meant to describe the start of these changes. 

Useful links: 

 The following includes reporting from Randy Alonso Falcón for CubaDebate, Cuáles son las nuevas disposiciones para el trabajo por cuenta propia en Cuba? (+ Video) (9 Feb. 2021).

 

Cuba-US Working Together Again: Lessons From Environmental Cooperation

 

From the announcement materials:

The year begins on February 22, 2021 with a major Zoom conference co-sponsored by the Cuba Program, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), American College of Environmental Lawyers (ACOEL), and the Fundación Antonio Nuñez Jiménez (FANJ), to analyze past Cuba-US cooperation on environmental and sustainability issues. Speakers will include leading experts from Cuba and the US exploring current challenges to cooperation. The conference will consist of two zoom sessions and there will be simultaneous translation. 

This work will be initiated via discussions on February 22, 2021, in two webinars open to experts, academics, students, as well as the general public. The foci of the two are:

  1. HISTORY & CONTEXT: 10 AM-12:30 PM, MODERATOR, DAN WHITTLE, EDF. Prospects for strengthening and deepening environmental dialogue and cooperation between Cuba and the US. including facilitating cooperation among academics, scientists, and other experts, as well as non-governmental organizations.
  2. ACTIONS & STRATEGIES: 1:30-4 PM, MODERATORS, DAVID FARER, ACOEL & YOCIEL MARERRO, FANJ Discussion of opportunities for the sponsoring organizations/institutions/agencies/groups in both countries to work collaboratively on particular issues or projects in furtherance of environmental cooperation and development of ideas for an action agenda for lawyers, environmentalists, scientists, scholars, students, and faculty to provide and obtain project-oriented expertise including the provision of pro bono services.

The concluding discussion will focus on recommendations to be disseminated to relevant interest groups for discussion,
elaboration, and action.

Contact Information

ILAS
 
REGISTER HERE: 
https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUucemvpjIqHtLc7Iusj0JyyPhM0aE8g86t


Tuesday, February 09, 2021

Sneak Peek Chapter 12: "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems': Essays from the Year that Transformed the Hong Kong SAR (June 2019 – June 2020): Resist-Reconcile (忤合 Wuhe):"Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Supporting Shenzhen's Pioneering Demonstration Zone with Chinese Characteristics" [中共中央国务院关于支持深圳建设中国特色社会主义先行示范区的意见 (二〇一九年八月九日)] "

 


 

For the last several months I have been sharing sneak peeks of a book to be published in early 2021: Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems':  Essays from the Year that Transformed the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (June 2019 – June 2020)  (Little Sir Press).  The essays are presented in the form of a diary that marks an intellectual progression that matches the march of events. Each was written as events unfolded (each essay is dated to the time of its initial writing) and lightly edited for the book.  The object is to capture not just the strategic and normative developments that produced the new order for Hong Kong in June 2020, but also to give a sense of the uncertainties and anticipations as the events themselves unfolded during the course of the year.  The process of ideological genesis over the course of the year  is best captured from a state of anticipation without the benefit of foresight. The essays , then, do not look back on events after the fact, but speculate, discover, and captures moments that from June 2020 look inevitable but which from the perspective of June 2019 appeared far less so. 
 
In an effort to avoid the prohibitive cost of hard copies, the book will be made available first as an EPub (iBook, Kindle, Amazon) (ISBN: 978-1-949943-03-0 (ebk). My thanks to the Coalition for Peace & Ethics for making this possible. I have previously shared an early drafts of the preface (here), and chapters 2 (here; June 2019) and 9 (here; August 2019).   
 
Here I wanted to share a draft of Chapter 12 ("Monday 19 August-- " Resist-Reconcile (忤合 Wuhe): "Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Supporting Shenzhen's Pioneering Demonstration Zone with Chinese Characteristics" [中共中央国务院关于支持深圳建设中国特色社会主义先行示范区的意见 (二〇一九年八月九日).".

As we get closer to publication summaries of each of the 29 essays will be posted along with the table of contents.
 

Sunday, February 07, 2021

Data Driven Democracy (In the West): "Democracy Index 2020: In Sickness and in Health? (The Economist Intelligence Unit 2021).

 


 Like Marxist-Leninist systems in the 21st century, private organizations that believe themselves a necessary component of markets driven vanguards are working toward the implementation of comprehensive data driven systems of punishments and rewards grounded in assessments measured against a preferred ideal.  Chinese Social Credit systems, the term generally used by Western people to reference the constellation of Marxist Leninist projects,  tend to be demonized and condemned by the very actors in Western liberal democratic systems who then seek the benefits and structures of those very forms of popular management but now tilted toward their own ends (e.g. here). 

This reminder of hypocrisy across "competing" systems, however, is not meant to condemn (or laud) either expression of control through data driven metrics based systems or the ideologies from out of which ti is made to seem natural that the politics of such control are expressed through markets, vanguard parties, or elites formed on the basis of technocratic or wealth based private collectives (foundations, non governmental organization, and the like).  Nor is it meant to assess the "value" of the ideal around which these metrics based systems are constructed, which themselves are meant to reduce the normative core premises of a political society to its quantitative "essence."  Neither is it necessary to condemn or praise the forms that rewards and punishments take.  The reminder of hypocrisy across the political control spectrum, and the pious catechisms that its leadership cores naturalize within its populations through "statistics"  is merely to note a certain convergence between data driven governance in the liberal democratic camp (through markets and private actors deeply embedded in public organs) and those in the Marxist Leninist camp (through state direction or coordination and in partnership with state managed or directed enterprises and other organs). 

(Pix Credit: Global democracy has a very bad year).
This post considers one such effort, the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index 2020: In Sickness and in Health? (released 2021).  The Economist Intelligence Unit, established in 1946 under conditions of conflict with Soviet Imperial and ideological threat  serves as the research and analysis division of The Economist Group. The 2020 Index suggests the working style of markets driven and privatized discipline of the core ideologies of the liberal democratic camp through a cultivation of disciplined approaches by its research and academic arms. The ideology of democracy is not driven by normative principles, but increasingly by indicators that reduce those norms to quite specific markers of conduct, of polling results, and of conditions that together are meant to incarnate the ideal operation of a democratic state. Unlike normative markers, the reduction of democratic ideology to a set of indicators also makes it possible to fine tune the process of identifying and correcting defects, of monitoring, and of disciplining deviance among states. It also suggests the growing authority of data driven ratings systems on the disciplining of ideology and its application in public organs. This year, the report noted a quantitative decline, it "finds that just 8.4% of the world’s population live in a full democracy while more than a third live under authoritarian rule. The global score of 5.37 out of ten is the lowest recorded since the index began in 2006." (Global democracy has a very bad year). The big loser, of course, was the United States, now rated a flawed democracy because of the quantitative effects of Mr. Trump's supporters to accept the results of the election. Ibid. In the end, it now appears, democracy is a matter of data driven metrics overseen by members of the

Friday, February 05, 2021

Thoughts on "Human Rights, Climate Change and Business: Key Messages" Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

 


 

Even as the conventional international elites seek to finally finish the battles over the allocation of rights, duties, and obligations between business, states, international organizations, and civil society with reference to human centered human rights regimes as they developed between 1947 and 2011 (eg here), it appears that the core foundational premises may be moving beyond the limiting constraints of the perspectives that have produced those battles. 

Supported by  the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has released its Human Rights, Climate Change, and Business: Key Messages. The "document explores the main legal and policy implications of the UNGPs for States and business- es with regard to human rights and climate change (Section I) and concludes with some of OHCHR’s key advocacy messages on this issue (Section II)" (Ibid., p. 1). 

The document is divided into four parts.  The first three parts intertwine human rights issues within a climate change framework (or, human rights advocates might suggest it intertwines climate change within human rights frameworks--the difference in centering is important).   

With respect to the Pillar 1 State Duty to Protect Human Rights, the document emphasizes the embedding of climate change sensibilities . The difficulty here is the extent to which it appears to be an "add on" to the fundamental framing of human rights, rather than as the key violation of human rights. Adding the words "including with respect to climate change" suggests  the possibility of de-centering climate change in ways that may not reflect the critical importance of indicia and mechanics of climate degrading activities that may themselves be the engines of human rights violations. Climate change does not have an adverse impact on human rights (which is the primary space to which the state duty is directed; instead climate change is the adverse impact on human rights that then manifests in consequential ways. 

With respect to Pillar 2 Corporate Responsibility to Respect Human Rights, the document suffers the same centering problem as the state duty, noted above. But much appreciated is the extension of the emphasis of corporate responsibility beyond legal compliance and which looks toward global standards that exist 2even in the absence of clear [or unclear] domestic climate obligations" (Ibid., p. 4).   More effective than any pieties directed toward states (which tend to do as they must or can) is the embedding of climate change related human rights impacts in their human rights due diligence practices.  That, probably more than anything  else, will move toward naturalizing climate change related activities within the constellation, and perhaps as the animating factor, of human rights as a key element in valuing and assessing economic activity.   

With respect to Pillar 3 Access to Remedy the linking of climate change  to the remedial pillar is welcome.  Here the great and most interesting innovation is the push toward positive (remediation) as opposed to negative (prevention) obligations ("Business enterprises should participate in good faith, and not undermine, proceedings before legal or non-legal tribunals that promote accountability for climate harms. In the context of climate change, particularly where businesses have contributed to severe impacts (such as large businesses involved in the generation of electricity and heat, transportation, industrial agriculture, and other high emitting sectors), each business should provide for remediation appropriate to its share in responsibility for the harm" Ibid., 5).

Lastly, the discussion around "Advocating a Rights Based Approach to Business Activities Related to Climate Change" adds a welcome additional set of positive responsibilities. Appreciated is the scope of the responsibility, the contours of which are broad enough to include a large variety of viewpoints.  The avoidance of an orthodoxy in the area is particularly important as knowledge and culture advances. To that end the focus is on prevention, on access to information, on lobbying, and on meaningful public participation.  More problematic because of the great failures of state duty are commitments to the protection of human rights and climate change defenders, policy coherence, and justice and equity issues. Each remains open ended enough that in effect they continue to augment incentives to privatize each. The result is the continuation of vesting increasing responsibility on private actors through the second pillar to subsidize the growing deficiencies in state compliance with their duties. Ensuring the right of all persons to the benefits of science remains contentious. This implies two quite different points--the first is distributing scientific knowledge around which there is at last momentary consensus.  The second is the direction of resources, including pure research. All, however, remain works in progress that are informed, in turn, by changing cultural tastes and ways of looking at the world.

The document follows below and may be downloaded HERE.

 

Thursday, February 04, 2021

"Cuba's new monetary and exchange rate system; How are they progressing"?": Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE ) Webinar 16 February 2021


 

I am delighted to announce the next Webinar in the 2021 Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE)  Webinar Series on current issues in Cuban economy, politics, society and culture. 

Join us on 16 February 2021 from 10.00 am - Noon US East Coast time for the Webinar:  "Cuba's new monetary and exchange rate system; How are they progressing"?" For this program Carmelo Mesa Lago, Pavel Vidal, and Ricardo Torres discuss issues around the recent changes to the Cuban exchange rate and monetary unification, and the continuing challenges for the public and private sectors, for exports and foreign direct investment, and generally for Cuban macro-economic policy.

 REGISTRATION is required but free and may be accessed HERE: or directly by clicking here:  https://psu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_tCGHglK1SeeFXY1DE2na6A

or by accessing through this QR Code.:




 


Wednesday, February 03, 2021

The Return of the Jedi: Considering "The Longer Telegram: Toward a New American China Strategy" (Atlantic Council 2021)

 


 

It will be  along time before dispassionate analysis of the acutely disruptive revolution that occurred beneath the public circus that was the media fueled version of the administration of Donald Trump between 2016-2020.  But it is likely that decades from now people in the business of developing consensus views about the "realities" of the past may come to see  better appreciate the way that the years 2016-2020 marked both the end of the old American political order and the beginning of a new era in the development of the United States--both with respect to its internal self conception, and the way it viewed its place in the world. 

Already the process of building the post global American post-global global institutional frameworks (and adapting the old language of norms and politics to that task) has begun among deeply embedded elements of the ruling elites in this country organized within the organs of institutions like the Atlantic Council ("The Atlantic Council promotes constructive leadership and engagement in international affairs based on the Atlantic Community’s central role in meeting global challenges. The Council provides an essential forum for navigating the dramatic economic and political changes defining the twenty-first century by informing and galvanizing its uniquely influential network of global leaders. The Atlantic Council—through the papers it publishes, the ideas it generates, the future leaders it develops, and the communities it builds—shapes policy choices and strategies to create a more free, secure, and prosperous world" Atlantic Council Our Mission). These reflect the way that the last 4 years have fundamentally transformed the way in will move forward. That forward movement necessarily requires the creation of new structures global leadership with the United States at the core.  This is neither good nor bad--it is, however, necessary if the United States is to remain true to some version of its fundamental guiding vision.

One sees an early and quite remarkable example of this movement toward the reconstitution and reorientation of a disciplining orthodoxy among the leadership vanguard of the United States, at least as expressed in its policy toward China, in a recently release document, The Longer Telegram: Toward a New American China Strategy (Atlantic Council 2021). The document is long and complex.  It is remarkable for attempting to develop a new trajectory for relations between the two great centers of imperial power (each self consciously so--and both in their own minds for the best and most positive all reasons). To those ends it attempts a transformation in the form of a fusion--taking the best of what survived  from the pre-2016 American vision of a multilateral global order under its benign leadership (were the US authority was sourced in its own conceit as representing the world within its own borders) and fusing it with and into the cautions and approaches and notions of strategic competition that sparked tremendous heat between 2016-2020.   

I do not comment here on the substance of the The Longer Telegram: Toward a New American China Strategy. There is much food for thought there much of which will eventually exert a tremendous influence in the reshaping of the culture-governance architecture of this Republic and its relation both to its guiding leadership cores and to the masses who must be cultivated in the appreciation of emerging ways of seeing and understanding the world around them (expressed most directly in their voting management). Reading the document will pay great dividends, especially as its shadows emerge within Biden Administration policy.

Except for this, which may also be taken as a challenge exposing what may e a core weakness of Reports constructed in this way:  

(1) The infatuation with leaders and cults of personality ought itself to be an object of strategy, for projections outward to China and inward within  American politics. With some notable exceptions, the willingness of the report to in significant respect ground its analysis on the reality of the effectiveness of cults of personality around the current Chinese leader may produce a distortion of analysis that leads to miscalculation.  That miscalculation may be grounded both in the underestimation of the extent to which Chinese elites share (and thus use) the core leader to advance institutionalized group aims (whatever the bickering on the margins) and the overestimation of the marginal value of nationalism and national pride within China.

(2) America's greatest strength has been its strategic narrative--projecting its internal vision outward--responses to threats abroad must start from repairing internal threats to that narrative. The US and its foreign policy has served the Republic best when the US is the (at least plausible) narrative  example; the Republic that works. The focus on Chinese strategies might well start with inward approaches projected outward; to focus on China requires the United States to focus first on itself; leading by example and from a position of strength (projected outward) is more likely to ensure a greater chance of success. The traditional flaw of American foreign policy analysis is to some extent reproduced here in the spirit and focus of the report.  It may be counter intuitive, but reports of this sort profit less on what they tend to center--what can be changed in Chinese behavior.  If the period 2016-2020 teaches those who lived through it anything, if a key analysis of China teaches anything especially since 1998, it might be that the best approach to engagement with a foreign challenge is to analyze it through a national prism.  That is, American policy toward China might be more profitably centered on what the United States can instrumentally change or accomplish in itself rather than on how it can manage what it has to induce change in others.  Ironically this is the lesson that China learned well between 1998 and 2012 and the Belt and Road Initiative is an example.  This is a strategy, or at least a strategic narrative, that the US has used in the past.    The Atlantic Council boasts (The Longer Telegram, "Key Points") that 

"The foremost goal of US strategy should be to cause China’s ruling elites to conclude that it is in China’s best interests to continue operating within the US-led liberal international order rather than building a rival order, and that it is in the Chinese Communist Party’s best interests to not attempt to expand China’s borders or export its political model beyond China’s shores."

It might better have boasted that the foremost goal of US strategy should be to cause the ruling elites of the United States (themselves included) to conclude  that it i in the best interest of the United States to better build and maintain a currently relevant US led international architecture grounded in values and actions that both reflect and are practiced within the leading state itself. It is the power of the normative values, of the fairness of the structures, and of the resolve of the US led architecture, more than anything else, that will convince the Chinese leadership core and its vanguard that the effort to build a rival international architecture--to put in place its own normative imperial order--is not in its interest.  It is likely, though that the time for that has passed, and what one can really expect from such measures s the preservation and expansion of the US led system, based on the fairness of its practice and the value of its vision when measured against the reality of rival visions. It is to that very hard task that US elites ought to be devoting far more of their time. 

Having said this, it is worth underlining that there is much detail to commend in the The Longer Telegram: Toward a New American China Strategy. At a minimum it provides a useful space within which the ruling vanguard can reconstitute itself as an effective driving force, and for the best of reasons. Beyond the reconstitution of elite solidarity, of the development of a coherent strategy that is fairly clear eyed and focused on interest and ideology, the effort builds nicely on both the American post-1945 tradition of building a more inclusive and markets driven collective system (which whatever its flaws does create a substantial space for private choice for those who find that a positive value) and the recognition that the idealized form of that post-1945 vision might not have survived  the events of 2001 - 2008 intact. 



Tuesday, February 02, 2021

European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee on Human Rights "Exchange of views on recent developments related to an international legally binding instrument on business and human rights"

  


 On 28 January 2021, the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee on Human Rights hosted an event: "Exchange of views on recent developments related to an international legally binding instrument on business and human rights, in the presence of :- Guus Houttuin, Senior Adviser on Trade Issues, EEAS- Claire Methven O´Brien, Strategic Adviser on Human Rights and Business, The Danish Institute for Human Rights - Carlos López Hurtado, Senior Legal Advisor, International Commission of Jurists."

The Exchange is well worth watching. The tortuous process of creating that sausage that will be the draft of an International Instrument on business and human rights that is only then intended to serve as the basis for negotiation (now well contained, through the sausage shell casings of the draft proffered up in this way)  has yielded riches for students of the application of human rights to economic activities. Among a very strong group of presentations, I will focus on those of Carlos López, and especially that of Claire Methven O'Brien, whose proposal for an alternative to the current form of the draft legal instrument--a framework treaty approach--has substantial appeal.

The presentations provide much food for thought.  My observations follow. Links to the video of the event along with the important submissions provided by participants  may be accessed by clicking on the picture which follows.