Dr. Jeremy Wisnewski is the guest for Ideas Matter this week. Here is the abstract for his talk:
If there is one lesson to learn from the Bush Presidency, it is that no law—whether domestic statute or international treaty—can resist systematic misinterpretation. The aim of this talk is to look closely and carefully at the arguments surrounding several key Bush administration decisions—examining these as a case study, in essence, of the way that legal reasoning can be manipulated toward virtually any end. In exploring the arguments of the Bush league surrounding things like torture, the constitution, and our international treaty obligations, I want to suggest two theses: First, that human rights law has been significantly damaged by the Bush League, and second, that the kind of legal gerrymandering and linguistic subterfuge employed by the Bush administration constitutes the commission of war crimes.
Hope to see you there!
