Please join us for the next event in our PLP Speaker Series.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Pound 100
Managing Professional and Personal Demands in a Law Firm
Dr. Spela Trefalt, Simmons School of Management
Lunch will be provided, but space is limited. Please RSVP to Suela Caushi.
Advancing counter-narratives of post-conflict justice using a human rights discourse: The “comfort women” social movement as a case study
In the 2007-08 academic year, with funding provided by a PLP student fellowship, CHEAH Wui Ling completed a study of the complex issue of human sexual slavery that involved interviewing and consulting with legal professionals seeking war reparations and other forms of compensation (both domestically and internationally) for “comfort women” forced into sexual servitude by the Japanese military during World War II. Read the paper
The Program’s student fellowship program is designed to enhance and contribute to student research at Harvard Law School. The fellowships include access to the Program’s research resources, the opportunity to meet and discuss program-related research with faculty and peers, and financial support to enable upper-class students to conduct research and writing projects that otherwise would be cost-prohibitive. For more information and to download the application, please visit the PLP website.
PLP Senior Distinguished Fellow Ben Heineman published two pieces in September :
Boards Fail Again, in Business Week (September 26, 2008) Read the Article
and
Don’t Get Blindsided by Your New Job, in Corporate Counsel (September 29, 2008) Read the Article
The Program has created a student fellowship program designed to enhance and contribute to student research at Harvard Law School. The fellowships include access to the Program’s research resources, the opportunity to meet and discuss program-related research with faculty and peers, and financial support to enable upper-class students to conduct research and writing projects that otherwise would be cost-prohibitive.
Student fellowship funding typically ranges from $1,000 – $1,500 and can be used to cover the costs associated with conducting empirical research (such as survey design and administration, travel costs for site visits, field research or interviews, and other out-of-pocket expenses). The research project must be empirical in nature and must relate to the legal profession itself or to a related aspect of the delivery of professional services. Student fellows conducting research on public interest topics are eligible to apply for up to $1,000 in additional funds, or a total grant of $2,000- $2,500. PLP Student Fellowships can be aggregated with other funding, such as winter term research grants.
Fellowships are offered throughout the 2008-09 academic year, and applications will be considered on a rolling basis. The deadlines are:
Join us on Wednesday, September 17, 2008
from 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
in Pound 100
An Introduction to the Program on the Legal Profession
Professor David Wilkins, Faculty Director
Dr. David Nersessian, Executive Director
The HLS Program on the Legal Profession will host an orientation luncheon on Wednesday, September 17, 2008 from 12-1pm in Pound 200. Please join PLP’s faculty and staff for an overview of our research projects, public interest summer institute, student fellowship program, and other initiatives.
Lunch will be provided, but space is limited. Please RSVP to Suela Caushi by September 15.
Join us on Tuesday, September 16, 2008
from 5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
in the Vorenberg Classroom (Langdell North)
Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values
Professor Philippe Sands, QC
University College London
The inaugural PLP Speaker Series event will feature Philippe Sands, Professor of Law and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals at University College London. Professor Sands will discuss his recent book Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values (Penguin, May 2008), with HLS commentary by Professor Alan Dershowitz. A reception will follow from 6.30pm – 7.30pm. All are welcome.
Philippe Sands joined the law faculty at University College London in January 2002. His teaching areas include public international law, the settlement of international disputes (including arbitration), and environmental and natural resources law.
Professor Sands is a regular commentator on the BBC and CNN and writes frequently for leading newspapers. He is frequently invited to lecture around the world, and in recent years has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto (2005), the University of Melbourne (2005) and the Universite de Paris I (Sorbonne) (2006, 2007). He has previously held academic positions at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, Kings College London, and University of Cambridge and was a Global Professor of Law at New York University from 1995-2003. He was co-founder of FIELD (Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development), and established the programs on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. He is a member of the Advisory Boards of the European Journal of International Law and Review of European Community and International Environmental Law (Blackwell Press).
As a practicing barrister he has extensive experience litigating cases before the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, and the European Court of Justice. He frequently advises governments, international organizations, NGOs and the private sector on aspects of international law. In 2003 he was appointed as a Queen’s Counsel.
From the Torture Team publisher’s website:
On December 2, 2002 the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, signed his name at the bottom of a document that listed eighteen techniques of interrogation – techniques that defied international definitions of torture. The Rumsfeld Memo authorized the controversial interrogation practices that later migrated to Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, as part of the policy of extraordinary rendition.
From a behind-the-scenes vantage point, leading international lawyer Philippe Sands investigates how the Rumsfeld Memo set the stage for a divergence from the Geneva Convention and the Torture Convention and holds the individual gatekeepers in the Bush administration accountable for their failure to safeguard international law. The Torture Team delves deep into the Bush administration to reveal:
- How the policy of abuse originated with Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, and was promoted by their most senior lawyers
- Personal accounts, through interview, of those most closely involved in the decisions
- How the Joint Chiefs and normal military decision-making processes were circumvented
- How Fox TV’s 24 contributed to torture planning
- How interrogation techniques were approved for use
- How the new techniques were used on Mohammed Al Qahtani, alleged to be “the 20th hijacker”
- How the senior lawyers who crafted the policy of abuse exposed themselves to the risk of war crimes charge