Text of Interview with Payman Yazdani for Tabnak News Service (Iran): "US interests shift makes changes to NATO structure and goals necessary "

 

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I was delighted to have been able to sit for an online interview with Payman Yazdani for the Tabnak News Service (Iran).  The interview revolved around five questions:

1. Zelenskyy visit to White House was very controversial. Regardless of this fact, it seems that Europe has lost its strategic importance for the US. What do you think of this?

2. Recent US approach towards Europe indicates that Washington is siding with Russia in face of the EU, because in the new world order based on Great Power Competitions the Russia and the China cooperation is more important for the US and the US is trying to weaken the two countries cooperation by increasing its engagement with Moscow. What is your assessment?

3. Will Russia accept the European peacekeepers presence in Ukraine in case of reaching a peace agreement?

4. It seems that now even NATO has to maintain its missions based on US interests like opening its office in Japan. Do you think that NATO has to maintain its missions in line with US Indo-Pacific strategy?

5. Generally, which parts of Europe are still important for the US?

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The answers required one to try to consider the emerging U.S. position from the inside, its challenges (from the perspective of that vision and from an outside perspective), and to tease out its logic and potential consequences. Of course it is impossible to get into the mind of another, but it is perfectly fair to try to understand that other from the evidence of thoughts and premises that are evidenced by their own statements, performances, and actions. The answers left judgment about whether all of this is good, bad or otherwise to the reader. Nonetheless, for all of us, the challenge is to pull together the vision behind the actions, performances, and text. That will likely have to wait until, by an accumulation of these actions, text, etc. what will be the articulation of that vision emerges. My friend, Graeme Johnston, noted the parallels to the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, the consequences of which lasted well over a century. And, indeed, perhaps, that is the historical shadow the insights one can extract from which might be useful as human collectives move forward along paths that are only now becoming slightly more clear.

The interview may be found online (in English) HERE. It also follows below.

St Mary's Law Launching its 1st Annual BHR Scholars-in-Residence Pipeline Program

 

 

 

 I am happy to pass along the announcement of my friends and colleagues  Tara Van Ho (Essex) and Jena Martin (St Mary's) of the first annual Business and Human Rights Scholars-in-Residence Pipeline Program to be held at St Mary's University, San Antonio, Texas. 

 More information follows below.

 

Brief Thoughts on the Trump Administration Pausing Support for Ukraine

 

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Fresh from his meeting with European Leaders in London, after a far more tumultuous meeting with the U.S. President and the President's team in the White House President Zelenskyy sought to sound a positive note and signal his own view of the state of the pathways forward--and the distance that still must be traveled on this road:

A deal to end the war between Ukraine and Russia “is still very, very far away,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, adding that he believed Ukraine’s long-term partnership with the U.S. was strong enough that American support would continue despite recent fraught relations with U.S. President Donald Trump. I think our relationship (with the U.S.) will continue, because it’s more than an occasional relationship,” Zelenskyy said late Sunday, referring to Washington’s support for the past three years of war. “I believe that Ukraine has a strong enough partnership with the United States of America” to keep aid flowing, he said at a briefing in Ukrainian before leaving London. (Ukraine’s Zelenskyy says end of war with Russia is ‘very, very far away’)

Nothing here is new.  Even at Davos in February, President Zelenskyy had already signaled his sense that the Americans were tilting away from Europe and the other, drastic transformation would be required to save the project of Ukrainian defense against  Russian territorial ambitions from 2014. (See President Zelenskyy's Reponse to Vice President Vance at the Munich Security Conference: Text of Remarks--"I Really Believe That Time Has Come: The Armed Forces of Europe Must Be Create). After those remarks, the clash between President Zelenskyy and the U.S. President and Vice President was almost inevitable. It is not just that President Trump and his team have or likely have ever shared that view. The threat came from the suggestion that the war would be of long duration-that suggestion, and the request for support to make it happen, might well be taken as a direct challenge to the core of President Trump's own agenda on Ukraine--to bargain one's way to the cessation of live fire hostilities now.  That has been clear in the relentless stream of narrative pouring out of the White House since the the meeting of Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy: here, here, here, and here. 

Almost immediately after this assessment, the Americans responded, not with more narrative (in the European manner), but with an order from the White House directing a pause in aid to Ukraine.

The decision to suspend aid came out of meetings at the White House on Monday between Mr. Trump and his senior national security aides, according to senior administration and military officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. It appears aimed at forcing Mr. Zelensky to agree to a cease-fire on terms Mr. Trump dictates, or condemns the country to larger battlefield losses. The officials said the directive would be in effect until Mr. Trump determined that Ukraine had demonstrated a good-faith commitment to peace negotiations with Russia. It was not immediately clear what that might look like or how long the suspension will last. For now, it will be up to Kyiv and its European allies to try to keep Ukraine’s guns firing. (Why Is Trump Pausing Aid to Ukraine? What to Know)

 But this point none of this should surprise.

Pix credit NYT

First, the United States has used weapons and support to subaltern states as an important "soft power" element of its control and guidance mechanisms for a long time.  It is just that the tastes of different Administrations, and their objectives, vary, sometimes successfully. Mr. Biden and his friends in Europe were quite adept at drip feeding the Ukrainians when it suited them and for the same reasons trotted out by the Mr. Trump and his people--fear or Russia and willingness to compromise the territory of subalterns in return for more advantageous relations with superior (even if dependent) powers. The same applied to other conflicts--the intravenous supply of aid to Israel during the recent wars that exploded after October 2023 offer another window.  Mr. Trump tends to perform these actions in a very different style than Mr. Biden--but stylistic differences merely mask continuity.  This conflict is different in scale, but more importantly in place--usually there is little difficulty with these sorts of decisions and attitudes on the periphery and with respect to old imperial mandates or holdings. But this time the conflict is bound up with core issues of European identity and the normative cage within the relationship between the United States and its ancient (as these things are counted in human terms) alliance between the US and Europe is to be understood.

Second,  even when it seems otherwise, justification is oftentimes merely an element of managing propaganda. Certainly universities worldwide have become quire adept at training clever people in the arts of persuasion and justification, and modernity has provided more than substantial techniques to those ends. It is important for the masses (most of whom are the risk bearers of these state activities) to believe that action follows justification. It promotes solidarity, creates and reinforces the narrative and ideological basis for the political-economic system of the state and provides a means of authority through the mechanics of  transposing justification from an endogenous to an exogenous (and thus superior because it appears to apply to but not be sourced within humanity) organ of foundational principles--whether they be Marxist-Leninist, religious, moral-ethical, liberal-democratic and the like. At the level of operation, of course, the dialectic between exogenously oriented justification rationalizing premises and action produces a constant  dynamic interaction between them, and the conflict and interaction between justification systems has a similar effect. 

Third, almost invariably in the case of the United States the result are halfway measures that suggest both risk aversion and hedging behaviors.  It is clear, for example, the the thrust of policy now is to transform the fundamental basis for U.S. European relations from one founded on NATO to one grounded in a close operating relationship between the U.S. and Russia through which relations with Europe may be reordered to their mutual liking. Yet such a tilt cannot be realized immediately, and thus the risk of full tilting cannot be undertaken in a riskless environment for a number of reasons. One, the masses have not been entirely prepared for the tilt--that requires a substantial investment in the sort of narrative weaving, one that in another age might have been undertaken more efficiently by the priestly caste of a society. Two, such a reorientation requires both the initial decision but then a substantial amount of clean-up--in this case negotiating the Russian detachment from China, the re-attachment of India, and the disentanglement of current relationship that run quite deep and might, in the short run be impossible to entirely untangle. Three, it is not yet clear that the Americans know exactly what they want--they know that they do not want the status quo.  But do they know what they want inst4ead?  That extraordinary inability to think past the initial impulse (even if it is warranted) substantially increases risk (to the United States) and the consequences of  passively waiting for consequences (on virtually everyone else). The vision of America First provides a little help, but certainly not in the quite skeletal form in which it is now presented.  Certainly at the moment there are hardly enough bones to chew on much less meat. That has to be attended to quickly or this whole tilt thing will have profound disastrous effects for a hegemon that now cannot either go back or move forward. Note I make no judgment about the tilt itself--elected officials have the power to make that determination and also must bear the consequences--entirely. and without impunity.

Fourth, there is much discursive material already to be worked with.  If one considers words to be textual vessels that may be emptied filled and refilled to suit its producer and consumer, than one has already begun to see is the transformation of meaning (in context) of key terms: peace, security, sovereignty, insult, negotiation, cease fire and the like. Not that any of this is new, Quite the contrary.  But,sometimes one can discern a signaling of change by efforts, usually not transparent of changes in meaning of well worn discursive tropes. That is very much on offer now in the speeches and communications of all leading stakeholders in this contest.

Fifth, the sort of limboland tactics of merchants can carry the preset Administration's actions so far, but not far enough for it to both obtain its objectives to full measure and to secure them past the useful life of the present cohort of elected and appointed officials and their supporters. That was a lesson that ought to have been quite readily apparent from the ease of the collapse of the principles based building project of the last administration. But these sorts of lessons apparently come hard to officials less mindful of the fact that the time and planning horizons of the nation ought to be considerably longer than the lengths of their political careers, and that this ought to be quire publicly borne in mind; again another lesson ignored of the past administration.  Perhaps it might be useful to use the language of merchants to explain: this ought not to be undertaken, and certainly not understood, as a one off transaction (eg peace for territory from a third  party jobber, Ukraine; and long term supplier of some tolerable (to the current US leadership at least) level of stability, Russia) , but rather as a set of necessarily intertwined long term contracts involving division of territory, output, and quality control, which is to be undertaken alongside the breach of similar long term contracts with a former partner whose new relationship has yet to be determined but with respect to which some sort of output relationship remains essential--if only to block access from competitors (eg China). That is rough, and not quite either complete or accurate but it paints a picture using language and meaning sets that may be more relevant to decision makers. What ought to emerge form all of this is the extent of the risk of negative impact (in terms of effects on access to markets, and production, supply and consumption chains) it might have on the entirety of the objectives of America First--which appears to be the core enterprise of the American body corporate at the moment. Thus, it is not enough to extract some gain from any peace process: "In a fulsome statement issued a day after Trump halted military aid to Ukraine, Zelenskiy said he was ready to sign a deal giving the United States access to Ukrainian minerals, which he had left on the table when he abandoned a visit to Washington after an Oval Office argument with Trump on Friday." (Zelenskiy calls Trump clash regrettable: 'it's time to make things right'). It will be necessary to protect that supply chain as well.

Sixth,  despite all of this analytical hand wringing, what appears as clear now as it was under the quite different conceptual cage within which the Biden Administration labored from the 24 February 2022 start of the second phase of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (both ironically enough undertaken during the administration of Democratic Party Presidents), is the reality that superior powers have always been willing to negotiate their way out of this conflict; that the superior power will likely drive and shape the negotiations, that the inferior power has relatively little but the power of old and powerful discursive tropes (war crimes, human rights, human dignity, the territorial integrity of states, honor, etc.) on which to fall back on (which Mr Zelenskyy has ably done). But it may not be enough as this discursive rug may be yanked out from under the Ukrainians. And the Ukrainians now appear poised to lose it all: territory, NATO membership, and try into the EU. That would amount to a spectacular failure (under the old alliance systems) and a mark of the breadth of the transformation (under the potentially new or emerging power framework in or between Russia and the US in Europe. Too early to tell but the Europeans' most potent weapon to date have been their discourse, principles and vision; but that no longer seems sufficient and they may be unable to substitute themselves for the Americans in time. 

 Seventh, and of course there is also a hidden prize the attainment of which will horrify many and satisfy others.  A new arrangement, however unequal, between the U.S. and Russia, with or without some tacit agreement of the Chinese might be a useful means of effectively substantially reducing the power and authority (in fact if not in form) of the ICC apparatus. That would be the golden ring on this carousel of change.

 Eighth, the level of Ukrainian desperation now evidences both the powerlessness of Europe to deliver more than the most principled sentiments, and the extraordinary financial and military power of the United States in its Ukrainian investment. "

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed a new framework for a partial ceasefire with Russia on Tuesday, posting on X that Kyiv would be willing to release prisoners and agree to a truce that would ban long range attacks on civilian and energy infrastructure. The offer came after the Trump administration declared that Zelensky was not ready for peace and froze the U.S. military assistance that Ukraine has been relying on to battle the Russian invasion. (Zelensky Offers Partial Ceasefire With Russia To Restart Peace Talks)

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Building a U.S. A.I. Action Plan in this New Era of U.S.Historical Development: "Public Comment Invited on Artificial Intelligence Action Plan"

 

Generated by ChatGPT

 Artificial Intelligence policy has been an elite sport almost from its inception.  Either techno-bureaucracies in the public or private sectors, investment entities, or political or media leaders  tend to dominate not just discussion but actin on A.I. policy that is then fed--along with the soothing discursive tropes of leadership assurances--to the masses. From time to time, those who tend already to have a plan moving forward, and who are invariably already committed to an architecture (a framework) on which new policy and regulation is to be erected, will sometimes nod in the direction of the masses and seek "comment."

This impulse is non-political in the sense that leaders of both Democratic and Republic Parties have indulged this  pattern of inclusion for many years.  While "Town hall" tropes tend to be used post facto, periods of "open to comment" are used before the framework is used to finalize whatever objective is set for that framework.  There are positive benefits to the state of course: (1) the comments will certainly pick up mass sentiment (valued on the basis of the power or authority of mass collectives the comments represent); (2) they may pick up important lapses in form or drafting that need correction; (3) they signal the sort of democratic solidarity which in Marxist Leninist States is subsumed with the broad action habits of the Mass Line, but which in liberal democratic states comes from these sorts of commentary episodes. 

And perhaps, as the A.I. generated image above suggests, these comment sessions may expose some of the contradictions of an A.I. policy that will be generated  for the 21st century filled with 19th century tropes--text in a human language, paper, writing instruments, and building representative of a physical world to which A.I. may have only a tenuous relation. At its base it suggests the fundamental contradiction--for whose benefit is the policy created--is it directed to A.I., is it directed to the state and regulatory organs, is it directed to markets and entrepreneur with money but no expertise other than to grow money, or to A.I. workers (coders, and formulators of analytics, including generative analytics and algorithms. Who knows? Though getting this tight will make the resulting product more interesting, or at least less sloppy (see, generally at at a theoretical level, 'The Soulful Machine, the Virtual Person, and the “Human” Condition').

It is with this in mind that one might most usefully engage with the announcement of a Public Comment Invited on Artificial Intelligence Action Plan.

President Trump’s recent Artificial Intelligence (AI) Executive Order shows that this Administration is dedicated to America’s global leadership in AI technology innovation. This Order directed the development of an AI Action Plan to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance. Today, the American people are encouraged to share their policy ideas for the AI Action Plan by responding to a Request for Information (RFI), available on the Federal Register’s website through March 15. (Ibid.).

The request for comments is undertaken in furtherance of the objectives specified in President Trump's Executive Order 14179 of January 23, 2025 ("Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence"). This effort is meant to redirect U.S. A.I. policy away from the basis for A.I. policy that was to be developed in  the Administration of President Biden in 2023 (see "Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence" Text and Brief Reflections). 

It might be worth noting that the Commentary is directed toward the construction of an Action Plan. That is, that the focus of commentary that might resonate with those responsible for sifting through them, evaluating their value to the project and either summarizing them correctly or passing them on (the gatekeeper role in comment gathering exercises is itself worthy of analysis--in this case there is no indication of the methodology to be employed to make the aggregation of commentary "useful." Sometimes all comments are posted to a website for greater popular engagement; sometimes they are retained but otherwise unavailable to the public; usually they are sorted (and evaluated for usefulness in the process), summarized, packaged and then delivered to those who might digest the summary in their journey from idea to action planning. It is not clear how the process will work in this case--tough that is not unusual. Nonetheless, the emphasis on action rather than theory or principle ought to serve as a guide to commentary (including commentary in opposition to the approach--for what it will be worth). And that action, to appears, seems to favor those that enhance innovation--new or high quality development--of benefit to the nation, its markets and people. That may focus both on actions in furtherance of efficiency in financing, in protection of innovation for exploitation, in the availability of markets for development, financing and product distribution, in the development of data and product markets, and in the facilitation and construction of the infrastructures necessary to make all this possible--power (electricity) generation perhaps dedicated to this industry, protection against corruption or threats of espionage, and the enhancement of the ability of actors to profit from all of this in ways that creates what might be thought to be an enhanced innovation environment. Some of this enhancement, of course, might be lubricated by a focus on sharing the profits of exploitation to labor, communities and other suppliers of productive forces necessary for the development of robust A.I. ecologies in physical space by enhancing the market power of these participants in the project (or at east not inhibiting their  market power). Lots of moving parts here with a large space for national regulation with respect to market integrity, financial transparency, and national security. What it is likely not to include will be those principles that have marked the forms of European A.I. regulatory efforts nor anything  of a similar sort  that served as the basis of the A.I. policy that had been in development during the Biden Administration. The only principle at work here is one that privileges the effective development of A.I. high quality productive forces. Still the A.I.Plan will have to deal with the development path of A.I. regulations  that are popular elsewhere.

Information relevant to the development of this new A.I. Plan is being directed through the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) National Coordination Office (NCO), National Science Foundation.

This Plan, as directed by a Presidential Executive Order on January 23, 2025, will define the priority policy actions needed to sustain and enhance America's AI dominance, and to ensure that unnecessarily burdensome requirements do not hamper private sector AI innovation. Through this Request for Information (RFI), OSTP and NITRD NCO seek input from the public, including from academia, industry groups, private sector organizations, state, local, and tribal governments, and any other interested parties, on priority actions that should be included in the Plan. (Request for Information on the Development of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Plan; Notice by the National Science Foundation on 02/06/2025 ).

For anyone otherwise not invited or engaged in the formulation of national policy on AI. with an interest in contributing (at least via text and only within the fora opened for that purpose) to its development, this may be an opportune time to contribute comment.  To leverage comment, of course, those would have to be distributed elsewhere--through collective efforts, on social media, with campaigns to lobby the elected political branches, with pressure on involved thought leaders etc. But that is the subject of a quite different post. 

The text of Public Comment Invited on Artificial Intelligence Action Plan follows along with the 23 January Executive Order, and the Request for Comments. Comments can be submitted online and will be accepted until 11:59PM on March 15, 2025. 

 

Hiking the "Fentanyl Tariff" Imposed on China: Mr. Trump Issues Executive Order: " Further Amendment to Duties Addressing the Synthetic Opioid Supply Chain in the People’s Republic of China"

 

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Tariffs have always been a multi-use tool. From the beginning of the 2nd Trump Administration, tariffs have been used increasingly as an instrument of economic pressure to achieve foreign policy ends. That, anyway, is the substance of the formal and textual  justifications for their use in some cases.

Prominent among these has been the use of tariffs as a formal countermeasure against, and as a nudging instrument directed to, China. The initial action was taken in a 1 February 2025 Executive Order (Executive Order 14195) in which it was declared that China "has subsidized and otherwise incentivized PRC chemical companies to export fentanyl and related precursor chemicals that are used to produce synthetic opioids sold illicitly in the United States." In addition, it was declared, that "the PRC provides support to and safe haven for PRC-origin transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) that launder the revenues from the production, shipment, and sale of illicit synthetic opioids. These PRC-origin TCOs coordinate and communicate using PRC social media software applications in the conduct of their business." Moreover, it was further declared, that "[m]any PRC-based chemical companies also go to great lengths to evade law enforcement and hide illicit substances in the flow of legitimate commerce. Some of the techniques employed by these PRC-based companies to conceal the true contents of the parcels and the identity of the distributors include the use of re-shippers in the United States, false invoices, fraudulent postage, and deceptive packaging." These and related findings provided a basis for the declaration of national emergency, one that was exacerbated because,despite bilateral talks, "PRC officials have failed to follow through with the decisive actions needed to stem the flow of precursor chemicals to known criminal cartels and shut down the money laundering TCOs."

On that basis the President invoked statutory authority to impose countermeasures to meet the threat described in the Executive Order. Those countermeasures consisted on an imposition of a general tariff of 10% on all Chinese goods (§2).

One month later, roughly, the President again invoked his authority to declare that no adequate progress appeared to have been made on the Chinese side to reduce the flow of illicit substances described in Executive Order 14195). On 3 March 2025, the President issued an Executive Order: Further Amendment to Duties Addressing the Synthetic Opioid Supply Chain in the People’s Republic of China, the purpose of which was to increase the rate of the general tariff to 20%. 

One might think more broadly about the effects and structuring of tariff nudges. Not in the sense that they are wrongheaded, but rather in the sense that they are merely an initial step in what might be a longer term structural strategy for behavior changing.

In designing nudges, the focus should shift toward helping individuals follow through with their decisions, complementing nudges with strategies that promote sustained engagement and behavior change. For instance, people get more motivated for tasks when you turn the jobs into games and let them share their achievements on leaderboards. (Think of the popularity of Wordle.) * * * In the end, though, the main takeaway from our research is that nudges may be a great first step. But that’s all they are: a first step. Much of the hard work is what comes next. (The Problem With Behavioral Nudges; Wall Street Journal 2024)

That is, tariffs might well be a useful initial nudging instrument.  But of course, tariff instruments have no ideology. And the Chinese, prepared for this it seems, have adopted retaliatory tariffs of their own. "China’s finance ministry announced 15 percent tariffs on imports of chicken, wheat, corn and cotton from the United States, as well as 10 percent tariffs on imports of sorghum, soybeans, pork, beef, aquatic products, fruits, vegetables and dairy products." (New York Times)

Nonetheless, without a longer term strategy that enhances or is otherwise aligned with America First objectives and also with Chinese win-win strategies, long term behavior changes will be a more challenging goal to reach.  That will require action no just by the Chinese to clean up their house but also some action by the United States to see to the messiness in its own. It is possible, under that framework, for a mutually beneficial pathway may be opened up that might reset the forms and rules of trade in pharma between the states, but also aid in mutually reinforcing anti-corruption and anti-crime measures. In that context both states ill have to exhibit levels of resolve (and trust) that may not be achievable currently but for which initial steps may be taken along that path. Trust between hegemons is essential for a stable global system that each appears to want.

The action was not isolated but, as was the case with the initial tariff decisions, was made in tandem with those applied to Canada and Mexico respecting actions which the White House has declared, adversely affect the territorial integrity of the United States and the stability of its political-social order. (See Amendment to Duties to Address the Situation at our Southern Border (March 2, 2025); Amendment to Duties to Address the Flow of Illicit Drugs across our Northern Border (March 2, 2025)).

The text of both the 1 February and the 3 March Executive Orders on China are set forth below. The Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Proceeds with Tariffs on Imports from Canada and Mexico also follows below.

 

CfP 8th International Legal Linguistics Workshop (ILLWS25), “Law and Language in the Past, Present, and Future: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives”

 

 

I am delighted to pass along this Call for Papers for the  

The conference will focus on the theme: "Law and Language in the Past, Present, and Future: Local, Regional, and Global Perspectives." We welcome submissions on a wide range of topics, including but not limited to:The role of critical legal linguistics in addressing historical injustices.

* The influence of the history of legal language on current practices.
* The impact of globalisation on legal language norms.
* The role of legal linguistics in fostering understanding between legal systems inside and outside the European Union.
* Legal linguistics' contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
* The translation of legal concepts across diverse multilingual and multicultural contexts.

Abstracts should be 200-250 words, excluding references and keywords, and should include 3-5 keywords and 3-5 key references (see attached Call).
Submissions are due by May 1, 2025, and should be sent to legallinguistics2025@gmail.com.
You will be notified of acceptance or rejection by May 15, 2025.

The CfP follows below

 

The Performative Qualities of Language: Mr Trump Signs Executive Order--"Designating English as the Official Language of The United States"

 

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On March 1, 2025 the Trump Administration issued an Executive designating English as the official language of the United States. It is entitled: Designating English as the Official Language of The United States.

Many states have an official language; several designate more than one official language; some states take all comers. The designation of an official language can serve as a means of crafting solidarity among the political community or exacerbating underlying tensions. All fo thsi is very context specific. Empires have a harder time with official languages and general adopt a language of official or common communication with varying degrees of tolerance or encouragement of local languages, as long as they do not interfere with solidarity building. In this sense, an official political language or language of politics. Sometimes language--and approaches to de jure or de facto official designations, and the protection of the supremacy of a single common language to bind the community--has itself been an object that signifies the nature of political solidarity. Top down and mandatory enforcement of a common language sometimes mirrors the nature of the political-economic model around which the states organized and understands itself and political authority in its social and cultural construction. Bottom up expectations and nudging approaches to common language relies on social and cultural pressure, as well as economic necessity, that also reflects the organization of the state grounded in notions of personal autonomy, self-interest, and socioeconomic necessity.

In some states, like the United States, the only official language, at least from the founding, has been the language of substantial disagreement about the concept of official language. Those debates have been sometimes tied intimately to issues of state sovereignty (19th century) and then to identity nations (20th century) and always tied to the ebbs and flows of inbound migration from the time of the founding. Nonetheless the de facto official political or common language of the United States has been American English (in the sense that it represents some sort of common dialect derived from the language commonly used since the time of the first British Empire in the 18th century.

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Some of this appears to have intruded on the discourse of official languages in the recent sometimes heated arguments about the topic in the United States. And that intrusion might also be understood as at least within the official reasoning reflected in the Executive Order issued by President Trump. To its credit it does reference the driving notion of a common language as a means of binding a political community together and the argument that this common language issue historically has given pride of place to American English. To those ends, in a way that reflects traditional American approaches to the issue, Mr. Trump offers what amounts to a sort of nudging. He has no power to make English the official language of the state--he has only the power to manage the common language used by federal governmental organs in their interactions with each other, with states in the federal union, and with the masses who must interact with those federal governmental organs. And there will likely be limits, especially in the context of the federal courts, though that is to be seen.

At a discursive level, the Executive Order is meant to try to change the narratives of language and to provide a strong signal of at least language assimilation among non English speaking communities. It might even spark debate, and direct it, in some of the states in our federal union. It will certainly spark debate among people who invest this action with all sorts of meaning. In this sense, the Executive Order is both a publicity stunt (at its least effective), and a strong signalling about the importance of a common language as a means of political solidarity, the practices of which must be exemplified in the conduct of the state itself (the tone at the top model).

At a practical level, it appears to require federal agencies to "speak" only in English. It does not necessarily require that they also refuse to "hear" or "listen to" people speaking another language. And it does not prohibit people to employ other means of English language communication should the agency neither speak nor hear a language other than English. Lastly, it has no effect on state or local governments who in this area at least can do as they please (with the exception--and an important one--where as a condition of receiving federal grants to run local programs the state must bind itself to an English language only communication). Thus two immediate nudging consequences: (1) people who must speak with the federal government must master English at least in their dealing with those organs; (2) people may speak English to the state through others. Who are these others?--relatives and friends certainly, but for many communities also organized non-state actors offering communication services for a fee or free (the State ought to be indifferent as long as the communication is undertaken by both sides in English). And one longer range nudging consequence--nudging technological innovation in translation, some of which is already easily available, from AI and LLM fueled online translators of text, to audio translation, and now visual translation in real time. At the end of the day it may be that the tech sector will be the group that finds the most (economic) joy in these debates and the actions it produces at the federal level.

The text of Designating English as the Official Language of The United States follows below.

CfP: 11th Annual ICGS Conference: 2025 Theme--Transformative Corporate Governance

 

 
Delighted to pass along the CfP for the 11th Annual ICGS Conference: Transformative Corporate Governance at the University of Manchester. It will be held 17-19 October 2025. This from the conference organizers:

Each year, the ICGS conference provides a forum for international academics and policymakers to showcase and discuss the latest corporate governance research issues and practices. The 11th annual conference aims to foster a lively, multidisciplinary dialogue and debate among scholars and practitioners by concentrating on the transformative role of corporate governance. As we are experiencing continuous transformation in the contemporary business world, companies are expected to navigate a changing economic and socio-political environment in an effective and sustainable way. For example, business communities and management scholarship are increasingly paying attention to “grand challenges” such as: Artificial intelligence; Climate change; Deglobalisation; Geopolitical tensions; Global health issues; and Poverty reduction

While corporate governance is well-recognised for promoting accountability to shareholders and stakeholders, its role in helping companies manage external changes and transform their practices and environment is still underexplored. It becomes evident that we need to further understand and appreciate the role of corporate governance in periods of societal transformation. As the first industrial city and a hub of innovation, Manchester is the ideal place for such discussions and exchanges of ideas.

 The CfP may be accessed HERE and follows below.

 

Babamaroya in a "Huis Clos" (No Exit); Views From Presidential Cognitive Cages: "President Trump, VP Vance Are Standing Up for Americans"; President Zelenskyy Thanks America

 

Pix credit New York Times

 

        Igbo etile on egbin                  (A forest near town collects rubbish)'

Adapo owo on iya                   (A partnership breeds suffering)

Yara ajumogbe itale ni ninu   (A shared room breeds worms)

Da Fun Babamarose                           (Cast for Babamarose/Babamaroya)

  * * * 

(William Bascom, Sixteen Coweries: Yoruba Divination From Africa to the New World (1980) Eji Ogbe No. 22, pp. 112-113)

 

 

By now virtually everyone on Earth plugged into social media has heard or seen that marvelous performative moment at the White House, where like a group of early 19th century fishmongers at the wharf on market day, the heads of State of the United States and Ukraine engaged in a performance fit for a daytime television reality show (are these now discursively oracular?; one wonders).  No doubt, that is coming, along with the hand wringing, oracular readings of the script, body language and fallout, and other prestidigitation that must surely follow.  That is as it should be. Such drama--one in which they each played their role superbly, apparently all ad lib to bring out the true performative power of the cast--each the victim of personal affronts which were then transformed, through the extraordinary ability of ego to invoke semiotic magic to turn personal antipathy into state politics. There are other analogies, some positive, some negative, some relational, but held together by the power to incarnate huge vats of virtual signification tied to the social collective constructs of state into the far smaller bodies of the players. 

Video of event link HERE

Aaaahhh so old fashioned--like traveling back in time with a host of actors too poor to afford the appropriate time sensitive costuming.  Yet they are not states, this is not the 16th century, nor are they television actors the scripted (or off script) antics of which provide anything but comedic-melodramitic entertainment for the masses.  And perhaps that was the point--actors trapped in a scripting of their own making now locked together in a room--much like that envisioned as Hell in Sartre's  play Huis Clos (1944) (No Exit ((New York: Vintage Books, 1989)) the connections with which I leave to the reader to embrace or reject).  And, indeed, from the perspective of performative discourse, the moment proved to be of great significance to all the players, both revealing what had been concealed under layers of bureaucrats and  formal  discursive tropes, and at the same time making it impossible not to  push forward along now quite visible pathways. It is in this sense that the performance was perhaps the finest exposure of the essence of the great transformations that are occurring in this third decade of the 21st century--or more broadly it brilliantly captures the spirit of the times. As such, criticism or praise is lost n the moment--it exists far beyond both.

In a sense one ought to be grateful--if only for the exposure, at last, to the realities of politics, and the fusion of the personal and the representational, driven by the personal--that may well be the signature marker of this first phase in the movement from a unitary converging global order, to the fractured convergences of the post-global --first explosions, then the terror and its proscription lists, then conflict, and then finally the emergence of those actors, hidden in the flanks, that will both inherit and transform from out f the pieces of the past that suit them. It is in this sense that condemnation or judgment--rather than observation anchored in the objects and actions around which social relations are currently constituted, that is rather than a stricter analysis of the semiosis  of these events and their connection to larger cognitive frameworks--is both premature ad beside the point. 

Pix credit here

Yet the unavoidable--there is no exit--remains largely unappreciated. Still the shock of its realization from time to time in dramatic form like this, sometimes causes anxiety among those whose cognitive cages have been carefully constructed to avoid the realities of the condition within which social collectives and the naturalization of their relations, encases humans. The best one can hope for, perhaps, is to play the role of the Valet No Exit--who serves and watches unable to blink or avoid the gaze as he goes from one room to the next, ensuring that the emerging post-global order, enclosed within a series of rooms populated by people who deserve each other, is well tended. 

GARCIN: Ah, yes, I've got it. It's your daytime. And outside?
VALET: Outside?
GARCIN: Damn it, you know what I mean. Beyond that wall.
VALET: There's a passage.
GARCIN: And at the end of the passage?
VALET: There's more rooms, more passages, and stairs.
GARCIN: And what lies beyond them?
VALET: That's all. (No Exit)

The only real questions, then, are whether some of the characters may occupy more than one room; whether the rooms can be redecorated to taste; and whether there are conditions or constraints on the ability to travel between one or another room of one's making. We will have to ask the Valet. But one senses that there are lots of rooms, each closed off from the others,but that while its inhabitants might be able to move from one to another none can be the Valet. Certainly that may well be the condition of the United States as it constructs its own No Exit setting. This works to a point but does no more than set a way of perceiving the performance. Nonetheless, within that perspective and its own cages one might come to think of the US position as fortunate indeed; other characters populating this closed space of rooms will likely have no such power and will, like the characters in the Sartre original, have to make the best of the room in which they find themselves. Or perhaps the Oddu of Ifa's Eji Ogbe have it better and one finds oneself on Babamaroya's farm (Bascom, supra, Eji Ognbe A 22)--"Babamaroya ki o ma fi wàràwàrà da ire nu; Ibiti Osa pe ki eleni ki o ma ko iya nu se o; Nibi ise ti ba nse " [Babamaroya do not think of suffering and lose a blessing through haste; This is where the Orisha says that a person should endure suffering in the work he is doing"]. And who is Babamaroya/Babamarose?--the father of those who do not think of discomfort and do not think of suffering.

It is with that in mind that one can perhaps better appreciate the continuing conversation that has emerged from the aftermath of that visual performance between the U.S. and Ukrainian Heads of State--as persons and as the incarnations of their political collectives.  For the President of the United States that migt be best encapsulated in the document posted to the White House Website: President Trump, VP Vance Are Standing Up for Americansand dated 28 February 2025. It follows below.  Also provided for consideration is a companion document:  Support Pours in for President Trump, VP Vance’s America First Strength of the same date. See also the sometimes quite interesting quotes in the March 1, 2025 More Support for Trump Administration’s Pursuit of Peace in Ukraine. Among the most descriptive of the object of the performance might have been the quote from the Speaker of the US House of Representatives: "“Thanks to President Trump – the days of America being taken advantage of and disrespected are OVER. The death and destruction of the Russian-provoked war needs to stop immediately, and only our American President can put these two countries on a path to lasting peace. President Zelenskyy needed to acknowledge that, and accept the extraordinary mineral rights partnership proposal that President Trump put on the table. What we witnessed in the Oval Office today was an American President putting America first.” It nicely captures  both the performative psychology of Huis Clos as the fundamental manifestation of post-global ordering, but also the nature of the role of Babamaroya in the new fragmented world ordering.

Again, let me be clear, nothing here should be understood either as criticism or praise.  I have no role in play in these dramas, nor hardly half enough information to make judgments worthy of the time taken to read them. Nonetheless, from my own small corner of the universe I might observe what is offered for my consumption and perhaps attempt to decipher their signification. In that respect I would not offer any  conventional analysis (though I do enjoy soothsaying as an entertainment), just the observation that in its own way this post performance production from the Presidents of the United States and Ukraine may help one to better understand the way the room in which they appear to be enjoying each other's company may be furnished and from which there will be no exit.  

But there is a moral, and this from Ifa's Eji Ogbe and the lesson of Babamaroya  who was counseled against losing a blessing through haste (ki o ma fi wàràwàrà da ire nu):

* * *

bi o ba da oko                                     (If [Babamaroya] made a farm)

Nwon jo je ni                                     (Others would eat with him)

Bi won ba si de ile                                (When they went home)

On ni yio gba ile                                 (he was the one who swept the house)

On ni yio ka eni                                  (he was the one who rolled up the mats)

Be titi won nse be, won nse be           (And on and on they were doing so)

Awon mejo ni si nsun ni ibikanna      (There were eight who were sleeping in the same room)

Won si nse owo po.                            (And they were trading as partners)

On ni yio lo ra, on ni yio lo ta;           (He was the one who would go and buy; he was the one                                                                   who would go and sell)

Awon ni yio wa pin owo.                   (and they would share the profits)

Ti won yio ko tire le lowo,                 (When they gave him his share,)

Iwon ti o ba wun won ni won yio fun; (They gave him any amount they wished)

Ko ja a titititi                                      (But he never fought)

* * *

[After a while all seven partners left, only Babamaroya remained; Babamaroya gathered up what the seven left behind]

 

On nikan lo wa ko, o sa wa la                                     (He gathered all, and became wealthy)

Ni o wa njo, ni nyo                                                     (He was dancing, he was rejoicing)

Ni nyin awon awo, ni awon awo wa nyin Osa           (He was praising the divers, and the diviners                                                                                     were praising Orisha

Pe be ni awaon awo ti on nse enu rere wi                  (That his diviners were speaking the                                                                                             truth)

(Bascom, supra, pp. 114-115 Eji Ogbe A 22).

 But who is Babamaroya?

 

Martin Belov--Hybrid Lecture: "Constitutional Imaginaries between Urban Spaces and Memories" 4 March 2025 University of Teramo Italy

 

My friend and colleague Martin Belov, Visiting Professor presso il Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza dell’Università di Teramo - Docente di Diritto Costituzionale e Costituzionale Comparato (University of Sofia 'St. Kliment Ohridski'), will deliver what is going to be a marvelous address at the UNiversityof Teramo on 4 March 2025. It is entitled "Constitutional Imaginaries between Urban Spaces and Memories." The discussant for the event is the marvelous Prof.ssa Emilia Musumeci, Docente di Storia del diritto dell’Ambiente (Università di Teramo). For those with an interest in the the spatial and temporal lebenswelt within which constitutions function this may be of great interest.

For more information please contact Professor  Musumeci: emusumeci AT nite.it

The address aqnd dicussion may be accessed via this link:  

Aula Virtuale: https://meet.google.com/gbo-hgid-acw