and come back home. the mexican governors don't have control over the situation. and they're coming in, and they're finding ways to get it into this country, not in many cases with americans being mules across the border, i get that. certainly more american citizens responsible for the distribution to these children and adults of all ages who are dying. so how-- it's interesting to me that president trump was criticized for putting a potential tariff on mexico, everybody said it was going to be horrible, it's going to kill the economy. the only thing it did over the course of a few days is prompt the now current president of mexico to deploy 10,000 troops to the border. if there's no problem, no problem, being an equal partner to the difficulties--

>> today, rhode island senator sheldon whitehouse and others will talk about the state of democracy and the role of law in the u.s. at georgetown university, watch live coverage beginning at 9:00 a.m., on c-span2, or c-span.org. >> welcome to our symposium to the role on democracy, the joint effort of the school and the neighbors on campus georgetown law. i'm dan kellerman, here at the george and professor by courtesy next door at georgetown law. i'm thrilled to be co-hosting this with my colleague, international professor at georgetown laup. we moved into this beautiful building this summer on the

hill top and there were funds available for events like this to let everyone in the community here to know that we're here just footsteps from the capitol and greg and i have been working on issues of attacks on democracy and the rule of law for some time now. about a year ago we cooked up this eyed for this symposium. we knew it was an important, impressing topic, but we couldn't have known a year ago how timely it would be. in fact, we thought it might be about 50 people and as of yesterday we were 400rsvp a he is for the day. and thanks to the events staff helping us coordinate what's become a much bigger event. over the past two decades, the world has experienced a wave of black sliding on democracy and the rule of law. the number of democratic countries and the rule of law has been expanding for decades since the year 2000. since then it's steadily

declined. and the new breed of autocratic rulers have proliferated. the institutions of government to dismantle the rule of law and democracy itself. in many cases, they use similar playbooks. indeed, they often learn from each other and some speakers say they actively collaborate. the title of our events suggest democracy and the rule of law are right now under great pressure. indeed, that's no more where obvious than right here in washington d.c. the past couple of weeks where dramatic events have been unfolding. indeed, these events have even affected our own conference. i'm not going to name names, but i'll just say that we invited several speakers from various u.s. government agencies who ultimately either had to decline participation or withdraw because they felt they explained under political pressure not to speak on these events. so i want you to capture the

irony here, in many cases u.s. officials serving u.s. government and interest and democracy promoting the rule of law around the world and yet, they're afraid to speak on those very topics here in our nation's capital. what's the point discussing these matters that georgetown here in the university setting, professor schaeffer and all of our speakers believe universities can play a special role where students, concerned citizens can come together to better understand the dramatic phenomena unfolding before us and also with this event specifically we think one of the great benefits is that some of these events are unfolding in countries around the world. we really have an opportunity to learn from each other. so, it's not just the would-be autocrats who can take lessons from experiences in other countries, but also defenders of the democracy and the rule

of law as well. >> finally, i think the last thing i'll say before i'm passing things to professor schaeffer, i think it's important to acknowledge that one of the key tools of aspiring autocrats is to create a climate of fear that leaves opponents in historian tim snyder's words to obey in advance. i hope with this conference, hearing from the many experts here, seeing the many concerned citizens, students participating here you'll feel a greater sense of solidarity and a bit less fear what's going on right now and the insights, the rule of law to their assailants. i just want to thank our co-sponsors, partners at the law school, congress of democracy and o'neill institute and our amazing speakers introduced throughout the day

and incredible event staff here, crystal, jack, john, adrian, aiden, victoria, who work with incredible professionalism to make this happen and finally, thank my ra, who basically took over organizing this event because i'm not an event planner, thank you to her. i'll thank you for coming and hand things over to professor schaeffer. [applause] >> thanks, welcome, everybody. i think this is a joint effort of dan and the -- it's so important today because we can see our own silos in terms of those looking at public policy. those looking at law. part of democracy, we have elections and people come in democratically elected and

different public policy, that's fine. another thing with respect to our basic institutions of law and following the law, i think it's important for the law school and the public policy institute to work together to address the issues that are not only before us here in this country, but around the world and they're interconnected. so for me, the development in georgetown university is the moving of the mccourt school here next to the law school and this is a huge opportunity to collaborate. the second is that the pressures on democracy and the rule of law, people are experiencing this here in the united states for the last two weeks and-- we have a long history. but these also are happening around the world. as we have seen in the last three decades in our first panel, declined in rule of law

measurements in every region in the world. and so, there are playbooks that can be used to enhance democracy, enhance the rule of law, but there are playbooks that autocrats can use, from which the autocrats can use to. so, that's what we're studying today. if we don't have the developments transnationally, globally, we won't be able to respond at home, wherever home may be. we have four panels complemented by two professors. the first panel around a book, a rule of law a transnational challenge. we'll be talking about some specific regional and national

development, but we'll also be putting this in local perspective. the second panel will focus and zoom in on the americas, both the united states and the americas, and the third panel will look at europe and what's taking place and concluding, the fourth panel will look at not om other countries and regions around the world, but globally and transnational. our two key notes will be honored to have senator sheldon whitehouse at noon and central at trying to make more transparent the way that money has been flowing around the world. that's been a challenge here in united states, abrogation of the united states federal government even though it's bipartisan legislation, so pressing these challenges.

and that will lead us to our concluding panel with daniel applebaum and their books are here. one is about the link between money and the rise around the world. and the other is entitled in the minority about the challenges in terms of actually having a democratic government based on how power is institutionalized and then we'll wrap up and go to the ninth floor and have a reception overlooking the u.s. capitol. i just wanted to add thanks with respect to the law school and this event not only brings together the mccourt school of public policy and the law school, but a slew of law school institutions and at the

center of democracy. we have the o'neill institute for national and global health. we have the institute for national law and this is the center at the law school, but what it goes to show is what's happening here and around the world affects all of us as citizens and whatever our policies of specializations, and the rule of law is essential. and so, thank you all for joining us and may i now call the speakers for the first panel to the stage. [applause]. [inaudible conversations]

>> well, good morning and thanks for joining us for this symposium. i'd like to start thanking dan and mccourt school of public policy and georgetown law school for putting together this wonderful event. we're delighted to share some of the key insights from our book, rule of law under pressure. and to talk about how those impacts might apply to our current challenges to democracy and the rule of law, both here in this country and around the world. events, i think, recent events have elevated our concerns for the rule of law, shifts in the united states fit a broader global pattern that's stretched over the last 15 or 20 years, in fact. eroding democracy and the rule of law in a growing number of

countries, and in international relations, that is relations among countries. the rule of law under pressure, that our new book seeks to we reframe our tools for those understandings, and accepting those challenges and accepting possible responses. this first panel will introduce the book and some of its major themes. i'll then pose a few questions to the panels and then after that, we'll open the floor to questions from the audience. our first speaker is greg schaeffer, scott k beginsburg international law here at georgetown and the immediate past president of the american society of international law. he's the author of 12 books, including one we're talking about today. so, i'll give the time to greg and then i'll introduce the subsequent participants as they move forward.

>> all right. thank you. and so, i thought i'd first try to address, you know, what word in writing a book and looking at the rule of law and nationally and for me, anyway, a real wake-up call was january 7th and the violence act in the capital the transition of power in this country and there was -- realized just over four years ago, it was just up the street of this building so we're in the heart of where this took place and there's a sense, we can see these developments around the world. is it just by chance that it's all happening in the countries simultaneously around the world? the world justice project will talk about sort of the--

to bring this together, to bring together both political sciences and lawyers to try to study this phenomena, what he is happening? what's going on? why now? but i thought i would focus on a couple of things here, one, what do we mean by the rule of law, the phrase pops around a lot. autocrats pop it around and the rule of law chinese pop around and so forth. what's the relationship democracy and the rule of law between the rule of law and democracy. and then what are the sources of the challenge? what are the sources of ash trar arbitrariness and the rule of law. so, just in terms of rule of law often assigned a theory, in terms of different checklists sort of like sort of six or

seven things constitute, you know, rule of law. we could start arguing over the minutia of the checklist. where the books are, what is the point? why talk about the rule of law, and what sort of constitutes the rule of law. so, it really sees the rule of law in terms of goals and practices, and the goal of rule of law is quite simple, that is to protect individuals against the arbitrary exercise of power, okay? it's to create sort of boundaries and to channel the exercise of power through known legal rules and institutions, set up equally to all of us. what matters is this institutionization of this goal. it's about institutions. so that this goal, these norms

become sources of restraint and normative resources that we can use to claim breaches in the whole of the rule of law and to hold those in power accountable. so what matters ultimately is practice. although the rule of law and democracy are mutually supportive, they have different goals and involve different practices. so, for example, you need the rule of law just to be able to assure that both are accurately, you don't assign 13,000 votes in an election. this is basic. but democracy ultimately, who will be our leader, right? who will exercise power? whereas the rule of law is about how power will be exercised. the difference between who and how.

and so, just to give you an example, i mean, in 1930's in germany hitler was democratically elected. if we just focus on democracy, it was an election, he won the most votes. a very different question about how power is exercised once you are in power. and so, the sources of arbitrariness that we wish to con train to the law are multiple, but the primordial one is that the leaders themselves is subject to the law. that's the reason why this supreme court decision trump versus the united states is so worrisome for so many of us to say that the president, the leader of the country, has absolute substantial immunity,

presumptive immunity acts as president. if you combine with the president's ability to pardon anyone he gives orders to, then suddenly-- a second concern with respect to the arbitrary exercise of power and rule of law, know what the law is so we can plan our lives, uncertainty if we follow the law that we're not going to be prosecuted not going to be harmed by those in power. linked to this is the discriminatory exercise of power. the famous autocratic saying goes to my friends everything, to my enemies, the law. you can see this pardon violent

supporters, but prosecute opponents. a third is just that we have some sort of institutional machinery to protect the rule of law. one word of concern that happened right at the start of this administration was the overnight firing of all of these extra generals across different agencies which are there under statute to try to hold those agencies accountable for following the law. that was the first move. another simple sense of reason. it's a reason to -- we can actually defend ourselves, so forth, as opposed to taking place or not. which is why we have legislative chambers, we have

the past committees, we have immigration and so forth that's exposed to rule by decree. and the fifth is just proportionality between sort of a charge and then what of one a sentence. when you think of what happened in russia to navalny, charged with certain minor crimes, but basically put away forever, right, in a high security prison where he ultimately died. so these are different sources of arbitrariness. different institutional checks and whether our institutions can stand up. one of the main concerns here, you have a civil service that's no longer a civil service there to follow the law, but rather,

a civil service which is -- only has partisan who will purse the policies of the leader regardless of whether they're legal or not. another is if you suddenly appoint people to lead different agencies whose priorities are to make life difficult and keep the opposition at bay sbe there in the fbi, be they in the department of justice and so forth. so they're a fact that you can fire anyone who was engaged in investigations with respect to violent defenders impacting the capitol. it's meant to send a signal of fear to anyone who tries to oppose the law. one thing that you can see is that these play books are transnational. one thing you can see is that the use of law, such as tax law, to create fear and put

these people at bay. think about today sort of the challenges, the 501 c-3 nonprofit status which may be defending the rule of law or democracy or other public policy issues. think of how tax laws have been weaponized this russia, in india, and other regimes around the world, right, to basically challenge and make life difficult for any political opposition. pay attention to what happens in the internal revenue service here. and finally, i'm just going to end with the statement leading leader charl smith schmidt a brilliant thinker, the law

means (inaudible) the mother of all exceptions, is emergencies. what hitler declared after parliament was attacked in germany. we've had three national emergencies declared within the first two weeks. potential that we need to keep our eye on this because the aim is then to bring all power and say this is a political question national emergency and presidential powers used going forward. with that i'll turn it back and we can do a round table. >> thank you, greg. we'll hear next from tom ginsburg, professor of international law the university of chicago and director of inquiry on expression. his latest book democracy and international law the winner of two book awards.

tom. >> thank you, wayne. thanks to everyone for being herement i actually thought i'd start, greg gave the rule of law and give you my definition of democracy, a focus on this point. everyone knows that democracy requires election ins which the loser concedes. that itself has been under threat already in the united states. of course, that's not enough, that's too thin of a definition, for a lawyer you can't have those be meaningful unless you have certain co-rights, a right to vote, criticize the government, the right to assembly and such. so we need to slightly thicken that. so the third part of my own definition of my colleague rule of law is what we call the bureaucratic rule of law ap that's particularly relevant today. so as greg said you obviously need the rule of law election with the votes counted. neutral people doing that.

but more broadly, in my view, democracy requires-- people who stay there taking instruction for anyone who is in power. and we know there is slippage and mistakes are made and control is not perfect. the reason for democracy, if you have a president who can come in and in our country hire and fire two million people who work for the federal government, then the stakes of control are so high they would never give up power. there are many countries in the world where the ruling faction is a tribe or a clique in which the leader knows if they step down all of their friends and families and associates have to step down, too, and in that connection even if the leader was a democrat they can't. so having a civil service under

attack today is really important and it's not appreciated. bureaucracy is an epithet in our system not seen as an essential part of our government that works for us. democracy and the rule of law are central elements of the post world war ii liberal order which is under frontal attack and always contested in it country. i was thinking of senator bricker, someone you call didn't want the united states to make treaties and wanted congress to oversee that. bricker opposed the united nations and such and we're now in the point where those in power may execute his plan, a frontal assault on all of these institutions, i think it's worth pointing out objectively have benefitted the united states. they have also, i think, reinforced some of these international institutions, particularly the regional level and this is the topic of my chapter in the book that wayne

and greg edited. regional organizations have done a good job of reento,ing democracy and rule of law among their members. european union, european human rights, african unions, not perfect, but precisely because the nature of democratic decline in our era is back sliding, that is it's one step at a time. death by a thousand cuts. having international institutions for us for contesting those moves as they're made, for monitoring for sort of keeping space alive, for particular institutions, that then can serve as the basis for a democratic comeback. there's a pattern that we have observed and that's the topic of my chapter. i do want to say though that the united states generally, of course, has been sort of a backer of this at least retorically and we're seeing a major change in terms of american rhetoric. so, this brings me to an

argument i made in other context about what i call authoritarian international law. so international law is generally speaking, you know, is neutral as among regime types, democracies, dictatorships and they can cooperate with each other and we can live in a world with north korea and iran. that's important because of the deep pluralism which is the nature of international society, but what we've seen in recent years mimicking developments at a domestic constitutional level is that authoritarian government just as they take what appear to be democratic institutions, elections and courts and rights to free information and such, and they turn them around to extend their own way, to benefit themselves internally. we've seen that at the international level as well, emergence of a transnational network, of cooperation among authoriarians and

international institutions to extend the rule of authoritarians across time and space, to shore up each other's rule, to cooperate on punishing each other's dissonance, to have fake election monitoring, something that -- so that, you know, there's europeans would say that's not a free and fair election in belarus and then another say it's free and fair, our monitors were there. that floods the kind of -- or muddies the basis for asserting what's actually going on. so we see active moves of authoritarian government to cooperate in this way. and of course, my fear, you can see, is that if we're going to attack the democratic rule of law internationally and international unions and attack even things regime neutral like the united nations, after all, does have all kinds of countries in it, isn't the next

step to actively cooperate with dictators to help our own leaders stay in power, perhaps in violation of our constitutional law. that's what i'm watching these days and i'm very interested to listen to the next discussion. >> thank you, tom. we'll next turn to the senior researcher for institute of legal research as she's written broadly on latin american constitutionalism and the recent book, women, gender and constitutionalism in latin america. >> thank you, thank you so much. it was great to participate in this project and it's great to have the opportunity to now with all mapping around to have this conversation. my chapter in the book documents, let's say, the mexican variety of these phenomena that is ungulfing us

all. it is to say the return of autocratic legalism, in all parts of the world by electoral means, right? but i wrote the chapter two years ago and of course, when i wrote that from the situation in mexico was already super worrying, super troubling, but i could have never imagined what happened afterwards, that is not, you know, and especially what happened in what i call the outrageous summer of 2024, essentially the passing of judicial reform with quotes because it's the complete overhaul of the judiciary and the record like short periods of time. so in the chapter, you know, i analyzed the first part of obrador's presidency, and that we don't have time now to discuss, but basically it was the idea of onlylizing the

strength and the weaknesses of typical latin american constitutional design to resist autocratic illegalism. of course, these constitutions were not designed with these developments in mind by the country, but they have some strength and then some of the strengths, for instance, in latin america typically you have several high courts, several courts, and might be interesting because it makes capture of the courts less immediate, for instance, or in latin america we are integrated into the inter-american system of human rights which can be useful to resist, but useful as tim suggests in the chapter in the book, to then have a platform of standards to kind of recover once you have new leaders elected, you have some innovation at the level, et cetera. so i did this kind of

finalities, but some of the things are also, in latin america, the court had a jurisdictional menu and this can help to resist and if they are not captured. but it's higher stakes as well and makes capture of the courts or destruction of the courts a very precious asset for the autocrat. many things happened in mexico after i wrote all this and seeing what i have to refine, i just wanted to tell you precisely about what is not in the book, you know, like because i think it is of immediate interest now because of what is happening in the u.s. and all this. so just very briefly, it's like a movie or, you know, it is very-- a lot of things that are happening that are invariably. and reminder, obrador was the

old style mexican politician that had been in politics all his wife and wins in 2018, with a very broad victory, like people were really tired of the mediocrity of previous rulers in terms of abating inequality, basically, in terms of being excessively addicted to negotiation, and while people wanted change in changes and obrador was the only one that promised change and he won and he left on a left platform and surprise, surprise, gains power and starts policies the politics, no way. and you have the police being deployed by lopez obrador

during six years, anti-pluralism, attacks on everyone, you know, the press, universities, the script is so familiar i don't need to give example. the police, militarization of public life and even of daily administration in mexico, and here there's something distinctive because lopez obrador, the cartels things and everything, he had a list of police with regards to that and rather than to use the military, is to run the state. like he defund the public administration and decided that it was easy to use the military, the military to do certain things, for instance, to run airports, to run many things, and then well, economic policies, coupled with nonconditional massive cash transfers has been great for

moreno electorally, instead of strengthening education and health and structural and health and welfare, aggressive policies, aggressive migration policies, with having a pragmatic relationship with the united states on this issue, but of course, weakening of constitutional checks and balances. so for a time, for a time, public enemy number one was the national electoral institute. so in the book, i described what these attack on it, and ironic because had certified the electoral victory of lopez obrador. they have a longer project, i don't have time to go into that, but this is one of the things of the takeaways of all that's been happening. and so, in the book, i described these national institutional attacks and the militarization.

but for a time, for a time the courts were helping destruction, the supreme court declared unconstitutional, not everything, far from that, most of you that studied judicialization, have one of the least active courts compared to the colombian, brazilians or others. and other things were blatantly unconstitutional on the militarization package and declared unconstitutional. and this made the judiciary in the second part of lopez obrador's term to be public enemy number one, the supreme court. but in the intermediate election, the intermediate election, moreno lost the constitutional majority, and changing the constitution. everybody said, oh, okay, what a relief.

we'll wait until the election, the next election, 2024, june. this will be it, there's been a lot of destruction, but you know, finally we will have a new leader that, you know, with the same party, but won't have this kind of profile and things will -- but then one year before-- just one year from now, february 2024, constitution day in mexico for everybody, lopez obrador presents a package of constitutional reforms, legal and constitutional reforms, including this unbelievably radical judicial reform. and everyone said, okay, but they don't have the constitutional majority and this is so crazy that this is impossible, even if moreno wins the election in june, no way this can be passed this would be too -- even for them, it was too radical simply for a

country to assume. but surprise, surprise, in june, moreno, again gained the election and again gained constitutional majority except three senators that they soon have their way to control and lopez obrador used all the transition period between june and claudia sheinbaum was taking office, all of his authorities, and he had to lot, to pass this package of reforms. and so this is not the events of what i call the outrageous summer of 2024 in which you have all of these machinery at the service, using legal and illegal means, every kind, every sort of thing happened in the summer and finally, we, in september, we had the judicial reform, but i don't have time to go into the details, but i want to emphasize the

radicality, if you compared it with hungary, with bolivia, with whatever you want to compare with, it's the complete dismissal of all existing judges, state and federal, high court and low, all of them must go home in two batches. half in 2025 and half in 2027 and you are replacing this with a system of popular elections? i will talk massively, i've been putting these analogies with the state system in the united states. it's not the same at all because you will have here a bunch of names, neve to do political campaign, they are selected by the three powers, the executive, the legislative and the supreme court, and then they have to do this political campaign with the prohibitions to use public money and private money so basically they have nothing, but the social

network, whatever. well, and you have a court, and politicians, and i don't have time today to describe, but i will be happy to give it if you want. but this is a -- the complete subordination of these new people that on top can be inspecioused because really, the requisites are nothing, like letters from the neighbors and you know, like an average-- so then, the supreme court, i am finishing, the supreme court of mexico people tried to challenge all of this before the supreme court, as you know like in america, we have in many countries the constitutional amendment, but in mexico precisely we don't have, we didn't have a developed doctrine of unconstitutional, and constitutional amendments. any way in the supreme court

they was one vote short of, you know, striking down the reform, so legally, you know, the reform is there and now we are in the implementation, which is the crazy process as well, and we will be voting in june. so, there's a lot of takeaways about what is happening and i'll leave that for debate or whatever, but they sadly, you know, even if i think the mexico constitutional system had like the capacity before the summer, you know, if everything is like that to be-- to be an experience like, for instance, in brazilian one, the brazilian constitutional system and different things in the united states, but after this, the constitution is so destroyed that when we end up in what you call a constitutional prison. you know, like if a new leadership comes, if people support a different thing, how

will we handle this constitution that is already completely destroyed and have these anti-judiciary, judiciary power in there and so, a lot of things to cover, but i leave it here. thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you. and now we'll turn to alejandro ponce the director of the world justice project and chief research officer and he developed the rule of law index and lead various data initiatives at the world justice project. he's an economist with experience at the world bank and published in academic journals as well. alejandro. >> thank you, wayne. when thinking about what we have heard in the news recently, what we have heard,

what we see in other parts of the world, what is happening, we think-- i mean there are a lot of different elements that we're hearing and it's useful to step back and think what are the common elements here? what is really happening here? and i will think there are probably two core ideas of what we're hearing, so, one is disregard of the norms by the people, the decision makers, the people who have power. and the second one is disregard for that accountability and mechanism and attack those accounts. so, most societies have laws and at the very, very basic levels definition of rule of law implies that people,

individual entities, authorities, are accountable to the law. laws that have certain principles, that adhere to human rights, that are adjudicated, enforced and so on. but everyone should be accountable to the law. it is the core principle as greg just mentioned and really, just what we're seeing really in different parts of the world is this complete disregard for these basic ideas. and why is it important? because we can think, well, these are our decision makers. how is that going to affect me? so, and the reason why it's important is because if there are no accountability mechanisms then it's very difficult then just for those who have power to actually put attention to our needs. i mean, to hold them accountable on a daily basis or

at the time of the elections. so if the mechanisms are dismantled, then it's very hard to did something later on. that's something that we see as countries just become more autocratic, it's more difficult to hold governments accountable. on no basis and they usually perform economically and socially and more difficult to hold them accountable. so that's why it's important. but obviously, this dismantling takes different forms and in different parts of the world and that's why it's so important to take a step back, say, what are the common elements and then trying to understand, really, what is happening in different parts of the world and it's very challenging because there are many actors in place. so, it's not only the government, it is the society and it's the citizens. and just the media is organizing the society, and all

of them are inform equilibrium and just what we see at the end of the day. and to try to make sense and to think about these strengths, and what we have, and try to measure these over the years, it's a very complex task. we have interviewed people around the world to see how these things essentially evolving practice, perceptions that people may have about there's a performance of different institutions, of different oversight bodies, and the government and importantly, just interactions that they may have in the institutions. as we interview people around the world every year and something that we have seen over the last years is these decline or weakening of the rule of law. just to give you a sense of this. just over the last seven years, there have been more countries that have declined the rule of

law that have improved. so this has been constant over the years, so, it was worse during the pandemic and just we had to slow down just recently, but it's still that there are more countries with which the rule of law is weakening and rule of law is improving. and usually, the drivers of these are just an ocean of checks and balances, an ocean of fundamental rights, and weak justice systems. and almost common, just in other countries. just last year we saw the same thing. to give you a figure, just over the last six years, about six million people after the rule of law declined. in the chapter of the book we attempt to unpack it or just

unbundle a little bit and let me just give you the main takeaways of this. so, number one, i mean, not all the world is the same for sure. we can identify probably three buckets of countries. so, one, our countries are already out of practice and in all of these countries what we see is that the rule of law is weakening even more. so if there are no safeguards already in these countries, so when we see a decline, the decline is larger. so, and these are some of the venezuela, nicaragua, so on, just over the world. and then we have other countries, just a majority in which the rule of law has declined, but it has declined little by little and here we have just also declines in checks and balances, in fundamental rights. in some cases there are still

changes in administration in which then there's a pushback and this happens just in countries overall, usually more in middle income countries and high income countries and then we also have a small group of countries, just in which the rule of law has been improving. so usually just by a small amount, the countries who have gun through processes or more recently just to change it. so, these -- so it's the overall picture. so it's important to understand what is driving this. it's important to assess just the role of the different actors because just as we have seen in some countries, change happens, but it's more difficult to happen just if the rule of law is already very

weak. >> thank you, alejandro. i'm going to pose a couple of questions to the group and after that first round, we'll open it to questions from all of you. greg, you spoke about threats of the rule of law to the national level and of course we've argued that the domestic and international rule of law are inextricably connected. maybe you can say what are some of those linkages. and tom, you spoke about authoritarian international law. you've written about authoritarian international law. how tightly linked are international rule of law and domestic rule of law does erosion at the international level pose challenges or domestic rule of law? so those are interconnected and take them as you wish. >> thanks, wayne. i think that the first is that i was really struck and live in

a country which is not-- even though we're in many way united states the architect of what is called the international legal order, often in its history, not necessarily complied with that. and so we need to put that in if perspective. but i wanted to note the links between attacks on international law and what's happening domestically. what struck me in preparing this book, i went to the dual state about the law in nazi germany and i'm expecting this is only going to be a domestic book, but the book, and we start our book with this quote from franco, which was that in germany after the war under the nazi regime, the concept which permitted an unlimited sovereignty to ignore

international law is the source of the theory that political activity is not subject to legal regulation. that this was the pre supposition for the prerogative state. and what he means by prerogative state, the leader what the policy will be without any constraints whatsoever, which is back to the law. so the prerogative state in nazi germany, it's a dual state because in many areas you have business, administration, you want to have everyday law, you see this in china and so forth. more court, more law, more administrative regulations and so forth. but for anything that would involve potential political opposition, there was no legal constraints whatsoever. so if you were jewish, if you were a leftist, you would be -- you would be oppressed,

ultimately killed, imprisoned. so, you know, we've had dual states around the world in many different places including this country. as we try to repress this history, but we had slavery with one set of rules with respect to black americans and another for white americans and after sort of a civil war where we suddenly had a multi-racial democracy during reconstruction for about a decade or so, we had then jim crow and apartheid south in which there was one set of rules that applied to blacks, they couldn't play checkers in the park, couldn't swim in the swimming pool. another for whites, detailed laws in states, but also just practices in terms of who would be prosecuted, who would be let go and so forth. and so, that's important, but you remember, also, where franco started was that the first thing the nazis did was saying that they withdrew from the league of nations, and

wanted no checks in terms of how -- and this is a-- how we treat ours, this is our sovereign matters. and so we also saw in the united states sort of a concern with respect to human rights treaties and debricker, the main concern was civil rights in the united states. we didn't want any international bodies making us accountable. and so i've just given two examples, but you see examples around the world in terms of attacks on institutional institutions and international law. one concern with respect to the putin government and regime in russia was what was happening in ukraine, the revolution and a move towards democracy and the move towards civil rights and a move towards a european pay as opposed to an autocratic way of domestic governance and

there's, you know, common language, so many bonds between ukrainians and russians, what impact would this have in russia. so, the first shifts were to, you know, create domestic constitutional doctrine that said, you know, that europeans, human rights, any norms that went against, quote, the russian constitution would have no effect in russian and leaving the european council and, why? it was a normative resource for the opposition that challenged putin's regime domestically and it was-- that was at the domestic level and then at the international level, it was constantly, russian would have to respond to the human rights. so to neutralize any sort of scrutiny was to lead international institutions

attack them. in the united states we see this leaving different international institutions, leaving the human rights council, no longer being an observer to the human rights council and so forth is to shield the united states from any scrutiny internationally, but also to try to eliminate a resource that domestic actors can use to hold their government accountable saying, that-- there are fundamental due process rights and human rights, the united states has, russia, china, other countries are a member. very important if we go back to the 1980's and 1990's the helsinki accord in terms when i went to czechoslovakia at the time, what sort of normative resource is this provided to those who were pushing for protection of the rule of law and move towards democracy. ...

let me give one last example. one of the great achievements was the idea you would have borders which would be defined borders. what's been challenged around the world, we see this now about the idea that the trait will expand its territory, right? look at what rush has done with respect to ukraine and in georgia and in other states, trying to expand its territory. there's no greater threat to the rule of law when you have unsettled borders. ask ukrainians.

but international law, international institutions keep them in mind with respect to these current challenges is essential. >> testing. it would be nice if all good things went together all the time of the relationship between domestic robot and international is very complicated. like you can imagine in an ideal since we have some democracies with the rule of law and to cooperate with each other at a concession regional level or international level to promote those values and to reinforce each other. a project like the european union or council of europe might be something like that. ideally. but it's also the case that we see democracies precisely because they have the rule of law sometimes want to outsource things to the national level. it's a good time to remind everyone there are 30 min said in guantánamo bay right now the

spinner for 20 years, most of them have not been charged with a crime. democracies might be particularly likely to want to violate if you'll international in that sense. it is also the case sometimes international reinforces autocracies. the obama administration since in the amount of cash to iran famously paying an award. we owed them money competences with international group of law that we had to do that. that of course reinforces an extremely repressive regime which outsources terrorism and you know were presses its own citizens. these things don't go together automatically and we shouldn't, it's the fallacy of composition to think you need the same thing at every level. i don't think we do. from my point of view democracy will is also important thing and we should value in wimberley the rule of law to the extent we can -- value enormously.

>> alejandro has argued deterioration in the rule of law has enormous consequences that can be very difficult to reverse. francisca gave a pretty depressing picture what's happening recently in mexico. i would like, what are the prospects for resisting or reversing erosions in the rule of law? starting with cisca but open to the rest of the panel as well. >> it's very difficult to predict, , right, we all have forward-looking questions and uncertainties just all around. i don't think in latin america in particular -- imperfect democracy but the markers after all. i don't think this will go to the -- [inaudible] right now it's a difficult to organize a reaction because

precise because this is supranational kind of way, they reinforce one another. look at what is happening out in the americas. like, and left and right is not really relevant anymore. i was impressed by saint marco rubio go into venezuela and the like, this can affect this kind of party that they have. now it's very difficult to be optimistic. there are a lot of possible i think it's easier -- i include the united states. far easier for them to coordinate around the antiliberal things, the gender things, even in the security things. but then there are real things where the potential for conflict. these guys are, in the economic,

that everything will go as -- [inaudible] i think at a certain time you will, and, of course, and another thing that was so ironic for me is in conversations about -- for the mexican audience, claudia, president said we will respond, you know. rationality and the law. oh, my god, you know? these guys now have been condoning all what, so i think that everything goes very well but at the point real conflicts will arise. the cracks will appear. this can be like self-sustaining. self-sustaining. it's too crazy to self-sustaining. at that point something will come out. for instance, in mexico all

these decades around rights is not that they improve everything but they articulate effort of activism, of regional networking. even the indigenous communities having ways of thinking about -- office will give rise i think but i am optimistic. i might be too optimistic but i think we have to wait. now sony things are are going on at the same time now is difficult but in the middle term i think better things. >> it's a good question, a very good question. we often think about what autocrats are doing. we rarely think of -- just prevent this from happening.

and i think in order to answer that question we consider all the different actors. usually those are opposition, the opposition plays a very important role as oversight bodies, congress, government agencies, media. all of them play a role just in pushing back to these institutions. the first one is the institutional means. just i think doing what we saw, for example, during the previous administration of trump was a lot of pushback in court, for example, or pushback from civil servants. each one of the areas pushing against some of these decisions get we see that as well in other countries and indeed that in many cases more -- really depends a lot on what opposing forces are doing and the success

just on the strategies of these forces is really determined the outcome. it's important to do that with institutions just to be able to act. it's more difficult when there are changes in institutions then it becomes more challenging to do that. if the courts are captured it's more difficult to do something through the courts, for example. it's useful to prevent these efforts from early stages from institutional -- [inaudible] >> thank you. we have time for questions, comments from the audience. so please feel free. okay. we will move a microphone here to the center in front if you could come forward to ask your questions, please.

>> and if you wouldn't mind, , interdigital. >> brian wells, university of tampa. as i was come for so i push it were taught by -- get bogged down. i would like to ask the question by putting the dimension of time into this. so just thinking about democratization. in between each of those ways with two troughs of -- others were in a third wave of democratization now. there are differences in these ways of autocracies asian. for example, there was mechanism and now it seems to be erosion of rule of law. are there any similarities in these ways of autocracy that we can draw from lessons from? in the other two ways we have met him to find a way back to democracy.

>> who wants to take that went on? >> is a great question and something that's worthy of careful study. one of the things we've all talked but in recent years is how what's been happening since 2006 really is a different mode. it's slow. something overnight coup. we have had a wave of coups in the sahel but this is an communist revolution in military takeovers. it's a step-by-step erosion, using the law. so it's a slightly different process and we shouldn't think that history always moves in cycles either. it requires careful strategy. i myself am optimistic. there's a lot of young people in the room and there's i think, you know, people want to govern themselves and they want to speak out. that is to be a universal.

it is hard for me to imagine exactly strategies have to be in place. i think that the project going forward. >> i will follow up. it's very important to make a distinction of rule of law and rule by law. what you see in this new wave of autocratization is trying to use if illegal techniques to oppress the opposition as opposed to cruise. it's also -- a coup. what were in right now and very dangerous, intro for politics of withdrawal as opposed to politics of engagement. i think we will see a re-engagement because for exactly the reasons tom said. there's always a risk with respect to the still lengthier and so forth that people withdraw. so we will see how that plays out. the historical question is a

great because ultimately this is, there's always going to be the rule of law will never be an ideal state. it will always be a struggle. why? power is always a steak and there will be people in power who don't think that their power should be constrained. we are in what i would call a vicious circle that as opposed to virtuous one. but politics through re-engagement we will get back. >> i might add add about the third wave of autocratization. one notable difference is current, they try to keep the forms of democracy from hollowing them out. that is distinct. yes, please. >> i'm a graduate student at george washington. my understanding is non-governmental organizations can play a significant role in balancing against rule of law decline in countries.

i'm wondering about, have seen autocracies use tactics to crack, ngos in their own countries that if the same tactics were used in the united states even with the first amendment and uniquely american laws that can be effective if the u.s. government ever tried to push back against an aclu or similar kind of organization in the u.s.? thank you. >> i can take that call quickly. yes, i think that's a great question. i think ngos are important. they have limitations as well just what they can do. some are more effective than others as again i mean the more they use the system, the more effective they are. but we've seen a lot of different processes to attacking ngos run the world they go from changes in the law so who

can register and so on, to very subtle techniques to affect the operations just other day today. just to give you examples, in some cases these through financing. in many cases they are dependent on foreign agencies or foreign agencies so they may be restrictions just for funding so that is one. another one maybe even through simple laws like tax collectors were you send the tax authority just to the ngos, or in some cases we have seen they miss and even the fire department. i mean because there are violations of construction or i mean just random things just effectively is the goal is to either to stop this organization from operating or to simple attacks.

we sang they label them as enemies of the people and a lot of these things that really just have the goal of deterring their work. >> thank you. kim. >> i want to give two cheers for international law here. that is if you look at the strategies of the new -- it's exactly not the strategy of the old. when the big, big differences is there now is pretty widespread international agreement on basic principles of human rights. right? you don't see in mexico everybody in opposition being sent to prison culture. instead it will take over the whole judiciary. this is true of all these new autocrats especially in the early days. they don't really go for mass human rights violations. they call for institutional attacks and emotions.

that's part of because of the wave of international human rights is working. then the question is do we have another wave of international law coming? this is where mindful of what tom said. of course international law is officially moved forward with respect to the domestic regime type, right, that we have to pay iran or whatever. what i'm wondering is whether you see, a second wave agreement about the internal structures of states? human rights were also an intrusion on the internal structures of the state. already with crossed the rubicon about what international law is about. so the question is where are we going to get the standards on things like judicial independence, our democracy been preferable to other system of government? this hollowing out and the need for checks and balances regardless of, every government has its own rights but are we

seeing the emergence of international standards on the kinds of things the autocrats are attached. >> is a great question and did you see it and i'd be interested in your take on my view here. i don't see a new wave of human rights, norms or enforcement. the international machinery as you know is very weak sauce. the human rights council is totally captured by autocrats. it's part of us for turning international in some sense. i love you use the word standards. one of our things we can rely on in this period is professional norms. and professions exist transnational and if you have international norms on the independence of the jerry which i get are promulgated by judges groups around the world. those can serve as a resource for domestic judges. bar association's, you know, associations of electoral officials who share technical

knowledge. these things are crucial and this is where we are going to see hopefully what i sometimes call islands of integrity that institutional structures which can resist even collapsing systems around them. i think it's professionalism and not necessarily the old human rights issue. >> can i just -- the american system, yes, they only have -- a yes, they have rights to reach out to the other part of the constitution, the institutional. it's not easy because it's a human rights but for instance, we might all these guys are going to the american court sensing it's my political right to have an indefinite reelection. the judges said no. i mean, this is part of the marginal company, saying no, no, no, this is not a right.

for instance, in deference of the judiciary they built it to the idea we have a fundamental right to an independent judge. they so all the standards about structuring of the judiciary indirectly when constructing this. that's something but yeah it's super interesting because we needed now more than something, no? like a kind of -- but, of course, all the, in the american system estates of trying to appoint different people. so now i am i think the amount of standards that we already have is very significant. even if the new judges, friendly, whatever, even if they capture it a little bit, or , we will have this imperfect standard but yeah, i find it fascinating to think about how we could expand, no? this part of the --

>> i agree with tom and i don't think we'll see in the near term any new international treaties or so forth. to put this in perspective, thinkers like hersh louderback who came up with concepts and ideas about human rights it didn't exist, right? in terms of international law discourse. it behooves all of us in academia and civil society in ngos to be think about what sort of doors we want to see for the future. and secondly i have to say that a lot of institutional resources already an existing norms for those that have impact is not going to be through just look at international and international institutions, excitable thompson which is a reason why we have transnational in our subtitle. it's transnational sort of norms sharing, transnational including civil society networks that

would be so central going forward. >> please. >> thank you. that was a great panel. i in general agreement all of you but i would want to ask a question why do these autocrats think i have the mandate? as it also why does the electorate not -- dissolution of rule of law? i really like the title of this conference but maybe the end that is placed in a could also be particularly reflected upon but i live in dallas, texas, and i know also a lot of the of the people around in the country, right? but i agree with you. >> and i say something? yeah, these arguments have been really central in what's happening in mexico. why it has been so easy for these guys to destroy the judiciary?

of course people didn't have a lot of benefits in terms of rule of law, you know, the data, , we had a lot of problems in the judiciary. but look at what is happening. they exploit existing problems in the judiciary to set up a system that that does not solve a a single one of these problems because the impunity problems in mexico which are huge, et cetera, a lot of them come from how prosecution function of prosecution is untouched by the thing. so you exploit the problems of the system to set up a system that doesn't solve any and create new ones. basically what creates the new system but does not solve the previous one is the concentration of power in the system. this has been, and in mexico what you had, i mean, for people

like -- not solving the problem so much but -- was limit at the level of interaction between powers. you know? like this is really changes in mexico, you know? what the foundation can do to the states. this level of check and balance is at this level of course there had been gains. we are now losing these and we are gaining nothing in terms of -- daily justice. because just imagine these mean judges come and experience political insubordinate or in supports not to the politician but the more difficult and worrying actors, right? this has been very central. and people believe of course we want to get rid of the judges. the judiciary is not solving our

problems. let me tell you that you're going to be even worse. >> just very quickly, the political answer is that populism is specifically anti-institutional. institutions are staffed by elites. the paradox is to do all the things a populist want to do. you do need institutions. you have to support of her in this country i would say we are not like mexico in the sense we do have judges. certainly below the level of the supreme court it's really the federal courts are still quite intact. many states supreme courts will become very important. we are not that far, thankfully, but one worries that model of the charismatic populist which assist toward major mexican institution, whether one, it becomes the law. >> please. >> jerry lee from georgetown law. i'd like out professor schaefer begin the discussion with a

quote from russia who also considers the idea of the state of exception. this weight of autocratization is different from wraps the purest way of use of populist narrative, and had to respond to one of the narrative which is that their attack on the rule of law was not an attack on the rule of law but a valid exercise of peoples sovereign to overcome this date of emergency, state of exception? is it any -- narrative or how can we respond to that? thank you. >> right. i think, this is the ultimate playbook is the state of exception with respect to declaring emergencies and usurping power because it's an emergency. it's a huge risk. as tom said we still have, the question is will courts review this as quote a political question? consequently the road politics

or the realm of law? in the first trump administration they were very deferential but, of course, also the scope of the national emergencies have been relatively limited. if they become more expensive that would be the test going forward. i will just to in one of the think which is this is clearly a challenge today is information and the rise of social media and the pockets of information just a different world. the importance of events like this and for us is to engage in truth seeking and to engage in facts as opposed to alternative facts or meta universe and so forth. this is going to be our challenge with phone and i think it is a new challenge which we've never seen before. >> i would add to that, it's not just a challenge for academic

groups and audiences but for how do we translate the ideas you talking about to the broader public. please. >> hello. i'm a retired foreign service officer. i would like to ask for your thoughts about a particular category of law and a particular case or instance that in the news now. i'm thinking about treaty law and i think about panama. i can imagine one of your students five, ten years ago said i want to write something on panama canal treaties. that's boring, it's not relevant. what do you think given the rubric of this conference, what you think is going to be the versions of confiscation that will come from the united states,, the government of panama, the international committee, regional organizations, international jurors and so forth, i would be curious because you obviously know a lot about that.

>> it's interesting, we've seen a lot of if i could call it performative authoritarian international in recent years, you know discarding the basic norms of territorial integrity and such. much of this ideal is distraction to the united states is not going to take over gaza. some of the media spent a day or two on that. there's a lot of distraction going on, and at the end of the day you know international law is what constitutes a country's. it is still there, and no matter as powerful as the united states is we do exist in a world of other states. i expect, and its international law precisely which allows states to react to events and confer reputational gain or loss. so conformity is nevertheless, a

constraint. you might not like it but it isn't there. i do expect we would see pushback to the extreme things being proposed. i honestly don't expect a lot of those to emerge. it's all negotiation. >> we have one last question. please keep it brief and answers also brief. >> thank you very much. i may georgetown law student from germany and i am thinking a lot about how to resist autocracies. in germany we have the ability to our constitution to prohibit political parties to call it the russian of course there's tension with democracy because that is the part most likely -- 20, 25% of people will vote for in two weeks. i would like your input on how you evaluate such -- what you would recommend keeping it.

>> in my book that's out there, we oppose militant democracy. it would be very nice if you thought there was some platonic judge becker tells which parties were at the democratic and which ones not. which speech was good, which speech was bad. at least in this country with our libertarian tradition we would resist such a thing. we now have examples in this wave of autocratization come of those precise tools being misused against democrat party,, time and for example, event the party. there are very dangerous tools. it'll fit in this country. at the end of the day, democracies only thing that can save democracy. that requires mobilizing and voting and getting out of there in electoral institutions. two years, four years, secures, that's where the fight has to happen, not in the courts or the

legal institution. >> ultimately in persuading others. thank you. >> thank you to our panelists. thank you for all -- [inaudible] [inaudible] >> c-span, democracy unfiltered. we are funded by these television companies and more including sparklight. >> what is great internet? is it strong? is it fast? is a reliable? at sparklight we know connection goes way be on technology. from monday morning meetings to friday nights with friends and everything in between. but the best are always a right when y