Ya es Tiempo de Aprender Otro Idioma: Expanding Access to Internationalized K-12 Education in the U.S.

“Why have we normalized that we are primarily a monolingual country – even though our nation has only become more multicultural, more interdependent with the rest of the world? Why is it that in 2023, in many school systems in our country, we treat our English learners as students with deficits – rather than assets in a globally competitive world?” These were the questions U.S. Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona asked at the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) 52nd Annual International Bilingual and Bicultural Education Conference. While it is impossible to formulate a simple answer to these questions, it is clearer now in 2023 than any other time in the twenty-first century that school reform has become an overwhelmingly polarizing issue with little bipartisan agreement over policies, resource allocation, or school reform. In an increasingly competitive marketplace of education reform ideas, internationalized K-12 education finds itself moderately supported but ultimately neglected due to “more pressing” issues within the education landscape, such as COVID-related learning loss and addressing political polarization. One could argue that doubling down on Mandarin classes for middle schoolers who are grade levels below their expected math proficiency should be somewhere at the bottom of our most vital education reform ideas, but this could not be further from the truth. As demand for school reform grows and new education policies are rapidly proposed and implemented, expanding access to internationalized K-12 education must be prioritized by the federal government, state governments, and schools.
From learning loss recovery policies to school voucher programs, recent U.S. education policies aimed at fixing what has been broken have been prioritized over revitalization efforts. Policymakers look at “failing” inner-city schools and see an emergency that must be fixed rather than a hub of resilience, innovation, and multicultural expertise waiting to be plugged into our globalized society. Within a damage-centered framework, U.S. K-12 students have lost too much learning from COVID-19 to be focusing on much else beyond meeting basic grade-level requirements, and the best path forward is ensuring students “catch up” by focusing solely on literacy and math proficiency. This damage-centered framework would also lead us to believe increased family-school tension and polarization are irreparable, and the best path forward is a school voucher system that allows families and educators to self-sort into private schools most aligned with their views. As any educator will understand, however, there is rarely ever one right way to solve a problem, and the current zeitgeist of the 2020s calls for the prioritization of internationalized K-12 education policies that work to creatively and equitably address a myriad of issues including but not limited to COVID-related learning loss and polarization. To America, Dr. Cardona passionately called for the bringing in of a “new era of multilingualism,” and to students? “¡Ya es tiempo de aprender otro idioma!”

Conceptualizing Internationalized Education

Internationalized education can be described as “a process of incorporating international, intercultural, and global perspectives into different education contexts.” Framed as a necessary tool to sculpt young Americans into globally competitive citizens, internationalized education remains very popular in higher education institutions. Internationalized education materialized in the K-12 sector through the creation of private, internationally-minded schools. With the purpose of internationalized education being framed as primarily economic, policymakers and school leaders seemingly had little reason to support expanding access to internationalized education for poor students. International schools first came into existence with the goal of engaging in missionary activities and colonization, and while the restricted access of Black and Brown students to language classes and K-12 study abroad problematizes the claim that international schools have changed drastically from their exclusionary roots, internationalized curricula and programs can be seen in both private and public schools today. It is precisely this - the internationalized public school - that has the power to redirect the path that U.S. education reform is heading from deepening polarization and further inequities to a generation of multilingual, globally competent Americans. 

Access to dual-language immersion programs, K-12 study abroad opportunities, and instruction from educators with a global perspective not only increase economic outcomes and career opportunities for students but also help develop students’ social and emotional development in cross-cultural settings, reduce polarization, and increase a sense of belonging and excitement within school communities. Amid the growing implementation of school voucher programs and pressure on “failing schools” to increase test scores, refraining from incorporating internationalized education into public K-12 schools across the U.S. will only make our next generation of global ambassadors more homogenous. If the federal government, state governments, and schools work together to rapidly implement education policies that prioritize expanding access to internationalized education for all students, it is very likely that the most pressing educational issues of our time will be thoroughly addressed in the process.

Federal Policy Recommendations for Expanding Access to Internationalized Education

As the federal government navigates internationalized education reform, the priority must be well-informed but hands-off investments in public K-12 schools and making international partnerships. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted how innovative and effective schools can be even in dismal circumstances. From Kansas’s use of COVID-19 relief funds to offset the cost of field trips to museums and historical sites to South Carolina using the funds to make school bus Wi-Fi a reality, it is evident that states have different needs and are most innovative when policies are imagined using a bottom-up approach as opposed to top-down. To expand access to internationalized education in public K-12 schools, the federal government should invest in well-informed but hands-off grant programs for state education departments to use within their public school systems. A competitive global education grant program, accompanied with comprehensive monitoring and evaluating practices, will give states the capital they need to ensure stronger multilingualism and global educational opportunities in public schools while still having the freedom to address their own state-wide or community-wide needs. Additionally, the federal government should prioritize working with other countries’ education ministries as well as international education organizations from other regions to connect states’ education department leaders with international perspectives and policy suggestions. These ideas can then be used to inform and inspire leaders at the community or city level to use grant funds for expanding globalized education access in ways previously not considered. Global cooperation between the U.S. Department of Education with other countries’ education ministries will set the foundation for comprehensive, globally-minded R&D on K-12 internationalized education initiatives in the U.S.

State Policy Recommendations for Expanding Access to Internationalized Education

State governments play an essential role in expanding student access to quality internationalized education in a public school setting. Moving forward, it is vital for states to not only implement education policies that address COVID-related learning loss but also policies that increase students’ global competency and language skills. While some may argue falling literacy and math proficiency scores are proof that language skills need to be put on the back burner for now, there is data that dual language immersion boosts proficiency in other subjects for both English-speaking and ESL students. Not only are other academic subjects bolstered but dual language programs increase friendship and cultural competency between students of different racial or cultural backgrounds and increase overall confidence. When states neglect language immersion for “failing” schools, they often end up barring predominantly lower-income Black and Brown students from the internationalized education that sets so many upper-income white students up for success at the collegiate and vocational level. State governments must prioritize education policies that incentivize private-public school collaboration to put public schools in conversation with international schools within their state. This can also look like incentivizing state colleges to work with local K-12 public schools to grow language immersion programs or allow for high school students to audit college courses on intercultural communication and global politics. Additionally, states should center internationalized education at the core of their teacher shortage efforts. This could look like teacher pipeline programs that incentivize bilingual adults or immigrants within the state to pursue a teaching role through lowered teaching requirements at public schools and a pipeline that leads to these teachers earning a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in education.

School Policy Recommendations for Expanding Access to Internationalized Education

At the school level, low-cost policies can still lead to high-impact results when it comes to making internationalized education a reality for all students. Dual-language programs have been extremely successful in providing English-speaking and ESL students the opportunity to hone their language skills, build cross-cultural friendships, and gain tutoring experience. School districts can also reward student engagement in cross-cultural contexts or with language programs through biliteracy or bicultural certificates. A certificate program could function in a cohort-based model with a lead teacher mentoring students seeking biliteracy in or outside the classroom. Other school policies could include investing in a more internationalized library, organizing dual language exchange programs for parents and teachers, supporting student efforts to obtain passports for study abroad, prioritizing the hiring of bilingual community members and family members when filling part-time school positions, emphasizing teacher professional development on bilingual students as assets not deficits or tools, and ensuring students on vocational or technical tracks can still engage in internationalized education through work with immigrant-owned businesses and professionals in the community.

Conclusion

From polarizing international events being broadcast everyday on the news to deepening disparities in graduation and attendance among students across the country, the current zeitgeist of 2023 can be used to implement successful and equitable expansion of internationalized K-12 education that has the potential to address COVID-related learning loss, fill teacher shortages, increase global cooperation, and reduce polarization. With school voucher systems becoming more commonplace across states and family dissatisfaction with public schools on the rise, it is vital that public school innovation and autonomy in addition to family-school engagement is incentivized and encouraged at the federal and state education policy level. Internationalized public education proves to be an overlooked but much-needed reform strategy that may look different in each school or state but could ultimately unify America’s students as they grow up in a world more globalized and interconnected than ever before. Upper-income private school students can no longer be the only young Americans engaging in internationalized education in 2023. A global education must be accessible to all students. With the right policies from the federal and state government in accompaniment with innovative school policies, teachers can confidently tell their students: “¡Ya es tiempo de aprender otro idioma!”

PARLACEN: The Rats Den

What is the PARLACEN?

The PARLACEN (Parlamento CentroAmericano) or CAP (Central American Parliament) is the parliamentary body of the political organization known as SICA (Central American Integration system) whose objectives is to help integrate and develop, peace, political freedom, development, and promote free trade among Central American Countries. However, it has recently been used  as a vessel for former Presidents, elected officials, businessmen, and even the families of these involved parties to escape crime in their home countries. 

The PARLACEN, being an international organization between states, grants diplomatic immunity to those who are members in Latin America, meaning that these politicians are immune for crimes in Central America. With the rare of exception of Honduras, who suspended their diplomatic immunity after Ex-President Porifio Lobo Sosa who at the time was the President of the Honduran National Congress suspended their diplomatic immunity. This is interesting because a few years after that decision, Lobo Sosa's wife, former First Lady Rosa Lobo, was indicted in Honduras for misuse of Public Funds. Lobo Sosa himself has been accused of many crimes and headlines as one of the most recent Central American politicians who has been blacklisted from the U.S. a big first in the country’s history. Lobo Sosa was indicted in the United States for charges of Drug Trafficking, Racketeering, Tax Evasion and more. Even without these protections, it is rare for a country like the United States to prosecute them while they’re international deputies regardless of whether there is clear evidence of a crime because of diplomatic red tape. Countries with charismatic leaders or whose parties control a majority of the government would most of the time not allow a fellow member of that party to be extradited and being a member of the PARLACEN would only make that harder.

What grants them immunity?

The rules of Parlacen are extremely ambiguous, essentially granting the countries the freedom to pursue their own agendas and rules. They base other countries' diplomatic powers on the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. What does this mean? The internal rules of the Parlacen allow for the same immunity and protections stipulated in the Vienna Convention if the sending state (the country that sends the deputies) agrees to them. This rule in the Parlacen allows that any elected official (as long as they're permitted) is granted this immunity in Central America. There are exceptions to this, like a host country may ask the PARLACEN to lift or suspend a specific deputies privileges.

As of 2023, each country sends twenty officials, each with a deputy, to the Parlacen. The rules of the Parlacen also state that each elected official is elected the same way they would in their own country. For example, in Guatemala, there is a direct election, while in other countries, primaries are held or in some cases parties will appoint a specific person for the ticket. Furthermore, former heads of states (presidents) of a member country also qualify as members of parliament; however,  this grace period is dependent and given by each individual country. 

Electoral Courts

Most Latin American Countries have within their public administration an entity known as Electoral Courts, which are in charge of overseeing every election. Amongst their powers and responsibilities is this jurisdiction in which they can bend some rules during elections; even if unconstitutional. For example, there has been ruling by these courts to allow private citizens with legal trouble to run for office. This is known as a fuero, here on now referred to as special privileges These special privileges allow the courts to acknowledge this legal trouble, whether domestic or abroad, and still allow that candidate to run for office. Most recently, we see the Tribunal Electoral of Panama rule in favor of former President Ricardo Martinellli,who has been sentenced to 10 years in prison yet still allowed to run because his appeal negates the guilty conviction needed to bar him from the election. While some may be quick to point out how judges can be bought and that judicial accountability is a rare phenomenon in Latin America; I argue that these courts are the most overseen by justice department because, just as they have the right to give you special privileges as a politician or party leadership, they can take it away.

Unethical by purpose or design?

One country who is notorious for using the PARLACEN as a vessel for special privileges is Panama. In 2023, the sons of aforementioned former president of Panama Ricardo Martinelli, whose sons were involved in money laundering, bribery, and illicit enrichment charges in Panama and the United States were sworn in to the PARLACEN as alternate deputies. This means that they get the immunities granted to them by the Vienna Convention, essentially stalling out their sentence. Ironically enough, Ricardo Martinelli himself attempted to leave The Parlacen, at the time calling it “a den of thieves,” However, both international and Panamanian courts found the action rash and unconstitutional.

The Martinelli brothers are not the only Panamanian Politicians seeking this special benefit. Former President of Panama Juan Carlos Varela, who is blacklisted from the United States for alleged involvement in corruption, is also seeking a seat in the Parliament. Varela is facing serious charges of corruption and bribes. Ricardo Martinelli, whom Varela once served as Vice President under, is leading the polls in the upcoming presidential election in 2024 (even despite all of those corruption charges) which for Varela, who is considered a nemesis of Martinelli, means he’s in really hot water if elected. 

During many of these elections, it is often seen in a lot of campaign trails for these politicians, who later attempt to benefit from the special privileges, their disdain for the governmental entity. Martinelli tried to leave the PARLACEN, as did Varela,yet, they did not revoke their privileges as Honduras did. Honduran politicians agreed to leave ability for immunity off the table while Panama still kept theirs. This begs the question: did these politicians foreshadow their future intentions or do they really believe in these anti-corruption methods? Because if they truly believed in the PARLACEN being a den of thieves  and leaving did not work, why not revoke the immunity anyway to deter and avoid the loophole? They do this by mix of saying what they need to win a crowd, and planting the idea in their minds to diminish the shock when they run PARLACEN after leaving office. One of the reasons why they get away with it is a mentality of “nothing is going to change”. A lot of people refer to Martinelli’s Administration with the quote “Robó pero hizo” (Stole but did) referring to the Millions of dollars embezzled from projects and the subsequent bribes that brought his alleged crimes. Furthermore, in a lot of Latin American countries, voting is seen as important; most citizens see the Central American Parliament as a joke entity for thieves, and they don’t actively participate in these elections other than to support their favorite former politicians from the hands of “injustice.”

Panama, however, is not the only instance where we’ve seen this; they’re just the most recent. In 2003 Nicaragua’s former president, Arnoldo Aleman also sought refuge within the Parliament,which ended up stripping him from his immunities and allowed him to be charged in an effort to save its reputation; there are also instances of corruption from Members of Parliament. The former president of the Central American Parliament, Mario Facusee Nadal, was charged with illegally appropriating some properties that belonged to the state. He also once sought to repeal the immunity, with Panama as a co-sponsor.

Conclusion

A lot of politicians and political pundits do not really see the point in the PARLACEN. While its reputation precedes itself, the same people are seen to be claiming it is an institution in which accountability is not enforced. The mission of the PARLACEN is to foster economic and cultural alliance between central american countries. More than three decades later it is now just a question of, is it worth it? Consequently, I believe that there are several solutions that could fix this problem if all parties agree to it.  Firsty, amending the internal rules of the body itself, abolishing this diplomatic immunity, and special privileges that are given to these congresspeople. Likewise, they can also make membership more exclusive by adding a morality or similar  clause barring citizens who have open investigations against them or have been charged with a crime before. The last solution I propose is to abolish the organization. If concern for corruption is high, and there have been efforts to leave the PARLACEN, then I believe this is an option worth considering, while extreme it would make facing accountability in Central American countries easier.

A broken immigration system: the extension of the Title 42 immigration policy leaves many Cuban asylum seekers in crisis

After five years of saving money, Patri, from Havana, Cuba, was ready to make the trek to the United States. Cuba’s economic crisis has become so dire in the past few years, due to COVID-19. The cost of living has been steadily rising and there has been an increase in food shortages. In 2022, 2% of Cuba’s population left for the U.S. and Patri hoped to be one of them. She saved up the equivalent of 8,000 dollars. However, this was rendered impossible by the Supreme Court’s decision that extended Title 42’s immigration policy. Now if you are seeking asylum, as Patri is, from four countries, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Haiti, you have to apply for a parole process. The process allows only 30,000 migrants to enter the U.S. per month and the qualifications are steep. You need to have a valid passport, pass a background check, afford the airfare, and have a sponsor with legal status who is already inside the U.S. that can help to support you financially. If you do not have a sponsor, as Patri doesn’t, you will be turned away at the border and forced to remain in Mexico for the time being. For many, this can be a death sentence, left vulnerable to theft, homelessness, and kidnapping for ransom. Despite these risks, many migrants make the trek anyway because they simply have no other alternative. The extension of the harmful Title 42 immigration policy by the Supreme Court and the Biden Administration leaves many Cuban asylum seekers in a crisis due to unreasonable restrictions. In response, the Biden Administration has put forth future policy changes to counteract the extension of Title 42 that will hopefully accomplish its goal of fixing the broken immigration system. 

What is Title 42? 

Title 42 is a U.S. law used in issues such as civil rights, public health, social welfare, and more. The government can use it to take emergency actions to keep contagious diseases out of the country. It was first used in 1929 during a meningitis outbreak to keep Chinese and Filipino ships from entering the U.S. and spreading the disease. The law was only enacted again in 2020 by then-president, Donald Trump, due to the global COVID-19 outbreak. However, Trump also used this law and its implications to turn away migrants from the border more quickly without having to consider their cases for asylum. Since this law has been put into effect in 2020, 2 million people have been barred from entering the U.S. 

The Trump Administration’s impact on immigration policy

Donald Trump’s campaign and presidency are defined largely by his harsh views and policies on immigration and enforcement.  There are 100 million displaced refugees in the world today, a number that only grew worse during Trump’s presidency. He reduced legal immigration into the United States by 49%. From 2016-2019, there was an increase in denials for military naturalizations by 54%. During his presidency, 5,460 children were separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico Border. In 2017, he announced that he would dismantle DACA, Deferred Actions for Childhood Arrivals, which provides relief from deportation and work authorization for immigrants brought to America as children. He also tried to terminate TPS, Temporary Protected Status, a program that grants legal status – including work authorization and protection from deportation – to people from designated countries facing ongoing armed conflict, environmental disaster, or other extraordinary conditions preventing their safe return. Hate crimes against Latinos and Hispanics rose by 21% in 2018. By increasing his anti-immigrant rhetoric, he made the issue of immigration one of the top priorities in the 2020 election. 

The Biden Campaign’s immigration policy promises

Since immigration played a powerful role in the 2020 election, the Biden campaign put out extensive information on how he was going to help fix the immigration crisis if he was elected to office. He starts by evoking emotion in his plan by saying, “It is a moral failing and a national shame when a father and his baby daughter drown seeking our shores. When children are locked away in overcrowded detention centers and the government seeks to keep them there indefinitely.” He ultimately, flat-out states, “Trump has waged an unrelenting assault on our values and our history as a nation of immigrants. It’s wrong, and it stops when Joe Biden is elected president.” 

Biden states overall goals for immigration policy, such as modernizing the immigration system and welcoming immigrants into the community. However, since this election was about defeating Trump and reversing his policies, Biden created promises for his first 100 days in office. These include, “Immediately reverse the Trump Administration’s cruel and senseless policies that separate parents from their children at our border” and “End Trump’s detrimental asylum policies.” He wants to end the separation of families at the border by ending the prosecution of parents for minor violations since these are mostly used as scare or intimidation tactics. He said that he wants to restore asylum laws so they can actively protect people fleeing persecution. The Trump Administration put restrictions on access to asylum for anyone traveling through Mexico or Guatemala and those fleeing from gang or domestic violence. 

The economic crisis in Cuba

Why are there record numbers of migrants leaving Cuba for the United States? The number of migrants (200,000 in 2022) reflects percentages that haven’t been seen since the 1990s, and it's because Cuba is facing its worst socio-economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union. There are daily shortages of food and medicine. There are regular power outages and last year during a protest against the government, the internet was switched off. Shortages of resources have culminated since 1962 when the U.S. trade embargo was imposed. To survive, Cuba has become reliant on earnings from international tourism and Cuban nationals working abroad. Due to COVID-19, the island was mostly closed off to foreign tourists and reduced visitor numbers by 75% in 2020. When Trump was elected in 2016, he reinstated longstanding travel and business restrictions between Cuba and the U.S., further closing them off from U.S. resources. He also reinstated Cuba to the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which obstructed the country’s access to international finance. 

In the last few years, resistance to the government has risen, partly due to social media and the internet. There are increased demands for political and economic change and for government officials to be held accountable. In 2021, there were massive Cuban protests that were fuelled by COVID restrictions and food and medicine shortages. Due to limited resources provided by the government, many were forced to turn to the black market. Many preferred to work for and sell on the black market because they usually made more money than a salary at a typical job to cover basic needs. The Cuban's ability to be resourceful and stretch themselves thin is running out and unless there is significant economic change, many more are bound to follow the 2% of the population that have already left in 2022. 

Impact of the continuation of Title 42 on Cuba and asylum seekers

The continuation of Title 42 could create an asylum crisis for many Cubans. An official from the Washington Office on Latin America, a human-rights nonprofit, estimates that people like Patri, without a sponsor, have no chance of crossing the border anytime soon. While she and many others wait in Mexico for their case to be heard, they would be risking dangerous conditions such as homelessness and kidnapping for ransom. Oftentimes, appointments for Title 42 expectations get booked as soon as they become available and people have to wait weeks to have their cases heard. 

Since there are so many restrictions, many Cubans are turning to more creative ways to migrate to the U.S. In 1994 there was a Cuban rafter crisis or balseros crisis where 35,000 Cubans migrated to the U.S. on makeshift rafts. They spent all their money on the materials to make a raft and row across the Gulf of Mexico to Miami, Cuba. After five weeks of riots, Fidel Castro announced that anyone who wanted to leave Cuba was welcome to do it without hindrance. However, President Clinton mandated that any rafters captured be detained at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. About 31,000 of those 33,000 were detained at the base while many others were lost at sea. Even though this process of immigration is risky and dangerous, many are worried that the balseros crisis will happen again. 

The extension of Title 42

On December 27th, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court voted to keep Title 42 in place, allowing asylum-seekers to be turned away at the border, even though it would have expired at the end of 2022. It is now in place indefinitely after 19 Republican state attorneys general filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to keep it in place. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that Title 42 should expire at the end of this year because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s implementation of this policy was “arbitrary and capricious.” While many, such as Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, argued that the public-health justification of Title 42’s implementation has lapsed, they still voted for it to stay in place. Some Democrats, such as California Governor Gavin Newsom, think that if Title 42 is ended, the asylum system would break. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that “Title 42 is a public health measure, not an immigration enforcement measure, and it should not be extended indefinitely.” Yet, the Biden Administration is complying with the Supreme Court’s Order and enforcing Title 42, offering no alternative to those trying to seek asylum on the border. 

However, there are steps in the right direction being made. In January of 2023, Biden issued an executive order restricting asylum applications on the U.S.-Mexico border for four countries, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Haiti. As mentioned in the first paragraph, the qualifications for asylum applications are steep, including needing a sponsor in the U.S. that can sponsor you financially. If one goes to the border without a sponsor, they will be turned away and the “Remain in Mexico” policy under Title 42 will be in effect. This Executive Order talks about expanding legal pathways for safe, orderly, humane, and legal migration. This includes increasing humanitarian assistance to Mexico and Central America, expanding the parole process, launching an online appointment portal to reduce overcrowding and wait times at the border, and tripling refugee resettlement from the Western Hemisphere. Biden has also reopened the U.S. embassy in Havana for visa applications allowing some an official route to emigration to the U.S.

Conclusion 

After the extension of Title 42 by the Supreme Court, the  NGO, The Washington Office on Latin America, WOLA, gave a list of 5 reasons why Title 42 must end immediately. Title 42 was not designed to protect public health, it creates a discriminatory system because it targets four specific countries, it puts people in need of protection in danger, and it undermines the U.S. ability to promote a protection-centered response to regional migration. However, the foremost reason is that Title 42 is illegal. It denies refugees protection from life-or-death situations. The Biden administration expels around 2,500 migrants every day.  Section 1158 of Title 8 of the U.S. Code does not allow for the blocking of fundamental protection and safety of migrants seeking asylum. Instead of perpetuating and prolonging a broken immigration system, it would be beneficial to invest time and resources in other areas. This would start with restoring the right of all refugees to seek asylum at the border. Using a COVID-era policy is not a justification anymore to keep implementing this law. Another is ensuring humanitarian support for the migrants that are arriving while also coordinating the response of federal, state, and local organizations to make sure everyone gets the same resources and treatment. Finally, there needs to be improvements to the adjudication capacity and resources, as the wait time could be anywhere from 2 months to 1 year.  There is a shortage of lawyers at the border who have impossible caseloads. By increasing the number of public defenders at the border, due process can still be ensured in a timely manner. The US immigration system has been broken for decades. Every day we wait to fix or come up with a new policy, thousands of people fall through the cracks and succumb to the danger they are running from. The system needs to be fixed, for the sake of rebuilding our asylum process and the democratic values that the U.S. was founded on. 

Life? Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Introduction

“Land of the free and home of the brave.” That’s how the United States describes itself. It prides itself on being a paradigm of human rights and individual freedom, founded on the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It’s surprising how a country like this can become associated with authoritarian regimes with horrible human rights records such as China or Iran, yet its continued use of the death penalty demonstrates how its so-called commitment to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness might not even include the right to life after all. 

International non-governmental organizations (NGOs) like the United Nations have called upon their member States to abolish the use of the death penalty, stating it violates the “right to life, liberty, and security of person” guaranteed by Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Despite the constant backlash throughout recent history, the United States continually uses the death penalty and defends it on the international stage. It is one of the only nations to still do so. Nations that have abolished the death penalty see this as a sign of ignoring basic human rights and group the United States’ human rights index with that of nations like Sudan and Iraq. To put it simply, the United States’ use of the death penalty hurts its diplomatic relations and reflects poorly on the nation’s values. 

Capital punishment’s role in United States foreign affairs is severely affecting its image on the world stage, given that much of the world is opposed to the death penalty. Gaining a fuller understanding of why many nations have abolished the death penalty, makes it easier to understand how the United States’ commitment to the death penalty has such strong implications on the international stage.

Historical Context

In “Death, Dissent, and Diplomacy: The U.S. Death Penalty as an Obstacle to Foreign Relations,” Mark Warren details foreign perceptions of the United States concerning its continued use of the death penalty. In 1971, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly reached the opinion that capital punishment no longer served as an acceptable exception to the right to life guaranteed in Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Many of the UN member states began adapting their legislature to reflect this new opinion. By the mid-90s, for example, a “commitment to abolition” of the death penalty became a requirement for membership in the Council of Europe and in the European Union. Meanwhile, the United States was making no such changes, and consequently starting some very rocky diplomatic relationships.  In 2001, the UN had taken notice of the United States’ static position on capital punishment and temporarily removed the United States from the UN Human Rights Council as a result. Later, in October of 2003, the forty-five nation Council of Europe, which contains many of the United States’ allies, stated that the United States’ “intractable position” towards the death penalty was “intolerable.”

The United States gained even more negative attention in 2004 when the International Court of Justice’s Avena decision declared the United States had, according to the 27th session of the UN Human Rights Council “failed to provide consular notification and access” to 51 Mexican nationals awaiting execution. Within the 27th session, the UN publicly rebuked the United States for this in 2014, stating that “the denial of the right to consular notification leads to the violation of due process and the execution of a foreign national deprived of his or her right to consular services constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of life.” Later that same year, the UN Human Rights Council took a firm stance on the use of capital punishment in their annual report to the Secretary General, stating that they still have numerous concerns regarding the “lack of respect for relevant international human rights norms and standards in States where the death penalty is still imposed.” Despite the continual concerns expressed by the international community throughout recent history, the United States continues to use the death penalty as a form of punishment within its criminal justice system.

The Human Rights Perspective

A vast number of international organizations have repeatedly expressed negative opinions about the death penalty. Most people reference the human rights perspective, claiming the death penalty is a violation of human rights. However, abolitionist views towards capital punishment are just as easily justifiable for other reasons. Many anti-death penalty advocates use the often-discriminatory implementation as a key argument. Other proponents, especially the UN, use its implications on juvenile offenders as a reason for its abolition.

The human rights perspective is arguably the most common criticism of capital punishment. Dongwook Kim addresses this in her article “International Non-Governmental Organizations and the Abolition of the Death Penalty,” where she cites then Secretary General of the UN Ban Ki-moon’s 2012 statement that “The right to life is the most fundamental of all human rights.” Aside from the views of the UN expressed by Kim, human rights NGOs use this perspective to promote the abolition of capital punishment. Amnesty International, one of the largest human rights NGOs in the world, calls the death penalty the “ultimate cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishment.” Amnesty International also claims that the death penalty impedes on “the right to life and the right to live free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” which are both protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The use of the death penalty for juvenile offenders, which is a direct violation of international law, is also a key argument against capital punishment. According to Amnesty, the United States is the only Western nation to report having used capital punishment on juvenile offenders since 1990, the other 9 countries being: China, Iran, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. Organizations like Amnesty, Kim argues are “key to the worldwide abolition of the death penalty for all crimes.”

Unfair or discriminatory implication of the death penalty is a well-known, although less common, argument against the use of capital punishment. Within the UN, human rights groups have expressed continued concern over the “lack of fair trial in death penalty cases in a number of States,” as stated in the 27th session of the Human Rights Council. Human rights NGOs, according to Kim, insist that capital punishment is used as a “social control tool” against the poor and minority groups. In the United States, for example, one is “22 times more likely to get [sentenced to death] if the defendant is Black and the victim is white.” The previously aforementioned Avena decision of 2004 also serves as an example of this. Amnesty International further elaborates on this topic, stating how capital punishment is often disproportionately used on those with limited access to legal representation. Additionally, social activist and New York University professor of law Bryan Stevenson argues that American use of capital punishment is “defined by error.” He states that one out of every nine people executed was later found to be innocent. Human rights activists often use the consistent errors found within American death row to further their point.

Role in US Diplomatic Relations

The United States’ continued use of the death penalty isolates it from the rest of the world. According to Daniel Baer, former United States Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, there are many different examples of the United States demonstrating a different viewpoint than the rest of the world. Out of the 30 member countries in NATO, the United States is the only one still using the death penalty. On top of that, more than 70% of the world’s nations have abolished or imposed a moratorium on capital punishment. The European Union, one of the closest and most important diplomatic relationships for the United States, has even banned the use of the death penalty in all member states. The United States is the only Western country to have carried out executions from 2013-2019. The United States, however, also emphasizes the importance of following global norms, with diplomat Stefanie Amadeo stating in an article from the New Yorker that “the United States is committed to complying with its international obligations” during her time as deputy representative to the UN Economic and Social Council. Despite assuring their aforementioned commitment to following along with the rest of the world’s views, the United States continues to demonstrate their inability to let go of the death penalty. 

The United States’ continued defense of the death penalty has led to some problems within the international community. In 1999, five years before the abolition of the death penalty in Turkey and fifteen years since their last execution, the Turkish government sentenced Abdullah Öcalan, a guerilla leader for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, to death. Many, including the United States, saw this as a grossly unfair trial, and encouraged the Turkish government to undo Öcalan’s sentence. However, according to Warren, when the United States got involved, the Turkish government questioned the “authority of the United States to ask another country to forego the death penalty,” referencing its frequent use of capital punishment. While some countries (in this case, Turkey) have questioned the United States’ authority to criticize their implementation of the death penalty, some countries go a step further. According to international death penalty expert Mark Warren, some countries use the United States’ continual use and support of the death penalty to “legitimize their own appalling domestic practices.” Warren references Nigeria, who used this United States’ actions concerning capital punishment to support their 2002 ruling that adulterers will be sentenced to death by stoning.

Modern Values

When looking at it from this perspective, it is obvious that the United States’ continual usage of capital punishment makes it look out of touch and, as some would argue, barbaric. Using the death penalty isolates the country from modern views towards human rights. It puts the United States on the wrong side of a modern fundamental human rights issue.

The United States was founded on the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Using the death penalty blocks the right to life, and therefore that principle as a whole. If the United States cannot stay true to the very principle it was founded upon, how are other nations supposed to respect them? 

Moreover, by capital punishment, the US not only looks bad in comparison to other developed nations, but also reflects poorly on itself and its own values. Its history of defending the death penalty time and time again groups the United States with countries with atrocious human rights track records like Saudi Arabia, China, and Iran. As the New Yorker’s Lincoln Caplan puts it, the United States ranks with other nations “not in full compliance with their international obligations.”

Careful consideration of international law, modern human rights views, and the country’s founding principles makes it painfully obvious that the death penalty has no place in the United States. Historical evidence shows how the United States has continually used capital punishment to violate what many see as a basic human right, and, in the case of the Avena decision, to violate international law. Aside from that, the use of capital punishment groups the US with countries with terrible human rights track records like Iran, Russia, or Belarus. Overall, the usage of capital punishment makes the United States look outdated and barbaric. It does not represent the “modern” nation the founding fathers intended. Interacting with such a “barbaric” country represents other countries poorly, leaving the United States isolated on the diplomatic stage.

The Future of Climate Policy for Brazil and the United States after Bolsonaro and Trump

On October 30th, 2022, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva beat incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in the Brazilian presidential election. It was a close election, with Lula getting 50.9% of the vote and Bolsonaro getting 49.1%. Bolsonaro had a turbulent and divisive one-term presidency with attacks on the democratic institutions in Brazil, improper COVID-19 policies which left 700,000 citizens dead, unfounded claims of voter fraud in the most recent presidential election, and telling his supporters to take to the street in protest. Now, if you think that this all sounds familiar, you are right. Former United States president, Donald Trump, also had quite a divisive and controversial presidential term that has similarities to Bolsonaro’s in terms of ideologies and policies. However, one of the most impactful and important ways that these two conservative presidents were similar was their climate and environmental policies. The two almost seemed to copy and bounce off each other with such matching policies and rollbacks. Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have similar degradation of environmental policies such as wanting to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords and dismantling their federal environmental agencies, the EPA and the MMA. However, now that both countries’ recent elections have ousted both the right-wing presidents, Biden and Lula are now cutting back on conservative climate policy to try to fill the gap.

The Paris Climate Accords

What exactly are the Paris Climate Accords? Put simply, they are a legally binding international treaty concerning climate change. In December 2015, world leaders came together at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, France because they agreed that climate change is a global emergency that all the countries of the world need to concern themselves with. The agreement that they came up with a set of long-term goals for the 194 countries in attendance. The agreement’s main goals were to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, limit the Earth’s temperature rise to 1.5C, review countries’ commitments to cutting emissions every five years, and provide financial aid to developing countries who need help financing environmental policies. Every five years, each country is expected to submit a climate action plan to the United Nations. In that plan should be the actions they plan to take to meet the agreed upon long-terms of the Paris Agreement, which are mandatory. This plan lets countries chart their own course on how they contribute to fighting climate change that best suits them. This will spark a huge economic boom for the rest of the century. There are greener jobs everywhere now, from the manufacturing of electric cars and the installation of solar panels. Not only will this plan help fight global climate change but it will also help the global economy. So why then, did Trump and Bolsonaro want to withdraw their countries from the Paris Climate Accords? In 2017, not even two years after the agreement was signed by the United States, Trump announced that the United States will withdraw from the agreement. In a press statement from the State Department that came out in November 2019, it stated that the US would withdraw from the accords because of “its unfair economic burden imposed on American workers, businesses, and taxpayers by the US pledges made under the Agreement.” It also claimed that the United States does not need the help or regulations of the UN because they have already been reducing emissions and ensuring the citizen’s access to affordable energy options. However, it promised to continue to work with other countries to react to the effects and impacts of climate change. Others believe that Trump pulled out of this agreement because it would be popular with his voters and supporters, who work in the fossil fuel industries.The US now represents around 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it remains the world's biggest and most powerful economy. So, when they are the only country so far to withdraw from this agreement, it raises a global problem of trust and responsibility.

Bolsonaro’s presidency

Early on in Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign, he said that he wanted to withdraw Brazil from the Paris Agreement. Just before the election, Bolsonaro changed his plan saying that he would keep Brazil in for now but only if certain conditions were met. While his mind kept changing about this particular agreement, he was dead-set on pulling out of others, such as the 2019 United Nations Climate Conference (COP25) and Brazil’s 2015 carbon emissions education pledge. In 2018, Bolsonaro said that Brazil would remain in the agreement if someone could give him a written guarantee that there would be no “Triple A” project and no “independence of any indigenous area” Triple A is a proposal of an NGO from Colombia for some protected areas between the Andes and the Atlantic. Bolsonaro thought that this proposal is a conspiracy to take the Amazon rainforest away from Brazil. When he referred to the “independence of indigenous areas,” what he really meant was foreign governments are trying to get indigenous communities to declare independence from Brazil so that those governments can take the Amazon as their own. While Bolsonaro eventually scraped his pledge to withdraw from the agreement, and the US remains the only country to actually do so, this could have set a dangerous precedent for other powerhouse countries to leave the agreement as well, effectively nullifying it.

Comparing Trump’s environmental policies to Bolsonaro

Trump and Bolsonaro also had similar plans to defund or dismantle their federal environmental agencies, for the US, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and in Brazil, the Ministry of the Environment (MMA). In the US, the Administrators of the EPA were deep in scandal and controversy. The first one was Scott Pruitt, a senator from Oklahoma, who was a fossil fuel industry enthusiast and had a disdain for climate science. He supported Trump in his rollbacks of the EPA regulation on multiple different issues. Trump signed an executive order in 2017 that would lift bans on federal leasing for coal, lifts restrictions on the production of oil, natural gas, coal, and shale, returns the power of such regulation to the states, and a re-evaluation of the Clean Power Plan. This is Obama’s signature climate policy which intended to cut 32% of power plant emissions by replacing coal with renewable energy. This plan only works if the EPA has regulation power of carbon pollution regulations. However, under Trump, this was not going to happen. If these carbon pollution regulations do not happen, the American people, especially the poor and people of color will suffer from it. There is also something called the Waters of US Rule, which Trump also wanted to eliminate. This was passed by the EPA in 2015 to include smaller streams in the Clean Water Act that could provide drinking water to a third of Americans, especially some in rural areas where access to clean drinking water is sparse. If the EPA’s ability to regulate the Clean Power Plan and the companies that produce fossil fuels, we could have a global climate crisis on our hands. Bolsonaro has used similar tactics to dismantle his federal environmental agency, the Ministry of the Environment (MMA). In 2019, he announced that he would be stripping the environment ministry’s authority over regulations in the forestry and water agency, which is a big problem since the Amazon rainforest is included in that description. Critics of this decision said that the lack of clear directives to fight against climate change is not allowing Brazil to meet its commitments to cut greenhouse gasses, which Bolsonaro has already done. Environmentalists at the time feared that since the ministry does not have as much regulatory power, deforestation in the Amazon will increase. In addition, in 2020, his government published 195 acts, ordinances, decrees, and other measures which would continually dismantle Brazil’s environmental laws. These acts would allow those who illegally deforested and occupied conserved areas of the Amazon to receive full amnesty for their crimes. Also, the supervision of fisheries was being relaxed so this could increase the illegal trafficking of tropical fish. These acts have also led to the firing of specialized agency heads and the hiring of personnel with little to no experience in environmental management. Under Bolsonaro, the Amazon rainforest has suffered an increase in deforestation rates. Brazil was once the standard for environmental conservation since they have a rainforest, whose protection is necessary for survival on Earth. However, since Bolsonaro took office in 2019, he stripped enforcement measures of the MMA, cut funding for the MMA, fired environmental experts and replaced them with personnel with little to no experience, and weakened indigenous land rights. There have been many forest fires and criminal activity such as illegal logging due to the MMA’s inability to enforce its regulations and protections. In the first three years of his being in office, the Amazon had lost 8.4 million acres, which just for context, is the same size as the entire country of Belgium. It is a 52 percent increase from the deforestation rates from previous years. In 2021, 17% of the whole rainforest had been destroyed. There are estimations that if that number reaches 20 to 25 percent, it could threaten millions of people and animals whose lives depend on the rainforest.

The new presidents and their policies: Biden and Lula

However powerless we feel as individuals about the inevitability of climate change, there is hope for the United States and Brazil in their new leaders. Both new presidents have promised to undo a lot of the policies, cuts, and setbacks to the environment from the last administrations. In the 2022 Brazilian presidential election, many felt that the Amazon’s fate was at stake. Lula has pledged to protect the Amazon and is the ‘greenest’ candidate that ran in the election. He was president also in 2003 and he often points to his track record during that term to show that he can succeed in his plans. He started enforcing a policy called the Forest Code which got many government agencies to work together to decrease deforestation. When Lula was in power, deforestation fell dramatically by 80%. Since Lula’s win of the office only occurred a short while ago, we can only look at his past performance to see if he will hold to his future promises to reduce deforestation. In the United States, the same environmental promises were made by Joe Biden when he was elected. Since Biden has been in office since 2020, we can look to see how the promises he made during his campaigns have fared. Biden has started protecting land that was opened to drilling. Trump approved the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, which invaded Native American and farming land. He also opened up federally managed land and ocean for oil and gas drilling. Biden, however, has halted oil and gas leasing, reserved land and ocean drilling for oil and gas, and blocked the Keystone pipelines. In addition, Biden has started enforcing environmental regulations again. Trump allowed businesses that polluted to not be prosecuted by the federal government for any broken environmental laws. Biden has started cracking down on pursuing and prosecuting polluters while also suing fossil fuel companies for the climate damage they have caused. He restored flood protection standards, revoked the executive order that made it harder for agencies to issue environmental rules, and reserved the requirement to reduce climate considerations when assessing the impact of a project. All that being said, the future of the environment and the impact of climate change will be decided in the next few years. All we can do as individuals are elect the officials with the Earth’s best interests in mind and hopefully, the policies being created now will help prevent irreversible damage further down the line.

And who’s gonna pay for it? The Costs of Trump’s Anti-Mexican Platform

Among large swaths of Republican voters, it is a truth universally acknowledged that the next President of the United States must enhance border security between the US and Mexico to keep illegal immigrants from entering the country and to protect American jobs. Perhaps the most pervasive of these policy proposals is Donald Trump’s monolithic response to immigration control: we’re gonna build a wall, and Mexico’s gonna pay for it. While crowds of supporters enthusiastically echo Trump’s wall demands at his rallies, the spread of their anti-Mexican rhetoric threatens US foreign relations with its neighbor, and consequently, threatens the future of the US economy and national security.

Though the specifics of his plan remain unclear, Trump asserts that his $10 million wall, measuring around 35 feet tall (and ‘it just got ten feet higher’) would impede the flow of alleged criminal activity from Mexico to the United States. With the Patriot Act serving as his legal framework, Trump claims he has the ‘moral high ground’ to impose stricter border regulation at Mexico’s expense; not only does Mexico’s ‘unfair subsidy behavior’ threaten US jobs, Mexico has an obligation to offset the “extraordinary daily cost of this criminal activity, including the cost of trials and incarcerations.”

Citing the US’s powerful economy and political dominance as coercive tools, Trump assures that Mexico will pay for the cost of a border wall “in one form or another,” through economic sanctions, trade tariffs, and/or greater trade regulation. According to the platform on Trump’s campaign website, “Mexico needs access to our markets much more than the reverse, so we have all the leverage and will win the negotiation.” As Trump pushes his characterization of Mexico as a country of “cunning” criminals who take advantage of the US’s economy, he builds an isolationist discourse that ignores the value of our international relations and paints the US as a self-sufficient hegemon that can bully its neighbors into any position that suits it.

In response, however, past and present Mexican leaders have reassured their constituents that Mexico will not bend so easily to Trump’s will. In an interview with Excelsior, current Mexican President, Peña Nieto, likened Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric to the fascist mechanisms of Mussolini and Hitler, warning that his unrealistic political strategy presents “simple solutions to problems that, of course, are not so easily solved.” Acknowledging that trade relations with the US are vital to the Mexican economy, Peña Nieto expressed hope to continue cooperation with the future president, whoever he or she may be. Nonetheless, the Mexican government firmly maintains that Trump’s border wall will not be constructed with any support, financial or otherwise, from Mexico.

Regardless of the feasibility of Trump’s prospective wall, his anti-Mexico platform gravely threatens the US’s relationship with an important regional ally. The North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, has been instrumental in promoting economic growth and development throughout Mexico, Canada, and the US. Since its beginnings in 1994, NAFTA has strengthened interactions between the US and its neighbors; through the arrangement’s framework, the three nations have instituted mechanisms to facilitate intergovernmental relations and forums for dispute resolution. Though the tripartisan trade agreement is entrenched with asymmetrical power divisions between the three partners – as studies demonstrate the US influencing policy decisions in Canada and Mexico without the reverse occurring – the United States economy has enjoyed significant benefits from NAFTA, and a fair amount of its success is pinned to the agreement’s success.

Currently, Mexico is the US’s third largest goods trading partner, the second largest export market, and third largest supplier of goods imports – in 2015, total goods traded between the two nations amounted to $531 billion. Moreover, the Department of Commerce estimates US goods and services to Mexico supported 1.1 million American jobs in 2014. Since creating stronger economic ties with the United States, Mexico’s economy has transformed into a new level of competitiveness. While the Mexican economy felt some pressure from lowered oil prices and reduced production, its expansion of exports to the United States encouraged economic growth in 2015. Projections of Mexico’s financial future also appear positive; if Mexico continues to develop close economic relations with the US, the World Bank forecasts a gradual acceleration of growth in coming years.

Furthermore, communities along the US-Mexico border comprise the fourth largest economy in the world, and in order to encourage greater development in this region both governments must coordinate their local and national economic policies. To build upon the region’s strengths, US perceptions of the border area must transform to recognize its potential as an asset rather than a problem. Successful interaction on either side demands a more developed cross border infrastructure – not to divide and separate, but to create more windows for international exchange. By continuing to support Mexico’s growth and development, the US helps make North America more competitive on a global scale, which in turn benefits its own economic situation. Despite Trump’s populist rhetoric, investments from the US to Mexico are more than one-sided aid packages – the US stands to benefit from stronger relations with its southern neighbor.

Additionally, the existing economic ties between the two countries have helped reinforce their diplomatic relationship, especially in addressing similar security concerns like drug related violence and illegal immigration. Through programs like the Merida project, the US has assisted the Mexican government scrutinize law enforcement and institutionalize rule of law south of the border. While this program enjoyed limited successes, it serves as a starting point for further cooperation in the fight against drug related violence. In her article, US and Mexican Cooperation: The Merida Initiative and Drug Trafficking, Yasemin Tenkin argues the US could more effectively eradicate root causes of the illicit drug trade and drug related violence by investing further in Mexico’s economy, targeting poverty and unemployment. To address these security concerns, the US’s conceptualization of Mexico must shift to recognize it as a permanent, strategic partnership. Contrarily, Trump’s isolationist discourse suggests the US renounce its links to Mexico, questioning the benefits the US receives from the asymmetrical relationship.

The increasingly populist tone of bilateral relations between the US and Mexico has led to tension in the past decade, occasionally putting a strain on diplomatic decision-making; as such, a Donald Trump presidency would place bilateral relations between the two nations at risk of severe deterioration. From Trump’s perspective, the US enjoys a hegemonic status in the sphere of foreign affairs, and may wield its political power for leverage in its international relations. What Trump’s rhetoric fails to recognize, though, is that his brand of isolationism is ineffective in today’s globalized reality. In order to achieve progress in shared policy areas such as immigration reform or weakening the drug trade system, the US must maintain a working partnership with Mexico. If Trump were to stifle the Mexican economy’s growth and cut off remittances, as he proposes, the consequential loss of income for Mexico’s vulnerable population would provide prospective immigrants an increased incentive to seek better opportunities in the US; by ignoring the role of American consumers in perpetuating the influx of illicit drugs, and failing to coordinate policy with Mexico, the US can do little to address long term solutions to cross border dealings.

By promoting a characterization of Mexico as a dependent, underdeveloped, and violent country, Trump and his supporters disregard the value of Mexico’s growing economy, and hence fail to recognize the benefits of the US’s partnership with Mexico. Without cooperation and coordination between the two countries, the US would suffer the loss of a significant trade partner and destroy myriad opportunities for economic growth and employment, weakening North American competitiveness in the global market. In regards to national security, Trump’s failure to recognize Mexico’s potential as a cooperative, problem solving partner rather than the source of conflict weakens the US’s ability to create far-reaching policy solutions to stabilize the border. So who’s gonna pay for that wall, Mr. Trump? Looking at the likely economic and political future of a US without strong bilateral relations with Mexico, it looks like the United States stand to bear more costs than the presidential hopeful may have foreseen.

To Salute or to Burn: The Battle Over Flag Desecration did not End with Texas v. Johnson

“You are a fucking scumbag traitor piece of fucking trash.” In Missouri Donald Trump supporters shout at flag stomping Anti-Trump protesters. Violence erupts as more than 200 people take part in a standoff at the very same Trump rally. Another rally in Wisconsin includes members of the “Fuck Your Flag Tour” protesting against racial discrimination while stomping on an American flag.

Flag desecration and in particular flag burning is not a new controversy. While the act o flag desecration has been declared legal and a legitimate form of free speech by the United States Supreme Court; controversy and emotions are building over the issue again. The views of our potential candidates on this sensitive issue may be worthy of more discussion given the huge impact on our society another era division over this issue would cause.

History

In 1984 a man named Gregory Lee Johnson protested the policies of Ronald Reagan by burning an American flag outside of the Republican National Convention in Dallas. His conviction for the act was brought to the Supreme Court. Here in Texas v. Johnson (491 U.S. 397), the Court decided that “flag burning constitutes a form of ‘symbolic speech’ that is protected by the First Amendment.” The ruling was the first to protect flag desecration based on the freedom of speech. Writing for the dissent Justice Stevens argued that the government had a state interest in limiting the right to desecrate the flag due to the flag’s unique status in the United States.

When congress tried to circumvent the Johnson ruling with the passage of the Flag Protection Act the decision was upheld in United States v. Eichman (496 U.S. 310). After this ruling there were various attempted to work around the ruling by congressional statute and state laws, there were also attempts to overrule the ruling through a constitutional amendment.

Current Presidential Candidates

The most recent political battle over this issue was in 2005 and 2006 with a flag desecration bill (in 2005) and constitutional amendment (in 2006) introduced in Congress. The Flag Protection Act of 2005 was cosponsored by Hilary Clinton. This piece of legislation was different from past bills in that it sought to punish flag desecration if it were to incite violence. The New York Times equates the bill with, “attempt[ing] to equate flag-burning with cross-burning, which the Supreme Court, in a sensible and carefully considered 2003 decision, said could be prosecuted under certain circumstances as a violation of civil rights law.  A middle ground between those who want to keep flag desecration legalized and those who wish to completely forbid it under all circumstances regardless of consequences or content. Both Democratic candidates, Sanders and Clinton voted no on the 2006 Amendment due to its lack of clarity and broad nature. However, Clinton did endorse a counter measure similar to her 2005 bill to replace the 2006 Amendment.

Relevance

With flag desecration issues and events popping up more frequently in this present election the votes of the past could become more relevant than the candidates would believe. Donald Trump has stated that he believes that flag desecration should be illegal and events at his rallies have shown that violence can result when people on opposite ends of this spectrum confront each other. The candidates may need to confront this issue head on at some point in the future.

The most dangerous part of this issue aside from the violence is the near 50/50 divide among the public. A Gallup poll asked for the public’s opinion on the issue in 2006 while the Flag Desecration Amendment was being discussed. The poll asked two questions, one that gave some information about the issue and the other that was more specific, the polls fluctuated the majority on each side of the issue but still hovered around 50/50. With the public so sharply divided on the issue any conflict resulting from it would be hard to resolve. Even more difficult would be to amend the constitution in favor of those rallying against flag desecration.

This particular election has seen an unusual degree of polarization. American’s have seen what they perceive to be their own American values questioned. The foundation of the system of our democracy and electoral system has been questioned by Trump through criticisms of the nomination process. Sanders has brought an economic ideology to the table that many Americans are uncomfortable with in the form of Democratic Socialism. Donald Trump has also touched nerves with his comments on race, women, and immigration. These clashes of values are extremely volatile. The question of flag desecration is even more toxic in this environment as America is redefining its image. The American flag does not stand for the same principles for everyone anymore and these polarizing points of view of America make this a nasty time for such a dangerous discussion.

The Candidates and Latin America: Policy in our "Backyard"

Ahead of the 2016 presidential election, questions on candidates’ foreign policy positions have mainly focused on the Middle East, with tough debates surrounding ISIS, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Second and third in line for candidates’ foreign policy concerns seem to be the growing economic influence of China and Russia’s political aggression. Although hailed as the United States’ “back yard,” Latin America is merely a blip on the foreign policy radar this election season. However, three issues regarding Latin America have been widely discussed by most (if not all) campaigns: Immigration reform, normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba, and NAFTA. The candidates’ stances on the issues vary, not only between political parties but within them as well.  

Immigration

With an estimated 11 million undocumented people living in the U.S., immigration is no small issue. The two parties are vehemently divided on the issue of immigration reform. Democrats often promote a “pathway to citizenship,” while Republicans tend to favor securitization of the (southern) border.

As the son of a migrant from Poland, Bernie Sanders proposes an immigration policy that emphasizes justice and human rights to keep families together and protect workers from exploitation. He plans to build on the Obama Administration’s immigration reforms by expanding the DACA and DAPA programs. Sanders will not wait for Congress to act, instead he has said he will take executive action within the first 100 days of his administration. Sanders specifically addresses the flow of unaccompanied child migrants, primarily from the Northern Triangle – Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. While it reached a peak in 2014, the U.S. is still dealing with the repercussions of the massive influx of tens of thousands of unaccompanied children. Sanders condemns the deportation of these children, amid reports that children who are returned to their home countries are being killed by the same gang-incited violence they fled.

Hillary Clinton also supports comprehensive immigration reform. Her proposed immigration plan includes creating a pathway to citizenship, closing family and private detention centers, and upholding President Obama’s previous executive orders on immigration reform. Clinton also plans to provide deportation relief for DREAMers, DAPA candidates, and to “extend those actions to additional persons with sympathetic cases.” As a senator, she cosponsored the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. Although Clinton mainly addresses the legal aspects of immigration reform, she also emphasizes that immigration is a “family issue” and wants to work to keep law-abiding immigrant families together.  

The current GOP front-runner, Donald Trump, proposes the radical and improbable solution of building a wall to seal the border with Mexico. Trump also plans to make Mexico pay for it, by refusing to process remittances from relatives and friends in the U.S. Trump states, “ It's an easy decision for Mexico: make a one-time payment of $5-10 billion to ensure that $24 billion continues to flow into their country year after year.” According to experts, the proposed 2,000-mile wall would be the largest infrastructure project in the U.S. since President Eisenhower’s highway program. While Trump estimates the cost at about $10 billion, it could actually cost up to $25 billion and would take until the end of his first term to complete. It is also unclear if it is feasible or even legal to halt remittances. To make matters worse, Trump has also come under fire for racist comments, equating Mexican immigrants with gang members, drug traffickers, and rapists.

In keeping with reductionist immigration reform, Ted Cruz states on his campaign website that “he will stop illegal immigration.” Not only that, but he also plans to build a wall across the southern border, as well as triple border security, and implement a biometric tracking system. Although his campaign does not delve into details, a biometric tracking system would likely include collecting the fingerprints of every foreigner who entered or exited the country. Congress passed a biometric tracking bill shortly after 9/11, but the Department of Homeland Security has maintained that the program is too costly and impractical. A preliminary study found that it would cost up to $6.4 billion to install the system just in all air and seaports, which would not even track the 79% of migrants who enter the U.S. over land.

The more center-leaning GOP candidate, John Kasich, fails to mention immigration on his campaign website. Even more vexing, Kasich has changed his position several times, even within the campaign season. In June 2015, he stated at an Iowa forum that undocumented immigrants who otherwise follow U.S. laws should have a pathway to obtain legal status. However, he also added that this legal status should not lead to citizenship, although that may have to be part of a compromise. Later, he told an Ohio newspaper that he does not support any legal status for undocumented immigrants, and he wanted to end birth right citizenship.

The Democratic candidates are proposing massive reforms, which will greatly improve the current system and provide desperately needed services to millions of migrants and their families. However, it will likely be extremely tough to get these reforms through a gridlocked Congress. On the other hand, the Republic candidates’ plans are either non-existent or so preposterous that they might as well be non-existent, as they will likely never bear any semblance of reality.

Cuba

President Obama’s actions to normalize relations and lift the embargo against Cuba have become major topics in most candidates’ foreign policy proposals. Since the process began in December of 2014, Cuba has been removed from the State Sponsor of Terrorism List, the U.S. Embassy in Havana has been re-opened, and direct mail flights have been re-established. On going efforts are working to lift the trade embargo and allow to greater freedom for Americans wishing to travel to the island.

Sanders has long supported the normalization of relations with Cuba, however, his stance is nuanced. In an interview from 1985, Sanders commends Castro’s socialist reforms to improve access to universal health care and education. While Sanders has expressed hope that Cuba move towards a more democratic system of governance, he has also emphasized the need for the U.S. to respect Cuba’s sovereignty. This last statement is evident of Sander’s non-interventionist position, and he has often criticized the U.S.’s habit of toppling left-leaning regimens in Latin America (from 1898 to 1994 there were at least 41 U.S. interventions in the region – an average of one every 28 months). More recently, in 2014, Sanders traveled to Cuba to discuss human rights, trade, and health care as part of an official U.S. delegation.

Clinton’s position has slowly shifted from her time as First Lady to her more recent position as Secretary of State for the Obama Administration. As First Lady, she supported the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which President Bill Clinton signed into law, that prevents the embargo from being lifted until Cuba fulfills certain requirements, including fair elections, freeing political prisoners, and uncensored press. In her 2008 presidential run, she maintained her position of opposition to lifting the embargo, however she added a caveat, stating, “As president I would be ready to reach out and work with a new Cuba government, once it demonstrated that it truly was going to change that direction.” Then, as Secretary of State, Clinton recommended that Obama reconsider the embargo, as it “wasn’t achieving its goals.” In July of 2015, Clinton made a speech in Miami, a highly symbolic location due to the number of Cuban immigrants living there, in which she declared, “The Cuba embargo needs to go, once and for all.” Hillary’s changing position on Cuba could be the result of a progression in thought, though it may also just be an attempt to court Latino voters.

Although not entirely clear or detailed on his position, it appears that Trump is not opposed to the normalization of relations, stating, “Ultimately, it’s going to be good.” However, in the same interview, he went on to express that, “we could have had a better deal, a much stronger deal,” though he does not reveal what a stronger deal might entail. Other Republican candidates have criticized Trump, as they generally oppose lifting the embargo and normalizing relations with Cuba.

Despite his Cuban heritage, Cruz strongly opposes normalizing relations with Cuba, especially if the country remains under the Castro regimen. During the GOP primary debate in Miami, Cruz stated that he would reverse Obama’s actions and re-break diplomatic ties with Cuba, a “nation that hate[s] us.”  He has also promised to block the appointment of a U.S. ambassador to Cuba, a necessary step in re-establishing diplomacy between the two countries. Currently the ambassador is serving in an “acting” role since the U.S. re-opened the Havana embassy in July of 2015. Cruz’s plans would set a dangerous precedent for U.S. foreign policy and damage relations in the region.

Kasich has not outlined a definitive position on Cuba thus far in the campaign. However, as Representative he voted against two measures in 2000 that would reduce the economic and travel embargoes. In an interview in February, Kasich responded to a question on breaking diplomatic relations with Cuba by stating, “Well let’s see where we are when I come [into office] and what the administration has done…I think [the Obama Administration] made a big mistake because I think Cuba needed to do something. Why are we always reaching out?...They keep demanding things so I don’t understand what the administration is doing.” It seems only time will tell what his final stance is.

The candidates express varying degrees of enthusiasm for normalizing relations with Cuba. Clinton and Sanders would build on the Obama Administration’s policy, while Cruz would break ties once again, severely damaging the budding diplomatic relations. In keeping with their lack of foreign policy experience, or even interest, Trump and Kasich have said little on the issue.

NAFTA

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), enacted in 1994, is a multilateral agreement between the United States, Mexico, and Canada to increase economic cooperation. NAFTA has been highly controversial. Critics say it causes job losses in the U.S. and unfavorable working conditions abroad. Supporters respond by saying it will actually help create jobs and spur economic growth across the region. Currently, most experts conclude that NAFTA has been net positive for the U.S., although it has failed to deliver on the big promises made in its early years. Furthermore, it is difficult to distinguish the direct effects of NAFTA on economies in the wake of globalization and increased technology use.

Sanders strongly opposes NAFTA, blaming it for increased poverty in Mexico, loss of jobs, and an influx of undocumented migrants in the U.S. His plan is to rewrite trade deals such as NAFTA to promote fair trade in lieu of free trade. Sanders has been consistent in his position, stating in a debate in early March, “I was on a picket line in the early 1990s against NAFTA, because you didn’t need a Ph.D. in economics to understand that American workers should not be forced to compete against people in Mexico making 25 cents an hour.” While Sanders’ draconian interpretation of NAFTA may be a bit exaggerated, a fair trade agreement would likely be more beneficial for the American worker than the current free trade model.

Clinton has a complicated history with trade deals. She supported NAFTA as the First Lady during Bill Clinton’s Administration. As a Senator, Clinton supported free trade, as long as it “can increase living standards and foster…economic development for all parties.” In 2007, during her first presidential run, she remarked that NATFA was a mistake because it did not deliver on many promises that were made in 1994, which is mostly true. As Secretary of State, Clinton embraced free trade with the beginnings of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) – which she has since turned against. Her stance as a current presidential candidate has been fuzzy; she does not openly support NAFTA and other free trade agreements, but she does not decry them as middle-class and job destroying plans, either. This is another case of questioning whether Clinton’s change of heart is due to gradual belief progression, or, as is likelier in this case due to her sudden turn against TPP, an attempt to round up votes.

Trump also opposes NAFTA, as he believes it is destroying the U.S. manufacturing industry. In an interview in which Trump was asked how he would respond to an American car company that wished to open a plant in Mexico, he stated that he would charge the company a 35 percent tax on each product that was then sent back into the U.S. However, this measure directly violates NAFTA and disregards the fact that only Congress can establish separate tax rates. In a separate interview, Trump said, “I am all for free trade, but it’s got to be fair.” This statement under scores his lack of basic economic knowledge, as free trade, by definition, cannot be constrained by measures to make it “fair.”

Cruz’s positions on NAFTA and free trade have been murky. At press time, he has not given a position on NAFTA, and has only vaguely expressed opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership.

Although he has not said much on this issue during his presidential campaign, Kasich voted for NAFTA as a Congressman in 1993. He has not spoken at length on the issue, but Kasich currently supports free trade, and also maintains that many American jobs are the result of free trade.

Conclusions

 The foreign policy positions of the candidates represent a large range of experiences, interests, and perceptions. Clinton, having served as Secretary of State, is by far the most qualified candidate. However, her record in Latin America is stained by revelations that she played a role in the 2009 Honduran coup d’etat. Sanders remains fervently committed to his ‘diplomacy first’ and non-interventionist beliefs, and often connects foreign policy with reducing inequality and promoting social services – two core points of his domestic campaign. Trump’s proposals are either outlandish or half-baked, and there seems to be no moderate middle ground in sight. Similarly, Cruz’s views are both simplistic and extreme, and he would not hesitate to turn back the clock to the 1950’s on the U.S.’s relationship with Cuba. Finally, Kasich leaves much to be desired in the realm of foreign policy, and, really, in his campaign in general. It seems that the only issue the candidates might be able to agree on is their condemnation of NAFTA, which, in reality, is not the catch-all to blame a stagnant economy and loss in industry jobs on that they want it to be.

Can Donald Trump the WTO?

Yes—it’s another piece covering Donald Trump’s policies—but don’t leave quite yet; I promise to not fall into the enticing leitmotifs typical of the current status quo for journalistic coverage of Trump. Allow me to explain.

Be it on the left or the right, there seem to be two major fissures into which commentators fall whenever Trump’s name is mentioned—sardonic, arrogant insouciance, and melodramatic fear-mongering. Those in the former camp will attempt to write the entire Trump phenomenon off as a manifestation of angry whites too ignorant to see that his proposals are all nonsense and that he is leading them to an inevitable slaughter in a general election; they don’t deem his policies worthy of analysis because they believe the probability of his winning is zero. Those in the latter camp will attempt to spin every Trump statement as an apocalyptic forecast, harking a potential Trump presidency as the harbinger of immediate international Armageddon. Both seem, to me, ridiculous. The first comes with the assumption that Trump’s campaign has exposed nothing useful whatsoever; whereas, I concur with scholars like Dani Rodrik and Paul Krugman who believe that the populist wave of support behind a candidate like Trump has highlighted a failure of the US system to share adequately the fruit of globalization and international trade equally amongst the US population. The second sacrifices the reality of the US constitutional system of checks and balances in favor of exaggeration for the sake of ratings and clicks; after all, what would attract more viewers—a piece that recognizes the relative impotence of the US presidency given the division of power between the three branches of government, or one that harks Trump as a Hitleresque totalitarian who will destroy the world?

As with most political polemics, clinging to one ideological line doesn’t lead to much in the way of constructive discussion. Thus, I will not caricaturize Trump using a broad, ideological brush. Nor will I go soundbite-hunting (which honestly requires little creativity during this campaign cycle) in order to cherry-pick quotations that could then be falsely described as Trump’s trade policy. Instead, wary of the aforementioned chasms that flank me on both sides, I will attempt to go straight to horse’s mouth to analyze Trump’s trade policy reform proposals, basing myself only on his one and only official campaign position paper that pertains to trade—“U.S. – China Trade Reform.”

A few final disclaimers before proceeding to the targeted analysis are apposite. First, the paper the policy paper under scrutiny here only directly apostrophizes China; however, the policies proposed implicate much more than the bilateral US-China trade relationship. As a result of this, even though this is the only trade-related policy paper of Trump’s, we can deduce a great deal from the suggestions therein when it comes to understanding Trump’s broader approach to trade. Trump’s trade policy paper does contain a variety of economic figures used to justify the proposals therein. I will not be fact-checking any of these myself; there are plenty of better-suited sources that do precisely this type of work. My intention is to examine Trump’s major reform proposals, explicating both the international legal mechanisms they target, as well as the potential effects they would have if carried out in their entirety.

Distilling the signal from the noise

Some have called the Trump campaign “substanceless,” arguing that he is all talk with no concrete policy proposals. While hyperbolically effective, that is not true when it comes to trade; there are certainly enactable proposals contained within Trump’s policy paper. That said, there is also a great deal that is simply talking point fodder disguised as policy. There are many examples of this type of non-policy proposal peppered throughout the paper—too many for each to be explained in this article—hence, I want instead to begin by offering a framework for sifting through these purely rhetorical proposals, identifying a few glaring examples of strong words, without any legal authority behind them.

When looking for practical trade proposals that could actually be enacted, it is important to remember that the executive branch in the US has relatively little power in determining trade policy. The U.S. Constitution is perfectly clear in its delegation of trade authority to the Congress, not the Executive. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the sole authority “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations.” This power is no longer absolute, however. In the 20th century, it was quickly discovered that logrolling in the Congress was a political tendency that would make crafting trade deals in the Congress alone untenable. As such, the so-called “fast track presidential authority” to broker trade agreements was created by the Trade Act of 1974. While this act did delegate the authority to negotiate trade agreements to the President, it is an impermanent power that must be persistently re-authorized by the Congress. Even today—an age that many would commonly believe is dominated by trade agreements in-the-works such as TTIP and TPP, the president’s authority is very limited. The only TPA authority currently active is the Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015, which grants the Obama administration limited “power to negotiate major trade agreements with Asia and Europe.” In short, the next president of the United States will have to seek renewed TPA from Congress, and even if it is allotted, any deals made or tariffs proposed are entirely at the mercy of congressional approval. With all this in mind, we can craft a strategy for identifying concrete proposals—finding the signal amidst the noise. We should interrogate every proposal by inquiring: what mechanism is being used to accomplish the policy aim (tariffs, duties, etc.), and what legal entities ultimately control said mechanisms.  

As an example of a proposal that is backed by no concrete policy, let’s examine one of Trump’s suggestions regarding a harmonization of environmental and labor standards:

China’s woeful lack of reasonable environmental and labor standards represent yet another form of unacceptable export subsidy. How can American manufacturers, who must meet very high standards, possibly compete with Chinese companies that care nothing about their workers or the environment? We will challenge China to join the 21st Century when it comes to such standards.

As can be seen, this proposal offers the perfect opportunity to test the framework laid out previously. We see very clearly that there is a policy aim—ensuring that the US and China are both held to similar environmental and labor standards—but there is no mention of the mechanism that would be used to accomplish this policy aim. This is surprising, because resorting to tariffs as a default policy tool is a well-documented favorite of Trump’s. Even though the paper mentions no mechanisms and thus cannot be analyzed as policy, we can still answer the second question of our framework, because there is a legal entity that does in large part oversee the standards that Trump would like to see more equally followed: the World Trade Organization (WTO). In fact, this is not an outlier; in most of the instances in Trump’s trade policy paper where a policy aim is announced without a specified mechanism or legal entity being referenced, the issue likely falls under the umbrella of disputes for which the WTO already serves as a forum. This incongruence hints at what I find to be the most confusing and, in my estimation, untenable characteristic of Trump’s trade policy. It seems to argue on various fronts for vigorous US reengagement at the WTO, pressuring other countries—namely China—via the WTO dispute settlement mechanisms more than ever before, while concomitantly arguing for the brandishing of tariffs and other protectionist measures the likes of which the US has not seen since Herbert Hoover held the presidency.

A trumped-up WTO strategy? – Enforce some rules ardently, while breaking others unabashedly

The internally contradictory nature of Trump’s policy proposal as concerns the United States’ role at the WTO is difficult to untangle, but perhaps no better microcosmic representation of the strategy exists than this paragraph concerning how Trump plans to combat “China’s illegal export subsidies and other unfair advantages.”

The U.S. Trade Representative recently filed yet another complaint with the WTO accusing China of cheating on our trade agreements by subsidizing its exports. The Trump administration will not wait for an international body to tell us what we already know. To gain negotiating leverage, we will pursue the WTO case and aggressively highlight and expose these subsidies.

As we can see, the second sentence intimates that a Trump presidency would not wait for the WTO dispute-settlement process to run its course. While an alternative legal mechanism is not proposed, we can insinuate from the rest of the policy paper that what is implied is that the US would pressure China with countervailing duties and tariffs. That said, the following sentence is a complete reversal; without even skipping a sentence the proposal pivoted from “not wait[ing] for [the WTO] to tell us what we already know,” to “pursu[ing] the WTO case” aggressively.

For the sake of a thought experiment to explore the implications of this internal contraction if actually put in practice, let us assume that Trump carries through on all such promises—both of more aggressive WTO dispute settlement action against China, and of simultaneous tariff use. What would come from this? Those who paint Trump’s policies as perfectly pursuant to John Bolton’s view of international law would be exposed as wrong, because even Bolton, who believes that international law has no moral character and instead is only what states will it to be, acknowledges that certain systems exist—such as the WTO—that can be used by states to secure beneficial outcomes if adhered to. If the two previously mentioned Trump policy proposals were both enacted, the result would be devastating for the United States because of the current structure of the WTO dispute resolution mechanisms.

WTO dispute resolutions over subsidies are governed by the “Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures,” and given the diverse ways that subsidies can be disguised (which Trump rightly identifies in the policy paper), successfully winning a dispute before the WTO takes time and a great deal of fastidious effort. On the other hand, the levying of a tariff such as those for whose implementation Trump argues all throughout the policy paper, beginning with the very first paragraph of the “Details of Donald J. Trump’s US China Trade Plan,” is in blatant violation of a host of more universal obligations, and Trump’s proposals would bring the US into immediate breach of GATT Article I—the most favored nation principle that WTO members should treat all imports equally—as well as GATT Article II—the restriction of tariffs to a maximum of the “bound rate” established in the tariff schedule.

Why then, would this be so detrimental? Again, it is a matter of the legal mechanisms that undergird these two separate processes. While the WTO dispute settlement for subsidies is a long, complex process, tariffs are the most overt form of protectionism, and, as Scott Lincicome of The Federalist appropriate states, “such an obvious violation of WTO rules would make for the easiest WTO dispute in the organization 20-year history.” Hint, the US would lose.

Thus, the hypocrisy of Trump’s proposals as concern the US’ role in the WTO is damaging not just because they are difficult to understand and ideologically self-contradictory (are we for or against the WTO?); they are prejudicial because if they were actually to be enacted, they represent a fundamental misunderstanding of how the WTO dispute-settlement processes operate, and would lead to disproportionate harm for the United States, while China—the target of all of these policies—would actually be able to impose countervailing duties, and the rest of the WTO member states would be justifiably on China’s side, as they have the strength of numerous international legally binding accords behind them.  

But what about efficient breach? International legal scholars agree that’s a thing, so…

No. Allow me to stop you there. Efficient breach definitely is a thing, but to apply it in light of Trump’s policy recommendations here would be a gross misunderstanding of that legal school of thought. Eric A. Posner—the intellectual father of efficient breach—agreed with Bolton, in that both espoused the belief that international law had no moralistic underpinning, and was thus a tool for states to use to maximize their well-being. This is a line that sounds like it would fit very well with Trump’s “America First,” doctrine, but to take the next logical leap and say that Trump’s plan is thus one that might be espoused by the likes of Posner and Bolton, would be to convolute sound legal theory with obfuscous rhetoric.

The principle undergirding efficient breach is that of economic efficiency of trade-offs; i.e., international norms (such as adherence to WTO rules) can be broken if the relative economic efficiency of breach outweighs that of continued compliance. Trump’s international trade policy proposals highlight a variety of key problems that are sadly oftentimes left undiscussed because of the polemical—and thus media-attracting—nature of other claims therein. He addresses many issues that should be addressed by the next president—be it the disproportionate distribution of benefits from international trade amongst Americans, to the need to pursue greater harmonization of compliance with international commercial standards so that some nations are not disadvantaged while others are able to dodge safety and labor regulations. That said, all of these issues are overshadowed by the self-defeating nature of Trump’s policy proposals vis-à-vis the WTO. Without even broaching the cultural, sociological, and political implications of overtly breaching the GATT—a subject which would merit an entire article of its own—Trump’s trade policy is currently plagued by a coherence problem identified by our previously established analytical framework.  Even if one agrees with every beginning presumption and aim expressed in Trump’s policy paper, the legal mechanisms in place that govern international trade would result in a terribly inefficient breach. WTO law is not all trumpery, and Trump would do well to remember that that which is rhetorically powerful matters much less than that which is legally efficient.

More of the Same: Bernie’s Foreign Policy, Just War Theory, and International Humanitarian Law

The 2016 presidential race has, without a doubt, become one of the most significant electoral phenomena in recent American history. Moreover, the Islamic State (IS) poses a historic problem for candidates, and although foreign policy has not taken center stage, a quiet but vociferous debate goes on about whether the Democrats’ left hand—Bernie Sanders—is more of a hawk or a dove. Sanders basically has no chance of winning the Democratic nomination, but has affected the presumptive Democratic nominee’s position in significant ways. We know enough about Clinton’s foreign policy history given her tenure as Secretary of State, but we know little about Sanders’ positions and how they would possibly influence Clinton. Is Sanders’ policy towards IS theoretically legal? If it reaches the threshold of legality, does that necessarily mean it fulfills the requirements of jus ad bellum and jus in bello? Two useful yet tragically under-utilized lenses for analyzing candidates’ proposed military aggression are those of just war theory and international humanitarian law.

Just War Theory and International Humanitarian Law

International humanitarian law, sometimes called the laws of war, is a set of international legal obligations that applies to states during times of conflict and proscribes them or their agents from certain actions in order to mitigate the harmful consequences of armed conflict. Just war theory provides the legal justification for international humanitarian law, and: jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Jus ad bellum relates to states’ preparatory actions for engaging in conflict before actually doing so. Jus in bello states that, whatever states’ motivations, their wars must be conducted justly. Without going into too much detail, the international humanitarian legal regime takes jus ad bellum and jus in bello as given requirements of warfare—these are like constitutional principles that cannot be violated. The rights granted to states by jus ad bellum and jus in bello are the rights to (1) declare war with just cause and (2) respond to force proportionally. Jus ad bellum derives legal support from Articles 2 and 51 of the UN Charter. Jus in bello’s derives legal support from the Geneva and Hague Conventions, and from customary international law. States have five minimum requirements according to just war theory. First, any just war must be waged by an internationally recognized actor, such as a state or a coalition of states, and must be announced publicly ahead of time. Second, wars must be waged with just intentions, such as the maintenance or restoration of peace. Third, states waging war must only do so if there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the war’s objectives are achievable—the laws of war prohibit mass violence if nothing will likely come of it. Fourth, wars must be waged via proportional means. In other words, if one state invades and conquers another’s territory, then the latter only has the right to take back what is due, not conquer more than its fair share of the former’s territory. Finally, war must only be a last resort after exhausting all other, non-violent means of conflict resolution. As long as states meet these five requirements, their foreign policies are theoretically legal under a just war framework.

It is not useful to list every illegal offense in this essay, which is only concerned with Sanders’ response to IS. Matters of international humanitarian law are almost never as clear-cut as deeming something legal or illegal; they depend on innumerable factors and can be justified in myriad ways by a competent lawyer. However, international humanitarian law relates to jus in bello and derives its authority from two principle legal sources. First, international humanitarian law derives support from hard sources of law in treaties like the Geneva and Hague Conventions, and other legal documents. Second, although not every state is signatory to the relevant treaties, and less have ratified the legal statutes in question, but customary law criminalizes the most severe violations of international humanitarian law. For example, drones are not explicitly banned by any international legal statute, nor are they considered inherently indiscriminate according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). But all states going to war must satisfy the principle of distinction, meaning that they must distinguish between civilians and combatants. Drone strikes against terrorist groups like al Qaeda have a higher threshold for distinction because it is not always clear whether the target is a combatant or not. This means that tactics like signature strikes, for example, are “clearly unlawful,” at least according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions Christof Heyns.

Sanders’ Foreign Policy

During the first Democratic debate, Sanders said, “I am not a pacifist […] I support airstrikes in Syria and what the president is trying to do.” Sanders has also shown himself wary of deploying boots on the ground. And he has even called the situation in Syria “a quagmire in a quagmire,” claiming to “make sure that the United States does not get involved […] like we did in Iraq, the worst foreign policy blunder in the history of this country.” So, if he sticks to his campaign promises, we can expect that Sanders likely will not support boots on the ground, opting instead for airstrikes and a coalition of Middle Eastern nations to combat IS—a policy the Senator first supported in 2014.

So, would Sanders’ proposed airstrike-coalition plan comply with the laws of war, and would they adhere to just war theory? On the first question, maybe. On the second, no.

Few would dispute that fighting IS sufficiently constitutes a just cause, especially if the belligerent nations include those most proximate (e.g., the hypothetical members of Sanders’ proposed coalition) and those whose citizens were killed by IS members, not just those who would be indirectly threatened (e.g., the U.S., France, and other victims of IS attacks). Barring more cynical theories that the IS was created by the West in order to justify intervention, going to war because your people have been beheaded or blown up in terrorist attacks does not represent a war of aggression, even if they may do harm to the region. Moreover, Obama’s announcement that his administration will “degrade and ultimately destroy” IS could reasonably count as a public declaration of war by an internationally recognized actor: the United States. What remains is to provide sufficient evidence that military operations are (1) the last resort and (2) likely to achieve the war’s objective. As long as Sanders sticks to his belief that “unilateral military action should be a last resort” and proffers a solution that will likely “degrade and destroy” IS, he has satisfied jus ad bellum.

Sanders’ plan does not fulfill jus in bello, however. Considering that drones are not inherently illegal, but must satisfy the principle of distinction, airstrikes comply with the law only to the unlikely extent that military leaders refrain from signature strikes and other, similar indiscriminate tactics. If, however, the military did not refrain from indiscriminate attacks à la Obama administration, the types of attacks Sanders only says are “counter-effective,” then the drone policy would violate the principle of distinction. The U.S. has not ratified Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions—the protocol officially codifying distinction—but the ICRC considers distinction distinguishing between civilians and combatants part of customary law, or “general practice accepted as law” and independent of treaties. Furthermore, assembling a coalition of Middle Eastern states might relieve the U.S. of any legal responsibility for wars of aggression—whether or not the coalition’s actions would violate the laws of war is beyond this essay. However, if the U.S. knowingly provides funding, weapons, or training to the hypothetical coalition and the latter subsequently violates any international humanitarian law, a case could be made for the U.S.’s complicity. Lastly, if the Senator’s plans include indefinitely and illegally detaining prisoners at Guantánamo Bay—or any other military prison for that matter—and employing enhanced interrogation methods with the purpose of discovering information about IS, then the plan’s detention strategy would violate international humanitarian law. In the abstract, Sanders’ vagueness puts his IS plan in the clear. But as a strategic campaign maneuver, it leaves open the possibility of violating the law when the situation supposedly calls for it. As Sanders described himself, “I am not a pacifist.”

Significant evidence suggests that drone strikes—arguably the centerpiece of Obama’s and Sanders’ plans—engender anti-American sentiment and support for IS. According to a public letter written by four Air Force service members with more than 20 years of experience between then, mistakes that result from the drone program, such as the killing of civilians and U.S. citizens “fueled the feelings of hatred that ignited terrorism and groups like [IS], while also serving as a fundamental recruitment tool similar to Guantánamo Bay.” The number of drone strikes sharply increased under Obama, which Sanders considers “constitutional and legal.” Therefore, Sanders faces an uphill battle to prove that continuing airstrikes will likely achieve the war’s objectives, and that his IS policy will comply with international humanitarian law’s jus in bello requirements.

Conclusion

As with any election, foreign policy has taken a back seat to important questions such as what to do with the economy, and this is no more evident than in Sanders’ campaign. However, all candidates’ policies towards IS represent no less important questions. Sanders can easily justify waging war against IS, thus fulfilling jus ad bellum, however his plan’s strong support for drone strikes sends it into questionable legal territory under the best circumstances, and frankly illegal territory under the worst circumstances. Insofar as it might comply with the law and established principles of justice in international relations, we might accept it as a legitimate plan, but the vagueness with which it has thus far been proffered do more for leaving open the possibility of omission of the U.S.’s legal obligations than to assuage any concerns over its illegality.

Hope and Change in the Time of Police Violence: From Obama's Inauguration to Trayvon Martin’s Murder

“Euphoric. It was unbelievable to really see that we could do anything we put our minds to. I never had a plan to go to an inauguration before that day.” Dr. Omekongo Dibinga’s eyes lit up as he shared his feelings on President Obama’s 2008 inauguration. He claims it is one of his happiest memories from any public event, one which “sparks something in his heart.” Dibinga is not alone in this sentiment. For so many Americans, Obama’s election seemed to represent the beginning of a new era. As he stood in the freezing cold that January night at the National Mall, he held his little toddler on his shoulders. It was as though, for just one moment, he was holding her up higher than the scourge of a country whose legacy was rooted in slavery, eugenics, and mass incarceration. She would be hurt by these injustices later, but tonight she would witness her father's joy. An eternity of oppression and despair, seemed for just a moment, to fade in the triumph of a new narrative of hope we can believe in.

At the time, Dibinga was a motivational speaker and diversity counselor in schools that served predominantly low income youth of color. The morning after Obama was elected, he believes his students arrived to class with a new light in their eyes, a new sense of pride and belonging. “I saw my students show up to my class wearing Obama t-shirts. I had never seen my students choose to represent a politician on their clothing before. I had seen rappers and musicians, but never a president.” Dibinga recalls that Wednesday in the classroom with a Jay-Z quote: “The day Obama won the election, the gangster became less relevant.” His students were able to see themselves in a new light, one where they finally saw a representation of themselves beyond entertainers and athletes, a president who looked like them. “I saw black people stand and pledge allegiance to the flag for the first time in their lives. To be alive and witness that moment, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. People finally felt like they were part of this country after being on the outskirts for so long.”

Dibinga was very careful with his word choice. This was just a moment in time. A powerful moment, but far from the end of a nation fueled by white supremacy. Maybe it felt like the start of an era where a man of color could lead the free world, but it did not feel like the end of an era where white supremacy remains as prevalent as the air we breathe. It wasn’t until a black man could sit in the Oval Office that we heard proud utterances of a “post-racial United States.” Nevermind the photoshopped images of a lynched Obama with the phrase “hope” replaced with the phrase “rope,” or the fact that congress seemed completely unwilling to get anything passed under his watch. At first these messages were whispered on our social media, and later they became more and more confident, even self-righteous shouts of “Your president is black, so what are you people so upset about?” So many, including Dibinga, feared this narrative. We only needed to look at the worn faces of those in the ultra-segregated communities in our home city of Boston, the crumbling state of Boston’s public schools, the hopelessness of our voter turnout, the clearly inequitable way the “T”  subway system skipped over our black and brown neighborhoods, and the way communities lived in an inescapable state of chaos and poverty. “It was projected that people like me wouldn’t live past the age of 25, that if we weren’t killed by them we would be incarcerated,” said Dibinga. These realities proved to us that regardless of how our president lived, we were very much living in a harsh and unforgivingly racist society.

This has become particularly clear in the recent resurgence of a new civil rights movement which has been sparked in part by the death and subsequent lack of justice for Trayvon Martin. Patrisse Cullors coined the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter after Mike Brown's death, and it has needed to be used countless times since when we face yet another pointless act of police brutality. After Trayvon's death, President Obama stated “If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.” This emotive sentiment was one of the first times Obama had been so vulnerable about his position as a person of color for the whole nation to hear. While Dibinga and many others felt affirmed by these words, many others felt threatened by having the president make a statement that connected him exclusively with other Americans of color. The president who Dibinga celebrated had just claimed something Dibinga also felt; this representation from a president was a new experience.

“I see myself in everyone of these guys who is killed.” Dibinga is referring to his reactions to the recent deaths of young black and brown men and women. In 2015, 1205 people were killed by the police in the United States. Black men and boys are twenty-one times more likely to be killed by the police than their white male counterparts. He carries the memory of Obama’s election deeply on his conscience, but says that the media coverage of those killed by police is “always on [his] mind.” Dibinga is somber as he shares how he is scared and sad to hear media “come up with all these theories about why a kid deserved to die. You can’t help but wonder, what story will be told if it happens to you?” As state-sanctioned violence against people of color increases, how can we return to that feeling of unlimited possibility on November 4, 2008 without it being tainted? How can we believe in the hope Obama promised without feeling a sense of fatalism or frustration? Dibinga quietly shares “you feel like you are being minimized at every step… I wonder if people even care about who I am here...”

The media didn’t help to dispel this sense of being one dimensional. For the media, these murders are shown as must see TV. “Why is it in America we have to see proof of a black man being killed? Why do people have to see us get slaughtered in order for us to believe it?” Over the summer a twitter hashtag, #iftheygunnedmedown, began to gain traction. The hashtag showed two pictures side-by-side of a man in a suit, and that same man dressed in clothes where he would be perceived as a “thug.” “When we die they show us at our worst, if I get killed by police tonight they won’t show the picture of me getting my diploma… To the media at the end of the day your accomplishments aren’t going to mean anything if you are killed by police.”

Dibinga began to share negative interactions with the Boston police that further fuel how much he saw himself in each man who had been lost. “My Congolese mother [with a Ph. D.] who didn’t learn English until she was 29 was in the train station and a white girl told the cops she was selling drugs. Without question my mother was arrested and when my father came to pick her up in jail, she only had her shirt on.”  These stories are so common that they sometimes feel inevitable. If this is the reality, how can we believe in any hope or change? Even for Black and Latino Americans without stories quite as intense as this one, many more did wonder why there were no train stops, grocery stores, or decent schools in our neighborhoods. Each individual's story is unique, but they also include patterns caused and upheld by a legacy of racism. Today, Dibinga’s daughter is nine years old, and she doesn’t remember being present for Obama's original inauguration. Although she was born in a time characterized by hope and change, she is now being raised in an era of heightened cynicism and mistrust. Will she grow up to  live a life more boldly stamped by a Black president or by the mindless state sanctioned violence her grandmother experienced?

The Pragmatic, the Exciting, and the Uncertain: Hillary Clinton's Infrastructure Proposal

In late November 2015, the Clinton campaign announced plans to pursue an increase in federal infrastructure spending by $275 billion over 5 years, a plan the campaign calls “a major down payment on a stronger America”. Though comments concerning the plan have been largely muffled on the campaign trail by emphasis on the historical achievement of her mere nomination, email scandals, and the bewildering aura of her Fall challenger, Clinton did state in late May her intention to send “a comprehensive infrastructure proposal to Congress in her first 100 days in office”. Presumably, the inclusion of the plan in the agenda of her first 100 days signifies the status of this issue as a top priority for Clinton, and something she seems willing to bet her legacy on should she have the pleasure of serving.

Which is an issue, because while the plan is appealing rhetorically, it features a worrying lack of detail. While the Clinton campaign claims that the plan will be fully paid for, it only mentions “business tax reform” as its method of payment, without any specifics concerning which particular taxes will change, the manner in which they will change, or how reforming the business tax code will capture an extra $275 billion over 5 years. Nevertheless, it should be noted that it is generally accepted in the economic community that “business tax reform” is a worthwhile policy goal, as it is much more efficient to simply tax people’s incomes if you’re looking to tax them. That being said, if a President Clinton finds herself facing a Republican Congress next Spring, the likelihood of her presiding over revenue positive tax reform is dubious.

However, once one gets past the unclear method of payment, the Clinton campaign’s plan starts to get interesting. Of the original $275 billion sticker price, $250 billion will be set aside for direct infrastructure investment via conventional tax and spend methods. General repair is a major part of this spending—as the campaign vows to “fix and expand our roads and bridges”, oversee maintenance projects on various pipelines, dams, and levees, and address the “pothole tax”. But the biggest emphasis seems to be on new projects with an eye on efficiency and new technology. Not only does the plan call for the construction of new airports and air traffic control systems, expansion of public transport options with an emphasis on higher capacity passenger rail systems, and “initiating the upgrades of the at least the 25 most costly freight bottlenecks by the end of her first term”, but the plan also articulates a desire for investment in clean energy via attention to the development of a “smart” electrical grid, creating space for non-gasoline fueling stations, and ensuring that “the federal government is a partner in delivering clean and affordable energy”. The Clinton campaign even commits itself to ensuring that, by 2020, “100 percent of households in America will have access to affordable broadband that delivers world class speeds”. If all this was not enough, the campaign assures voters that this infrastructure plan will involve to creation of thousands of “good paying, middle class jobs – paying well over the national median” in order to make it happen.

And according to economists at large, all of this is pretty good stuff, as infrastructure investment in general has shown to have a positive relationship with economic growth (though the magnitude of this relationship is still up for debate). Specifically, economists will be generally be favorable to the idea of repairing roads to address the “pothole tax”, allowing money that would otherwise be allocated to car maintenance to flow into consumption that is utility positive, raising social welfare. Additionally, while not a public good by definition, clean energy is generally considered a type of good which is chronically underprovided by the market due to the typically large up-front costs and low rates of return, meaning that third party intervention is needed to capture the gains in welfare that are not realized when it is underprovided. Also, Clinton’s plan to connect 100 percent of Americans to high quality broadband is another provision of her plan that is likely to score points with labor economists, as lack of internet access is one of many things that have been cited as holding potentially capable workers from realizing their maximum income potential.

But perhaps the most interesting part of Clinton’s plan is the allocation of $25 billion as a seed fund for an independent, government owned infrastructure investment bank, both because the design and role of the bank lacks detail and precedent, but also because it could potentially offer a more permanent solution to infrastructure neglect in the future. The Clinton campaign states that the bank will exist to “provide loans, loan guarantees, and other forms of credit enhancement” to fund investment in “complex multi-modal projects like freight and port improvements, and in projects to modernize our energy, water, broadband, and transportation systems in urban and rural communities”. The bank will do this by issuing “special ‘super’ Build America Bonds”, building upon the structure of a program that lived and died within Obama’s first term. The campaign also mentions that the bank will be a “one-stop-shop” for state and local governments, municipalities, and project sponsors to secure the capital and expertise needed to see through infrastructure projects that have been vetted and approved by the bank’s “bipartisan review board”.

Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, the campaign leaves out many of the technical details of the bank’s creation and operation schemes that would be useful in imagining what exactly the bank would look like and how it would operate. Currently, the Build America Transportation Investment Center (BATIC), the keystone of the July 2014 executive action Build America Investment Initiative, considers itself a “one-stop-shop” for expertise in infrastructure projects. The BATIC does not, however, issue credit itself, but rather walks applicants through the process of securing private loans or applying for financing via the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program, administered by the Department of Transportation, which provides long-term, flexible financing for highway and transit projects at below market rates, allowing communities easier access to funding for certain infrastructure projects.

Considering that the Clinton campaign has explicitly stated that the infrastructure bank will serve as a “one-stop-shop…to utilize federal resources and expertise in developing infrastructure projects”, it is most likely that a President Clinton will look to combine the efforts of both the BATIC and TIFIA programs to create a single source of both expertise and federal credit for infrastructure projects. Creating a new bank on its own would simply duplicate the responsibilities of these existing programs, and dissolving the BATIC and TIFIA offices in order to create her new bank seems to be an unnecessarily roundabout way of bringing the bank into existence.

Regardless of the exact specifics of the creation scheme, it does appear that the capability of Clinton’s infrastructure bank does, to some extent, already exist within multiple programs. That should not, however, necessarily discourage their synthetization into a single entity that both counsels and finances future infrastructure projects, as advocates have noted that the ability for a bank to cut across offices to get expertise and financing options to clients allows for a more efficient process in getting projects off the ground. It should also be noted that the current BATIC and TIFIA programs are concerned with highway and transit projects, and that if the Clinton campaign’s direct spending agenda is any indication, the infrastructure bank will be tasked with financing projects far beyond repairing roads and laying down new railroad tracks.

The bank’s capability could potentially go beyond simply synthesizing the current capabilities of various offices however, as the campaign has suggested that the bank would have the authority to issue “‘super’ Build America Bonds”. The original Build America Bonds (BABs) were a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that allowed state and local governments to reduce their borrowing costs when funding infrastructure projects, making it easier to finance projects via loans as opposed to traditional tax and spend methods. The program ended on December 31, 2010, though the Department of Transportation is still on the hook for paying interest on both the 10 and 30 year bonds that were part of the program. The campaign’s use of the adjective “super” to describe their version of the BAB program suggests that the campaign looks to reinstate and expand the issuance of BABs through the infrastructure bank, but is silent as to just what this expansion would look like. Perhaps a Clinton Presidency would look to simply issue more of these bonds, or perhaps focus on issuing longer term bonds with higher sticker prices to raise more capital up front for projects today. Unfortunately, we can do little more than speculate as to how the campaign plans to supersize the BAB program of the past, but we can be reasonably sure that the campaign looks to create an institution that uses an expanded form of BABs to help finance infrastructure projects in periods of inaction in Congress.

And the political advantages of being able to fund infrastructure investments with only the implicit approval of Congress should not be discounted, and they are doubtlessly a major point in favor of the bank’s existence. Assuming that it is adequately funded, the bank holds the potential to continue nationwide infrastructure investment irrespective of infrastructure investment’s political popularity. When the Clinton campaign highlights the need to “improve the way we invest in infrastructure”, this bank is what they are talking about. With the establishment of this bank, the Clinton campaign looks to address not only the neglect of past decades, but the potential neglect to come in future decades as well.

However while the potential to bypass Congressional inaction may certainly be appealing in the case of infrastructure investment, it must be stressed that there is little to no precedent for this kind of institution in the world. The closest example of a nationwide infrastructure bank like the one the Clinton campaign seems to be describing is The Infrastructure Bank Plc in Nigeria. The bank is tasked with “providing financial solutions to support key long term infrastructure projects”, much like the Clinton campaign’s proposal, but is majority privately owned, with federal, state, and local governments, as well as the Nigeria Labour Congress as individual minority shareholders. Additionally, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) launched on Christmas Day 2015, and while it also is focused on providing expertise in and financing infrastructure projects in Asia, it has 57 countries as members/shareholders, and 20 members who are not in Asia. Again, while the goals of the AIIB are analogous to the Clinton campaign’s proposed bank, it does not appear as though its modus operandi will be comparable.

Additionally, and perhaps more worryingly, the details that the campaign offers pertaining to the practical operation of the bank are largely nonexistent, and big questions loom over the proposal. The campaign has stated that the bank will be headed by “a bipartisan board of highly qualified directors”, who will presumably influence or even make the final decisions as to which projects get funded and which do not, but does not offer suggestions as to how it plans on selecting and properly vetting candidates for the banks board of directors. The campaign also mentioned that applicants must be able to demonstrate that projects are in the “public interest”, but does not define “public interest” or clarify how one might differentiate between projects that are or are not in “public interest”. Even further, the campaign is silent as to how the bank or its directors would be held accountable for selecting projects that are in the “public interest”. Even basic concerns of equity are not addressed by the campaign, as it offers no explanation as to how local municipalities who are cash-strapped or have poorer credit are expected to benefit from this new bank, leaving the bank’s operation scheme open to criticism of only benefiting well-to-do communities that can better afford infrastructure investment, but may not need it as much.

Nevertheless, from an economic perspective, there’s a lot to like from what we do know of the Clinton campaign’s proposal, and this shouldn’t be discounted by the disappointment that may come from the proposal’s more unclear areas. Given Mrs. Clinton’s statements concerning the status of this proposal as a top priority of her presidency, it should certainly be expected of the American electorate to challenge Mrs. Clinton over the next few months to clarify details concerning her plans to pay for the proposal and of the infrastructure bank’s creation and operation schemes, in order ensure that the campaign is putting forth a thorough and realistic plan that can immediately be acted upon in a Clinton Presidency. While the buffoonery of her Fall challenger may cause some to simply accept Mrs. Clinton’s proposal as satisfactory by virtue of not being utterly ridiculous, this should not preclude a proper vetting process in which the viability of Mrs. Clinton’s proposal is put on trial by the American public. As it stands, no matter how enticing the potential of the plan may seem, the mystery surrounding key details should keep enthusiasm grounded, and the jury still out.

“This Sure Sounds Familiar…” Populism and the Cyclical Decline of Political Parties

It is the summer preceding the presidential election, and the United States is a nation of mass discontent. Many citizens feel that they are being deceived and swindled by the elite of society and the businesses meant to hold the economy together. The justice system appears rigged to favor the few rather than protect the many and regions all over the country are being impacted by waves of battered and distressed immigrants—immigrants that often have had limited education, do not come from countries that strictly favor English, and who practice religions that decidedly differ from the Christian principles many Americans consider ‘tradition’. This influx of immigrants also comes at a time when the nation’s economy is not particularly thriving, and many deal with upheaval and unemployment in their workplaces, whether from expanding population versus demand, or from technological change.

That summer, to be specific, is of approximately 1854.

In the decade span of 1845 to 1855, the United States felt the influx of thousands of European immigrants—immigrants that were often poor, uneducated, and very Catholic in a relatively Protestant nation—as well as the global turning tides of the slavery debate on the economic stage. The response to this change, more immediately than the Civil War, was the evolution of political theatre. Amongst all of this societal turmoil, after all, the U.S. saw the final breaths of the Whig Party, and the rapid formation of its populist replacement: The Know Nothing Party.

The Know-Nothings were a short-lived party that had national popularity but tangible power in Massachusetts. It advocated for nativist ideologies, anti-immigration, and anti-Catholicism, and its membership was for Protestant men only. Historian Tyler Anbinder noted in his Nativism and Slavery that the Know Nothing’s success relied not only upon the conditions of society at the time, but the collapse of the Whig Party, which had suffered internalized weakening and factionalism over the last several years, and in particular damage over the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

The 1840s saw a massive and continual influx of Irish immigrants in particular, fleeing their country out of fear, hope for employment, and starvation. When they arrived in America, they found a largely Protestant nation that resented their masses and their devotion to the Pope; Irish stereotypes ranged from laziness and alcoholism at best, to primitive clan-behavior and subhuman existence at worst. The name, Know Nothing, came from the melodramatic practice of the earliest party foundations: the Order of the Star Spangled Banner, which was founded to resist Catholic immigration, encouraged members asked about the order to reply that they “know nothing” of the cause.

The Know Nothing Party did not survive long, and although familiarity with the name is common, the ability to list the beliefs of the party is more difficult. Once the Know Nothing movement disintegrated, the Republican Party formed in its wake, took Abraham Lincoln as its leader, and the nation dove into a brutal and bloody civil war. Did the Know Nothing movement cause the war, or even qualify as a variable cause? No, not necessarily. Things are always more complicated than that, and the Know Nothings were not terribly successful on the national stage—they simply gave a platform for people to voice their discontents, however xenophobic or radical they may have been. The trouble with populist ideologies taking form as political parties rests in the inherent broadness of the issue: populism is a movement based upon mobilizing the power of a perceived oppressed majority against an oppressive few.is, essentially, to represent the populace, and to oppose the strong will of the elite few.

Abstract notions of populism seem promising. The complication is that a politician who declares themselves a ‘populist’ has told their audience very little about their specific policy proposals. Although populist rhetoric and policies are often left leaning of the nation’s middle-ground voting position, strong economic structure is often lacking in favor of economic policies fueled by societal-based resolutions. In the context of macroeconomics, Rudiger Dornbush and Sebastian Edwards summarize this issue neatly:

Populist regimes have historically tried to deal with income inequality problems through the use of overly expansive macroeconomic policies. These policies, which have relied on deficit financing, generalized controls, and a disregard for basic economic equilibria, have almost unavoidably resulted in major macroeconomic crises that have ended up hurting the poorer segments of society.

The Republican Party, somewhat affectionately known as the GOP, is in a minor crisis. The current 2016 election has seen the party nomination of Donald Trump, a businessman, television personality, and now—politician. He is known for his bombastic speeches, broad and sweeping statements, and controversial opinions on women and minorities. He is, generally: anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, and pro-middle and lower classes. His popularity is evidenced by his nomination; but why? Curiously, perceived authenticity tends to reign supreme.

Notions of authenticity are key to populist success, as the masses are receptive to those who are believed to be identifiable and proactive. This is, according to Bram Spruyt, Gil Keppens, and Filip Van Droogenbroeck, “the ‘people centrism’ component in populism—that is, the representation of the people as a pure and homogenous group whose will should be the crucial reference for politicians—is the element that theoretically distinguishes populism from mere political discontent […] populism remains a politics of hope, that is, the hope that where established parties and elites have failed, ordinary folks, common sense, and the politicians who give them a voice can find solutions.” Furthermore, in a fellow World Mind publication, Jeremy Clement also expands on American Populism regarding Trump, in particular comparing him to George Wallace: “The claims of both are generally not supported with evidence, but that is not the point. The speech sounds good and feeds into the idea of the common, struggling, working man fighting against an unfair system that does not respect his values.” The authenticity that Donald Trump possesses, presumably, is his ability to rouse hope in people based on the desired images many have of what America is—American exceptionalism, indeed.

American historian Andrew J. Bacevich emphasizes the broken nature of how the U.S. views itself. In an article for Politico breaking down the crisis with Russia, he tackles the notions of American exceptionalism and how the problematic nature of these self-assumptions has hindered the U.S.’s competence. He writes:

The events we are commanded to remember are those that happened during the period 1933-1945. In geographic terms, we can be even more specific: They occurred in the space bounded by London, where stiff upper lips withstood the Blitz, and Auschwitz, where countless Jews were murdered. But the true epicenter was Munich, site of the great betrayal from which the horrors were said to follow. Events prior to or after that period—1914 or 2003, for example—or events occurring beyond that expanse—you know, like Vietnam—don’t count for much.

The bitter satire of Bacevich’s article is rather forgivable. This comes from a man who regards American exceptionalism as a sort of religion, one that has severely narrowed the perspective of Americans and compromised the strength and capability of the nation—the people are more preoccupied with perceived entitlements to grandeur than to continually earning high regard. American exceptionalism exists within a very peculiar universe: the 1950s were golden, everyone was happy, and things have only gone downhill from there. Likely mental images of stereotypical grandparents reminiscing on the ‘good old days’ have been conjured by this point. For Trump, American exceptionalism is the ambrosia and nectar of his entire campaign.

Donald Trump is a candidate thriving on populist ideologies in America, but the very passion fueling him is also enabling the potential for a collapse of the Republican Party of which he is the candidate. There is a desire to return to the ‘good old days,’ a notion that rejects the realities of history—but it is a reminiscence that Trump encourages: ‘Make America Great Again!’ cries the businessman’s campaign. What once may have been a melodramatic concern is now fair game: Donald Trump is the candidate of the GOP, yes, but he is hardly representative of the party—whether one considers the primary platform or its factional offshoots, such as the Tea Party. The man could easily run as a third-party candidate and likely endure little competition for voters with a separate GOP presidential candidate. The trouble is that Trump is not a Republican: he is a man who has chosen to enter American politics on his own terms.

There are several months to go before the U.S. engages with what may be one of its most important presidential elections in decades—it could, quite literally, change the course of American household politics. Although Trump is hardly friendly with many Republicans, he has recently won endorsements from several major faces, such as Paul Ryan and Chris Christie. However, there is a deeper meaning implicated in these endorsements: party insecurity. In the 1840s, the Whig Party of the United States endured several fractures that eventually sank the entire Party—the mass voting populace no longer unified in its identification with Whig platform values. Today, the same may be happening for the Republican Party; Republican voters find themselves across a broad spectrum, some finding themselves in polarized positions at the far end of the spectrum and too often at the derogatory butt of many liberal media jokes. These jokes do not harm those in the far end, though; the damage is often felt more often by centrist Republicans who are all-too-conscious of the public eye and misconceptions. The result, however, is the same: increasingly irreversible divisions within the Party, impacting both voter optimism and campaign numbers.

What is important to note here is that the Whig Party did not fall in a month. It is likely that the Republican Party will continue to persist as well; Trump is a wild card, but the future hinges on more than one man. Populism compromises the future of the GOP, as it questions the capacity of the Party to connect with U.S. citizens and encourages further political divisions and ideas on reformation. The Know Nothing Party did not last long in its most tangible form, but its values would reverberate across the country for nearly a century. It is difficult to argue that Donald Trump’s dream of a wall will not hold the same impact, both for immigrants and Muslims, as well as for the stability of the floundering conservative Party that has played host to so much of the groundwork for these attitudes.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do: American Exceptionalism and Post-9/11 Use of Torture

In a press conference on August 1, 2014 President Obama answered a question regarding the handling of a then recent report on Retention, Detention and Interrogation (or RDI) by stating that, “Even before I came into office it was very clear that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values.” Indeed, historically, American values have been opposed to torture. A 2004 article published in New Political Science claims that “Americans tend to think of systematic government torture as a hallmark of fascism; or of backward third world regimes such as that of the thuggish Saddam Hussein in Iraq.” The article later notes that no one would have imagined that the systematic and organized practice of torture would become central to American foreign policy. This is further highlighted in Examining Torture: Empirical Studies of State Repression where the authors Tracy Lightcap and James Pfiffner argue:

In the twentieth century, the US State Department regularly published accounts of torture in some countries, publicly condemning its use and urging improvements in human rights in these countries. In particular, the United States condemned the use of torture practices as partial justification for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Thus, it is with some irony that the United States itself has been condemned internationally for the use of torture in its interrogations during the War on Terror.

Even President George W. Bush has been quoted as stating that “The United States does not torture, it is against our laws and it is against our values” with similar sentiments being echoed by others in his administration, such as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.  

However, extensive evidence shows that torture was the practice and de facto policy of the Bush administration and was executed primarily by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as a core component of the “War on Terror.”  In a six-thousand page report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee (of which a 500 page summary was released to the public in December 2015) numerous acts of torture were documented, many of which violated international human rights law and stood contrary to American values.

If the use of torture is so contrary to “American values,” why then was torture a tool so routinely used by policymakers and valued by the public in the War on Terror? This ethical dichotomy between “American values,” which traditionally oppose torture, and the reality of the use of torture exists due to the way in which attitudes towards American exceptionalism (which were heightened after 9/11) combined with misinformation in the media and pop culture regarding the effectiveness of torture and the identities of those subjected to torture. This dangerous combination formed the conception that torture is an effective tool against agents who threaten “American values,” while disregarding the way in which the American state would degrade its own values by using torture.

Hilde Restad, Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Bjørknes College has worked extensively on the topic of American Exceptionalism. In her book, American Exceptionalism: An Idea that Made a Nation and Remade the World, she asserts that in the aftermath of 9/11, “the Bush administration communicated a conception of American exceptionalism that set the United States apart from the rest of the world as a leader of a new crusade for democracy, strategically playing on this sense of national identity in order to engender support for specific practices.” This conception of American exceptionalism fell more closely in line with the good-versus-evil rhetoric commonly employed during the Cold War (and particularly the Reagan administration) than the still present, but less overt, ideals of American exceptionalism communicated between the fall of the Soviet Union and the attacks of 9/11. President Bush, Hilde Restad asserts, consistently framed the attacks of September 11, 2001 as an assault on freedom and the United States’ democratic institutions. This rhetoric helped to establish the idea that the United States was the “moral leader in the crusade against terrorism.” The association of fighting terrorism with defending American values treated support for the War on Terror as a test of patriotism, and this tactic was used in 97% of presidential rhetoric immediately following 9/11. It is unsurprising, then, that there was widespread bi-partisan support for the War on Terror.

This rise in the salience of American exceptionalism in U.S. political discourse is exemplified in a 2011 New York Times op-ed addressing a foreign policy debate among that year’s presidential hopefuls. The Times reported, “This is a crowd that’s big on exceptionalism, and not according to its onetime definition: as a reference to the peculiar and advantageous circumstances of our county’s genesis. They’re asserting that we have a unique global standing, our eminence essential and our values worthy of export.” The candidates were not off-base in trying to appeal to American exceptionalism in their campaign rhetoric either, as a 2010 Gallup poll showed that 80 percent of Americans agreed that “because of the United States’ history and Constitution, the United States has a unique character that makes it the greatest country in the world.”

Data also show that, as recently as December 2014, just after the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture (which revealed that the CIA committed acts such as playing “Russian Roulette” with detainees and subjecting them to rectal rehydration), many Americans still believed that the CIA’s treatment of suspected terrorists did not amount to torture and that the torture of suspected terrorists could be justified. Specifically, a Washington Post- ABC news poll revealed that 38 percent of Americans believed that the CIA’s treatment of suspected terrorists did not amount to torture, and 58 percent of Americans believed that torture of suspected terrorists could often or sometimes be justified, additionally 19 percent responded that torture could be justified in rare instances. Of the same group of respondents, 53 percent believed that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists produced information that could not have been produced any other way. These types of sentiments are echoed not only by the general public, but also by American soldiers, as a 2007 Washington Post article revealed that at least one-third of American soldiers believed that torture should be allowed if it helps gather important information about insurgents.

These statistics clearly show that, while around three-quarters of Americans believed there to be at least some rare instances that justify torture, the majority of respondents assume that the use of torture or enhanced interrogation techniques can result in information that advances U.S. national security. Unfortunately, and contrary to many Americans’ beliefs, torture does not typically result in reliable information. After the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on torture, the Washington Post stated that “the report found that more than two dozen detainees were wrongly held, that the program was poorly managed, and that the CIA misled U.S. officials about the effectiveness of the program.” The New York Times also found at least eight specific instances in the report in which CIA claims of torture being effectively used to gain intelligence were shown to be false. The most high profile case in which the CIA lied about the effectiveness of its program was in relation to the killing of Osama bin Laden. In this case, the CIA claimed that information produced under its enhanced interrogation program led to vital information about one of bin Laden’s secret couriers and ultimately aided the now famous 2011 raid that killed the al-Qaeda leader. As it turns out, however, the CIA had information about this courier as early as 2002 and that information had been obtained from a different detainee who had been cooperative from the outset. Furthermore, in 2012, researcher John Scheimann concluded in his paper “Interrogational Torture: Or How Good Guys get Bad Information with Ugly Methods” that, although information from interrogational torture is unreliable, it is likely to be used frequently and harshly.

In addition to, or perhaps because of, this misinformation from the CIA, the idea that torture is a useful and essential tool in obtaining information is prevalent in many contemporary elements of pop culture, which helps explain why so many people find the arguments for torture so convincing. Even recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia once cited the television show 24 and its main character Jack Bauer as relevant background for constitutional jurisprudence regarding “rough interrogation” methods. He states that “Jack Bauer saved hundreds of lives… Are you going to convict Jack Bauer? Say that criminal law is against him? … I don’t think so.” But as both the Atlantic article where this quote appears, and satirical news anchor John Oliver point out, Jack Bauer is not real, and torture works in shows like 24 because it has to in order to move the plot along.

So although American values, according to academics as well as public officials oppose the use of torture, many actions taken by the United States government, and the Central Intelligence Agency in particular, following 9/11 can be classified as torture. Further, an overwhelming number of Americans think that the use of these techniques was essential in obtaining information relevant to American security and the War on Terror. After 9/11, there was a rise in the frequency of rhetoric on American exceptionalism, framed in the context that the terrorist attacks were the result of hatred for American constitutional freedoms, such as the freedoms of religion, speech, and democratic election. The hatred of these values and freedoms, which 80 percent of Americans believe make the United States the greatest country in the world, now poses a threat to American security and American lives. In post-9/11 America, the pairing of growing support for the idea that the United States is a beacon of democracy, and the greatest country in the world, now threatened by terrorism, with the false information that torture effectively produces intelligence that is crucial to national security can be attributed to the ethical dichotomy in which American ideals are fundamentally opposed to the concept of torture.

The United States’s Uninvited Guest: Legal Pluralism

The United States has found itself on a cultural breaking point. Currently, two major opinions are coexisting—and clashing heavily—in political society. The first is that the U.S. Constitution prohibits the establishment of an official religion, and in larger interpretation the establishment of the U.S. as a “Christian nation”; the second is the prospect of expanding normative and legal pluralism in the U.S., in favor of legislation determined by Christian values. The issue is more complex than it might initially seem; does the installation of Christian laws make a nation Christian, and did the Founding Fathers want such a thing at all? Although the Fathers forbade an established religion, some politicians argue that this does not negate the presence of Christianity in the government overall. This work argues that expansive legal pluralism in general family law has no place in the United States, not only because of the diverse and non-Christian population of the nation, but also because language in the Constitution and philosophical background of the Founders indicates it was not their intention or desire to found a Christian nation, either officially or informally.

It is important to first determine precisely what legal and normative pluralism mean. Norbert Rouland defines legal pluralism as, “the multiplicity of forms of law present within any social field”. In extension, John Griffiths defines the term as:

[O]ne in which law and legal institutions are not all subsumable within one ‘system’ but have their sources in the self-regulatory activities which may support, complement, ignore or frustrate one another, so that the law’ which is actually effective on the ‘ground floor’ of society is the result of enormously complex and usually in practice unpredictable patterns of competition, interaction, negotiation, isolationism and the like.

A functional example of a culture with recognizable legal pluralism is a country with active Sharia Law. An example discussed here will be Jordan. Now, in the most simplistic of terms, Jordan operates with both Sharia and civil courts. Sharia courts have jurisdiction over personal and familial matters such as Diya and matters concerning Islamic Waqfs. The Personal Status Law of 1976, still enforced today, is also based on Sharia law. However, the Sharia courts are meant for the Muslim population of Jordan; a non-Muslim party can only be taken to court in the Sharia system if he or she consents to submitting to the jurisdiction. Non-Muslim Jordanians subscribe strictly to the civil court, unless they choose otherwise.

Normative pluralism simply dictates “a plurality of bearers of value”. The idea is that there is ultimately one primary value; in the case of the U.S., the likely goal of normative pluralism for some lawmakers and citizens is that that value is Christian morality.  Although everyone can be Christian in different ways, and to varying degrees, ultimately that single religion, or single value, prevails amongst a plurality. While normative plurality works clearly within demographics, it is not so easily applied to the entire United States.

In October of 2010, Delaware U.S. Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell questioned the presence of a separation of Church and State being mandatory in the U.S. Constitution. Of course, she was not entirely misled in her questioning: the specific language of “separation of Church and State” does not actually appear in the founding document. In fact, the concept wouldn’t be realized for several years later by Jefferson in a letter. What the First Amendment does say is that the government shall make no law “respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. So, if one only considers this particular line from the First Amendment as representative of the Founders’ full opinion, then it is reasonable to assume that while the United States cannot declare an official religion, the inclusion of religious principles, Christian in particular, are not by any means forbidden.

However, this singular reading would be a mistake. The First Amendment is essentially a written guarantee that the government may not compel nor prohibit the exercise of religion in its state. It is as important to note this distinction, as it is to note that the Founders likely did not intend an atheistic nation. Rather, that men and women would practice their religion of choice in their private lives, without the interference, guidance, support, or opposition of the government. After all, the original Puritans of North America had fled religious persecution of a similar nature in England only a century or two prior.

If the value of private practice is maintained, then, normative and legal pluralism in family law cannot reasonably exist in the United States. For while individual households are free to worship at their leisure, protected by the United States, they cannot also be free to dictate the practices of others by legal declaration. The difficulty is two-fold, of course. First, that the U.S. has become vastly more diversified in culture and religion since the Founding Fathers first wrote down their ideas on the conceptualization of their new nation. The second, that it seems rather unlikely that the Founders, spurred on by hopes of religious and economic freedom, and inspired by the ideology of the Enlightenment, would have condoned Christian superiority and dominance at the expense of others.

Attempting to interpret the will of the Founding Fathers is a risky and elusive effort. To guess the wills and opinions of men who cannot be directly asked is a perilous endeavor, but perhaps it is a venture worth pursuing. After all, there is no doubt that the Enlightenment influenced the Fathers—Jefferson alone, in his devotion to the philosophies of John Locke, is evidence enough of it. In one correspondence, John Adams wrote, “Every Species of these Christians would persecute Deists, as soon as either Sect would persecute another, if it had unchecked and unbalanced power. Nay, the Deists would persecute Christians, and Atheists would persecute Deists, with as unrelenting Cruelty, as any Christians would persecute them or one another. Know thyself, Human Nature!”

Adams’s letter, then, returns us to the religious and political speculations of Senator O’Donnell. In her turn with Democratic opponent Chris Coons, she likely thought she was being clever—for Coons could not reasonably argue that the Constitution claimed a separation of Church and State. But that was 2010. Today, although the sentiment of the Christian nation remains, the discourse surrounding that ideal has morphed. In Rafael Cruz’s A Time for Action: Empowering the Faithful to Reclaim America, Rafael’s son, Ted Cruz, wrote the following in his epilogue to the work: What we are really seeing is an increasing hostility to religious liberty, and to Christians in particular”. Given the lack of significant anti-Christian terror in the U.S., it can be largely assumed that this ‘hostility to religious liberty’ may well be the backlash to the assumption that U.S. law should be dictated by Christian religious platforms.

It is worth noting that many of the issues in the U.S. can be summarized by a lack of precision of language. If violation of religious liberty is defined by an inability to dominate U.S. law with that same religion, then the concept of liberty itself has been deeply misconstrued. Religious liberty in the U.S., after all, is the right of individual and private practice. There is, in fact, an argument to be made that the religious liberty of non-Christians is violated when Christianity dictates the decisions of lawmakers concerning the masses.

A separation of Church and State is not demanded by the Constitution, but it is an implied necessity. As evidenced by lawmakers concerning the legislation surrounding abortion, many find it difficult to disassociate their faith from their authoritative powers. In January of 2016, Ted Cruz attended a pro-life rally, accompanied by many other pro-life leaders, including Iowa conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats. At the event, Vander Plaats said, “I don’t know about you, but I know about me, and 2016, this country hungers and thirsts for a spiritual revival. To turn our hearts back to God, his principle and his precepts”. Cruz himself stated, “Every human life is a precious gift from God and should be protected from the moment of conception until the moment of nature death,” which wouldn’t be such a complicated thing—he is, of course, entitled to hold any given opinion—except that he is also running for one of the most authoritatively powerful positions in the entire world. Cruz and Vander Plaats hold similar opinions to many in the pro-life crowd; their collective voice seek to eliminate Planned Parenthood as an accessible health center for women, and more importantly, to eliminate abortion as a legal medical procedure for those in the U.S. seeking the service.

Politics aside, the issue here is not one of opinion, religion, or even autonomy. It is an issue of language. Private practice is no longer private when one seeks to eliminate the right to choice of other individuals because of their personal prerogatives. An argument exists that the very legality of abortion violates the religious liberty of some Christians—however, this position is not without its fallacies. The primary one of interest here is that this sentiment does not fundamentally align with the nation that the opinion exists in. If the possession of certain rights violates one’s sense of personal liberty, and only nationally enforced laws of religious foundation can right one’s sensibilities, then the United States cannot be a nation of contended residential choice.

Legal plurality in the U.S. simply does not align with the language of its foundations, whatever the current interests of contemporary Christians may be. Even if the Fathers did not declare a separation in those precise words, the first Amendment is not vague on its demands concerning a limitation of religious imposition on others. If legal decisions such as abortion and the institution of marriage are determined based predominately on the religious values of a demographic, then those legislators are in violation of the intentions of the Constitution. The religious prerogatives of politicians cannot determine the lives and decisions of the masses, particularly if there is not a normative pluralism amongst the entire population in favor of such a trend.

The New Face of American Populism

The rhetoric surrounding Presidential elections and politics in the U.S. has evolved in some ways, devolved in some ways, and stayed the same in other ways as time has gone on. Populist rhetoric, used notably George Wallace in the 1960’s in opposition to the civil rights movement, has taken a new form today. While most candidates in this present election appeal to populist attitudes and use populist arguments in some form, one candidate in particular has a brand of populism that fits traditionally with that of the 19th Century U.S. People’s Party and that of George Wallace in the 1960’s. Donald Trump has used familiar techniques to push his way to the top of the Republican field. These techniques are eerily similar to those used in the past, but that have also evolved into something new that is unique to Trump and American politics in this era.

It is important to note exactly what “populism” is in this context and why it is relevant to discussion of political discourse today. When the word populism is used it is usually used pejoratively. The phrase has dozens of meanings depending on its context. In this context however, populism refers to a specific type of political tactic. The essence of populism has several different layers. In general it relates to the pitting of an evil elite group of society against the good common man. Populism also has underlying principles among them being; a rejection of the rule of law but the belief in the moral preferences of the majority as absolute, a belief in the honest labor of the producers of society and a negative view of those who do not fit this work ethic, and a belief in the revitalization of national ideals (i.e. Making America Great Again).

There are certain dangers associated with this type of speech. Above all is the tendency of populist speech to degrade proper civil discourse. It tends to focus more on becoming in tune with common citizen ideals instead of focusing on what is beneficial for the country as a whole or what is the best policy. Populist rhetoric tends to fuel emotions rather than reason. The populism today of Mr. Trump has these undertones in common with the populism of George Wallace in the 60’s, showing a continuing trend of effective populist tactics.

Trump’s and Wallace’s Populism

When discussing policy and political ideas, the constitution is only mentioned by Trump and Wallace when it suits them. To them, the most important staple of democracy is majority rule, the beliefs of the common man. Thought like this tends to favor the views of the majority over the rights of minorities. Take for example Trump’s calls for the surveillance of the Muslim population, or Wallace’s calls for “segregation forever” despite previous Supreme Court rulings and the rights of those effected by segregation.

The sanctity of the working man, or the producers of society, is held by both leaders. Wallace used the tax system as a means to pit the working class against the poor/lower classes. He explained how the tax system stripped the working class of their hard earned money and was used to feed to poor. Similarly, Trump takes a stand against undocumented immigration on the grounds that American citizens are forced to pay tax dollars to undocumented immigrants and the grounds that immigrants entering the U.S. could burden the welfare system. The claims of both are generally not supported with evidence, but that is not the point. The speech sounds good and feeds into the idea of the common, struggling, working man fighting against an unfair system that does not respect his values.

These two leaders have another more ominous commonality between their rhetoric. As discussed before, populist rhetoric does not usually examine the affects and usefulness of policies, but how well they fit into the structural model of the populist’s version of how society is doing. This type of thought requires scapegoats to use as a means of transferring blame. When a policy needs to be put in place but has no real function, a scapegoat is needed. For example Trump needed to offer a policy of Muslim surveillance, so the stories of the Muslim community in New Jersey celebrating the fall of the world trade center were invented. Just as when Wallace needed to implement segregationist polices for political purposes myths about the negative effects of integration were circulated. Furthermore both leaders used the threat of violence and the plight of protesters to further their agenda. Wallace rallies contained violence against counter protesters and used the mocking of protesters as a means of communicating with supporters. Today we see the same atmosphere of violence surrounding Trump rallies and the same contempt for protesters, which takes away from the process of true discourse surrounding policies and ideas.

Where Trump Diverges From Traditional Populism

Trump undoubtedly has his own brand of politics. Very few politicians communicate the way he does and his type of campaigning has completely changed the way American political discourse is carried out. Regarding his brand of populism, he differs in some ways from past populists.

Most notably is Trumps image as a billionaire. Trump not only is a billionaire, but he flaunts this trait while still claiming to be a man of the common people. This is interesting because it breaks with previous tradition. Normally a populist would want to be viewed as one of the people they are representing. However, in Trumps brand of populism he is able to connect with the common man yet still flaunt his elitism. This is likely due to his pull yourself up by your own bootstraps ethic. Meaning that he is viewed as a common man who just happened to work hard enough to become wealthy.

Secondly Trump has changed the intellectual nature of political discourse. Populists in the past although they did not necessary use logic and reason to choose policies, they did lace their rhetoric with pseudo-intellectual talk that glossed over the nature of their speech. With Trump he does not use this tactic. His speeches are filled with one-liners, contradictions, and no clear political philosophy. This could be an anomaly with Trump, or it could be indicating a change in the nature of the American voter. Social media, twitter, and headline news has made us hungry for quick information without regard for analysis of the issues at hand. Perhaps, Trumps rhetoric is just a manifestation of the decline in the public’s desire for proper civil discourse.

Legal and Human Rights Abuses of the Obama Administration’s Drones

The Obama administration has largely abandoned one of the most vital elements of governmental responsibility in lieu of national security. The protection of human rights has become an afterthought in the wake of the administration’s foreign policy on drones since President Obama took office in 2008. Although the government will not confirm or deny any specific casualty numbers, independent research groups have found that as of 2014, the United States had carried out at least 400 drone strikes since Obama took office, killing upwards of 2,600 people. From 2009-2012 the Obama administration carried out at least 239 covert drone strikes, a significant increase from the 44 strikes approved under George W. Bush. These strikes violate not only international human rights law, but international humanitarian law--the laws of war--and are the cause of increasing international legal scrutiny against the United States, as well as civil outrage across the world.

In 2008, when Obama took the oath of office, few would have associated the young President with the term “targeted killings,” but these often clandestine counterterrorism operations have become one of the most prominent and controversial characteristics of the Obama administration’s reign. To date, the United States is known to have carried out targeted killings using drones in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. Many of these operations have breached international human rights and humanitarian laws, have violated certain articles of the United Nations Charter, and are arguably infringing on the national sovereignty of the states in which these strikes are conducted. While drones have supposedly been effective in targeting specific militants that the Administration claims could not have been killed without their use, the large civilian death toll violates human rights so gravely that it renders the policy morally unfeasible, no matter its reported efficacy.

International humanitarian law, also known as the law of war, applies to all states in armed conflicts, or any state in conflict with an armed non-state actor. For an attack to be lawful, it must discriminate between combatants and civilians and “the expected loss of civilian life or property cannot be disproportionate to the anticipated military gain of the attack.” While all attacks that cause civilian deaths violate the laws of war, attacks that target civilians, are indiscriminate, or cause disproportionate civilian casualties do violate these laws.

The Obama administration’s drone strikes have frequently violated one or more of these stipulations. Obama has asserted that the United States strikes only when it has “near-certainty” that no civilians will be harmed. However, a Human Rights Watch investigation of seven U.S. drone operations in Yemen found clear violations of international humanitarian law in two attacks, one of which killed 14 militants and 42 sleeping citizens. The Obama administration evidently contradicts its position that it resorts to targeted killings by drones only when civilian lives are almost certainly safe from harm. “The U.S. says it is taking all possible precautions during targeted killings, but it has unlawfully killed civilians and struck questionable military targets in Yemen,” said Letta Tayler, senior terrorism and counterterrorism researcher at Human Rights Watch. The second unlawful strike identified by Human Rights Watch killed 12 civilians coming home from the market. The other five drone strikes targeted cars in a wedding procession, killing 12 men and wounding 15 others. Although the Obama administration may claim otherwise, the undoubted awareness of civilian loss of life suggests the indiscriminate nature of these attacks.  Each attack was indiscriminate and caused disproportionate civilian loss of life—each of these attacks represented violations of international humanitarian law.

These unconscionable acts of unmitigated violence are not going unnoticed in the states in which they are perpetrated. Terrorist organizations are growing each day, likely in response to the violence caused by American drone strikes. Malala Yousafzai, 18-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner and survivor of a Taliban assassination attempt, spoke to the Obama administration about the drone strikes in her home country of Pakistan. She claims that drone strikes only cause more violence: “I expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people.”

While the law prohibits states from targeting civilians, individuals “directly participating in the hostilities” are not legally immune from state aggression. This condition has multiple interpretations, and the United States seems to be exploiting this fact. Human Rights Watch claims, “It is generally accepted to include not only persons currently engaged in fighting, but also individuals actively planning or directing future military operations.” But the United States may be using an “overly elastic” definition of an individual who may be lawfully attacked during an armed conflict, according to Human Rights Watch. A November 2012 drone strike in a military town in Yemen killed an alleged al-Qaeda recruiter in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), even though recruiting activities alone are not sufficient legal grounds under the laws of war to target someone for attack, because recruiters themselves are not the ones carrying out attacks that can be considered “imminent threats.” While Obama’s policy guidelines state that the U.S. conducts strikes only against individuals who pose an “imminent threat to the American people,” and when capture is not feasible, the administration has evidently not been accountable on either of these standards.

The Peshawar High Court (PHC), the highest judicial institution of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, one of the four Pakistani provinces, ruled in 2013 that the United States drone strikes in Pakistan breached national sovereignty, were in violation of provisions of the Geneva Conventions and the UN Charter, and were in “blatant violation of Basic Human Rights.” Article 2(4) of the UN Charter strictly prohibits “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state…” The PHC determined the United State violated Pakistani sovereignty based on this Article, taking into account opposition to the strikes by the president of Pakistan, the prime minister, his cabinet, and parliament.

The court cited 1,449 civilian deaths and 335 civilian injuries since 2008 in the North and South Waziristan, concluding that the majority of individuals killed have been civilians. The PHC referenced provisions of the Genocide Convention as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to legitimize their rulings that these killings violated the laws of war. A further legal opinion given by international legal authority Francis Boyle determined that the "murderous drone campaign is both widespread and systematic and thus qualifies as a crime against humanity that verges on genocide.”

The United States has, moreover, failed to meet its international legal obligations in its lack of transparency and accountability in regard to drone strikes. According to the European Court of Human Rights, “There must be a sufficient element of public scrutiny of the investigation or its results to secure accountability in practice as well as in theory, maintain public confidence in the authorities’ adherence to the rule of law and prevent any appearance of collusion in or tolerance of unlawful acts.” The lack of transparency does not just give the U.S. a negative international standing, it is against UN policy. Article 51 of the UN Charter states that “measures taken by Members in the exercise of [their] right to self-defense…be immediately reported to the Security Council.” The United States has not made any such report. Unmasking the secrecy surrounding the program and enforcing accountability, especially where civilian casualties occur, is crucial both morally and legally. That the Obama administration has prioritized a stringent, often excessive foreign policy on counterterrorism over basic human rights is abhorrent.

Beyond its violations of the laws of war, the United States' use of drones does not conform to international human rights law, which is defined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a state’s duty to respect, protect, and fulfil human rights. Particularly sidestepped by the Obama administration is the legal obligation under this Declaration to “protect individuals and groups against human rights abuses.” In recent years, and in response to human rights groups and other pressures, the U.S. has succeeded in reducing the proportion of civilian casualties to militant casualties. However, because of increased operations the total number of human rights violations by civilian deaths has showed no significant decline.

The use of drones for targeted killings does have certain advantages. Drones can help minimize civilian casualties in comparison to manned aircraft operations, and can have enhanced surveillance capabilities that, in theory, allow for a more thorough and accurate strike. But the use of drones, as has been demonstrated in the U.S., can be “hampered by poor intelligence or local actors’ manipulation.” There are also no safeguards in place to ensure that these attacks are completely lawful and appropriate. According to a Justice Department white paper from 2011, any person, including any citizen of the United States, can be targeted and killed if an “informed, high-level official” believes that person poses an “imminent threat of violent attack” and capture is not “feasible.” Citizens of the U.S. have fallen victim to this unbridled display of power, including Anwar al-Awlaki, former al-Qaeda propagandist and United States citizen, who was killed in Yemen in 2011. The 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force Act (AUMF) played a major role in the decision to target and kill al-Awlaki, and this law is as broad as it is controversial. The AUMF is not bound by geographic or temporal limitations, raising many questions about the safety of Americans within the United States. If the Obama administration believes an individual is acting against the United States, regardless of citizenship, location, or time of involvement with an anti-American force, that person is subject to being targeted and killed. Al-Awlaki was the first known U.S. citizen deliberately targeted and killed by an American drone strike, but he may not be the last. The administration’s official policy is that the AUMF should “ultimately be repealed” but does not support its immediate repeal.

The Justice Department white paper that outlined the ability to attack does not disclose who qualifies as a high-level official, what information is necessary to be considered informed, or what qualifies as evidence for a targeted attack to take place. The paper also does not outline the exact definition of an imminent threat. These holes in policy represent only some of the many transparency and accountability violations that are needed in order for the United States’ drone strikes to be considered legal on the basis of international humanitarian law.

The Obama administration has targeted and killed more militants that it believes to be threats to national security via drone strikes than any other administration. Yet this administration has also killed more innocent civilians through drone strikes than any other. These attacks have turned families in Pakistan, Yemen, and several other states into “terrorist sympathizers” and have fueled more anti-American sentiment than ever before. The United States has violated both international humanitarian law and international human rights law in these attacks, setting a dangerous precedent that promotes an abusive foreign policy, while simultaneously undercutting its ability to criticize others’ ability to exercise similar attacks.

The administration’s use of drone strikes has been exceptionally opaque, with covert missions as the norm rather than the exception. No pre-strike or post-strike assessments of civilian harm have been confirmed or presented to the Security Council as mandated by the UN Charter, fostering a dangerous custom without investigation or accountability. No meaningful safeguards against abuse or error currently exist, propagating human rights violations with each strike. Human rights have become an afterthought in the wake of the Obama administration’s foreign policy on drone strikes. It is time to ask the crucial question, “Are we creating new terrorists faster than we can kill them?”

Guatemala and the Limitations of Democratic Peace Theory

In 1954, the United States covertly intervened in Guatemala, orchestrating a paramilitary coup d’état that deposed the democratically elected, Liberal government and installed a brutally repressive right-wing military junta. The story is well-known among Latin Americanists and foreign policy skeptics, but its theoretical significance for international relations (IR) has thus far been understated. More than just a foreign policy blunder, the case of Guatemala in 1954 represents the limitations of one of IR’s dominant frameworks: Democratic Peace Theory (DPT). DPT fails because it improperly conceives of its two key concepts—democracy and peace—ultimately narrowing them beyond any practically useful definition (e.g., one whose premises accurately reflect the world’s state of affairs). Western-style democracies—founded on Liberal values and free market capitalism—have no theoretical monopoly on legitimate democratic governance. To suggest otherwise ignores the realities and possibilities of equally legitimate democratic governance that may differ in form. Furthermore, and in spite of DPT, the absence of war does not sufficiently imply peace. To suggest otherwise insults the realities of torture, police brutality, disappearances, and other human rights abuses that happen off the battlefield, but which violate peace nonetheless.

DPT and Its Discontents

DPT is the closest thing we have to a natural law of international relations—we are often reminded—and its mainstream proponents claim three principal reasons that, when combined, create a special peace among democracies. First, citizens of democracies wield power over their governments, and their natural reluctance to go to war limits democratic countries’ proclivity for war-making. Second, the leaders of democratic countries face institutional constraints on their powers; unlike kings and emperors, presidents and prime ministers must answer to legislatures and voters, causing decisions to go to war to be based on multiple actors and timelines. Third, democracies are founded on values that naturally prioritize and respect individuals’ right to life, ensuring their philosophical predisposition to peace. Beyond these three mainstream explanations, some scholars argue that democracies enjoy peaceful relations due to their related economic development—war disrupts trade, and hence, democracies desirous of economic prosperity stop fighting and start signing trade agreements. Others argue that democracies are better at trusting one another because of their “unique contracting advantages” that make them more able and willing to negotiate peacefully amongst themselves. Whatever the reasons, proponents of DPT all ultimately maintain the same principle: democracies “don’t attack each other.”

Though several scholars support DPT, several others do not. DPT’s discontents consist of both quantitatively and qualitatively oriented critiques. Quantitative critiques suggest that theorists manipulate their variables and selectively limit the scope of their dataset in order to produce more favorable results. Qualitative critiques argue that democracy is a subjectively understood construction and, therefore, unreliable as a variable upon which to base peace claims. However, such critiques are not without flaws of their own. Quantitative opponents of DPT suffer from the same hindrance as the theory’s proponents, for the danger of quantitative methodologies is that of over-simplification, which excludes alternative, but nonetheless democratic forms of political participation. If we can rank countries on a scale of “objective” criteria required for democracy, then we risk excluding phenomena like protest, union membership, and so on that less traditionally characterize democracies and which are generally more observable through qualitative methods. DPT measures any given country’s democratic-ness with the Polity index, scoring countries out of ten on—for instance—open and fair elections, constitutionalism, and political participation. But, the Polity index does not account for alternative forms of democratic political action such as non-violent demonstrations and human rights activism. In Guatemala, the former led to the overthrow of the U.S.-backed dictator Jorge Ubico and the latter led the world to recognize the government’s genocide of indigenous Maya people. Defining which countries count as democracies and which do not is a political project and, if we remain skeptical of DPT proponents’ supposed objectivity, then we must also remain so for DPT’s opponents that adopt the same methodology. In addition, I remain skeptical of mainstream qualitative critiques’ subtle Eurocentrism. It is quite easy to claim that democracies are constructed by “America-like” discourses when the cases studied consist primarily of central and eastern European countries—countries with which a large portion of the U.S.’s population shares its heritage. It is a bit harder to identify cases that contradict DPT from the global South, as Guatemala does. Though DPT’s proponents may not get it right, to a certain extent, neither do its critics.

Usurpation and Inter-Democracy Violence in Guatemala

The U.S. intervened in Guatemala in 1954 to overthrow the legitimately elected government that sought to promote Liberal, capitalist reform. In 1901, the Guatemalan dictator Manuel Estrada Cabrera granted the United Fruit Company, an American multinational agricultural corporation, the exclusive right to transport post between the U.S. and Guatemala, which became the company’s first entry into the country. United Fruit primarily produced bananas, eventually dominating the market, and creating disparate inequalities in Guatemalan landholdings. By 1944, 2% of Guatemala’s population held over 72% of the land. Moreover, according to Insatiable Appetite by the University of California, Davis’ Richard Tucker, U.S. agro-industrial capitalists—who needed ports, roads, and other vital infrastructure to export their products from Guatemala—controlled nearly every aspect in the chain of production through centralized, vertical integration of Guatemalan production and infrastructure. By 1902, Tucker finds that agro-industries like United Fruit “controlled most banana shipping to Europe, as well as to the United States,” and by 1912, it controlled the International Railways of Central America. Furthermore, Tucker notes that United Fruit ran the Guatemalan postal service and Latin America’s first wireless telegraph company, the Tropical Radio and Telegraph Company. Meanwhile, policymakers in the U.S. Departments of State and Defense lined their pockets with shares in United Fruit (now known as Chiquita Brands International).

Eventually, popular uprisings ousted the authoritarian government and elected Guatemala’s first democratic president, Juan José Arévalo, who dreamed of Liberal, capitalist reforms and cited Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal as his primary source of political inspiration. In 1950, Arévalo’s democratically elected successor, Jacobo Árbenz implemented the controversial land expropriation policy Decree 900, which sought to break up United Fruit’s monopoly and combat the inequalities in landholdings. Árbenz’s Decree 900 drew upon Arévalo’s vision. In 1954, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) intervened in Guatemala, training Honduran and Nicaraguan proxy troops that stormed Guatemala City and forced Árbenz to abdicate power. As justification, the U.S. labelled Guatemala a communist state infringing upon free market capitalism and individuals’ land rights. According to the then-Ambassador to Guatemala, John Peurifoy, and despite significant evidence to the contrary, Árbenz “thought like a communist, he acted like a communist, and if he is not one […] he will do until one comes along.” In a nearly cartoonish exaggeration of the Guatemalan political situation, the CIA overthrew a legitimately elected democracy that deliberately incorporated elements of American policy in order to advance Liberal, capitalist development and promote market competition.

The Limitations of the Democratic Peace

U.S. intervention in Guatemala in 1954 demonstrates how DPT improperly conceptualizes democracy as a specific type of government that is Western-styled, Liberal, free market, and allied with the U.S. politically and ideologically. Polity IV counts Guatemala just before the U.S. intervention as an “open anocracy” characterized by “mixed, or incoherent, authority.” Arévalo’s and Árbenz’s reforms therefore do not sufficiently reach the threshold of democratic governance for DPT. But, Polity’s mistake lies in its lack of consideration for states’ democratic capacities. In its first ever legitimate, national elections, Guatemalans clearly showed their democratic volition, but were plagued by the lack of democratic institutions typical of other, established democracies. To the extent that it could reasonably be considered so, Guatemala was a democracy in 1954 in that it had open, fair elections, support for Liberal human rights, and reforms to establish free and fair market competition. However, factoring in democratic capacity did little to make Guatemala a democracy in the eyes of policymakers. Recall how, despite the Liberal, democratic, and capitalist reforms instituted and sought after, U.S. policymakers claimed that, if the Árbenz administration was not communist, it “would do until one came along.” U.S. policymakers imagined the threat of communism in Guatemala because it did not pursue conservative, free market ideologies as the U.S. did, and because it did not explicitly reject the same Cold War allies that the U.S. did; and Guatemala subsequently was not considered a democratic country in spite of evidence to suggest otherwise.

Moreover, DPT improperly conceptualizes peace, excluding violations of peace present in cases like Guatemala. Following the U.S. installation of the junta, Guatemala entered a decades-long period of authoritarian rule resulting in state-sponsored violence, disappearances, torture, and genocide against Guatemala’s indigenous population. According to mainstream DPT literature, “peace” is defined as the absence of war. War is defined as any formal, organized, inter-state conflict resulting in the deaths of over 1,000 belligerent soldiers. The Guatemalan Historical Clarification Commission estimated in 1999 that over 200,000 people were killed or disappeared during the county’s civil war and as a direct result of authoritarian rule. Few, if any, troops on either the U.S. or Guatemalan side died during the 1954 coup, however. Therefore, according to DPT, Guatemala’s is a case for peace. From this intuitively false conclusion, we can derive two important implications, the first of which deals with how we conceptualize peace. If peace is restricted to DPT’s definition, then repression, civil disobedience and political cleavages, torture, ethnic cleansing, and so on, count for peace besides our natural beliefs to the contrary. Leaving these instances out of the dataset makes the theory useful only for explaining the absence of war, not peace, especially given that these concepts are not perfect opposites.

The second conclusion deals with the dangers of narrowly conceptualizing peace in this way. If we exclude one type of violence that breaches the peace in vor of including another, then we introduce structural elements to IR theory that privilege one type of violence over another. War, at least DPT’s version of it, may be on the wane for a number of factors, but that does not necessarily imply a more peaceful world. Excluding Guatemala renders DPT potentially dangerous and privileging of a narrow, antiquated view of peace and its conceptual opposite. If we privilege formal, organized, inter-state war as the only acceptable form of peace for IR theorizing, then other atrocities that violate peace between people (not to mention between states) fall off scholars’ radars. Essentially, genocide and the legacy of human rights abuses in Latin America from colonial mass killings and rapes to the state-sponsored slaughter of indigenous people as recently as the late twentieth century equally violate peace in IR.

Conclusions

The U.S. coup in Guatemala deposed of a democratically elected regime seeking to advance Liberal, capitalist reforms. DPT’s proponents rely on overly narrow and useless definitions of peace and democracy. To claim that DPT adequately explains inter-democratic relations ignores the fact that Guatemala’s open, fair elections constituted democratic governance to the extent that its limited democratic capacity allowed. To further suggest that, because fewer than 1,000 belligerent combatants died on either side of the intervention, Guatemala sufficiently constitutes peace obfuscates the U.S.’s use of proxy troops and the resulting brutality of the U.S.-backed authoritarian regime.

The 1954 U.S. intervention in Guatemala represents more than just a foreign policy blunder—it shows the vastly insufficient conceptualizations of peace and democracy that underpin one of the dominant contemporary IR theories. Of course, fully developed, accurate conceptualizations of both democracy and peace would be exceedingly useful for IR theorizing if defining these concepts were removed from countries’ and scholars’ political agendas. Such conceptualizations are, however, outside the scope of this essay and would require more in-depth research. But what is clear is that those employed by DPT are insufficient. To secure its place in IR scholarship, DPT would need to rectify its definitional shortcomings and adequately account for alternative forms of democracy and violations of international peace off the battlefield. However, to the extent that they represent subjectively understood elements of a Liberal political project, the inherently narrow representations of peace and democracy only indicate DPT scholars’ inability to objectively determine them. Democracy consists of innumerable philosophies of governance far beyond its narrow understanding in the DPT literature and peace consists of a state of human affairs, whose maintenance or violation inter-state wars’ have no theoretical or practical monopoly—neither concept can be so reductively defined as in the literature lest we ignore alternative, valid approaches to democracy and alternative, tragic violations of peace.

Violence in the Schoolhouse: The State of Corporal Punishment

Corporal punishment was the preferred method to keep America’s students in line for much of American history. Paddling, spanking, and other forms of violent punishment have slowly been replaced by other techniques such as positive reinforcement. However, today corporal punishment still exists in many American schools, with disastrous consequences for youths, families, and the United States as a whole. These consequences range from mental and physical harm to children, a tarnished international image, harm to families, and a discriminatory punishment system.

Where Does Corporal Punishment in American Schools Stand Today?

Corporal punishment has existed for many centuries. It was used in the Middle Ages to punish school children and until 1948 was used in Britain to punish minor criminal offenders. Some infamous examples of corporal punishment include the flogging of Christ and the use of flogging by the British navy during the 18th century.

The good news is that corporal punishment is on the decline. During the 2006-2007 school year 223,190 students received corporal punishment in comparison to approximately 1.5 million students in 1976. However, nineteen states (shaded red in Figure 1 below) still allow corporal punishment.

Why Should The U.S. Ban Corporal Punishment?

Aside from the more obvious arguments against corporal punishment, such as the negative effects on children’s ability to learn and so on, the administration of corporal punishment has discriminatory factors associated with it. Table 1 below outlines some striking statistics. Overall, African Americans disproportionately receive twice the amount of corporal punishments that their percentage of school population would suggest. It is hard to convince young African American students to behave in school when they are unfairly administered corporal punishment by their discipliners.

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Table 1: Corporal punishment minority statistics

Differently abled students also bear an unfair burden. One study showed that in Tennessee disabled students are twice as likely to be paddled as their peers. This is especially true for students on the autism spectrum, since their disability interferes with their ability to follow what would otherwise be considered appropriate social behavioral norms.

Aside from the discriminatory nature of corporal punishment, the negative effects on children are severe and sometimes irreversible. A study by the Brookings Institution revealed that students who are subject to corporal punishment at a young age are more likely to abuse drugs or alcohol. These students are also more likely to imitate such abuse later in life through domestic violence or emotionally abusive relationships with their children. The study claims that these students “may learn to associate violence with power or getting one’s own way.” Children who are punished physically—regularly or severely—are more likely to develop mental health issues later in life.

Corporal punishment can be physically devastating for children as well. According to Time magazine, “[t]he Society for Adolescent Medicine has documented [...] severe muscle injury, extensive blood-clotting (hematomas), whiplash damage and hemorrhaging” in cases of corporal punishment. These gruesome injuries have sometimes caused parents to give up jobs to homeschool their children, thereby negatively affecting students’ family lives. Not to mention that these injuries unnecessarily contribute to skyrocketing healthcare costs when they require medical attention.

The effects that corporal punishment has on students boil down to one simple fact: in the United States of America—one of the most developed and democratic states in the world—one of the only groups of citizens who can be beaten legally are school children. This, of course, exhibits a terrible confusion of our priorities.

The last reason for banning corporal punishment is the simple fact of embarrassment. Over 70 nations worldwide have laws that explicitly prohibit corporal punishment in schools. The United Nations has criticized countries that still allow corporal punishment saying that “there is no doubt that corporal punishment is a violation of children’s rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child because it is constitutive of violence that causes . . . suffering.” That the U.S. has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child is further proof of its negligent policy towards children. Therefore, the U.S. should A) ratify the Convention, and B) respect its basic obligations towards its citizens under the age of 18.

If Corporal Punishment Were to Be Banned, How Would We Do It?

A simple answer would be for schools to just stop doing it. No law requires schools to paddle or hit children. However, with that route being perhaps too far away, legal action seems necessary.

States without specific regulations prohibiting corporal punishment could amend their laws to define it and outlaw it. These states should take a similar route as Iowa and New Jersey, for instance, both of which ban the practice in both public and private schools. As Figure 1 showed, the states in which corporal punishment still lingers are typically more conservative states. This is not a coincidence, Republicans in general tend to view the practice more favorably. So all else being equal, passing laws in these states will be theoretically more difficult than passing laws in more left-leaning states that do not already ban it.

The federal government could use its spending power to incentivize schools or state governments to ban the practice. A program similar to Race to the Top or to a statute such as Title IX where schools will lose funding if they do not abide by prohibitions on corporal punishment could be effective. Alternatively, and to the benefit of those in the disabled community, Congress could introduce an amendment to the Americans with Disabilities Act that specifically protects disabled students from corporal punishment in schools. If a lawsuit arose that claimed that corporal punishment constituted child abuse, and was thus unconstitutional, the Supreme Court could overturn its 1977 ruling that allowed corporal punishment via the “Trop” standard which allows for evolving standards of decency in America society or another similar mechanism.

Regardless of which legal or social path is taken to end corporal punishment in American schools, it needs to be done quickly. Hundreds of thousands of students are affected every year and this practice is clearly detrimental to society.

Comparative Analysis of Bush and Obama Pre- and Post-9/11 Strategies

Background

On September 11, 2001, 19 Islamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia and several other Arab nations associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked four American aircrafts and carried out suicide attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. Two planes were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane struck the Pentagon outside of Washington, and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, its target unknown but suspected to be the White House or the Capitol Building in Washington. The attacks killed over 3,000 people, including more than 400 police officers and firefighters, and seriously injured over 10,000 others. The attacks on 9/11 triggered major U.S. initiatives to combat terrorism and were the basis for the Iraq and Afghan wars. On the night of 9/11, President George W. Bush gave an ominous address from the Oval Office in which he stated, “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”

The Build to September 11th

During Bill Clinton’s Presidency in 1998, the United Nations inspection agency withdrew from Baghdad in protest of Saddam Hussein’s unwillingness to cooperate with inspection measures. President Clinton then called on American Armed Forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq due to the belief that Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction (WMD); the President stated that Hussein’s reluctance to cooperate with inspections presented “a clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere.” The U.S. pledged to enact a long-term strategy of containment toward Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction, but at no point did the Clinton administration consider an operation specifically designed to overthrow Hussein’s regime.

In December of 2000, President Clinton told President-Elect George W. Bush that the biggest threat to be concerned with would be al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden. In January of 2001, soon-to-be Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pentagon national security officials to discuss Iraq; the Pentagon reported to Cheney that Saddam Hussein was contained and isolated, and that there was no need for any aggressive action against him, and that acting otherwise would “immediately engender strong opposition in the region and throughout the world.” However, the Bush administration did not agree with the Pentagon’s sentiments nor did it share President Clinton’s concern with al Qaeda. The Administration instead prioritized China’s increasing military power and the desire to oust Saddam Hussein from power. Former national coordinator for security, infrastructure protection, and counterterrorism in the Clinton administration Richard Clarke was appointed as a special advisor to the NSC by Bush and was startled at the lack of attention that was being placed on al Qaeda by the new Administration. He told his colleagues that the terrorist organization was “clearly planning a major series of attacks against us” and that they “must act decisively and quickly” against imminent attacks. The President’s advisors did not believe Clark’s warnings and said he was giving bin Laden “too much credit.” Throughout the summer months of 2001, the CIA repeatedly warned of imminent attacks by bin Laden on American facilities. On May 1, June 22, 23, and 25, intelligence briefs issued by the CIA warned of imminent attacks. Bush disregarded the warnings.

Strategy of President Bush

Immediately following the attacks, Bush and his advisors met with the CIA to discuss strategy. It was debated whether the focus moving forward should be on the destruction of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden or against terrorism more broadly. The CIA director of counterterrorism argued that the Taliban and al Qaeda needed to be jointly eliminated, due to the intricate entwinement between the two groups. The topic was continuously tabled, but finally, after continuous pressure from the President to develop a concrete plan of attack rapidly, a decision was made.

President Bush’s first objective in the wake of 9/11 was to topple the Taliban regime and attack al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Thus, Operation Enduring Freedom was the first initiative launched by the President. On October 7, 2001, the U.S., with assistance from Australia, France, and the United Kingdom, carried out air strikes on Taliban and al Qaeda targets in an attempt to stop the Taliban from harboring al Qaeda, and to stop al Qaeda from using Afghanistan as a base for operations. Due to the U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan, the Taliban was forced to relinquish power and the state was renamed the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. However, by the time the allied forces took over the capital, most high-ranking Taliban and al Qaeda officials had escaped to Pakistan. Within two years, Taliban forces launched a counteroffensive. Within five years, Bush had almost doubled the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan from 26,607 to 48,250.

His second goal was to oust Saddam Hussein, the 5th President of Iraq, in order to “prevent him from developing weapons of mass destruction” and to help Iraq create a stable democratic regime. The President and his advisors were set on the idea that Hussein was attempting to recreate the state’s nuclear program that had been eliminated after the Gulf Wars. The Bush Administration was desperate to make a connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, even though top CIA officials and International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) officials insisted that there was absolutely no evidence that Hussein was rebuilding a nuclear program, and that connections between Hussein and al Qaeda were weak. Bush, however, did not accept these claims and continued to press on in order to create a rhetoric that Hussein and al Qaeda were inexplicably linked, and that Hussein was an imminent threat to freedom and U.S. security. Perhaps a more truthful rationale for the Administration’s invasion of Iraq was the desire to democratize the region in order to enhance Israel’s security. Another interest that was severely under-articulated was the United States’ long-standing dependence on Persian Gulf oil. The Bush Administration believed that if Iraq were to have a nuclear weapon, Hussein would be in a position to gain control over a large segment of the world’s oil reserves. Eighteen months after the 9/11 attacks, Bush authorized the invasion of Iraq. The war against Iraq was extremely unsuccessful; it lasted much longer than estimated—formally ending in December 2011—and cost the U.S., Iraq, and the entire Middle East more lives and money than projected. Conflict in both Afghanistan and Iraq continued at the end of Bush’s second term in office, leaving Barack Obama with the remainder of two complicated, costly, and contentious wars.

Strategy of President Obama

President Obama inherited the failed attempts to reform both the Afghan and Iraqi governments and to rid the Taliban of its power. By 2009, the Taliban had fled Afghanistan into neighboring Pakistan. Drug trade in Afghanistan had become a $4 billion business, and the Taliban used the money to fund its insurgency against the Afghan government and the occupying forces. Al Qaeda had also secured safe havens in Pakistani tribal regions. Obama’s first move was to send Vice President Joe Biden to Pakistan to meet with President Asif Ali Zardari to secure diplomatic ties with the government and to emphasize the important role Pakistan had in the Afghanistan conflict, which, unlike Bush’s Administration, was to be the Obama Administration’s focus. Zardari expressed concerns at the anti-American sentiment in the country, and said that helping the U.S. would create hatred toward the Pakistani government unless there was something in it for the people. He requested economic resources so that he could justify supporting the U.S. and Biden did not object.

The next stop was a meeting in Afghanistan with President Hamid Karzai. Karzai expressed that the Afghani people did not want Americans to leave the country because they were there fighting terrorism, but that civilian casualties were a concern. He stated that an additional 30,000 American troops would make the efforts more successful. Biden was hesitant. Obama’s first decision as president was to commission a sixty-day review of the Iraq war, since additional troops were likely to be needed in Afghanistan, and a drawdown in Iraq would be necessary to supply the additional forces. Obama called on advisors to come up with strategies for Afghanistan, because if more troops were needed in the country, he would need a set plan in order to validate further involvement. The debate went back and forth between sending an additional 17,000 troops or 30,000 troops, and Obama took the time necessary to hear from multiple sources about what the best plan of action would be. After several days to think on the final strategies, Obama approved the request for an additional 17,000 troops, knowing that without more Americans on the ground, the Afghan elections would probably not be possible.

In late March of 2009, Obama announced that the U.S. would help Pakistan battle al Qaeda, but Pakistan had to “demonstrate its commitment to rooting out al Qaeda and the violent extremists within its borders.” He also announced that the U.S. would send 4,000 troops to Afghanistan to train and enhance the Afghan army and police force, and that economic and social aid would be sent to the country.

Bush vs. Obama and Present Day

Several key differences between the Bush and Obama administrations can be noted at this point in the War on Terror timeline: President Bush was bent on ousting Saddam Hussein and focusing on Iraq rather than on Afghanistan. At the start of his Presidency, Obama made it clear that stabilizing Afghanistan and attacking the Taliban in neighboring regions would be the chief objective. Bush was also less receptive to information that went against his own personal beliefs about how the war should be fought, as well as what was truly happening in the region. No matter which senior official told the President that there was absolutely no evidence that a nuclear program was being reestablished in Iraq under Hussein, Bush and his advisors continued to push the discourse until it became accepted and acted upon. Obama, although reluctant to send additional troops into Afghanistan, listened to all opinions and encouraged dissenting voices at the table. In deciding how to continue in Afghanistan, Obama said, “I’m a big believer in continually updating our analysis and relying on a constant feedback loop. Don’t bite your tongue. Everybody needs to say what’s on their mind.” There was not as much pressure to act quickly under Obama; Bush was fixated on the idea of responding with concrete action within days of the attacks, but Obama was more determined to act with strategy and purpose, even if that meant a delay in action.

Although the experience of these wars has, obviously, been negative, and billions of dollars and thousands of lives have been lost since 2001 when the war began, retrenchment is not an option for several reasons and on several fronts. In regard to Afghanistan, stability will continue to decrease as U.S. forces decrease in the region. Total retrenchment would be the most extreme, and worst, scenario. In 2015 Afghan security forces, including local police, suffered a 70 percent increase in casualties compared to 2014. The average count of casualties per week currently stands at around 330. This increase in violence is directly related to the decrease of foreign aid and military services. The toxic combination of a new unstable government with leaders who have not yet been proven trustworthy, and the simultaneous withdrawal of U.S. troops is increasing the likelihood of a resurgent Taliban and potentially wasting years of war and the American lives lost during the conflict. The withdrawal at this critical yet sensitive time in Afghanistan’s move toward stabilization also provides the perfect breeding ground for ISIL to gain power and control. While difficult and messy war efforts that last longer and cost more than expected are not the ideal reality for any nation’s foreign policy, isolationist strategies would not bode well for the international community either. The globalized world is as interconnected as it is interdependent, and the United States’ deep involvement in all regions of the world is important and necessary. The capacity of that involvement, however, may change over time.