Lecture Series
"Law and justice are distant cousins, and here in South Africa they're not on speaking terms at all."
Marlon Brando in A Dry White Season
Spring 2013, PolS 393, the Charles W. Hostler Institute on World Affairs, Peterson Gym 242.
Instructor: Professor Jonathan Graubart, Ph.D. in Political Science and JD in Law.
International Law and Global Justice: Friends, Acquaintances, or Enemies?
The aim of this course is to educate students on the complex and tense relationship between international law and global justice. It includes the following public lectures. All will take place from 5 to 6:40. Funding has been provided by the Fred J. Hansen Institute for World Peace.
David J. Scheffer (March 4), “The Past and Future of International Criminal Justice”: Ambassador Scheffer was the first U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues, which he held during the second Clinton Administration. He led the U.S. delegation in negotiations over the International Criminal Court. Ambassador Scheffer holds an endowed professorship and serves as the Director of the Center for International Human rights at Northwestern Law School. He is also the U.N. Secretary General’s Special Expert on United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials. He was selected by Foreign Policy Magazine as one of the “Top Global Thinkers of 2011.” Ambassador Scheffer has recently published a memoir of his experience as War Crimes Ambassador, entitled All The Missing Souls.
James Cavallaro (March 18), “Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians From US Drone Practices in Pakistan”: Professor Cavallaro has an extensive record in advocacy of human rights and scholarship. In the late 1980s, he worked with rights groups in Chile challenging abuses by the Pinochet government. In 1994, he opened a joint office for Human Rights Watch and the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL) in Rio de Janeiro and served as director of the office, overseeing research, reporting, and litigation against Brazil before regional human rights bodies. Professor Cavallaro is presently the founding director of Stanford Law School’s International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic. He has written numerous studies on international human rights in Latin America and is the co-author of a widely cited critical study of the Obama Administration’s practice of targeted killings, entitled Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians from US Drone Practices.
Ayca Cubukcu (April 8), “The Responsibility to Protect: Libya and the Problems of Transnational Solidarity”: Dr. Cubukcu is a Lecturer in Human Rights at the Department of Sociology and the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of Economics. Previously she taught for the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University and the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies at Harvard University. Dr. Cubukcu is one of the leading critical scholars on international law and cosmopolitanism. She participated in the World Tribunal on Iraq.
Amos Guiora (April 15), “Counter-Terrorism and Self-Defense”: Professor Guiora held a number of senior command positions in the Israeli Defense Force, including Commander of the IDF School of Military Law and Legal Advisor to the Gaza Strip. There, he helped formulate a legal policy on targeted killings. Professor Guiora is presently a Professor of Law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, the University of Utah as well as a Research Associate at Oxford University’s Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict and a Research Fellow at the International Institute on Counter-Terrorism in Herzlia, Israel. He has published multiple articles and book chapters on targeted killings, assessing both the policies adopted by the United States and Israel.
Norman Finkelstein (April 22), “International Law, Global Justice and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict”: Dr. Finkelstein is a long-time political science professor and public commentator, focusing on various aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of the evolving relationship of the American Jewish community to the conflict. His books include The Holocaust Industry, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History; Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel is Coming to an End; and What Gandhi Says: About Nonviolent Resistance and Courage.
This Talk will be held at ENS 280
Charles Dunlap (April 29), “Lawfare As An Obstacle to Counter-Terrorism?”: Professor Dunlap served thirty-four years in the Judge Advocate Corps where he rose to the rank of major general and served as the deputy judge advocate general of the United States Air Force. His commentary on a wide variety of national security topics has been published in leading newspapers and military journals. Professor Dunlap introduced the concept of “lawfare,” which he defines as “the use or misuse of law as a substitute for traditional military means to accomplish an operational objective.” This concept has since been adapted by numerous scholars and conservative critics of transnational legal activism. Professor Dunlap joined the Duke Law faculty in July 2010. His teaching and scholarly writing focus on national security, international law, civil-military relations, cyberwar, and military justice.