Could Trump turn his politics of grievance into a get-out-of-jail card? Neither prosecution nor even jail time has prevented former leaders in Israel, Brazil and Kenya from mounting comebacks

Donald Trump enters a political rally while campaigning for the GOP 2024 nomination on July 29, 2023, in Erie, Pa. Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

James D. Long, University of Washington and Victor Menaldo, University of Washington

Donald Trump has declared, “I am your retribution,” and it appears to be a guiding theme of his 2024 campaign.

He now faces a total of three indictments, following Special Counsel Jack Smith’s announcement on Aug. 1, 2023 that Trump had been charged with four counts in his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election – the most serious charges so far. There’s likely to be an additional indictment from Fulton County, Georgia, prosecutor Fani Willis.

If elected, he promises to punish his perceived enemies – everyone from prosecutors at the Justice Department and in New York and Georgia to the Biden family and Republicans in Congress who don’t help him.

Trump and his allies are ramping up their rhetoric, playing the victim card with cries of “witch hunt” and making promises to use the machinery of government to punish anyone who has attempted to hold Trump accountable.

While appeals to grievance have been used in presidential campaigns, never before in American history has a leading contender for a major party’s nomination made their personal grievances related to criminal liability and payback the centerpiece of their presidential run.

Is a campaign based on grievance and retribution likely to sway voters? And what are the implications if Trump wins back the White House?

As scholars who study democracy, voting behavior and political corruption globally, we note that while the politicization of prosecutions is becoming increasingly common in other democracies, it can be hard to figure out how these dynamics affect elections.

Political muscle can trounce a prosecution

Candidates under investigation can leverage their political muscle to run for office – and as a means to avoid prosecution.

In Kenya’s 2007 presidential election, Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto were two prominent politicians backing opposing coalitions that engaged in post-election clashes after allegations of vote rigging.

Members of both factions were investigated, and Kenyatta and Ruto were personally charged with organizing the violence among their supporters. Their cases were referred to the International Criminal Court, or ICC, after the Kenyan government slow-rolled local prosecutions.

But as the cases dragged on, these erstwhile enemies forged an electoral alliance to win the 2013 contest. Kenyatta ran as president and Ruto his deputy, by – ironically – pushing a “peace narrative” during the campaign.

This flexing of political muscle, a crusade questioning the ICC’s legitimacy and grassroots mobilization led to their eventual victory. That essentially ended their legal woes internationally and domestically. The ICC dropped charges, and they were reelected in 2017.

Israelis protest moves by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government to limit the power of the country’s Supreme Court. Yair Palti/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Undermining accountability

Should Trump win, he can appoint an attorney general who will follow his bidding and suspend prosecutions brought by the special counsel, or he can simply pardon himself of federal charges.

He can further seek to avoid trial or imprisonment by invoking a Department of Justice rule that presidents cannot be under federal criminal indictment or in jail while they serve in office, although a candidate can run for president and be elected under indictment or from jail. A novel legal strategy for Trump would be to try to apply this also to state jurisdictions like New York and Georgia.

Any attempt to challenge the constitutionality of such actions – pardoning himself, dismissing the special counsel, ending state and local indictments – would no doubt end up at the Supreme Court. The court majority is conservative, suggesting it might rule in Trump’s favor. Additionally, precedent and legal scholarship also suggest that the court would deem at least some of these actions constitutional.

Beyond ending immediate prosecutions, victorious candidates can use winning office to further erode democratic institutions and the rule of law.

Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel has served as prime minister during his own corruption trials. After losing office in 2021, he came to power again in 2022 while under indictment.

Netanyahu and his allies in parliament have pursued legislation to weaken the independence of the Supreme Court, a portion of which was recently passed by the legislature. He and his allies have promised to go after the former attorneys general and other prosecutors overseeing Netanyahu’s criminal cases. The attempts to diminish the Supreme Court’s power have resulted in months of anti-government protests.

Trump and his campaign view a 2024 win as an opportunity to significantly increase the power of the executive branch to go after a “deep state” that has investigated Trump and his allies. That potentially undermines the independence and functioning of everything from the State and Justice departments to local law enforcement.

Comebacks follow prosecutions

Former Brazilian president Lula Inácio da Silva was elected once again in 2022 after his conviction and imprisonment. Caio Guatelli / AFP via Getty Images

Examples from other countries show that prosecution or even jail time does not prevent former leaders from mounting comebacks.

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was elected once again in 2022 after his conviction and imprisonment. He argued that a judge who was in cahoots with prosecutors, and who became Lula’s predecessor’s justice minister, revealed the politicized nature of Brazil’s justice system. That allowed him to play the victim card successfully at the ballot box.

Trump is innocent until proved guilty. His hard-core “Make America Great Again” supporters tell pollsters they believe in his complete innocence. We expect this is not likely to change, regardless of evidence prosecutors show to a jury and what those juries decide.

But if the facts of the cases and evidence presented at trial appear to moderates and independents as nothing burgers, or if swing voters otherwise feel the judicial process has unfairly targeted Trump with prosecutorial overreach, that could conceivably turn Trump’s persistent unfavorable ratings into electoral victory.

Recent polling makes clear that while Trump has consolidated support for the Republican nomination among the MAGA crowd, nearly half of Republicans surveyed are still considering other options.

In any event, his platform of victimization and retribution shows no signs of abating. Whether enough Republicans will turn out to vote and moderates swing toward Trump, and whether enough Democrats decide to stay home, suggest that this is still a very high-risk strategy for Trump, but if successful, likely to reward him with time away from jail.

James D. Long, Professor of Political Science, Co-founder of the Political Economy Forum, University of Washington and Victor Menaldo, Professor of Political Science, Co-founder of the Political Economy Forum, University of Washington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

Highly Rated Diets to Support Heart Health

(Family Features) Eating healthy is an important goal for people looking to maintain or improve their physical health, particularly as it relates to the heart. With often conflicting information available online and via social media, it may be difficult or downright confusing to find the eating plan for you.

To help navigate the maze of information – and misinformation – experts assessed and scored the heart healthiness of several popular diets. Each diet was evaluated against the American Heart Association’s guidance for a heart-healthy eating pattern, which emphasizes eating a variety of vegetables and fruits, whole grains, lean proteins (including fish, low- or non-fat dairy and plant proteins), non-tropical plant oils and minimally processed foods; avoiding added sugars, salt and alcohol; and sticking to this guidance even when you’re eating away from home.

Diets received a rating between 0-100 and were ranked in tiers, with the resulting analysis published as an American Heart Association scientific statement in the journal “Circulation.”

“If implemented as intended, the top-tier dietary patterns align best with key features of heart-healthy eating and may be adapted to respect cultural practices, food preferences and budgets to enable people to eat this way for the long term,” said Christopher D. Gardner, Ph.D., FAHA, chair of the scientific statement writing committee and the Rehnborg Farquhar Professor of Medicine at Stanford University.

Tier 1: Highest-Rated Eating Plans (scores higher than 85)
The four patterns with the highest ratings align best with heart-healthy guidance, are flexible and provide an array of healthy foods to choose from.

• DASH – With a perfect score by meeting all guidance, an eating pattern similar to the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension plan emphasizes vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, low-fat dairy, lean meats, poultry, fish and non-tropical oils. Nordic and Baltic diets are also examples of this eating pattern, which is low in salt, added sugar, alcohol, tropical oils and processed foods.
• Mediterranean – This pattern limits dairy while emphasizing fruit, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, fatty fish and extra-virgin olive oil. Because it includes moderate alcohol drinking, rather than avoiding or limiting consumption, it scored a few points lower than DASH.
• Vegetarian/Pescatarian – A plant-based eating pattern that includes fish.
• Vegetarian/Ovo/Lacto – Plant-based eating patterns that include eggs (ovo-vegetarian), dairy (lacto-vegetarian) or both (ovo-lacto vegetarian).

Tier 2: Vegan and Low-Fat Diets (scores 75-85)
These eating patterns mostly align with heart-healthy criteria and emphasize important food groups but fell short of reaching the top tier due to limitations.

• Vegan – A plant-based eating pattern that includes no animal products. Restrictions in this plan may make it more difficult to follow long term or when dining out. Following a vegan eating pattern increases the risk of some nutrient deficiencies, which may be overcome by supplements or fortified foods.
• Low Fat – A diet that limits fat intake to less than 30% of total calories, including the volumetrics eating plan and therapeutic lifestyle change plan. These types of plans often treat all fats equally while the American Heart Association’s guidance suggests replacing saturated fats with healthier fats such as monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Those who follow low-fat diets may overconsume less healthy sources of carbohydrates, such as added sugars and refined grains. However, these factors may be overcome with proper counseling and education from a health professional.

To find the full results and learn more about heart-healthy eating, visit Heart.org. 

SOURCE:
American Heart Association

Power Back-to-School Weeknight Family Meals with Pecans

Back-to-school season means many families are busier than ever, leaving less time to plan weeknight meals. While a new school year brings plenty of exciting moments, it also adds up to early mornings, long days and late evenings, making it tough to keep nutrition top-of-mind.

With new routines and jam-packed calendars, quick and easy recipes can be the solutions you need. Swapping out complicated dishes for simple dinners and make-ahead snacks allows you to make your loved ones’ health a priority while also managing hectic schedules.

To help make those simple yet tasty menu additions a reality, look to a flavor favorite and nutrition powerhouse like pecans. They’re the ideal nut to keep on hand to incorporate into favorite meals and after-school snacks.

Taste is just the beginning when it comes to pecans. Their nutritious punch provides a unique mix of health-promoting nutrients. Plus, they’re a versatile ingredient that can shine in a wide range of flavor profiles from sweet or spicy to salty, smoky and savory.

These benefits make them a delicious, nutrient-dense option to power up school days. Consider them as a better-for-you addition to breakfast in banana bread recipes and energizing snacks like these Superfood Pecan Energy Bars. They’re simple and nutritious, making them an ideal after-school snack and on-the-go solution between activities.

When the whole family comes home after a long day of school, work, games and social commitments, pecans can add a delightful crunch to air-fried favorites like chicken tenders or childhood classics like Mac and Cheese with Pecan Breadcrumbs.

For more back-to-school recipe inspiration, visit EatPecans.com.

Mac and Cheese with Pecan Breadcrumbs

Cook time: 50 minutes
Servings: 6

• 8 ounces cavatappi pasta
• 1 teaspoon salt, plus additional for salting pasta water, to taste
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 block (8 ounces) cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup raw pecan pieces
• 15 ounces part-skim ricotta cheese
• 4 tablespoons sour cream
• 1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Cook cavatappi in salted boiling water. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup pasta cooking water. Return pasta to pot and stir in butter.
3. Using box grater, shred cheddar cheese.
4. Using food processor, combine 1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese with pecans. Process to coarse breadcrumb consistency.
5. Add remaining cheddar cheese, ricotta, sour cream, 1 teaspoon salt and pepper to warm pasta. Stir until thoroughly combined. Add egg; stir. Add 2-4 tablespoons reserved pasta water to loosen mixture; stir until smooth.
6. Pour into buttered 9-inch square or round casserole dish and top evenly with pecan topping.
7. Bake 30 minutes.

Substitutions: Use pre-shredded cheese in place of cheddar cheese block. Use pasta of choice in place of cavatappi.

Superfood Pecan Energy Bars

Cook time: 40 minutes
Servings: 14

• 15 Medjool dates (9 ounces)
• 1 cup pecan pieces
• 1/2 cup gluten-free oats
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1. Preheat oven to 200 F.
2. In food processor, process or pulse dates until chopped and rough texture forms. Add pecan pieces, oats, chia seeds, vanilla extract, cinnamon and kosher salt; process about 1 minute until crumbly dough forms.
3. Line baking sheet or jelly roll pan with parchment paper. Dump dough into center of parchment paper and use rolling pin to roll into 6-by-10 1/2-inch rectangle. Cut dough into 14 bars about 1 1/2-by-3 inches or into desired shapes.
4. Bake bars 30 minutes. Cool bars to room temperature then refrigerate in sealed container between sheets of wax paper.
5. To package for on-the-go snacking, cut 4-by-6-inch rectangles of wax paper, wrap around bars and secure with tape.

SOURCE:
American Pecan Promotion Board

Conservation paleobiology: Eyeing the past to restore today’s ecosystems

Researchers use historic remnants like antlers, shells, teeth and pollen to learn how natural communities once worked. The clues serve as guides for restoration.

By Bob Holmes

Conservationists seeking to restore shark populations on the Atlantic coast of Panama were facing a problem all too familiar to biologists: No records existed to document what pristine shark communities looked like before overfishing decimated the animals over the past few decades. Without that information, how could the restoration workers know what they should be aiming for?

Erin Dillon, a paleoecologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, thought she had the solution. By sampling microfossils — dermal denticles, the “little teeth on the shark’s skin,” as she describes them — deposited on the ocean floor, Dillon was able to reconstruct a picture of shark communities in the region before human impact. Shark abundance on the Caribbean reefs has declined by over 70 percent, she found, with fast-swimming, open-water sharks hit the hardest.

Dillon is one of the rising stars in the burgeoning new field of conservation paleobiology, which uses the fossil record to inform and assist present-day conservation efforts. “We often need some sense of the way things used to be before there was extensive human impact,” says Karl Flessa, a paleobiologist at the University of Arizona who coined the term “conservation paleobiology” two decades ago and coauthored an early look at the field in the 2015 Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

Conservation paleobiologists are using the past to establish pre-disturbance baselines, as Dillon has done. They are also documenting long-term patterns of habitat use and revealing previously unsuspected changes in ecosystems as a result of human activity. By uncovering how species have responded as past climates changed, they are helping to understand how the same species may respond to climate change today. And their results are guiding management plans for some of the world’s most endangered ecosystems.

Tracing caribou migrations of the past

Often, paleontological data offer the only practical way to understand the long-term ecological patterns that are so critical to conservation decisions. That’s the case for caribou herds on the Arctic coastal plain of Alaska, which have proved difficult to study in real time. The animals migrate extensively, and they use different parts of their home range each year, so ecologists have a hard time knowing which areas are crucial to maintaining caribou populations.

“There’s so much year-to-year variability,” says Joshua Miller, a paleoecologist at the University of Cincinnati. “It can be challenging to make conservation decisions when you don’t know the long-term value of a place.”

So Miller turned to the paleontological record — specifically, accumulations of the antlers the animals shed each year. Unusually for members of the deer family, females as well as males have antlers, which they shed shortly after calving. In the Arctic climate, these antlers remain intact for hundreds or thousands of years, providing a long-term record of where calving occurs. “You really can walk on the landscape today and get some essence of what caribou were doing thousands of years ago,” says Miller.

By counting and radiocarbon-dating hundreds of antlers, Miller was able to document that caribou have relied for thousands of years on the same calving grounds along the Arctic coast that a well-known major herd, the Porcupine herd, still uses today — including a period 3,100 years ago when summer temperatures were even warmer than today. “That gives us some confidence that the patterns we see today should be maintained over the next period of climatic change,” says Miller.

And that’s not all the information to be gleaned from shed antlers. Miller also measured the ratio of two stable isotopes of the element strontium, which gets deposited in the animals’ antlers each summer because it’s chemically similar to the calcium that builds antler bone. Different habitats contain different ratios of the two strontium isotopes, so the ratio provides a way to track the animals’ summer range.

As with the calving grounds, the summer range of the Porcupine herd has remained stable over time, Miller found. But that’s not the case for the Central Arctic herd, which lives farther to the west. Before there was much human activity, the strontium isotope ratio shows that the caribou spent much of their summer along the coast. But beginning about 1980 — roughly when oil development began along there — they began avoiding the coast and summering farther inland. While that is not conclusive proof that oil development caused the shift, Miller notes, it does point to the coastal region’s importance for the caribou — a key consideration for conservation.

Cattle grazing in historic Los Angeles

Occasionally, the fossil record completely changes the way conservationists think about an ecosystem. For example, ecologists had assumed that the muddy seafloor off the coast of Los Angeles had always been that way. But when sedimentary geologist and paleoecologist Susan Kidwell of the University of Chicago and her colleague Adam Tomašových of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava began studying seafloor samples as part of a wastewater monitoring program, they were surprised to find remains of shelly creatures called brachiopods. These don’t live on muddy seafloors but on hard, sandy or gravelly bottoms.

Chemical dating of the shells revealed that the youngest remains dated from the late 19th century — about the time when the Los Angeles area was heavily grazed by cattle. Runoff from overgrazed, eroding soil, Kidwell and her colleagues concluded, must have smothered the hard surfaces the brachiopods needed, resulting in the local extinction of an entire ecosystem. “Despite 50 years of close monitoring on one of the best-known continental shelves in the world, it was utterly unsuspected,” Kidwell says.

The discovery gives local conservationists a new target for their restoration efforts, though it could take centuries for the mud to wash away. In the meantime, Kidwell notes, it becomes more important to protect gravelly or sandy seafloors that still remain farther offshore, near the Channel Islands.

Fossils aren’t only useful for learning about the past, however. They can also suggest how plants and animals might respond to future events — most pressingly, climate change. For example, Jenny McGuire, a conservation paleobiologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and her colleagues studied fossilized pollen grains to see how 16 important plant taxa from North America responded to climate change over the past 18,000 years. Did the plants shift their ranges to follow their preferred climate, the researchers wondered, or did they stay put and make the best of things as climate changed around them?

Twelve of the 16 taxa changed their geographic distribution to maintain similar climate niches, the researchers found — even in periods when the climate was changing rapidly. But such shifts may not be as easy today due to loss and fragmentation of their habitats. The lesson, McGuire says, is that plants that shifted instead of adapting locally could be at the greatest risk today and require extra conservation aid. “It tells you which plant taxa you have to worry about,” she says.

Conservation paleobiology is new enough that its insights are only starting to percolate through to the government agencies that make conservation decisions on the ground. That’s largely because institutional change takes time. “Any of us who actually work with agencies — as well as people who work for agencies — can tell you just how slowly and carefully and thoughtfully agencies change anything about what they do,” says Kidwell.

It is happening in a few places, though, most notably in the Florida Everglades, where decades of water diversions and drainage have significantly altered the natural flows of fresh water that maintain the ecosystem. Federal, state and local governments are working to return the region’s water regimen closer to its natural state — but no records exist of what flow rates were before drainage began.

So Lynn Wingard, a paleoecologist with the US Geological Survey, turned to the fossil record. Wingard knew that each species of mollusk living in the Everglades has its own preferred level of salinity. By making a census of the relative abundance of shells of 68 kinds of mollusks in sediment cores and comparing it to data from living communities, she could estimate the average salinity at each point in time in the past.

Then one day she found herself in a meeting room with a hydrologist who knew how to predict salinity from water flow rates — and they and others in the room realized that they could turn his equations around and use salinity to figure out historic flow rates. “We all had this massive brainstorm: Yes, we can do this, and it would allow us to calculate flow before there was any flow monitoring,” says Wingard. Wingard’s salinity numbers are now the official targets for Florida Bay restoration.

Conservation paleobiology has limits

In theory, paleobiologists could apply their techniques to explore ecosystems millions, or tens of millions, of years in the past. By doing so, they could treat the history of life as a vast experiment — examining, for example, repeated known periods of rapid climate change to see what characteristics put species at greatest risk of extinction.

But looking into deep time this way brings risks, experts say. Ecosystems do change, so ones indicated by fossil assemblages may differ from modern ones in important ways. “The farther back you go in time, the more difficult it is to predict things directly, because the species are different, the ecosystems function differently,” says Michal Kowalewski, a conservation paleobiologist at the University of Florida who heads a research network of practitioners in the field. “So the last few hundred years give us the most information.”

A further limitation of fossil data is that historic time periods get somewhat blurred. “However carefully you take a sample, it’s going to be a mixture of organisms that lived at different times,” says Kowalewski. That can make it difficult to use the fossil record to track changes that were rapid, especially as you go deeper into the past where the blurring is often greater.

And practitioners note one more concern: Even if we can correctly identify the way ecosystems were in the past, it may be impractical to try to restore them to that state today. “It’s not as easy as ‘This is what it used to be, we should bring it back to that,’” says Jonathan Cybulski, a historical ecologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the University of Rhode Island. Sometimes — as is the case for the ocean floor off Los Angeles — conditions have changed so much that restoration is impractical. But even so, he notes, paleoecological data can help conservationists refine their targets.

Other times, restoration may even be undesirable. Grizzly bears, for example, used to thrive in coastal California, now among the most heavily settled parts of the state. Few would endorse returning grizzlies there.

Despite these concerns, conservation paleobiologists see a bright future in digging into the past to guide the future, because so many plants and animals leave fossils of some sort: pollen, teeth, shells or other traces, especially from relatively recent times. “These archives are pretty much everywhere, both in terrestrial habitats and marine habitats. We can pretty much go to any region of the world and look at the young fossil record,” says Kowalewski. “In many ways, it’s even easier to do this than to inventory living biodiversity.”

10.1146/knowable-080323-1

Bob Holmes is a science writer based in Edmonton, Canada.

This article originally appeared in Knowable Magazine, an independent journalistic endeavor from Annual Reviews. Sign up for the newsletter.

Quantum entanglement’s long journey from ‘spooky’ to law of nature

PODCAST: From Einstein’s initial disbelief and Bell’s test to the 2022 Nobel Prizes, quantum entanglement has matured into a pillar of physics. Physicist Nicolas Gisin explains why it took so many decades.

7.18.2023

Many global corporations will soon have to police up and down their supply chains as EU human rights ‘due diligence’ law nears enactment

Forced and child labor has been reported in mines in the Congo, which produces over 70% of the world’s cobalt. Junior Kannah/AFP via Getty Images

Rachel Chambers, University of Connecticut and David Birchall, London South Bank University

The European Union will soon require thousands of large companies to actively look for and reduce human rights abuses and environmental damage in their supply chains. And although it’s an EU law, it will also cover foreign businesses – including American ones – that have operations in the region.

The European Parliament approved a draft of the new rules in June 2023, and now EU member states and the European Commission will negotiate to finalize the law, which is expected to begin rolling out in phases a few years from now.

We study the impacts of human rights disclosure and due diligence laws on businesses. In the past, governments have generally asked only that companies voluntarily comply with efforts to advance human rights. The EU law would be the biggest attempt yet to legally mandate compliance – with major implications for human rights and businesses around the world.

Human rights and big business

Human rights are those fundamental rights that all individuals hold simply by virtue of being human, such as rights to life and freedom of thought.

Human rights usually inform laws that limit what governments can do – for example, by obliging them to refrain from torturing people. Increasingly, however, they are also informing business regulations, because powerful companies can have serious impacts on individuals’ human rights.

Businesses have a long history of human rights abuses, from the British East India Co.’s pivotal role in the slave trade and IBM’s complicity in the Holocaust to more recent deadly environmental disasters involving oil and mining companies.

More contemporary examples of this are children in the Democratic Republic of Congo mining cobalt destined for cellphones or forced labor being used in the production of cotton in China’s heavily Muslim Xinjiang region.

In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council took a step toward policing these abuses by unanimously adopting “guiding principles” on business and human rights. These principles urge governments to compel companies in their jurisdictions to respect human rights wherever they operate. Such an approach stands in contrast to more common voluntary standards, such as supplier codes of conduct, which some observers have suggested have been ineffective.

In 2017, France became the first country to actually mandate that companies police their supply chains for human rights abuses.

The EU’s human rights due diligence law, first drafted in 2022, builds on the French version – but goes a few steps further.

Apple is among the U.S.-based companies that would likely have to comply with the EU rules. Wiktor Szymanowicz/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Doing your due diligence

Human rights due diligence is a process by which companies are meant to map out, understand and address all potential human rights abuses that occur throughout their operations.

The term “due diligence” is borrowed from the common business practice of financial due diligence, wherein financial risks are investigated before any large investment. So just as businesses evaluate financial risks, human rights advocates argue companies should put similar effort into investigating the risk that an activity might violate someone’s human rights.

The EU law would mandate that all large companies that operate in the bloc conduct human rights due diligence among their suppliers – by, for example, making sure child or forced labor wasn’t involved – but also on how their products are used by consumers – such as when a piece of technology is used to surveil citizens.

The law would cover most human rights, including labor rights and environmental rights, past or present. In practice, that would mean companies would have to map any harmful impacts that have occurred or could occur and take action to remedy or prevent them.

The rules would also include provisions for enforcement and penalties for noncompliance through fines and other sanctions. And victims of abuse would be able to seek damages.

In its current form, the law would cover EU companies with at least 500 workers and 150 million euros US$162 million) in net revenue, but those thresholds fall to 250 workers and 40 million euros ($44.5 million) in sectors with a higher risk of abuse, such as clothing, footwear and agriculture. Non-European companies must comply if they have EU revenues that meet those thresholds. An estimated 13,000 EU companies and 4,000 based outside of Europe – including household names like Apple, Amazon and Nike – would be subject to the law.

If it works as intended, the EU law could be transformative in protecting human rights, including worker health and safety and workers’ free speech, around the world. According to a recent report by human rights scholars, it could be “particularly valuable in the context of transnational supply chains, where the fragmented nature of production has long presented formidable legal and practical barriers to efforts to secure greater corporate accountability for labor rights violations and poor working conditions.”

Bad for business?

While many companies have already endorsed mandatory due diligence rules, others worry this kind of government mandate would be too onerous.

A full map of risks in a company’s value chain – from raw materials to consumers – is difficult to establish when suppliers are separate companies operating on the other side of the world and global supply chains are frequently large and complex.

Some companies also strongly resist the idea of being held responsible for human rights violations that take place in their supply chains overseas.

Ripe for US rules

For this reason, the U.S. has so far preferred voluntary rules when it comes to pushing companies to respect human rights.

But that’s slowly beginning to change.

In 2012, California implemented the Supply Chain Transparency Act, which requires companies operating in the state to disclose their “efforts to eradicate human trafficking and slavery” in their global supply chains. And in 2021, Congress passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which bans the importation of goods mined, produced or manufactured wholly or in part in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China – home of the Uyghur people, who have been subjected to an intense program of state suppression since 2017.

Between these rules there is a clear trend developing of an increasing number of U.S. companies being obligated to implement some form of human rights due diligence. But these rules, unlike the developing European approach, are very narrowly tailored and don’t require companies to routinely undertake due diligence.

As a result, the U.S. companies that would be subject to the EU rules would be at a competitive disadvantage to many of their domestic rivals.

That’s why we believe the time may be ripe for Congress to consider its own more comprehensive human rights due diligence law, which would let the U.S. take the lead on the issue and have more of a say in these global standards. We believe that such a move would also be a major boon to protecting the human rights of marginalized groups across the world.

Rachel Chambers, Assistant Professor of Business Law, University of Connecticut and David Birchall, Senior Lecturer in Law, London South Bank University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

What are Hollywood actors and writers afraid of? A cinema scholar explains how AI is upending the movie and TV business

Hollywood writers picket in front of Warner Bros. Studios. AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

Holly Willis, University of Southern California

The bitter conflict between actors, writers and other creative professionals and the major movie and TV studios represents a flashpoint in the radical transformation roiling the entertainment industry. The ongoing strikes by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild were sparked in part by artificial intelligence and its use in the movie industry.

Both actors and writers fear that the major studios, including Amazon/MGM, Apple, Disney/ABC/Fox, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount/CBS, Sony, Warner Bros. and HBO, will use generative AI to exploit them. Generative AI is a form of artificial intelligence that learns from text and images to automatically produce new written and visual works.

So what specifically are the writers and actors afraid of? I’m a professor of cinematic arts. I conducted a brief exercise that illustrates the answer.

I typed the following sentence into ChatGPT: Create a script for a 5-minute film featuring Barbie and Ken. In seconds, a script appeared.

Next, I asked for a shot list, a breakdown of every camera shot needed for the film. Again, a response appeared almost instantly, featuring not only a “montage of fun activities,” but also a fancy flashback sequence. The closing line suggested a wide shot showing “Barbie and Ken walking away from the beach together, hand in hand.”

Next, on a text-to-video platform, I typed these words into a box labeled “Prompt”: “Cinematic movie shot of Margot Robbie as Barbie walking near the beach, early morning light, pink sun rays illuminating the screen, tall green grass, photographic detail, film grain.”

About a minute later, a 3-second video appeared. It showed a svelte blond woman walking on the beach. Is it Margot Robbie? Is it Barbie? It’s hard to say. I decided to add my own face in place of Robbie’s just for fun, and in seconds, I’ve made the swap.

I now have a moving image clip on my desktop that I can add to the script and shot list, and I’m well on my way to crafting a short film starring someone sort of like Margot Robbie as Barbie.

The fear

None of this material is particularly good. The script lacks tension and poetic grace. The shot list is uninspired. And the video is just plain weird-looking.

However, the ability for anyone – amateurs and professionals alike – to create a screenplay and conjure the likeness of an existing actor means that the skills once specific to writers and the likeness that an actor once could uniquely call his or her own are now readily available – with questionable quality, to be sure – to anyone with access to these free online tools.

Given the rate of technological change, the quality of all this material created through generative AI is destined to improve visually, not only for people like me and social media creatives globally, but possibly for the studios, which are likely to have access to much more powerful computers. Further, these separate steps – preproduction, screenwriting, production, postproduction – could be absorbed into a streamlined prompting system that bears little resemblance to today’s art and craft of moviemaking.

Generative AI is a new technology but it’s already reshaping the film and TV industry.

Writers fear that, at best, they will be hired to edit screenplays drafted by AI. They fear that their creative work will be swallowed whole into databases as the fodder for writing tools to sample. And they fear that their specific expertise will be pushed aside in favor of “prompt engineers,” or those skilled at working with AI tools.

And actors fret that they will be forced to sell their likeness once, only to see it used over and over by studios. They fear that deepfake technologies will become the norm, and real, live actors won’t be needed at all. And they worry that not only their bodies but their voices will be taken, synthesized and reused without continued compensation. And all of this is on top of dwindling incomes for the vast majority of actors.

On the road to the AI future

Are their fears justified? Sort of. In June 2023, Marvel showcased titles – opening sequences with episode names – for the series “Secret Invasion” on Disney+ that were created in part with AI tools. The use of AI by a major studio sparked controversy due in part to the timing and fears about AI displacing people from their jobs. Further, series director and executive producer Ali Selim’s tone-deaf description of the use of AI only added to the sense that there is little concern at all about those fears.

Then on July 26, software developer Nicholas Neubert posted a 48-second trailer for a sci-fi film made with images made by AI image generator Midjourney and motion created by Runway’s image-to-motion generator, Gen-2. It looks terrific. No screenwriter was hired. No actors were used.

In addition, earlier this month, a company called Fable released Showrunner AI, which is designed to allow users to submit images and voices, along with a brief prompt. The tool responds by creating entire episodes that include the user.

The creators have been using South Park as their sample, and they have presented plausible new episodes of the show that integrate viewers as characters in the story. The idea is to create a new form of audience engagement. However, for both writers and actors, Showrunner AI must be chilling indeed.

Finally, Volkswagen recently produced a commercial that features an AI reincarnation of Brazilian musician Elis Regina, who died in 1982. Directed by Dulcidio Caldeira, it shows the musician as she appears to sing a duet with her daughter. For some, the song was a beautiful revelation, crafting a poignant mother-daughter reunion.

However, for others, the AI regeneration of someone who has died prompts worries about how one’s likeness might be used after death. What if you are morally opposed to a particular film project, TV show or commercial? How will actors – and others – be able to retain control?

Keeping actors and writers in the credits

Writers’ and actors’ fears could be assuaged if the entertainment industry developed a convincing and inclusive vision that acknowledges advances in AI, but that collaborates with writers and actors, not to mention cinematographers, directors, art designers and others, as partners.

At the moment, developers are rapidly building and improving AI tools. Production companies are likely to use them to dramatically cut costs, which will contribute to a massive shift toward a gig-oriented economy. If the dismissive attitude toward writers and actors held by many of the major studios continues, not only will there be little consideration of the needs of writers and actors, but technology development will lead the conversation.

However, what if the tools were designed with the participation of informed actors and writers? What kind of tool would an actor create? What would a writer create? What sorts of conditions regarding intellectual property, copyright and creativity would developers consider? And what sort of inclusive, forward-looking, creative cinematic ecosystem might evolve? Answering these questions could give actors and writers the assurances they seek and help the industry adapt in the age of AI.

Holly Willis, Professor of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

Women’s World Cup will highlight how far other countries have closed the gap with US – but that isn’t the only yardstick to measure growth of global game

The end of the glory years for the U.S. Women’s National Team? AP Photo/Claude Paris

Adam Beissel, Miami University; Andrew Grainger, Western Sydney University; Julie E. Brice, California State University, Fullerton , and Verity Postlethwaite, Loughborough University

The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup begins on July 20, 2023, in Australia and New Zealand, and the U.S. enters the soccer tournament in a familiar position: favorites.

The U.S. Women’s National Team, or USWNT, is the reigning back-to-back champion, and many pundits are expecting it to make history by securing a third successive title.

Certainly, the team is built on solid foundations – it has a tournament history like no other, having reached the podium in all eight editions of the tournament stretching back to 1991 – and lifted the winner’s trophy four times. And it still possesses some of the game’s most recognizable and decorated players, Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan among them.

Yet the U.S. players are not certain to win the World Cup this time around. No USWNT has experienced more turnover between World Cups than the current squad – it will be sporting a new head coach, and the team will be missing several mainstay players because of retirement and a spate of injuries. And its form heading into the tournament has been patchy.

Moreover, there are external currents that are also pushing against U.S. dominance. A commitment by governing body FIFA to growing the women’s game globally has contributed to nations around the world narrowing the gap with the U.S. on the pitch.

All of those factors should lead to a more competitive tournament in New Zealand and Australia. But having more teams challenging the U.S. is not the only yardstick for success in the women’s game.

As we argue in our forthcoming book, “The 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup: Management, Politics and Representation,” much more needs to be done by world soccer’s governing body to put in place institutional reforms prioritizing what is right over simply what is profitable in the women’s game. We believe that only then can it play on a level playing field.

Moving the goal posts (in the right direction)

Some 22 years after the first official FIFA Women’s World Cup, the sport is witnessing dramatic growth internationally. The number of women and girls participating in the sport at all levels is increasing. FIFA’s plan is to double the number of women soccer players globally to 60 million by 2026 and pump US$1 billion into the women’s game over a four-year period.

Meanwhile, more and more countries are launching professional leagues, including recent additions such as Colombia and Mexico.

Accompanying this has been increased sponsorship of women’s clubs and leagues and a growing number of lucrative sponsorship deals for top players.

Governing bodies and franchises are beginning to invest more in players, coaches and infrastructure, too. And it has yielded success. The past year alone has seen record-breaking player transfers, record attendance at games and television viewing figures hitting an all-time high at both domestic and international levels.

This growth is not restricted to playing fields in Europe and North America. Women’s soccer in Africa, the Middle East and Asia has also benefited. For the first time, the World Cup will see 32 teams participate – up from 24 in the past two tournaments. Among the teams making their inaugural appearance will be Morocco, the Philippines, Vietnam and Zambia.

Noting the growth in such countries, U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski commented: “The world that is catching up is Wales, is Vietnam, is Zambia, Portugal.”

That isn’t to say that a handful of countries led by the U.S. won’t again dominate. But even if they do, that would not negate the strides made in the women’s game since the last World Cup in 2019.

Leveling the playing pitch (a little)

Meanwhile, FIFA has displayed a commitment to investing, celebrating and marketing its flagship women’s tournament in ways not seen in previous editions. Prize money, team preparation cash and compensation to players’ clubs has increased 300% over the last World Cup, with the overall prize money standing at $152 million. Each player at the tournament will receive at least $30,000.

Yet the overall prize pool remains a fraction of the men’s equivalent – a gender disparity called out by Australia’s national women’s side in a recent video message.

And crediting FIFA for progress on gender pay issues ignores how women footballers had to overcome exploitation, under-marketing and structural and institutional barriers created in part by the game’s governing body in the first place.

Unlike the men’s game, dozens of players taking the pitch in Australia and New Zealand are amateur or semiprofessional footballers at best. Even some of those who are professional endure poor working conditions, insufficient facilities and unsafe playing conditions – something that likely plays a part in the recent spate of ACL injuries among top female players.

And this is to say nothing of the horrific and widespread cases of sexual misconduct, harassment and emotional abuse documented in the women’s game. Women soccer players from Afghanistan to India to Argentina have been subjected to systemic abuse, misconduct and violence stemming in part from labor precarity and a lack of workplace protections.

Here, the U.S. – long the global leader in the women’s game – is not immune, as a 2022 report into the sexual misconduct, and verbal and emotional abuse by coaches in the National Women’s Soccer League has shown.

Going into the 2023 World Cup, the USWNT remains a yardstick by which other teams can be measured. The U.S. players are emblematic of the soaring popularity and commercial value of women’s soccer. But as their labor activism, quest for equal pay and push for better protection reveals, even at the elite level of the women’s game, battles remain both on and off the pitch.

Adam Beissel, Associate Professor of Sport Leadership and Management, Miami University; Andrew Grainger, Lecturer in Sport Development, Western Sydney University; Julie E. Brice, Assistant Professor, Department of Kinesiology, California State University, Fullerton , and Verity Postlethwaite, Doctoral Prize Fellow, Loughborough University; Research associate, Japan Research Centre, Loughborough University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.