Just Posted: Video Recording of Belt and Road Initiative in Africa: Addressing the Issues of Debt, Dispute Resolution, and Transparency an Online Conference |

 

I have posted 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. 

The Centre for Comparative and Public Law has recently posted the video recording of our panel to their YouTube Channel.

 

Panel 1: Debt Sustainability (24th February 2021 09:00 AM – 11:00 AM HKT)
Welcome Remarks:
Prof. Victor Ramraj (Director, Centre for Asia Pacific Initiatives, University of Victoria, Canada)
Prof. Po Jen Yap (Director, Centre for Comparative and Public Law, HKU)

The video recording for Panel 1 may be accessed HERE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbcjRe4THtE

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Panel 2: Transparency and Good Governance (25th February 2021 09:30 AM – 11:00 AM HKT)
Prof. Muna Ndulo (Cornell University)
Prof. Larry C. Backer (The Pennsylvania State University)
Bady Baldé (Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Norway)
Prof. Yves Tiberghien (University of British Columbia)
Ngozi S. Nwoko (University of Victoria, Canada) 

More on that Panel and my presentation HERE.

The video recording for Panel 2 can be accessed HERE: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC771Q1SRWQ&feature=youtu.be

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Panel 3: Dispute Resolution (26th February 2021 09:30 AM – 11:15 AM HKT)
Prof. William P. Alford (Harvard University)
Dr. Mariel Dimsey (CMS Hasche Sigle, Hong Kong LLP)
Prof. Heng Wang (University of New South Wales)
Prof. Won Kidane (Seattle University)
Dr. Weixia Gu (The University of Hong Kong)

Closing Remarks:
Dr. Ying Xia (Co-convener of BRI Conference, HKU)

The video recording for Panel 3 can be accessed HERE: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qO3ZK5pEk0

 

 

 

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

"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.

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

 

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.

 

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."

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,

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.

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.