Teaching Belt and Road Initiative: Foundation for Law and International Affairs Debuts New English Language Teaching Module in Shanghai (Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Law School and Deakin University Law School)

While there has been much talk about China's new framework for multilateral trade--the One Belt One Road Initiative (see, e.g., here, here, here, here, and here), there has been little progress in making timely teaching materials available to English speaking students. The Foundation for Law and International Affairs (with whom I work) has sought to fill that gap with the first of a planned series of teaching modules on the Belt and Road Initiative.

The module was rolled out for the first time this past week. The First "Belt and Road Initiative Simulation Competition" was held on June 27, 2018 in Shanghai, China. Students from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics Law School and Deakin Law School participated in the competition. Jincheng Tongda and Neal Law Firm sponsored the event.

For more information, please refer to our website obor.education. All at FLIA greatly appreciate the participation and support of the first participants and the forward thinking leadership of Deakin Law and SUFE. Please feel free to FLIA for more information via contact@flia.org.

Conference Program: Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (Miami 26-28 July 2018)

For those of you with interests in Cuba, economic, social and political policy, international and comparative law and economics, the state of U.S.-Cuba normalization, legal reform in Cuba, theories of Marxist-Leninist state organization, Caribbean and Latin American issues or trade, the upcoming 27th Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy might be of interest, 

The Preliminary Conference Program follows. Conference information may be accessed HERE.

Of particular interest may be the 2018 Carlos Díaz-Alejandro Lecture, delivered by Andrés Velasco, Columbia University and former Minister of Finance, Chile, entitled: Economic Growth, Populism and Democracy. Additionally, the 2018 Ernesto Betancourt Keynote Address will be presented by Mark Sullivan, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, entitled The Role of Congress in U.S. Policy toward Cuba.

"Constitutional Rights and Corporate Actors" Constitution, Corporations and Human Rights at the ICON-S Conference, Hong Kong 26 June 2018

The recently concluded ICON-S 2018 Conference provided a marvelous space to consider some of the thorniest emerging issue sin law, governance and (infra)structure that now confront lawyers, policymakers, and the global stakeholders who together build and maintain increasingly dense layered systems of governance managing individuals and institutions--including the state. The Call for Papers provided a nice summary of the focus:

The overarching theme of the Conference will be “Identity, Security, Democracy: Challenges for Public Law.” Modern identity struggles and the search for constitutional and legal mechanisms that can accommodate diversity occur at many levels including the national, supra-national, local, individual, and collective; and also involve multiple dimensions: ethnic, racial, religious, gender, sexual, and cultural, to name but a few. In recent years, identity claims and security issues have taken centre stage in law and politics, prompting realignment of domestic, regional and international orders. Technological advancement has to some extent countered traditional security concerns, but has given rise to new ones as well as to issues of privacy and political control. At the same time, democracy, a widely revered political ideal for addressing differences and realising human aspirations, is facing challenges in many parts of the world. How should public law respond to these changing circumstances? Asia – with some of the most diverse cultures in the world, where domestic and regional security threats and human rights violations loom large, and where democracy is a relatively recent and at times fragile phenomenon or still under experimentation – offers a unique setting for fresh thinking on these and other closely-related themes. (ICON-S).

My colleagues, Jernej Letnar Cernic, Surya Deva, Sarah Joseph and I were thrilled to have been able to organize a panel for the event: Constitutional Rights and Corporate Actors. We thought to consider issues around formal and informal linkages around human rights standards/principles among state based constitutional law, international law-standards frameworks, and societal governance modalities. The idea was to consider the way these linkages might provide a means, formal or informal, of transposing constitutional obligations once reserved to the state alone, to enterprises operating within and between states. 

The Panel description follows, along with the abstracts (and some of the PowerPoints) of the presentations. The 2018 ICON-S Program may be accessed HERE.

Roundtable on Human Rights and the Business of Social Media: Personal Notes from the Proceedings

I was delighted to be part of the Roundtable on Human Rights and the Business of Social Media, sponsored by the Human Rights Law and Policy Forum (HRLF) of the Law Faculty of the City University of Hong Kong. My thanks to Surya Deva for organizing what turned out to be a fascinating meeting with lots of quite powerful and thought provoking engagement. 

This Post includes the Roundtable Program and my own summary notes of the discussion during the Roundtable.

New Draft Posted for Comment: "Cuba's Integration into the Global Economy—How Much is Cuba Expected to Change; How Far is Cuba Willing to Go; and Will the EU Serve as the Mediator of Those Changes?"

(Havana Harbor Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2018)

I post for comment the draft of an essay I have recently completed, entitled "Cuba's Integration into the Global Economy—How Much is Cuba Expected to Change; How Far is Cuba Willing to Go; and Will the EU Serve as the Mediator of Those Changes?"

The essay considers some of the issues that arise around the expectations of reform (legal, political and economic) within the Cuba that are deemed necessary for Cuba's reintegration into international economic legal/governance/economic orders. Discussion about the plausibility of such reform intensified among some influential circles in the wake of the movement toward normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations. The essay suggest  the question is deceptively simple, if conventionally direct, and actually combines three questions from quite distinct perspectives.  The consideration of these questions are the heart of the analysis. First, the essay considers the nature and scope of the changes to Cuba's legal, political and economic system required for such integration.  This constitutes the aspirational goals of many outside of Cuba. Second, it examines the extent to which Cuba would consider these changes in light of its own political principles. Such changes would require Cuba to substantially abandon the core principles of its political and economic organization. This is the issue of plausibility from the inside. Third, it considers the extent to which emerging Cuban-EU bilateral relations offers a middle way. This, then, constitutes the issue of plausibility from the outside. 

The draft of the essay may be accessed HERE; comments welcome.  The abstract and introduction follow below.  

Shan Gao Two Essays: (1) "Comments on Human Rights and Artificial Intelligence: An Urgently Needed Agenda" and (2) "Business AND Human Rights: will it be a lasting happy marriage?"

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2018)

This post highlights two short essays produced by Shan Gao, a valued member of the research team at the Coalition for Peace and Ethics.  The first essay, Business AND Human Rights: will it be a lasting happy marriage?, looks generally at the context of human rights discourse. The second essay, "Comments on Human Rights and Artificial Intelligence: An Urgently Needed Agenda," considers some of the implications of Mathias Risse’s short essay on Human Rights and Artificial Intelligence: An Urgently Needed Agenda (HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series; May 2018 RWP18-015) .

Just Published:"OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: A Glass Half Full (Liber Amicorum for Dr. Roel Nieuwenkamp, Chair of the OECD Working Party on Responsible Business Conduct 2013-2018)

It gives me great pleasure to announce the publication of Just Published: OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: A Glass Half Full (Liber Amicorum for Dr. Roel Nieuwenkamp, Chair of the OECD Working Party on Responsible Business Conduct 2013-2018) (Paris: OECD, 2018).  

This book is a gift to Roel Nieuwenkamp to pay tribute to his work on the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. He has spent many years promoting responsible business conduct with governments, companies, non-governmental organisations and trade unions. Initially in his capacity as Director of Trade Policies at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the Netherlands and, since 2013, as the Chair of the OECD Working Party on Responsible Business Conduct. Five years later, as he steps down from his role as Chair, this Liber Amicorum compiles testimonies from academics close to him engaged in efforts to promote responsible business conduct.

Submissions from contributing authors address a number of themes: progressive expansion of the scope and increasing scale of norms and practices of responsible business conduct (John Ruggie), focus on stakeholder-based governance (Mervyn King), strengthening NCP roles and functional equivalence (Christine Kaufmann, Michael Addo, Larry Catá Backer, Maartje van Putten, Martijn Scheltema/Constance Kwant, Sander van ‘t Foort/Tineke Lambooy), stakeholder involvement (Ola Mestad), strengthening Pillar 3: ‘Access to Remedy’ (Joseph Wilde-Ramsing). Further perspectives offered are country- specific views on the United States (Lance Compa), China (Liang Xiaohui), India (Bimal Arora), the desired linkage with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Teresa Fogelberg/Tim Mohin, Karin Buhmann, Rob van Tulder) and the academic grounding through the OECD Academic Network on Responsible Business Conduct (Raymond Saner).

Many thanks to Herman Mulder and Martijn Scheltema for their excellent Synthesis of the many contributions and to Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD, and Marten van den Berg, Dutch Director-General Foreign Economic Relations and Minister of Foreign Affairs for excellent prefaces.
This Liber Amicorum has been coordinated by Herman Mulder, Martijn Scheltema, Sander van ‘t Foort and Constance Kwant, who also undertook the final editing, and who did a marvelous job putting this book together.

Some of the Front Matter follows (including Table of Contents) follows. The publication can be accessed (free of charge) HERE. 

Upcoming ASCE Webinair June 20, 2018 NOON (East Coast Time): "Foreign Investment in Cuba: Law. Policy and Practicalities"

The Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy (ASCE) has been sponsoring its Webinar Series for 2018, considering different aspect of Cuban law and policy. I am happy to pass along information about an upcoming Webinair that I will be offering--"Foreign Investment in Cuba: Law. Policy and Practicalities." The hour long Webinair is scheduled for June 20, 2018 and will start at Noon East Coast time. More about the Webinair, including dial in information and access to the PowerPoints follows.

The Webinar is part of the Coalition for Peace & Ethics Projects on Cuba. 

Just Published: "Chinese Constitutionalism in the 'New Era': The Constitution in Emerging Idea and Practice," 33(2) Connecticut Journal of International Law 163-213 (2018)

I am happy to announce the publication of "Chinese Constitutionalism in the 'New Era': The Constitution in Emerging Idea and Practice," which appears in the latest issue of the Connecticut Journal of International Law 33(2):163-213 (2018).  My thanks to the Journal and its excellent staff and a special shout out to Ryan Hoyler, its Lead Articles Editor. They were all a delight to work with.  I also thank the Coalition for Peace & Ethics, the Foundation for Law and International Affairs and the  Research Career Development Network of Law and International Affairs for their crucial support for the Round Table: The Implications of the 19th Chinese Communist Party Congress at which these ideas were first presented and discussed.

The article considers the extent extent and character of the evolution of CPC thinking, and the CPC Basic Line, with respect to Socialist Rule of Law and Socialist Constitutionalism now bound up in the adoption of “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”  A key element of that question involves constitutional trajectory: to what extent did this report reflect an official downshifting of the importance of the state constitution and constitutionalism within the construction of Chinese notions of Constitutionalism, and if so, what variation on constitutionalism is likely to emerge? If so, what are the effects of any such downshift on the relation between the state and the political constitutions of China. To that end, it is worth considering whether principles of constitutionalism for the “New Era” may be extracted from Xi Jinping’s Report to the 19th Congress. And if they can, to try to extract a sense of the likely characteristics of emerging structures of Chinese constitutionalism. What follows, then is a preliminary report and assessment of Constitutionalism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era from Out of the 19th CPC Report.

The Abstract and Introduction follow. The article may be downloaded here.

Human Rights Driven Economic Regulation Through Supply Chains--Thoughts on the Civil Society Letter to the G20 Employment Working Group

OECD Watch has circulated this Press Release:

Civil society organizations call on G20 to protect human rights in global supply chains Jun 13, 2018

As G20 employment and education ministers meet today in Geneva, OECD Watch and civil society organizations around the globe are calling on the G20 to implement key policy recommendations in relation to responsible business conduct in global supply chains.

In a letter to the G20 Employment Working Group, OECD Watch and allies lay out concrete policy recommendations for promoting and protecting human rights in global supply chains. The recommendations include actively promoting the OECD Guidelines and OECD due diligence guidance, strengthening and reforming the NCP system, and making human rights due diligence and supply chain disclosure mandatory.

 The Letter and my brief comments follow: