Book Talks • Et. Seq: The Harvard Law School Library Blog

Book Talk: Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies, Wednesday, November 14 at noon

By: June Casey - November 7th, 2018  
Filed under: Announcements, Book Talks, Events, Faculty Channel, Student Channel

The Harvard Law School Library staff invite you to attend a book talk and discussion in celebration of the recent publication of the Twentieth Anniversary Edition of Sanford Levinson’s Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies (Duke Univ. Press, Oct. 5, 2018).  Sanford Levinson is the W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr., Centennial Chair in Law at the University of Texas Law School and Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.  Professor Levinson will be joined in discussion by Boston Globe Columnist Jeff Jacoby; Randall L. Kennedy, Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard Law School; and Bruce Mann, Carl F. Schipper, Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018, at noon
Harvard Law School WCC Milstein West B (Directions)
1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA
No RSVP required

Written in Stone poster

About Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies

“From the removal of Confederate monuments in New Orleans in the spring of 2017 to the violent aftermath of the white nationalist march on the Robert E. Lee monument in Charlottesville later that summer, debates and conflicts over the memorialization of Confederate “heroes” have stormed to the forefront of popular American political and cultural discourse. In Written in Stone Sanford Levinson considers the tangled responses to controversial monuments and commemorations while examining how those with political power configure public spaces in ways that shape public memory and politics. Paying particular attention to the American South, though drawing examples as well from elsewhere in the United States and throughout the world, Levinson shows how the social and legal arguments regarding the display, construction, modification, and destruction of public monuments mark the seemingly endless confrontation over the symbolism attached to public space.

This twentieth anniversary edition of Written in Stone includes a new preface and an extensive afterword that takes account of recent events in cities, schools and universities, and public spaces throughout the United States and elsewhere. Twenty years on, Levinson’s work is more timely and relevant than ever.” — Duke University Press

More About Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies

“Sanford Levinson has written a wonderfully wise and informed essay on the issue of how we commemorate the past when the past keeps on changing.” — Nathan Glazer, author of, We Are All Multiculturalists Now

“Much has been written about the controversy over public presentations of history, but rarely has the question of how to memorialize our past received the thoughtful, incisive, and fair-minded analysis provided by Sanford Levinson.” — Eric Foner, author of, The Story of American Freedom

Sanford Levinson

 

 

 

Sanford Levinson, W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr., Centennial Chair in Law at the University of Texas Law School and Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School

 

Jeff Jacoby

 

 

 

Boston Globe Columnist Jeff Jacoby

 

 

Randall Kennedy

 

 

 

 

Randall L. Kennedy, Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard Law School

 

Bruce Mann

 

 

 

 

Bruce Mann, Carl F. Schipper, Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

Book Talk: Tough Cases: Judges Tell the Stories About Some of the Hardest Decisions They’ve Ever Made, Wednesday, October 17 at noon

By: June Casey - October 2nd, 2018  
Filed under: Announcements, Book Talks, Events, Faculty Channel, Student Channel

The Harvard Law School Library staff invite you to attend a book talk and discussion in celebration of the recent publication of Tough Cases: Judges Tell the Stories About Some of the Hardest Decisions They’ve Ever Made, edited by Russell Canan, Gregory Mize and Frederick Weisberg (The New Press, August 2018).

Russell Canan is currently a judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and an adjunct professor at the George Washington University School of Law. Frederick Weisberg is currently a judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and teaches annually in the Trial Advocacy Workshop at Harvard Law School.  Gregory E. Mize is a currently a judge on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and is a judicial fellow at the National Center for State Courts and an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.

The book talk discussion will include: Judge David J. Barron, The Honorable S. William Green Visiting Professor of Public Law at Harvard Law School and Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit; Nikolas Bowie, Assistant Professor of Law at Harvard Law School; Andrew Manuel Crespo, Assistant Professor of Law at Harvard Law School; Charles Fried, Beneficial Professor of Law at Harvard Law School; Judge Nancy Gertner (Ret.), Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School; Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard University; and Judge Frederick H. Weisberg, Associate Judge for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Copies of Tough Cases will be available for sale courtesy of the Harvard Law School COOP.

Wednesday, October 17, 2018, at noon
Harvard Law School WCC Milstein West A/B (Directions)
1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA
No RSVP required

Tough Cases poster

About Tough Cases

“Prosecutors and defense attorneys have it easy—all they have to do is to present the evidence and make arguments. It’s the judges who have the heavy lift: they are the ones who have to make the ultimate decisions, many of which have profound consequences on the lives of the people standing in front of them.

In Tough Cases, judges from different kinds of courts in different parts of the country write about the cases that proved most difficult for them to decide. Some of these cases received international attention: the Elián González case in which Judge Jennifer Bailey had to decide whether to return a seven-year-old boy to his father in Cuba after his mother drowned trying to bring the child to the United States, or the Terri Schiavo case in which Judge George Greer had to decide whether to withdraw life support from a woman in a vegetative state over the objections of her parents, or the Scooter Libby case about appropriate consequences for revealing the name of a CIA agent. Others are less well-known but equally fascinating: a judge on a Native American court trying to balance U.S. law with tribal law, a young Korean American former defense attorney struggling to adapt to her new responsibilities on the other side of the bench, and the difficult decisions faced by a judge tasked with assessing the mental health of a woman accused of killing her own children.

Relatively few judges have publicly shared the thought processes behind their decision making. Tough Cases makes for fascinating reading for everyone from armchair attorneys and fans of Law and Order to those actively involved in the legal profession who want insight into the people judging their work.” — The New Press

Panelists

David Barron

 

 

Judge David J. Barron, The Honorable S. William Green Visiting Professor of Public Law at Harvard Law School and Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

 

Nikolas Bowie

 

 

 

Nikolas Bowie, Assistant Professor of Law at Harvard Law School

 

Andrew Crespo

 

 

 

Andrew Manuel Crespo, Assistant Professor of Law at Harvard Law School

 

Charles Fried

 

 

 

Charles Fried, Beneficial Professor of Law at Harvard Law School

 

Judge Nancy Gertner

 

 

 

Judge Nancy Gertner (Ret.), Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School

 

Martha Minow

 

 

 

Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard University

 

Frederick Weisberg

 

 

 

Judge Frederick H. Weisberg, Associate Judge for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Book Talk: Cass Sunstein’s The Cost-Benefit Revolution, Thursday, October 4 at noon

By: June Casey - September 19th, 2018  
Filed under: Announcements, Book Talks, Events, Faculty Channel, Student Channel

The Harvard Law School Library staff invite you to attend a book talk and discussion in celebration of the recent publication of The Cost-Benefit Revolution by Cass R. Sunstein (MIT Press, August 28, 2018).  Professor Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University.

Thursday, October 4, 2018, at noon
Harvard Law School WCC Milstein West B (Directions)
1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA
No RSVP required

The Cost-Benefit Revolution Poster

About The Cost-Benefit Revolution

“Opinions on government policies vary widely. Some people feel passionately about the child obesity epidemic and support government regulation of sugary drinks. Others argue that people should be able to eat and drink whatever they like. Some people are alarmed about climate change and favor aggressive government intervention. Others don’t feel the need for any sort of climate regulation. In The Cost-Benefit Revolution, Cass Sunstein argues our major disagreements really involve facts, not values. It follows that government policy should not be based on public opinion, intuitions, or pressure from interest groups, but on numbers—meaning careful consideration of costs and benefits. Will a policy save one life, or one thousand lives? Will it impose costs on consumers, and if so, will the costs be high or negligible? Will it hurt workers and small businesses, and, if so, precisely how much?

As the Obama administration’s “regulatory czar,” Sunstein knows his subject in both theory and practice. Drawing on behavioral economics and his well-known emphasis on “nudging,” he celebrates the cost-benefit revolution in policy making, tracing its defining moments in the Reagan, Clinton, and Obama administrations (and pondering its uncertain future in the Trump administration). He acknowledges that public officials often lack information about costs and benefits, and outlines state-of-the-art techniques for acquiring that information. Policies should make people’s lives better. Quantitative cost-benefit analysis, Sunstein argues, is the best available method for making this happen—even if, in the future, new measures of human well-being, also explored in this book, may be better still.” — MIT Press

More About The Cost-Benefit Revolution

“Only Cass Sunstein could present cost-benefit analysis as a prism for understanding democracy, an exciting research frontier, and a route to a better world. The world will be a better place if the next president of the United States thinks hard about this important book.” — Lawrence H. Summers, Charles W. Eliot University Professor and President Emeritus, Harvard University

“Cost-benefit analysis may not have all the answers, but Cass Sunstein’s eminently readable The Cost-Benefit Revolution addresses all the right questions. No one in America has thought more deeply about the strengths, weaknesses, and underpinnings of cost-benefit analysis from both a theoretical and practical level than Cass Sunstein. This book will surely pass your personal cost-benefit test.” — Alan Krueger, Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Princeton University

“Cass Sunstein’s enlightening volume makes a compelling case that systematic assessments of benefits and costs should become even more ingrained in government policymaking. In addition to drawing on his substantial regulatory expertise, Sunstein deftly explores novel policy terrain ranging from national security to free speech.” — W. Kip Viscusi, University Distinguished Professor, Vanderbilt University; author of Pricing Lives: Guideposts for a Safer Society and Economics of Regulation and Antitrust

“Sunstein has been leading the cost-benefit revolution, and here he explains how it is making the world a better place. If that weren’t enough, this must-read lets readers into one of the world’s most important minds.” — Michael Greenstone, Milton Friedman Professor of Economics, University of Chicago

Book Talk: Constitutional Democracy in Crisis?, Wednesday, October 3 at noon

By: June Casey - September 18th, 2018  
Filed under: Announcements, Book Talks, Events, Faculty Channel, Student Channel

The Harvard Law School Library staff invite you to attend a book talk and discussion in celebration of the recent publication of Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? edited by Mark A. Graber, Sanford Levinson and Mark Tushnet (Oxford Univ. Press, Sept. 20, 2018). Mark Tushnet is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Sanford Levinson is the W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr., Centennial Chair in Law at the University of Texas Law School and Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.  Professors Tushnet and Levinson will be joined in discussion by Vicki C. Jackson, Thurgood Marshall Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School; Steven R. Levitsky, Harvard University Professor of Government; and Katharine Young, Associate Professor at Boston College Law School.

Copies of Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? will be available for sale courtesy of the Harvard Law School COOP and Professors Levinson and Tushnet will be available for signing books at the end of the talk.

Wednesday, October 3, 2018, at noon
Harvard Law School WCC Milstein West B (Directions)
1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA
No RSVP required

Poster Constitutional Democracy in Crisis?

About Constitutional Democracy in Crisis?

“Is the world facing a serious threat to the protection of constitutional democracy?

There is a genuine debate about the meaning of the various political events that have, for many scholars and observers, generated a feeling of deep foreboding about our collective futures all over the world. Do these events represent simply the normal ebb and flow of political possibilities, or do they instead portend a more permanent move away from constitutional democracy that had been thought triumphant after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1989?

Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? addresses these questions head-on: Are the forces weakening constitutional democracy around the world general or nation-specific? Why have some major democracies seemingly not experienced these problems? How can we as scholars and citizens think clearly about the ideas of “constitutional crisis” or “constitutional degeneration”? What are the impacts of forces such as globalization, immigration, income inequality, populism, nationalism, religious sectarianism?

Bringing together leading scholars to engage critically with the crises facing constitutional democracies in the 21st century, these essays diagnose the causes of the present afflictions in regimes, regions, and across the globe, believing at this stage that diagnosis is of central importance – as Abraham Lincoln said in his “House Divided” speech, “If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.”” — Oxford University Press

Mark Tushnet

 

 

 

Mark Tushnet, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Harvard Law School

 

Sanford Levinson

 

Sanford Levinson, W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr., Centennial Chair in Law at the University of Texas Law School and Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School

 

Vicki Jackson

 

 

Vicki C. Jackson, Thurgood Marshall Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School

 

Steve Levitsky

 

 

 

Steven R. Levitsky, Harvard University Professor of Government

Katharine Young

 

 

 

Katharine Young, Associate Professor at Boston College Law School

 

More About Constitutional Democracy in Crisis?

“Many are convinced that liberal constitutional democracy is in the midst of a severe crisis, and is being replaced by illiberal constitutional democracy. This important book analyses the reasons for this development, both at the global level and at the national level. It presents original and illuminating answers to the question, ‘Why is this shift occurring?’ This scholarly foundation is necessary for finding answers to the question of how this trend can be reversed. The time is right for this book to be published by its first-class authors, and it provides the intellectual foundations necessary for each of us to cope with the changes that are occurring in our own constitutional democracies, and to try to turn the tide. For me, as a retired judge, the book provides food for thought about where we went wrong, and what we can do to take us in a new direction.” — Aharon Barak, former President of the Supreme Court of Israel; Professor of Law at IDC Herzliya

“Constitutional democracies around the world are suffering assaults from within. Globally, political freedoms are becoming weaker. Democracy does not necessarily guarantee prosperity. This book provides a superb appraisal of democracy’s current crisis. Those who wish to learn about what is happening to constitutional democracies around the world should read this groundbreaking, multiperspective, and transdisciplinary book.” — Sabino Cassese, Emeritus Justice, Italian Constitutional Court; Emeritus Professor, University of Rome

“To question the current health of constitutional democracy is implicitly to affirm that there are more chapters to be written before we arrive at the end of history. Fortunately, we now have the exquisitely crafted chapters in this unique collection of essays to help us make sense of our current predicament. Written against the backdrop of a multitude of ominous developments that have shaken confidence in the stability and endurance of liberal democratic institutions, the contributors to this timely volume explore this portentous moment from all angles, leaving the reader richly informed, if not sanguine, about future prospects. A careful reading will, however, not end in despair, for as the most disturbing threats to political freedom and economic justice emanate from within, the challenge that they represent can also be met from within.” — Gary Jeffrey Jacobsohn, H. Malcolm Macdonald Professor of Constitutional and Comparative Law, University of Texas at Austin

“This book is an indispensable resource for understanding the rise of illiberal populisms and the possibilities for sustaining constitutionalism and democracy. Contributors include leading global scholars of comparative constitutional law, whose chapters provide a diverse empirical base from countries around the world with which to evaluate constitutional democracy and its contemporary challenges and competitors. Theories are tested, data provided, and new concepts advanced – addressing, among other topics, the role of political parties, political leaders, religion, economic inequality, race, ethnicity, and immigration – in a set of readable and relatively short chapters that, as much as any edited scholarly collection could be, is a true “page-turner”, hard to stop reading once one starts.” — Vicki C. Jackson, Thurgood Marshall Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School

“This rigorous, wide-ranging, and engaging volume is an indispensable guide to the current crisis of constitutional democracy. The volume’s theoretical essays raise profound new questions about the relationship between constitutionalism and democracy. Its high quality empirical chapters help us understand the global reach and historical roots of the current crisis. This is a landmark book for our troubled times.” — Pratap B. Mehta, Vice-Chancellor, Ashoka University; past President, Centre for Policy Research

“At the end of the 20th century, constitutional democracy had gained almost universal acceptance. At least, so it seemed. A decade later, we see constitutional democracy declining or mutating into more authoritarian forms of government in a number of countries. In this timely book, more than forty outstanding authors from many parts of the world offer a comprehensive analysis of this development and its causes, which should be of paramount interest not only to scholars and students of law and politics, but to everyone concerned about public affairs.” — Dieter Grimm, Former Justice, Federal Constitutional Court of Germany; Professor of Law, Humboldt University Berlin

Book Talk: Catharine MacKinnon, Butterfly Politics, Tuesday September 18 at noon

By: June Casey - September 5th, 2018  
Filed under: Announcements, Book Talks, Events, Faculty Channel, Student Channel

The Harvard Law School Library staff invite you to attend a book talk and discussion in celebration of the recent publication of Butterfly Politics by Catharine A. MacKinnon (Belknap Press 2017). Professor MacKinnon is the Elizabeth A. Long Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and is the James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

Copies of Butterfly Politics will be available for sale courtesy of the Harvard Law School COOP and Professor MacKinnon will be available for signing books at the end of the talk.

Tuesday, September 18, 2018, at noon   YouTube Video
Harvard Law School WCC Milstein East B (Directions)
1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA
No RSVP required

Butterfly Politics Poster

About Butterfly Politics

“The minuscule motion of a butterfly’s wings can trigger a tornado half a world away, according to chaos theory. Under the right conditions, small simple actions can produce large complex effects. In this timely and provocative book, Catharine A. MacKinnon argues that the right seemingly minor interventions in the legal realm can have a butterfly effect that generates major social and cultural transformations.

Butterfly Politics brings this incisive understanding of social causality to a wide-ranging exploration of gender relations. The pieces collected here—many published for the first time—provide a new perspective on MacKinnon’s career as a pioneer of legal theory and practice and an activist for women’s rights. Its central concerns of gender inequality, sexual harassment, rape, pornography, and prostitution have defined MacKinnon’s intellectual, legal, and political pursuits for over forty years. Though differing in style and approach, the selections all share the same motivation: to end inequality, including abuse, in women’s lives. Several mark the first time ideas that are now staples of legal and political discourse appeared in public—for example, the analysis of substantive equality. Others urge changes that have yet to be realized.

The butterfly effect can animate political activism and advance equality socially and legally. Seemingly insignificant actions, through collective recursion, can intervene in unstable systems to produce systemic change. A powerful critique of the legal and institutional denial of reality that perpetuates practices of gender inequality, Butterfly Politics provides a model of what principled, effective, socially conscious engagement with law looks like.” — Harvard University Press

More About Butterfly Politics

“MacKinnon [is] radical, passionate, incorruptible and a beautiful literary stylist… Butterfly Politics…is a devastating salvo fired in the gender wars. A fierce and lucid anthology of essays on subjects ranging from torture to pornography, this book has a single overriding aim: to effect global change in the pursuit of equality… Butterfly Politics is her call for humanity to rise to its feet.” — Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Australian

“What comes together here—and what is fascinating about all of MacKinnon’s work—is a deep respect for aspects of the conventional world (the law, the value of scholarship) and an equally profound fury at the way in which these aspects also uphold many of the assumptions about the world that she takes to task. In this, it could be said, she is not unlike many of us. All respect to her for trying to find a way through this maze.” — Mary Evans, Times Higher Education

“Small actions can have highly complex and large impacts, and Catharine MacKinnon uses this concept, the ‘butterfly effect,’ to explain how critical interventions can produce radical transformation in the gender system. She exposes through 40 years of her legal battles an emerging global normative system confronting sexual inequality… MacKinnon is a 21st-century thinker, one of the few proposing global software that could run on the old national hardware. She is encouraging multidimensional political thinking, precise engagement, principled creativity, imagination, instinct and adaptability: small actions in a collective context producing systemic changes.” — Luis Moreno Ocampo, Lawfare

“[MacKinnon’s] theoretical understanding of concepts of power, privilege and intellectual freedom isn’t just universal, but also prophetic in the ways it holds weight in 2018… The book offers a comprehensive understanding of MacKinnon’s legal scholarship through over four decades. Her work asks tough questions, and clearly set some theoretical precedents in our modern-day, Tumblr and ‘social justice warrior’ era understanding of sexism, power dynamics and inequality.” — Sabah Azaad, The Print

“This excellent collection of MacKinnon’s speeches and other writings covers a roughly 40-year period and shows the process of attempting to hammer law into a tool that could be used for social change to address the inequality of women. This was something of a tall order, given, as MacKinnon says, ‘The legal system that we have was not designed by women or so that women could make it work for women.’ Yet here she is, doing it, and the book provides a rare and quite intimate window on how it is done, in both theory and practice.” — Michele Dauber, Stanford Law School

“MacKinnon adapts a concept from chaos theory in which the tiny motion of a butterfly’s wings can trigger a tornado half a world away. Under the right conditions, she posits, small actions can produce major social transformations.” — The New York Times

Book Talk: Governance Feminism: An Introduction, Monday, September 17 at noon

By: June Casey - September 4th, 2018  
Filed under: Announcements, Book Talks, Faculty Channel, New Books and Journals, Student Channel

The Harvard Law School Library staff invite you to attend a book talk and discussion in celebration of the recent publication of Governance Feminism: An Introduction, edited by Janet Halley, Prabha Kotiswaran, Rachel Rebouché and Hila Shamir (Univ. Minn. Press, Mar. 13, 2018).  Janet Halley is Royall Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.  She will be joined in discussion with her co-editors: Prabha Kotiswaran, Reader in Law and Social Justice at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London; Rachel Rebouché, Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Research at Temple University Beasley School of Law; and Hila Shamir, Associate Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University Buchmann Faculty of Law.

Copies of Governance Feminism: An Introduction will be available for sale courtesy of the Harvard Law School COOP and the authors will be available for signing books at the end of the talk.

Monday, September 17, 2018, at noon    YouTube Video
Harvard Law School WCC Milstein West A (Directions)
1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA
No RSVP required

Poster Governance Feminism

About Governance Feminism: An Introduction

“Feminists walk the halls of power.  Governance Feminism: An Introduction shows how some feminists and feminist ideas—but by no means all—have entered into state and state-like power in recent years. Being a feminist can qualify you for a job in the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Criminal Court, the local prosecutor’s office, or the child welfare bureaucracy. Feminists have built institutions and participate in governance.

The authors argue that governance feminism is institutionally diverse and globally distributed. It emerges from grassroots activism as well as statutes and treaties, as crime control and as immanent bureaucracy. Conflicts among feminists—global North and South; left, center, and right—emerge as struggles over governance. This volume collects examples from the United States, Israel, India, and from transnational human rights law.

Governance feminism poses new challenges for feminists: How shall we assess our successes and failures? What responsibility do we shoulder for the outcomes of our work? For the compromises and strange bedfellows we took on along the way?

Can feminism foster a critique of its own successes? This volume offers a pathway to critical engagement with these pressing and significant questions.” — University of Minnesota Press

Editors

Janet Halley

 

 

 

 

Janet Halley, Royall Professor of Law at Harvard Law School

 

Prabha Kotiswaran

 

 

 

Prabha Kotiswaran, Reader in Law and Social Justice at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London

 

Rachel Rebouché

 

 

 

Rachel Rebouché, Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Research at Temple University Beasley School of Law

 

Hila Shamir

 

 

 

Hila Shamir, Associate Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University Buchmann Faculty of Law

 

More About Governance Feminism: An Introduction

What happens when feminist critique inverts into governing norms? What kind of feminism becomes law and what becomes of arguments among feminists when it does? How are feminist challenges to male super-ordination transformed and distributed by bureaucratization and NGO-ification? How might we honestly assess feminism that governs? In this deeply intelligent, reflective, and pedagogical work, four feminist legal scholars probe these theoretical and empirical questions. No reader will favor every move, but all will be usefully provoked and instructed. — Wendy Brown, University of California, Berkeley

The book delivers a good summary of which feminist theories have prevailed and can be seen as the governing ones. Excellent for collections on feminism and women’s rights. — Choice

Book Talk: Big Data, Health Law, and Bioethics, Wednesday, September 12 at 4 PM

By: June Casey - August 27th, 2018  
Filed under: Announcements, Book Talks, Faculty Channel, Student Channel

The Harvard Law School Library staff invite you to attend a book talk and discussion in celebration of the recent publication of Big Data, Health Law, and Bioethics, edited by I. Glenn Cohen, Holly Fernandez Lynch, Effy Vayena and Urs Gasser (Cambridge Univ. Press, Mar. 31, 2018).

I. Glenn Cohen is the James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.  Urs Gasser is the Executive Director at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School. This talk is co-sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics and by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

Big Data Book Talk Poster
Copies of Big Data, Health Law, and Bioethics will be available for sale courtesy of the Harvard Law School COOP and Professors Cohen and Gasser will be available for signing books at the end of the talk.

Wednesday, September 12, 2018, at 4 PM
Harvard Law School WCC 2036 Milstein East B (Directions)
1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

YouTube Video

The Big Data, Health Law, and Bioethics book talk is followed by the 2018 Petrie-Flom Center Open House, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM, in the WCC Pub.

About Big Data, Health Law, and Bioethics

“When data from all aspects of our lives can be relevant to our health – from our habits at the grocery store and our Google searches to our FitBit data and our medical records – can we really differentiate between big data and health big data? Will health big data be used for good, such as to improve drug safety, or ill, as in insurance discrimination? Will it disrupt health care (and the health care system) as we know it? Will it be possible to protect our health privacy? What barriers will there be to collecting and utilizing health big data? What role should law play, and what ethical concerns may arise? This timely, groundbreaking volume explores these questions and more from a variety of perspectives, examining how law promotes or discourages the use of big data in the health care sphere, and also what we can learn from other sectors.” — Cambridge University Press

Moderator:

I. Glenn Cohen

 

 

 

I. Glenn Cohen, James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School

Panelists:

Urs Gasser

 

 

 

Urs Gasser, Executive Director at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School

 

Ameet Sarpatwari

 

 

Ameet Sarpatwari, Assistant Director for the Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, and Law (PORTAL) at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Associate Epidemiologist at Brigham & Women’s Hospital

 

Carmel Shachar

 

 

 

Carmel Shachar, Executive Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School

 

 

Book Talk: Cass Sunstein, Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict, Second Edition, Monday, April 9, at noon.

By: June Casey - March 26th, 2018  
Filed under: Announcements, Book Talks, Faculty Channel, Student Channel

The Harvard Law School Library staff invite you to attend a book talk and discussion in celebration of the recent publication of Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict, Second Edition by Cass R. Sunstein (Oxford Univ. Press, Mar. 16, 2018).  Professor Sunstein is the Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard University.  This talk is co-sponsored with the Harvard Law Students for the Rule of Law.

Copies of Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict, Second Edition will be available for sale courtesy of the Harvard Law School COOP and Professor Sunstein will be available for signing books at the end of the talk.

Sunstein_Legal Reasoning

Monday, April 9, 2018, with lunch
Harvard Law School WCC 2036 Milstein East B (Directions)
1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

About Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict, Second Edition

“In Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict, Cass R. Sunstein, one of America’s best known commentators on our legal system, offers a bold, new thesis about how the law should work in America, arguing that the courts best enable people to live together, despite their diversity, by resolving particular cases without taking sides in broader, more abstract conflicts. Professor Sunstein closely analyzes the way the law can mediate disputes in a diverse society, examining how the law works in practical terms, and showing that, to arrive at workable, practical solutions, judges must avoid broad, abstract reasoning. He states that judges purposely limit the scope of their decisions to avoid reopening large-scale controversies, calling such actions incompletely theorized agreements. In identifying them as the core feature of legal reasoning, he takes issue with advocates of comprehensive theories and systemization, from Robert Bork to Jeremy Bentham, and Ronald Dworkin. Equally important, Sunstein goes on to argue that it is the living practice of the nation’s citizens that truly makes law.

Legal reasoning can seem impenetrable, mysterious, baroque. Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict helps dissolve the mystery. Whether discussing abortion, homosexuality, or free speech, the meaning of the Constitution, or the spell cast by the Warren Court, Cass Sunstein writes with grace and power, offering a striking and original vision of the role of the law in a diverse society. In his flexible, practical approach to legal reasoning, he moves the debate over fundamental values and principles out of the courts and back to its rightful place in a democratic state: to the legislatures elected by the people.

In this Second Edition, the author updates the previous edition bringing the book into the current mainstream of twenty-first century legal reasoning and judicial decision-making focusing on the many relevant contemporary issues and developments that occurred since its initial 1996 publication.” — Oxford University Press

About Cass R. Sunstein

Cass R. Sunstein is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School.  Professor Sunstein has testified before congressional committees on many subjects, and he has been involved in constitution-making and law reform activities in a number of nations.

Mr. Sunstein is author of many articles and books, including Republic.com (2001), Risk and Reason (2002), Why Societies Need Dissent (2003), The Second Bill of Rights (2004), Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle (2005), Worst-Case Scenarios (2001), Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler, 2008), Simpler: The Future of Government (2013), Why Nudge? (2014), Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas (2014), Valuing Life: Humanizing the Regulatory State (2014), Constitutional Personae: Heroes, Soldiers, Minimalists, and Mutes (2015), Choosing Not to Choose: Understanding the Value of Choice (2015), Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter (2015), The World According to Star Wars (2016), #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media (2017), and Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide (2017). He is now working on group decisionmaking and various projects on the idea of liberty.

More About Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict, Second Edition

“The best of American legal theory has attempted to explain and justify an approach focusing on the features of individual cases and avoiding reliance on rigid rules. Sunstein’s book not only offers the most comprehensive attempt to defend particularistic decision-making in all of its manifestations, but also gives the most powerful defense. Defenders of rules, categories, and abstraction will have a formidable task in trying to penetrate the armor of Sunstein’s normative defense of particularistic decision-making.” — Frederick Schauer, David and Mary Harrison Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law

“Cass Sunstein’s book makes a significant addition to our understanding of how the law works and of the nature of law itself. He explains in lucid prose, with many concrete examples, the components of good (and bad) legal reasoning and how they contribute to the outcome of legal controversies. Sunstein’s ideas, which combine keen insight, common sense, and a vast knowledge of legal materials, are sure to prompt discussion….The book will be of great value to scholars as well as to those who are beginning the study of law.” — Lloyd L. Weinreb, Dane Professor of Law, Emeritus, Harvard University Law School

“[Sunstein’s] carefully nuanced description of the kind of reasoning employed in law, a process often mysterious to outsiders, is the best I’ve seen, and captures the way judges actually make decisions in most cases….Professor Sunstein has provided an articulate and comprehensible entry into the intellectual world of lawyers and judges…. Anyone who wishes to learn what ‘thinking like a lawyer’ is all about should read this book.” — The New York Times Book Review

Book Talk: Is International Law International?, Tuesday, April 3, at noon.

By: June Casey - March 21st, 2018  
Filed under: Announcements, Book Talks, Faculty Channel, Student Channel

The Harvard Law School Library staff invite you to attend a book talk and discussion for Is International Law International?  by Anthea Roberts, (Oxford Univ. Press, Oct. 16, 2017) and Winner of the ASIL 2018 Certificate of Merit for a preeminent contribution to creative scholarship.  Anthea Roberts is Associate Professor in the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet) at the Australian National University. The panel discussion will include: Anthea Roberts, Naz K. Modirzadeh, founding Director of the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (PILAC) and Harvard Law School Professor of Practice; and Mark Wu, Assistant Professor of Law, Harvard Law School. This talk is co-sponsored with the Harvard International Law Journal.

Is International Law International?

Tuesday, April 3, 2018
Harvard Law School WCC 2036 Milstein East B (Directions)
1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

About Is International Law International?

“This book takes the reader on a sweeping tour of the international legal field to reveal some of the patterns of difference, dominance, and disruption that belie international law’s claim to universality.

Pulling back the curtain on the “divisible college of international lawyers,” Anthea Roberts shows how international lawyers in different states, regions, and geopolitical groupings are often subject to distinct incoming influences and outgoing spheres of influence in ways that reflect and reinforce differences in how they understand and approach international law. These divisions manifest themselves in contemporary controversies, such as debates about Crimea and the South China Sea.

Not all approaches to international law are created equal, however. Using case studies and visual representations, the author demonstrates how actors and materials from some states and groups have come to dominate certain transnational flows and forums in ways that make them disproportionately influential in constructing the “international.” This point holds true for Western actors, materials, and approaches in general, and for Anglo-American (and sometimes French) ones in particular.

However, these patterns are set for disruption. As the world moves past an era of Western dominance and toward greater multipolarity, it is imperative for international lawyers to understand the perspectives and approaches of those coming from diverse backgrounds. By taking readers on a comparative tour of different international law academies and textbooks, the author encourages them to see the world through the eyes of others — an essential skill in this fast changing world of shifting power dynamics and rising nationalism.” — Oxford University Press

About Anthea Roberts

Anthea Roberts is Associate Professor in the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet) at the Australian National University. She specializes in public international law, investment treaty law and arbitration, and comparative international law. Anthea previously taught at the London School of Economics as well as Columbia and Harvard Law Schools. She is on the Editorial Boards of the American Journal of International Law, ICSID Review, and the Journal of World Investment and Trade, and blogs for EJIL: Talk! She has twice won the Francis Deák Prize for the best AJIL article by a younger scholar. Anthea serves as a Reporter for the Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States, and has experience serving as an arbitrator, counsel, and expert in international disputes.

Panelists

Naz Modirzadeh

 

 

 

Naz K. Modirzadeh, founding Director of the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (PILAC) and Harvard Law School Professor of Practice

Mark Wu

 

 

 

Mark Wu, Assistant Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

 

More About Is International Law International?

“Roberts turns a beguilingly simple question into a globe-trotting, multi-method quest for a map of international law’s players and meanings. Simultaneously irreverent and serious-minded, Roberts develops an original research agenda that takes her and the reader through the migratory flows of international lawyers around the world, the divergent methods through which they are educated, and the different professional tracks through which they are socialized. The book does not just dissolve international law’s myths of universality; it is a nascent sociology of the field of international law and the beginning of a new field of comparative international law. In an era in which Western dominance over international law no longer looks certain, this book provides the tools for a more nuanced understanding of international law’s politics, revealing the deeper meanings and stakes of current debates.” – ASIL 2018 Book Awards Committee

“According to a common stereotype, international lawyers are cosmopolitans. In this truly remarkable inquiry, Anthea Roberts shows that their cosmopolitanism remains hostage to a world of nation-states. For Americans in particular, it is disturbing to learn how international law in their country remains parochial. International lawyers across the spectrum in the United States emerge from a particular intellectual sociology, from their professionalization in their practice, even when they speak in a universalist voice – in the languages they (do not) learn, to the textbooks they use, and from the foreign affairs and national security law from which they approach the field, to the concrete positions on matters such as humanitarian intervention they take. Roberts has written a masterpiece.” – Samuel Moyn, Professor of Law, Yale Law School

“This book is a must-read for every international lawyer and negotiator. It thoroughly deconstructs the notion that there is a uniform college of international lawyers who all think alike. It helps us to reflect on our own background and the frame within which we think, and to also recognize and understand the ‘others.’ This is of utmost importance at a time when international legal cooperation is threatened.” – Anne van Aaken, Professor for Law and Economics, Legal Theory, Public International Law, and European Law, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland

“Asking the disarming question of whether ‘international law is international,’ Anthea Roberts takes readers on an ingenious tour of the global flow of people and ideas in international law, the role of nationalism and transnational hierarchies in creating unequal and ‘divisible colleges,’ and the implications for foreign policy and for the future of international law. The book is built on painstaking research into the educational background of international law scholars, where they publish and in what languages, how international law casebooks and treatises differ both within the ‘west’ and from the materials in China and Russia. It is a stellar contribution to international law, the study of globalization and legal education, comparative law, international relations, and the sociology of legal knowledge.” – Bryant Garth, Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Co-Director, Center for Empirical Research on the Legal Profession, University of California, Irvine School of Law, United States

“Roberts has raised a fundamental issue that both international lawyers and decision-makers cannot afford to ignore in this era of shifting power. This issue is whether international law is ‘international,’ as people might have taken for granted for decades or centuries, and how the ‘international’ is likely to evolve with the rise of new great powers, like China. Her perspective is absolutely unique… What Roberts exhibits, through this book, is not only the strength of her academic insight but her ability to recognize and understand the perspectives of others.” – Cai Congyan, Professor of international law of Xiamen University School of Law

“The results of Anthea Roberts’s investigation sound an alarm for all stakeholders in the field of International Law: the author calls on all of us to recognize the necessity of tearing down the mask of ‘internationality’ from the discipline in its current state and paves the way for changes towards a truly international International Law. Thoughtful and inspiring.” – Vera Rusinova, Professor of the Chair for Public and Private International Law, National Research University, The Higher School of Economics, Russia

“Roberts’s groundbreaking study brings important and new insights into the sociology of the production of international law. It charts the regional and cultural islands that dot this supposedly cosmopolitan sea and provides a deep critique of the field’s universalist aspirations/pretensions. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the international law project, whether working from the inside or as an external observer.”- Paul Stephan, John C. Jeffries, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law, United States

“For a French international lawyer who by necessity has to work in (at least) two languages and navigate different cultural universes, there is no doubt that international law is indeed international, as a crucible of diverse legal cultures. Yet, as Anthea Roberts’s (both intrepid and convincing) book demonstrates, in fact international law needs to be more international and less imperialist in the ways it is formed, practiced and conceptualized. From that perspective, Roberts’s invigorating analysis of national approaches to international law provides a salutary reappraisal of the law of nations that will no doubt frame the field in the future.” – Mathias Forteau, Professor of Public Law, University of Paris Ouest, Nanterre La Défense, France

“International law is full of myths. One of these is the global, universal character of the discipline that distances it from narrow national interests and mindsets. Anthea Roberts’s book investigates this myth in depth and shows how, contrary to the self-depiction of much of the discipline, international legal scholarship differs heavily across countries, is shaped by national traditions and institutional structures, and often follows patterns of dominance in the international system. This is a major achievement that should lead us to ask major questions about international law in a different light. Perhaps the most pressing of these – is international law distinct from international politics, and how? – will now have to be tackled in a far more nuanced way. Thinking about international law will never be quite the same again.” – Nico Krisch, Professor of International Law, the Graduate Institute Geneva, Switzerland

“Anthea Roberts’s book has the potential of re-defining how we think about international law and its realities, both beyond and within the West. It shows us the field of international law in a new light and will open new directions for international legal research in the coming decades.” – Lauri Mälksoo, Professor of International Law at the University of Tartu, Estonia and the author of Russian Approaches to International Law (OUP 2015)

“Anthea Roberts’s book can be compared to a high-quality aerial picture of national and regional international law academias that live on the same planet as neighbours, but barely acknowledge each other’s existence and language. A product of excellent research and very thoughtful observation, the book speaks of differences, yet one of its aftertastes is a sudden sense of how similar all the nationalized approaches are in their parochiality. Roberts destroys the myth of universality only to open a way to genuine understanding of similarities in each other.” – Maria Issaeva, Managing Partner, Threefold Legal Advisors, Russia

“I enjoyed reading this book tremendously and have kept coming back to the staggering view of the international law world it offers over again. I am very serious when I say that nothing in the field will be quite the same after this book has been published. It is such an eye-opener.” – Martti Koskenniemi, Professor of International Law (University of Helsinki), and Director, Erik Castrén Institute of International law and Human Rights

“Instantly, it is a classic that anyone who wants to reflect on the field must read… The central virtue of Professor Roberts’s study is that it is brilliantly and rigorously empirical, based on an extraordinary survey of how training, scholarship, and service in international law actually take place across the world… Both hard-bitten realists about the endurance of international struggle and idealists who hope for a more unified humanity must now start with Professor Roberts’s book.” – Sam Moyn, Lawfare

“Roberts’s new book, marshals an extensive body of original research to suggest that there are significant cross-national variations in the ideological and doctrinal content of international legal education… The [book’s] implications are far-reaching, and I truly view the book as required reading for anyone interested in international law.” – Ryan Scoville, Lawfare

“This provocative and yet very simple question unleashes a distruptive conceptual earthquake: what if that right that we consider universal par excellance was not international at all?… Although the answers to these provocations might seem obvious, their implications are far from being predictable – if only we take them seriously into account as Anthea Roberts does.” – Francesca Iurlaro, Guerra e Diritto Internazionale

Book Talk: Nazi-Looted Art and the Law: The American Cases, Wednesday, March 28, at noon.

By: June Casey - March 14th, 2018  
Filed under: Announcements, Book Talks, Faculty Channel, Student Channel

The Harvard Law School Library staff invite you to attend a book talk for Nazi-Looted Art and the Law: The American Cases by Bruce L. Hay (Springer, Jan. 25, 2018). Bruce L. Hay is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Harvard Law School WCC 2036 Milstein East B (directions)
1585 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA

Nazi-Looted Art and the Law

About Nazi-Looted Art and the Law: The American Cases

“This book offers a clear, accessible account of the American litigation over the restitution of works of art taken from Jewish families during the Holocaust. For the past two decades, the courts of the United States have been an arena of conflict over this issue that has recently captured widespread public attention. In a series of cases, survivors and heirs have come forward to claim artworks in public and private collections around the world, asserting that they were seized by the Nazis or were sold under duress by owners desperate to escape occupied countries. Spanning two continents and three-quarters of a century, the cases confront the courts with complex problems of domestic and international law, clashes among the laws of different jurisdictions, factual uncertainties about the movements of art during and after the war, and the persistent question whether restitution claims have been extinguished by the passage of time.Through individual case studies, the book examines the legal questions these conflicts have raised and the answers the courts have given. From the internationally celebrated “Woman in Gold” lawsuit against Austria to lesser-known claims against Germany, Hungary, Spain, and museums and private collections in the United States, the book synthesizes the legal and evidentiary materials and judicial rulings in each case, creating a coherent narrative of proceedings that are often labyrinthine in complexity. Written by a leading authority on litigation and procedure, the book will be of interest to readers in various fields of the humanities and social sciences as well as law, and to anyone interested in the fate of artworks that have been called the “last prisoners” of the Second World War.” — Springer

About Bruce Hay

Professor Hay’s primary field is legal procedure, including civil litigation, conflicts of law, and dispute resolution. His latest book, Nazi-Looted Art and the Law (2017), examines the intricacies of the American courts’ adjudication of Holocaust-era restitution claims, which raise myriad problems of domestic, international and foreign law as well as difficult evidentiary questions. He is also interested in the economic analysis of law, including the economics of litigation, liability, and insurance. Before joining the Harvard faculty he clerked at the United States Supreme Court, and practiced law with Sidley Austin LLP in Washington, DC, specializing in appellate cases. He studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, l’Université d’Aix-en-Provence, and Harvard Law School.

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