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ContactJanuary 10, 2012
Should the United States Continue to Occupy Guantanamo?
Jonathan Hansen argues that we should return Guantanamo to the people of Cuba in an op-ed in the NY Times. I made a similar call five years ago in my piece, Quit Guantanamo in the SF Chronicle.
Posted by Anupam Chander on January 10, 2012 at 08:42 PM in Globalization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 02, 2012
Thank you, Gordon Hirabayashi
Gordon Hirabayashi, who, along with Fred Korematsu, Mitsuye Endo, and Min Yasui, challenged the unconstitutional and racist Internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, has passed away, according to a reliable report.
Lorraine K. Bannai, Professor of Legal Skills, Director, Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, and a member of the Korematsu coram nobis team, is helping to organize a conference in his honor:
Posted by Anupam Chander on January 2, 2012 at 05:05 PM in Dissent, Globalization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 16, 2011
"The Great Firewall of America"
Rebecca MacKinnon has a sobering piece in today's New York Times:
China operates the world’s most elaborate and opaque system of Internet censorship. But Congress, under pressure to take action against the theft of intellectual property, is considering misguided legislation that would strengthen China’s Great Firewall and even bring major features of it to America.
The legislation — the Protect IP Act, which has been introduced in the Senate, and a House version known as the Stop Online Piracy Act — have an impressive array of well-financed backers, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Motion Picture Association of America, the American Federation of Musicians, the Directors Guild of America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Screen Actors Guild. The bills aim not to censor political or religious speech as China does, but to protect American intellectual property. Alarm at the infringement of creative works through the Internet is justifiable. The solutions offered by the legislation, however, threaten to inflict collateral damage on democratic discourse and dissent both at home and around the world.
Posted by Anupam Chander on November 16, 2011 at 08:55 AM in Digitization, Globalization | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 25, 2011
Silicon Valley Focuses on Human Rights Implications of Its Work
I'm attending the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference--the third such conference, following Yahoo's conference in April 2010 (if I recall correctly), and Google's Budapest conference in Fall 2010--a public demonstration of a commitment to the virtues of free speech. Some will question whether billion dollar corporations can ever be sincere in their commitment to human rights, or whether such efforts are simply window dressing. The corporate officers present here--from Google and Facebook--certainly have human rights bona fides in their biographies.
Van Jones is going on now, talking about the "pro democracy struggle going on right here. A struggle against plutocracy." Watch it online here.
Posted by Anupam Chander on October 25, 2011 at 12:13 PM in Digitization, Globalization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 14, 2011
Cloud Law: University of Toronto Conference
Today, the University of Toronto Faculty of Law's Centre for Innovation Law and Policy is hosting a splendid conference on cloud computing and the law. The entire conference is being live streamed--and will be archived online here: http://cloudlaw.ca/
It's fun to be back in Toronto, my first time in decades. A quick observation for my Toronto friends, and I'm sure not the first time someone has suggested it: the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) looks as if a spaceship crashed into a gothic building, and unfortunately it was a spaceship from a people who liked really awkward shapes.
Posted by Anupam Chander on October 14, 2011 at 01:55 PM in Digitization, Globalization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 06, 2011
My New Paper: Jasmine Revolutions
My new paper, Jasmine Revolutions, responds directly to Internet Democratization Skeptics. It's forthcoming from the Cornell Law Review. Download it here. Here's the abstract:
Will the Internet help topple tyrants, or will it help further cement their control? Prominent skeptics challenge the notion that the Internet will help rid the world of dictators. They suggest that the Internet will simply serve as a new opiate of the masses, or worse, will assist autocrats in manipulating popular opinion. I defend the liberalizing promise of cyberspace. Where others have set out the value of the Internet to dissidents, I answer the main critiques of that position - that Internet activism is futile, that the Internet is simply the new opiate of the masses, and that autocrats will benefit more from the Internet than dissidents. I argue that dictators have revealed their own appraisals of the Internet: when threatened, they shut it down. Tyrants today fear the Internet more than they benefit from it. This summer’s events again confirmed this truth: On the day when the rebels marched into Tripoli, they restored Libya to the Internet.
Posted by Anupam Chander on September 6, 2011 at 07:48 PM in Digitization, Dissent, Globalization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 22, 2011
Libyan Rebels Express Thanks to World Leaders
Photographs by Alexandre Meneghini of the Associated Press.
As described by the HuffingtonPost:
Libyans supportive of rebel forces held up a large sign with portraits of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. President Barack Obama.
Above their images was written: "FANTASTIC 4."
"GOD BLESS YOU ALL. THANKS FOR ALL" was written below their portraits.
Posted by Anupam Chander on August 22, 2011 at 04:59 PM in Globalization | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 18, 2011
Diaspora Bonds: The Economist Reports
The Economist does a nice job describing some of the reasons countries around the world are turning to Diaspora Bonds. For my original NYU Law Review article called "Diaspora Bonds," see here.
HOW can emigrants help the countries they have left? The usual answer is: by sending money home to support their parents, put cousins through college, and so on. Such remittances are important, says Dilip Ratha of the World Bank, but it is not enough to tap the income of migrants abroad. Poor countries should also tap their savings. One way is to sell diaspora bonds.
The idea is simple. Poor-country governments can issue bonds and market them to emigrants in rich countries. There are several advantages to milking members of a diaspora. They are often patriotic: they like the idea that their savings will pay for bridges and clinics at home. They are patient, since they have a long-term tie to the issuer. They are less jittery than other investors, too, since they have friends who can tell them whether political unrest is really as bloody as it looks on television. And they are sanguine about currency risk. If the Zambian kwacha crashes, an expat Zambian can buy his mother a cheap house.
Posted by Anupam Chander on August 18, 2011 at 10:43 AM in Globalization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 11, 2011
Foxconn makes $14 from assembling $560 iPhone, Apple $368
Component manufacturers receive $178, the assembly company Foxconn makes $14, and Apple receives $368 to compensate for design, software, and marketing of each iPhone. An iPhone may be made in China, but the profits go to California. The Economist breaks down how the money flows.
Posted by Anupam Chander on August 11, 2011 at 07:17 PM in Globalization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 09, 2011
Sovereign Ratings, Mapped
Over at ChartsBin, some folks have done a fabulous job of showing sovereign ratings from S&P, Fitch, Moody's, and Dagong on a map.
Posted by Anupam Chander on August 9, 2011 at 03:17 PM in Globalization | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
