Interview: Yuri Gonzalez Hernandez on COVID-19 and the Situation in Cuba for Upcoming Webinar "COVID-19 and International Affairs" (17 April 2020)

In the run up to the Webinar Conference Roundtable, Coronavirus and International Relations, a number of participants and contributors agreed to give short interviews around the conference themes and their own interventions. All Zoom interviews will be posted to the Coalition for Peace and Ethics You Tube Channel COVID-19 Conference Playlist. For our first interview, Flora Sapio spoke to the issues of COVID-19 in Italy and its wider implication. For our second interview, Larry Catá Backer spoke of COVID-19 and meaning making.

For our next interview Yuri Gonzalez Hernandez speaks about COVID-19 and its effects in Cuba and the Caribbean. He has been reporting on the changing situation there over the last several weeks, and now takes the opportunity to provide a brief summary of the course of events. The area is rich for exposing the way that the pandemic has affected developing states. Cuba, of course, is unique in that respect. It manifests many of the characteristics of a developing states, and yet in some important respects it punches well above its weight. That is manifested both in the way in which Cuba has--to an extent that may be far greater than that of the largest and richest states in Europe, Asia and North America, been able to provide doctors to other states to aid in confronting the pandemic in places where medical infrastructure has been overwhelmed. At the same time Cuba's long efforts in the development of medicine now appears to have had a significant positive effect in meeting the challenge of the pandemic. On the other hand, water scarcity and lack of foreign exchange has made the lives of Cubans more difficult and potentially exposed them to a greater risk.


Mr. Gonzalez Hernandez is a Cuban Lawyer (University of Havana 2009) who is currently in residence at Penn State where he is working on his LLM degree. Before his arrival at Penn State, Mr. Gonzalez Hernandez worked as legal advisor for different Cubans companies, and the tax office of the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana. Since 2016 he has provided legal advice to self-employed workers, and also has participated in non-profit entrepreneur projects, aimed at the development of some communities of the City of Havana. He may be contacted at glezyuri15[AT]gmail.com 

 

 

The interview may be accessed HERE:   Yuri Gonzalez Interview

Conference Concept Note HERE

Registration (Free) HERE

Conference Website HERE.

Interview: Larry Catá Backer on Meaning Making and COVID-19 for Upcoming Webinar "COVID-19 and International Affairs" (17 April 2020)

In the run up to the Webinar Conference Roundtable, Coronavirus and International Relations, a number of participants and contributors agreed to give short interviews around the conference themes and their own interventions. All Zoom interviews will be posted to the Coalition for Peace and Ethics You Tube Channel COVID-19 Conference Playlist.  For our first interview, Flora Sapio spoke to the issues of COVID-19 in Italy and its wider implication.

For our next interview Flora turns the tables and interviews Larry Catá Backer. Backer was asked to speak about the reasons for the focus on international affairs in the shadow o the pandemic when much attention has been on the rise of the state as the central element in pandemic countermeasures. Backer also spoke to the issues of the semiotics of CVID-19.  Those semiotics have sought to shape the reality within which the virus (and its effects) has been understood and responses rationally framed. In effect, the semiotics of COVID-19 suggests the way in which human communities have sought to make meaning from the virus, and having made a meaning universe to then apply it to the way in which they understand and respond to the pandemic.  Backer suggested three semiotics reality structures that have already emerged.  The first is grounded on nationality; here the meaning of the virus and the way one understands and responds is built on knowledge of its "Chinese" or "American" character, for example.  The second focused on the virus as a morality. Here meaning making constructs the virus as a moral agent, one that either represents a judgment or serves a s a portal for the projection of moral agendas. The third understands the virus as an incarnation of  responsibility. The virus here provides a means of understanding (and of sorting) the responsibility of institutions--public and private) for the damage it leaves in its wake. Information about Backer may be accessed HERE.

 

The interview may be accessed HERE:   Flora Sapio Interviews Larry Catá Backer

Conference Concept Note HERE

Registration (Free) HERE

Conference Website HERE.

Interview: Flora Sapio on COVID-19 and the Italian Context for Upcoming Webinar "COVID-19 and International Affairs" (17 April 2020)

In the run up to the Webinar Conference Roundtable, Coronavirus and International Relations, a number of participants and contributors agreed to give short interviews around the conference themes and their own interventions. All Zoom interviews will be posted to the Coalition for Peace and Ethics You Tube Channel COVID-19 Conference Playlist.

For our first interview, Flora Sapio speaks to issues of COVID-19 in Italy and its wider implications. Here one encounters the shaping of the European confrontation with the challenges of pandemic and its collateral effects not only on economics and social cohesion, but on the social and economic effects of migration.

Dr. Sapio is a political scientist and a China scholar, who has taught and/or lectured about themes related to the law and politics of China in China, the Hong Kong SAR, the United States, Australia, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Sweden. She is the author or editor of five books and more than 40 research articles in English and Chinese, commentaries on contemporary issues, and a founding member of the European China Law Studies Association. She currently works at her Alma Mater, the Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale” (Italy).

 

The interview may be accessed HERE:  Dr. Flora Sapio, Interview for Conference, COVID-19 and International Affairs (11 April 2020)

Coalition for Peace & Ethics

Conference Concept Note HERE

Registration (Free) HERE

Conference Website HERE.

"Evolutions Converging?: Human Rights Internationalism and the Chinese Political-Economic Model from Reform and Opening Up to New Era Thought"-- Announcing Publication of Volume 15 No. 1 Emancipating the Mind: Bulletin of the Coalition for Peace and Ethics

I am delighted to announce the publication of Volume 15 Issue 1 of Emancipating the Mind: Bulletin of the Coalition for Peace & Ethics (2689-0283 (Print); 2689-0291 (Online); ISBN: 978-949943-02-3).  The theme of this issue is "Evolutions Converging?: Human Rights Internationalism and the Chinese Political-Economic Model from Reform and Opening Up to New Era Thought."

This issue includes a series of essays written by Flora Sapio and me examining the way in which human rights internationalism and the development of Chinese Marxist Leninist ideology may be converging as to form and emphasis. The first set of essays considers the evolution of human rights internationalism through the lens of the 8th U.N. Forum for Business and Human Rights (2019). The second set of essays examines the movement from the Reform and Opening Up Initiative to New Era Thought through the lens of speeches delivered in 1986 by Xi Zhongxun and then in 2018 by his son Xi Jinping.Both evidence the development of changing approaches to the organization and management of societal collectives which have been emerging at the margins of globalization.  Both have been moving closer to center stage, and each, in its own way, challenges core premises around which the post-1945 world order was conceived (and partially constructed).  

All of the essays are available free online.  They may be accessed at the web page for the Bulletin HERE. The Table of Contents (with links to individual essays) and the Introduction follow below.  The entire issue may be downloaded HERE.  Comments, reactions, engagements always welcome.

Special Rapporteur on the issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment--Call for Inputs: Healthy Ecosystems and Human Rights: Sustaining the Foundations of Life

David Boyd, the Special Rapporteur on the issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, has recently circulated a "Call for Inputs"--Healthy Ecosystems and Human Rights: Sustaining the Foundations of Life.  Inputs are due 31 May 2020.  The Call for Inputs follows below.

The Special Rapporteur seeks inputs in  a number of related areas: on the relationship between declining biodiversity and adverse impacts on human rights, and on the legalization of those relationships in ways that prevent, mitigate to remedy both the decline of biodiversity and adverse impacts on human rights.  More specific guidance is sought with respect to the particular burdens on vulnerable populations and human rights defenders. Those are indeed, important elements related to the legalization of standards relating to a "safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment."

For those interested, this exercise might provide an opportunity to align the Special Rapporteur's  project within the context of pandemic. Are pandemics an expression (or the way that one can measure the adverse effects of) declines in bio-diversity or the adverse impact on human rights to health?   Do states have an obligation to accurately and transparently monitor and report the incidence and character of disease? How does one make the connection between environment, societal conditions, and disease? To what extent ought this obligation to monitor and report give rise to a duty to obtain data even form the unwilling? Are the rights (of individuals) and the duties or responsibilities of institutions limited to the relationship between states and persons? What sort of legal-regulatory space ought there be for non-state organizations in the development, compliance with law, norms, or rules respecting sustainability, human rights, and disease? How is that to be reconciled with the principle of individual privacy and rights to informational autonomy? Do states have the obligation to mitigate degradation and decline of biodiversity that might contribute to the spread of disease? Do rights to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment have a constitutional dimension?   Even in the absence of answers, the questions reveal the way in which approaches to human rights and sustainability both require reframing (e.g., OECD Watch statement urging OECD action during COVID-19 crisis (9 April 2020; statement may be accessed here; Want to Stop the Next Pandemic? Start Protecting Wildlife Habitats).

Announcing Publication of "Research Handbook on Human Rights and Business" (Surya Deva and David Birchal, eds., Edward Elgar, 2020))

I take a moment from our focus on the COVID-19 pandemic to announce the publication of Research Handbook on Human Rights and Business (Surya Deva and David Birchal, eds., Edward Elgar, 2020)) (ISBN: 978 1 78643 639 9) (eISBN: 978 1 78643 640 5). Surya and David have done a exemplary job of putting together a marvelous group of essays and deep engagements. I can say it no better than Olivier de Schutter (University of Louvain, Belgium and Member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights): "‘The debate on business and human rights has often been drowned in conceptual waters – duties vs. responsibilities, due diligence vs. sphere of influence, and so forth. This ambitious volume does not avoid these issues, but it goes much further: it captures the emerging practices and dilemmas facing business and governments. It is an indispensable tool to both researchers and activists.’" The book may be ordered here (book available July 2020)

Contributors include: D.D. Bradlow, H. Cantú Rivera, D. Cassel, L. Catá Backer, D. Chimisso dos Santos, J. Coleman, K.Y. Cordes, S. Deva, N. Jägers, L. Johnson, J. Kolieb, M. Krajewski, J. Kyriakakis, J. Letnar Černič, R. Mares, J. Martin, O. Martin-Ortega, C. Methven O’Brien, A. Naudé Fourie, J. Nolan, M.M. Rahim, J.G. Ruggie, S.L. Seck, B. Stephens, M.B. Taylor, T. Van Ho, M. van Huijstee, F. Wettstein, J. Wilde-Ramsing. 

The publisher's description provides a nice summary:

This authoritative Research Handbook brings together leading international scholars and practitioners to provide in-depth analysis of some of the most hotly debated topics and issues concerning the interface of human rights and business.  In addition to offering critical insights on the historical evolution of the business and human rights field and its relationship with the domain of corporate social responsibility, contributions to this comprehensive Research Handbook are split into several thematic parts to facilitate cohesive analysis. Chapters explore the themes of corporate human rights due diligence, regulatory role of states, human rights’ intersection with trade, investment and finance, heightened risks for certain groups and contexts, and corporate accountability. Containing a detailed examination of the challenges and the potential solutions in the field, the Research Handbook on Human Rights and Business will be an indispensable resource for scholars, researchers, policy makers and practitioners working at the intersection of business and human rights.

Information about the book follows below.

My own contribution (pre-publication), "Human Rights Responsibilities of State Owned Enterprises," may be accessed here. 

UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Statement on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and economic, social and cultural rights

(Pix credit: Covid-19 is disproportionately taking black lives)

One of the more interesting aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic is the way that it clarifies the way that political, social, cultural, and religious actors tend to understand the world through the lens of their own ordering premises. It also has clarified how those ordering premises substantially shape not just the understanding of the world around one, but also the way in which that world ought to be valued, and the way that actors ought to respond, especially to crisis.

The great organizations of the United Nations, established in the wake of the 1970s fracture of the once unified vision of emerging human rights, which were contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), provide a window on this perspectives based view of the pandemic.But the fracture reflected in the distinct normative turf of economic, social, and cultural rights (on the one hand) and civil and political rights (on the other) also color the way these organizations approach an understanding of the context in which pandemic ought to be framed and the way in which states responses are measured.

On 6 April 2020, the UN's Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights issued a Statement on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and economic, social and cultural rights (E/c.12/2020/1 (6 April 2020).   The Statement along with brief reflections follow.

 

Yuri Gonzalez-Hernandez Reports on Cuba, Panama, and Peru on the Front Lines of COVID-19 in Latin America

In anticipation of the Webinar Conference/Roundtable, Coronavirus and International Affairs, scheduled for 17 April 2020 from 9.30 am to 12.30 PM US East Coast Time, we have been looking at the way that states in different regions have responded to the challenge of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Register online (free) HERE.

Yuri Gonzalez-Hernandez,  has been kind enough to report on the situation in Cuba as the pandemic began to run its course through that nation (see, here, and here; see also here). Mr. Gonzalez Hernandez will continue to report on the evolving situation in Cuba, looking next to the ways in which Cuban civil society has responded to the crisis. 

Mr. Gonzalez Hernandez is also looking to the way that other Latin American States have sought to respond to the pandemic, both as studies in their own right and to provide a point of comparison within the Latin American region.  As a first step, Mr. Gonzalez considered the response of Peru and Panama. This is undertaken with an eye to responses in neighboring states in the region.

Mr. Gonzalez Hernandez is a Cuban Lawyer (University of Havana 2009) who is currently in residence at Penn State where he is working on his LLM degree. Before his arrival at Penn State, Mr. Gonzalez Hernandez worked as legal advisor for different Cubans companies, and the tax office of the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana. Since 2016 he has provided legal advice to self-employed workers, and also has participated in non-profit entrepreneur projects, aimed at the development of some communities of the City of Havana. He may be contacted at glezyuri15[AT]gmail.com 


The Initial Report focusing on Cuba-Panama-Peru, Three countries, one feeling and the COVID-2019 Crisis, follows. It may also be found at the "Inputs" Section of the COVID-19 and International Affairs Roundtable Website (click here).

Registration Now Open (Free) Coronavirus and International Affairs 17 April 2020

Registration is now open for the Webinar Conference, Coronavirus and International Affairs.  Registration is free but virtual spaces are limited.

Please access registration (which is quick and easy) HERE: or copy the following link
https://psu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_48S_fycUSbOY79jdir-opQ

Explore the Conference Website. Pose Questions. Submit Inputs.  Get involved! 

Dra. Valeska V. Geldres Weiss: COVID-19 Reflections; "A Time for us to reflect and prepare" [Reflecciones; Tiempo para prepararnos]

(Henri Rousseau, La Guerre dit aussi La Chavauchée de la Discorde (vers 1894; Musée D'Orsey, Paris))

Some people have begun to speak of this time as a portal.  "Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it." (Arundhati Roy, "The Pandemic is a Portal," Financial Times (3 April 2020))

What the Chinese Communist Party understood as a "New Era" whose national contours emerged after 2012 and the start of the leadership of Xi Jinping; what the Americans experienced as a "new era" the expression of which exploded around a complacent ruling group in 2016 with the election of Donald Trump to the US Presidency; What emerged around the same time in India, Turkey, Israel, Hungary, Poland, Russia and other places; what the sum of these political portals served as harbinger, the COVID-19 pandemic has now appeared to make unavoidably manifest.  

COVID-19 is no longer merely a disastrous epidemic causing death and suffering in virtually every corner of the world as a sickness.  COVID-19 has become a permission, a a signal, and perhaps an incarnation of Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration)--a reference to the famous tone poem of that name written in 1889by Richard Strauss. Its four parts suggests the tunnel that leads those who have been forced to enter the portal of pandemic from one ste of world orders to the next:

1. Largo (The sick man, near death)
2. Allegro molto agitato (The battle between life and death offers no respite to the man)
3. Meno mosso (The dying man's life passes before him)
4. Moderato (The sought-after transfiguration)

Many thoughtful people are now engage with this time of transformation.  While it is far too early to write its history, it is exactly the right to to contribute to its making. The framing of that history making is nicely understood within the structures of Tod und Verklärung. 

In that  context that Dra. Valeska V. Geldres Weiss, Decana Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Empresariales, Universidad de la Frontera Temuco, Araucanía (Chile) has offered us a thoughtful reflection on the times.  It follows below in English (as ) and en Castellano ("Tiempo para prepararnos").