Jamail Center for Legal Research
Tarlton Law Library

Martha Nussbaum. Liberty of Conscience: in Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality. New York: Basic Books, 2008.
BL 640 N87 2008

"America's tradition of religious freedom is one of the great triumphs of early American history. Yet today this legacy is in danger. The prominence of a particular type of Evangelical Christianity in our public life, and the aggressiveness of its advocates in claiming that government should openly embrace Christian principles, implicitly devalues citizens who hold different religious beliefs--or no religious beliefs at all. Some leaders invoke our political and legal traditions to argue that a particular type of Christian belief is what defines us as a nation. Others, meanwhile, seek to curtail the influence of religion in public life in a way that is itself unbalanced and unfair. Such partisan efforts, Martha Nussbaum argues, violate the spirit of our Constitution and harm the cause of religious freedom they purport to serve. In Liberty of Conscience, the eminent political philosopher Martha Nussbaum offers a sweeping historical study of the American tradition of religious freedom, weaving together political history, philosophy, and key constitutional cases into a rich chronicle of an ideal of equality that has always been central to our history. Nussbaum shows how the founders of the future United States overcame religious intolerance in favor of a political order dedicated to fair treatment for people's deeply held conscientious beliefs. It granted equal liberty of conscience to all and took a firm stand against religious establishment. This respect for religious difference, Nussbaum writes, formed our democracy and made equality possible. Deeply informed and brilliantly argued, Liberty of Conscience shows why Americans on both sides of the political divide should embrace our nation's unique tradition of respect for the diversity of religious beliefs."

Philip Bobbitt. Terror and Consent: the Wars for the Twenty-First Century. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.
HV 6432 B625 2008

"An urgent reconceptualization of the Wars on Terror from the author of The Shield of Achilles. In this book Philip Bobbitt brings together historical, legal, and strategic analyses to understand the idea of a 'war on terror.' He provocatively declares that the United States is the chief cause of global networked terrorism because of overwhelming American strategic dominance. This is not a matter for blame, he insists, but grounds for reflection on basic issues. We have defined the problem of winning the fight against terror in a way that makes the situation virtually impossible to resolve. We need to change our ideas about terrorism, war, and even victory itself. Bobbitt argues that the United States has ignored the role of law in devising its strategy, with fateful consequences, and has failed to refom law in light of the changed strategic context. Along the way he introduces new ideas and concepts--Parmenides' Fallacy, the Connectivity Paradox, the market state, and the function of terror as a by-product of globalization--to help us prepare for what may be a decades-long conflict of which the battle against al Queda is only the first instance. At stake is whether we can maintain states of consent in the twenty-first century or whether the dominant constitutional order will be that of states of terror. Challenging, provocative, and insightful, Terror and Consent addresses the deepest themes of governance, liberty, and violence. It will change the way we think about confronting terror--and it will change the way we evaluate public policies in that struggle."

Francesco Francioni. The 1972 World Heritage Convention: a Commentary. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
K 3791 A35 2008

"The World Heritage Convention (WHC) is the most comprehensive and widely ratified among UNESCO treaties on the protection of cultural and natural heritage. The Convention establishes a system of identification, presentation, and registration in an international list of cultural properties and natural sites of outstanding universal value. Throughout the years the WHC has progressively attained almost universal recognition by the international community, and even the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has recently considered sites inscribed in the World Heritage List as 'values especially protected by the international community.' During its more than 30 years of life, the Convention has undergone extensive interpretation and evolution in its scope of application. However, many legal issues remain to be clarified. No comprehensive work has been produced so far to deal with these and many other issues that have arisen in the interpretation and application of the WHC. This Commentary is intended to fill this gap by providing article-by-article analysis, in the light of the practice of the World Heritage Committee, other relevant treaty bodies, as well as of State parties, and in the hope that it may be of use to academics, lawyers, diplomats, and officials involved in the management and conservation of cultural and natural heritage of international significance."

Steven Teles. The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: the Battle for Control of the Law. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2008.
KF 385 T45 2008

"Starting in the 1970s, conservatives learned that electoral victory did not easily convert into a reversal of important liberal accomplishments, especially in the law. As a result, conservatives' mobilizing efforts increasingly turned to law schools, professional networks, public interest groups, and the judiciary--areas traditionally controlled by liberals. Drawing from internal documents, as well as interviews with key conservative figures, The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement examines this sometimes fitful, and still only partially successful, conservative challenge to liberal domination of the law and American legal institutions. Steven Teles explores how conservative mobilization was shaped by the legal profession, the legacy of the liberal movement, and the difficulties in matching strategic opportunities with effective organizational responses. He explains how foundations and groups promoting conservative ideas built a network designed to dislodge legal liberalism from American elite institutions. And he portrays the reality, not of a grand strategy masterfully pursued, but of individuals and political entrepreneurs learning from trial and error. Lawyers, historians, sociologists, political scientists, and activists seeking to learn from the conservative experience in the law will find it compelling reading."