Priorities for the Next President: International Law

Let me note from the outset that those of us who spend time teaching international law tend to be in favor of it. So this advice for the next President comes from the perspective that there is a body of international law (much of which we have created, and the vast majority of which we follow).  I think there are three opportunities for the next President to think particularly about international law and the broader role that the United States can play in the world. Although the U.S. has lost its role as the leader of the world and of international law in several specific ways, we can regain these positions. 

First, both candidates already have stated their opposition to torture and to the maintenance of Guantanamo Bay. The next President will automatically improve our standing by officially closing Gitmo and distancing himself from the Bush policies on torture. Even better (and perhaps possible under either candidate) would be joining the International Criminal Court (ICC). Admittedly, concerns regarding the ICC are not inconsequential, but a U.S. that remains a player and works for change (rather than sticking its head in the sand while the rest of the world moves forward) does not hand leadership over to other countries.

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Priorities for the Next President: Accountability for Torture

The U.S. 2008 presidential campaign has been virtually silent on the issue of torture.   Yet, the very same day of the last presidential debate (Wednesday, October 15) Washington Post reporter Joby Warrick unveiled startling revelations in his article CIA Tactics Endorsed in Secret Memos.  Warrick tells us of the existence of two secret (still classified) memos from 2003 and 2004 that indicate the White House’s explicit endorsement of the CIA’s interrogation techniques against al-Qaeda suspects.  Apparently former CIA Director George J. Tenent was not satisfied with the infamous “Torture Memos” of 2003, in which White House lawyers gave the green light for our security forces to use torture.  Their outright dismissal of international treaties like the Torture Convention and the Geneva Convention, however, came under fire as even our top military leaders condemned the euphemism “enhanced interrogation techniques” and the redefinition of methods of torture like water boarding.  This moment signaled our slide into a new level of lawlessness that shook the very foundation of a longstanding international legal framework, stunning most seasoned practitioners, experts, and scholars.   But U.S. public opinion had yet to catch up. 

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Shut Up, I’m Talking!

is the title of a great book by Gregory Levey that I read this summer about his surprising journey from law school to speechwriter for the Prime Minister of Israel. Levey is a Canadian who, after surviving his first year of law school at an unnamed New York law school decided that he needed a break and planned to join the Israeli army. I imagine that one of the reasons the law school remains unnamed is, as Levey puts it, when thinking about his reasons for joining the Israeli army, “Anyone who’s ever gone to law school will understand when I say that, at the time, the risk of being shot at or blown up by Islamic Jihad, or perhaps kidnapped by the Hezbollah and taken to Iran to be tortured and murdered, seemed almost preferable to the notion of continuing to suffer through another semester of classes.”

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