The University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog

Conference: "Torture, Law, and War"

On February 29 and March 1, the Law School hosted an extraordinary conference devoted to the topic “Torture, Law, and War: What are the moral and legal boundaries on the use of coercion in interrogation?” The conference, which was sponsored by the Law and Philosophy Workshop with assistance from the Center for Comparative Constitutionalism, showcased the interdisciplinarity for which a Chicago law education is renowned. Participants looked at the central question from the perspective of a wide range of fields, from law and public policy to psychology and history. Speakers included scholars from a dozen universities as well as the Law School's own Adam Samaha, Susan Bandes, Richard McAdams, Martha Nussbaum, Geoffrey Stone, Scott Anderson, and Eric Posner.

The conference keynote speaker was Justice Albie Sachs of the Constitutional Court of South Africa (pictured above). His talk, “Four tales of terrorism,” gave a first-hand account of his own torture by South African security forces and his brush with death when they attempted to assassinate him with a car bomb. It also described the principles behind the rejection of torture and capital punishment by the ANC, both before and after coming to power in South Africa. His talk discussed at some length four instances of terrorism, and the responses that courts and political leaders in South Africa made to them. Through these, he argued for the importance of adhering to the rule of law, including a refusal to resort to capital punishment, and also for the possibility of reconciliation with those who have previously used torture and terrorism against oneself and one’s own side in political struggles.

Audio and video of the keynote address, along with the  other panels of the conference, are now available on the conference web page.

Video: Eric Posner Discusses "America's Rocky Relationship With The World"

Last Sunday, a discussion between Eric Posner and Heather Hurlburt (Executive Director at the National Security Network and contributor to Democracy Arsenal)was posted on Bloggingheads.tv. You can watch the video and/or download audio here.

Sunstein Interviewed by "The Glenn and Helen Show"

On Monday, Cass Sunstein appeared on the podcast "The Glenn and Helen Show," discussing libertarian paternalism with host Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com. You can listen to the podcast here.

Audio/Video: Levmore on "Climate Change and the Battle of the Generations"

Why have we taken so few precautions in the face of threatening climate change? In a February Chicago's Best Ideas talk entitled "Climate Change and the Battle of the Generations" Dean Saul Levmore focused on the difficulty of dealing with a long-off threat in our political system.

The question, he says, is how voters and their politicians can be encouraged to care about problems that can be deferred for consideration by a different electorate or set of taxpayers – but at much higher cost. We know that we should solve most long term problems sooner rather than later, but there are pressures that put off painful solutions. Dean Levmore draws on what we know about “median voters” and median citizens in order to hazard guesses about the coming battle among generations. In this “battle,” young voters will grow increasingly concerned about what is likely to occur as they age – but these voters do not yet have sufficient political power. In turn, arrangements among countries will be seen to depend in part on the disparate age profiles of countries. The topic, in other words, is global warming and the public choice problem of intergenerational bargaining.

Unfortunately, technical difficulties are preventing us from embedding the video in this blog post, but you can download and/or view a Quicktime (.mov) file. If video isn't your thing, you can download/listen to an .mp3 file.

Audio/Video: Richard Epstein Debates Whether Health Care is a Right

On April 9 the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virgina held an event in their National Discussion and Debate Series at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall. Four participants, including our own Richard Epstein, examined the resolution: "Americans have a fundamental right to health care, and it is the obligation of government to secure that right."

Audio, video, and a transcript of the debate are now available from the Miller Center's website.

The other participants were: JudyAnn Bigby, MD (Secretary of Health and Human Services for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts), Regina Herzlinger (Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School), and Dick Armey (Chairman of FreedomWorks and former House Majority Leader).The debate was moderated by Susan Dentzer, Health Correspondent for PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

Audio: Richard Epstein on How the Progressives Rewrote the Constitution

On February 22nd, Richard Epstein appeared on the radio show "The Logic Consortium," broadcast on WRFU in Urbana. Prof. Epstein discussed his 2006 book, How the Progressives Rewrote the Constitution with hosts (and University of Illinois law students) Matthew Stone, Jacob Briskman and Phil Wagenknecht. You can listen to a recording of the interview here.

Podcast: Eric Posner and Cass Sunstein on "Climate Change Justice"

Greenhouse gas reductions would cost some nations much more than others, and benefit some nations far less than others. Significant reductions would impose especially large costs on the United States, and recent projections suggest that the U.S. has relatively less to lose from climate change. In these circumstances, what does justice require the U.S. to do?

This is the question that the University of Chicago Environmental Law Society and International Law Society invited professors Cass Sunstein and Eric Posner to discuss during a lunchtime talk yesterday. You can listen to their talk here.

Video: Maria Woltjen on the Immigrant Children's Advocacy Project

The Research at Chicago site is currently featuring a video interview with Maria Woltjen, Director of the Immigrant Children's Advocacy Project, one of the Law School's four highly-regarded legal clinics.

The Immigrant Children's Advocacy Project is a human service and policy advocacy program dedicated to advocating for the best interests of immigrant and refugee children who are alone in the United States. Through the Immigrant Children's Advocacy Project, law students and bilingual volunteers are trained to serve as Advocates -- to get to know the children, help sort out their stories and help identify their eligibility for asylum or special protective visas. The video is embedded below, and if you'd like to learn more about the Project you read this recent article from the The University of Chicago Magazine or this 2006 article from the University of Chicago Chronicle.

Audio/Video: Epstein on Supreme Neglect

On March 6, Richard Epstein discussed his new book, Supreme Neglect: How to Revive Constitutional Protection for Private Property during an event at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. Cato has posted audio and video of his remarks on their website. Their description of the event is below.

Returning to the subject that first made him famous over two decades ago, Richard Epstein, the author of Takings, has a new book on property rights. In it, he takes readers from the strongly protective property rights advocated by the Constitution's Framers to the weak property rights supported by progressive and liberal politicians in the 20th century. Using both political theory and economic analysis, Epstein offers a compelling interpretation of the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause to draw the connections between property rights, individual liberty, and social progress. And he looks also at the renewed appreciation of property rights that has arisen in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's infamous Kelo v. New London decision.

Update: You can also hear Prof. Epstein discussing Supreme Neglect on "The Insider Podcast," which "explores the mental health field  from the view point of both consumers and practitioners."

Audio/Video: Lee Fennell, "Slices and Lumps"

On February 19, Professor of Law Lee Fennell presented the 2008 Coase Lecture on Law and Economics. Problems involving the aggregation and division of entitlements, she noted, are ubiquitous in law and in everyday life. Fragments held by multiple parties—such as parcels of land, effort, or segments of a bridge—often must be assembled together to be worth much. Conversely, a presently unified entitlement may be more valuable if it can be split into separate pieces held by different parties. The lecture examined these "lumping" and "slicing" problems (which turn out to be two sides of the same coin), showed how they turn up in both interpersonal and intrapersonal contexts, and offered some tools for addressing them.

Video of the lecture is embedded below, or you may download the .mov file. Just want to listen? Then download the .mp3 file here.

UPDATE: Prof. Fennell's paper based on this talk is now available from SSRN.