Ruminations 93: Reflections on the Anniversary of the Attacks of 11 September 2001

 

(Pix Credit: Never forget: A timeline of events on September 11, 2001)

There is not much that can be said on the commemoration of the day of the attacks of 11 September 2001 that has not already been said, and said better, by others. One remembers the dead and injured, and those who died or suffered injury thereafter.  For them and their loved ones the day resonates in ways that the rest of us ought to honor and respect. For them is is an excruciating though private tragedy repeated thousands of times in thousands of different ways.

Attention is also paid to the public tragedy that this day marks.  It is this public tragedy has has become the great dynamic element, the modulating prism, though which this society sees itself and its role in the world. That is to say, the making of meaning of the tragedy--its signification--has proven to be as fragile as the view of the world that was meant to be obliterated by the sacrifice of the lives lost that day.

The 11th of September 2001 bookends the golden age of the great post 1945 era, one which was also created with the sacrifice of so many American lives, and which reached its apogee during that 10 year period from the time of the fall of the Soviet Socialist Empire on Christmas Day 1991 to the destruction of the Twin Towers in 2001.  This was the time of endless possibilities under the glorious sun of the United States, the light of which could not be hidden, like a city on a hill (Matthew 5:14).

The 19 years since might be viewed as a sort of silver age, warmed by the embers of a glorious past, but one in which the fruits of the work of prior ages might have been consumed from a garden less well tended. The City on a Hill acquired walls; where once the City was in a sense a reflection of the world, it now experienced the world as built in part of that which lies beyond. That was, in a sense, what was mourned during the Obama administration, and that was what has been more consciously embraced (perhaps inevitably) in the current one. And it is within this area beyond, within the spaces left outside the walls of the once global City on a Hill that the seeds of the worries of the present age germinated.  And yet we are the builders of that wall; we are those who invest that tragedy not merely with meaning but as a oracular instruction.  But oracles are notoriously ambiguous.  Their interpretation tells us more about ourselves than it does about the oracle itself.  What changed was not the outside but the inner spirit which in turn marked the character of the passing of an age. Those external walls have now been replicated everywhere both outside the U.S. but more tragically within.  The 11th of September reminds us that we have become a City of Walls and a shining beacon of difference which has become the great global anthem of the present era. That, along with the lives tragically cut short in the most horrible ways, are both to be commemorated, both to be mourned, on this day.

Declaration of the Indigenous Peoples Participating in the V Regional Forum on Business and Human Rights for Latin America and the Caribbean

Those who engage in the necessary work of managing the narrative of business and human rights, along with their friends and influence leader, the business and human rights vanguard, have again organized a (Fifth) Regional Forum on Business and Human Rights for Latin America and the Caribbean  with the theme this year (these events appear always to have a theme, that is a centering element that is meant to be advanced for each annual cycle of events) of Realising responsible business conduct in difficult times: Turning challenges into opportunities (Virtual week).  The event took place 7 to 11 September 2020 with Plenary sessions: 8 and 11 September.  As they describe it: 

Building on the successful experience of previous years, the Fifth Regional Forum on Business and Human Rights for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC BHR Forum) will be held virtually in September 2020. Over the years, the LAC BHR Forum has become a key gathering on business and human rights, and one of the most important human rights meetings in the Americas. The Forum provides a unique space for dialogue between governments, business, civil society, affected groups -including indigenous peoples, workers organizations and international organizations- on trends, challenges and good practices in preventing and addressing business-related human rights impacts.

The LAC BHR Forum is organised under the project Responsible Business Conduct in Latin America and the Caribbean (RBCLAC) which has as an object the promotion of of Corporate Social Responsbility (now under its new labl-- responsible business conduct) practices in line with international standards, including the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the ILO Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy. It is fodder for the much larger and more complex machinery that is the IX Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights, which will be held on 16-18 November 2020.

The event included “snapshots sessions” where selected participants will be able to share their projects or initiatives with the wider forum’s audience through video presentations or life. Its  may be accessed HERE: Concept note. The contributions of the Vth Regional Forum were valuable and will contribute in significant ways to the well orchestrated project which is the 10th Anniversary events organized through the UN Working Group. And it will certainly advance--and seek to both normalize their vision, and establish it as the orthodox approach to both the UNGP and the "way forward" to an increasingly clear set of end goals, all of which appear suspicious of markets, even more suspicious of enterprises, and unconditionally embracing the state (any state really) as the summun bonum for the "end" of the UNGP project, to be realized as a sort of international legalized system for which states will serve as the worker bees and they as the magisterium of principle. But all of this is well known and the process is now essentially unstoppable until it either succeeds or fails.

Much more interesting, and a much better gauge of the way in which marginal actors in this narrative making and international legalization project understand the world of business and human rights and seek to utilize its normative structures. Among the most important of these actors in Latin America are indigenous and Afro-decedent communities scattered throughout North and South America.  For almost the entirety of the 10 years of the Forum for Business and Human Rights, these communities have served narrative makers well. I have always been troubled by the power relationships inherent in their utilization by elite norm makers in the service of their global legalization project. . . but that is politics and certainly such communities have seen value enough to participate in the ways they have chosen.  

And yet, such communities have begun to suggest that though they are bit players in a larger drama (from the perspective fo their patrons in New York, Geneva, and elsewhere), they are preparing to declare their independence and to press what may eventually become a counter narrative to that for which they are being used.  One gets hints of this possibility from the Declaration of the Indigenous Peoples Participating in the V Regional Forum On Business And Human Rights For Latin America An The Caribbean which was circulated during the course of the event. There are several ideas percolating within the Declaration that might be worth substantial thought:

(1) Autonomy: Self organization is both inherent in the historical-cultural character of a community, as it may emerge from circumstances; the suggestion, buried in the Declaration, is that potentially autonomous communities may emerge where circumstances make such constitution necessary. COVID-19 serves as such a force of necessity. Communities, like states, can come together, and thus constituted, might acquire collective dignity and rights. From a human rights perspective there ought to be little distinction between communities so formed. And each has the right to take measures to ensure self preservation and avoid extinction. Most interesting here is the way in which the reconstitution of state borders in the wake of COVID, non-state collectives now seek the authority to both mark territory and to police those borders against outsiders. Good intentions here might remake constitutional principle.  And the borderlands of rights systems grounded in individual autonomy when it collides with collective autonomy may produce a substantial transformation of the way one understands rights, duties, and responsibilities of states and other (collective) actors.

(2) Dependence: Yet it is the converse that remains untouched--having emerged as a collective, who but the collective has a responsibility for its preservation, development, and operation. The Declaration hints at a dependence that perhaps requires further exploration. Collectives may certainly have the right to protect themselves against extermination, but do others have a positive obligation to ensure that preservation? The answer since the middle of the last century appears to be a cautious yes--in the way that the UN system itself sort of posits an expectation of the eternal constitution of states and a collective effort at mutual self preservation. But in this case it also appears to recognize hierarchy that is that self constitution is undertaken within the protective bubble of other, superior, collectives with which the inferior negotiates conditions of autonomy and expectations of dependence, bounded by international rules that preserve the dependent against extinction and the rights of the superior collective.

(3) The role of the state and the nature of corporate responsibility is perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Declaration.  It requires a careful interplay of autonomy and dependence.  Dependence is grounded in the acceptance of supra-structures of laws and norms that bind states to a specific framework for autonomy and for the management of business activity; autonomy is grounded in the power of the collective to opt out--to say "no" for their own reasons.  The result is the constitution of collectives that are both a part and apart from the superior political, normative, and legal structures on which they are dependent. And yet that right to say "no" is possible only in a context in which the superior powers can guarantee  that such opting out will not otherwise affect the condition of the collectives within the greater collective that is the state. That, in turn, might pose issues unexplored--including the human rights and sustainability of effects of a "no" of the greater community. Most interesting of all is the potential for the universalization of the notion of "free,prior, and informed consent" at the heart of the Declaration. One speaks here to a consent environment in

There are are no easy answers, and human rights may be far too narrow a framework within which these issues are conceived, expressed or engaged. Sustainability, including human rights, might better frame these issues--and the centering on environment rather than human collectives, may provide a different and useful perspective.  But these are conversations to come; they might not be avoided. For all of these both the promise and the challenges of Bolivia's experiment in indigenous and collective community autonomy ought to serve as a starting point (discussed e.g.,  Indigenous Law and Global Constraints: Bolivia, Decolonization of Law, Constitutionalism and Human Rights). Yet it also must confront  a reality of "mixing" that has, in certain states, produced substantial reframing of the indigenous, or at least its politics (From Hatuey to Che: Indigenous Cuba without Indians and the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). Indigenous, Afro-decedent and other autonomous communities offer us here is a glimpse of the promise and challenges for the incorporation of collectives other than states as privileged actors within emerging systems, legalized or not and as private or public governance systems, within the complex that is the UNGP.

The Declaration has been distributed in español, portugués e inglés  each of which also follow below. 

Post Script: Rio Tinto chief Jean-Sébastien Jacques to quit over Aboriginal cave destruction ("The caves - seen as one of Australia's most significant archaeological research sites - had shown evidence of continuous human habitation dating back 46,000 years. They sat above about eight million tonnes of high-grade iron ore, with an estimated value of £75m (A$132m; $96m). . . . Australia's parliament is currently holding an inquiry into the miner's actions. Rio Tinto also held its own inquiry earlier this year, after which the company cut bonuses for directors and began attempts at repairing relations with Aboriginal communities. . . Although the company said it had permission for the work under Aboriginal heritage laws, critics said it suggested the miner was aware of the site's cultural importance.")

The Return of Mao Zedong: On the Resumption of the Publication of the Pan-Left Journal 《中流》"Zhongliu"

“Long live Chairman Mao, the red sun in the hearts of the universal revolution’s people!”

The ``cultural revolution'' should also be viewed scientifically and in historical perspective. In initiating it Comrade Mao Zedong was actuated mainly by the desire to oppose and prevent revisionism. As for the shortcomings that appeared during the course of the ``cultural revolution'' and the mistakes that were made then, at an appropriate time they should be summed up and lessons should be drawn from them -- that is essential for achieving unity of understanding throughout the Party. The ``cultural revolution'' has become a stage in the course of China's socialist development, hence we must evaluate it. However, there is no need to do so hastily. Serious research must be done before we can make a scientific appraisal of this historical stage. It may take a rather long time to fully understand and assess some of the particular issues involved. We will probably be able to make a more correct analysis of this period in history after some time has passed than we can right now. (Deng Xiaooping, "Emancipate the mind, seek truth from facts and unite as one in looking to the future" (13 December 1978)

Almost nothing now says New Era theory in China like Mao Zedong. It has become quite apparent that the great fear of Marxist Leninist intellectual elites after 2010, of a re-centering of the development of Marxist Leninism from vigilance against left error (and the avoidance of a return to the sensibilities of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution) to a growing suspicion (and rectification) of right error (and the avoidance of the idea that Marxist Leninism was itself a step toward the adoption of liberal democratic sensibilities, or bureaucrat-capitalism of the sort favored now in the West) has been reversed in the current stage of Chinese development.

Video embedded in AppleDaily HERE

This has been signaled in a variety of ways since the start if the leadership of the current core. One of the most interesting is likely to go unnoticed in the West. After 19 years, it was recently announced that the leftist journal Leftist magazine "Zhongliu" has resumed publication. Thin August 2001 e announcement is particularly newsworthy considering the circumstances around its cessation of publication as a consequence of its strong criticism of Jiang' Zemin's Three Represents (discussed HERE). As a self described Pan-leftist journal, it seeks to contribute to the revival of Chinese socialism in the 21st century. Whatever its self description--what has become clear is that the old era dominated by the influence of Deng Xiaoping, is not so slowly receding.  It will be for the Chinese intellectual classes to catch up, and, eventually, for Western elites, to begin to reframe the way they can approach the re-invigorated leftism of Chinese Marxism--and especially its Leninism.

Some reporting about this revival follows in the original Chinese and in crude English Translation. You can decide for yourselves whether, as was reported in the second article below, "that these leftists have no influence on current Chinese politics. The Chinese Communist Party currently needs the voice of the leftists, but it does not mean that they will be allowed to sit up or lose control." I would suggest instead that in its new form, 《中流》will serve as an important bellwether and a testing laboratory--it will serve as a controlled off site expression of internal exercises of democratic centralism that continue to tilt left.

Reflections on 习近平：在纪念中国人民抗日战争暨世界反法西斯战争胜利75周年座谈会上的讲话 [Xi Jinping; Speech at a symposium commemorating the 75th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War]

Learn from the past, learn history from the general secretary丨The spirit of the war of resistance is timeless

Things rarely tend to be as they appear--especially when people (important people) speak or write.  Voltaire famously wrote about Persians when he might have been thinking Parisians; now Xi Jinping  takes the moment to commemorate the great victory over Japanese militarism in the middle of the last century to speak about what is rapidly being marketed as its succeeding chapter--the resistance struggle against the United States. The essential features of that resistance were widely reported and crystallized as  習近平5個「絕不答應」(Xi Jinping's 5 Never Promise): 

·任何人任何势力企图歪曲中国共产党的历史、丑化中国共产党的性质和宗旨，中国人民都绝不答应！·The Chinese people will never agree to any attempt by anyone or any force to distort the history of the Chinese Communist Party and vilify the nature and purpose of the Chinese Communist Party!

·任何人任何势力企图歪曲和改变中国特色社会主义道路、否定和丑化中国人民建设社会主义的伟大成就，中国人民都绝不答应！·The Chinese people will never agree to anyone or any force who attempts to distort and change the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, deny or vilify the great achievements of the Chinese people in building socialism!

·任何人任何势力企图把中国共产党和中国人民割裂开来、对立起来，中国人民都绝不答应！·The Chinese people will never agree to anyone or any force who attempts to separate the Communist Party of China from the Chinese people and antagonize them!

·任何人任何势力企图通过霸凌手段把他们的意志强加给中国、改变中国的前进方向、阻挠中国人民创造自己美好生活的努力，中国人民都绝不答应！Anyone or any force that attempts to impose their will on China through bullying, change the direction of China's progress, and obstruct the efforts of the Chinese people in pursuit of a better life, the Chinese people will never agree!

·任何人任何势力企图破坏中国人民的和平生活和发展权利、破坏中国人民同其他国家人民的交流合作、破坏人类和平与发展的崇高事业，中国人民都绝不答应！
Anyone or any force who attempts to undermine the right of the Chinese people to peaceful enjoyment of life and development, undermine the exchanges and cooperation between the Chinese people and the people of other countries, or undermine the noble cause of human peace and development, the Chinese people will never agree!

"Talk About the Meaning of Victory [谈胜利意义]

 

 

That was the essence of a neglected but quite important speech,  习近平：在纪念中国人民抗日战争暨世界反法西斯战争胜利75周年座谈会上的讲话 [Xi Jinping; Speech at a symposium commemorating the 75th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War]. There was much more to the speech than this, of course, and the discussion of the way in which China approaches its relationship with its former enemy is also quite instructive--yet what may linger long after the rest of the speech is relegated to fodder for theorists-- are the "5 Never Promise" distilled as the essential development of Chinese approaches to its relationships with the rest of the world.  That baseline will affect everything from the character of the legalization of the global economic order (especially through its articulation as the "law" of the Belt and Road Imitative, to the reconstruction of global approaches to human rights and sustainability. Underlying this is the reorientation of the regulatory center of the international community from a leveling internationalism to national liberation.

 

Both the 5 Never Promise and the core insight of the Anti-Japanese War and its national liberation framing also serve as the baseline for what is becoming now (on both ends) the recognition of their renewed respective engagements in great patriotic wars. The Chinese core leadership has now made clear its perspective that it is engaged in a new Anti-Liberal-Democratic war against the United States (now fought in its 5th generation forms of virtually any action but open military conflict. . . . for the moment). To a large extent, these remarks might be understood as part of the response to the by now quite public American expression of the ideology at stake in what the US leadership sees as its great patriotic Anti-Communist war against China (see, The Emerging Ideology of U.S. China Policy: Its Current Expression in Four Key Speeches).  With this sharpening of and focus on difference, the tone and trajectories of globalization and the regulatory frameworks built to give it coherence, are likely to be tested and t eventually change. 

PIX CREDIT HERE

There is an irony then, around the core insight of the address--"前事不忘，后事之师。[transliterated as "the past is the teacher of the future"]. Is it possible that the ast is a bad teacher; or that the future is a worse student? That is the question for those who now observe the course charted by the two great twins of the first half of the 21st century--because in many ways they are twins--each a reflection of the other, each reflected in the other.  Within that relationship the errors of one resonates in the actions of the other.  The United States and China are now locked in the fraternal embrace of brothers who are the same but each other's mirror reverse. The lessons that Xi draws from the Great Anti-Japanese War are worth considerable reflection; they invite refraction more.  Time, and the inevitable movement of peoples from one to another stage of development, inevitable distorts the lessons that pass through it from one epoch to the other, the way that waves change direction as it passes from one medium to another. And that may be the most important lesson this this speak, as well as their equivalent delivered by Xi's American analogues.

The speech in the original 中文 and a crude English translation follow, along with brief reflections.

Now Available: Video Recording of 3rd Annual Innovation and Technology Law Conference

The Seattle University School of Law: 3rd Annual Innovation and Technology Law Conference was held Friday August 21, 2020 as a virtual event from 9.00 am through 4.00 pm (Pacific Time). The Conference was sponsored by the law firm of Perkins Coie, the Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental & Innovation Law, and Seattle University School of Law’s Summer Institute for Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship.  The Agenda, Speaker list and other information can be accessed here--or visit the Conference site HERE. 

I am happy to pass along information about accessing the video recording of that conference now made available by the sponsors:

3rd Annual Innovation and Technology Law Conference Thank you for attending the 3rd Annual Innovation and Technology Law Conference on August 21, 2020. The full-day virtual event was a huge success, partially thanks to you! The recordings and event materials are now available on the original agenda page. Each panel is broken out into sections for ease of viewing. Questions? Please contact Michelle O'Connor via email.

The panel for which I prepared my presentation, Chinese Social Credit and Pandemic, with embedded links)  may be accessed here:

Case Study on Personal Data:Social credit scoring models from China to Silicon Valley

My presentation PowerPoint may be accessed HERE: Backer_Seattle_SocialCreditPandemic. Presentation summary may be accessed HERE.

John Sherman: An Open Letter to Robert A. Brown, President of Boston University on the Human Rights Implications of the University Decision to Open

John F. Sherman III, the General Counsel and Senior Advisor to Shift, "a leading center of expertise on the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights [NY and Geneva: UN 2011]" has been a leading and quite influential voice for the elaboration of the business and human rights principles of the UNGP by gatekeepers (lawyers) and other institutions. His work on advancing a deeper understanding of the UNGP, and for facilitating its application to economic activity has contributed significantly to the maturation of the UNGP as a formidable tool for embedding issues of human rights in economic decisions.

Like others, Mr. Sherman has noted with increasing alarm the decision of universities to re-open.  That  alarm has been augmented by the way that such decisions have appeared to have been made with apparent disregard for the human rights sensitive framework within which other, and much more potent, enterprises have come to frame those decisions.  Like others (see, e.g., here, here, here), Mr. Sherman has come to understand the applicability not just of the UNGP to university decision making, but its human rights and broad stakeholder centering approach for making good on the university's constant and unceasing claims to serve as beacons of societal virtue.

The problem, was given quite specific context by the decision of Boston University to resume in person teaching.  Mr. Sherman notes:

The problem arises from the fact that BU has 18,500 student in in a highly urban area, and its buildings abut many residential neighborhoods, including mine. It can’t house all of its students in its own dorms, so many live in off campus apartment buildings near me, in the most densely populated part of Brookline. It also spills over into Allston, Brighton, and Roxbury. However, BU didn’t consult its neighbors about the impacts of reopening. It implemented a massive on campus testing program but didn’t reckon with its inability to effectively control the spread of the virus from off campus parties. BU opened classes on 9/1, so I expect to see a spike among students in the coming weeks. The spread of the virus in surrounding communities will take longer to detect, because most asymptomatic people outside of BU don’t get tested.

Those are the kinds of consideration central to human rights due diligence at the heart of the Second Pillar responsibilities of enterprises to respect human rights. And it is precisely this that the university appears to have neglected even as it produces volumes of writings signalling the virtue of its decisions. That universities face substantial challenges is not to be denied (e.g., Facing $96M Shortfall, President Brown Announces Layoffs, Furloughs) does not change the character of that responsibility, it changes only the specific context on which human rights due diligence is to be undertaken.

To that end, Mr. Sherman (in his personal capacity only) has sent an open letter to  Robert A. Brown, President of Boston University on the Human Rights Implications of its decision to reopen. That Open Letter follows below.  Please feel free to re-post, and share your own experiences with university decision making that fails to undertake the university responsibility to respect human rights  undertaken through the salutary exercise of human rights due diligence. 

Reflections on 习近平：思政课是落实立德树人根本任务的关键课程 [Xi Jinping: Ideological and political courses are the key courses to implement the fundamental task of Building a Moral Based Character (lì dé shù rén)]

习近平：思政课是落实立德树人根本任务的关键课程 

For some time I have been suggesting that education, and education policy, sits at the center of the realization of China's New Era transformation of Marxist-Leninist Theory in the emerging stage of Chinese historical development (e.g., here, here, here, here).  It was central to the way in which the situation in Hong Kong was understood (here, here; "The whole society should care about the healthy growth of young people and create a good, harmonious, stable and rule of law environment for the healthy growth of young people. The youth of Hong Kong are also young people of China. The youth of Hong Kong is the future of Hong Kong and the future of the country. The Central Government is always paying attention to the growth of young people in Hong Kong."  (Statement by the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of the State Council Official Views of Current State of Affairs in Hong Kong [国务院港澳办新闻发言人介绍对当前香港事态的看法]).. 

Education, then, might be understood as the core of the CPC Basic Line in the New Era. From this perspective, education ought not to be understood in its narrow sense of educating children in useful sciences and trades in the Western style.  Rather it is understood as an essential training for the all around construction of society shaped to better respond to the guidance of the CPC as it seeks to lead the nation toward the goal of establishing a communist society in China. But it is more than that.  Education implies a relation that is fundamental to Chinese emerging Leninism.  Education embraces the fundamental ordering notion of guidance ad leadership--from the present to future generations, from scholars to pupils, from those with knowledge to those seeking it, from the core of leadership to the masses.  Education is inherently not merely a task, but the embodiment of the political philosophy of New Era Leninism.  To focus on education is merely to acknowledge the central role of leadership--leadership f the young, leadership of the masses, leadership of the vanguard.  But it suggests as well the burdens of leadership--the burdens of imparting knowledge, of guidance, and of ensuring that the leader, the teacher, the guide, lives closer to the ideals taught than the pupil.  And that, of course, is still the hardest lesson for the Party itself to fully apply; the last paragraphs of the Preamble to the Chinese Communist Constitution serve as a testament both to this character of education as the core structuring relationship between vanguard and people, between levels of part leadership and the party masses, and between the core of leadership and the leadership group. Education, then, is the Leninist approach to both the structuring of the vanguard party, and to understanding its fundamental mission within a Marxist Leninist political order.

But there is more than a Chinese Leninist theory of politics involved.  The essence of this political project is the building a moral character (lì dé shù rén). Here, again, education is understood as more than the imparting of knowledge--that is its mechanics.  It is instead understood as the inculcation of values, the achievement of which is undertaken through specific tasks relating to the masses.  For the young, that focuses on schooling; for adults, perhaps, on the mechanics of social credit, and for the CPC, it focuses on the training and disciplining of cadres. The essence in each case is the same--to impart moral values--and moral values are understood to have a strong political dimension (or better put, expression).  The morality of Marxism (the Chinese still use the euphemism of "socialism", perhaps to distinguish the current stage of development from the communist ideal to be attained sometime in the future). The political dimension of morals is premised on the principle that morals are expressed as politics, as well as in the premise that the expression of politics is inherently a moral exercise. That mutually reinforcing binary acquires a specific form as it emerges from the core principles that define the primary duty of the vanguard to build the ideal moral (communist) society.  The New Era distillation of the Core Socialist Values in the 18th CPC Congress nicely expresses this intertwining--and the central role of the CPC as its authoritative mediator--as its magisterium of morals.  

These are the fundamental principles that are underlined by the most recent distribution of emerging New Era thinking under the authorship of Xi Jinping--as the core of leadership and as the representative of the collective leadership of the CPC which is itself an expression of the leadership obligation toward and for the masses. That essay, 思政课是落实立德树人根本任务的关键课程 [Ideological and political courses are the key courses to implement the fundamental task of Building a Moral Based Character ( lì dé shù rén)] (alternate link HERE)) was recently published in Qiushi the leading official intellectual organ of the CPC. It distills "the main part of General Secretary Xi Jinping's speech at the school's ideological and political theory teacher seminar on March 18, 2019."

The essay follows below in the original Chinese and a crude English translation, along with brief additional reflections.

New CPE Working Paper: James Korman, "Drug Cartels, Oil Rents, and Homicide: The Case of Mexico"

I am delighted to announce the posting of the Coalition for Peace & Ethics latest Working Paper: James Korman, "Drug Cartels, Oil Rents, and Homicide – The Case of Mexico" CPE Working Paper 9/1 (1 September 2020). 

In this paper James Korman seeks to provide a more nuanced explanation for the phenomenon of murder as a critical tool in the organization and functioning of the cartels, which in Mexico at times  and places assumes something like an extra governmental center of control and regulation.  That extra-legality (vis a vis the duly constituted government of Mexico and its subordinate units expresses itself through governance norms that are both a challenge to the authority of the formally constituted state and at the same time seeks to naturalize a set of operating and normative principles that are  incompatible with the moral and functional basis of the formal state. More interesting, though, and in a way that could be generalized to other regions (e.g., Libya) where the formal structures of state may be threatened by the reality of robust extra legal institutions, is the connection between activity, forms of control (murder or violence) and the presence of valuable natural resources. A tantalizing hypothesis that Korman finds unconvincing.

This is nicely expressed in the paper abstract:

Abstract

This empirical study examines drug trafficking violence in Mexico and seeks to explain the exceedingly high homicide rates within the country. It utilizes a cross-sectional statistical model in order to accomplish this. It examines all 32 states within Mexico and is set out to undercover whether or not the presence of oil/gas fields & pipeline impacts the intensity of violence through cartel rent extraction as cartels might compete for oil rents therefore escalating the violence and homicide levels present throughout Mexican society. It provides a reconstruction of events that led up to the Mexican drug war and examines what the literature is saying on key determinants of violence and homicide in Mexico & Latin America at large. It provides a present context for the 2010 decade on the state of the cartels in Mexico and who the prime actors are. The empirical findings show that oil rents/pipeline due not contribute to a higher level of homicide nor does the interaction term between Los Zetas and oil pipeline/gas& oil fields experienced in the various 32 states within Mexico for which both variables are present. Finally, the study concludes with a discussion on the implications of the empirical findings and possible areas of research that remain unaccounted for that could help explain the exceedingly high homicide levels in Mexico in the presence of drug trafficking.

Keywords: cartel(s), DTOs (Drug Trafficking Organizations), drug trafficking, homicide, Los Zetas, NAFTA, narcotrafficking, natural resources, Neoliberalism, oil, rents, violence

The paper may be accessed on the Coalition for Peace & Ethics Website (here) and on the Social Science Research Network (here). A later version of this paper will be published in Vol. 15(3) of the CPE Bulletin, Emancipating the Mind in the New Era (forthcoming November 2020). 

The Norway Pension Fund Global: An Iron Fist Against "Systemic Human Rights Abuses," and a Velvet Glove Against "Corruption"

Pix: Nuestra Señora del Carmen in Church of the same name Panama City, Panama 2019

The administrative apparatus of the investment disciplinary mechanisms of the Norwegian Pension Fund Global has just announced three interesting actions. Two of them resulted in the exclusion of companies for an unacceptable risk of systemic human rights abuses.

Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp and its subsidiary Formosa Taffeta Co Ltd is excluded due to an unacceptable risk that the companies cause systematic human rights abuses. Please find the Council’s recommendation to exclude the companies here: https://etikkradet.no/formosa-chemicals-fibre-corp-formosa-taffeta-co-ltd-2/

Page Industries Ltd is excluded due to an unacceptable risk that the company causes systematic human rights abuses. Please find the Council’s recommendation to exclude the company here: https://etikkradet.no/page-industries-ltd-2/

The third, after some initial confusion about the action taken, resulted in a promise of more active shareholder oversight in the context of anti-corruption efforts.

Norges Bank has decided to follow the company PetroChina Ltd’s work on anti-corruption as part of the fund’s active ownership efforts over a period of three years. Please find information from Norges Bank here: https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/news-list/2020/decisions-on-exclusions-and-active-ownership/.

None of these actions ought to come as a surprise. The Pension Fund Global apparatus has shown increasingly a far more nuanced approach to corruption than it appears to follow against other system human rights abuses. I have written about the emergence of this somewhat curious and incoherent approach (they might call it "ad hoc" and context driven) before: See e.g., here, here, here, here, and here). The decision becomes even more curious, and the incoherence appears even more augmented in the international level (ironic given Pension Fund Global internationalism in the construction of its exclusion jurisprudence (see, e.g., here) in the face of the recent report from the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights and its exploration of the strong link between corruption and human rights: Connecting the business and human rights and the anti-corruption agendas A/HRC/44/43 (17 June 2020) (Advance Edited Version).

Moreover, the human rights cases also seek to make a larger point--that failure to cooperate will produce consequences. In the case against Page Industries suggests, the Pension Fund Global apparatus has become more willing to take severe action against companies that do not cooperate with its investigation ("The Council emphasises that Page has not provided any information to help clarify the case or how it works to prevent norm violations at its facilities. In practice its seems as though the company does little to prevent the abuse of labour rights in its operations." HERE). In the case against Formosa Chemicals, the issue was providing misleading information ("The Council on Ethics emphasises that Formosa Taffeta has provided misleading information about working hours to the Council, and that it in practice does little to prevent the abuse of labour rights within its own operations." HERE). This appears to be in line with efforts to transate policy direction from the Norwegian Parliament expressing Norwegian  policy respecting cooperation it its economic and investment organs ("In keeping with Report No. 20 (2008-2009) to the Norwegian Storting, the Council takes the view that a lack of information about a company’s behaviour and, not least, a lack of willingness on the part of the company to provide information, may in and of itself contribute to the risk of unethical behaviour being deemed unacceptably high." Page Industries, Recommendation p. 9).


In addition, this batch of cases suggest the extent to which the Pension Fund Global is building its own jurisprudence on veil piercing for purposes of applying its ethics rules. The focus of the investigation of Formosa Chemicals centered on the operations of its Vietnamese subsidiary.  "In keeping with its practice from previous recommendations,the Council on Ethics takes the position that if a subsidiary is excluded because it is deemed to have contravened the GPFG’s ethical guidelines, the parent company must also be excluded if it has a controlling influence over the subsidiary’s operations." (Formosa Chemicals, Recommendation, p. 13).

The Pension Fund Global Press Release follows:

Creating a Ratings System for Business Compliance with the OHCHR Accountability and Remedy (ARP) III Project--The Penn State CSR Lab 2020

Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2020

As I have written before, one of my great pleasures in teaching at Penn State has been their kindness in allowing me to develop and teach a course in the law of Corporate Social Responsibility (or as we sometimes debate in class, the law of responsible business conduct) (discussed HERE: Teaching "Corporate Social Responsibility Law and Policy": CSR in the Future Tense; A Syllabus 4.0). 

Pix © Larry Catá Backer (Thousand Buddhist Stele; N.Zhou c. 557-581 AD

The course was designed to bring a small group of students together to dig deep into the structures of the legalization of risk and its embedding in compliance and normative systems expressed through national, international, transnational, and private legal orders.  That study  is undertaken by close research into the way that assigned enterprises operate in the increasingly complex law-norm ecology of responsible business conduct (understood within the contexts of labor, development, human, and sustainability abd climate change principles and rights). The context has been made even more interesting by the increasing intensity in changes in the way that law and governance area manifested in this area--from a singular reliance on formal law and administrative regulation to private law and data driven governance.

This year has presented additional challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.  In lieu of intense face to face meeting we are presented with the complexities of remote instruction and remote interaction.  In this context I thought it would help bring students closer to the materials and to develop class solidarity to provide the class with a challenging extra credit project that would also serve (for those interested) as a high intensity capstone.

With that in mind the Penn State CSR Lab 2020 was born. It is the continuation of a project started in 2018, as an informally constituted collective of graduate students undertaking the study of corporate social responsibility. They include Law Students and graduates seeking the LL.M. degree at Penn State Law, and graduate students enrolled in the School of International Affairs working under the guidance of Larry Catá Backer and with the assistance of the Coalition for Peace & Ethics  The Penn State CSR Lab produced a Report in 2018 on non-state grievance mechanisms in the context of early work undertaken by the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (see HERE). For 2020, the will include graduate students drawn from class interested in undertaking a substantial project.  This year the project will be to create and operate a rating system for the OHCHR Accountability and Remedy (ARP) III Project. Undertaken at the request of the Human Rights Council to the OHCHR in 2018 (resolution 38/13 by consensus), the ARP III Project was charged 

"to identify and analyse challenges, opportunities, best practices and lessons learned with regard to non-state-based grievance mechanisms that are relevant to the respect by business enterprises for human rights, . . . and to submit a report thereon to the Human Rights Council for consideration at its forty-fourth session." (OP 9, emphasis added)

The ARP III Final Report described the universe of nARP-3_CSR_Lab_XtraCreditF2020on-state non-judicial remedial mechanisms and recommended steps to be taken by states and businesses to implement a series of actions described in Parts II and III of the Annex (Report pp. 11-19) in the form of 16 policy objectives.

By the completion of the project, Penn State’s CSR Lab 2020 will (1) develop a concept paper touching on the need for, construction, methodology and use of an ARP III rating system for enterprises; (2) Produce a methodology justified by and through the great principles of the UNGP; (3) describe the way in which data warehouses will be managed and used; (4) apply the rating system to an initial group of enterprises; (5) produce a Report detailing the results of that first rating application along with recommendations for internal improvement and external responses to the rating; and (6) consider recommendations for strengthening the public and private law systems with respect to which the key factors that produce the ratings are based.

Although our goals are ambitious, it is my hope that much learning can occur as we try to meet the challenge of this project! The full instructions and brief background may be accessed HERE:ARP-3_CSR_Lab_XtraCreditF2020 . We welcome allies and help.