Frank S. Ravitch and Larry Catá Backer Discuss Creationism, Intelligent Design, and Evolution; Reading Edwards v. Aguillard 482 US 578 (1987) and Kitzmiller v. Dover Area Sch. Dist, 400 F.Supp.2d 707 (2005)

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Frank S. Ravitch and I have just published the 4th Edition to our casebook, Law and Religion: Cases and Materials (West Academic, 2021; ISBN 978-1-64708-764-7). The Preface nicely describes our aims for the book:

This book focuses on Law and Religion. The book covers three general topics: 1) Church/State Law (issues arising under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and statutes such as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act); 2) Religious Law (the role and substance of law in various religious traditions); and 3) Comparative Law and Religion (the law relating to religious freedom in other countries). Most books in this field have little or no material on the latter two topics. The bulk of this book is devoted to First Amendment Law, but the book also provides an overview of Jewish Law (Halakha), Islamic Law (Shari’ah), Buddhist conceptions of law, Catholic Canon Law, Protestant conceptions of law, and Hindu law as well as significant background on comparative Law and Religion. The discussion of First Amendment law integrates cases, questions and narrative to provide an in-depth understanding of the Religion Clauses of the United States Constitution.

Each topic in this book begins with a brief narrative discussion of the topic, followed by relevant cases and articles, and finally notes and questions. The goal of the narrative is to provide students with context (the forest) so that they can grapple with the many complex issues that are raised in the cases and articles (the trees). The sections on religious law and comparative law will follow a similar format.

We have tried to add a comparative law element to the study of the jurisprudence of religious liberties in the United States by tying that study to the broader global conversations and currents in the development of legal frameworks for the protection of religious liberty. We hope all of this can be accomplished in ways that are useful for law students not just in the US (though US students are our principal audience) but elsewhere as well. 

To enrich the casebook materials Frank and I have started producing a series of video discussions of key cases from the jurisprudence. We hope students and faculty may find the discussions of some use as they consider the casebook materials or as a springboard to deeper discussion of themes and complications raised in the cases.   These may be used by faculty and students to enrich their consideration of the casebook materials or as a springboard to deeper discussion of themes and complications raised in the cases.  

We discuss the pedagogy of the casebook here: Frank S. Ravitch and Larry Catá Backer Talk Pedagogy and Approach as they Introduce the 4th Edition to their Casebook, Law and Religion: Cases and Materials (West Academic, 2021)

 To date we have videos discussing the following cases: 

1.  Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 593 U.S. -- (2021)

2. Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Tp., 330 U.S. 1 (1947)

3. Engle v. Vitale, 370 US 421 (1962), and Sch Dist Abington Twnshp v. Schempp, 374 US 203 (1963).

4.  Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992).

5.  Student Initiated Prayer and Moment of Silence Cases (Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe, 530 US 290 (2000); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 US 38 (1985)

For our next conversation we consider Establishment Clause limitations on curricular design with a specific focus on creationism, intelligent design, and evolution as subjects of public school education. The discussion centers on the germinal case, Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 US 578 (1987) in which the Supreme Court held that Louisiana's "Balanced Treatment for Creation Science and Evolution Science in Public School" legislation could not survive an Establishment Clause challenge. We probe deeper than the fairly straightforward analysis grounded in the then more vigorous Lemon test and the Endorsement analysis. We consider the nature of the dialogue between evolution and "creationism" as it touches on the way that the organization of knowledge in the West divides science and its methods (grounded din the observable and in the development of insights from what may be observed respecting its character, behavior, and perhaps predicting consequences) with religion and its higher order focus on causes and cosmology and the way that they may not intersect. In that context, then, the effort to merge science and religion becomes problematic at a basic level and the attempted insertion of religious cosmology within a descriptive and analytic approach t knowledge suggests a displacement rather than a dialogue. That cosmology and Origin theories might be separately taught from the study of the rationalization of the observable complicates the analysis further. Here the language of law and that of its object can find very little common ground. 

 

We then turn to the way that the recent Free Exercise Cases--Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021); Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer (2017); and Espinoza v. Montana Dept of Revenue (2020)--may now change the focus of the Aguillard analysis in significant ways. We consider the possibility that where the teaching of evolution was the important problem under the Establish Clause in the 1980s, in the 2020s the issue may be whether the Free Exercise Clause now reinvigorates a right to avoid science entirely under emerging constitutional or statutory principles. The power of Free Exercise choice by individuals on the curriculum may be as powerful an influence over some of the pedagogy as Establishment Clause jurisprudence was on the power of the state to shape curriculum in the 20th century. We end with a consideration of the viability of Edwards going forward. But that leaves the fundamental absurdity--the effort to invoke notions of inclusion, toleration, and diversity--as the fetishes that are meant to accomplish the impossible, that is to alter the way that knowledge is organized, classified and rationalized in this culture. Each has its place, and neither ought to be used to displace the other. The Religion Clauses are inevitably invoked when this impossible amalgamation is attempted--then we move from pedagogy to the politics of knowledge. with respect to which the Religion Clauses now have much to say. And here the politics also has a constitutional dimension that is explored--the way that teaching cosmology itself implicates the neutrality principles of both Establishment and Free Exercise in cases such as these. In these cases one cosmology sourced in the teachings of one (powerful) religious group is privileged over those of other faith communities. Lack of neutrality may itself make for a more powerful endorsement argument; it may certainly increase the power of Free Exercise objections to exposing children of other faith traditions to its teaching.

The Video recording of  this conversation may be accessed HERE.

It is also available on the Coalition for Peace & Ethics YouTube Channel HERE.

 

In Commemoration: Proclamation 3071—Veteran's Day, 1954

 

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The 20th century was one at war--at war with itself, and among a significant portion of social, ethnic, religious, and cultural collectives.  It was a century of efficient violence in the service of higher causes at a time when the battle over the supremacy of those causes, and its effects on the constructions of hierarchies of authority, continue to mark the world order. The United States was drawn into this century long warring and ultimately served as a critical actor in the efforts to construct global structures to manage, if not eliminate, warfare. In the process this Republic has called on its own people to defend the nation in the way such defense is understood by our nation's leaders over the course of the century, and then to defend the system the United States helped build in an effort to end a century of remarkable violence. Half way through this century, what had been Armistice Day was broadened in recognition of the reality that the Republic had asked much sacrifice and would likely continue to ask for sacrifice in the service of the nation and its vision for a more peaceful world. To honor that sacrifice and to recognize its official constitution it may be useful to revisit and to reflect on the first proclamation of Veterans Day issued, as would seem appropriate for a century characterized by war, by a U.S. President who earlier has served as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force after 1943.

 

Proclamation 3071—Veteran's Day, 1954

October 08, 1954

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Whereas it has long been our custom to commemorate November 11, the anniversary of the ending of World War I, by paying tribute to the heroes of that tragic struggle and by rededicating ourselves to the cause of peace; and

Whereas in the intervening years the United States has been involved in two other great military conflicts, which have added millions of veterans living and dead to the honor rolls of this Nation; and

Whereas the Congress passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926 (44 Stat. 1982), calling for the observance of November 11 with appropriate ceremonies, and later provided in an act approved May 13, 1938 (52 Stat. 351), that the eleventh of November should be a legal holiday and should be known as Armistice Day; and

Whereas, in order to expand the significance of that commemoration and in order that a grateful Nation might pay appropriate homage to the veterans of all its wars who have contributed so much to the preservation of this Nation, the Congress, by an act approved June 1, 1954 (68 Stat. 168), changed the name of the holiday to Veterans Day:

Now, Therefore, I, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States of America, do hereby call upon all of our citizens to observe Thursday, November 11, 1954, as Veterans Day. On that day let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain. I also direct the appropriate officials of the Government to arrange for the display of the flag of the United States on all public buildings on Veterans Day.

In order to insure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans' organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose. Toward this end, I am designating the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs as Chairman of a Veterans Day National Committee, which shall include such other persons as the Chairman may select, and which will coordinate at the national level necessary planning for the observance. I am also requesting the heads of all departments and agencies of the Executive branch of the Government to assist the National Committee in every way possible.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

DONE at the City of Washington this eighth day of October in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and fifty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and seventy-ninth.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

By the President:

JOHN FOSTER DULLES,

Secretary of State

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Proclamation 3071—Veteran's Day, 1954 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/308210

Los Difuntos, la disonancia y el desafío a los órdenes establecidos: pensamientos en vísperas de las protestas planificadas en Cuba el 15 de noviembre de 2021

 

 

ENGLISH VERSION HERE

 
Las transiciones producen su propio teatro. Estos están destinados a traducir lo que podrían ser trayectorias complejas de cambio, desafío, resistencia y evolución, en simplificaciones eminentemente explotables que esencializan las contiendas por el control (normativo, narrativo, político, físico, cultural, económico) en bocados fáciles de digerir y aptos para el consumo. por aquellos elementos de masas cuya acción o inacción es vital para la afirmación del control y la proclamación de la "victoria", sin embargo, eso puede definirse en el contexto de un conjunto particular de peleas políticas o sociales. 

Death, Dissonance, and Challenge to Established Orders: Thoughts on the Eve of the Planned Protests in Cuba 15 November 2021

 

EN ESPAÑOL

Transitions produce their own theater.  These are meant to translate what might be complex trajectories of change, challenge, resistance, and evolution, into eminently exploitable simplifications that essentialize contests for control (normative, narrative, political, physical, cultural, economic) into simple to digest tidbits suitable for consumption by those mass elements whose action or inaction is vital for the assertion of control and the proclamation of "victory" however that may be defined in the context of a particular set of contests.  

Death is always a great trigger for action in contexts of transition.  And death is everywhere is Cuba,  People die--or at least pass on into a more or less harmless dotage.  But they may take institutions down with them.  The same applies  outside the vanguard.  The creative class that in the early 1960s could accept the proposition--within the revolution everything; outside the revolution nothing. . . and the revolution is embodied in and expressed through the vanguard--now declare themselves the new vanguard.  Yet it is also a self reflexive vanguard, though one with a ideology and a narrative that is for the moment performance. In Cuba the generation of los históricos is quickly traveling to the end that awaits all human persons. Are they taking the system they built and defended down with them?  More potently, will the founding generation be shrouded in the burial cloth of their own ideology which now discarded effectively serves one last purpose--top wrap the dead and bury both?

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Answers are not easily forthcoming--though all of the protagonists are working themselves (and their target audiences) into a necessary and reductionist hysteria perhaps so that they might be better exploited in the imminent next battlefield or the control of the narrative space--and perhaps the streets.  On the one side stand the state, the party and its organs.  They are the inheritors of a system that is better understood today as  unable to connect the catechism of its ideology to the realities of the current stage of Cuban historical development. A society grounded on principles of socialist materialism hardly succeeds when the only thing to eat are words and ideas. On the other side a motley collection of artists and others, who seizing an opportunity that developed in some sense from their outrage at a loss of their own privileges within that increasingly moribund expression of ideology, were brilliantly able to generalize personal grievance into a movement suitable not merely for inclusion of the hungry, but also that met the approval (and perhaps the support) of a global community who love to say "Marxism" and "Leninism" in their dinner parties within the walls of quite privileged existences, but who are at heart markets oriented cultural entrepreneurs with strong allegiance (one way or another) to the ,markets led liberal democratic order.  Free expression is the lubricant for the inevitable confrontation.  The object is power in all of its manifestations. Thwarted prosperity and development serves as the counterforce.

In Cuba, then, death and dissonance create the perfect space for challenge--from all quarters.  Those challenges become more complicated as both dissident and orthodox camps change internally even as the terrains of their confrontation also change to suit internal and external audiences, potential allies, and the "Norns" of global narrative spinning about Cuba. That is not clear, in part because the system is itself already transitioning in part, even as the society around it transitions but perhaps not in sync. And in a Cuba that has so liked (and controlled) its creative/artistic sector, who better than artists to lead a transitional opposition against a much more slowly transitioning orthodox hierarchy fulled with the dutiful children of the founding generation? 

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Expanding free expression and engagement will not feed the hungry but may make the state--even a Leninist state--more responsive. Yet in the form it is offered up all it appears to contribute to is the creation of a vacuum into which it is not clear what will step in. Exuberance and expressions grounded on being wronged is a start, but is only a step, an opening, to the more difficult questions of both guiding ideology and a program of implementation that moves society closer to consensus objectives.  On the other hand were the vanguard to take the hint--quite a broad hint considering the thousands in the streets--and actually produce reform now 30 years overdue, they might be able to turn the protests and its focus on expression and engagement into a useful tool for propelling vanguard ideology into the current century.  That requires two quite distinct set of objectives. The first is structural and ideological: the mass line and a clever propaganda department could do much to expropriate the central element of popular protestor objectives and make it the Party's own.  But ideological rigidity stuck in the 1980s Soviet view of the world will prove a more decisive enemy than thousands of people marching through the street of Cuba.  The send is grounded in the central elements of stability and prosperity objectives. Such objectives--especially in the form of grim sacrifice Leninism--cannot remain little more an an "idea." And the Party and its normative basis cannot be reduced to a fetish term (socialism) used to threaten or passify a hungry population. The use of Leninism as a fetish will neither fill the bellies of the people nor provide any proof that 70 or more years of sacrifice have produced much more than the apotheosis of deprivation as the core value of the state and its ideology. 

What is clear from all of this is that a reactive state apparatus, and a purely defensive and reactionary posture by the Party vanguard, without change to both ideology and to the forms of active programs that advance ideologically grounded objectives on the ground and in the everyday lives of the population, will almost certainly guarantee that they will lose--eventually, even when it is possible for them to survive and perhaps win. The missed opportunities from that small but important opening in 2016 may in retrospect prove to be the greatest error of the vanguard in this current era of transition--that and the stubborn cultivation of a reactionary Leninism that does not accord with the times. The belief that time stands still and that the heady days of the 1960s can be projected forward, intact, into an endless future, is remarkably delusional, even for an insular and self reflexive ideological community.  Yet their opponents are no better, locked in their own ideological-temporal loop.

It is in this context that one might better evaluate the moves that are being made by the state and its opposition in the run up to the next show of protestor strength: the planned popular manifestations of 15 November 2021.  This warfare is asymmetric in the sense that on the global stage the odds are greater that whatever the state does to resist the protestors will come at far greater cost than the costs to the protestors of participating in the manifestations. This is the great moment for ideas--as weapons in the hands of the opposition.  But for the state the time for words has long passed--what the population expects to see, and what can diffuse the opposition--is more likely based on pro-active action rather then the usual resort to ideology and suppression tactics (though their total absence will also cost the state dearly).  Very useful reporting by Dave Sherwood and Marc Frank for Reuters follows (Ahead of planned protests, Cuban government and dissidents wage 'battle of ideas'). More after the 15th. It bears remembering that, in cases where two oppositional forces battle themselves to death or stalemate, invariably a third force will sweep them both to the side--a lesson that both Napoleon and Lenin learned well. 

POSTSCRIPT: on 11 November 2021 the leader of the protests in the face of the quite public statements of Cuban officials to anyone who would listen to them that they would not tolerate any demonstrations announced that "he will walk alone, in silence and holding a white rose, the day before the planned march to show the non-violent nature of the movement." (Dave Sherwood, "Cuban protest leader to march alone, white rose in hand, ahead of rallies" Reuters 11 Nov. 2021)

 

Discussion Draft Posted: "The Communist Party of China as Polity: The Party-State and the Chinese Constitutional Order "

 

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Sometimes it is important to take a step back and reconsider the basics.  This becomes more important in times of tension,l especially when two or more opposing systems seek advantage in their contests for re-adjusting the nature of the relationship between them.  These contests have a tendency--at least since the shift of the construction of structures and principles of belief in the fundamental structure of the world and humanity's place in it from religious to political systems --tend to involve not merely political advantage, but also contests over the normative superiority (its fundamental truth) of opposing systems. The political becomes religious in this sense that systems do not merely reflect collective customs, habits, traditions, or desires, but now represent the epistemology of truth that converts political fights to contests over the souls of national collectives and their people.

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The great contests for the conversion of the souls of people to a faith in the great political systems that emerged after the French and American Revolutions of the late 18th Century have become the great nodal points of crusading in the modern era. They each do not fight to retain or regain a "holy land" but to lay claim to the souls of believers who, when sufficiently large in number, can represent the collective faith of the4 nation so converted. But these are faiths that must not only be witnessed but protected against corruption.  More importantly their peoples must be protected against heresy and more importantly--apostasy. 

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Thus, for example, in the political belief system that is liberal democratic constitutionalism, one might, at times of crisis, put forward the leaders of that cult to ensure the strength of the faith of the community.  It come4s as no surprise, then that "President Joe Biden is getting ready to deliver on a key campaign promise by convening a Summit for Democracy: a first-of-its kind gathering of more than 100 countries to help stop democratic backsliding and erosion of rights and freedoms worldwide." (Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis, "Biden's democracy summit: Problematic invite list casts shadow on impact," Reuters (7 November 2021) ("'If the summit is to be anything more than just another meeting, each attendee, including the United States, will need to follow through on meaningful commitments on democracy and rights issues in the year ahead,"'said Annie Boyajian, vice president for policy and advocacy at Freedom House, a non-profit group specializing in human rights and democracy.")).

Similarity, such political faith communities must constantly ensure that its holy works, and its interpretations, may be appropriately protected from corruption, and that it reflects the common understanding, consonant with the core premises of political faith, on which belief is manifested and faith practices. Thus, the leadership core of the Marxist Leninist constitutionalism system appears ready to formally enshrine an authoritative reading of the major achievements and historical experiences of the Chinese Communist Party's first century. (Christian Shepherd, "Looking to the Future: Xi Shuts the Door on the Past," The Washington Post (7 November 2021)("Only two previous leaders of China have previously  adjudicated on party history: Mao Zedong, the founder of the People's Republic, and Deng Xiaoping, the strongman leader who unleashed market reforms in 1978. Both used the process to solidify power, settle thorny internal debates about the past and forge ahead with a new agenda)" Ibid., at A22).

In both cases, each of these systems focuses on the elaboration of their own world view their own imaginaries, of truth, enhancing its legitimacy. That legitimacy, in turn, is anchored to great exogenous conditions, being, or manifestations of authority that is the incarnation of the truth of each. At the same time, it follows from this truth that competing systems are false, are heresy, apostasy, or threatening to the truth offered by the living faith in the political system embraced.  Political religions--and especially the political religions of contemporary constitutionalism--are quite good at knowing themselves, but equally incapable of seeing anything else except through the truth premises, outlooks, and values producing assumptions of their own faith system.  Those two reflexes--to enhance, protect, and proselytize one's own system and to paint competing systems not merely as incompatible but as threatening to the core values that define one's own--are quite difficult to resist. The membrane of core values that serve to distinguish systems  makes it more difficult to see in the other anything but their failures for refusing or resisting the truth of the values of one's own systems.  And it is around this that the modalities of politics have been framed for the last several centuries. What is dangerous is not necessarily these reflexes (though they are dangerous enough when taken to their limits). More dangerous still the failure to recognize that these reflexes exist--to be conscious of them when engaging with the other (other than in the context of the strategic competition among them for the souls of potential converts) that produces conditions of error in the very strategies necessary to preserve and perhaps advance each system within its collective of adherents and aligned sympathizers.

This provides the context for the draft recently posted--"The Party as Polity: The Party-State and the Chinese Constitutional Order." Its object is simple--to revisit, to the extent it is possible, not the way that the Chinese constitutional system, and especially the place of the Communist Party of China within it, is understood as a function of the premises of the liberal democratic constitutional faith community, but rather to try to see it just a little more clearly in its own terms.  That means not just to shear it from the encrustations of generations of liberal democratic "analysis" and critique, but also to detach it from the forest of internal "interpretation"--formal and informal-- that has grown up around its core. Like the core of leadership within Chinese Leninism, the core of tenets of the Marxist Leninist faith community may offer a purer path to understanding.  Note that understanding does not require either agreement or allegiance; it merely requires a faith in the ability to better see things detached from the perspective of the self protective meaning making of either political faith traditions. That, anyway, is the object, clarity from a more detached starting point. But that exercise can be important in the overcharged environment in which these political faith communities are each more aggressively reaching out (their internationalism) to convert communities and protect their adherents from corruption.

The Abstract and Introduction follow.  The Draft may be accessed HERE.  

23. Conversations About the Book "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems': Chapter 22 (Monday 30 March 2020) The COVID-19 Factor

 

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 “言有尽而意无穷” [Words and meanings are endless]. 

In the run up to the book launch scheduled for 13 July 2021 (registration required but free HERE), the folks at Little Sir Press have organized a series of short conversations about my new book, "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems'." 

About the Book: Hong Kong Between “One Country” and “Two Systems” examines the battle of ideas that started with the June 2019 anti-extradition law protests and ended with the enactment of the National Security and National Anthem Laws a year later. At the center of these battles was the “One Country, Two Systems” principle. By June 2020, the meaning of that principle was highly contested, with Chinese authorities taking decisive steps to implement their own understanding of the principle and its normative foundations , and the international community taking countermeasures. All of this occurred well before the 2047 end of the 1985 Sino-British Joint Declaration (中英联合声明) that had been the blueprint for the return of Hong Kong to China. Between these events, global actors battled for control of the narrative and of the meaning of the governing principles that were meant to frame the scope and character of Hong Kong’s autonomy within China. The book critically examines the conflict of words between Hong Kong protesters, the Chinese central and local authorities, and important elements of the international community. This decisive discursive contest paralleled the fighting for control of the streets and that pitted protesters and the international community that supported them against the central authorities of China and Hong Kong local authorities. In the end the Chinese central authorities largely prevailed in the discursive realm as well as on the streets. Their victory was aided, in part by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. But their triumph also produced the seeds of a new and potentially stronger international constitutional discourse that may reduce the magnitude and scope of that success. These essays were written as the events unfolded. Together the essays analytically chronicle the discursive battles that were fought, won and lost, between June 2019 and June 2020. Without an underlying political or polemical agenda, the essays retain the freshness of the moment, reflecting the uncertainties of the time as events unfolded. What was won on the streets of Hong Kong from June to December 2019, the public and physical manifestation of a principled internationalist and liberal democratic narrative of self-determination, and of civil and political rights, was lost by June 2020 within a cage of authoritative legality legitimated through the resurgence of the normative authority of the state and the application of a strong and coherent expression of the principled narrative of its Marxist-Leninist constitutional order. Ironically enough, both political ideologies emerged stronger and more coherent from the conflict, each now better prepared for the next.

The book may be purchased through AMAZON (kindle and paperback),  book information including free chapters  and the access to all video conversations HERE.

I am delighted, then, to make available the next in the series of video recordings of conversations about the book with my former research assistant Matthew McQuilla (Penn State International Affairs MIA 2021). Today we discuss Chapter 22 (Monday 30 March 2020) The COVID-19 Factor.

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In this chapter, the situation in Hong Kong begins to encounter the global COVID-19 pandemic. What seemed so certain only weeks before now appeared endangered. By the end of March 2020 it was not clear what would happen, though it was becoming clear that something fundamental had changed. But by late January 2020 fears were already beginning to grow that the dynamic was changing. But the reason for this was not disease but rather an intensification of police countermeasures against the protesters. Especially among the core group of protesters, people who must work for a living and students, there is a growing exhaustion. 

 

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Part of the difficulty centered on the viability of the five demands as a baseline for negotiation; part appears to be a function of the need to change tactics as increasing numbers of core protester groups find themselves in jail. The change, however, does not seem to have changed public opinion or its intensity.But weeks later the focus of concern shifted from the possible successes of change sin police tactics to the possible effects of the coronavirus infections, especially given the way that the infection had produced drastic restrictions on movement in China. But the Coronavirus concerns also cut in another direction. It focused renewed criticism on local authorities for their failures to respond to the coronavirus epidemic in a more robust manner. The protesters, though, ought to be worried. The local authorities do appear to have succumbed (and quite rightly as a tactical matter from their perspective) to the temptation to use the pandemic to move aggressively forward on their use of the police power in ways that would have been unthinkable as late as mid-January. The most ominous sign is the resort to new regulatory measures. But everything was uncertain and the conflict between public safety and the strategies for controlling the streets now was becoming acute.  For man who thought this was going to last a few weeks, there was less to worry about.  But the persistence of COVID in the mainland started to cause worry that if this lasted longer it might change both the rules of the game and the game itself.

 

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 The video of the conversation about Chapter 21 may be accessed HERE.

All conversations are posted to the Coalition for Peace & Ethics YouTube page and may be found on its Playlist: Talking About the Book: "Hong Kong Between 'One Country' and 'Two Systems'." All conversation videos are hosted by Little Sir Press. I hope you find the conversation of some use. 

 

A pre-publication version of some of the book chapters may be accessed (free) on the Book's webpage (here). All videos may also be accessed through the Little Sir Press Book Website HERE.

 

Lanzamiento Protocolo Marco para la Actuación de Defensorías en Empresas y Derechos Humanos

Jueves, 4 Noviembre 2021, La Defensoría del Pueblo de la Nación lanzó el Protocolo Marco para la Actuación de Defensorías del Pueblo en Empresas y Derechos Humanos en un programa interesantísimo via Zoom. Para quienes no han podido conectarse a la sesión les dejamos el enlace del canal de YouTube en el que pronto podrán ver la grabación del evento. Dijo Florencia Wegher Osci, Programa de Empresas y Derechos Humanos, Defensoría del Pueblo de la Nación, "Ahora nos toca dar los pasos necesarios para implementar este instrumento y robustecer las estrategias que nos permitan proteger y defender los derechos humanos de las personas y la naturaleza en el contexto de la actividad de las empresas."

PALABRAS INTRODUCTORIAS A CARGO DEL PROYECTO CERALC , con lo cual empieza este documento, se enceuntro aqui.

Video Recording Now Available: Penn State JLIA Fall Speaker Series; A Conversation with Peter Martin About his Book--"China's Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy"

 

The Penn State Journal of Law and International Affairs invited  Mr. Peter Martin  to discuss his recent book, "China's Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy" as part of its Fall 2021 Speaker Series. The book is nicely described:

China's Civilian Army charts China's transformation from an isolated and impoverished communist state to a global superpower from the perspective of those on the front line: China's diplomats. They give a rare perspective on the greatest geopolitical drama of the last half century. In the early days of the People's Republic, diplomats were highly-disciplined, committed communists who feared revealing any weakness to the threatening capitalist world. Remarkably, the model that revolutionary leader Zhou Enlai established continues to this day despite the massive changes the country has undergone in recent decades.

Little is known or understood about the inner workings of the Chinese government as the country bursts onto the world stage, as the world's second largest economy and an emerging military superpower. China's Diplomats embody its battle between insecurity and self-confidence, internally and externally. To this day, Chinese diplomats work in pairs so that one can always watch the other for signs of ideological impurity. They're often dubbed China's "wolf warriors" for their combative approach to asserting Chinese interests.

Drawing for the first time on the memoirs of more than a hundred retired diplomats as well as author Peter Martin's first-hand reporting as a journalist in Beijing, this groundbreaking book blends history with current events to tease out enduring lessons about the kind of power China is set to become. It is required reading for anyone who wants to understand China's quest for global power, as seen from the inside.

The Session took place on 3 November 2021 and was was moderated by Larry Catá Backer and hosted by Brea Jones (Penn State Law | J.D. Candidate 2022) for the Journal of Law and International Affairs. Mr.  Martin's presentation was followed by a lively discussion.

 The video recording of the event may be accessed HERE.

Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First Launches Violation Tracker UK, Supplements U.S. Violation Tracker Mechanism

 

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It was recently announced that the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First is launching Violation Tracker UK, a free public database that collects over 63,000 cases brought by more than 40 regulatory agencies in the United Kingdom-- ranging from the Financial Conduct Authority to the Serious Fraud Office and the Environment Agency. It is modeled on the U.S. Violation Tracker, which now contains nearly half a million cases from over 350 federal, state, and local agencies.

UK Website: https://violationtrackeruk.goodjobsfirst.org/

"Violation Tracker UK is the first wide-ranging database of enforcement actions brought against companies by government regulators in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It contains more than 60,000 cases involving issues such as financial misconduct, workplace abuses, environmental offences and anti-competitive practices. Modelled on the U.S. Violation Tracker, it combines cases resolved since 2010 from 40 regulatory agencies. Violation Tracker is produced by the Corporate Research Project of Good Jobs First. Send inquiries to Philip Mattera."

U.S. Website: https://www.goodjobsfirst.org/violation-tracker

"Violation Tracker is the first wide-ranging database on corporate misconduct. It covers banking, consumer protection, false claims, environmental, wage & hour, safety, discrimination, price-fixing, and other cases resolved by federal regulatory agencies and all parts of the Justice Department since 2000 -- plus cases from state AGs and selected state regulatory agencies. In all: 496,000 civil and criminal cases from more than 300 agencies with penalties of $724 billion. We also cover selected types of class action lawsuits."

The Press Release with initial charting follows. The data may prove useful both in shaping the discourse and in developing a sense of the realities of compliance as a function of global efforts to manage the environmental impacts of economic activity.

Video Recordings Now Available for the Seminar Series: "A framework treaty on business and human rights: Interdisciplinary insights" University of Dundee Institute for Social Sciences Research (ISSR).

 

 

The debates about a draft Treaty on Business and human rights has become more interesting as the core group that has served as the vanguard for a particular vision of that project has advanced its version of what such a treaty should look like through its third draft, a process that itself has been subject to criticism (Brief Reflections on the Tragedies and Traps of Discursive Tropes Around the 3rd Draft of the Business and Human Rights Treaty Considered at the 7th Session of the OEIGWG October 2021). That conversation has been enriched by the return of the United States to multilateral venues and its joining with others to suggest the value of and viability of a different, framework, approach to treaty making, one the essence of which has been nicely developed (considered in "A Better Approach to the Robust Treaty for Business and Human Rights: Considering Claire Methven O’Brien's Proposed "Draft text for a Business and Human Rights Treaty").

It is in that context that I am delighted to share links to the  Video Recordings which are now available for the Seminar Series: "A framework treaty on business and human rights: Interdisciplinary insights" sponsored through the University of Dundee Institute for Social Sciences Research (ISSR) and organized by the extraordinary Claire Methven O'Brien (Lecturer in Law, University of Dundee and Danish Institute for Human Rights). This series adds much meat to the issues surrounding the  current treaty making efforts, the framework treaty alternative, and the way in which both ought to more carefully embed themselves within the realities of the evolving trajectories of international law and governance. (my initial discussion published as "Shaping a Global Law for Business Enterprises: Framing Principles and the Promise of a Comprehensive Treaty on Business and Human Rights").

The Seminar series held this Autumn across five weeks makes an important contribution to the business and human rights treaty debate, framing both the 3rd Revised draft and Claire Methven O'Brien's framework proposal in their broader theoretical, legal and policy contexts. In that context it is important to underscore that the United States signaled its re-entry into the process of finding an international legal structure for business and human rights  by expressing its interest in considering a framework approach in its opening statement (see here), while the EU and Japan gestured in a similar direction. Others have suggested that the Treaty is both too narrowly focused on only one expression of international law and governance that no longer captures the essence of governance at the supra-national level and that, in any case, it represents an increasingly obsolete affirmation of a distinction between human centered individuated rights and the broader rights and obligations emerging within sustainability and climate change principles within which human rights are appropriately contextualized and expressed.

Given the heightened interest in the model, Claire was prevailed upon to now made recordings of the seminars available on YouTube. Included here are links to the respective sessions below:

1. Framework instruments and human rights treaties: Insights from experience

Panellists include Prof Barbara Koremenos (University of Michigan, USA), Dr Claire Charters (University of Auckland, New Zealand), Prof Shin-Ichi Ago (Ritsumeikan University, Japan), Dr Annalisa Savaresi (University of Eastern Finland, University of Stirling), Dr Jacques Hartmann (University of Dundee) 

2. A business and human rights framework treaty: Contours and challenges

Panellists include Prof Peter Muchlinski (SOAS, University of London), Dr Eva Jueptner (University of Dundee), Dr Alex Ansong (Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration), Prof Dr Markus Krajewski (FAU, Germany), Dr Nicholas Bueno (UniDistance Suisse, Switzerland), Prof. Olga Martin-Ortega (University of Greenwich, UK) and  Prof Humberto Cantú Rivera (University of Monterrey, Mexico).

 
3. Supporting the operation of a framework treaty in practice

 Panelists include Professor Başak Çalı (Hertie School, Berlin), Professor Erika George (University of Utah), Dr Anja Mihr (Center on Governance through Human Rights, Berlin), Dr Tom Pegram (University College London) and Dr Michael Riegner (Humboldt University Berlin).

 
4. Business and human rights: Governance challenges in an era of transition

 Panellists include Professor Lorna McGregor (University of Essex), Professor Morris Altman (University of Dundee), Dr Axel Marx (University of Leuven), Professor Brigit Toebes (University of Groningen) and Dr Gale Raj-Reichert (Bard College Berlin).

 
5. Links to the business and human rights governance constellation

 Panellists include Professor Larry Catá Backer (Pennsylvania State University), Professor Dorothée Baumann-Pauly (University of Geneva), Dr David Birchall (London South Bank University), Dr Jernej Letnar Černič (Nova Univerza, Slovenia), Dr Sorcha McLeod (University of Copenhagen) and Dr Miho Taka (Coventry University).

 

Information about the Seminar series follows below along with  Claire Methven O'Brien's quite useful: "A business and human rights framework treaty: Information note."