The Political Economy of 'Lawfare'
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This talk will analyze the evolution of lawfare, what Jeremy Bentham called "an irregular system of warfare." Meierhenrich introduces lawfare as a conceptually and analytically distinct type of warfare, and a political strategy not previously theorized in any systematic fashion. In his conceptualization, lawfare is a revolutionary strategy for broadcasting power, by which he means a strategy aimed at the systematic and comprehensive overhaul of the foundations of politics and society. This strategy comprises, inter alia, constitutional enactments, ordinary legislation, presidential decrees, and other regulatory instruments. Based on evidence from cases, Meierhenrich illustrates the economy with which the strategy of lawfare may be used and the ingenuity that it requires. Restating an influential aphorism, he shows how law made the state, and the state made law. By so doing, he explains why this irregular system of warfare stands in much higher favor with men in general than that which is carried on by open force -- illustrating the dark side of democracy and the rule of law.
About the speaker:
Jens Meierhenrich is Assistant Professor of Government and of Social Studies at Harvard University, where he is also a Faculty Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. He recently served as the Carlo Schmid Fellow in Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and has previously worked with Luis Moreno Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Professor Meierhenrich is the author of a genocide trilogy, forthcoming from Princeton University Press, comprising "The Rationality of Genocide," "The Structure of Genocide," and "The Culture of Genocide." His book "The Legacies of Law" on the function of legal norms and institutions in the transition to - and from - apartheid, is currently under review. Meierhenrich's publications also include a series of articles on comparative and international law and politics. Work in progress includes a book on judicial responses to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, a comparative analysis of international courts and tribunals, and a long-term project on state formation and state collapse. He has conducted extensive field research in several international organizations as well as in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
Jens Meierhenrich was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where he earned a D.Phil. in politics and international relations.
CISAC Conference Room
Jens Meierhenrich
Assistant Professor of Government and of Social Studies
Speaker
Harvard University
Seminars
The Khodorkovsky Case: Human Rights and Rule of Law in Putin's Russia
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Robert R. Amsterdam, founding partner of the international law firm Amsterdam & Peroff, is counsel to the former Yukos head and political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky. For more than 25 years, Mr. Amsterdam has represented corporations and investors in a variety of emerging markets lacking in rule of law, such as Russia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Guatemala, overseeing complex commercial litigation and advising on political risk. He has delivered speeches before the Carnegie Endowment, the Cato Institute, Georgetown University, University College London, and Chatham House. He has published numerous opinion articles on energy politics and law in the Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, the National Law Journal, the Guardian, and the Independent, among other media. Mr. Amsterdam maintains a blog at www.robertamsterdam.com and is working on a forthcoming book.
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room
Robert Amsterdam
Speaker
Seminars
The Future of International Law in an Age of Genocide and Terrorism
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Luis Moreno-Ocampo was unanimously elected by the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on April 21, 2003. Between 1984 and 1992, as a prosecutor in Argentina, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo was involved in precedent-setting prosecutions of top military commanders for mass killings and other large scale human rights abuses.
He was assistant prosecutor in the "Military Junta" trial against Army commanders accused of masterminding the "dirty war," and other cases of human rights violations by the Argentine military. Mr. Moreno-Ocampo was the prosecutor in charge of the extradition from investigation and prosecution of guerrilla leaders and of those responsible for two military rebellions in Argentina. He also took part in the case against Army commanders accused of malpractice during the Malvinas/Falklands war, as well as in dozens of major cases of corruption.
In 1992, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo resigned as Chief Prosecutor of the Federal Criminal Court of Buenos Aires, and established a private law firm, Moreno-Ocampo & Wortman Jofre, which specializes in corruption control programs for large firms and organizations, criminal and human rights law. Until his election as Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo worked as lawyer and as Private Inspector General for large companies. He also took on a number of pro bono activities, among others as legal representative for the victims in the extradition of former Nazi officer Erich Priebke to Italy, the trial of the chief of the Chilean secret police for the murder of General Carlos Prats, and several cases concerning political bribery, journalists' protection and freedom of expression.
Mr. Moreno-Ocampo also worked with various local, regional, and international NGO's. He was the president of Transparency International for Latin America and the Caribbean. The founder and president of Poder Ciudadano, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo also served as member of the Advisory Board of the "Project on Justice in Times of Transition" and "New Tactics on Human Rights."
Mr. Moreno-Ocampo has been a visiting professor at both Stanford University and Harvard University.
Sponsored by the Stanford Law School, the Program on Global Justice, the Forum on Contemporary Europe, the Stanford Film Lab, VPUE, and the Introduction to the Humanities Program.
Building 260, Room 113
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
Luis Moreno-Ocampo
Chief Prosecutor
Speaker
the International Criminal Court, the Hague
Lectures
The Wars on Three Fronts: Iraq, the Pentagon, and Main Street
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Drell Lecture Recording: NA
Drell Lecture Transcript:
Speaker's Biography: Thom Shanker is the national security and foreign policy correspondent for the New York Times. He joined the Times in 1997 and began covering the Pentagon in May 2001, four months before the terrorist attacks. Previously, Shanker was foreign editor of the Chicago Tribune. From 1992 to 1995, as the Tribune's senior European correspondent, based in Berlin, he covered the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina; the departure of American, British, French, and Russian forces from Berlin; and emerging cases of nuclear smuggling in Central Europe.
Shanker spent two years in the master's degree program at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, specializing in strategic studies and international law. He has written on foreign policy, military affairs, and the intelligence community for The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, and American Journalism Review.
Oak Lounge
Thom Shanker
National Security and Foreign Policy Correspondent
Speaker
The New York Times
Lectures
The Use of Force and Contemporary Security Threats: Old Medicine for New Ills?
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International terrorism carried out by nonstate actors and the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to dangerous states have emerged in recent years as the most significant security threats to the international order. Although the nature of the threats has changed dramatically, the legal regime governing the international use of force has not undergone a comparable transformation. Many commentators and strategists see a growing disconnect between states' security needs and the international law security architecture. Contending that the international law rules and international institutions established by the U.N. Charter are ill-suited to meeting contemporary security threats, these commentators and policymakers advance new doctrines to expand the entitlement of states to use force unilaterally in self-defense.
This article rejects this perspective and the associated prescriptions for new legal rules to regulate the international use of force. It demonstrates that the U.N. Charter created a two-tiered system of rules and standards to govern the use of force. With respect to unilateral uses of force by states, the Charter employs a bright-line rule: to guard against erroneous and bad-faith invocations of the right of self-defense, force may be used unilaterally only in the event of an armed attack. The Charter employs a more flexible standards-based approach, subject to the procedural safeguards of collective decision-making by the Security Council, to authorize force to confront threats to international peace and security.
The article challenges the widely held assumption that the competing interests of the Permanent Members will inevitably produce gridlock in the Security Council with respect to collective action against the new security threats. To the contrary, there is an underlying affinity of interests among the Permanent Members with respect to these threats. The Permanent Members all face major international terrorist threats, and they all seek to preserve their near-monopoly over WMD. Accordingly, the Permanent Members share an interest in confronting international terrorism and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Because these contemporary security threats--unlike the rivalries of the Cold War era--do not implicate competing interests of the Permanent Members, the Security Council's security architecture is actually better suited to addressing today's threats than it was to countering the state-versus-state conflicts for which it was designed. The recent behavior of the Permanent Members reflects their increasing cooperation on the basis of this affinity of interests.
The article further argues that the use of force pursuant to the Charter's collective security provisions carries with it greater legitimacy, greater prospect for success, and less danger of destabilizing error or abuse than would force exercised pursuant to doctrines that expand the right of states to use force unilaterally. The Article also identifies pragmatic policy and diplomatic steps the Permanent Members should take to build upon their underlying affinity of interests regarding international terrorism and WMD proliferation so as to strengthen the capacity of the collective security architecture to confront these threats.
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Stanford Law Review
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The Obsolescing Bargain Redux: Foreign Investment in the Electric Power Sector in Developing Countries
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As part of PESD's ongoing research on power sector reform, the program has focused on the special role of independent power projects (IPPs). Many countries institute reform with the goal of attracting private (usually foreign) investors in new generating capacity. IPPs, rather than across-the-board reform, are usually the mechanism employed; yet the IPP market has been highly volatile in the last decade and has evaporated in most countries in recent years.
Private investment in electricity generation in developing countries grew dramatically during the 1990s, only to decline equally dramatically in the wake of the Asian financial crisis and other troubles in the late 1990s. The Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University has undertaken a detailed review of the IPP experience in developing countries. The study has sought to identify the principal factors that explain the wide variation in outcomes for IPP investors and hosts. It also aims to identify lessons for the next wave in private investment in electricity generation.
This article presents the conclusions and analysis of the study of the experience of investment in greenfield IPPs in developing countries. The term "independent power producer" has been used to refer to several types of enterprises, but for this paper, "IPP" refers to a privately developed power plant that sells electricity to a public electricity grid, often under long term contract with a state utility. For this study and report, the lead actors in every IPP are private investors usually foreign, but often with local partners. The classic foreign-sponsored, project-financed IPP has taken root in more than fifty emerging countries that display wide variation in economic, political and social environments. The wide variation in settings for IPPs affords a special opportunity for researchers to probe systematically the critical factors that contribute to outcomes for host countries and for investors.
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N.Y.U. Journal of International Law and Politics
Helena de Bres
Program on Global Justice
Encina Hall, Room E112
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
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hdebres@stanford.edu
Program on Global Justice Predoctoral Fellow
Helena received her PhD in Philosophy from MIT in September 2007. Her research focuses on the foundations and content of claims of justice and fairness as they arise in global politics and international law, and the relationship between these claims and their counterparts at the domestic level. She is interested in these questions both at a general level, and in connection with specific social and political concerns with a cross-border dimension (such as those that arise in relation to trade in goods, services and ideas; the environment; health policy; labor standards; development; and immigration)."
NYU Journal of International Law & Politics publishes PESD study results
News Type
News
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Erik Woodhouse publishes the final report from PESD's multi-year study on privately owned power plants in emerging markets. The study, appearing in the next issue of the New York University Journal of International Law & Politics, explains the wide variation in experiences as foreign investors have built and operated overseas power plants. The study explains why key contracts for these types of projects often fail and how to make private infrastructure investment more sustainable. More detailed findings from the study, including individual case studies in thirteen countries, are found at Experience with Independent Power Projects in Developing Countries.
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International Law, Human Rights, and the International Criminal Court
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Luis Moreno-Ocampo was unanimously elected by the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on April 21, 2003. Between 1984 and 1992, as a prosecutor in Argentina, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo was involved in precedent-setting prosecutions of top military commanders for mass killings and other large scale human rights abuses.
He was assistant prosecutor in the "Military Junta" trial against Army commanders accused of masterminding the "dirty war," and other cases of human rights violations by the Argentine military. Mr. Moreno-Ocampo was the prosecutor in charge of the extradition from investigation and prosecution of guerrilla leaders and of those responsible for two military rebellions in Argentina. He also took part in the case against Army commanders accused of malpractice during the Malvinas/Falklands war, as well as in dozens of major cases of corruption.
In 1992, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo resigned as Chief Prosecutor of the Federal Criminal Court of Buenos Aires, and established a private law firm, Moreno-Ocampo & Wortman Jofre, which specializes in corruption control programs for large firms and organizations, criminal and human rights law. Until his election as Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo worked as lawyer and as Private Inspector General for large companies. He also took on a number of pro bono activities, among others as legal representative for the victims in the extradition of former Nazi officer Erich Priebke to Italy, the trial of the chief of the Chilean secret police for the murder of General Carlos Prats, and several cases concerning political bribery, journalists' protection and freedom of expression.
Mr. Moreno-Ocampo also worked with various local, regional, and international NGO's. He was the president of Transparency International for Latin America and the Caribbean. The founder and president of Poder Ciudadano, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo also served as member of the Advisory Board of the "Project on Justice in Times of Transition" and "New Tactics on Human Rights."
Mr. Moreno-Ocampo has been a visiting professor at both Stanford University and Harvard University.
Sponsored by the Stanford Law School, the Program on Global Justice, the Forum on Contemporary Europe, the Stanford Film Lab, VPUE, and the Introduction to the Humanities Program.
Faculty Lounge
Stanford Law School
Stanford University
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305
Luis Moreno-Ocampo
Chief Prosecutor
Speaker
the International Criminal Court, the Hague
Lectures