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Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab will today (Tuesday 4 May) bring together some of the worlds leading democracies for talks and decisive action on the most critical global issues at the G7 Foreign and Development Ministers Meeting in London.

In the first major in-person diplomatic gathering since the pandemic began and the first gathering of G7 Foreign Ministers since 2019, Dominic Raab will lead discussions on pressing geopolitical issues that threaten to undermine democracy, freedoms and human rights. This includes relations with Russia, China, and Iran, as well as the crisis in Myanmar, the violence in Ethiopia, and the ongoing war in Syria.

The G7 includes the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the EU. Following talks through the day, the foreign ministers will hold a dinner discussion with guest nations Australia, India, the Republic of Korea, South Africa, and Brunei as the current ASEAN Chair.

The Foreign Secretary will use the evening to outline his vision for cooperation between the G7 and the nations of the Indo-Pacific region to develop stronger trade ties, ensure stability and tackle climate change.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said:

The UKs presidency of the G7 is an opportunity to bring together open, democratic societies and demonstrate unity at a time when it is much needed to tackle shared challenges and rising threats.

The addition of our friends from Australia, India, the Republic of Korea and South Africa, as well as the chair of ASEAN reflects the growing significance of the Indo-Pacific region for the G7.

The discussions in the morning will cover the coup in Myanmar. The Foreign Secretary will urge G7 nations to take stronger action against the military junta. This includes expanding targeted sanctions against individuals and entities connected to the junta; support for arms embargoes, and increased humanitarian assistance for the most vulnerable in the country.

The discussions will then turn to the situation in Libya, and the ongoing war in Syria. The afternoon session will cover the situation in Ethiopia, as well as Somalia, the Sahel, and Western Balkans. The foreign ministers will also discuss Russias ongoing malign activity including through the build-up of troops on the border with Ukraine, and its imprisonment of opposition figure Alexei Navalny and the situation in Belarus.

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UK unites G7 to take action against democratic threats - GOV.UK

The ongoing racial injustice, pandemic and associated disruption of 2020 -- along with the attack by violent insurrectionists on the U.S. Capitol building -- have taught us many things about our societies, not only in the United States but also around the globe. Among those lessons is that higher education is deeply implicated in the impoverished and fragile state of democracies. Some academic and student leaders are calling for postsecondary institutions to make the creation of antiracist, inclusive, socially just democracies throughout the world priority No.1. Such an undertaking requires disruptive change in higher education values, use of resources and its privileged place in many of our societies. Is higher education ready for such change?

At the 2020 Association for the Study of Higher Education conference, we shared research and practice from universities in South Africa, the United States and the International Association of Universities. We concluded that postsecondary institutions -- notable contributions during the pandemic notwithstanding -- have too often been complicit in systems that create or reproduce savage health and economic inequities, public disregard of science, and individuals who feel alienated and forgotten. Examples include the scarcity of locally situated university clinics and the lack of educational opportunities that perpetuates the exclusion of marginalized groups and working-class students. Indeed, COVID-19 has revealed the extreme poverty, persistent deprivation and pernicious racism that fester in the shadows of some of the nation's foremost institutions of higher learning. This disconnectedness from local community needs has promoted a sense of disenfranchisement by communities of color and increased the distrust society has of academics.

The widespread assumption that universities are progressive, multicultural, antiracist places has insulated many of us who work and live in higher education from reckoning with the lived experiences of marginalized communities all over the world. Indeed colleges and universities are gendered and racialized, and many institutions perpetuate systemic racism, colonialism and sexism through gatekeeping, educational discrimination and not sharing vital resources with local communities.

It is crucial to embrace these multiple realities simultaneously: that higher education is deeply implicated in reproducing systemic discrimination and racism in the United States and around the world and, as we imagine what could be next, higher education is distinctly positioned to help build and develop the infrastructure, resources, values and education systems necessary for diverse, inclusive, antiracist democracies. And there are examples of students, faculty and staff engaged in that work.

In this moment of disruption, postsecondary leaders, students, faculty and staff might humbly consider four steps to advance antiracist, diverse and just democracies locally and globally.

No. 1: Redesign universities to focus on the development of students who help create antiracist democracies around the world. Although postsecondary institutions will always play a vital role in social mobility, the pandemic has made it clear that the most important thing K-12 and higher education can do is to educate ethical, engaged citizens for antiracist, diverse and socially just democracies. That means galvanizing students' growth as organic intellectuals, collaborative problem solvers and agents of social change.

For example, the University of Costa Rica requires 800 hours of community work for each student who matriculates. In 2017, a total of 4,631 students did 1,038,150 hours of community work, in 164 projects in all areas of knowledge. Of significance, the former rector describes the purpose of this effort as to raise awareness and promote social and critical awareness among students and the university community; and to collaborate with communities in identifying their problems in order to develop their own solutions, within horizontal relationships conducive to mutual learning.

To better translate its strategic plan into action, the university has repositioned some of its buildings in the most underserved parts of the country, opening the doors to all people not attending yet interested to engage. Education for democratic citizenship through active engagement and collaborative problem solving with the local community should become a core purpose and pedagogical principle of higher education.

No. 2: Reimagine the knowledge project. The future we are imagining requires researchers from various fields and disciplines to take on the problems of our democracies and focus on issues of human benefit and local/global significance. To make that happen, universities need to incentivize and reward student, faculty and staff efforts to take on those issues in interdisciplinary ways, listening to and in partnership with local communities. That will not only help democracies thrive but also make for better scholarship, as knowledge is powerfully advanced when research is conducted through partnerships between academics and nonacademics. Higher education institutions have been rightly critiqued by various members of society -- including families, students, policy makers and community leaders -- as gatekeepers, distancing the credentialed knowers from the uncredentialed receivers of knowledge.

The ongoing dialectic in South Africa between government, universities, social movements (like the Treatment Action Campaign) and industry produced a swift repurposing of university-based research and innovation platforms created to address the ongoing HIV/AIDS pandemic. This resulted in the participation of scientists in the global effort to identify new variants of the virus as well as to develop COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. In addition, engineering schools in the country have turned their attention to using 3-D printing to manufacture PPE and noninvasive ventilators.

More universities should play a key role in linking expertise from those within the academy and those on the ground, creating a community of experts and diverse voices to solve our worlds most serious problems, such as poverty, unequal schooling and health care, and environmental degradation. We need to foster inclusive, expansive notions of expertise.

For instance, social scientists and educators can conduct participatory action research and develop methodological approaches that center community members voice and place-based knowledge to more effectively solve locally manifested universal problems. Only then will the knowledge imperative be seen as relevant to the well-being of the many as opposed to the private gain of the few.

No. 3: Change ownership of the university. For too long, citizens have viewed their universities like privately held companies that have little relationship to their own lives. Yes, people have local pride when sports teams win, but that is not the same thing as postsecondary education being relevant and tied to the destiny of local citizens. That must change. A case in point: in Thailand, Siam University has decided to revitalize the unsafe university surroundings to provide for better living conditions and well-being for Thai people who have never before set foot in a university.

On the other side of that world, University College Dublin has developed a wide range of initiatives to facilitate and enhance community engagement opportunities and build strong bridges between its campus and the neighboring communities. Universities must commit to serving as vital bridges between societies -- and as multilateral organizations using their vast resources (especially their human and academic resources) and positions of privilege to advance social justice.

No. 4: Get the values right. The values that universities should hold dear are open inquiry, diversity and inclusion, democracy, equity, and justice. Equity and justice require inclusive representation among students and academics -- including more people who are first-generation, from marginalized and working-class communities, and women. That would entail intentional recruitment within high schools situated in historically minoritized and working-class neighborhoods, as well as actively recruiting recently minted Ph.D.s from BIPOC groups to fill the ranks of the professoriate.

It would also involve universities working in serious, sustained, comprehensive partnerships with public schools in their locality to diversify and enrich the educational pipeline. Universities should also reallocate funding to support the hiring and retention of women and people of color within the faculty and administrative ranks of the institution, as well as provide more scholarships to first-generation students.

To realize the values cited above requires a reorganization of resources to infuse democracy across all aspects of higher education. If such values were in place, we would use technologies in ways that do not exacerbate inequalities but strengthen their impact on human well-being and development. For example, the pandemic made clear that institutions have the capacity to provide more online education. For students who may not have the financial resources to attend universities face-to-face, online education can remove financial barriers that may otherwise hinder access.

Strengthening internationalization of higher education and global engagement and collaboration is crucial for these efforts. We need a global movement -- one that leads to a global commons of engaged scholars and their community partners, scholarship and knowledge. To accomplish this, we need to incentivize scholars so they are rewarded for engaging in community-based projects. Many faculty members, particularly early-career ones, are dissuaded to devote any time that takes them away from the dominant discipline-based publication process. Thus, tenure and promotion should place more value on publications and other scholarly products that focus on work with and contributions to communities.

Scholars also need to earn trust from communities. Community members have long complained that faculty come and mine places for data and leave without ever helping support the communities from which they collected those data. Universities and faculty need to help amplify the voice of the community and illuminate their needs to policy makers. These kinds of institutional changes will require lots of sharing and learning from colleagues across the globe, as occurs through both the International Association of Universities and the International Consortium for Higher Education, Civic Responsibility and Democracy.

In the United States, people have criticized elected officials like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz for inciting violence at the U.S. Capitol because, having attended selective universities like Stanford, Princeton and Yale, they should have known better. Putting aside the elitist and rankist assumption that such institutions would have the monopoly on knowing better, we must recognize that, in fact, higher education has too often failed to effectively educate active citizens dedicated to creating and maintaining antiracist, inclusive and socially just democratic societies.

Just as many colleges and universities are reckoning with their own institutional histories of exclusion, higher education as a field must recognize where it has failed and come up short. Only then can it come honestly to tables with communities, governments and citizens to build inclusive, antiracist democracies together.

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Higher ed must play a role in creating antiracist and just democracies (opinion) - Inside Higher Ed

Trumps Legal Farce is Having Tragic Results, N.Y. Times, Nov. 23, 2020

Trump Needs Three Consecutive Hail Mary Passes, The Atlantic, Nov. 11, 2020

What Happens If Trump Wont Concede?, Slate, Nov. 8, 2020

New Lawsuit to Halt Ballot Cures in Pennsylvania Could Preview Trumps Postelection Strategy, Slate, Nov. 3, 2020

Trump Cant Just Declare Victory, Slate, Nov. 1, 2020

Our Biggest Election Day Concern, CNN Opinion, Nov. 1, 2020 (with Richard H. Pildes)

Kavanaugh has wild ideas about voting. They likely wont matter on Election Day, Washington Post, Oct. 27, 2020

In a 4-4 Split, the Supreme Court Lets Pennsylvania Make Voting EasierFor Now, Slate, Oct. 19, 2020

Were Living in the Shadows of Bush v. Gore 2.0, Slate, Oct. 19, 2020 (with Dahlia Lithwick)

What If Theres No Winner on November 4?, CNN Opinion, Oct. 19, 2020

A Key Fix for an Unthinkable Election Disaster, CNN Opinion, Oct. 5, 2020

This Will Be a Crucial Week for Pandemic Voting Cases at the Supreme Court, Slate, Oct. 5, 2020

Trumps New Supreme Court Is Coming for the Next Dozen Elections, N.Y. Mag, Oct. 5, 2020

Electoral Chaos Might Ensue if Biden or Trump Were Forced Out of the Race, Slate, Oct. 2, 2020

Dont fall for claims of voter fraud, L.A. Times, Sept. 25, 2020

Ive Never Been More Worried About American Democracy Than I Am Right Now, Slate, Sept. 23, 2020

Can Congress Salvage RBGs Legacy?, Slate, Sept. 21, 2020

Barrs Undermining of the Election is Downright Dangerous, CNN Opinion, Sept. 17, 2020

Democrats May Not Trust the Election Results if Trump Wins, Wash. Post, Sept. 10, 2020

Donald Trumps Encouragement to Vote Twice Could Cause Election Day Chaos, Slate, Sept. 3, 2020

Trumps Relentless Attacks on Mail-In Voting Are Part of a Larger Strategy, N.Y. Times, Aug. 19, 2020

California's Ballot Harvesting Law: A Crop of Trouble?, L.A. Lawyer, July/Aug. 2020

Bring on the 28th Amendment, N.Y. Times Sunday Review, June 29, 2020

Texas Voters Face Malicious Prosecutions After COVID-19 Absentee Ballot Ruling, Slate, May 27, 2020

The Right-Wing Legal Network is Now Openly Pushing Conspiracy Theories, Slate, May 27, 2020 (with Dahlia Lithwick)

Trumps bogus attacks on mail-in voting could hurt his supporters, too; The president is undermining democracy. He could also be undermining his own campaign, Wash. Post, May 20, 2020

GOP War on Mail-in Ballots May Backfire, NY Daily News, Apr. 20, 2020

We Cannot Hold an Election Without a Functional Post Office, Slate, Apr. 14, 2020

Trump is Wrong About the Dangers of Absentee Ballots, Wash. Post, Apr. 9, 2020

How Republicans are Using the Pandemic to Suppress the Vote, LA Times, Apr. 4, 2020

What Happens in November if One Side Doesnt Accept the Election Results? How coronavirus could contribute to a 2020 election meltdown, Slate, Mar. 30, 2020

How to Protect the 2020 Election from Coronavirus, Slate, Mar. 13, 2020

Why Trump and the RNC are spending $10 million to fight Democrats voting rights lawsuits, Slate, Mar. 5, 2020

Can't Call the Super Tuesday Vote? Be Patient, LA Times, Mar. 3, 2020

If Democrats Fight Right-Wing 'Fake News' Fire with Fire, We All Lose, Salon, Feb. 24, 2020

How to Prevent the Next Election Meltdown, Wall St. Journal, Feb. 7, 2020 (Saturday Essay)

What the Impeachment Ordeal Can Tell Us About the 2020 Election, CNN Opinion, Feb. 5, 2020

Trump's Jokes About Defying Election Results Could Create Chaos, Slate, Feb. 4, 2020

The Alarming Prospect of the Supreme Court Deciding the 2020 Election, The Atlantic, Feb. 3, 2020

The loser of Novembers election may not concede. Their voters wont, either, Wash. Post, Jan. 24, 2020 (Sunday Outlook)

Read more opeds from 2006-2009, these from 2010-2011, these from 2012-2013, these from 2014, these from 2015 and 2016, these from 2017, these from 2018. and these from 2019.

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electionlawblog.org

The events of Jan. 6 are fresh in our minds, as is the refusal of the Senate to hold the chief insurrectionist accountable for the armed attack on our Capitol. The anti-democracy faction, as always, is in Big Lie mode, as if middle school code messaging can claim the battlefield.

The People are to swallow the poison elixir to wit, the rejected presidents inflammatory speech was not at all meant to incite the violence that immediately followed, but was mere metaphoric poetry designed to evoke peaceful participation in the mechanics of democratic government. But the People are not drinking the elixir. Those of us with at least half a wit and a dose of our parents old-fashioned common sense, who watched, listened and now recall the context of this historical episode of a defeated candidates attempt to overthrow an election and remain in power, had no problem navigating the thicket of lies to arrive at the sobering truth America came perilously close to totalitarianism.

And we are still far from being out of the woods.

Let me put the evidence in the record for the readers. First, a little background. I was a federal prosecutor for 21 years of my 45 years of government service in the criminal justice system. During that part of my career, half of which was spent in the very busy Southern District of California, I tried hundreds of jury cases, many of which involved complex fraud crimes where the intent of the defendant was a critical element of the offense e.g., intent to deceive as well as cases involving violent crimes, likewise involving proof of specific intent e.g., premeditated intent to kill.

Intent is rarely susceptible to direct proof without a confession from the defendant. Lacking such proof, the evidence must be supplied through indirect, or circumstantial, proof such as similar acts showing a pattern of deceit or violence. Keep these concepts in mind as I endeavor to articulate just some of the actions and statements of Donald Trump which put the activity and speech of Jan. 6 in context.

I begin with his first campaign for president. In August 2016, he gave a speech at a rally of his supporters in which he told them that if Hillary Clinton won she would abolish the Second Amendment and there was nothing you can do folks although the Second Amendment people maybe there is, I dont know The term Second Amendment solutions is a euphemism associated with political assassination, and has been regularly employed by right-wing militias to legitimize the supposed right to engage in armed insurrection against the government. Of course, Trump would later deny any such connotation.

Forwarding to March 2019, when talk of impeachment was in the air, Trump boasted in an interview with Breitbart that if he were to be removed from office (through impeachment), I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump I have the tough people it would be very bad.

On Sept. 30, 2019, Trump tweeted that if the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office it will cause a Civil War fracture in the Nation from which our Country will never heal.

In September 2020, during the first presidential debate, Trump was asked by the moderator whether he condemned the violence of white supremacy extremists, and he not only failed to do so, he exhorted the Proud Boys (a violent and extremist white supremacy gang) to stand by a slogan that the Proud Boys subsequently stitched to their clothing.

On April 17, 2020, Trump tweeted Liberate Michigan in a series of tweets critical of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for her COVID-19 shutdown measures in the state. Then in early October 2020, the FBI and Michigan State Police foiled an imminent plot by 13 members of a paramilitary group, the Michigan Watchmen, to kidnap and murder Whitmer and other state officials. After being fully briefed by federal law enforcement about the plot, Trump tweeted, I do not tolerate ANY extreme violence and added, Governor Whitmer open up your state

Months before the November 2020 election, Trump began broadcasting that he could only lose the election if it was rigged and there was fraud. To put these remarks in context, the readers need to keep in mind that Trumps advisers had long been informing him that the Democratic candidate most likely to beat him was Joe Biden, which had fueled his pressuring the Ukraine president to announce a criminal investigation of Biden (to no avail).

What followed was the foreseen catalyst to the Jan. 6 insurrection Trump lost the election by a large margin and initiated his claim of fraud, filing and losing some 60 lawsuits because his lawyers could not prove fraud despite the numerous opportunities to do so. That spurred his attempt to pressure election officials to change the vote tally to appear as if he had been the winner (e.g. the notorious recorded call to the Georgia secretary of state in which he demanded that 11,000 votes be switched from Biden to him).

Trump engaged in serial attacks on election officials in swing states, who endured death threats from his supporters for validating the election results as accurate after numerous recounts. Finally, Trump was left with one desperate move preventing the ceremonial opening of the Electoral College ballots officially confirming Biden as the 46th president of the U.S. by the vice president before Congress on Jan. 6.

That was the setting for the summoning of his tough people for a rally that very day of the very certification of the votes of the People which would terminate his term and install Biden in the White House. The attendees, not coincidentally, included Proud Boys, militia members, police, military officers and other such supporters he previously bragged would make it very bad.

This is some of the totality of context in which to judge the intent of the main orator at the Jan. 6 rally, moments before the crowd attempted to overthrow our government. The crowd got the message many of them have since affirmed they believed they were following the then-presidents orders. In the aftermath of the sedition, America is hardly out of danger in the threat against our Constitution and Democracy.

Had Trump succeeded in overturning the election results, we would soon be like all totalitarian governments with pretext elections that count only for show and must always favor the dictator to be considered legitimate. Our Senate has now encouraged armed conflict and sedition in election cycles by passing on any meaningful response to the Jan. 6 events, the attack on the very seat of our government, and thus feeding the evolving narrative that such may become the new normal of politics in America.

Look around America the so-called fraud at the heart of the Trump stolen election narrative is at its core the African American vote. The Trump Party has embraced fully the white supremacy/nationalist agenda, which has never acknowledged the legitimacy of the African American vote.

Research our nations history for decades after the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War, white supremacists employed voting suppression tactics and violence to prevent and deny the Constitutional right to vote to African Americans. A recent USA Today article on challenges to Black voting references the concerted efforts of that era to suppress the African American vote. I am afraid MAGA is a call to return to that terribly unjust and discriminatory period of Jim Crow laws.

The John Lewis Voting Rights Act must be enacted. Voting must be facilitated, not impeded. Gerrymandering must be prohibited, not allowed through specious pretexts which disavow its true purpose and motive racial discrimination.

A former federal prosecutor, Judge Thomas Coffin was a U.S. magistrate for the District of Oregon until his retirement in 2017.

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Democracy on the Ropes Eugene Weekly - Eugene Weekly

The Capitol Siege was a sobering reminder of democracys fragility, damaging the United States already faltering standing as a global beacon of democracy. Nonetheless, the Biden administration is right to continue its plans to host the Summit for Democracy despite opposition from some policymakers and commentators. The summit can improve the resilience of US democratic institutions by forming a new bloc of democratic actors guided by the Democratic 10 (D10) group, developing multilateral strategies to tackle dark money and other authoritarian-sponsored forms of corruption, and demonstrating the Biden administrations commitment to bolstering democracy abroad.

The summit must bring together an international bloc of democracies and civil society groups as a bulwark against the global decline of democracy and pluralism. This decline has been partially caused by authoritarian regimes increasing interference in democracies, as well as transnational repression worldwide. A bloc of democracies would correspondingly strengthen US national security and anti-corruption measures, as well as reaffirm the United States return to a consistent multilateral foreign policy based on democratic values.

Furthermore, the summit would be a good platform to encourage the formation of the D10 to replace the Group of Seven (G7) as a steering group for this bloc. The D10 would consist of the current G7 members along with South Korea, India, and Australia. Unlike the G20, which is a larger and more inclusive group without a shared set of values, the D10 can replace the outmoded G7 as a large multilateral group that affirms democratic principles. Given how the G7 is increasingly criticized for being too small, Biden should publicly support the D10 to further prove his administrations commitment to promoting democracy globally.

While skeptics have argued the D10 is solely designed to exclude China and Russia from global governance, it is not necessarily supposed to be an anti-China and anti-Russia coalition. Promoters of the D10 have noted it could work with China and Russia on climate change, nuclear non-proliferation, and international development. In addition, the D10 group can address a variety of other issues, including the coordination of international sanctions and data governance standards.

After the Trump administrations consistent rejection of multilateralism in the economic and security spheres, Biden has set his administration apart by stressing his support for multilateralism. This is both to reassert US integrity to its allies and complement domestic democratic reform, as well as to foster international anti-corruption measures that would reduce authoritarian-sponsored corruption in the United States itself. Now that the United States has experienced its own close call with authoritarian turmoil, the need for reform is even clearer, as it can no longer claim to be above democratic backsliding.

Importantly, authoritarian-sponsored corruption is increasingly agreed to be a serious security threat in democratic states. For example, authoritarian states like Russia have dark money networks supporting election interference throughout the United States and its allies. Coordinating anti-corruption strategies between the United States and its allies would create a more comprehensive sanctions regime, and further strengthen their own democratic institutions defenses too.

The United States can likewise support its democratic allies as it works to reform its own institutions after the Capitol Siege. Notably, the United States has just established a beneficial ownership registry to reduce anonymous (and potentially foreign) corporate ownership of domestic assets. As the United States lags behind other states in establishing this registry, the Biden administration should cooperate with allies in sharing registry information on potentially suspicious actors to address this oversight. The summit is a good place to foster agreement on how to share this information.

Although authoritarian states have publicly relished how the United States has lost its privileged standing, the Biden administration understands the threat of rising authoritarianism in other democracies even better now after experiencing it firsthand. Consequently, any reforms the Biden administration promotes at the Summit for Democracy are significantly more credible as it is working to prevent the same turmoil from happening again at the domestic level.

Nonetheless, issues remain on the summits bar of admission. A significant number of US state allies are not liberal democracies and may view a lack of invitation to the summit as a diplomatic snub. Conversely, if there are too few members, the summit will have too small of an impact. Biden has also been urged to extend invitations to opposition parties, some of which may be under threat from repressive regimes. Such invitations would likely complicate diplomacy with such governments in the future. Even the proposed D10 group may face issues with Indias inclusion as its protections for civil liberties have precipitously declined since 2014. Therefore, the success of the Summit for Democracy will hinge on what democratic reforms Biden can formulate before it is held and what the summits admission criteria will be.

In any case, the Capitol Siege should not dissuade Biden from hosting the Summit for Democracy. In fact, the Biden administration would stand to benefit considering how the United States relatability has improved following the Capitol Siege. Thus, the Summit for Democracy would be a strong opportunity to make use of this change.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Geopoliticalmonitor.com

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Biden is Right Not to Abandon Plans for the Summit for Democracy after the Capitol Siege - Geopoliticalmonitor.com