Past Events at the Munk One
May 2019
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Tuesday, May 7th “A Hell of a Lot Worse Than Waterboarding”?: Law and American State Violence From Bush to Trump
Date Time Location Tuesday, May 7, 2019 3:00PM - 5:00PM Seminar Room 108N, 1 Devonshire Place + Register for this Event Print this Event Bookmark this Event
Description
Donald Trump has notoriously promised to “bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding” along with other unlawful practices. Furthermore, his administration has advanced policies that undermine international human rights commitments, particularly related to migration and refugees. While Trumpism is undoubtedly shocking, it exists within a continuum of American challenges to international law, justified in the name of national security. Drawing from Sanders’ new book, Plausible Legality (Oxford University Press, 2018), this talk traces how the Bush and Obama administrations, to varying degrees, legally rationalized torture, targeted killing, and mass surveillance after 9/11. What do these largely successful efforts to construct legal cover for human rights abuses tell us about the capacity of legal rules to constrain state violence, both in the past and today? Can the law prevent “worse” from occurring in the future?
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