A Lecture in Transnational Justice by Professor David Luban (Georgetown Law).

The rule of law is eroding in backsliding democracies worldwide. Does legal ethics sustain the rule of law, or threaten it? Traditional legal ethics demands that lawyers zealously advance their clients’ objectives, without judging the objectives and without being accountable for them. But this traditional conception faces a profound crisis when the client is a political leader intent on undermining the impartial rule of law. This lecture examines whether the classic model of lawyering has become complicit in democratic backsliding and the erosion of the rule of law.

Register for free on Eventbrite via the link above.

A conversation between David Luban (Georgetown Law) and Paul W. Kahn (Yale Law School).

David Luban’s Powers of Judgment is a book about conscience and moral clarity. It asks how some people keep their judgment steadfast even when those around them are swept away by conspiracy theories, moral panics, and murderous ideologies -- or, on a smaller scale, by immersion in a corrupt and corrupting workplace culture. It asks about the surprising fragility of common sense, and it asks where morality fits into a meaningful human life. Beyond this, the book asks about legal accountability for crimes committed when moral judgment fails on a vast and deadly scale. Hannah Arendt wrote on all these themes. Drawing on Arendt’s published works, letters, diaries, and notes, David Luban examines her contributions to moral philosophy and international law, showing how her ideas about judgment and accountability remain vitally important to the moral and legal life of our century.

Register for free on Eventbrite via the link above.