Stephen Breyer is Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. This talk was recorded at an informal lunchtime gathering with University of Chicago Law School students on February 8, 2006.

Justice Stephen Breyer: "A Day In the Life of a Supreme Court Justice"

Richard Rorty (1931-2007) was Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and Philosophy at Stanford University. This talk was recorded April 10, 2006 as the annual Dewey Lecture in Law and Philosophy.

Richard Rorty: "Dewey and Posner on Pragmatism and Moral Progress"

David Currie, Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago Law School, passed away on October 15, 2007. In honor of his life and work, we present this unique recording of his reading of the United States Constitution. The recording was made on April 26 and May 5, 2006 at the studios of WHPK at the University of Chicago and post-production was done at the Digital Media Lab at the University of Chicago in May of 2006. The studio engineer was Patrick Reisinger and the post-production engineer was Luis-Manuel Garcia.

David Currie Reads the U.S. Constitution

This recording of University of Chicago Professor of Economics Milton Friedman was recorded on October 15, 1978 by James H. Fox, JD '78.

The speech was originally scheduled for the B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundation, but was moved to the University of Chicago Law School Auditorium upon the announcement the week before of his Nobel Prize in Economics .

In the talk, Professor Friedman begins with two seemingly contradictory propositions (namely, "There are few peoples, if any in the world, who owe so great a debt to free enterprise and competitive capitalism as the Jews," and "There are few peoples, if any in the world, who have done so much to undermine the intellectual foundations of capitalism as the Jews.") and then attempts to reconcile them.

Milton Friedman, "Capitalism and the Jews"

Personalized Law

Presented by Omri Ben-Shahar, Professor of Law, the Leo and Eileen Herzel Professor of Law, Kearney Director of the Coase-Sandor Institute for Law and Economics

Omri Ben-Shahar spoke about his recent co-authored book, Personalized Law. The book presents a vision of a brave new world, where each person is bound by their own personally tailored law. “Reasonable person” standards would be replaced by a multitude of personalized commands, each individual with their own “reasonable you” rule. Skilled doctors would be held to higher standards of care, the most vulnerable consumers and employees would receive stronger protections, age restrictions for driving or for the consumption of alcohol would vary according to the recklessness risk that each person poses, and borrowers would be entitled to personalized loan disclosures tailored to their unique needs and delivered in a format fitting their mental capacity. Should we welcome this transformation of the law? Does personalized law harbor a utopic promise, or would it produce alienation, demoralization, and discrimination? The lecture asks how personalized law can be designed to deliver precision and justice and what pitfalls the regime would have to prudently avoid.

This event was recorded on June 8, 2022.

2022 Emeritus Luncheon

Recorded on February 7, 2014, at the University of Chicago Law School, this session featured author Scott Turow as Plenary Speaker and Law School faculty Alison LaCroix, Judge Diane Wood, and Richard McAdams.

Crime in Law and Literature Conference Plenary Talk and Panel, featuring Scott Turow

Richard A. Posner, Senior Lecturer in Law and a judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, devoted a lunchtime keynote to discussing how judges might receive and view empirical research.

Richard A. Posner is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Following his graduation from Harvard Law School, Judge Posner clerked for Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. From 1963 to 1965, he was assistant to Commissioner Philip Elman of the Federal Trade Commission. For the next two years, he was assistant to the solicitor general of the United States. Prior to going to Stanford Law School in 1968 as Associate Professor, Judge Posner served as general counsel of the President's Task Force on Communications Policy. He first came to the University of Chicago Law School in 1969, and was Lee and Brena Freeman Professor of Law prior to his appointment in 1981 as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He was the chief judge of the court from 1993 to 2000.

This talk was recorded on October 23, 2014.

Richard Posner, Empirical Legal Studies Conference keynote

Even for those among us who are not altogether convinced by Isaiah Berlin's famous essay "Two Concepts of Liberty," it has by now become commonplace to adopt a distinction between "negative" and "positive" liberties that largely coincides with the one he offered. In my lecture I defend the thesis that this bifurcation of the concept of freedom is incomplete in a significant respect, because it omits a third type, which I will call "social freedom." I proceed first by illustrating with some well-known examples how we must understand this third form of freedom, which cannot be performed by one subject alone, but rather requires the cooperation of others. In the second step I want to recall briefly the philosophical tradition in which this idea of "social freedom" has always had a central place. Finally, I delve into the systematic question of whether the suggested model of freedom in fact designates a third concept, which does not conform to the traditional bifurcated understanding.

Axel Honneth is a professor of philosophy at the University of Frankfurt and Columbia University, and the director of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt.

This talk, the Dewey Lecture in Law and Philosophy, was recorded on November 12, 2014.

Axel Honneth, “Three, Not Two, Concepts of Liberty”

Human Dignity has become a central value in political and constitutional thought. Yet its meaning and scope, and its relation to other moral and political values such as autonomy and rights have been elusive. The lecture will explicate the value of Human Dignity through the exploration of three distinct ways in which dignity is violated.

Moshe Halbertal is the Gruss Professor of Law at NYU and Professor of Philosophy Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

The 2015 Dewey Lecture was recorded on November 11 at the University of Chicago Law School.

Moshe Halbertal, "Three Concepts of Human Dignity"

Recent efforts by opponents of same-sex marriage and reproductive rights to reorient their agenda around religious freedom have sparked an explosion of scholarship on religious claims for exemption from generally applicable laws. Professor Weinrib will discuss an early antecedent of this strategy: the campaign by the National Civil Liberties Bureau, the organizational precursor of the ACLU, to secure exemptions from military service for conscientious objectors during the First World War. The conception of liberty of conscience that the ACLU’s founders advanced, which they linked to an “Anglo-Saxon tradition” of individual rights, clashed with Progressive understandings of democratic citizenship and failed to gain broad-based traction. Civil liberties advocates consequently reframed their wartime work in terms that foregrounded democratic dissent rather than individual autonomy. By the Second World War, the new emphasis on expressive freedom had worked its way into American constitutional law. Even then, however, most Americans rejected a court-centered and constitutional right to exemption from generally applicable laws.

Laura Weinrib is Assistant Professor of Law and Herbert and Marjorie Fried Teaching Scholar at the University of Chicago Law School.

This Chicago’s Best Ideas talked was recorded on February 17, 2016.

Laura Weinrib, “Freedom of Conscience and the Civil Liberties Path Not Taken”

Today, as our capacity to prolong life increases, people dispute whether indefinite prolongation could possibly be good.  A leading bioethicist, Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of Rahm) has written that we should all want to die at 75!  I'll approach this question by drawing on ancient Greek arguments about why immortal life is undesirable -- arguments that I find fatally flawed.  I then turn to two more recent philosophers who try to reconcile us to finite and reasonably short mortal lives: "Younger Martha" (i.e. me in 1994), and my teacher Bernard Williams, who wrote about the "tedium of immortality."  I find those consolatory arguments flawed too.  But a better argument is found in the Roman philosopher Lucretius, and it applies to indefinite prolongation as well as to outright immortality.

Martha Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics.

Presented on April 5, 2016, at the University of Chicago Law School.

Martha Nussbaum, "Long Long Lives: Should We Want Them?"

Professor Lash graduated from Yale Law School and served as law clerk to the Honorable Robert R. Beezer of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Afterward, he joined the University of Illinois from Loyola Law School Los Angeles, where he served as the James P. Bradley Chair of Constitutional Law. His recent book, The Lost History of the Ninth Amendment, was published in 2009 by Oxford University Press. Cambridge University Press will publish his second book, American Privileges and Immunities: Federalism, The Fourteenth Amendment and the Rights of American Citizenship.

Alan Gura’s practice focuses primarily on constitutional law. Prior to founding Gura & Possessky, PLLC, Mr. Gura began his career by serving as a law clerk to the Honorable Terrence W. Boyle, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Subsequently, as a Deputy Attorney General for the State of California, Mr. Gura defended the State of California and its employees from all manner of lawsuits, in state and federal courts, at trial and on appeal. Thereafter, Mr. Gura entered the private practice of law with the Washington, D.C. offices of Sidley & Austin. In February 2000, he left the firm to serve for a year as Counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Oversight.

Presented by the Federalist Society on January 25, 2017.

Kurt Lash & Alan Gura, "Does the Fourteenth Amendment Protect Unenumerated Rights?"

The choice between rules and standards in lawmaking is a central question. But the line between the two forms is not as clear as most scholars presume. This talk argues that the lack of a coherent  unifying principle in the rules-and-standards distinction is becoming more evident as technologies behind lawmaking evolve. It will explore the leading accounts of rules and standards, the insights they have provided into the process and meaning of law, and why the distinction may be reaching the end of its useful life. The talk will conclude with thoughts on how we should think about forms of law going forward.

This lecture is in honor of Ronald Coase. Coase, who spent most of his academic career at the University of Chicago Law School, helped create the field of law and economics through groundbreaking scholarship that earned him the 1991 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and through his far-reaching influence as a journal editor.

Anthony J. Casey is Professor of Law and Mark Claster Mamolen Teaching Scholar. This Coase Lecture was presented on February 21, 2017.

Anthony J. Casey, "The Short Happy Life of Rules and Standards"

Gillian Thomas, staff attorney at the ACLU Women's Rights Project, will discuss issues in her recently-published book, Because of Sex: One Law, Ten Cases, and Fifty Years about Title VII and its effects for women in the workplace. The book details ten important Supreme Court cases for women's equality, and spends as much time on the personal details as the legal ones for an extremely compelling read. As Title VII is one of the most important safeguards for women and helps ensure gender diversity in the workplace, we believe it will be a valuable addition to the Law School's Diversity Month.

Presented on January 25, 2017, by If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice, Labor and Employment Law Society, Public Interest Law Society, Employment Law Clinic, and Law Women's Caucus.

Gillian Thomas, "Title VII and Women in the Workplace"

Richard Duncan, "Trump vs. The 'Popular Vote': How the Electoral College Protects Federalism and How Federalism Protects Liberty"

With commentary by Professor Nicholas Stephanopolous

Professor Duncan joined the University of Nebraska College of Law faculty in 1979. He received his B.A. degree from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) in 1973. In 1976, he received his J.D. degree from the Cornell Law School, where he served on the Board of Editors of the Cornell Law Review. He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1977. From 1976-79, he was associated with White & Case, a New York City law firm. Professor Duncan teaches Property and Constitutional Law. He is a passionate and enthusiastic classroom teacher, whose style is not so much Socratic Dialogue as Socratic Performance Art. Professor Duncan has a strong interest in writing and speaking about federalism, liberty, religious freedom, and the right to life. Professor Duncan says that he enjoys teaching because it helps him to stimulate students' minds and challenge accepted views.

Presented on March 27, 2017, by the Federalist Society.

Richard Duncan, "Trump vs. The 'Popular Vote'"

With commentary by Professor Daniel Hemel

Professor Nielson is a law professor at Brigham Young University and teaches/writes in the areas of administrative law, civil procedure, federal courts, and antitrust. Before joining the faculty, Professor Nielson was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. He also has served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Nielson received his J.D. from Harvard Law School. Following graduation, he was awarded a Harvard Law School Post-Graduate Research Fellowship. Professor Nielson also received an LL.M from the University of Cambridge, where he focused his studies on the institutions that regulate global competition and commerce. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in economics and political science.

Daniel Hemel’s research focuses on taxation, risk regulation, and innovation law. His current projects examine the effect of tax expenditures on inequality; the role of cost-benefit analysis in tax administration; and the use of tax incentives to encourage knowledge production. As an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School, he teaches tax, administrative law, and torts. Daniel graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and received an M.Phil with distinction from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar.  He then earned his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal.  Prior to his appointment, he was a law clerk to Associate Justice Elena Kagan on the U.S. Supreme Court.  He also clerked for Judge Michael Boudin on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and Judge Sri Srinivasan on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and served as visiting counsel at the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Presented on April 26, 2017, by the Federalist Society.

Aaron Nielson, "The Past and Future of Deference: From Justice Scalia to Justice Gorsuch"

With commentary from Professor Tom Ginsburg

Professor Eugene Kontorovich teaches at Northwestern University School of Law. He is one of the world’s preeminent experts on universal jurisdiction and maritime piracy, as well as international law and the Israel-Arab conflict. He is the co-editor of the newly-published book, Economics Analysis of International Law (Edward Elgar 2016), a frequent op-ed contributor, and a regular contributor to the Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy legal blog. Prof. Kontorovich has testified before Congress, and spoken to the European Parliament and Israeli Knesset, and served as a consultant for the U.S. Defense Department.  Prof. Kontorovich also plays a leading role in the drafting of U.S. state laws dealing with Israel boycotts. He is a recipient of the Federalist Society’s prestigious Bator Award, given annually to a young scholar (under 40), for outstanding scholarship and teaching. He attended the University of Chicago for college and law school, and has taught here. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. 

Tom Ginsburg is the Leo Spitz Professor of International Law, Ludwig and Hilde Wolf Research Scholar, Professor of Political Science. He holds BA, JD, and PhD degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. His books include Judicial Review in New Democracies (2003), which won the C. Herman Pritchett Award from the American Political Science Association; The Endurance of National Constitutions (2009), which also won a best book prize from APSA; Constitutions in Authoritarian Regimes (2014); and Judicial Reputation (2015). He currently co-directs the Comparative Constitutions Project, an effort funded by the National Science Foundation to gather and analyze the constitutions of all independent nation-states since 1789. Before entering law teaching, he served as a legal adviser at the Iran-US Claims Tribunal, The Hague, Netherlands, and he continues to work with numerous international development agencies and foreign governments on legal and constitutional reform.

Presented by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Federalist Society on October 30, 2017.

Eugene Kontorovich, "Disputing Occupation: Israel's Borders in International Law"

This lecture defends three main theses: (I) that all decisions about the degree of ambition for emissions mitigation are unavoidably also decisions about how to distribute risk across generations and, more specifically, (II) that the less ambitious the mitigation is, the more inherently objectionable the resulting inter-generational risk distribution is, and (III) that mitigation that is so lacking in ambition that it bequeaths risks that remain unlimited, when the risks could have been limited without inordinate sacrifice, is especially objectionable and constitutes a failure to seize a glorious historic opportunity.

This Dewey Lecture in Law and Philosophy was presented on November 8, 2017, by Henry Shue, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for International Studies, and Merton College, University of Oxford.

Henry Shue, "Gambling with Their Climate: Future Generations, Negative Emissions, & Risk Transfers"

With commentary by Professor Emily Buss

Amy Wax is the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Her work addresses issues in social welfare law and policy as well as the relationship of the family, the workplace, and labor markets. She has served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Office of the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice. She taught for seven years at the University of Virginia Law School before joining the Penn Law faculty in 2001. Professor Wax holds a Bachelor's from Yale, a JD from Columbia, and an MD from Harvard.

Emily Buss is the Mark and Barbara Fried Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School. Her research interests include children's and parents' rights and the legal system's allocation of responsibility for children’s development among parent, child, and state. In recent years, she has focused particular attention on the developmental impact of court proceedings on court-involved children, including foster youth and youth accused of crimes. Professor Buss received her BA summa cum laude from Yale University in 1982 and her JD from Yale Law School in 1986. After graduating from law school, Buss clerked for Judge Louis H. Pollak of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the US Supreme Court.

Presented by the Federalist Society on January 4, 2018.

Amy Wax, "What is Happening to the Family - and Why"

The idea that workplaces could benefit from an incest taboo is not one of Chicago’s best, but one of Margaret Mead’s. Professor Mary Anne Case has been promoting it and explaining its relevance to Title VII enforcement long before Harvey Weinstein and the #MeToo movement gave it new relevance and visibility.

Mary Anne Case is the Arnold I. Shure Professor of Law. This Chicago's Best Ideas lecture was presented on February 21, 2018.

Mary Anne Case, "Cultivating an Incest Taboo in the Workplace"

With commentary by Professor Jonathan Masur

John G. Malcolm oversees The Heritage Foundation’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law as director of the think tank’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. In addition to his duties at Heritage, Malcolm is chairman of the Criminal Law Practice Group of the Federalist Society. Malcolm has previously served in both the public and private sectors. Among other positions, he has worked as general counsel at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, as executive vice president and director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association of America, as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as a partner in the Atlanta law firm of Malcolm & Schroeder, and as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Atlanta fraud and public corruption section. Malcolm began his law career clerking for Judge James C. Hill on the Eleventh Circuit and for Chief Judge Charles A. Moye, Jr. on the Northern District of Georgia. Malcolm is a graduate of Harvard Law School and holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Columbia College.

Jonathan Masur received a BS in physics and an AB in political science from Stanford University in 1999 and his JD from Harvard Law School in 2003. After graduating from law school, he clerked for Chief Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and for Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He joined the Law School faculty in 2007 and received tenure in 2012. He served as Deputy Dean from 2012 to 2014 and was named the John P. Wilson Professor of Law in 2014. He won the Graduating Students Award for Teaching Excellence in 2014 and 2017 and the Class of 2016 Award. He has served as director of the Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz Program in Behavioral Law, Finance and Economics since its founding.

John G. Malcolm, "Current Topics in Criminal Justice Reform"

The choice of new benchmark interest rate should be of special importance to practitioners as well as academics that study law and economics. As new alternative rates are being considered in the United States, this half day conference, co-sponsored by the University of Chicago Law School, brought together leading academics, as well as representatives from banks, law firms, swap dealers, regulators and others to share their views on design and implementation of new indexes in loan documents, swap agreements and other financial contracts.

Dr. David Bowman, Special Adviser to the Board, Federal Reserve Board, delivers the keynote for the conference "Transition to New Interest Rate Benchmarks: SOFR, Ameribor and Beyond" on April 3, 2018.

Introductory remarks by:

Dr. Richard L. Sandor, CEO, American Financial Exchange and Aaron Director Lecturer in Law and Economics, University of Chicago Law School

Robert S. Rivkin, Deputy Mayor of the City of Chicago

Thomas J. Miles, Dean and Clifton R. Musser Professor of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Law School

David Bowman, "Alternative Reference Rates: SOFR, LIBOR, and Issues for Transitions"

Does legal education matter? In this lecture, Professor Todd Henderson presents some data on this question, using the behavior of corporate executives as an instrument. Looking at the 10% of large, public company CEOs who are lawyers, the talk tries to determine whether CEOs trained as lawyers act differently than CEOs trained in other ways. Do lawyer CEO firms get sued more or less or the same as other firms? Do they manage litigation differently? And, if they do, what is the impact on the bottom line? There is a burgeoning literature on how personal characteristics, from physical traits to birth order to education, impact CEO decision making. The lecture discusses this literature as well, and situates legal education in it.

This Loop Luncheon talk was presented on May 4, 2018.

Download the slides (PDF): https://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/2018-05/loop_luncheon_2018_slides.pdf

M. Todd Henderson, "Lawyer CEOs"

Supreme Court decisions affecting the constitutional rights of students in the nation's public schools have consistently generated bitter controversy. From racial segregation to unauthorized immigration, from antiwar protests to compulsory flag salutes, from economic inequality to teacher-led prayer: these are among the defining cultural issues that the Court has addressed in elementary and secondary schools. Drawing from his provocative new book, The Schoolhouse Gate, Justin Driver discusses the historic legal battles waged over education that continue to threaten our basic constitutional order.

This talk was recorded on October 4, 2018, as part of the Law School's annual First Monday lecture series.

Justin Driver, "The Future of the Supreme Court: The Constitution of Public Schools"

One of the University of Chicago Law School’s best known ideas or outputs over the last fifty years is that the common law (made by judges and often passed down and adapted over many years) is efficient. It was an idea advanced by Richard Posner, with respect to tort law, in his time as a professor here, but it is also reflected in his and other judicial opinions which students across the country meet in almost every non-constitutional course. What does this idea really mean, and is it plausible or even correct? If yes, why did the common law decline in influence? Statutes and regulations have far more impact on our present-day lives than does the common law. Judges are now known and evaluated for their constitutional decisions rather than for what they do in contracts and torts and other areas that are often described as common-law subjects. Could the common law solve our current concerns about climate change and autonomous vehicles?

Saul Levmore is the William B. Graham Distinguished Service Professor of Law.

This Chicago's Best Ideas lecture was presented on October 15, 2018.

Saul Levmore, "If the Common Law was Efficient, Why Did It Decline?"

On the first Monday in October, the Supreme Court session opens. Each fall, the University of Chicago Law School invites faculty members to offer insight into some of the issues the Court will hear in the upcoming year. This year we heard from William Baude, Professor of Law and Aaron Director Research Scholar, and Anthony J. Casey, Professor of Law.

Recorded on October 15, 2019, at The Standard Club in Chicago.

William Baude and Anthony J. Casey, "Supreme Court Preview 2019: Highlights and Perspectives"

One of Chicago’s Best Ideas was the Coase Theorem, which reminds us daily that people can bargain around law or even before legal intervention is sought. But do we have too much law and too little bargaining around it? The number of cases and judges has grown dramatically over time and many problems are outsourced to the legal system, rather than being handled person-to-person. In this talk, I will consider conventional explanations for the astonishing growth of the legal system, and then suggest that it is not entirely good news. We have become addicted to law, and like most addictions, this one is difficult to undo and likely to grow.

Saul Levmore is William B. Graham Distinguished Service Professor of Law. This Chicago's Best Ideas talk was presented on November 5, 2019.

Saul Levmore, "Addictive Law"

"Chief Justice John Roberts: Defining the Supreme Court as its Leader and at the Center"

Joan Biskupic is a full-time CNN legal analyst and author of a 2019 biography of Chief Justice John Roberts. Before joining CNN in 2017, Biskupic was an editor-in-charge for Legal Affairs at Reuters and, previously, the Supreme Court correspondent for the Washington Post and for USA Today.

This Ulysses and Marguerite Schwartz Memorial Lecture was presented on November 19, 2019.

Joan Biskupic, "Chief Justice John Roberts: Defining the Supreme Court..."

The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol are among the most important human rights documents of the post-WW II period. Yet the universalization of the refugee status after the 1967 Protocol has given rise to a series of discrepancies between the letter of the Convention and the purposes it is being asked to serve. In particular, the five-protected categories specified by the Convention have come under criticism. There are also tensions between the Eurocentric discourse and jurisprudence of refugee protection and the fact that the largest numbers of the world’s refugees are housed in Third World Countries.

With globalization of the refugee condition, new trends have also emerged: States seek to create measures of “non-entrée”—no access—to their territories by various modes of outsourcing monitoring and enforcement. These range from the installation of refugee processing centers in bordering countries and along the Mediterranean seacoast in particular, to the signing of special bilateral agreements to prevent refugees from accessing the states’ territory (as between the US and Mexico) and  to the more radical measure of simply “excising” territory, that is, declaring it outside the bounds of the jurisdiction of that state. These trends, along with criminalization of the refugee status, have undermined the universal human promise of the “right to have rights” (Hannah Arendt).

In conclusion I ask why cruelty is spreading in liberal democracies and discuss three normative responses to the current predicament: liberal nationalist, liberal internationalist and cosmopolitan interdependence. I suggest a fourth alternative which synthesizes elements of each.

Seyla Benhabib is the Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. This Dewey Lecture in Law and Philosophy was presented on January 15, 2020.

Seyla Benhabib, "The End of the 1951 Refugee Convention?"

"The Trust Revolution: How the Digitization of Trust Will Revolutionize Business & Government"

In this CBI, Professor Henderson will examine how Internet platforms--eBay, Uber, AirBnB--relate to the Code of Hammurabi, Medieval guilds, the New York Stock Exchange, and corporate brands. All of these institutions, along with religions and governments and families, are in large part about providing trust to enable human cooperation. By undertaking a genealogy of trust, we can illuminate modern debates about the role and scope of government in regulating the daily lives of citizens.

M. Todd Henderson is the Michael J. Marks Professor of Law. This Chicago's Best Ideas talk was presented on January 27, 2020.

M. Todd Henderson, "The Trust Revolution: How the Digitization of Trust Will Revolutionize..."

This Chicago's Best Ideas talk was presented on February 10, 2020.

Anup Malani and David A. Weisbach, "Addressing Income Inequality"

On the first Monday in October, the Supreme Court session opens. Each fall, the University of Chicago Law School invites faculty members to offer insight into some of the issues the Court will hear in the upcoming year.

This event was recorded on September 15, 2020, and features Aziz Huq, Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg Professor of Law, and Jennifer Nou, Professor of Law.

UChicagoLaw

Popular tracks