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International law faces two profound issues. Each involves Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations prohibiting the use of force by one Member State against another. Both concern the roles of the Security Council and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).   One—Ukraine and the Russian Federation (Russia)—is whether the armed entry into Ukraine on 24 April 2022 and since of Russia as a great power is immune from the rule of law.   The other—Gaza/Palestine and Israel—concerns the relations between another state, Israel, and its immediate neighbour Palestine, including the small Gaza strip. There is currently awaited on the topic of Israel’s treatment of Palestine an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of major importance on which judgment was reserved on 26 February 2024.   On 7 October 2023, citizens of Israel and visitors were brutally and unlawfully attacked and 1,100 people killed by members of Hamas crossing the border from Gaza who then committed the further war crime of hostage abduction of some 250 people. Israel’s response, in reliance on rights of self-defence, has resulted at the time of writing, and before a proposed forthcoming ground offensive, in over 30,000 deaths and many more injuries in Gaza in air and other attacks, said to be directed against the Hamas attackers. The victims were predominantly innocent civilians and their children. Wholesale demolition of buildings is alleged to have caused further deaths. On 20 May 2024 the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court published a statement that he was seeking issue by ICC judges of warrants of arrest in the situation in the State of Palestine against: the Head Yahya SINWAR (Head of (Head of the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”) in the Gaza Strip), Mohammed Diab Ibrahim AL-MASRI (Commander-in-Chief of the military wing of Hamas), and Ismail HANIYEH (Head of Hamas Political Bureau) for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Israel and the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 7 October 2023; and

Peter Krausz was born in Romania in 1946. He studied mural painting from 1964 to 1969 at the Bucharest Institute of Fine Arts. Since 1970, he has made Montreal his home. His diverse artistic production includes painting, drawing, installation, and photography. From 1980 to 1990, he was the curator of the Saidye Bronfman Centre Art Gallery and a teacher at Concordia University. In 1991, he joined the faculty at the University of Montreal where he is now a tenured Professor of Fine Art in the Art History and Cinema Studies Department. Since 1970, Peter Krausz has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Montreal and across Quebec, Canada, and the United States, as well as in Europe. His works can be found in private and prominent public collections such as The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, The National Museum of Fine Arts in Quebec, The Montreal Contemporary Art Museum, The Jewish Museum in New York, and many others. He is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy. Gabriella Kardos: You grew up in an artistic household in Romania, your father a renowned painter and professor, your mother an art historian, curator at the National Gallery of Art. You must have been exposed to discussions about art and art history from an early age. How did that shape your desire/choice of becoming an artist?   Peter Krausz : It was not much of a choice. Like Obélix in Goscinny and Uderzo’s Astérix le Gaulois  [ Asterix the Gaul ], one could say that I fell into the pot from an early age. I listened and later participated in the weekly discussions between painters, sculptors, art historians, and so on in our very open house and started drawing and copying Velázquez paintings from my father’s art books when I was 5 years old. As a teenager, I often accompanied my dad to the month-long summer camps for art students in different areas in Romania, where I was painting and drawing the countryside. So, it was more of a natural development, leading towards the entry exam to the Art Institute in Bucharest. Fig 1. 13 août 1961 (Peter Krausz 1988, oil on wood, tar, 285 x 244 cm / 112 x 96 inches). Collection Galerie UQAM, Montréal, 1994 © Peter Krausz GK: The theme of borders features strongly in your work. How did it evolve? I imagine your escape from the communist regime of Romania must have played a part in this. Can you recount the experience of crossing the border from the Eastern bloc to the West? What was the political context and what made you decide to leave your native land, risking your ability to ever return, or even imprisonment?   PK : We felt that we were living in a cage—even if towards the middle of the sixties the communist regime was more relaxed, we were not allowed to travel except in other communist countries. And by the end of the decade, we had the feeling that things will only get worse after the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact. More nationalism and antisemitism and a feeling that the regime is hardening its authoritarian position. This proved to be true after we left and after Ceausescu’s return from China and his developing cult of personality. The risk I took doesn’t compare to the risk that my parents took, leaving behind their jobs, friends, and family, trying to provide a better future for their son.

Introduction My philosophy aims at an ordering of rank: not at an individualistic morality. The ideas of the herd should rule in the herd—but not reach out beyond it.[1] Nietzsche, The Will to Power   Alongside Marx, Nietzsche was one of the great 19th-century critics of modernity. Contra Marx, for some time the operative assumption was that Nietzsche was effectively an apolitical critic. Caustic and elitist perhaps, making the occasional bizarre aside on ‘blond beasts’ and warlike ‘great politics’. But in the end too rarefied, too individualistic, and too spiritual (in his own way) to have much to say about the distinctly social concerns that animate political theorists and commentators.   This interpretation owed much to efforts to push against crudely reading Nietzsche as a proto-Nazi thinker. It is easy to forget that no less a public intellectual and academic giant than Bertrand Russell described the Second World War as ‘Nietzsche’s war’.[2] This was an easy mistake to make, given that the Nazis themselves were eager to appeal to Nietzsche’s growing philosophical prestige to give their movement a veneer of intellectual respectability.[3] Against this, seminal interpreters like Walter Kaufmann read Nietzsche as an existential psychologist offering eschatological (to use a spiritual term in a non-spiritual sense) advice on how to navigate an increasingly nihilistic horizon.[4]    These efforts were an understandable overcompensation for the climate of hostility that existed before. By the 1970s, however, things had shifted again, as a more distinctly political Nietzsche was discovered. This was the post-structuralist philosopher of difference and critic of normalisation and power, so effectively popularised by Foucault and Deleuze. In their hands, Nietzsche once more had a politics—but one that was quasi-egalitarian, anti-bourgeois, focused on pushing against all forms of conservative conformity and hierarchy in the name of an ethics of self-creation or rhizomatic community formation.[5] It was this Nietzsche which many of us who trudged through the academy were brought up in: a thinker so punk he made his way into memes about pissing off the squares. In the 2000s, yet another turn occurred. More and more of us became aware of two unfortunate developments. The first was the global resurgence of the far right, both politically and intellectually. The second was that Nietzsche proved a major influence on a new generation of far-right thinkers, and that they seemed to think there were good reasons to be influenced by him. As Mark Sedgwick put it, Nietzsche belongs with Heidegger, Spengler, Jünger, Schmitt, and Evola as ‘required reading for today’s intellectual radical right’.[6] With the election of Trump in 2016 and the broader resurgence of far-right and right-wing populist movements around the globe, a sustained re-evaluation was probably inevitable, as the political stakes of what were once mostly cute academic questions suddenly seemed far higher.[7] This little essay is a small contribution to this re-evaluation. I want to make clear that Nietzsche is a great thinker. Like his peers in the pantheon, there are many ways to respond to and be influenced by his work. While my paper will conclude with an argument that Nietzsche belongs very decidedly on the political right—indeed, that he is the greatest critic of the left to have ever emerged—none of that undermines the importance of his ideas to many liberal and progressive thinkers. Rorty, Foucault, Deleuze, Wendy Brown, and the rest may draw on many Nietzschean ideas. Their writings are more than rich enough to withstand resituating Nietzsche on the radical right. My paper will open with a discussion of how ‘left-Nietzschean’ takes on the master have been, and will continue to be, of interest. Nevertheless, there is much to be said for taking Nietzsche at his word that a basic concern of his political philosophy is with achieving an ‘ordering of rank’ flowing from his emphatic rejection of the ‘lie of equality of souls’.[8] In the latter sections, I’ll examine how Nietzsche has influenced the radical right in the form of ‘right-Nietzschean’ politics. I will also conclude that, whatever one thinks about violent and creative ‘left-Nietzschean’ appropriations, they run counter to Nietzsche’s own political convictions. Nietzsche once declared that ‘the worst readers are those who behave like plundering troops: they take away a few things they can use, dirty and confound the remainder, and revile the whole’.[9] If we liberals and progressives are to be troops plundering the Nietzschean corpus, better that we know ourselves as what we are. On Left Nietzscheanism Left Nietzscheanism has a long pedigree, dating back to the socialist appropriation of his work in the late 19th century. Notwithstanding Nietzsche’s resolute anti-socialism, anti-feminism, and eventual anti-liberalism, there has been a longstanding effort to mobilise his writings for progressive projects, or even to systematically rework him into a left-radical. As Ansell-Pearson puts it, Nietzsche’s work did not ‘immediately appeal to the right, as one might expect given its aristocratic pretensions and distaste for socialism. On the contrary, in the two decades following his breakdown, it was taken up with interest and imagination by socialists, anarchists, and feminists, all of whom saw Nietzsche’s work as preoccupied with the quest for individual self-realisation’.[10] There are a handful of primary reasons for this.   Firstly, many on the left find Nietzsche’s emphasis on authentic or expressive ‘individualism’—his injunction to ‘become who you are’—decidedly appealing.[11] To put it in modern parlance, for many left commentators, chief amongst them Deleuze, Nietzsche is fundamentally a philosopher of self-creation and individuated social difference. He offers a guide on how to resist both bourgeois moralism and conservative traditionalism and create a more interesting, non-conforming and potentially radical selfhood. And, just as importantly, how to create such a self-hood without becoming pathologically sickened by ressentiment  and a permanent sense of victimhood. For instance, in her seminal S tates of Injury Wendy Brown draws on Nietzsche to discuss how victims of oppression often form a ‘wounded attachment’ to their own identity as victims. Understandable as this may be, the end result is that the victim’s identity remains determined by their oppressors. Fuller emancipation requires victims to give up their ‘wounded attachment’ to identifying as victims and create a new kind of identity for themselves which owes nothing to the oppressor.[12] In this mission, Nietzsche offers an inspiring model.   Secondly, many on the left have found ample resources in Nietzsche to develop highly novel conceptions and critiques of power and reactionary politics. The gold standard in this respect is of course Michel Foucault, whose ‘genealogical’ period of the 1970s saw him analyse the way different forms of knowledge and power instantiate themselves. This includes the application of institutional discipline, engendering the formation of normalised subjects who have so internalised the imperatives of power they no longer need to be physically coerced. The soul becomes a prison for the possibilities of the body.[13] More recently, Brown has continued her pioneering revaluation of Nietzsche to describe how right-populist and right-authoritarian movements are very much motivated by forms of ressentiment . These are often forms of ressentiment which Nietzsche himself did not predict, given his frequent blind-spots about the kinds of pathologies that can emerge in the social elite. Rather than ressentiment originating in the herd and being directed upwards at the nobility, Brown contends that neoliberal economic conditions engender a culture where elites come to resent any and all progressive efforts at challenging their affluence, power, and status.[14] This ressentiment becomes a powerful mobilising force for the contemporary right along a variety of axes.   Thirdly, Nietzsche’s middle-period perspectivism and historicist approach to knowledge and morality have proven vastly influential for a host of left-sceptics. They have been inspired by Nietzschean discussions of epistemology and meta-ethics, developing novel critiques which deflate the totalising ideologies proffered by the right. This deflationary effort is intended to reduce the impulse to impose totalising ideologies on resistant individuals in the name of objective ‘truth’, and in so doing create political space for a more pluralistic and less cruel society. A lucid exposition of this position was given by Richard Rorty in Philosophy and Social Hope. As Rorty summarises, ‘rightist thinkers don’t think that it is enough just to prefer democratic societies. One also has to believe that they are Objectively Good, that the institutions of such societies are grounded in Rational First Principles […] My own philosophical views—views I share with Nietzsche and Dewey—forbid me to say this kind of thing’.[15] In this respect, Nietzsche can be seen as the forefather of a whole host of sceptical post-modern critics, including Foucault and Rorty of course, but also Derrida, Said, and Lyotard.   Fourthly, and less well known, has been Nietzsche’s important influence on many religious left-communitarians. Much of this influence has of course been negative, qua MacIntyre’s famously apocalyptic insistence that fallen modernity is thoroughly Nietzschean.[16] But Nietzsche’s rich and evocative account of secularism and the basis of egalitarian radicalism in Christianity has also had a constructive impact on figures like Charles Taylor (and, for that matter, myself).[17] Thinkers like Taylor suggest we should take seriously Nietzsche’s insistence that the basis of left-politics is in fact the Christian ethic that all are equal in the eyes of God and that Jesus is the deity of the ‘wretched of the earth’. And one should also put considerable stock in Nietzsche’s remarkable claim that secularism and nihilism are not external forces operating on Christianity, but instead emerged immanently from within Christianity itself. Nietzsche claims that the Christian will to truth is what ultimately destroyed Christianity, compulsively leading it to its most ‘striking inference’—the inference against itself.[18] There is, then, a poetic sense in which nihilism is the final kind of self-punishment Christianity inflicts upon us.  In this case, our punishment is the felt absence of Christianity and God after their self-inflicted implosion, mirroring how the invention of guilt and conscience is felt as a sick constraint on the free moral will Christianity also invents.   All great things bring about their own destruction through an act of self-overcoming: thus the law of life will have it, the law of the necessity of ‘self-overcoming’ in the nature of life-the lawgiver himself eventually receives the call […] In this way Christianity as a dogma was destroyed by its own morality, in the same way Christianity as morality must now perish to: we stand on the threshold of this event. After Christian truthfulness has drawn one inference after another, it must end by drawing its most striking inference, its inference against itself; this will happen, however, when it poses the question ‘what is the meaning of all will to truth?[19]   Thought through, this observation has important things to teach us about the nature of modernity, postmodernity, and religion.   Finally, there are left-Nietzscheans who have more ambitious projects than simply appropriating certain useful Nietzschean arguments. They aspire to a more systematic left-Nietzschean politics, usually through synthesising his writings with other, complementary, and more transparently progressive figures. A popular pick is the ultimate anti-capitalist author: Marx.[20] A classic example of such efforts were Deleuze and Guattari’s joint works Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus ,   which draw on Nietzschean ideas to critique the limitations of vulgar Marxism and Freudianism.[21] A more recent effort in this vein is Jonas Ceika’s How to Philosophize with A Hammer and Sickle: Nietzsche and Marx for the Twenty First Century. Ceika claims   that:   we can find in Nietzsche, however underdeveloped, a critique of capitalism. Modern life, as he saw it, was primarily divided between the toilsome and unfulfilling lives of wage workers, the meaninglessly calculated lives of businessmen and property owners, and the inhuman and hypocritical lives of state bureaucrats and politicians. All of these modes of existence for Nietzsche were equally contemptible, and he was unable to discover in any of them the potential for a future society.[22]   On this basis, Ceika tries to develop an explicitly ‘Nietzschean socialism’ for the new millennium. While I remain sceptical of the potential for such a systematic fusion, let alone the development of a comprehensive ‘Nietzschean socialism’, there is certainly much to be said about the ambition—even the audacity—of such attempts. And in the end these efforts should be evaluated on their own merits and demerits, rather than castigated for genetic impurity.   These left-Nietzschean efforts have all been rich and even profound intellectual contributions to the cause of securing liberty, equality, and solidarity for all. Their successes, or at least interesting failures, demonstrate why there is much value in creatively reworking Nietzsche for the left. But a creative reworking they must remain, since, as the next section will demonstrate, they run very much against Nietzsche’s political inclinations towards aristocratic radicalism—and his seething contempt for the political left.   Nietzsche, the Right Nietzschean   The great majority of men have no right to life, and serve only to disconcert the elect among our race; I do not yet grant the unfit that right. There are even unfit peoples.[23] Nietzsche, The Will to Power Contrary to what was once the conventional wisdom, Nietzsche’s works are filled with political observations and prescriptions, a huge number of which lean towards the political right in their tone and connotations. This trucks with his own political development, expertly traced by Losurdo, from a Wagnerian German nationalist opposed to the French Revolution, to cautious flirtations with an elitist liberalism, to his own mature commitment to aristocratic radicalism. In his correspondence with Nietzsche, the Danish critic Georg Brandes described the former’s philosophy as a kind of ‘aristocratic radicalism’—an interpretation Nietzsche approved of. Losurdo has consequently applied the label as a shorthand definition of Nietzsche’s politics, and I see little reason to disagree.[24] While Nietzsche never produced a systematic work of political philosophy, he was willing to be startlingly programmatic about what he wanted and why. The clearest example of this is in Beyond Good and Evil, where Nietzsche describes his social aspirations, and makes very clear that this should be an ‘aristocratic society’, defined by clear differences of rank and caste.   Every elevation of the type ‘man’, has hitherto been the work of an aristocratic society-and so it will always be: a society which believes in a long scale of orders of rank and differences of worth between man and man and needs slavery in some sense or other. Without the pathos of distance such as develops from the incarnate differences of classes, from the ruling caste’s constant looking out and looking down on subjects and instruments and from its equally constant exercise of obedience and command, its holding down and holding at a distance, that other, more mysterious pathos could not have developed either…in short precisely the elevation of the type ‘man’, the continual ‘self-overcoming of man’, to take a moral formula in a supra-moral sense.[25] The question then becomes: what kind of politics is engendered by ‘aristocratic radicalism’, defined by a ‘pathos of distance’ between castes? Here, Nietzsche offers a number of interrelated claims.   Firstly, Nietzschean politics would be a kind of ‘great politics’, operating at a far more elevated and edifying level than the crude calculus of national interests characterising Bismarckian Realpolitik  or the vulgarities of international class struggle.[26] It would also be more violent, in no small part due to the twinned consequences of nihilism: that human life has no intrinsic worth, and that strength and will could nevertheless allow one to elevate life into something of worth. With the transvaluation of notions of absolute truth and morality enacted in part by Nietzsche’s own writings, ‘the concept “politics” then becomes elevated entirely to the sphere of spiritual warfare. All the mighty realms of the ancient order of society are blown into space—for they are all based on falsehood: there will be wars, the like of which have never been seen on earth before. Only from my time and after me will politics on a large scale exist on earth’.[27] In such a setting, the more noble kinds of personalities could be made stronger through struggle, and whole peoples commit themselves to higher kinds of spiritual enterprises.   Secondly, Nietzsche makes it very clear that his preferred form of social ordering will be rigidly hierarchical and characterised by mass subjugation and subordination. This point has been widely and understandably misunderstood, given Nietzsche’s emphasis on the creation of ‘free spirits’ who would be liberated from the desire for revenge. To be clear, Nietzsche would be contemptuous of those who found affirmation in the subordination of the lower orders as an end in itself . He would have undoubtedly found the philosophy of cruelty for its own sake, embodied by fascism, along with its nationalism and populism, both utterly reprehensible and of course yet another sign, if one was needed, of the incurable stupidity of the Germans.[28]    However, this does not mean that a caste of aristocratic ‘free spirits’ would refrain from subordination. The kinds of subordination they imposed would be instrumental—both liberating the aristocracy from the need for mundane labour and engendering the ‘pathos of distance’ between classes and castes, necessary for higher forms of culture and personalities to develop. This would mean rejecting the poison of the doctrine ‘equal rights for all’, which has been ‘thoroughly sowed by Christianity than by anything else’ and militates against every ‘feeling of reverence and distance between man and man, against, that is, the precondition of every elevation, every increase in culture—it has forged out of the ressentiment  of the masses its chief weapon against us’.[29] Nietzsche also makes very clear that preserving such a stratified order means refraining from educating the lower orders, to ensure they remain content with their status as ‘slaves’:   The stupidity, fundamentally the instinct degeneration which is the cause of every stupidity today, lies in the existence of a labour question at all […] There is absolutely no hope left that a modest and self-sufficient kind of human being, a type of Chinaman, should here form itself into a class: and this would have been sensible, this as actually a necessity. What has one ever done? Everything designed to nip in the bud even the prerequisites for it—through the most irresponsible thoughtlessness one has totally destroyed the instincts by virtues of which the worker becomes possible as a class, possible for himself […] If one wills an end, one must also will the means to it: if one wants slaves, one is a fool if one educates them to be masters.[30]   Thirdly, Nietzsche insists that his new radical aristocracy will consist of individuals with noble forms of personalities. What exactly these types would look like is perhaps the most complex and incomplete element of Nietzsche’s politics. At points, especially in his early writings, Nietzsche demonstrates a clear nostalgia for the noble types of warrior aristocrats conceived in the Dionysian period of Greek thinking, before Socrates and then Christianity emerged and began mucking things up. He rhapsodises about the ‘Greek genius’ of ‘Homer, Pindar, and Aeschylus, as Phidias, as Pericles, as Pythia and Dionysus’ and laments its decline.[31] These kinds of warrior aristocrats were life affirming, courageous, violent, and revelled in their superior strength as a sign of health and vitality, rather than repudiating it as pride or malice.   At other points Nietzsche demonstrates a more multifaceted—dare I say dialectical? —disposition. He is disgusted at how the Christian creation of guilt and conscience turned human beings against their own instincts as a kind of self-inflicted punishment. But at the same time he acknowledges that, by doing so, Christianity engendered a level of depth and interiority in humankind which had been lacking before.[32] After all, Hamlet’s guilt and tragic indecisiveness may make him a less outwardly noble soul than ‘wise’ Achilles. But the gloomy Dane’s ruminations about the human condition and its possibilities constitute a clear psychological advancement on the kind of magnificent flatness of the Homeric hero. Ultimately, the kind of personality Nietzsche longed for in his aristocratic radicals was some highly unlikely fusion of the antiquarian and the Christian into a new secular ideal. His highest impossibility was a Roman Caesar with the soul of Christ.[33]   Fourthly, married to more programmatic statements about the kinds of politics Nietzsche endorsed were equally emphatic critiques of those he did not. Throughout his work, he tirelessly aims condemnations and barbs against an array of real and imagined political opponents. Overwhelmingly, his most venomous bullets are directed against forces on the left, who for Nietzsche embodied the herd morality of Christianity with all its ressentiment  and envy of the nobility. This reflects Nietzsche’s startling claim that, notwithstanding the often militant secularism of these groups and their ideologies, it was liberals and socialists who constituted the clearest continuation of Christian morality in the present day. In his mature period, Nietzsche rejects liberal institutions because they ‘undermine the will to power, they are the levelling of mountain and valley exalted to moral principle, they make small, cowardly, and smug—it is the herd animal which triumphs with them every time’. He condemns liberalism as ‘in plain words: reduction to the herd animal’, describing it as a philosophy for ‘shopkeepers, Christians, cows, women, Englishmen and other democrats’.[34] He is even more emphatic about the degenerate genealogy of socialism (Christianity with the residue of Rousseau, in the language of The Will to Power ),   for which he reserves his most special hatred:   Whom do I hate most heartily among the rabbles of today? The rabble of Socialists, the apostles to the Chandala, who undermine the workingman's instincts, his pleasure, his feeling of contentment with his petty existence—who make him envious and teach him revenge.... Wrong never lies in unequal rights; it lies in the assertion of ‘equal’ rights.... What is bad? But I have already answered: all that proceeds from weakness, from envy, from revenge. — The anarchist and the Christian have the same ancestry.[35]   The striking conviction that it is liberals and socialists who carry on the legacy of Christian morality obviously orients Nietzsche against many on the political right, for whom the portrayal of progressivism as profane and godless is a near addiction. But this is also what makes Nietzsche the most penetrating critic of the left ever to emerge; one who has the intellectual ambition and audacity to go all the way in a totalising critique of Western civilisation and religion where more timid reactionaries will artificially halt. Reactionaries like De Maistre and Burke saw in Christianity the basis for a society stratified into hierarchically complementary ranks, mapping a transcendent pattern ordained by God. They saw the rejection of this ‘great chain of Being’ as one of the catalysts for the Satanic revolutionary epoch. For Nietzsche, this generic rightist position could not be more wrong-headed.[36] The herd morality of Christianity in classical form struck the first blow against the aristocracy. And Christianity remained the increasingly concealed basis of the revolutionary epoch, since ‘ Christian value judgement […] translates every revolution into mere blood and crime! Christianity is a revolt of everything that crawls along the ground directed against that which is elevated: the Gospel of the lowly makes low’.[37] Secularised Christian morality in the form of liberalism and socialism had thus far survived its own immanent attack on itself, withstanding the deconstruction of Christian metaphysics driven by a self-destructive will to truth.   One of Nietzsche’s great hopes and fears was that as the metaphysical implications of the ‘death of God’ set in this would lead to a ‘transvaluation of all values’ which recognised and rejected the foundation-less quality of secular Christian morality. While Nietzsche was himself no social Darwinian, there is a sense in which he thought that the transvaluation of Christian values would lead to a more naturalistic value system, one that affirmed the differences in strength and personality between persons rather than regarding human beings as all equal before the throne of God. A famous example is his insistence that the soaring eagles may be called frightening and evil by the lambs below. But in fact the eagles may well love the ‘tasty lambs’ on which they gorge themselves.   Conclusion: Right Nietzschean Politics Past and Present    Nietzsche was very much a man of the right—though of course not in any conventional sense. This can be missed by those who conceive of the political right exclusively in conservative terms, à la the cautious and prudent management or change or transformation of what one must to conserve what one can. While a popular conception of the right, not least because it is promulgated by many conservatives themselves, this image has always been faulty in important respects.[38] When those on the right come to feel that the decadent and herd like movements of the left have been driving the culture for too long, they can very easily conclude that there is nothing left worth conserving. In such contexts transformative and great changes may be called for and even prophesised as inevitable, whether under the guise of ‘aristocratic radicalism’, ‘Conservative revolution’, or, in the most sinister moments, fascist populism. Nietzsche very much fits into this vein as its most remarkable contributor.   It should come as no surprise that Nietzsche’s influence on past and present rightist politics has been enormous—though whether he would be pleased with his disciples and imitators is another matter. Contemporaneously, he has had an impressive impact on a wide array of moderate and Trumpist conservative authors. Jordan Peterson frequently cites Nietzsche in his work, typically to describe contemporary leftism as motivated by destructive ressentiment .[39] Dinesh D’Souza makes a rather lazy stab at Nietzschean cultural commentary, upholding a kind of social conservative Christianity while simultaneously chastising Nordic social democracy as banal society of ‘last men’.[40]    On the far right, Nietzsche has had an impressive impact. In early 20th-century Germany, Heidegger, Spengler, Schmitt, and many others were deeply moved by his gloomy denunciations of impending nihilism and cultural decay.[41] Julius Evola rhapsodises in a recognisably Nietzschean key when he describes ‘the advent of Christianity [as] representing a fall; its advent characterised a special form of that spiritual emasculation typical of the cycles of a lunar and priestly type’.[42] So too does the online radical rightist ‘Lom3z’ when he describes the progressive ‘longhouse’ as distrusting ‘ overt ambition. It censures the drive to assert oneself on the world, to strike out for conquest and expansion. Male competition and the hierarchies that drive it are unwelcome. Even constructive expressions of these instincts are deemed toxic, patriarchal, or even racist’.[43] Such writings show that Nietzsche’s most depressing talent—his ability to inspire a host of milquetoast racist and misogynistic imitators—is very much alive in the 2020s.   Nietzsche is a foundational figure for many, including myself. There can be no serious thinking worthy of the name without him. But serious thinking requires his progressive and liberal readers to recognise that Nietzsche is not on side with their ambitions. Right Nietzscheans have known this for a long time. If there is to be an effective left-Nietzschean politics in the 21st century, it must learn this hard truth as well. Left-Nietzscheans can accept Nietzsche’s critical ruminations about mass ressentiment  and recognize accordingly that a politics based on eating the rich or sticking it to the man is unlikely to produce much good in the long run. We can reappropriate his work in interesting ways to foreground the way right-wing ressentiment  takes on its own distinctive forms, including the various forms of vitriolic right-Nietzscheanism on the march today. Christian socialists—a movement which saw a resurgence with the Presidential campaign of Cornel West—can appreciate Nietzsche’s profound reflection on the elective affinity between Christian egalitarianism and the emergence of the great secular progressive movements. But to the Nietzsche who megalomaniacally declared that there are ‘unfit peoples’ suitable only as slaves and cannon fodder in wars the world has never seen we can only offer the kiss of forgiveness. Matt McManus Matt McManus is a Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Michigan. He is the author of The Political Right and Equality and The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism , amongst other books. [1] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power (Walter Kaufmann tr, Vintage Books 1968) 287. [2] Hugo Drochon, ‘Why Nietzsche Has Once Again Become An Inspiration To The Far Right’ Australian Financial Review (Sydney, 20 September 2018) < https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/why-nietzsche-has-once-again-become-an-inspiration-to-the-farright-20180903-h14v90 > accessed 2 August 2023. [3] Richard Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich (Penguin 2005) 39-40. [4] Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Anti-Christ (Princeton University Press 2013). [5] See Michel Foucault, The Foucault Reader  (Paul Rabinow ed, Pantheon Books 1984); Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. (Penguin 2009); Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy  (Hugh Tomlinson tr, Columbia University Press 1983). [6] Mark Sedgwick, Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy (Oxford University Press 2018) xv. [7] See Ronald Beiner, Dangerous Minds: Nietzsche, Heidegger, and the Return of the Alt Right (University of Pennsylvania Press 2018). [8] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idols and the Antichrist: or How to Philosophize with a Hammer (Penguin 1990) 168-9. [9] Friedrich Nietzsche, Human All Too Human Part II (Paul V Cohn tr, MacMillan 1913) 69. [10] Keith Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker  (Cambridge University Press 1994) 29. [11] As the opening quote makes clear, this individualist reading of Nietzsche runs against his own self-conception. [12] Wendy Brown, States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (Princeton University Press 1995). [13] See Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Alan Sheridan   tr, Vintage Books 1975). [14] See Wendy Brown, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West (Columbia University Press 2019). [15] Richard Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope (Penguin 1999) 4-5. [16] See Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (3rd edn, University of Notre-Dame Press 2007). [17] See Charles Taylor, A Secular Age. (Belknap Press 2007); Matthew McManus, The Emergence of Postmodernity (Palgrave MacMillan 2022). [18] Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘The Genealogy of Morals’ in Basic Writings of Nietzsche (Walter Kaufmann tr, The Modern Library 2000) 597. [19] Ibid. [20] These efforts have in turn provoked a response from scholars who insist on the impossibility of any such fusion, and even argue that attempting it may be politically misguided or dangerous. See Nancy S Love, Marx, Nietzsche, and Modernity (Columbia University Press 1986). [21] See Deleuze and Guattari (n 5); Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Brian Massumi   tr, University of Minnesota Press 2011). [22] See Jonas Ceika, How to Philosophize with a Hammer and Sickle: Nietzsche and Marx for the Twenty-First Century  (Repeater Books 2021) 71. [23] Nietzsche (n 1) 872. [24] Domenico Losurdo, Nietzsche, The Aristocratic Rebel (Gregor Benton tr, Haymarket 2020). [25] Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil  (Walter Kaufmann tr, Penguin Books 1990) 192. [26] See Hugo Drochon, Nietzsche’s Great Politics (Princeton University Press 2016). [27] See Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘Ecce Homo’ in Basic Writings of Nietzsche  (Walter Kaufmann tr, The Modern Library 2000) 783. [28] See Robert O Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (Vintage Books 2004). [29] Nietzsche (n 8) 186. [30] Nietzsche (n 8) 106  [31] Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘The Birth of Tragedy’ in Basic Writings of Nietzsche (Walter Kaufmann tr, The Modern Library 2000) 88. [32] See Nietzsche (n 18). [33] Nietzsche (n 1) 513. [34] Nietzsche (n 8) 103-4. [35] Nietzsche (n 8) 191. [36] See Don Herzog. Poisoning the Minds of the Lower Orders (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000) [37] Nietzsche (n 8) 168-9. [38] See Corey Robin, The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump (Oxford University Press 2017). [39] Jordan Peterson,  Beyond Order: Twelve More Rules for Life (Random House Canada 2021) 162. [40] Dinesh D’Souza, United States of Socialism: Who’s Behind It. Why It’s Evil. How to Stop It (All Points Books 2020) 137. [41] See Sedgwick (n 6). [42] Julius Evola, Revolt Against the Modern World  (Guido Stucco tr, Inner Traditions International 1995) 283. [43] Lom3z, ‘What is the Longhouse?’ First Things (New York, 16 February 2023) < https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2023/02/what-is-the-longhouse > accessed 2 August 2023.

The Cambridge Journal of Law, Politics, and Art is pleased to announce its 2025 Essay Prizes in Law, Politics, and Art.   An internationally recognised, multidisciplinary journal based in the University of Cambridge and affiliated with Trinity College, the CJLPA  fosters a unique dialogue between law, politics, and art, bridging theory and practice, and robustly promoting freedom of expression. Contributors include Supreme Court judges, Nobel laureates, leading political figures, renowned artists, critics, and art historians.   Open across the three major disciplines covered in the Journal , this competition invites submissions from undergraduate students at the University of Cambridge.   Essay topics:   With separate prizes for each discipline , participants are invited to submit essays on one  of the two questions: Law: ‘He who saves his country, violates no law’ (attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, 1769–1821). Discuss. Should AI replace human judges?   Politics: ‘And so tyranny naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty’ (Plato, Republic , trans. Jowett). Discuss. Is climate change shaping international relations? If so, how? Art: Does the art market define what is or isn’t art? Restitution of the Elgin Marbles should be ‘freely offered as a homage to the indivisibility of art and—why not say it without embarrassment?—of justice, too’ (Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011). Discuss. Eligibility:   To enter the competition, participants must:   Be an undergraduate student enrolled at the University of Cambridge. Submit an original, unpublished essay that is not under consideration elsewhere. Follow CJLPA on one of our social media platforms and share or repost the competition announcement.   Submission Guidelines:   Word limit: 3,000 words (excluding footnotes and bibliography). Formatting: Times New Roman, 12 pt, double-spaced, in any widely-used referencing style. Submissions must be in PDF format and sent via email to generaleditors@cjlpa.org  with the subject line ‘ CJLPA  [Law / Politics / Arts] Essay Prize Submission – [Your Name]’. Essays will be evaluated based on originality, clarity of argument, and depth of analysis.   Prize:   For each discipline, a cash prize of £250 . An opportunity to have your work read by eminent experts in the field. Publication in CJLPA  alongside leading scholars and practitioners. Honourable mentions may also be considered for publication.   Deadline:   20 June 2025.

Russell Barnes is a Director and Producer for the documentary production company ClearStory. Clare Burns has worked in television production for 20 years and is now Production Manager at the documentary production company ClearStory. ClearStory's series  African Renaissance , on art in Ethiopia, Senegal, and Kenya, aired in 2020. Fig 1. Afua Hirsch with four descendants of the Saint Louis signares. © ClearStory.  In 2015, director and producer Russell Barnes pitched a documentary to the BBC about the lucrative and sometimes ‘dodgy’ trade in indigenous art from Africa and Oceania, which is often pejoratively termed ‘tribal art’. Barnes summarises his aims when we speak over video call:   We were interested in looking at extraordinary things that turn up in Britain and then tracing them back to where they came from, back to their ancestral roots, if you like. This idea of ‘tribal art’. Even that phrase is just...it feels weird saying it. We were asking, ‘Why is it called this?’, and thinking about how it’s been appropriated over the years.   The original premise proved something of a non-starter with commissioning editors, but it did lead to further conversations about shifting the focus away from Britain and towards the artists and cultures behind these works. The outcome was two separate series exploring the relationships between art, colonialism, and the postcolonial era. The first, Oceans Apart , was broadcast in 2018 and followed Cambridge academic Dr James Fox as he explored the clash of European and Pacific art in the colonial period. The second became African Renaissance: When Art Meets Power , presented by journalist and cultural commentator Afua Hirsch and broadcast in August 2020.   A joyful, unapologetic vision of what politically engaged art documentaries can be, African Renaissance follows Hirsch as she explores Ethiopia, Senegal, and Kenya through their vibrant creative cultures. While the films’ geographical focus is markedly different from that pitched five years earlier, the focus is on confronting the same difficult questions about European colonialism. The perspective, however, is rather different. Barnes says:   Rather than approaching it as a kind of straightforward art history from a western perspective, we wanted to make it about a dialogue between cultures. Afua is the perfect guide because she’s half Ghanaian and has a real affinity with and interest in pan-Africanism. So we had something that was very much about now with somebody who’s got distinct and interesting views about these things, but was also willing to explore.   At one point in the Senegal film, Hirsch interviews Germaine Acogny, an internationally renowned choreographer who is often described as the mother of contemporary African dance.[1] ‘What is the spirit here that makes our art so powerful?’, she asks Acogny. Her use of ‘our’, not ‘your’, speaks volumes.   Days before I speak to Barnes and the series’ production manager Clare Burns, African Renaissance  receives a nomination for the RTS Programme Awards. Barnes reflects:   I think what people really responded to was the fact that this was a really positive vision of Africa, a continent which is so often approached with this kind of hand-wringing ‘poor Africa’ attitude. It was just brilliant to be able to tell the other side of the story. And you do feel, when you’re there, this energy, extraordinary energy, a place that’s really developing fast, and in fascinating ways.   *   Working on a modest BBC Four budget, most of the initial research and planning had to take place in London. Only with the key artists, themes, and stories all worked out could Barnes and fellow producer Alex Brisland approach local production managers with a list of requests. Barnes flew out to Ethiopia to direct the first episode, and Burns joined the team in Senegal. She jokes:   Because I’m managing the budget, it’s not really a very good look to just send myself on shoots for the fun of it. But because I can speak some French, I went out as part of the crew and helped to liaise with local crew and contributors. I think I earned my keep!   The team did need to be multilingual. Hirsch had lived in Senegal and could build a rapport with her interviewees by speaking to them in French, the official language of Senegal. However, Wolof, Senegal’s real lingua franca, was also used widely. Burns adds:   One interview was in another local, lesser-known dialect, which was a challenge when we later needed transcriptions for the edit. The elderly mother of one of the local crew helped with translating that one. I sent him clips over WhatsApp which he played to his mum, and he sent back voice messages in French, which I then translated. It was a slightly long-winded process, but it worked!   Each episode was filmed in just ten days, partly because of staff availability: one of the field producers for the Ethiopia episode, Zablon Beyene, had to film an episode of Amazon’s The Grand Tour  immediately afterwards. Barnes tells me:   For our BBC Four arts travelogues, our rule of thumb was always that you do a sequence every half day. If you’ve got ten days, that’s potentially 20 sequences, and then with a bit of archive, that will be enough to make you a 59-minute BBC Four film. What’s incredible, and what we felt every single time our local producers came back with lots of amazing options, was that there weren’t any bad options. It was always, ‘What are we gonna not do?’, and that was so much to do with logistics and really working out travel times.   It may all sound rather mathematical, but events soon intervened. Burns’ crew was not able to get an overhead shot of the African Renaissance Monument in Dakar, because of difficulties sending up a drone. Burns tells me of her disappointment:   It’s the tallest statue in Africa, so of course we were very keen to do justice to the size and scale of the monument. We wanted to start the sequence with some beautiful sweeping drone shots. We had all the necessary permits, but it was too windy on the day we were there to fly the drone safely. I did carry on talking to one of the local producers afterwards, but it was not to be. He went back there later with his own drone but actually had it confiscated by the police.   In Ethiopia, a planned visit to the remote fourth-century Church of St John in Tigray was delayed when Hirsch went down with food poisoning. The rest of the team spent a day taking aerial shots of the local landscape while their presenter was ill in her hotel, and it was touch and go whether they would be able to make the climb up to the church the next day. Barnes remarks that this did add a certain poignancy:   We did want to capture the inaccessibility, so strangely, that sense of how hard it was—with Afua being ill, schlepping up the hill with lots of equipment—suited the editorial theme. It really captured what an extraordinary place it was and how hard it is to get there—an hour of walking uphill.   One of the church elders, Melake Genet Adhana, had been making that same journey for 85 years. ‘I’ve been coming here all my life’, he says simply when Hirsch asks him about it in the film. ‘I will never stop coming here and will finish my life in this place’.   The three episodes present various different ways of approaching and coexisting with African history. In the Senegal episode we are introduced to Diabel Cissokho, a musician who played at the Jazz Cafe in London just before the pandemic. Cissokho is internationally renowned for playing the kora, a traditional West African stringed instrument. He was born into a long line of griots , a caste of people tasked with keeping the community’s stories and traditions alive through poetry and music. ‘Because of the nature of the oral history, he straddles the past, the present and arguably the future in Senegal’, Burns says. Elsewhere in the country, in the city of Saint Louis, we meet four descendants of the nineteenth-century signares , affluent biracial women who held influential roles in society. These modern-day signares  use their spare time to dress up in the bright silks and filigree jewellery emblematic of their ancestors (fig 1). One, Marie-Madeleine Diallo, is a famous actress in Senegal and attracts lots of tourists wanting to take photographs. Another, Ariane Re’aux, runs a hotel in Saint Louis where the team stayed.   Then there are also dark moments, when more painful histories are confronted head on. We visit Gorée Island, a former base for the transatlantic slave trade just two miles off the coast of Dakar, Senegal’s capital. Hirsch comments in the film:   I think it’s so important that this island and the House of Slaves that still stands here [have] been preserved as a World Heritage Site, and it’s good to see people coming here and engaging with that. At the same time, I can’t help but feel a bit uneasy at the ways tourists have this experience, seeing Gorée Island as a nice day out.   In the Kenya episode, Hirsch visits Mweru Girls’ School, which shares its grounds with the former Mweru Works Camp set up by the British colonial government in the mid-twentieth century to hold suspected Mau Mau supporters. The British did not actually construct the buildings themselves, historian Chao Tayiana tells Hirsch: the detainees had to make the bricks for their own prison.   In the Ethiopia episode, the artist Eshetu Tiruneh gives us another haunting moment. Tiruneh painted Ethiopia’s experience of famine. In the West, as the film points out, what we generally remember most about the famines is Live Aid, a charity concert at which not a single African band was invited to play. We have seen the Church of St John and been reminded that it, along with Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity as a whole, predates the Vatican by centuries. It is therefore particularly jarring to hear a clip from ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas? ’ . In Tiruneh’s 1974 piece Victims of the Famine , there are no white saviours to be seen: Ethiopians support and physically carry each other through the suffering. Barnes recalls:   I was very moved by it, and I think Afua reacted to it very strongly as well. And he’d had such a difficult story. The Derg [the military junta that ruled Ethiopia between 1974 and 1991] sent him off to Moscow to be trained after Haile Selassie was toppled, so he had this life that had been twisted and turned by events, and by history, and it was fascinating talking to him, a very quiet man, very softly spoken, very sensitive, a man who’d had to kind of turn with the wind, in the very harsh politics of Ethiopia. I just thought, ‘Actually, this is exactly where the series needs to be’, this very different conception of it, from the African perspective, of who Ethiopians are, rather than how people like Bob Geldof saw Ethiopia in the 80s...   When African Renaissance  aired in late summer 2020, it did so in the wake of months of Black Lives Matter demonstrations after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In June, protesters had toppled the statue of Bristolian slave trader Edward Colston into the Avon. It is difficult not to see the films as part of that broader conversation about race, colonialism, and art, especially since their release on the BBC coincided with a rerelease of historian David Olusoga’s series Black and British: A Forgotten History . Barnes is keen to emphasise that the African Renaissance was pitched long before 2020, but, he says, the change in attitude fits with the ‘zeitgeist’.   Colonialism, and the colonial attitude, dismisses this art as ‘tribal art’ and as art that can be collected from all round the world and brought into Western museums and bought by collectors and just sold as a commodity, without thinking through what that art means in the context of where it’s made, and why it was made, and who it was made by. This series was meant to be the antidote to that, predicated on the idea that there’s this amazing, lively, dynamic, powerful art scene in Africa that’s not properly known and covered.   *   On 5 March 2021, the day Barnes, Burns, and I meet, the NGO Human Rights Watch calls on the United Nations to establish an independent inquiry into war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in Tigray.[2] It alleges that in November 2020, Eritrean and Ethiopian armed forces massacred hundreds of civilians in the town of Axum, and that the incumbent Ethiopian government has kept this covered up. This appalling event, along with the many other episodes of violence in the region that have occurred since the start of the war between the Ethiopian government and Tigray secessionists, casts a certain shadow on the central thesis of African Renaissance . It is bitterly ironic that in autumn 2019, while the   production team was editing the film, Ethiopia’s prime minister Abiy Ahmed had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.   The crew had filmed in Axum, outside the The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion where the Ark of the Covenant is supposedly located. The church was a particular target of the armed forces. I ask if this changes how the team thought about that episode. Barnes replies:   Had we been aware of what was to come, I think we would have covered things differently, but obviously it’s impossible to see that future. It was completely weird that we’d finished the series and it was about to go out. And obviously that would have changed the nuance and coloured our end conclusions, no doubt about it. We   would have been much more circumspect, I think, but   at the time we had no sense of any imminent conflict. It   didn’t feel like that at all.   Ethiopia once again faces an uncertain future, proof enough that it is impossible to squeeze Africa’s complexities into three 60-minute episodes. In spite of the programme’s ambitious title, its makers stress that they were only offering a snapshot. They hope to make a second series, looking at Nigeria and South Africa. Barnes explains: ‘It’s such a huge continent, so diverse, and we obviously tried to suggest that at the beginning of each film: we can only do a selection’. If there is one thing to take from that initial selection, it is the extraordinary boldness, creativity, and resilience of Africa and its people: rebirth not just once, but continually. Helen Grant, the interviewer, is a fourth-year undergraduate in History and Modern Languages at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. She is passionate about education, art, and using humour and visual media to connect with people and share ideas. She holds a number of roles with the edtech organisation Write the World, and spent her year abroad working as an editorial assistant for Hermès in Paris. [1] ‘Germaine Acogny’ ( École des sables ) < https://ecoledessables.org/about-us/our-team/germaine-acogny > accessed 13 March 2021. [2] ‘Ethiopia: Eritrean Forces Massacre Tigray Civilians’ ( Human Rights Watch , 5 March 2021) < https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/03/05/ethiopia-eritrean-forces-massacre-tigray-civilians > accessed 13 March 2021.

Modern commerce takes place at supersonic speed. It therefore surprises many that most of the world’s traded goods are still, at some point, carried on a container ship. Shipping by sea has been the primary means to move items around the planet for much of human history. In the present, 11 billion tons of goods are shipped each year,[1] representing around 80% of trade by volume.[2] Given how many items are shipped, then, it is unsurprising that many are lost at sea. Romantic stories of shipwrecks filled with treasure and priceless artworks persist for a reason: they are not far from the truth.   One cannot mention lost treasures in international waters without mentioning the sinking of the RMS Titanic.  While this was a human tragedy of unprecedented scale, the amount of artwork lost is also notable. The Titanic was a luxurious cruise liner on its maiden voyage to New York, and carried many wealthy travellers. It is therefore unsurprising that estimates of the value of the art on board often exceed £200 million. There have been numerous displays of recovered items. Even the most mundane items are now considered precious records of the tragedy.   The Mary Rose , another famous wreck, was also carrying a good deal of art. The Tudor carrack was lost in the Solent in 1545. Its salvaging was one of the most expensive projects of maritime archaeology. The Mary Rose  it was one of the first wrecks to be protected under the Protection   of Wrecks Act 1983. It was finally raised in 1982, and was found to contain many artefacts providing valuable insight into Tudor life.[3]   The Spanish frigate Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes  is another wreck noted for its salvage. It was sunk by the British off the coast of Portugal in 1804. It was recovered in 2007, and contained 600,000 silver and gold coins. The salvors quietly brought these to the US.[4] However, the Kingdom of Spain took the case to court, and the salvors were ordered to return the coins.[5] This decision was upheld at appeal.   Sculptures generally preserve better than other artworks under the sea. Many sculptures are recovered from shallower waters, especially the Mediterranean.[6] It is enjoyable simply to list such stories, but the purpose of this article is to summarise how the law treats shipwrecks and their valuable cargo. Who owns treasures found at sea, particularly under UK law?   International salvage   To begin with, it is worth considering how salvage and lost artworks are treated in international law.   The concept of ‘maritime salvage’ is pervasive. Maritime salvage is the right of a volunteer to a reward if they assist a ship in danger. By contrast, it is trite law that a person who voluntarily saves the property of another on land is not entitled to reward or compensation. The right to maritime salvage is upheld by English admiralty law. However, it has also been enshrined in international law through customary law, commonly accepted contracts,[7] and international treaties.[8] After all, it is politically expedient to have different rules govern this scenario on sea from on land. The sea is hazardous, and financial incentives encourage people to help vessels in need.   Maritime salvage only covers property, including cargo, if it is in danger. Therefore, it does not generally extend to historical wrecks. Wrecks may be dealt with by treaty where they pose a risk to navigation or the environment, but this is rare for historical wrecks.[9] Under English law, the wreck remains the property of her owner at the time of sinking, and under the jurisdiction of her flag state. However, not all jurisdictions agree.   Some wrecks are protected by individual treaties. In the case of the Titanic,  the UK and US governments have agreed by treaty they   will each protect the wreck and preserve it as a memorial. The treaty was signed by the UK in 2003, but only came into force in 2019 following ratification by the US.[10] Whether it has adequate ‘teeth’ remains to be seen.   The arrangements made for the Titanic are unusual. International law retains a varied and complex arrangement of treaty, customary law, and rewards offered to salvors. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 places a duty on states to protect archaeological and historic objects. However, it explicitly excludes objects with identifiable owners. The UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage 2001 represents a more recent effort to ‘enable states to better protect their submerged cultural heritage’. It is intended to provide an internationally agreed basis for dealing with historical wrecks, and it states that they are not subject to maritime salvage. Unfortunately, this Convention was heavily criticised for its broad language and has not gained international acceptance.[11]   Wrecks in the UK   I turn now to home waters. Some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes pass through the UK’s territorial waters. It is therefore unsurprising that there are thousands of wrecked ships and aircraft around the UK coast. The UK has passed statutes intended to protect wrecks and deal with the complexities of ownership. How, then, are lost treasures and artworks dealt with when recovered in the UK’s territorial waters?[12]   The Merchant Shipping Act 1995   The main piece of legislation concerning UK wrecks is the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, especially Part IX. The Act defines the role of the ‘Receiver of Wreck’, an official in the Maritime and Coastguard Agency who administers the law of wrecks and salvage. The Act prescribes that any finder of ‘wreck material’ in the UK report their find to the Receiver of Wreck. The Act states:   Duties of finder etc. of wreck.   1. If any person finds or takes possession of any wreck in United Kingdom waters or finds or takes possession of any wreck outside United Kingdom waters and brings it within those waters he shall— a. if he is the owner of it, give notice to the receiver stating that he has found or taken possession of it and describing the marks by which it may be recognised; b. if he is not the owner of it, give notice to the receiver that he has found or taken possession of it and, as directed by the receiver, either hold it to the receiver’s order or deliver it to the receiver.[13]   Subsection (2) criminalises the failure to report a wreck without reasonable excuse.   It should be noted that ‘wreck’ is not limited to shipwrecks. It includes ‘jetsam, flotsam, lagan and derelict found in or on the shores of the sea or any tidal water’.[14] These terms have clear meaning in maritime law. ‘Jetsam’ denotes goods cast overboard to lighten a vessel, even if the vessel is lost. ‘Flotsam’ denotes goods that remain afloat after their ship has sunk. ‘Lagan’ is similar to jetsam: it denotes goods, cast overboard from a ship that perishes, which have been buoyed that they be recovered later. Finally, ‘derelict’ denotes all property, ship or cargo, that has been abandoned without hope of recovery. Derelict is the most relevant to historical shipwrecks and their cargo.   Under English law, the owner of a ship that is wrecked also owns the wreck. Therefore, the Receiver of Wreck will track down the owner of the wrecked ship and its cargo and ensure that they receive a fair salvage award, if one is applicable. If the wreck remains unclaimed for one year, it becomes Crown property.[15]   The Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 and The Protection of Military Remains Act 1986   The Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 lets the UK designate specific wrecks as ‘protected wrecks’ if they have historical, archaeological, or artistic value. Diving is prohibited around such wrecks unless a special licence is obtained.[16] The Act contains a separate mechanism prohibiting access to dangerous wrecks.[17] It also requires that the exact location of a wreck become a matter of public record. However, this encourages treasure hunters. Perhaps the best protection for famous wrecks would be to keep their locations mysterious.   The military remains of British persons, or of those operating from British ships, are now protected under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986. The Act applies even if they lie outside of UK territorial waters. This highlights a key issue.   Both Acts create legal regimes of protection and regulation. However, they are in practice very difficult to enforce, since wrecks are often in isolated locations.   Closing remarks   The law encompassing maritime wrecks and historical artefacts is complex. By its very nature it raises difficult jurisdictional issues, since shipwrecks do not conveniently conform to the international boundaries of their flag state.   States are increasingly taking steps to protect their cultural heritage. Many, including the UK, have passed legislation to protect culturally significant shipwrecks. However, approaches to such legislation have varied around the world, and to date, attempts to harmonise the international law have been without significant success.   The good news is that many states have passed domestic measures to protect important shipwrecks and ensure that their cultural heritage is preserved.   Whatever the jurisdiction and the legal issues, it is clear that historical wrecks present significant cultural value to the world and must be preserved and protected as much as possible.   The sea is a vast and wondrous place, filled with mystery, danger, and hardship. The romantic notion of treasures on and under the high seas is far from a historical fiction, and seems destined to persist far into the future. Serhan Handani   Serhan Handani was admitted as a solicitor in 2018 and currently maintains a civil litigation practice at Bramsdon & Childs. He completed an LLM in Maritime Law at the University of Southampton and has previously worked in seafarers’ rights initiatives and with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Serhan retains a keen interest in the field of maritime law. [1] International Chamber of Shipping, ‘Shipping and world trade: driving prosperity’ < https://www.ics-shipping.org/shipping-fact/shipping-and-world-trade-driving-prosperity/ > accessed 1 March 2021. [2] United Nations, UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport 2020  20. accessed 1 March 2021. [3] See David Childs, The Warship  Mary Rose : The Life and Times of King Henry VIII’s Flagship  (Chatham Publishing 2007). [4] Kimberley Alderman, ‘Federal Court Orders Treasure Hunters Return Coin Trove to Spain’ ( Cultural Property & Archaeology Law , 20 February 2012) < https://culturalpropertylaw.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/federal-court-orders-treasure-hunters-return-coin-trove-to-spain/ > accessed 1 March 2021. [5]  Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc v The Unidentified Shipwrecked Vessel et al  (Odyssey II), 657 F3d 1159 (2011). [6] The Antikythera wreck is an example. Lost off the Greek coast in the first century BC, it was discovered in 1900 with many sculptures. [7] Notably the Lloyd’s Open Form (LOF). [8] The 1989 Salvage Convention is the most important of the recent treaties. [9] See the Nairobi Wreck Removal Convention 2007. [10] Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Agreement concerning the Shipwrecked Vessel RMS Titanic  (Treaty Series 8, 2019). [11] See Hayley Roberts, ‘The British Ratification of the Underwater Heritage Convention: Problems and Prospects’ (2018) 67(4) International and Commercial Law Quarterly 833. [12] I use ‘territorial waters’ to denote an area of sea over which a state has jurisdiction. This includes ‘territorial sea’, ‘contiguous zones’, and ‘exclusive economic area’. These terms are defined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982. A state’s territorial sea extends 12 nautical miles from its ‘baseline’. A state’s exclusive economic zone extends up to 200 nautical miles from its ‘baseline’. See Marine Regions < https://www.marineregions.org/eezmapper.php > for a useful map of these zones. [13] Merchant Shipping Act 1995 s 236. [14] ibid s 255. [15] ibid s 241. [16] Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 s 1. [17] ibid s 2.

Introduction   The 2015 Paris Agreement was a pivotal moment in the struggle against climate change. While previous climate agreements had failed to unify the nations of the world in effecting concerted emissions reductions policies, Paris marked a new era of optimism. An unprecedented 196 nations signed a legally binding treaty with the goal of preventing an average global temperature rise of more than 2°C.[1] Of particular significance was Article 6.2, which detailed the use of ‘internationally transferred mitigation outcomes towards nationally determined contributions’.[2] In other words, this referred to the implementation of international market-based carbon pricing mechanisms to deliver emissions reductions.   The modus operandi behind carbon pricing is to account for the external cost to society of producing emissions (externalities) by internalising it into the price of conducting the polluting activity.[3] The price of goods in an economy experiencing a carbon pricing policy will therefore partially mirror the overall greenhouse gas emissions embedded within the goods.[4] There is a wealth of literature concerning different carbon pricing strategies, but carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes (ETSs) are by far the most prevalent.[5] In both of these market-based systems, a price is imposed for each tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by polluters, to incentivise emissions abatement at the lowest cost. More than 90 countries have declared an intention to develop carbon pricing policies, and the World Bank states that there are 64 existing pricing initiatives, covering 22.3% of global emissions.[6] However, the vast majority of emissions remain unpriced, which can result in a phenomenon known as carbon leakage.   Carbon (or emissions) leakage is the relocation of emissions from one jurisdiction enforcing a carbon price to another in which there is a lesser or no carbon price.[7] Emissions leakage can occur via two primary routes. a) A reduction in demand for fossil fuels in emissions-abating countries may provoke an increased demand for them in non-abating countries following a drop in fuel prices. b) Energy-intensive and trade-exposed (EITE) industries may relocate to non-abating jurisdictions because of competition from overseas industries that face lower or no carbon prices.[8] A border carbon adjustment (BCA) can be implemented to combat the latter, and more indirectly, the former. A BCA taxes imports from non-abating countries, offers rebates for exports to these countries based on the emissions intensity of the products, or does both.[9] A BCA strives to level the international playing field by transferring the onus of emissions abatement to non-abating countries while establishing trade neutrality between taxed domestic and untaxed foreign goods.[10] While BCAs may be well-intentioned, the process of implementing them on the global stage is fraught with legal and political challenges which may inhibit their development, or even undo the international progress on climate that was achieved in Paris.   Border carbon adjustments   Besides BCAs, there are many other mechanisms with which to counter emissions leakage. These include output-based rebates (OBRs), free allocations of emissions credits, and specific industry exemptions from carbon pricing. Modelling by Christoph Böhringer, Jared C Carbone, and Thomas F Rutherford found that although all of these instruments go some way to reduce leakage, BCAs were the most effective.[11] In the 2012 Stanford Energy Modelling Forum, a consortium of a dozen models showed that BCAs could reduce leakage by 2–12%, with an average value of 8%, by levying a fee on the carbon content of imports.[12] These results indicate that, although effective, the fuel leakage channel and other economic drivers may be more influential in steering emissions leakage.[13]   The efficacy of BCAs, therefore, must be balanced against the complex and varied impacts that imposing them have. The key areas to be considered are competitiveness, international trade relations, and distributive impacts, although there are strong linkages between these areas.   Competitiveness   The driving force behind the implementation of a BCA is to ensure that domestic firms are not disadvantaged when competing against international organisations that are not subject to equivalent emissions regulations. As such, a BCA is considered by many to be a form of protectionism, of disputed legality.   The WTO General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Article I (‘most favoured nation clause’) concerning national treatment prohibits discrimination against ‘like’ products of different origins.[14] Article III concerns whether process and production methods (PPMs) affect the ‘like-ness’ of products created by processes of different carbon emissions intensity, and whether different product origins should be subject to this rule.[15] It has subsequently been argued that general discrimination based on PPMs would not be valid without a GATT exception, although this is contested.[16] GATT Article XX permits exceptions to Article I to protect human, animal, and plant life or to conserve finite natural resources.[17] The validity of this statement is likewise subject to heated debate, although many feel that this is a legitimate exception.   Furthermore, GATT Article II(a) permits members to impose a charge equivalent to an existing internal tax via an indirect  tax.[18] Only indirect taxes are permitted to be adjusted on the border. It must therefore be established whether a BCA qualifies as direct or indirect, as direct taxes would be viewed as a subsidy and not an adjustment under the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM).[19] The major distinction between the two is that indirect taxes are generally mirrored in the price of the product, while direct taxes are not.[20] The majority of scholars, then, do accept that a BCA qualifies as an indirect tax, and that it would therefore be allowed, in theory, under these regulations.[21]   Ultimately, these exceptions are not clear-cut, and the nuances surrounding them are debated at length. It is uncertain exactly what constitutes unfair treatment of international exporters, and whether putting a higher fee on more emissions-intensive imported goods than on cleaner domestic goods, contravenes these trade rules.[22] WTO case law suggests that setting assumed emissions intensity levels for specific countries would qualify as discrimination, but that setting levels for the carbon content of specific foreign products might be permissible.[23] Here, though, there is a difficulty in determining the embedded carbon content of foreign goods, as this information is not always readily accessible. This adds another layer of administrative complexity and cost to proceedings.[24]   It is also worth investigating whether climate policy adds a significant burden to domestic producers which could result in relocation to other jurisdictions. Currently almost half of carbon pricing initiatives hold a value of carbon of below $10 per tonne, which is often of lesser significance when compared with labour, transportation, and energy costs of business.[25] It is likely that these other factors contribute more meaningfully in decisions for more energy-intensive companies to relocate. However, some schemes surging in price—the EU ETS and UK ETS have surpassed €50 and £50 per tonne respectively—this factor may become more significant in the coming decade.[26]   By contrast, Henrik Horn and Petros C Mavroidis argue that promoting competitiveness of domestic firms is not a legitimate rationale for BCAs.[27] They state that the goals of competitiveness stand in stark contrast to the objectives of climate mitigation, for which a BCA would be implemented. Additionally, they argue that the literature naively assumes that BCAs will not serve protectionist purposes, whereas in the trade community it is accepted that the majority of BCA policies are in some way protectionistic. The fact that competitiveness and climate mitigation are so closely intertwined in a BCA means that a poorly designed policy may result in nothing more than a greenwashed protectionist policy.[28] Similarly, it may be challenging to extricate the different motives behind this policy, which may hinder its political and public acceptance. It is equally possible that a BCA that could be seen as overly protective of domestic industry may provoke an international political backlash that may impact trade relations and climate agreements.   International relations   Inevitably, the implementation of a BCA in one jurisdiction or bloc may cause tensions with other exporting nations depending on their exposure to the effects of the policy. The share of fossil fuels in the energy mix, the quantity of exports to the BCA-imposing region, and the emissions intensity of the exports will all determine the susceptibility of a nation’s trade.[29] For instance, India, China and OPEC nations—as large fossil fuel and manufacturing exporters— would likely oppose any such policy and perhaps impose retaliatory tariffs which could result in a trade war.[30] The Paris Agreement has always rested on unstable foundations, as demonstrated by the USA’s withdrawal in 2017, so it is plausible that a BCA seen as targeting a group of nations may result in a splintering, or even a reversal, of the work Paris has achieved.   Moreover, in the absence of a global emissions pricing scheme, different BCAs at different borders could result in a labyrinth of complex border adjustments that would frustrate international trade. North America illustrates the difficulties that this would entail should BCAs be established in the US or Canada. Because the US failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and rejected the 2009 Waxman-Markey Bill, it has introduced no economy-wide carbon price or emissions trading scheme.[31] Instead, individual states have pushed for specific mitigation options, such as the emissions trading scheme established in California, in what has been described as a wave of ‘new federalism’ by Dan Lashof, US President of the World Resources Institute.[32] By contrast, Canada has laid the plans for a progressive carbon tax set to reach CA $170 by 2030, and has numerous extant provincial sectoral policies. This does raise the question of how these two nations could navigate new BCAs or equivalent emissions abatement measures. With a myriad of different carbon pricing structures, it seems likely that trade channels may develop that avoid a BCA in states or provinces imposing such a high carbon price. Indeed, the economic and political complexity of trade adjustments that would arise between these two historically strong trading partners could outweigh any environmental benefits that could be had. Moreover, in no national jurisdiction is there one sole carbon price in place. Instead there are rich tapestries of regulations and climate policies. Should BCAs be implemented on a global scale, questions of how to evaluate and compare other nations’ climate policies will be asked and will undoubtedly lead to international disputes over trade.[33]   On the other hand, there is a school of thought that BCAs, rather than provoking division, might encourage non-abating countries to impose similar carbon pricing structures, or even to join a climate coalition of nations.[34] Indeed, by transferring the burden of emissions abatement to non-acting countries via a BCA, reductions can be achieved at the lowest global cost through ‘where-flexibility’, by increasing the global efficiency of abatement.[35] Yet this might also promote regional disparities.[36]   Distributive impacts   On shifting the onus of emissions reduction responsibility onto the shoulders of non-abating nations, it is argued that this may defy the ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ statement enshrined into law.[37] This UN declaration dictates that although all nations share similar climate aims, historically less economically developed countries should not bear equal responsibility for emissions abatement to polluting nations. It is suggested that less economically developed nations could be exempted from BCAs, although some argue that this would violate the aforementioned ‘Most Favoured Nation’ GATT principle.[38] Although the WTO ‘Enabling Clause’ permits some favourable treatment to these nations through policies aimed at advancing development, this is unlikely to fall within the remit of a BCA.[39]   The design and structure of a BCA would determine which industries and emissions were included within the policy’s bounds. Whether all greenhouse gas emissions contribute to the embedded emissions of goods, or only carbon dioxide, will disproportionately affect some nations. Madanmohan Ghosh, Deming Luo, Muhammad Shahid Siddiqui, and Yunfa Zhu demonstrated, using a general equilibrium model taking into account both CO2 and non-CO2 emissions sources, that nations with a strong agricultural contribution to GDP, such as Brazil, are more acutely affected by BCAs—two thirds of Brazil’s emissions stem from non-CO2 sources.[40] Despite global gains in cost efficiency, and reduced leakage rates, broad-based greenhouse gas BCAs are perhaps unlikely given their tendency to increase welfare disparity in large agricultural nations.   Given that a BCA’s raison d’être is to protect EITE industries, for reasons of pragmatism it is likely that BCA policies will focus solely on these sectors.[41] Because these industries have strong lobbying power, it is improbable that further manufacturing industries and sectors would be included. As a BCA is expanded, the benefits gained by a specific industry become smaller, because the export rebates offered are reduced. This would therefore erode the power base driving for the BCA.[42] However, a strong incentive for implementing carbon pricing policies such as ETSs or carbon taxes must be remembered: the revenue stream, which can be used to alleviate other distortionary taxes or in further low-carbon investments.[43] Indeed, there is a growing desire for this income to benefit low-income communities that disproportionately experience the effects of pollution.[44] However, rebates would ensure that a proportion of the finance generated by a BCA would support EITE industries instead. This could be seen as politically divisive, and could exacerbate welfare disparity in low-income communities.[45]   The EU Border Carbon Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)   Despite many scholars having expressed doubt that BCAs will be established, we are now seeing the concept taking its first steps. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, announced that the EU would set up a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), which is now expected to commence in 2023.[46] Initially, it will cover only EITE industries, but it will have inbuilt flexibility to expand in the future should there be an appetite for this.[47] Ahead of the COP26 (Conference of Parties) summit, and with many countries increasing their climate ambition and drive towards net zero, the establishment of the CBAM sends a clear signal to non-abating nations. There is a wealth of discussion and research on the topics covered in this article, on how to implement a BCA while maximising the environmental benefit and minimising the geopolitical, legal, and welfare-related backlash, and on how to fine-tune policy to ensure this.[48] Nevertheless, as might be expected, the BRICS countries have condemned the EU’s move to implement the CBAM. China, India, South Africa, and Brazil labelled the policy as ‘discriminatory’ in a joint statement, while Russia has cast doubt over the legality of the policy with respect to WTO rules.[49]   Additionally, for the CBAM to be permitted under WTO rules, a restructuring of the EU ETS may be required. Currently, a certain number of allowances is granted to EITE and other industries, free of charge, to prevent leakage. This is known as ‘grandfathering’.[50] It may need to be re-evaluated in light of a new border carbon policy, because of the preferential treatment EITE industries may receive should both policies be present.   Despite its detractors, the implementation and performance of the CBAM will be highly influential in guiding carbon pricing over the coming decades. Time will tell whether it will be accepted under WTO rules and whether this would bring a significant international backlash. Whether the CBAM has the power to unite or divide the nations of the world in fighting climate remains to be seen.   Conclusions   A BCA would be a novel weapon in the arsenal against climate change. Its promises in reducing leakage, bringing in revenue, and aligning global ambitions on climate make it an attractive proposition. However, its basis in WTO law, international relations, and welfare distribution must be evaluated and resolved lest it work against the very climate goals it is intended to achieve. The recently developed EU CBAM is the first real test the BCA has to endure. Its robustness and resolve will be scrutinised carefully on the world stage.   Ultimately, however, a BCA is only a second-best instrument that lies far from the potential that a global emissions trading scheme might achieve.[51] Given that this looks very unlikely, the EU CBAM may set a precedent in emissions pricing. However, rather than using a BCA to strong-arm international emissions reductions, many believe that linkages between pricing mechanisms in ‘carbon clubs’ could be employed instead to encourage international abatement.[52] Support is building for these clubs, but the variegated mosaic of unique market structures that exists may make it challenging to facilitate linkages in the coming years. The direction major economies take on this road will be instrumental in determining how the world addresses the climate crisis. The COP26 summit set to be held in Glasgow in November 2021, therefore, will be pivotal in outlining the roadmap for this target. It may be the most important conference since Paris in guiding effective climate policy towards a zero-emission global economy. Callum Winstock   Callum Winstock is an MSc student in Energy and Environment at Lancaster University. He completed an undergraduate degree in Chemistry at Durham University. He works alongside his studies as an analyst at CaliforniaCarbon.info, a US climate finance analysis company specialising in North American carbon markets. He is excited to contribute to the new energy transition and will begin working in a graduate role at EDF Energy in September 2021. [1] UNFCCC, ‘The Paris Agreement’ (2021) < https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement > accessed 20 May 2021. [2] United Nations, Paris Agreement (2015) < https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf > accessed 20 May 2021. [3] James K Boyce, ‘Carbon Pricing: Effectiveness and Equity’ (2018) 150 Ecological Economics 52. [4] Andrea Baranzini, Jeroen CJM van den Bergh, Stefano Carattini, Richard B. Howarth, Emilio Padilla, and Jordi Roca, ‘Carbon pricing in climate policy: seven reasons, complementary instruments, and political economy considerations’ (2017) 8(4) Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change e462. [5] Joseph E Aldy and Robert Stavins, ‘The Promise and Problems of Pricing Carbon: Theory and Experience’ (2012) 21(2) The Journal of Environment & Development 26. [6] Kshama Harpankar, ‘Internal carbon pricing: rationale, promise and limitations’ (2019) 10(2) Carbon Management 219; World Bank, ‘Carbon Pricing Dashboard | Up-to-date overview of carbon pricing initiatives’ < https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/map_data > accessed 19 April 2021. [7] Christoph Böhringer, Edward J Balistreri, and Thomas F Rutherford, ‘The role of border carbon adjustment in unilateral climate policy: Overview of an Energy Modeling Forum study (EMF 29)’ (2012) 34 Energy Economics S97. [8] Stefano F Verde, ‘The Impact of the EU Emissions Trading System on Competitiveness and Carbon Leakage: The Econometric Evidence’ (2020) 34(2) Journal of Economic Surveys 320. [9] Justin Caron, ‘Estimating carbon leakage and the efficiency of border adjustments in general equilibrium — Does sectoral aggregation matter?’ (2012) 34 Energy Economics S111. [10] Ludivine Tamiotti, ‘The legal interface between carbon border measures and trade rules’ (2011) 11(5) Climate Policy 1202. [11] Christoph Böhringer, Jared C Carbone, and Thomas F Rutherford, ‘Unilateral climate policy design: Efficiency and equity implications of alternative instruments to reduce carbon leakage’ (2012) 34 Energy Economics S208. [12] Böhringer, Balistreri, and Rutherford (n 7). [13] Joseph E Aldy, ‘Frameworks for Evaluating Policy Approaches to Address the Competitiveness Concerns of Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emissions’ (2017) 70(2) National Tax Journal 395. [14] WTO, ‘WTO | legal texts - Marrakesh Agreement’ (1947) < https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/gatt47_01_e.htm#art3 > accessed 26 May 2021. [15] Jason Potts and International Institute for Sustainable Development, The legality of PPMs under the GATT (International Institute for Sustainable   Development 2008). [16] Christine Kaufmann and Rolf H Weber, ‘Carbon-related border tax adjustment: mitigating climate change or restricting international trade?’ (2011) 10(4) World Trade Review 497. [17] Tamiotti (n 10); WTO (n 14). [18] WTO (n 14). [19] Kaufmann and Weber (n 16); Tamiotti (n 10); Aaron Cosbey, Susanne Droege, Carolyn Fischer, and Clayton Munnings, ‘Developing Guidance for Implementing Border Carbon Adjustments: Lessons, Cautions, and Research Needs from the Literature’ (2019) 13(1) Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 3; WTO Working Party, ‘Border Tax Adjustments’ (1970) < https://www.worldtradelaw.net/reports/gattpanels/bordertax.pdf.download > accessed 26 May 2021. [20] Paul Demaret and Raoul Stewardson, ‘Border Tax Adjustments under GATT and EC Law and General Implications for Environmental Taxes’ (1994) 28(4) Journal of World Trade; Kaufmann and Weber (n 16). [21] Joost Pauwelyn, ‘Carbon leakage measures and border tax adjustments under WTO law’ in Geert Van Calster and Denise Prévost (eds), Research Handbook on Environment, Health and the WTO  (Edward Elgar Publishing   2013). [22] Cosbey, Droege, Fischer, and Munnings (n 19). [23] Pauwelyn (n 21). [24] Cosbey, Droege, Fischer, and Munnings (n 19). [25] World Bank, ‘State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2020’ (2020) accessed 26 May 2021. [26] Aldy (n 13); Camilla Hodgson and David Sheppard, ‘Cost of polluting in EU soars as carbon price hits record €50’ Financial Times  (London, 4 May 2021) < https://www.ft.com/content/2b965427-4fbc-4f2a-a14f-3be6019f0a7c > accessed 21 May 2021; Camilla Hodgson and David Sheppard, ‘UK carbon price trades at £50 as market opens for first time’ Financial Times (London 19 May 2021) < https://www.ft.com/content/56e02d3d-8c31-4937-be50-60d4bf9342f7 > accessed 21 May 2021. [27] Henrik Horn and Petros C Mavroidis, ‘To B(TA) or Not to B(TA)? On the Legality and Desirability of Border Tax Adjustments from a Trade Perspective’ (2011) 34(11) The World Economy 1911. [28] Kaufmann and Weber (n 16). [29] Randolph Bell, Carbon border adjustment: a powerful tool if paired with a just energy transition  (2012)   < https://oecd-development-matters.org/2020/10/27/carbon-border-adjustment-a-powerful-tool-if-paired-with-a-just-energy-transition/ >   accessed 17 May 2021. [30] Aldy (n 13); Matthias Weitzel, Michael Hübler, and Sonja Peterson, ‘Fair, optimal or detrimental? Environmental vs. strategic use of border carbon adjustment’ (2012) 34 Energy Economics S198. [31] Noah Kaufman, John Larsen, Ben King, and Peter Marsters, OUTPUT-BASED REBATES: AN ALTERNATIVE TO BORDER CARBON ADJUSTMENTS FOR PRESERVING US COMPETITIVENESS  (2020) 18. [32] Callum Winstock, ‘Exclusive Interview: Kevin Poloncarz (Part 2) on State & Federal Regulatory Interplay, Cross-Border Carbon Equivalence, and Voluntary Offsets’ ( CaliforniaCarbon.info , 14 April 2021) < https://www.californiacarbon.info/exclusive-interview-kevin-poloncarz-part-2-on-state-federal-regulatory-interplay-cross-border-carbon-equivalence-and-voluntary-offsets/ > accessed 13 May 2021. [33] Kaufman, Larsen, King, and Marsters (n 31); Aldy (n 13). [34] Christoph Böhringer, ‘Alternative designs for tariffs on embodied carbon: A global cost-effectiveness analysis’ (2012) 34 Energy Economics S143. [35] John P Weyant, ‘The costs of the Kyoto Protocol: a multi-model evaluation’ (1999) 26 The Energy Journal 131. [36] Elisa Lanzi, Jean Chateau, and Rob Dellink, ‘Alternative approaches for levelling carbon prices in a world with fragmented carbon markets’ (2012) 34 Energy Economics S240. [37] Christopher D Stone, ‘Common but Differentiated Responsibilities in International Law’ (2004) 98(2) The American Journal of International Law 276. [38] Bell (n 29). [39] Cosbey, Droege, Fischer, and Munnings (n 19). [40] Madanmohan Ghosh, Deming Luo, Muhammad Shahid Siddiqui, and Yunfa Zhu, ‘Border tax adjustments in the climate policy context: CO2 versus broad-based GHG emission targeting’ (2012) 34 Energy Economics S154. [41] Lanzi, Chateau, and Dellink (n 36). [42] Aldy (n 13). [43] David Pearce, ‘The Role of Carbon Taxes in Adjusting to Global Warming’ (1991) 101(407) The Economic Journal 938; David Klenert, Linus Mattauch, Emmanuel Combet, Ottmar Edenhofer, Cameron Hepburn, Ryan Rafaty, and Nicholas Stern, ‘Making carbon pricing work for citizens’ (2018) 8(8) Nature Climate Change 669. [44] James B Bushnell, ‘(Overly) Great Expectations: Carbon Pricing and Revenue Uncertainty in California’ (2017) 70(4) National Tax Journal 837. [45] Aldy (n 13). [46] Susanne Dröge, The EU’s CO2 Border Adjustment: Climate or Fiscal Policy? (2020) < https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/publication/the-eus-co2-border-adjustment-climate-or-fiscal-policy/ > accessed 26 May 2021. [47] Ewa Krukowska, ‘The World’s First Carbon Border Tariff, Explained’ ( Bloomberg , 9 Apr 2021) < https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-09/how-to-understand-the-eu-s-carbon-import-levy > accessed 25 May 2021. [48] European Parliament, ‘Trade related aspects of a carbon border adjustment mechanism: A legal assessment’ (2020); European Commission, ‘Inception Impact Assessment’ (2020) < https://www.euractiv.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/07/CBAM.pdf > accessed 26 May 2021. [49] South African Government, ‘Joint Statement issued at the conclusion of the 30th BASIC Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change hosted by India on 8th April 2021’ (8 April 2021) < https://www.gov.za/nr/speeches/joint-statement-issued-conclusion-30th-basic-ministerial-meeting-climate-change-hosted > accessed 26 May 2021; Sam Morgan, ‘Moscow cries foul over EU’s planned carbon border tax’ ( EURACTIV.com , 27 July 2020) < https://www.euractiv.com/section/economy-jobs/news/moscow-cries-foul-over-eus-planned-carbon-border-tax/ > accessed 26 May 2021. [50] European University Institute, ‘A WAY FORWARD FOR A CARBON BORDER ADJUSTMENT MECHANISM BY THE EU’ (2020) < https://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/69155/PB_2020_06_STG.pdf > accessed 17 May 2021; Aldy and Stavins (n 5). [51] Böhringer, Balistreri, and Rutherford (n 7). [52] William D Nordhaus, ‘Climate Clubs: Overcoming Free-riding in International Climate Policy’ (2015) 105(4) The American Economic Review 1339; Nathaniel Keohane, Annie Petsonk, and Alex Hanafi, Toward a club of carbon markets’ (2017) 144(1) Climatic Change 81.

Turrets and spires tower over rich façades and stained-glass windows. Ornate vases sprout up from formal Versaillais parterres made of shrubs and roses. All is reflected in a rectangular pond surrounded by maniacally manicured grass which would inspire envy in the most immaculate Oxbridge lawn. Instead of a royal residence or university quad, though, these grounds host an international court. The building is the Peace Palace, seat of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. As the principal judicial body of the United Nations, the ICJ settles disputes between states and gives opinions on contentious points of international law.   This sumptuous courthouse is a physical manifestation of certain abstract debates on the sources of legitimacy of the international legal system, and on the cultural unity of different societies. International organisations often fail to inspire the instinctive loyalty that citizens feel for their domestic institutions.[1] By manipulating our perception of what international organisations look like, grandiose buildings can, quite literally, construct their institutions’ legitimacy.[2] Furthermore, multiple states must cooperate to establish international legal institutions. Therefore, their sites are designed to reflect shared cultural elements of multiple founder nations, even though those nations may vary greatly in social, political, and economic character. Designers of international courthouses must therefore explore what defines human culture and must physically immortalise it. This article will focus on the buildings not only of the ICJ but also of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which too is in The Hague, and of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), in Luxembourg.   The ICJ: A palace for peace   The Peace Palace was originally built to host inter-state arbitrations, which had been a popular means of dispute resolution since the late nineteenth century. Arbitration was used in commercial disputes but also as an alternative to war, slowing down an increasingly costly European arms race. In 1905, 216 proposed designs for the newv courthouse were submitted. The French architect Louis Cordonnier and British landscapist Thomas Mawson won the contract, and the building was inaugurated in 1913. Fig 1. The Peace Palace, which was designed by Louis Cordonnier in 1913. The court’s interior, exterior, and gardens were intended to convey the legitimacy of its institution. Symbolism links the building to the universal ideal of peace.[3] The vaults over the vestibule and ceremonial staircase depict Greek goddesses associated with peace and prosperity. The stained-glass windows along the corridors and in the Great Hall of Justice depict a series of stages in human life and history. They thus suggest the immortality of peace and, by extension, of the Court itself. Gifts from around the world were used as materials, strengthening the sense of international unity: marble from Italy, iron gates from Germany, stained glass from Britain, granite from Norway, jasper from Russia, wood from the Caribbean, and silk tapestry from Japan.   The gardens use symbolism to the same end. Wide terraces make the Palace visually prominent. Religious metaphors abound. The exedrae of the pond resemble the transept of an early Christian basilica. The radially expanding parterres that once spread out here recalled the apsidal chapels of Gothic cathedrals. Plants were chosen with care. Roses, a universal symbol of love, dominate the northern parterres. Small-leaved shrubs and trees create a sense of spaciousness meant to foster peace and intellectual reflection.   For all its symbolism, the Palace was heavily criticised upon its inauguration. Even in the early 1900s, when a few imperial powers dominated the globe through a mix of military coercion and pseudoscientific racism, critics chastised the cultural limitations of the design. Some thought that Cordonnier had taken too much inspiration from sixteenth-century Dutch architecture.[4] Why would a palace meant to represent the universal ideal of peace adopt such a geographically limited style? Moreover, in the sixteenth and seventeenth century the Netherlands had fought the Eighty Years’ War to gain independence from Spain. Some argued that this made Dutch architecture an odd source of inspiration for a palace of peace. Some of Cordonnier’s contemporaries, though, believed that he was not influenced by Dutch architecture at all. The New York Times argued that he was inspired by the Sicilian Romanesque style, which contains elements of Norman and Arabic origin.[5] Perhaps this confusion ultimately serves the institution’s purposes, the lack of a clear architectural inspiration exemplifying the universal nature of the ICJ.   The ICC: Holding the fort   The sandy dunes and dry bushes between The Hague and the North Sea are very different from the glamorous belle époque neighbourhood surrounding the Peace Palace. However, the International Criminal Court chose this desolate location precisely because of its isolation. The ICC deals with persons accused of international crimes such as genocide and crimes against humanity. In 2010, therefore, it instructed the Danish firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects to focus on security concerns when designing the building. The ICC also faced a crisis of legitimacy, as powerful non-member countries such as the US and China hampered its work. The Court therefore wanted its new headquarters to assert its legitimacy by visually communicating its values of transparency and accountability.[6] These instructions resulted in a building designed to both maximise security and embody the Court’s values. Fig 2. The International Criminal Court, which was designed by Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects in 2010. The building comprises six towers connected at ground level, and the courtrooms are located in the central tower, which is the tallest. The towers represent hope by ensuring good light and sea views, but they are also surrounded by a moat, which calls to mind a medieval castle. Glass is prominent in the exterior of five of the towers, stressing transparency, but the glass is opaque, obscuring the people working inside for their security. The trapezoidal windows are positioned at differing angles to reflect sunlight. This creates a feeling of glittering movement, but it also hinders snipers. The building has a neutral colour palette, evoking the impartiality of the judicial process and avoiding any colour emblematic of a particular country. However, since extensive whites would interfere with CCTV, the beiges and greys also aid surveillance. In addition, the building’s desolate landscape prevents acts of terrorism: nearby dunes expose anyone scaling them and make it impossible for cars to get close.[7] The design of the ICC building therefore manages to ‘keep one step ahead of the terrorists’[8] while also communicating values of openness and democracy.   The CJEU: Golden towers   The Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg is far-removed, physically and stylistically, from the bleak dunes and muted tones of the ICC. Unlike the ICC, the CJEU is not a criminal court. It is the main judicial organ of the EU, and as such deals with a variety of civil matters including intellectual property, competition, and the single market. Dominique Perrault, the architect who oversaw the CJEU’s major expansion between 1996 and 2019, wanted to underline the CJEU’s twin roles: shaping the EU as a constitutional polity, and mediating between the EU’s member states and its institutions.[9] Accordingly, all design choices were made to create a grand building, the tallest in Luxembourg, that would reflect the might of the EU judicial order.   The CJEU building comprises three golden towers, which dominate the Kirchberg plateau and are easily spotted from Luxembourg’s Old Town. They host the CJEU’s translation services, in charge of ensuring that the CJEU’s cases and documents are interpreted and translated into the 24 official languages of the EU. Placing the translators in the most prominent part of the building symbolises the CJEU’s cultural diversity as well as the access to justice it promotes.   The CJEU’s main courtroom might be the most grandiose space of all. It is accessed via a large, lugubrious entrance hall— the French term salle des pas perdus , ‘hall of lost steps’, is apt—and a staircase of black corten steel. Given this, one feels awed upon entering the courtroom. Inside, gold covers the walls, curtains, lecterns, and chairs. Although the courtroom is partially underground, sunlight floods in from above, filtered through a golden aluminium mesh resembling a blossoming flower. The CJEU building can be seen to represent a modern interpretation of the desire for prestige and grandiosity already embodied in the Peace Palace a century earlier.   Shared gardens and shared history   The three court buildings have common elements all intended to express legitimacy through architecture. For example, all three carefully chose their historical precedents. This is standard practice in architecture when it needs to send a message of authority and prestige: consider the neoclassicism of British imperial buildings and US federal buildings. The ICJ provides the most obvious example, incorporating Gothic, Dutch Renaissance, and Italian Baroque elements. The ICC also imitates the keep, gatehouse, and moat of a medieval castle. While the ICJ’s use of history can be attributed to an early-twentieth-century taste for revivalism, that of the ICC is best attributed to a focus on security. The CJEU also looked to history in its quest for prestige. Its original 1973 building is wrapped like a Greek temple in a pronaos of 116 columns of ten metres each. As the Athenian Acropolis dominated the Attican valley, so the CJEU dominates Luxembourg from the Kirchberg plateau as a modern-day citadel of the EU’s legal power.   Legitimacy can also be expressed through references to the cultures of member states. After all, citizens feel closer to organisations that are culturally familiar. This can be achieved by asking member states to loan or donate works of art, as was done for both the ICJ and CJEU buildings. Architects also consider the cultures of the member states at the planning stage. The features these courthouses share therefore embody what culturally unites disparate countries from every corner of the world.   All three courthouses have gardens. The ICC features five courtyard gardens and one vertical garden atop the courtroom tower. Plants are included from each of the ICC’s 124 member states to emphasise interdependence. The CJEU is planting a ‘garden of multilingualism’ to celebrate the cultural diversity of the EU. Water is another feature the three buildings have in common. The ICJ’s long pool represents peace and harmony. The ICC’s moat enhances security but also creates a tranquil space between the gatehouse and the main building.   While attending an academic conference a year ago, I sat on a bench under a vine-covered pergola at one end of the ICJ’s pond. I was inspired by the idyllic setting to ponder international law and the role of the ICJ in international relations. I believe that mental exploration is one of the reasons prestigious buildings are erected for international legal institutions. The architecture of courthouses helps establish the cultural and legal status of their organisations by creating a visual and symbolic narrative which shapes interactions with the public.   Medieval peasants were encouraged to learn biblical stories by studying the stained-glass windows of gothic churches. Similarly, the grand headquarters of international courts invite the modern visitor to reflect on the role of international law in the world of today. In light of current affairs, such reflection is urgently needed. Alessandro Angelico   Alessandro Angelico is a Politics and Economics graduate from Sciences Po Paris and a Law graduate from Trinity College, Cambridge. He is currently clerking for Judge Tamara Perisin at the Court of Justice of the European Union and, in 2021, will start training as a solicitor at Covington & Burling in London. His passions include private and public international law, food, international relations, and complaining about running. [1] See Nobuo Hayashi and Cecilia M Bailliet (eds), The Legitimacy of International Criminal Tribunals  (Cambridge University Press 2017);   Andrea Bianchi and Anne Peters (eds), Transparency in International Law (Cambridge University Press 2013). [2] Renske Vos and Sofia Stolk, ‘Law in concrete: institutional architecture in Brussels and The Hague’ (2020) 14(1) Law and Humanities 57. [3] Johan Joor and Heikelina Verrijn Stuart, The Building of Peace, A Hundred Years of Work on Peace Through Law: The Peace Palace 1913–2013  (Carnegie   Foundation Press 2013) 33-46. [4] ibid. [5] Arthur Eyffinger, Het Vredespaleis  (Sijthoff 1988) 57-9. [6] Vos and Stolk (n 2) 61. [7] Christine Murray, ‘Transparency, democracy, high-security: Schmidt Hammer Lassen’s International Criminal Court’ ( The Architectural Review , 5 February 2016) < https://www.architectural-review.com/buildings/transparency-democracy-high-security-schmidt-hammer-lassens-international-criminal-court > accessed 10 February 2021. [8] Bjarne Hammer, co-founder of Schmidt Hammer Lassen (as quoted in ibid para 20). [9] Jonathan Glancey, ‘Let there be light’ Guardian  (London, 2 December 2008) < https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/dec/02/eu-court-of-justice-architecture > accessed 10 February 2021.

This piece was written in the direct aftermath of George Floyd’s murder on 25 May 2020. Since then, having also been selected as an article for  CJLPA , it has been carefully reflected on in response to the dynamic events that have unfolded since and, indeed, continue to unfold. Since its original editorial process in March 2021, crucial events have followed that undoubtedly provide critical inflections on the article but could not have been included in its consideration. As this article shall propose, works of such current and pressing subject matter must always be considered as ‘a continuous project that does not seek to assume an authoritative final word on the matter’, and to this end, I hope you enjoy reading it.     The brutal and despicable murder of George Floyd on 25 May 2020 has sparked global outrage and mass protests. His senseless death has raised the fundamental question: what has changed? An edit of Time ’s front cover from 2015, taking the Baltimore Riots as its point of departure has challenged: ‘What has changed. What hasn’t’. The image, with 2015 crossed out and ‘2020’ hurriedly scribbled in, widely shared across social media, epitomises this stasis. George Floyd’s death has also provoked a range of protest and activism, particularly performative activism, which this article seeks to explore. This piece will attempt to navigate the forms of online awareness and activism that have proliferated social media in the aftermath of Floyd’s death and the subsequent protests.   As someone who is trained, or training, in visual culture—studying the history of art at university—my perspective comes exactly from what I am trained and taught: observation. Thus, without the cliché of claiming a virtuous empiricism to my understanding, this work is based on what I have seen and therefore is a result of a certain bubble I inhabit. It is empirically relative to that view, and eagerly encourages discussion from those views that I have perhaps not considered or not even been capable of considering.   Performative activism   In the wake of a prejudiced killing, the internet and social media took to the task of not only raising awareness, but also seeking to educate about forms of racial prejudice and privilege that may be overlooked in society today—a popular infographic outlining the covert and overt forms of white supremacy, comes to mind foremost .   It is encouraging to see that, in the wake of a primitive and perhaps impulsive display of authority and power, education and knowledge are being mobilised as a way to combat this. However, alongside these sources of information, another form of education was being promoted, perhaps more of a chastisement than an education. Countless pages, shared documents, and posts have circulated that are largely written by ‘white people’, exploring the ways in which one can educate and rid oneself of these covert and overt privileges—almost like self-help pages. I have seen these posts being shared and subsequently reposted by said ‘white people’. I cannot help but think of the white person who is appalled by the rampant racism and injustice highlighted by Floyd’s murder but is left feeling a sense of shame and even hatred for themselves by virtue of being ‘white people’. One might argue the self-helping prognoses are at risk of falling into a melancholic apologia that incidentally reinforces those racial differences and oppositions that cause tensions and ultimately, unrest.   Sigmund Freud offers an interesting threshold which these pages and guides ought to be aware of straddling. The complex character of the melancholic is one who ‘represents his ego to us as worthless, incapable of any achievement and morally despicable; he reproaches himself, vilifies himself and expect[s] to be cast out and punished’. In this sense, one might understand acts of racial prejudice as truly despicable. However, the melancholic ‘extends his self-criticism back over the past; he declares that he was never any better’.[1] It is here that we might see the dangers of such scathing self-criticism. If one declares they were never any better (‘What has changed?’) then how can one progress and change? The potential danger of these ‘educational’ articles, unfortunately, is that the phenomena risks ‘white people’ falling into a self-indulgent and masochistic melancholia and thus never really changing. Instead, they are,   perhaps subconsciously, happy to continue repeating this cycle of self-hatred and performative activism and change.   Furthermore, one might question these polemics to ask: which ‘white people’ are they addressing? In the strive for racial justice and equality, it is worrying that people often regress to such essentialist and normative concepts. A nuanced and more subtle approach is needed. There is no doubt that any fundamental change needs to be educated and informed, but it is the way we go about this.   Following the unravelling thread of performative activism, there has emerged a more worrying trend on social media. As part of a spate of ‘quarantine challenges’ initiated by the Instagram and TikTok communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new ‘#blacklivesmatter’ challenge has taken to the stories of performative activists. Originating from a single user, the post constituted a black background with the ‘challenge’ to tag ’10 people who won’t break the chain’. This post is shared publicly, featuring the tags of those 10 people who are implored to show their support, who then repost the story tagging another ten people and so on—creating a chain of awareness for the Black Lives Matter movement. Whilst perhaps noble in its intentions, the chain evolves into what can only be described as a mess. Countless tags and graphics clutter the story until the black is crowded out by each story competing to draw attention to itself above the layers.   Seeing these Instagram stories, I could not help but think of the work Untitled (I am an invisible man)  by Glenn Ligon, 1991. Ligon is a pivotal figure in the exploration of black identity, working from a position he describes as his ‘permanent dislocation’ as a black gay male painter working after Modernism. His very practice, painting, is a role defined by its history of entrenched privilege. Darby English describes the profession as ‘largely filled by white heterosexual men who enjoyed a kind of cultural neutrality as a matter of social entitlement’.[2] Negotiating this charged and sensitive culture, Ligon’s work often critiques the socially constructed nature of black identities. The 1991 painting appropriates the opening lines of Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man (1952) and is painted with stencils in oil paint. In this work, Ligon meticulously brushes paint through the stencil, using the methods of applied handiwork rather than more industrially efficient processes such as using spray-paint or a paint roller, purposefully complicating the manual nature of his process. Ligon desecrates the privileged tradition of oil paint by perverting its application. The frivolous act of painting, indulging in the sumptuous material quality (and cost) of oil paint, is subverted by Ligon’s obsessive and arduous process. Much of Ligon’s other work exploits and manipulates text: as one begins to look at (or read) the painting, viewers are able to discern the initial parts of the opening before it descends into illegibility. Ligon frustrates our urge to read the work, actively provoking it.   One might understand the cluster of indecipherable layers of each #blacklivesmatter story to be a stencil, akin to the 1991 work, slowly drowning the real meaning and intention of that original post, amounting to the facilitation of the neoliberal bubble that often carries such performance activists. Additionally, one worries that, unless anything is to change, the edited Time  front cover may become an iterative ritual for performative activists, scrawling in yet another year of social injustice until it too becomes indecipherable.   These posts have since been denounced, being called out and identified as acts of virtue signalling and performance. Performative activists have been urged instead to take real action. Both of these forms of activism and awareness, as well as so much online activity, operate with the same outdated underlying principle. They operate under the strong belief that politics are a means to change—real action.   The death of politics   As sensationalist a statement as this may sound, the frustration and failure to comprehend how nothing has changed could not be a starker indication of the tragic demise of politics. What, though, does this actually mean?   Politics has become a system of managing what is understood as a risk society, as proposed by Ulrich Beck.[3] In his theory, the telos of power is not necessarily to create change, but instead to keep a steady and stable course. Power has been redistributed to forces such as financiers and technologists whose job it is to manage and evade such risk, while the purpose of politics is changed and its influence eroded. These new structures not only manage risk but build networks that guide and manipulate the risk. To take an example, the ‘quality-adjusted life year’ (QALY) is a measurement used to determine a perfect year in health, assessing the value of medical intervention against disease burden. One QALY, one perfect year. In the UK, that cost is £60,000.[4] This is but one of many sinister calculations devised by the systems of economics to evade and manage such risk.   Thus, instead of generating change and progress, this system assesses the potential risks and manages the outcome for a safer option. The result of this redistribution of power, is that power is now divested amongst several Foucauldian microcosms of power that orchestrate this outcome management, the risk. Therefore, for true change and real action within the political system one must exploit the gaps in these imbricated institutions of power.   Here we return to the protests ravaging the USA in the worst race riots seen since the 1960s. Much of the criticism directed toward the rioting points to the fact that shops are being needlessly looted— what does looting have to do with racial inequality?   If we are to understand economic power as the mesh that binds these imbricated structures, then it comes as no surprise to see rioters looting shops and burning down institutions of economic exploitation in order to gain economic participation, of which looting is the most concentrated expression. Why should rioters have political goals, when politics do not work, and change does not happen? As many posts circulating social media have accurately emphasised – to the ignorance of those criticising riots and belittling the protests – riots and looting are legitimate and profound forms of protest against a system that values goods and services over human life—think back to the QALY.   Furthermore, there is the added complexity of the internet’s entrenchment by these same economic systems of control, precariously marshalling and guiding users through a series of algorithms and personal data collection, into echo-chambers in order to see what one wants to see. Social media platforms such as Facebook, commercially harvesting and mining users’ data and cookie preferences for advertising revenue and a supposedly seamless user experience, facilitate and funnel users into these echo chambers for commercial gain. In turn, they neutralise both the effective and affective power of politics. The protests and riots that take place in the real world, however, rather than the cyber-world—regardless of whether one agrees with them or not—are stark indications of the failure of politics to create change.   Continued occurrences of performative activism, which fundamentally believe in the earnest power of politics to create change, ensure the perpetual stasis remains. For as long as those Instagram chains are sent to friends and like-minded people, and self-help guides for ‘white people’ are offered as the sole means to cleansing oneself of covert or overt racism, the structures of power that facilitate this injustice will still exist. The liberals are placed in one bubble, and the radicals placed in another, bouncing off one another’s cry for change and wondering why nothing is any different—imbuing them with a false sense of political mobilisation.   It is not all hopeless. There has been a slowly growing self-awareness of these instances of performative activism. Counter-posts have emerged, asking how people will ‘take it further’ beyond the veneer of performance to an audience of followers. These have been what I understand to be the braver and more progressive forms of activism. We unfortunately live in an era of verbal paralysis, where views that might even appear to softly critique the liberal bubble are often denounced and shot down. Those in paralysis are often the ones who, with nowhere to discuss and vary their views, get funnelled into a strong yet silent individualism and take this to polls. For the voices that shout in disbelief at how ridiculous and preposterous the Trump administration is, just as many might be silently responding.   Real change can only happen by identifying instances of performative activism, realising those acts and taking them further. Differences of opinion ought to be resolved not by self-hatred and chastisement and neither should they be vehemently denounced. Instead, we must look to understanding through constructive discussion and critically interrogate those layers and structures of power rather than resort to essentialist discourse.   This might be too idealistic and naïve a conclusion to have, but it is the best I can think, and I invite further discussion and opinion on this.   I must stress the nuanced approach I have attempted to negotiate. My focus is on the responses to the murder of George Floyd, and some of the ways in which people are trying to raise awareness and enact change. My conclusions are not by any means a simple way to tackle the entrenched institutional racism that is evidently rife. Of course, some of my concluding remarks and solutions can be applied to how we might deal with such issues, but this is not my intention. I have in essence taken Floyd’s murder as a point of departure to discuss wider issues relating to methods of social change and protest, just as one might argue the public have taken Floyd’s murder as a point of departure to protest against the continuing racial inequality and institutional discrimination that is rampant. I also hope to have raised interesting perspectives, particularly a cynical insight as to why change may not have occurred—yet.   The above section was to be my conclusion, yet it may seem disparaging at this point to conclude the piece on such an unresolved note. Instead, I would like to present a final concluding point that focuses on the actual process of writing and formalising my understandings on such sensitive issues and in turn, offer a resolved direction.   This piece was first written on 1 June 2020, exactly a week after George Floyd was murdered amidst the exponential rise of protests and rioting in the USA, the impetus of which was to rapidly spread on a global scale. Reflecting on this piece: whilst its message is as imperative as it was originally, I believe it is also important to consider it within that taut sociopolitical context. In the editorial process for its publication in this journal, it came to light that there was an anxiety embedded within the original argument of the piece, most palpable in its conclusion. I have chosen to include that section within the body of the article and not revise it because I understand this entire work to be a continuous project that does not seek to assume an authoritative final word on the matter. I understand it to be a project of continuous ‘interruption’ to keep the dialogue going.[5] Therefore, that very tentativeness forms not only an integral part of my own understanding of performative activism and how to respond to it, but I believe it also expresses a tentativeness more widely within society.   At the time of writing, such an understanding of what I perceived as performative activism was not yet fully, to use the language of social media, trending. Balancing my personal views against the justified tension of the resurging Black Lives Matter movement, I did not want to further problematise this tension, but nonetheless it was an opinion I felt needed to be shared out of personal frustration. Now, revising this piece in March 2021, as the initial tensions slowly settle, I have come to understand my own journey as one that can be reflexive of the wider attitude toward performative activism.   The movement and its forms of activism have come a long way, and at the same time have not. Performative activism still pervades Western political mobilisation and awareness. In the UK, the most prevalent display can be seen in professional football players taking the knee before kick-off, a metamorphosis, or even perversion, of NFL player Colin Kaepernick’s display of protest in the USA, 2016. However, awareness and action against such acts are becoming less controversial as more people tackle displays of performative activism directly, with Wilfried Zaha being the most recent and high-profile footballer to speak out against the performativity of such acts, refusing to take the knee any longer.[6] This is an encouraging step in the right direction and is evident of a dynamic and ongoing development—it is still a trending matter ten months on.   Understanding this work within its own context, one that is still constantly developing, provides a valuable point of retrospect, reminding one of the importance to constantly reflect on the immediacy of our times and providing a constructive marker of progress in negotiating such complex and sensitive issues.   In this self-reflexive approach, I look to promote a more holistic direction toward the issue of performative activism. As the farce of performative activism is slowly becoming more exposed, it becomes clear that such acts operate on the premise of difference and othering. Explored originally, performative activism operates on a framework of virtue signalling, distinguishing one from the immoral and bad Other by displaying acts of superficial activism. Thus, short of perpetuating this binary and constantly questioning, ‘What has changed, what hasn’t?’, political mobilisation must be directed towards looking beyond this binary. It must stop preoccupying itself with this fictitious Other, upholding the system of difference and division. Rather than focusing on individuals, mobilisation ought to be directed to the overarching frameworks and structures that cause the illusionary difference in the first place. In a sense, therefore, the frameworks that perpetuate division are also those which should unite us. Chater Paul Jordan   Chater Paul Jordan is a third-year undergraduate in History of Art at Christ’s College, Cambridge, who has also taken a course in Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, UAL. Chater’s interests lie in contemporary art, visual culture, and postcolonial cultural experiences, particularly focussing from the mid-twentieth century to the present day. His final-year dissertation is titled ‘Performance and Performativity in Black Experiences of Britain’. [1] Sigmund Freud, ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ (first published 1918) in James Strachey (ed), The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud  (standard edn, Hogarth Press 1964) 246. [2] Darby English, How to See A Work of Art in Total Darkness  (The MIT Press 2007) 205. [3] Ulrich Beck, Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity  (Sage Publications 1992). [4] David Glover and John Henderson, ‘Quantifying health impacts of government policies: A how-to guide to quantifying the health impacts’ (Department of Health 2010) paras 5.21 and 5.24. [5] Kobena Mercer, ‘Black art and the burden of representation’ (1990) 4(10) Third Text 74. [6] Wilfried Zaha, ‘Why must I kneel to show you that black people matter!’ (10 February 2021) < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzYz5yzXCIo > accessed 20 February 2021.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. —William Shakespeare, Hamlet (1.5.167–68), Hamlet to Horatio.   It has been my good fortune during my professional and personal life to have visited and worked in many countries around the world and to have learned to understand and embrace their cultures. I made it a point when conducting negotiations in a new country not just to understand the legal and commercial situations but to try to understand the people, customs, politics, history, and language, including body language. When an Indian nods her head as you are saying something, it does not mean that she agrees with you—she is being polite. When an Englishman smiles and says he is not entirely happy with a situation, it does not mean that it is mainly acceptable—it probably means that he does not like it at all.   My fascination with different cultures led to a growing realisation of the importance of two things: opening one’s mind to understand the point of view of a person from another land; and explaining one’s own background and position clearly. Failure to do these things often leads to conflict that can be avoided. At a sticking point in a negotiation in Moscow with a successful businessman brought up in Soviet times, I asked him to listen to my explanation of how I was thinking about the issue. I also asked him to explain how he was thinking. By being honest and open about our goals, with me as a representative of a Western multinational and my Russian counterpart with his particular cultural background, suspicions were alleviated and we resolved the problem.   Alongside my work in the law and business, I have retained a lifelong interest in history and archaeology. I completed an MA at the University of Wales in Cultural Cosmology a few years ago. My fascination for the world of commerce and trade led me to write my dissertation on the connection between trading and investing practice—on Wall Street and the City of London—and the study of cosmic cyclical patterns—as practised since earliest times up to and including the current day. Since I was a teenage archaeologist in the 1970s there has been a revolutionary improvement in the technology available to study the past. Carbon dating, geophysics, DNA analysis, and many other innovations have extended our knowledge of the longevity of human history and of the thought processes that different cultures have used to sustain and improve their ways of life. My own research has taken me back to a period beyond Neolithic times to our prehistory as hunter-gatherers. Small bands of humans roamed their section of the Earth in search of animal prey for meat, skins, materials for weapons, and other crops to consume, including berries and wild wheat. Gradually individuals, or small groups of individuals—probably the tribal shamans—began to take note of the timing of the changing seasons, and of how the mysterious comings and goings of the Sun and the Moon and other bright bodies in the night sky seemed to have some connection with those seasons. Knowing the timing of the annual migrations of herds of deer and bison, and of the fruitfulness of wild crops, was a matter of basic survival. Shamans became key advisers to tribal leaders and to their tribes themselves. They would have played a key part in developing their cultures’ views of the Universe and burgeoning religious practices.   The global population of mankind was less than one million, as opposed to the 7.5 billion we now have, which is rising. Many millennia would have passed as populations increased and the daily and monthly and annual cycles of the Sun, Moon, planets, and brighter constellations were better understood and applied to the economic business of daily life. The farming revolution of the Neolithic period led to greater efficiency in the production of calories, substantial growth in populations, and concentrations into settled villages and towns, with hierarchies of power and increased job specialisation. Shamans became priests, and in Egypt and Babylonia combined their religious function with observing and recording the cosmos and advising the kings on how to deal with them.   The reappearance to ancient Egypt of the star Sirius in the heavens meant the flooding of the Nile, which was central to the wellbeing of all Egypt. The Babylonians instigated hundreds of years of record keeping on heavenly movements in a long-term experiment that linked those movements to the prices of their key six commodities. They produced a database that priestly compilers could refer to over centuries as they advised their rulers on the stabilisation of the state. The project was logical and empirical. If the price of barley was high when certain Solar, Lunar, or planetary configurations were in place, then that price would be recorded and checked again when similar cosmic conditions were in place. Done over a very long period of time, patterns and cycles may begin to emerge, with a working predictive system of price and product availability to use in the administration of the state.   By the time we reach Greece we have an example given by Aristotle of the use of this kind of knowledge for financial speculation. He tells us that the pre-Socratic philosopher Thales used knowledge of the likely condition of the annual olive crop to purchase options on olive oil presses for the upcoming year. When a bumper crop duly arrived and demand for the presses rose, he profited mightily from his prescience. Today he would be working in the global commodity markets with Philosophy as his first degree!   As trade increased, so did travel. Long-distance travellers across the world, especially travellers by sea, learned to navigate by the stars to help them brave the dangers of ocean sailing. We might think of Homer’s Bronze Age Greeks sailing to Troy, or the Polynesians navigating vast distances in the Pacific, or Captain Cook on his voyages to Australia. For all, the ability to navigate by the stars was important for ocean travel and commerce.   I have had numerous encounters with businesspeople involved in the study of cultural and economic astronomy and its application to business cycles and the stock markets. They have confirmed to me that practices that first arose in antiquity in this field have been developed substantially in the last two hundred years. Such practices are taken seriously and used by major players in the business world and in the markets. I am fortunate to have friendships with consultants who advise clients across the globe in this field.   Out of the growing practice of empirical cosmology emerged astrology. The first horoscope dates to around 410 BCE, at the time of the Persian Empire. The idea was that individual people could have a character and predictable destiny arising from a birth chart reflected in the heavens. This idea was developed alongside the more mundane activity of matching cosmic cycles to economic activity. Astrology is maligned both by science and the Church as nonsensical or heretical, and is confused with the newspaper version. And yet for much of the last three millennia it has been studied alongside astronomy, and been taken seriously in politics and the financial world. In many of the cultures of Asia, especially in the Indian subcontinent, it continues to thrive, and I have encountered its use in business transactions in India and Egypt. The Supreme Court of India has described it as a science in recent years. I have got to know the underlying traditions and hidden methodologies of cultures in emerging markets. This has helped me understand that our current way of thinking in the West can be matched by subtle and equally effective thought systems elsewhere in the world, especially in Asia.   For the last 40 years, since the creation of the personal computer and then of the Internet, electronic gaming, and social media, large sections of the human race have spent their days staring downwards, fixated on their computer screens and iPhones. We have forgotten to look around us at nature and above us at the skies. We have instead immersed ourselves in an artificial world of electronic technology that can separate us from our links with the cosmos and its cycles. As we contemplate and attempt to address the environmental and social consequences of this way of living, the COVID-19 pandemic has at least given us a chance to slow down, think about our relationship with nature and the rhythms of the cosmos and the natural world, and seek to again understand and realign ourselves with those rhythms before it is too late.   The Dark Skies movement originated in Arizona and is now growing rapidly worldwide, alongside such phenomena as rewilding. It aims to reassert humanity’s birthright to observe clear night skies free from the light pollution that damages our health and sense of being part of a wider Universe. Observing the majesty of the cosmos at night and imbibing the rhythms of nature will hopefully encourage us to treat our planet with more respect as we go about our daily business of earning a living.   At the beginning of this article, I mentioned the understanding I developed in my work in emerging and developing markets of other cultures—understanding of how they thought and operated—and how important this was to my ventures. Similarly, I have come to understand the thought systems developed by many cultures around the world relating to cosmic cycles and the workings of nature. This has broadened my thinking about the intelligence of our ancestors, the hidden power in ancient systems of thought, and how we might use this reconnection with the natural world and the workings of the Universe to our advantage in the future life of humanity.  Jonathan Jones   Jonathan Jones is an international commercial lawyer. In his time in the multinational world, including at ICI and Inchcape, he specialised in developing businesses in emerging markets, working in China, Russia, India, South-East Asia, and much of Latin America as well as doing business in Europe, the US, Africa, and the Middle East. He contributed to the setting up of The Economist ’s Emerging Markets Unit and has spoken on commercial legal issues in many countries. Most recently, Jonathan also worked in the NGO world for seven years on numerous substantial development projects in Africa and Asia, with Save the Children and Comic Relief. Jonathan is a keen student, writer, and speaker on history and archaeology and holds an MA in Cultural Cosmology. He is currently writing a book on humanity’s economic connections with the cosmos from early times to the current day.

Russia annexed the Crimea and started a war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, but that wasn’t enough; now the Kremlin intends to steal borscht from Ukraine.   I didn’t intend to start an Eastern European culinary clash. My mission was to get borscht recognised as an aspect of Ukrainian national culture by UNESCO, the United Nations cultural heritage agency. Why? I was just fed up with restaurants around the world calling borscht a Russian soup. The last straw was when the Russian Foreign Ministry described borscht in a four-line tweet as one of the ‘most famous and popular dishes in Russia’.                                                        Borscht is one of the most popular dishes of Ukrainian cuisine, but it is more than just a dish. It’s not just about food, it’s about the nation’s cultural identity. The world-famous Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko ate borscht with dried carp. Also, there were Cossacks in a special Cossack register with the second name Borscht and it is rude not to refer to the villages Borschi, Borschiv, Borschivka that are situated in Ukraine. What is more interesting, some people believe in God and some don’t, but I’ve never seen a person that regrets tasting Borscht. Most likely every Ukrainian had Borscht this week. Almost 500 million litres of borscht are eaten in Ukraine every year.   During my ‘borscht expedition’, I’ve made a genuinely notable discovery. There is no canonical recipe of borscht, nor is there regional borscht. However, there are as many recipes for this dish as many families are living here. When two people meet each other and start a family, they give birth to a new Borscht recipe. These recipes vary from region to region, from family to family, from house to house, from apartment to apartment. As I told you before, there are literally as many recipes as families. No doubt, borscht is in our DNA.   Perhaps that is the reason why borscht is an essential element of Ukrainian identity. That is why it has become a key object of Russian propaganda. The pro-Kremlin media uses terms such as ‘borscht war’ and ‘battle of borscht’, while most Russians consider borscht Ukrainian. Once I talked to a German journalist based in Moscow who didn’t understand the fuss around borscht. He asked people on the streets which country borscht is from, and they answered that it is Ukrainian. ‘Then I went to a cafe’, he told me. ‘I asked cooks there: whose is borscht? I was also told that I was Ukrainian. And what is the problem?’ And here is the problem: people understand that borscht is Ukrainian while propaganda claims it is not.   Borscht is Ukrainian, and this historical fact is indisputable. Awkward fact: if you open an article about borscht on Ukrainian Wikipedia and then on the Russian site, you will decide that these are two different dishes. Russian propaganda tries to get its hands on borscht, claiming that this dish comes from the name of the plant borschivnik  (Heracleum), which is supposed to be the main ingredient in their variant. This version is absurdly awkward and doesn’t withstand any criticism because borschivnik is a poisonous plant, which is unacceptable for cooking.   Most likely, the name ‘borscht’ came from the Old Slavic ‘ brsch ’—beet or beet kvass. The first mention of the dish ‘borscht’ dates back to 1584. German trader Martin Gruneweg, who was traveling from Lviv to Moscow via Kyiv, wrote that he had stopped for the night over the Borshchavka river—now the Borshchahivka, which gave its name to Kyiv’s modern western outskirts. When Martin Gruneweg inquired about the history of the river’s name, Kyiv citizens explained that there was once a borscht bazaar in that area. But he didn’t believe it, because according to him, it didn’t make sense for Kyiv people to get so far from the city center for the sake of borscht. ‘Besides, Ruthenians rarely or never buy borscht, because everyone cooks it at home, it is their daily food and drink’, he wrote in his diary.   There are other mentions of borscht. In 1598, the famous Orthodox polemicist Ivan Vyshensky wrote about the peasants who ‘sipwater or borschik ’ from one bowl. There are seven Borshchivs and Borshchenkos in the register of the Zaporozhian Army of 1649 among the Cossacks. Moreover, in the history of the Razumovsky family, researcher Kazimir Valishevsky mentions that the Russian Tsarina Elizabeth fell in love with Alexei Razumovsky, ‘and after she fell in love with Ukrainian borscht.’   Besides, we want to single out one more fact—the researcher of USSR cuisines and the ‘father’ of Soviet cuisines William Pokhlobkin wrote in his book National Cuisines of our Peoples  that borscht is a Ukrainian dish that has gained wide popularity in the world.   There are not only historical arguments when it comes to questions of the origin and affiliation of borscht—there are also the depth of its roots in folk culture, regional distribution, and variety of recipes. In particular, proverbs and sayings are of great importance. For example, a children’s saying: ‘Go, go to the rain, I’ll cook you a borscht.’ In the dictionary of the Ukrainian language of Borys Hrinchenko from 1907, we find more than a dozen words derived from the word ‘borscht’. There are various names of borscht among them— borschik , borschichok , borschishche , borshchisko —and borschuvati  (to eat borscht) and borschivnitsa  (trade in borscht).   So there are no facts that would deny the nationality of borscht to Ukraine. But then how to explain the intensification of the Russian propaganda machine?   Russia seeks to take away our values so that we don’t form a nation. National identity consists of language, food, religion, and life. If you take away all elements, the nation will be vulnerable to aggressive manipulation. The Soviet Union ‘took’ the food from other nations. When it collapsed, as an offspring of the Soviet Union, Russia attributed all the food to themselves. They used the statement, ‘if it was in the Soviet Union, then the borscht is ours.’ As Taras Shevchenko wrote, Russians with their imperialistic thinking are sincerely convinced that ‘you are ours, and your things are ours.’   This propaganda was a crucial thing that forced me to legally consolidate borscht’s status as a Ukrainian national dish. As it turned out, borscht was never officially considered Ukrainian. The first mention of borscht is recorded in Ukraine. It is prepared and eaten by every Ukrainian, but borscht is not Ukrainian at the legislative level. We just didn’t think it had to be documented.   Our team worked hard for a year. I created a public organization—the Institute of Culture of Ukraine—with the support of the Сhumak Company and sent my team on a ‘borscht expedition’ throughout Ukraine. At the same time, we conducted a 12-stage preparation task to collect and approve all documents. It was a complicated process, but we managed to cope with it. Borscht is now on the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Ukraine. In March, we are applying for the inclusion of the Ukrainian national dish in the UNESCO list of intangible heritage, and I believe that we will be successful.   For Ukrainians, borscht is more than just a dish. Borscht is a part of Ukrainian identity and our national value. An influential cultural phenomenon and the answer to the question: ‘What unites Ukrainians?’ If it is not worth fighting for, then what is? Yevhen Klopotenko Yevhen Klopotenko is a Ukrainian chef, television presenter, and culinary expert. He has been recognized as one of the most promising leaders in the world of gastronomy and entered 50 Next, a global list of 50 people under 35 who are shaping the future of gastronomy. He also founded a non-profit organization to advance borscht as the national food of Ukraine worldwide. He is working on recognition of borscht as part of Ukraine’s cultural heritage by UNESCO.

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) was set up in 1948 following the 1942 Beveridge report, a cross-party report which established its core principles. Since then, the two main political parties in the UK, the Conservative and Labour parties, have had differing approaches to how the NHS ought to be managed and financed. Today, healthcare is the largest single item of government expenditure, accounting for 24% of public spending compared with only 7% in the 1950s. This article will map the UK’s healthcare spending over the past 25 years, surveying the approaches of the various governments during this time. It will soon be clear why the NHS is struggling to meet its own performance criteria and why it has battled to deliver much-needed elective care during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.   Fig 1 shows the share of gross domestic product (GDP) attributed to healthcare expenditure between 1997 and 2018. Healthcare spending has risen considerably over the last 24 years, starting out at 6.9% of GDP in 1997 before plateauing at 10% from 2009 onwards. However, while UK health-related spending stagnated, the ratio of healthcare expenditure to GDP rose over the same period for four of the six other G7 countries. Simply looking at healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP can, however, be a poor prognostic tool in determining how successful a healthcare system is. For example, in 2017 the US outperformed all G7 nations in this metric, with a total healthcare spend of 17.1% of GDP, but performed poorly in key healthcare success metrics such as healthcare outcomes, equity, and access. Instead of looking at this solely as a stand-alone percentage, it is important to look at its growth over time. Fig 1. The share of UK GDP attributed to healthcare expenditure, 1997–2018. Data: ONS.  Adjusting for economy-wide inflation, fig 2 shows the annual average growth rates in UK public spending on health between 1949 and 2018. Growth in healthcare spending has fluctuated over time, with peaks in spending over the past 40 years largely attributed to Labour governments, as evident in fig 2. Under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, UK public spending on health averaged a real growth rate of 6%, six times the rate of growth under the coalition government which followed. Fig 2. Average annual growth rates in UK public spending on health, 1949–2018. Data: ONS. The 2008 economic crash   The 2008 economic crash and the subsequent period of austerity severely impacted the economy, contracting the UK’s GDP by 6.3% in Q1 2008. The continued impact of the crash resulted in a Department of Health and Social Care budget that continued to grow, only at a much slower pace than in previous years. Adjusting for inflation, the healthcare budget rose by 1% each year on average in the five years between 2009–10 and 2014–15, compared to the average 3.6% rise since the NHS was established.   The NHS’ five-year deal   In June 2018, then-Prime Minister Theresa May announced a new five-year funding deal that would see NHS funding rise by £20.5bn in 2023–24 compared to 2018–19. An increase of around 3.3%, this is closer to the long-term average of 3.6%, though still lower than it. This long-term commitment to improving NHS funding only applied to services within the mandate of NHS England, and was only sufficient to let it meet its immediate demands. It excluded important areas of the Department of Health and Social Care budget such as capital investment, public health, and the education and training of NHS staff. The government chose not to invest more heavily in innovation, health promotion, and its workforce. This choice has worsened the NHS’ ability to keep up with increasing demand and to adopt new medical technology, and it has contributed to the NHS’ staffing crisis.   Using the lower bound of healthcare spending models means that budgets are almost always increased by the government, with predictions falling short of actual demand levels. This often means making ad hoc budget announcements outside of the usual budgetary process and redirecting money away from capital budgets to fund day-to-day financing of the NHS. This leads to a cycle of poor strategic planning, negatively impacting the quality of investment in the health service. Fig 3. Budget of the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care in real terms (£bn), 2019–22. Data: ONS.   The impact of the pandemic   The nation-wide lockdown aimed at curbing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant harm to the UK economy, contracting the UK’s GDP by over 20% in Q2 2020. The government, in attempting to mitigate the economic impact of the crisis, launched the largest public stimulus program in the post-war period. Vast sums of money have been spent propping up businesses across the country, furloughing staff, and making sure the public sector meets its bottom line. However, the government’s public spending spree, alongside reduced tax revenue and a contraction in GDP, pushed the UK’s debt-to-GDP ratio to its highest in more than 50 years. Unsurprisingly, in less than a year, the eight years of fiscal retrenching under the coalition and Conservative governments has been undone.   The impact of the pandemic on future NHS funding is uncertain, although there could well be an increase as the public becomes more conscious of the importance of healthcare spending and a well-functioning NHS. In the short term, the UK has attempted to manage the pandemic’s negative health outcomes by spending an extra £63.4bn on health and social care. However, with the Chancellor already speaking of the need for ‘hard decisions’, it seems likely that the significantly worse position of the UK government’s finances may cause NHS spending to grow at a slower pace. This is already evident in the reduction of COVID-19 healthcare spending by 65% (from £63.4bn in 2020–21 to a proposed spend of £22.4bn in 2021–22) despite uncertainty surrounding whether the pandemic is likely to end soon. This is without considering the long-term negative impacts of the pandemic, such as the longer waiting lists for hospital treatment. Concerningly, a large proportion of the patients facing longer waiting times are those on waiting lists for elective surgery, such as surgery relating to cancers and cardiovascular disease. The number of people on these lists topped five million during the pandemic, the highest since records began in 2007. This new data suggests that over 9% of England’s population is waiting for care. On top of core NHS spending, the proposed budget to tackle the backlog drawn up by the Cabinet Office has proposed that the government may have to commit anywhere between £2bn and £10bn over the next four years on top of core spending. Recently, core NHS spending has risen from £150.4bn in 2019–20 to £159bn in 2021–22. This only represents a 3.3% annual average growth, which fails to match historical growth of the NHS budget. This is despite the NHS battling through an unprecedented pandemic and recovering from a challenging year. Neither current nor predicted growth matches the 6% average annual real growth achieved during the 14 years of Labour government between 1996–97 and 2009–10.[1]   The rise in the waiting list for non-urgent NHS treatment and the worsening mental health crisis underline the struggle the NHS faces as it tries to return to normal following a year battling COVID-19 pandemic. Short-term increases in healthcare funding have been used to meet new obligations, such as virology services to combat virus mutations, an incredibly successful COVID-19 vaccination campaign, and the ‘Track and Trace’ initiative. Improved funding will make the NHS more resilient to surges in demand, and it is likely to require pandemic-level spending to manage the long-term pressures from COVID. However, with the worsening position of the UK’s finances and the need to save money, it would be challenging for any Chancellor to reduce spending without impacting the health service, as the NHS accounts for 24% of government spending, a figure which is predicted to rise. Fatima Osman   Fatima Osman is a fifth-year medical student at Imperial College London. She completed an intercalated degree in Management at Imperial College Business School where she became interested in Health Economics. She has worked with clinicians and health economists to lead two publications in the field. She is excited to use her skills to formulate approaches to improve the cost effectiveness of healthcare provision by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and healthtech. [1] Matt Hancock, ‘Secretary of State’s oral statement on the NHS Long Term Plan’ (oral statement to Parliament, London, 7 January 2019) < https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/secretary-of-states-oral-statement-on-the-nhs-long-term-plan--2 >; HM Treasury, ‘GDP deflators at market prices, and money GDP December 2019 (Quarterly National Accounts)’ (7 January 2020) < https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/gdp-deflators-at-market-prices-and-money-gdp-december-2019-quarterly-national-accounts > both accessed 1 March 2021.