The Norway Pension Fund Global and Migrant Workers: Council on Ethics Recommends Exclusion of G4S PLC (UK)

(Pix credit: Kerala to provide Gulf-like labour camps for migrant workers)

The Pension Fund Global has recently distributed notice of the Recommendation, made substantially earlier, by the Council on Ethics that G4S PLC (G4S) be excluded from investment by the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) due to an unacceptable risk that the company is contributing to systematic human rights violations. The recommendation is based largely on an assessment of G4S's treatment of migrant workers in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (the Emirates), who are in large measure migrant workers from India, Pakistan and Nepal, among others.

The recommendation, of course, is not unexpected.  And it continues a trend in Western Europe to put pressure on Gulf States with respect to their treatment of migrant and guest workers.  The decision comes on the heals of years of scandals relating to this issue that has caught a number of enterprises, most famously FIFA, in its net.  It represents a calculated but not imprudent strategy of threatening misbehaving states indirectly by going after the key business partners that are important to those states. That importance can be a function of prestige (FIFA) of of the management and maintenance of order among a large foreign population with respect to whom the rights of citizens are not to be accorded.

At a fundamental  level, of course, is the issue is one of disciplining states on the periphery of Europe with respect to migration in ways that might align these non-Western states with Western sensibilities, cautions, and approaches--all offered as global consensus positions. More fundamentally still, one can only wonder the extent to which the European crisis of migration--and especially its threat to what had once been a cosy set of European values, made more cozy still by the remoteness of migration of the sort encountered now--plays a role in both the policy drift of the Pension Fund Global and its instrumental use by Norway. Of course, that policy might also be assumed to have paid dividends as a means of expiating Europe's sins against Jews and Roma but on the bodies of people's other than Jews or Roma, and still comfortably removed from the European heartland.  That is not to say that the issues are neither profound nor the suffering of the migrant and other workers not profoundly distressing.  Indeed, it is altogether too easy to have a look and conclude that such conditions are intolerable.  And yet law, and the normative systems on which it relies for its legitimacy are not solely directed by a sense of personal outrage, nor by the stratagems of politics. And most fundamentally, the issues touched on touch on the nature of labor and line drawing on an essentially exploitative relationship--when does the demand of a labor "boss" to an "employee" become the command of "masters" to their "slaves." Those issues are only lightly touched on here and only at their extreme.  And yet they alsop merit much greater consideration.

For all that the Recommendation is at its most useful precisely for pointing out the global conditions that make it so easy for the situation condemned in the Gulf to arise virtually anywhere. It might have been more useful had it confronted the fundamental issue of labor-slavery in a more straightforward way.  There is an issue with respect to which enterprises are  in  a strong position to intervene and to change culture through their own behavior. Yet it is with respect to the issue of migration--and to its global resolution--that the attention of states (particularly) and enterprises (as complementary regulatory sources) ought to be moving to solve.  That resolution is not bound up in the piety of speeches or in the declaration of public bodies well insulated from close contact with the awful realities of these lives.  Moreover, as much as the power of markets and the societal field has grown, and as much as the largest corporate multinational production spaces may have regulatory authority within its sphere of activity, migration requires more than market power and regulatory authority over production chains. Here (at last) one comes face to face with one of the clearest residual duties of the state--the protection of its demos and its territorial space in a way compatible with internal constitutional principles and external principles of international law and norms.  To those ends, resolute action is required--in law and enforcement, public, domestic and international--from sources other than the Pension Fund Global, and through other than global business.

The Recommendation follows below and may be accessed here.

The American Pivot Toward Latin America--A Regional Approach to Cutting Cuba Off From its Most Dependable Sources of Hard Currency

(Pix Credit: Cuba’s greatest export? Medical diplomacy)

I have been noting the emergence of Cuban strategies for re-integrating themselves into global financial markets on their own terms (e.g., Essay Posted: The External Capitalist and Internal Marxist). I also have been writing about the effects of the American pivot toward the Caribbean and the way it has been changing American strategies toward its rivals and enemies in the region--principal among them the states at the core of the Socialist Regional Trade Group ALBA (On the Front Lines of the U.S. Pivot Toward the Caribbean: The U.S. Announces Further Restrictions on Travel to Cuba as Part of its Comprehensive Caribbean Strategy; The Pivot Toward the Caribbean; Announcement of Changes in US Policy Toward Cuba and the Caribbean Region;  and "Remittances to Cuba Revisited: Impact of New Measures"). That has produced sanctions against Nicaragua and Venzuela. It now is likely to see a victory in the change of administration in Bolivia (for a critical discussion of the later, see Arturo López Levy)).

“These events send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua that democracy and the will of the people will always prevail,” Trump said, referring to two other leftist Latin American nations targeted by his administration. Trump said that the resignation of Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous leader who was seeking a fourth term despite a constitutional prohibition, was a “significant moment for democracy in the Western Hemisphere.” (Trump: Bolivia leader’s resignation sign to ‘illegitimate regimes’).

Those effects and the pivot, however, have not been limited to the blocking of Cuba's access to hard currency via remittances, and petroleum via sanctions on Venezuela, or even the substantial increase in Cuba's cost of international capital through the lifting of prohibitions against Helms-Burton suits for recovery of damages related to listed confiscated property from the early 1960s.  The United States has also been moving against that other substantial source of hard currency--that acquired by the provision of Cuban doctors abroad.  The program had been relatively lucrative for Cuba, though it remains controversial in the West (The hidden world of the doctors Cuba sends overseas; Cuba’s greatest export? Medical diplomacy; How Doctors Became Cuba's Biggest Export).  But it has been shrinking--especially, for example after the last presidential election in Brazil (Thousands of Cuban doctors leave Brazil after Bolsonaro's win). 

Now American policy in Latin America has again proven useful in further shrinking Cuba's hard currency sourcing through its medical programs abroad.  The collapse of the Evo Morales government in Bolivia has now appeared to have cost Cuba its doctors program there (Cuba cries foul as doctors head home from Bolivia). The political and economic ramifications are hard to avoid.  Reporting on the issue by Marc Frank follows below.  

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]

There has been much coverage of the latest round of activity by students and government responses around the current situation in Hong Kong. While many governments, including that of the United States, will likely react in their own ways to the final resolution of the Hong Kong situation (e.g., U.S.--"What the US Is and Isn't Doing About Hong Kong"; H.R.3289 - Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019), it might be useful at this point to read carefully the statements of the core of the current Chinese leadership collective.

To that end I have provided below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] made available by Chinese state media organs on 14 November 2019. It is worth a careful read. Provided below is the official English and Chinese versions, along with a slightly different English translation of the original. Note as well the Chinese two thrust narrative strategy--first in controlling the interpretation and implications of action in Hong Kong, and second developing further the foreigner intervention rhetoric that has been evolving since June 2019. None of this is new but might be usefully read in light of changing conditions on the ground.

(Pix: Hong Kong Polytechnic University: Protesters arrested as they run from campus)

Birgit Spiesshofer: "What is "sustainable"?" English Translation of Article published first (in German) in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazine Einspruch! (online) July 24, 2019

(Birgit Spiesshofer)

Dr. Birgit Spiesshofer has been undertaking truly important and path-breaking work in the area of the responsibility of business for harms that may be attached (that, of course, is the issue of the moment, that is the jurisprudence of "attachment") to the economic activities of enterprises and persons.  Her  monograph, Responsible Enterprise: The Emergence of a Global Economic Order (Munich: CH Beck, Oxford, Hart, 2018), is a remarkable analysis of the "state of the legal art"in this field and an excellent basis for thinking about the paths already being carved out for going forward (for my review of this work, see "The Enterprise of Responsibility:" Reviewing Birgit Spiesshofer, "Responsible Enterprise). 

Dr. Spiesshofer has recently written a short essay, What is Sustainable? The essay considers the hard, but rarely deeply engaged issue of manifesting sustainability as something other than what in the end invariably reduces itself to a set of usually incompatible "feel good" normative slogans that NGOs, the international community and business can embrace.  The focus in this case is on the work of the European Union (at least one governmental unit engaged in something ore than normative or narrative sloganeering) and its proposed sustainability taxonomy. It was originally published only in German, first published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazine Einspruch! (online) July 24, 2019. DFr. Spiesshofer has translated the essay into English and the Frankfurter Allgemeine has graciously agreed to its re-posting here.

The essay and Dr. Spiesshofer's brief bio follow. 

Lectures on Comparative Constitutionalism -- 比较立宪主义; East China University of Political Science and Law; Lectures, Resources and Materials

I am delighted to post more information on my Lectures on Comparative Constitutionalism -- 比较立宪主义. They may be accessed by scanning the QR Code above and by the link HERE.

The lectures are being delivered at East China University of Political Science and Law, Shanghai, China during the course of November and December 2019. The materials currently include PowerPoints, background information and resources. I will add the transcriptions of the Remarks for each lecture as they become available. The best part of the experience for me was the ability to be liberated from the constraints of seriously engaging with constitutional orders outside of the ideologies of the prior era and its assumptions of the existence of an ideal type of constitution.  More interesting still has been the ability to rethink constitutionalism in terms of data driven governance--that is, constitutionalism as a rating system (e.g., hidden ideology in the assumptions about data harvesting and analytics) with significant restrictions and privileges attached (via normative algorithm) depending on the place of the constitution within the rating spectrum.  Stay tuned!

At the 2019 UN Forum on Business and Human Rights: "Building sustainable infrastructure: Lessons from the Belt and Road Initiative and other similar multi-state initiatives

The UN Forum for Business and Human Rights will take place this year at the Palais de Justice in Geneva 25-27 November 2019. The theme this year is "Time to act: Governments as catalysts for business respect for human rights."  The Programme outline now available (tentative schedule only).  

The UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights has organized a session that may be of interest to some readers.  The Session, Building sustainable infrastructure: Lessons from the Belt and Road Initiative and other similar multi-state initiatives, will be chaired by Surya Deva, a Member, UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights.  Session participants include Mohamed Athman (Save Lamu); Larry Catá Backer (Penn State University); Flora Sapio (Università degli Studi di Napoli “L'Orientale”); and Wawa Wang (Sustainable Energy). The Session will take place Tuesday, November 26 • 16:40 - 18:00.  We hope to see many of you there. 

The Session Concept Note follows below and may be accessed HERE. More information about the 2019 theme and the Forum also follows below. 

Video of Remarks Just Posted: "The Lawyer is not an Algorithm": Remarks on the Ethical Responsibilities of Lawyers in Relation to Sustainability and Corruption

With great thanks to the amazing Sara Seck, I was delighted to have been given the opportunity think through these challenges as part of a marvelous panel organized for the Joint Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP Business Law Forum, and the Wickwire Legal Ethics Lecture, which for 2019 had as its theme “ The ethical and professional responsibilities of business lawyers: Business, Human Rights, and the Sustainable Development Goals.” The event took place at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia 26 September 2019. The PowerPoint of my remarks and a description of the event can be accessed here: The Lawyer is not an Algorithm": Remarks on the Ethical Responsibilities of Lawyers in Relation to Sustainability and Corruption. 

The video recording of the the remarks of this remarkable panel, including the brilliant interventions of John F. Sherman, III ( Shift); Penelope Simons (University of Ottawa); and Birgit Spiesshofer (University of Bremen and Dentons Europe LLPB) have just been posted.  For those interested, the video may be accessed here: watchwatch.

Luis Luis-- "Remittances to Cuba Revisited: Impact of New Measures"

(Pix Credit: Remittances in Cuba, What People Do with the Money, Havana Times (16 May 2019))

Our friends at the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy blog have just posted an excellent essay  written by one of its members, Louis Louis.  Luis R. Luis is an international economist long involved in international finance and investments as an officer of international organizations, commercial banks and investment management companies. He is a member of ASCE since its foundation and holds a PhD degree in economics from the University of Notre Dame. He has
 lectured at universities in the US, Europe and South America.

The essay, Remittances to Cuba Revisited: Impact of New Measures, suggests the emerging complexities of remittances as a measure of international relations.  It serves as a convergence point of economic leverage and underlines it importance not merely as an expression of humanitarian principles, but of transnational financial economics, and as a tool of international relations in this age of targeted sanctions.  

In this case, Cuba leverages its outbound migration by banking on  remittances as a source of hard currency otherwise may more difficult to obtain as the United States imposes targeted sanctions designed to keep Cuba from access to financial markets.  That produces an incentive to encourage outbound migration, and, at the same time, to use domestic recipients as the source from which it extracts hard currency through formal and informal taxation, and through the dollarization of portions of its economy. The United States, on the other hand, sees in both migration and remittances a mother tool for both economic leverage (through its ability to reduce the size or increase the cost) of remittances, and to use the migrant population for projecting the US narrative of Cuba within the US and toward the Island.  The potential and consequences are fascinating.

The essay follows below. That is followed by links to some studies of remittances to Cuba prepared by the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.'s School of International and Public Affairs.

Lectures on Comparative Constitutionalism -- 比较立宪主义

Will post the lecture notes and PowerPoints in later posts. The descriptions of the lectures follows below. My great thanks to Tong Zhiwei (童之伟) and Sun Ping for the invitation to deliver these thoughts.

The Affair of the Sonic Weapons Attack: The Mystery that is at its Most Useful When it Remains Unresolved

(Pix Credit: So What Is This Secretive Chinese Sonic Weapon Exactly?)

(Pix Credit HERE))

It has been some time since I posted an update on the Affair of the Sonic Weans Attack.  It was not that there was little activity--quite the reverse it seems.  The reason for the silence was that the tickle of thrust and counter thrust merely layered the positions already well established within a year of the start of the Sonic Weapons Attack Affair. (A shout out here to Jonathan Meyer, Vice Chair, Committee On Export Controls and Economic Sanctions for remaining on top of all developments). As a consequence, while the additional layers were interesting in and of themselves--they tended to be interesting in the way that close play is in a football match. I was more interested in the larger macro significance of aggregations of micro moves and what it suggested for the state of technology, the state of 5th general warfare, and the state of relations among competitors and adversaries in what has quickly become the borderlands of two distinct trade and operational theaters. 

(Pix Daily Mail))

A few days ago, the Guardian reported on its analysis of documents produced by UK diplomats in Cuba about the time of the start of the Sonic Weapons Attack Affair. The reporting by Ian Sample, the Guardian's science editor (UK diplomatic cables shed light on Cuba 'sonic attacks' scare: FoI release shows how embassy and FCO staff sought to make sense of mystery illnesses) follows.  

The discussion, brief as it is merits a read.  It suggests a mystery wrapped around what everyone is sniffing around--that the protagonists in this Affair appear to be beyond the reach, including the reach of the state security services--of key actors at the center of the action.  It is quite likely that the usual suspects are not worthy of much attention, and everyone else is beyond reach.  So one might be left with the contemplation of a black box, the contours of which can only be discerned by the effects it has when it projects activity outward. We are likely to see that in the future, but connecting the dots may be harder. This is not to pander to conspiracy theories, but rather to acknowledge that that institutionalization of power may not be as transparent or exercised from places that one might expect.

Yet what appears to be far more important is the way that the Affair of the Sonic Weapons Attack has served to test the ability of certain states to penetrate western mass mobilization sites (the press, social media, and the like) to project outward control of the narrative beyond their borders. The techniques and approaches to this sort of penetration will be as useful as any sonic weapon in the contests for control between states and the systems they seek to advance. Narrative control (not spin--but control of the way in which people approach meaning and interpretation of the words and symbols projects towards them), indeed, will likely be among the most potent weapons of the next several decades.  That is the real space for warfare in the 21st century within liberal democratic states.  While people pander to conspiracy theories about the interference with Western elections, the real action may be in the interference with national narratives that do not appear to be pointed in any direction, but which may change the way in which its recipients may be prepared to hear, and interpret narratives. UK diplomatic cables shed light on Cuba 'sonic attacks' scare: FoI release shows how embassy and FCO staff sought to make sense of mystery illnesses).  In the case of the Affair of the Sonic Weapons Affair, it has become clear that the Cubans, rather than the Americans, are better at managing the narrative within which American political discourse is operationalized and structured. 

"The update, copied to Anthony Stokes, the British ambassador to Cuba, noted that the press “broadly buy the veracity” of a Cuban statement that declared it had no involvement in the affair, and were now asking: “If it wasn’t the Cubans who did it, who did?”" (Ian Sample, UK diplomatic cables shed light on Cuba 'sonic attacks' scare).

(Pix Credit HERE)