I’ve posted before about targeted killing, and written about it for publication, as well. I’ll be on NPR’s All Things Considered today, in a story by correspondent Ari Shapiro, talking about targeted killings in relation to detention and interrogation. (Now that I’ve seen the story, I see with pleasure that it also quotes Matthew Waxman, […]
Author Archive | Kenneth Anderson
Proposing New Law School Finance Courses – Bleg
I’m considering submitting two new course proposals to our curriculum committee at our law school here in DC. I’d be grateful for your pedagogical advice. One would be a reading-research seminar in law and economics on the current state of debate over the Efficient Market Hypothesis. I imagine we would read some standard economics articles […]
They Made a Multilateralism and Called It Peace
The Obama UN speeches and appearances last week have caused some comment among conservatives along the lines of President Obama simply wanting the US to be one among the guys of nations. Andrew Ferguson picks up this notion in his Weekly Standard commentary this week, and it’s been around other places, too. I think it’s basically right, and is one of the basic motivations behind US protestations of “multilateralism” – to lay down the burdens, mouth the same words as everyone else, and quit having to bear the costs of providing the essentials of the global security system.
I’ve been talking about this for quite a while, in alas unread academic papers that languish in unread corners of the internet, so you’ll just have to forgive me for quoting myself. Note to everyone: the full papers are also well worth reading! Also, though, in an excellent literary review, La Revista de Libros which, while very well circulated and publisher of some of the finest literary prose in the contemporary Spanish language, does, however, publish out of Madrid and in Spanish:
Be wary, O Europe, above all, of liberal internationalist Americans bearing gifts of multilateralism. An America that does not assert, rudely and brusquely, its own interests and views first through Nato and elsewhere, an America that sings sweet songs of multilateral interdependence is, surely, a superpower that has decided to simply go along with what everyone else does, which is another way of saying it has tired of supporting the free riders, which is another way of saying that it, too, says one thing but might do another, and what it might do is not show up when the big battalions are finally needed. Prudent Europeans fear and do not trust, above all, an America that does not put its own interests first and carry the rest along in train. Re-read Raymond Aron. Europe will soon enough face an Iranian nuclear weapon along with its massive dependence upon Russian natural gas, even as its military strength declines yearly – hourly – and in important respects it is today at least arguably more dependent on the American security guarantee, not less, than at any time since 1990.
The broader point being that for all the talk about UN collective security, the reason anyone even talks about it is that it is, for much of the world, a fifth wheel on a broad, US security guarantee. If you are European states, you can talk about UN collective security because you don’t need it and it isn’t truly your security guarantor.
Deborah Pearlstein Responds to Ben Wittes on Detention
By Kenneth Anderson on October 3, 2009 9:17 am in Congress, Counter-Terrorism Policy, International Law, Supreme Court
Deborah Pearlstein has an important response to Ben Wittes’s Washington Post op-ed on the Obama administration and detention policy, cross posted at Opinio Juris and Balkinization. I continue to hold Ben’s views on this, but Deborah offers an incisive next move in the debate and it is important reading for those following this crucial topic.
Talisman ATS 2nd Circuit Holding Issued
Over at Opinio Juris, my co-blogger Roger Alford notes the issuance today of the Second Circuit’s “long-awaited decision of Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman Energy.” Remarks Roger: My initial impression of the opinion is that it creates an intent hurdle that will be extraordinarily difficult for plaintiffs to overcome. Plaintiffs must show that a corporation […]
Globally Managing American Speech?
By Kenneth Anderson on October 2, 2009 10:19 am in Constitutional Theory, Freedom of Speech, International Law, Politics, Religion and the Law
I read with great interest Eugene’s post below on the Obama administration, free speech, and human rights. As it happens, I’m trying to finish up a manuscript on the UN and “values” at this very moment. Here are a couple of observations that I don’t propose to defend here; I throw them out unsupported, and I’ll try to go back and add something else later.
This whole process of “engagement” on an issue like free speech by the US at the HRC or anywhere else in the international system is a mistake from the beginning. Among the many reasons is, first, that a process like that of the HRC is designed to lead to consensus, which in practice will mean some kind of compromise. But the whole point of freedom of speech under the First Amendment is that it is not open to compromise, and certainly not in the sense of elaborating standards from the outside for a sovereign people who govern themselves under a constitution.
Even to “engage” in the process, as a consequence, leads to tears no matter where it goes. A compromise on the issue will inevitably mean that the first amendment is weakened in its substantive American understanding. If the US engages in the process, however, but then does not accept the result, then it is understandably accused of negotiating in bad faith.
But that’s the consequence of a policy of “always, or nearly always, engage” with the UN or with international institutions. There are certain institutions in which the US should always engage; the Security Council is one of them. There are certain institutions or processes with which it should never engage and actively seek to undermine; Durban I and II come to mind. The HRC is another institution with which engagement is a mistake, and an obvious one. The decision to engage or not engage is one that by itself is an exercise in political capital. I admit to finding unpersuasive the position of some (HRW made these arguments around Durban, but it is a fairly common trope) that
(a) the US should always engage with UN institutions because engagement is an important symbolic act that shows US commitment to international institutions and
(b) the US should not be concerned about always engaging with institutions or processes at the UN, because these are “merely” symbolic processes and one can always walk out, because as a realist matter no one can “make” the US do anything it doesn’t want.
This is looking to have it both ways. Which is it to be? Does symbolic engagement matter or doesn’t it?
The Davis Polk Financial Crisis Manual
Via TaxProfBlog, I discovered the Davis Polk Financial Crisis Manual, in pdf. I read it quickly while covering my wife’s classes at St. Alban’s today – all quizzes and tests, so I had time to read while the boys were struggling with conjugating the pluperfect in Spanish. It’s really very good. 279 pages and available […]
Amanda Frost, Guest Posting on the New DOJ State Secrets Policy:
(Note: I am delighted to put up this guest post by my Washington College of Law, American University colleague Amanda Frost, on the new DOJ policy on the state secrets doctrine. Amanda has done important academic writing in this area, including this 2007 Fordham Law Review article, as well as other areas related to federal […]
Hoover ‘s John B. Taylor is Econo-Blogging:
Stanford Professor and Hoover Institution senior fellow John B. Taylor has started up a blog, Economics One. His short Hoover Press book on the monetary origins of the financial crisis, Getting Off Track: How Government Actions and Interventions Caused, Prolonged, and Worsened the Financial Crisis, was a surprise intellectual intervention in analysis of the crisis […]
Co-Conspirator Eric’s Think Again Column …
and a brief note on the UN General Assembly meeting, the G-20 meetings, Eric’s state-rational-interests view of international law, and the effect of the US security guarantee on UN collective security calculations. Random thoughts, pretty much. (You can read a much more sanguine view of international law and the General Assembly opening by my Opinio […]
Aldous Huxley:
Ann Althouse mentions looking for an Aldous Huxley quote. Below is my favorite Aldous Huxley quote: I have been told by an eminent academic critic that I am a sad symptom of the failure of an intellectual class in time of crisis. The implication being, I suppose, that the professor and his colleagues are hilarious […]
Bernard Kouchner Calls to Revive Idea of Global Financial Tax to Fund Development:
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner calls in the Financial Times for a tax on global financial transactions as a means of funding the currently moribund UN Millennium Development Goals. It is an idea that has been floated repeatedly since the 1990s – sometimes with the emphasis on the tax itself as a means of deliberately […]
Voting, Religion, and Public Officials:
Further to Chief Conspirator Eugene’s post below on religion and public officials, I tried my best to answer that question in an article on Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee during the primary in the Weekly Standard (this link directly to the magazine; easier than the SSRN link below). The first part is snark – Andrew […]
Four Modes of Reductionist Explanation:
Over at Asymmetrical Information, Megan McArdle posts an email from a reader responding to a series of posts on the causes and solutions of obesity. The email is bracing and provocative, written from my home town of LA; here is a bit of the email to McArdle: As someone who works in the entertainment industry […]
Irwin Stelzer on Executive Compensation:
The economics commentator, Irwin Stelzer, has an excellent, plain-spoken article in the Weekly Standard on the issues of executive compensation in the financial institutions. Pay Day. It is an interesting article in part because Stelzer takes as his audience conservatives who are skeptical of government-established restrictions on compensation in the banks and financial institutions: The […]