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US trade sanctions justified response to human rights abuses in China, law expert writes
LAWRENCE — An international trade law expert at the University of Kansas argues in a pair of new articles that human rights and trade are now inextricably linked, as evidenced by U.S. and international reactions to actions in China, and asserts that approach is an appropriate use of trade. Raj Bhala, Brenneisen Distinguished Professor of Law, wrote an article on China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims and American trade response, published in India’s Journal of the National Human Rights Commission, and another on Hong Kong’s democracy, China’s violation thereof and U.S. trade response, forthcoming in the Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy.
Author, scholar Ersula Ore will discuss state-sanctioned racial violence
LAWRENCE — A winner of the Rhetoric Society of America Book Award will bring further insight to ongoing conversations at the University of Kansas and beyond about how to respond to state-sanctioned racial violence in the era of #BlackLivesMatter. Ersula Ore, the 2021 John F. Eberhardt Memorial Lecturer in KU’s Department of English, will present a virtual talk titled “Sandy’s ‘Black Looks’: Countertemporal Postures and the Reclamation of Time” at 4 p.m. April 13.
Full stories below.
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Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected], @MikeKrings
US trade sanctions justified response to human rights abuses in China, law expert writes
LAWRENCE — An international trade law expert at the University of Kansas argues in a pair of new articles that human rights and trade are now inextricably linked, as evidenced by U.S. and international reactions to actions in China, and asserts that approach is an appropriate use of trade.
After the United States, then Canada and the Netherlands, declared the Chinese Communist Party’s actions against Uyghur Muslims as genocide, the nations followed with various trade sanctions. Likewise, countries have adopted trade measures in response to China’s violation of its one-country, two-systems agreement with Hong Kong. Raj Bhala, Brenneisen Distinguished Professor of Law at the KU School of Law, details both situations in two new companion case studies, argues the linking of trade to human rights is correct and examines future possibilities for such measures.
“Most people think human rights are to be separated from trade. In fact, that’s not true,” Bhala said. “There are no express, comprehensive provisions for human rights in the World Trade Organization or General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, but we’re seeing the link come up in U.S. trade policy and some regional free trade agreements. We’re entering an era of invigorated enhancements of human rights through trade policy.”
Bhala wrote an article on China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims and American trade response, published in India’s Journal of the National Human Rights Commission, and another on Hong Kong’s democracy, China’s violation thereof and American trade response, forthcoming in the Kansas Journal of Law & Public Policy.
Former President Donald Trump’s disputes with China and resulting trade war were widely debated and criticized. But, Bhala points out the sometimes overlooked trade reactions to the events in Xinjiang and Hong Kong are distinct, and defensible, actions. While thoroughly detailing the economic and legal actions of each case, he points out how the United States and China are in a new era of great power competition. He also outlines how, historically, trade and human rights were considered separate matters, and he chronicles how and why the earliest connections between the two issues occurred.
“The articles make the point that the two issues, international trade and human rights, are now inextricably linked,” Bhala said. “In one situation, we have what three governments have already called genocide, and what the world generally agrees is a violation of China’s one-country, two-systems policy in Hong Kong in the other.”
The former system involves genocide of a religious minority, while the latter involves legally codified human rights such as direct elections and peaceful assembly in Hong Kong. The United States has taken various trade actions, such as banning imports of Chinese products like cotton and tomatoes from Xinjiang in the first case, and freezing assets of Chinese Communist Party officials on the mainland in the second.
Bhala argues that such sanctions and related actions are appropriate. The World Trade Organization does not provide for trade remedies to human rights violations or crimes against humanity, hence options through that multilateral venue are limited.
“If we don’t use trade measures like sanctions in these two egregious instances, then when would we?” Bhala said.
In addition to outlining in the articles the legal responses and arguing they are justified, Bhala examines how the United States and other nations will most likely continue to use such measures in the future. Numerous contexts, including China’s actions toward Tibet, Taiwan and across the South China Sea and its self-declared Nine Dash Line, will most likely cause disagreement and conflict between the two world powers. He also emphasizes the conflicts are not with the Chinese people, but with the actions and policies of their government.
“We know the Chinese people are not monolithic in their views of their own government,” Bhala said. “There are many people in Hong Kong and on the mainland who are concerned with what has happened in Xinjiang with the Uyghur population, and also in respect to what has happened in Tibet and Taiwan.”
While it may be too early to know what the long-term results of trade remedies to human rights violations may be, or whether they will escalate tensions, the ongoing situations are confirmation that international trade and human rights are two sides of the same coin.
“If we’ve learned nothing else, it’s that trade policy is national security policy is human rights policy,” Bhala said. “Our national security is based on our values. We express our values partly through who we decide to trade with, and the terms on which we trade with them. Trade is not only about trade.”
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Contact: Pritha Prasad, Department of English, [email protected]
Author, scholar Ersula Ore will discuss state-sanctioned racial violence
LAWRENCE — A winner of the Rhetoric Society of America Book Award will bring further insight to ongoing conversations at the University of Kansas and beyond about how to respond to state-sanctioned racial violences in the era of #BlackLivesMatter.
Ersula Ore, the 2021 John F. Eberhardt Memorial Lecturer in KU’s Department of English, will present a virtual talk titled “Sandy’s ‘Black Looks’: Countertemporal Postures and the Reclamation of Time” at 4 p.m. April 13.
Taking Sandra Bland’s 2015 arrest as a point of departure, Ore will discuss how misogynoir arrests, takes up time and depletes the lived time of Black women. It will consider the ways civility discourse manifests temporally as capture in the lives of Black women and how the countertemporal orientation of “black looks” enacts a Black feminist declaration to reclaim time in pursuit of a more just future.
Ore is an associate professor of African and African American studies at Arizona State University. Her research in race and communication interrogates the power of anti-Black violence in the U.S. and the resistance strategies employed to resist it. As a critical race rhetorician, she draws on scholarship in Black feminist theory, rhetorical theory, anti-Blackness and racialized violence. Her 2019 award-winning book, “Lynching: Violence, Rhetoric & American Identity,” examines lynching as a rhetorical strategy and material practice interwoven with the formation of America’s national identity. Ore’s more recent work focuses on the concept of civility, which she argues is a racist articulation of the past that expresses desire for a particular kind of “ordered” present and future.
Ore is currently co-editing a collection interrogating equity discourse and institutionalized performative allyship in higher education. Her most recent publications can be found in Women’s Studies in Communication, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Pedagogy, Present Tense and the edited collection Rhetorics of Whiteness: Postracial Hauntings in Popular Culture, Social Media, and Education (2017), which won the 2018 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC)’s Outstanding Book Award. Ore was also the recipient of the 2018-2019 CCCC Outstanding Mentor Award.
Ore’s talk is sponsored by the KU Department of English. Those interested in attending may register for the talk to receive the webinar Zoom link and passcode.
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