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Full-Text Articles in Law
Judgment, Identity, And Independence, Cassandra Burke Robertson
Judgment, Identity, And Independence, Cassandra Burke Robertson
Faculty Publications
Whenever a new corporate or governmental scandal erupts, onlookers ask "Where were the lawyers?" Why would attorneys not have advised their clients of the risks posed by conduct that, from an outsider's perspective, appears indefensible? When numerous red flags have gone unheeded, people often conclude that the lawyers' failure to sound the alarm must be caused by greed, incompetence, or both. A few scholars have suggested that unconscious cognitive bias may better explain such lapses in judgment, but they have not explained why particular situations are more likely than others to encourage such bias. This article seeks to fill that …
International Law In Crisis: A Qualitative Empirical Contribution To The Compliance Debate, Michael P. Scharf
International Law In Crisis: A Qualitative Empirical Contribution To The Compliance Debate, Michael P. Scharf
Faculty Publications
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 21, Professors Jack Goldsmith and Eric Posner published The Limits of International Law, a potentially revolutionary book that employs rational choice theory to argue that international law is really just “politics” and does not render a “compliance pull” on State decisionmakers. Critics have pointed out that Goldsmith and Posner’s identification of the role of international law in each of their case studies is largely conjectural, and that what is needed is qualitative empirical data that identifies the international law-based arguments that were actually made and the policy-makers’ responses to such …
Beyond The Torture Memos: Perceptual Filters, Cultural Commitments, And Partisan Identity, Cassandra Burke Robertson
Beyond The Torture Memos: Perceptual Filters, Cultural Commitments, And Partisan Identity, Cassandra Burke Robertson
Faculty Publications
Who should face accountability for the mistreatment of prisoners in the war on terror? Five years ago, the scope of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib was first revealed; this year, the Justice Department admitted that a single suspect was waterboarded 183 times. Some at the bottom of the political hierarchy have already been convicted for their participation in prisoner abuse. Those closer to the top of the political hierarchy also find their actions subject to scrutiny, as the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility is carrying out an investigation into the professional conduct of the lawyers who authored the …