Georgetown Law Alumni Magazine - Res Ipsa Loquitur
Spring/Summer 2009 - Online Volume 1
Lectures and Events
Experts Tackle Torture, Gun Rights and More
It isn’t often that a Pulitzer-prize nominated journalist from The New Yorker appears on the same discussion panel as a University College of London international law professor. But at Georgetown Law’s “First Wednesday” luncheon on September 10, reporter/writer Jane Mayer and Professor Philippe Sands had much to say about the U.S. military’s coercive interrogation policies and presidential power in the war on terror.
Mayer is the author of The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals (Doubleday), and Sands wrote Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values (Palgrave MacMillan). These books “tell stories most Americans think would be fiction,” commented Dean Alex Aleinikoff, who moderated the discussion.
The speaker series, usually held on the first Wednesday of every month, serves as an informal way to enlighten students, faculty and alumni on timely legal and political issues. The topic on the menu for October was the Second Amendment, as Alan Gura (L’95) and O’Melveny & Myers’ Matthew Shors shared their thoughts on District of Columbia v. Heller. Gura was the winning lawyer in the case, in which the Court concluded that the District of Columbia’s gun ban was unconstitutional.
“We felt that the harm was doing nothing,” said Gura, who filed the case on behalf of, among others, a D.C. policeman who sought to keep a handgun at home. Since the Supreme Court jurisprudence on the Second Amendment was virtually nonexistent, Gura said, he and his clients thought it was time for the Court to consider the issue in a responsible civil case. “We went ahead with the case, and you guys know the outcome.”
In November — less than one week after the presidential election — former Senate majority leader George Mitchell was on hand to answer questions ranging from the economic challenges facing the new administration to performance-enhancing substances in sports, nuclear nonproliferation and climate change. Though Mitchell could not have known at that time that he would be asked by President Obama less than three months later to serve as a special envoy to the Middle East [See a Related Article] he did note that many around the world are yearning for good U.S. leadership — like that which existed after World War II when the United States took the lead in helping to establish organizations such as the United Nations and NATO.
“Our power is the greatest it’s ever been; our standing is the lowest it’s ever been,” Mitchell said on November 11. The country has lost its standing as a moral leader, he noted, because people perceive a gap between our ideals and our actions. Now, “the U.S. relies more on power than ideals,” he said.
