Wednesday, March 27, 2024

A Luciferian Reflection on Fragility and the Collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore

 

Pix Credit here

 

It was with great sadness that one woke on 27 March 2024 to the news of the collapse of the  Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. Maryland. The collapse took the lives of at least six workers, and threatens the well being of thousands of workers and the economy of the region (here).  

The operators of the Dali cargo ship issued a mayday call that the vessel had lost power moments before the crash, but the ship still headed toward the span at “a very, very rapid speed,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said. The 985-foot-long (300-meter-long) vessel struck one of the 1.6-mile (2.6-kilometer) bridge’s supports, causing the span to break and fall into the water within seconds. Six construction workers who were filling potholes on the bridge are presumed dead. Jeffrey Pritzker, executive vice president of Brawner Builders, said they were working in the middle of the span when it came apart. * * * The ship is owned by Singapore-based Grace Ocean Private Ltd., which said all crew members, including the two pilots, were accounted for and there were no reports of injuries. The ship’s warning enabled authorities to limit vehicle traffic on the span. Plus, the accident occurred at 1:30 a.m., long before the busy morning rush. The bridge carried an estimated 30,800 vehicles a day on average in 2019. . . The collapse will almost surely create a logistical nightmare for months, if not years, in the region, shutting down ship traffic at the Port of Baltimore, a major shipping hub. The accident will also snarl cargo and commuter traffic. The port is a major East Coast hub for shipping. The bridge spans the Patapsco River, which massive cargo ships use to reach the Chesapeake Bay and then the Atlantic Ocean.  The Dali was headed from Baltimore to Colombo, Sri Lanka, and flying under a Singapore flag, according to data from Marine Traffic. (What we know about the Baltimore bridge collapse)

Newsweek reported that the 

The Dali "lost propulsion" as it was leaving port and had warned Maryland officials of a possible collision, according to an unclassified report by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) cited by ABC News. Video footage shared online captured the bridge collapse, with the steel structure falling onto the ship below and flinging cars into the frigid waters, sparking a huge rescue operation. "The vessel notified MD Department of Transportation (MDOT) that they had lost control of the vessel and an allision  [a collision] with the bridge was possible," the CISA said. "The vessel struck the bridge causing a complete collapse." (Dali Container Ship 'Lost Control' Before Baltimore Bridge Collapse)

 

 

My purpose here is offer a very preliminary macro-level consideration of things that may be worth thinking about now.

1. Very strong things (bridges, in this case) appear to be quite fragile when stressed in just the right way. And such stress events do not appear to be particularly difficult to activate (at least in this case). Butu just about anything has a critical stress point.

2. Pathways that appear to be robust are also fragile to the extent that they are an aggregation of choke points.  The Key bridge, for example, serves as a simple single structure the collapse of which can close off a port. But that applies to highways (the US interstate highway system is a series a choke points; but so is the electrical grid, train systems, etc.). 

3. The concept of "losing control" has acquired a broader meaning. One can lose control because mechanical systems fail; but one can lose control when computer assisted and programmed control structures fail. . . . or are hijacked. If that is the case, then any object on a pathway (water, highway, air, space, etc.) can become a weapon. Cars, for example, especially those that are capable of ceding control to others, may provide an easy way to clog an arterial pathway at a critical point in space, time, and place.

4. Pathway failure remind one that the premise of reliability, especially in times of stress, may be worth rethinking.  The operating premise might require shifting, from a  premise or goal of (thoughtless) reliability to one risk; that is that risk contingency may require the cultivation of alternatives as a core part of planning.

5. Related to the shift from a premise of reliability to one of risk, is the shift from fixity to nimbleness in responding to changing circumstance. For many, the ability to shift quickly in the face of blockages  may be difficult.  And that difficulty may produce disaster if it is multiplied in key sector or among key elements of a population. Just as it is important to undertake risk analysis so might it be necessary to map out a spectrum of alternatives.

6. One of the most interesting parts of World War Z was the use of the notion that even the most impervious threat can be undermined by understanding that its greatest strengths may also provide a glimpse at its greatest weakness (Nature "loves disguising her weaknesses as strengths." HERE). It may be time to undertake a strength is weakness analysis to better and more dispassionately understand the critical chinks in the national armor. In this case openness has been a great strength (in technology, migration, pathways, etc., but they also appear to be the means through which negative effects may be projected or just happen, as no doubt in this case).

7. The prize of all of this is the cultivation of instability. A collective that has come to expect that things have and will operate without interruption; that pathways are open, and that blockages are either serendipitous or negligible in impact, is likely much less prepared  when these principles are threatened. A less prepared public may respond badly or may be less easy to manage appropriately in the face of disruptions that are either cumulative or painful. And disruption that blocks pathways may also block any effective ability to project or deliver order, respond, mitigation, comfort, or security.  

8. The Luciferian semiotics of the Key Bridge, then, become more easiy visible. Objects that appear strong become their opposite. An inversion of solidity affects the solidity of the premises on which social order and expectation is defined and meaning constructed. The most pernicious effect, though, on meaning, order, stability and the like, may be a function of losing control. It is to the loss of control and its consequences that one might need to develop appropriate countermeasures, including the management of the meaning of things, events, and the like. That sounds like a project for collectives; and indeed it is.  But it is also a project that may be as important to the autonomous individual. This is possible, but only if one recognizes, identifies, thinks and acts.

《李鹏文集》出版发行 Publication and Distribution of the "Collected Works of Li Peng" and Brief Reflections on the Dialectics of History for the New Era

 

Pix credit here: Caption: "From February 19 to 20, 1996, Comrade Li Peng returned to Yan'an after 50 years of absence, visited and expressed condolences to the cadres and masses in Yan'an area, and celebrated the New Year with the people in the old area. This is the first day of the Lunar New Year. Comrade Li Peng and the Zaoyuan Village Yangko Team performed the Northern Shaanxi Yangko Dance together. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Liu Jianguo

It may always be important to remember that both the stages of historical development of a nation and the people who are instrumental in the fulfillment of its promise--a least in accordance with the imperatives of a ruling ideology guided by the leading social forces of a nation organized in collective form--come and go.That is especially true of a Leninist collective true to the ultimate ideal of moving the nation forward toward the establishment of a communist society. Every generation of collective leadership rises--and dies. And with every generation and historical era, a particular approach to the general contradictions of historical development that marks the success or failure of Leninist collective leadership also rises, and ends. Yet every historical era leaves behind its record, and passes along its lessons--sometimes good and sometimes less so--its successes and failures--as both the nation and the collective learn from and move forward along whatever ideological road they have fashioned for themselves. In the case of Marxist-Leninist collectives, it is of course the socialist path; among liberal democratic leadership collectives it is the a path toward social perfection of a different sort.

Either way, the preservation of the past serves as both warning and instruction for those who come after--to build on the successes and learn from the errors of the great stages of historical development put of which the nation has emerged. That requires preservation of the memorialized thinking of the core of leadership of these collectives. Preservation is not enough; it is also necessary to make that thinking available to the masses (in Leninist collectives, to the masses and the cadres of collective organs) so that they might study the foundations of their current stage of historical development as a function of the stage of historical development just past--guided, of course, by the leadership core of the vanguard overseeing  collective efforts to meet the contemporary contradictions of the current era. 

In China, the contemporary New Era stage of historical development, which represents the current stage of Chinese historical development strictly on the socialist path, it is necessary to development both sources and guidance for the great and often remarkable thinking of the past Reform and Opening Up Era. Carefully guided by the current collective core of leadership it is understood that contemporary mass organs can serve as a platform through which individuals might learn much from the recent past to help guide them to better understand the current situation. This is a dialectical process which is a core principle of Leninism and bound up in the ethos of the mass line, democratic centralism, and more fundamentally within the principles of people's democratic dictatorship.

It is with this in mind that one can better situate and evaluate the importance of the publication and distribution of the Collected Works of Li Peng [《李鹏文集》]. "The editing and publication of "Li Peng's Collected Works" will enable the broad masses of cadres and the masses to systematically study the history of the party's leadership in reform and opening up and socialist modernization in the new era, and further use Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to arm the whole party, educate the people, guide practice, and promote work , is of great significance." [《李鹏文集》的编辑出版,对于广大干部群众系统学习党领导改革开放和社会主义现代化建设新时期的历史,进一步用习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想武装全党、教育人民、指导实践、推动工作,具有重要意义。]. (HERE).

 The choice of publishing  the collected works of 李鹏 (Li Peng), rather than others is as instructive. It is especially instructive as a point of emphasis. This publication signals importance, in the sense that the works are worth reading--guided by the current vanguard. As is well known. Li Peng was both a child of the revolutionary era (closely connected to Zhou Enlai and his wife after the murder of his father, studying in Yan'an and then Moscow from the 19040s through the mid-1950s), and then, during much of the post-revolutionary period through the end of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, working in the power sector.  From the beginning of the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, Li Peng moved up in leadership circles becoming Premier in 1988. He is perhaps best known for two things that have substantial resonance in the New Era.  The first was his skepticism of markets and markets driven governance, preferring tighter controls over market mechanisms in a Leninist state (in the language of the official summary bios see eg here).  The second was his political position with respect to the protests of 1989, in which he played a significant and influential role in decision making and in the development of the theoretical position of the vanguard.  

Pix credit here: Caption--"On November 14, 2012, before the closing of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Comrade Xi Jinping and Comrade Li Peng were together. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Lan Hongguang
 

In a sense, then, Li Peng, represents a Leninist position in which the state drives markets, or that markets, at best, are instruments of state policy and useful for attaining public policy goals (a position that liberal democratic techno-bureaucracies are increasingly converging around, eg here). He also represents a relatively pure expression of classical Leninist vanguard supremacy and its expression in both the ideals of people's democratic dictatorship and democratic centralism. More importantly, he served as a vocal advocate of the more pure expression of the notion that in a Leninist enterprise, political authority must be exercised by the leading social forces organized as a Communist Party (because they are best suited to guide the nation toward the establishment of a communist society), and that anti-Leninist forces and collectives must be understood as unpatriotic and at the extreme, beyond  the dialectics of the mass line. 

1989年春夏之交的政治风波中,在以邓小平同志为代表的老一辈无产阶级革命家坚决支持下,李鹏同志旗帜鲜明,和中央政治局大多数同志一道,采取果断措施制止动乱,平息反革命暴乱,稳定了国内局势,在这场关系党和国家前途命运的重大斗争中发挥了重要作用。[During the political turmoil at the turn of the spring and summer of 1989, with the firm support of the older generation of proletarian revolutionaries represented by Comrade Deng Xiaoping, Comrade Li Peng took a clear stand and, together with most comrades of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, took decisive measures to stop the unrest and quell the counterrevolutionary riots, stabilized the domestic situation and played an important role in this major struggle related to the future and destiny of the party and the country.] (HERE)
It is around these two core approaches to the Leninist enterprise in China that Li Peng 's voice might find its greatest utility in the New Era. The historical line of development, then, might be understood as unbroken, even as it is dynamic and contextually sensitive in its forward motion along the socialist path.

 The announcement of publication: 新华社北京3月26日电 由中共中央文献编辑委员会编辑的《李鹏文集》已由人民出版社出版,即日起在全国发行。 [Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, March 26th: The "Collected Works of Li Peng" edited by the Document Editing Committee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has been published by the People's Publishing House and will be distributed nationwide from now on] with substantial historical-biographical background and points of emphasis appears below in the original Chinese and in a crude English translation.

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

March 2024 Academe Newsletter: Reconsidering the AAUP's History Through a Race Lens (with links to articles)

 

Pix credit here

 

 Happy to pass this along:

The March Academe newsletter includes four early-release articles from our forthcoming spring issue, which will reconsider the AAUP’s history through a racial-equity lens. This spring issue preview also includes new book reviews, a profile of the University of Pennsylvania AAUP chapter, a selection of recent posts from the Academe Blog, and congressional testimony by a former AAUP president that was originally published in the AAUP Bulletin in 1962. The full issue will be published in May.


FEATURES

Toward the Cooperative University: W. E. B. Du Bois’s Membership in the AAUP
Reflections on a radical vision for higher education.
By Andrew J. Douglas

Membership of Black Professors and the Annual Meeting
The AAUP during segregation.
By Hans-Joerg Tiede

The AAUP and the Black Freedom Struggle, 1955–1965
Academic freedom investigations in the South.
By Joy Ann Williamson-Lott

The AAUP and Academic Freedom at Grambling
Looking back at the AAUP’s work at one historically Black institution.
By Brian M. McGowan and Edward L. Holt

FROM THE ARCHIVES

The Association and the Desegregation Controversy
The 1962 congressional testimony of AAUP president Ralph F. Fuchs.

 

Sunday, March 24, 2024

David Boyd on La Oroya v. Perú (Inter-American Court of Human Rights) and the Human Right to a Clean and Healthy Environment

 


  David Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment has recently summarized and reflected on th quite interesting case recently decided by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Habitantes de La Oroya Vs. Perú, Excepciones Preliminares, Fondo, Reparaciones y Costas. Sentencia de 27 de noviembre de 2023.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights handed down a landmark decision on Friday, March 22, in a case involving allegations that more than a century of catastrophic industrial pollution from La Oroya Metallurgical Complex in Peru violated the right to a healthy environment.

Generations of people in the community were poisoned by lead, arsenic and other toxic substances, resulting in a devastating array of physical and mental illnesses and in some cases, death. The Court concluded there were extensive human rights violations and ordered the State to provide specialized medical assistance to the victims, pay compensation for both material losses and pain and suffering, and publicly acknowledge its wrongdoing.

Each identified victim will receive between US$30,000 and US$65,000, with larger sums going to children, women and older persons due to their particular vulnerabilities. This includes compensation for health costs and lost earnings as well as compensation for pain and suffering. While no amount of money can fully compensate a person for damage to their health or their developmental potential, these damage awards should improve the victims’ quality of life.

More broadly, Peru was ordered to strengthen and strictly enforce environmental standards, rehabilitate damaged ecosystems, monitor air, water and soil quality, ensure that polluters pay for the environmental damage they cause. Finally, the State was ordered to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the extensive environmental damage, as well as those responsible for threats against environmental human rights defenders in La Oroya.

Facing for the first time a contentious case involving toxic pollution, the Inter-American Court built upon its widely cited Advisory Opinion on human rights and the environment from 2017. The Court clarified that the right to a healthy environment is comprised of a bundle of procedural and substantive elements (para. 118). (Landmark Court Decision on Right to a Healthy Environment: La Oroya v Peru)

The decision is a long one, and there is no doubt that its 392 Paragraphs and its conclusions will take soem time to parce.  It is also clear thatthere will be fighting overvirtually every aspect of the court's reasoning and determinaiton. More importantly, the case will be used to help build narratives of legitimacy among those who seek to assign a locus of responsibility for adverse human rights impacts resulting from environemntal degradation. The construction of a legal franework around a right to a healthy environment, and the role of the state as the responsible party, will continue to evolve.Most interesting, at least preliminarily, is the development of standards round the fundamental prevent-mitigate-remedy principle, and the development of standards for the calculation of damages.

The decision may be accessed HERE, and portions follow below in the original Spanish.


CfP: Australian Centre on China in the World at The Australian National University--“Navigating US-China Rivalry: Responses from the Pacific Rim” 28-20 Auguat 2024

 


 Happy to share the following Call for Paper from the Australian Centre on China in the World:

Greetings from the Australian Centre on China in the World at The Australian National University!

The theme for this year’s ANU China in the World Forum is “Navigating US-China Rivalry: Responses from the Pacific Rim”. The Forum will be held on 28–30 August at the ANU, Canberra.

The Forum will bring together international scholars to examine the consequences of US–China rivalry for middle powers and smaller states across the Pacific Rim, including local responses from state and non-state actors in the region.

We are inviting papers on the following topics: USA’s and China’s evolving foreign policy and diplomacy in the region, alignment behaviour in the Pacific Rim, China’s economic statecraft, great powers’ soft power and sharp power, maritime security, roles of Chinese diasporas, regional institutions, and Chinese trade and investment in the region. We hope you can participate in the CIW Forum by contributing an original paper.

Please find more information from the Call for Papers.

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law Framework Convention : Statement and Announcement by Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić on the occasion of the finalisation of the Convention's ad hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence & Draft TextAFT

 



In a Press Release distributed 15 March 2024, the Council of Europe distributed the following statement and announcement by Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić on the occasion of the finalisation of the Convention's ad hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence:

“This first-of-a-kind treaty will ensure that the rise of Artificial Intelligence upholds Council of Europe legal standards in human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Its finalisation by our Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAI) is an extraordinary achievement and should be celebrated as such.

“It sets out a legal framework that covers AI systems throughout their lifecycles, from start to end.

“While this treaty has been elaborated by the Council of Europe with like-minded international partners, it will be a global instrument, open to the world.  After its adoption by our Committee of Ministers in the coming weeks, countries from all over the world will be eligible to join it and meet the high ethical standards it sets.

“The text strikes the right regulatory balance precisely because it has benefitted from the input of governments and experts, and industry and civil society.  We thank all of those partners for their contribution and delivering this seminal text.  We are convinced that, once adopted, this treaty will bring everyone together in appreciation of its impact.”

* * *

The Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law has been finalised yesterday by the Council of Europe Committee on Artificial Intelligence. The draft text will be referred to the Committee of Ministers for adoption and opened for signature at a later stage.

The DRAFT TEXT of the The "Terms of Reference of the Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAI)" which were set by the Committee of Ministers under Art. 17 of the Statute of the Council of Europe in accordance with Resolution CM/RES/2021)3 also follows below along with the text of the available  Draft Text of the Framework Convention.



 The Council of Europe comprises 46 member States, 27 of which are members of the European Union. It is the guarantor of human rights, democracy and the rule of law on the continent. All Council of Europe member states have signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights, an international treaty designed to protect human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The European Court of Human Rights oversees the implementation of the Convention in the member States.


 The Committee of Ministers has decided to adopt a transversal approach to artificial intelligence across the various sectors of the Council of Europe, establishing the Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAI) and tasking it with elaborating a [Framework] Convention on Artificial Intelligence and maintaining this approach through coordination with other intergovernmental committees and entities of the Organisation. * * * The Committee bases its work on the recommendations of its predecessor, the Ad Hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAHAI), which examined the feasibility and potential elements of a Council of Europe legal framework on AI on the basis of broad multi-stakeholder consultations. (The Council of Europe and Artificial Intelligence (#CoEE4AI), pp. 2, 4, 10).

 

Thinking Vertically and Horizontally (思想纵横) The Resilient City as Dialectic--" Comprehensively promote the construction of resilient and safe cities" (全面推进韧性安全城市建设)

 

Pix credit here

 理论宣传是人民日报的核心优势之一。“思想纵横”栏目是理论版重点栏目。该栏目文章密切关注思想动态、理论前沿、舆论热点,紧紧围绕党中央关切、干部群众关注的时政热点问题,[Theoretical propaganda is one of the core strengths of People’s Daily. The "Thoughts" column is the key column of the theoretical edition. The articles in this column pay close attention to ideological trends, theoretical frontiers, and public opinion hot spots, and closely focus on current political hot issues that are of concern to the Party Central Committee and about which cadres and the masses ought to pay close attention.][思想纵横 中国新闻奖报纸、通讯社新闻专栏参评作品推荐表])

  Since 1990, China's People's Daily has hosted an essay program called Thinking Vertically and Horizontally (思想纵横)(website links HERE). The focus is mass line oriented--to educate the masses and at the same time to engage in a sort of horizontal dialectics (a feedback loop) that would enhance the relationship between the masses and the vanguard within the structures of Chinese Leninist engagement. That engagement, at its edges, would be shaped by the principle of democratic centralism--now transposed from its traditional location within the disciplinary and working style of Chinese Leninism, and generalized into a normative sensibility around which it would be possible, eventually, to develop an institutionalized structure for the mass line through the framework of consultative democracy-- , constrained at its outer boundaries by the principle of democratic centralism (generally HERE; Larry Catá Backer, “Whole Process People’s Democracy” (全过程人民民主) as Applied Constitutionalism: Linking People to Governing Institutions through Socialist Constitutional Democracy and Leninist Political Parties" (to be published in Guobin Zhu, Björn Ahl & Larry Catá Backer (eds) The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Constitutional Law (2024); for a recent study at the level of mass organizations and front line cadres: Jieren Hu & Tong Wu, '"Whole-Process People’s Democracy" in China: Evidence from Shanghai' (2023) Chin. Polit. Sci. Rev.).

A quite interesting review of  Thinking Vertically and Horizontally (思想纵横) was undertaken in 2020 and posted to the China Journalists Association Network ("Thinking vertically and horizontally: Recommendation form for works participating in the China New Awards newspaper and news agency news columns [思想纵横 中国新闻奖报纸、通讯社新闻专栏参评作品推荐表]).

As a theoretical "light cavalry", "Thoughts" closely focuses on the hot political issues that are of concern to the Party Central Committee and the concerns of cadres and the masses. It uses "thousand-character essays" to clarify "big principles" and uses words that cadres and the masses can understand and understand. Promoting the party's innovative theories to "fly into the homes of ordinary people" provides useful guidance for readers to understand current political events, grasp mainstream views, and deeply understand the party and the country's major policies and hot social issues. [《思想纵横》作为理论“轻骑兵”,紧紧围绕党中央关切、干部群众关注的时政热点问题,通过“千字文”阐明“大道理”,用干部群众听得懂、听得进的话语推动党的创新理论“飞入寻常百姓家”,为广大读者了解时政大事,把握主流观点,深入理解党和国家大政方针与社会热点问题提供了有益指导。] ([思想纵横 中国新闻奖报纸、通讯社新闻专栏参评作品推荐表])

One of the more interesting "thought" series recently has focused on the organization of the city. The city has assumed a sort of semiotic characteristic: it is an object, certainly, but its signification lies in the interactions among its citizens, and those interactions ae given meaning bas a function of their alignment with the vision, policy, and objectives of the vanguard in any current era of historical development (e.g., here; and here).

On 20 March 2024, The People's Daily published an article by Wen Hong, "Comprehensively promote the construction of resilient and safe cities (Vertical and Horizontal Ideology)" [文 宏 全面推进韧性安全城市建设(思想纵横]. Its focus is on the necessary for a system of measures--hard and soft, that responds to safety risks, including those that might touch on unspecified emergencies. In the process, however, the essay provides a quite useful window into the city as an ideological metaphor and its physical manifestations. As important, it suggests (and here the vertical and horizontal) the role of the masses within these systems to ensure optimal performance.  It is only one small step from this imagery to the algorithmic and generative complexities of smart cities. Of particular interest is the nexus between the operation of the city as object, signification, and ideological phenomenology in action and its resilience (an interesting choice of term) in the face of emergency. Resilience suggests an elasticity from which it is possible to stretch or change shape or form to meet surrounding conditions. The end of a resilient state, however, can vary.  Taking resilience as a dialectical process, the resilient city ought to come away from emergency different from (and if successful "better" as those things are measured as a function of the structuring ideology); yet taking resilience elasticity within a stable semiotic complex (eg, the city), then  reliance are semiotic "shock absorbers" to the vehicle that is the city. New Era theory's focus on innovation might suggest the more radical phenomenology--emergency as transforming dialectic in the forward progress of the city (re)shaped by stress which moves both practice and the theoretical foundations against which it is measured and framed, along with it. The more conservative approach--more likely to be appealing at the provincial and city level, however, might understand the emphasis on 不以规矩,不成方 [One cannot draw either square or circle without compass and ruler (ed: nothing can be accomplished without rules)] rather than on, for example, 六个必须坚持 [Six Musts] and its emphasis on 必须坚持守正创新 [We must adhere to integrity and innovation] or the reminder of 重大关系 (六个)[Significant Relationships (six)] emphasis on 正确处理守正与创新的关系 [Correctly handle the relationship between integrity and innovation ] (eg here). That is what makes the essay particularly interesting from the perspective of applied theory at the local and provisional levels.  And especially respecting the ideological value of emergency planning that is correctly mass centered (e.g.g 以人民为中心推进城市建设 上海市习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想研究中心 2020年06月16日 ['Promote urban construction with people as the center,' Shanghai Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era June 16, 2020]

The essay appears below in the original Chinese and in a crude English translation.  Also below the quite interesting exposition of the role of the Thinking Vertically and Horizontally column within the communications working style of the vanguard aligned with its mass line duties as elaborated  in China Journalists Association Network ("Thinking vertically and horizontally: Recommendation form for works participating in the China New Awards newspaper and news agency news columns [思想纵横 中国新闻奖报纸、通讯社新闻专栏参评作品推荐表]).



 

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

CfP "Exploring Tensions in Law and Legal Semiotics"; Special Issue of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law

 


 I am delighted to pass along this CfP.  (University of Melbourne), & René Cornish (University of New England) are editing an issue of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, the theme of which is "Exploring Tensions in Law and Legal Semiotics."

Legal semiotics is a dynamic field at the intersection of law, language, culture, and society,
marked by the inherent tension between semiotic representation and legal interpretation. This
call invites scholars and researchers to delve into the complexities of tension in legal semiotics either linguistically or visually, exploring its cultural, social, historical, and legal dimensions, while also considering shifts in meaning through semiotic analysis.
Topics: This call seeks contributions that critically examine tensions in law and legal linguistics, highlighting its multifaceted nature

- Abstracts of 300 words by 15 January 2025
- After selection, final papers (no more than 15,000 words) should be submitted by 15
June 2025.

The CfP may be accessed HERE.   It also follows below.

 

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Part 5 (Chapter 4; Historical Foundations of the UNGP Project)--Vetting the Discussion Draft: "The United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights: A Commentary

 

Pix Credit National Portrait Gallery, Harold Pettit Maples, Back to the Drawing Board 1965

I have been working on the production of a comprehensive commentary of the United Nations Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights.  This is a humbling task. It follows the production of both an official commentary, written in tandem with the UNGP itself, and a collective commentary of the UNGP undertaken by some of the most distinguished students of other fields of human rights, business, and its related fields of academic  study ( The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: A Commentary (Barnali Choudhury (ed); Edward Elgar, 2023).  

I am at a point where I can start vetting portions of the draft. I hope to share those discussion drafts with a wider audience in hopes of getting feedback. In these posts I provide a short summary of the draft chapter and a link t access a 'pdf' version.  All draft chapters may be found on my Coalition for Peace & Ethics Website website at UNGP Commentary Page HERE.

This post introduces the manuscript's Chapter 4 ("Historical Foundations of the UNGP Project"). The primary focus of this chapter is on the decades long efforts within the institutions of the UN to develop some sort of mechanism for the regulation of MNEs (or TNCs). The primary focus are on efforts that began in earnest in the 1970s and then eventually development of the  Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights.  The chapter is written on the premise that one cannot fully form an understanding of the UGP and the arc of its development, especially for the interpretation of the text or more broadly the "spirit" of the UNGP, without understanding the context, premises, and ambitions of the projects  (in this case failed projects) from which it emerged.  
Section 4.1, which follows, briefly sketches the historical context of what would become the field of business and human rights as it appeared at the start of the SRSG’s mandate in 2005. The field, at the time, was to be developed by combining developments in corporate law and governance, with international soft and hard law on human rights (and eventually sustainability including bio-diversity and climate change). Its focus on the corporate governance side is on the development of legal structures for corporate philanthropy, coupled with an increasing emphasis on corporate compliance through systems of oversight and administration. The focus on the international law side foregrounds the convergence of developments of human rights principles and efforts to transpose these directly onto that most problematic of organizations, the trans- or multinational enterprise.

Section 4.2 then focuses on the last great effort at normative and regulatory convergence before the start of the SRSG’s mandate, the process leading to the drafting of the Norms. The focus here is on principles, forms and effects of the Norms project which seeks to identify those elements that would have lingering effects in contemporary discourse. The object here is to provide a basis for comparison with the UNGPs. That comparison is meant to touch on the core ideological differences propelling each project as well as its expression in the structure and forms memorialized through its provisions. Meaning is sometimes possible when starting from the consideration of what a provision cannot mean.

Lastly, Section 4.3 briefly considers the movement from the development of the Global Compact as an alternative or supplementary modality of converging economic activity with human rights impacts, to the SRSG mandate. In that context the underlying effects of general trends toward changes in governance –governmentalization of the private sector, judicialization of policy, and the regulatory role of compliance are considered to the extent that they would be reflected in the work of the SRSG and ultimately in the UNGPs.(From Chapter 4 Introduction).

*       *       *

  The rift that was produced by the abandonment of the Norms and the approval of the SRSG mandate, and ultimately, the endorsement of the UNGP by the UNHRC, has proven to be durable. Its durability is not merely substantive, though that is much of that. At its base the rift is conceptual. On one side a deductive approach grounded in the principle that authoritative regulation must be ‘housed’ in international law, preferably a treaty. On the other side, an inductive approach that was willing to accept multiple sources of regulation, public and private, and that approached the issue as one requiring a framework rather than a comprehensive system of law. But there were normative differences as well. The Norms rested on a long tradition that was suspicious of markets, was even more suspicious of collective autonomy other than as an instrument of public policy, and understood the centrality of development within a system that had to be stripped of its imperialist and colonialist past, with respect to which MNEs (or TNCs) were an instrument. On the other side was a deeper faith in the market and in the autonomy of collective behavior, one which understood that private collectives ought to align with policy but not necessarily serve primarily as its instrument. The Norms rested comfortably in the traditions of the old Soviet-Non-Aligned camp views of the world; the SRSG was deeply invested in the sensibilities and modes of operation of the OECD. Both proffered managerialism, but in quite different ways. IN the end, the Norms approach was not entirely defeated with the advent of the SRSG’s mandate. Rather after 2014 it arose again in the form of the creation of the Open Ended Inter-Governmental Working Group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights, “whose mandate shall be to elaborate an international legally binding instrument to regulate, in international human rights law, the activities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises.”

The Chapter 4 discussion draft may be accessed directly HERE. The text of the draft of chapter 3 as of the time of this posting also follows below.


 

王伟光 [Wang Weiguang] 深化党的创新理论整体性系统性研究阐释(构建中国特色哲学社会科学)[Deepen the overall and systematic research and interpretation of the party's innovation theory (constructing philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics)]

 


研究范式、学术理论,是构建中国特色哲学社会科学的重大任务,是广大哲学社会科学工作者的重要使命。[Researching paradigms and academic theories is a major task in building philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics, and is an important mission for the vast number of philosophy and social science workers.]

One of the key areas of development of New Era Leninism touches on 建设社会主义文化强国 [Developing a Strong Socialist Culture in China] (Mapping New Era Theory: 习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想科学体系 [Xi Jinping’s Scientific System of Socialist Thought with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era]). 

That objective and challenge, in turn, can be divided into four parts informally known by their contractions: (1) “两个结合” [Two Combinations]; (2) 中华文明的突出特性 (“五个突出特性”)[Outstanding characteristics of Chinese civilization (“Five Outstanding Characteristics”)]; (3) 学习贯彻 习近平 文化思想(“七个着力”)[Study and implement Xi Jinping’s cultural thoughts (“Seven Focuses”)]; and (4) 新时代新征程网信工作的使命任务 (“十个坚持”)[The mission and tasks of cybersecurity work in the new era and new journey (“Ten Persistences”)] . Each of these ideological building block for developing a strong socialist culture then incorporates its own policy objectives/maxims. Two of these are of articular interest for those in the knowledge creation sectors:

(i) “两个结合” [Two Combinations]
(I) 坚持和发展马克思主义必须同中国具体实际相结合 [(I) Upholding and developing Marxism must be combined with China’s specific reality]
(II) 坚持和发展马克思主义必须同中华优秀传统文化相结合 [(II) Upholding and developing Marxism must be combined with China’s excellent traditional culture]
*       *       *
(iii) 学习贯彻 习近平 文化思想(“七个着力”)[Study and implement Xi Jinping’s cultural thoughts (“Seven Focuses”)]
(I) 着力加强党对宣传思想文化工作的领导 [(I) Focus on efforts to strengthen the party’s leadership over ideological and cultural propaganda work]
(II) 着力建设具有强大凝聚力和引领力的社会主义意识形态 [(II) Focus on building a socialist ideology with strong cohesion and leadership]
(III) 着力培育和践行社会主义核心价值观 [(III) Focus on cultivating and practicing socialist core values]
(IV) 着力提升新闻舆论传播力引导力影响力公信 [(IV) Focus on improving the dissemination, guidance, influence and credibility of news and public opinion]
(V) 力着力赓续中华文脉、推动中华优秀传统文化创造性转化和创新性发展 [(V) Strive to continue the Chinese cultural context and promote the creative transformation and innovative development of China’s excellent traditional culture]
(VI) 着力推动文化事业和文化产业繁荣发展 [(VI) Focus on efforts to promote the prosperity and development of cultural undertakings and cultural industries]
(VII) 着力加强国际传播能力建设、促进文明交流互鉴 [(VII) Focus on strengthening international communication capabilities and promoting exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations]
*       *       *

All  sectors of Chinese society, of course, have an obligation to contribute to building a strong Chinese socialist culture.  This applies with particular force to knowledge workers and intellectuals. 

These appeared to be very much on the mind of Wang Weguang [王伟光] is a professor of the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences(UCASS), a tenured professor of the Nankai University, a professor of the Party School of the Central Committee of C.P.C, a doctor of Philosophy, a doctoral supervisor, and a member of academic division of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences(CASS).

In a recently circulated essay,  王伟光 [Wang Weiguang] 深化党的创新理论整体性系统性研究阐释(构建中国特色哲学社会科学)[Deepen the overall and systematic research and interpretation of the party's innovation theory (constructing philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics)], the scope and forms of academic worker contribution to Chinese socialist culture in the field of knowledge production is considered. The essay is worth a careful reading--but especially against the background of the relevant framing ideology of New Era Leninism applicable to the issue of academic workers and intellectual duties to fulfill the goal of a strong socialist culture with Chinese characteristics.  

The essay is rich. Interesting for those interested in the alignment of theory and policy, perhaps, is the way that the  “两个结合” [Two Combinations] and the 学习贯彻 习近平 文化思想(“七个着力”)[Study and implement Xi Jinping’s cultural thoughts (“Seven Focuses”)]. And always the shadow of the West and the outward projection of cultural power:

为更好用党的创新理论凝心铸魂,建设具有强大凝聚力和引领力的社会主义意识形态,迫切需要加快党的创新理论原理性理论成果的知识话语转化,加快构建中国特色哲学社会科学学科体系、学术体系、话语体系,形成同我国综合国力和国际地位相匹配的学术话语权,从道理学理哲理维度讲好中国故事、传播好中国声音,为回答世界之问贡献中国智慧和中国方案。In academic exchanges and especially in the exchange of international academic discourse, the pattern of the West being strong and the other being weak has not been fundamentally reversed. In order to better use the Party's innovative theory to align the heart and soul, and build a socialist ideology with strong cohesion and leadership, it is urgent to accelerate the transformation of the theoretical achievements of the Party's innovative theory into intellectual discourse and accelerate the construction of philosophy and social science disciplines with Chinese characteristics. Theoretical systems, academic systems, and discourse systems must be developed to form an academic discourse power that matches China's comprehensive national strength and international status, tell China's story well, spread China's voice from a moral and philosophical dimension, and contribute Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions to answer the world's questions.

Intellectual cultural production is also closely tied to the alignment between research and the maturation of a political ideology grounded in cultural practice. 研究范式涵盖某一思想理论观察世界、研究分析问题的立场、观点、方法等内容。形成独立的研究范式,是一种思想理论发展成熟的重要标志之一。[The research paradigm covers the standpoint, viewpoint, method, etc. of a certain ideological theory in observing the world and researching and analyzing problems. The formation of an independent research paradigm is one of the important signs of the maturity of an ideological theory. ].

The essay follows below in the original Chinese and in a crude English translation.