The Harvard Law School Library recently hosted Claire Finkelstein, professor of law and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, for a discussion on “Sovereignty and the New Executive Authority,” a volume of essays exploring the growing struggle to maintain the legal and ethical boundaries surrounding executive authority in the post- 9/11 United States.
Europe’s crisis—the challenges to liberal democracy across the continent, the rise of right-wing nationalist parties, the backlash against the European Union—isn’t a rebellion of economic have-nots, according to former HLS professor Joseph Weiler, who delivered the Herbert W. Vaughan Memorial Lecture, “The European Culture War 2003-2019,” on Feb. 6.
“Tough Cases,” a new book in which 13 trial judges from criminal, civil, probate, and family courts write candid and poignant firsthand accounts of the trials they can’t forget, was the subject of a lively discussion at a panel sponsored by the Harvard Law School Library, which drew a packed house at Wasserstein Hall in October.
With the Supreme Court divided ideologically along partisan lines for the first time in history, the Solicitor General—no matter the administration—has become more political. How did this post, long regarded as the keel keeping the government balanced, come to contribute to forceful tacks one way or the other, to the Court’s seeming indifference?
On March 6, John Manning ’85, Harvard Law School deputy dean and Bruce Bromley Professor of Law, delivered a talk, “Without the Pretense of Legislative Intent,” as part of the Scalia lecture series at HLS.
Describing him, among other things, as “a man of enormous achievements,” HLS scholars say Supreme Court nominee Neil M. Gorsuch ’91 — selected by President Donald Trump to replace the late Antonin Scalia — would alter the tone, if not the balance, of the Court, if appointed.
With the U.S. presidential election weeks away, Harvard Law Today offers a look back at what scholars from campus and beyond had to say in recent months about democracy’s challenges in a series of talks on Election Law.
Lincoln understood the difference between departure from the letter of the law in an unprecedented emergency and violation of universal precepts of human dignity. President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, John Yoo as well as those who indiscriminately condemned the post-9/11 responses of these men did not. Continue Reading »
With the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia ’60 of the U.S. Supreme Court on February 13 has come an outpouring of remembrances and testaments to his transformative presence during his 30 years on the Court. On February 24, Dean Martha Minow and a panel of seven Harvard Law School professors, each of whom had a personal or professional connection to the justice, gathered to remember his life and work.
On Feb. 24, a panel of Harvard Law School professors, all of whom had personal or professional connections to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, gathered to remember his life and work.
