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Introduction: Law, Torture, And The “Task Of The Good Lawyer” – Mukasey Agonistes , Daniel Kanstroom
Introduction: Law, Torture, And The “Task Of The Good Lawyer” – Mukasey Agonistes , Daniel Kanstroom
Daniel Kanstroom
Following September 11, 2001, there was a challenge to the role of law as a regulator of military action and executive power. Government lawyers produced legal interpretations designed to authorize, legitimize, and facilitate interrogation tactics widely considered to be illegal. This raises a fundamental question: how should law respond to such flawed interpretation and its consequences, even if the ends might have seemed necessary or just? This Symposium examines deep tensions between competing visions of the rule of law and the role of lawyers. Spurred by a controversy over the selection of then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey as commencement speaker, the …
On “Waterboarding”: Legal Interpretation And The Continuing Struggle For Human Rights , Daniel Kanstroom
On “Waterboarding”: Legal Interpretation And The Continuing Struggle For Human Rights , Daniel Kanstroom
Daniel Kanstroom
While some aspects of the “waterboarding” debate are largely political, the practice also implicates deeply normative underpinnings of human rights and law. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has steadfastly declined to declare waterboarding illegal or to launch an investigation into past waterboarding. His equivocations have generated anguished controversy because they raise a fundamental question: should we balance “heinousness and cruelty” against information that we “might get”? Mr. Mukasey’s approach appears to be careful lawyering. However, it portends a radical and dangerous departure from a fundamental premise of human rights law: the inherent dignity of each person. Although there is some lack …