Synopses & Reviews
Recent controversies surrounding the war on terror and American intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought rule of law rhetoric to a fevered pitch. While President Obama has repeatedly emphasized his Administration's commitment to transparency and the rule of law, nowhere has this resolve been so quickly and severely tested than with the issue of the possible prosecution of Bush Administration officials. While some worry that without legal consequences there will be no effective deterrence for the repetition of future transgressions of justice committed at the highest levels of government, others echo Obama's seemingly reluctant stance on launching an investigation into allegations of criminal wrongdoing by former President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, and members of the Office of Legal Counsel. Indeed, even some of the Bush Administration's harshest critics suggest that we should avoid such confrontations, that the price of political division is too high. Measured or partisan, scholarly or journalistic, clearly the debate about accountability for the alleged crimes of the Bush Administration will continue for some time.
Using this debate as its jumping off point, When Governments Break the Law takes an interdisciplinary approach to the legal challenges posed by the criminal wrongdoing of governments. But this book is not an indictment of the Bush Administration; rather, the contributors take distinct positions for and against the proposition, offering revealing reasons and illuminating alternatives. The contributors do not ask the substantive question of whether any Bush Administration officials, in fact, violated the law, but rather the procedural, legal, political, and cultural questions of what it would mean either to pursue criminal prosecutions or to refuse to do so. By presuming that officials could be prosecuted, these essays address whether they should.
When Governments Break the Law provides a valuable and timely commentary on what is likely to be an ongoing process of understanding the relationship between politics and the rule of law in times of crisis.
Contributors: Claire Finkelstein, Lisa Hajjar, Daniel Herwitz, Stephen Holmes, Paul Horwitz, Nasser Hussain, Austin Sarat, and Stephen I. Vladeck.
Review
"If, as all the authors in this volume concede, Bush Administration violations can be prosecuted for their alleged crimes, shouldn't we, in accordance with the rule of law, proceed with such prosecutions? This, however, is just the jumping off point. This is a great book precisely because the authors clearly succeed in demonstrating the complexity and problems with each seemingly simple solution. Neither solution, prosecuting or not prosecuting, will leave the reader completely satisfied, but this is exactly the point... Using law to legalize something which cannot be legalized raises the question of what, exactly, is the role that law plays in its own subversion. The essays in this volume take a meaningful and helpful step in the direction of answering this question."-Concurring Opinions,
Review
“While we think of the crimes of the Bush-Cheney administration as lying somewhere in the past, the aggressive wars, warrantless spying, lawless imprisonment, and torture continue.
Review
“This is a spectacular collection of essays on the present and future of virtual worlds. It's a perfect introduction for those who have yet to experience them, and more important, a thoughtful companion for those who do.”
-Jonathan Zittrain,Oxford University
Review
“The State of Play is an extremely comprehensive look into digital worlds and how those worlds are evolving cultures, changing lives, reshaping the way we think and communicate. If you want to understand where modern culture is headed and learn more about incredibly fascinating experiences taking place in virtual worlds, pick up and read this book now.”
-Richard Garriott,a.k.a. Lord British, Creator of Ultima Online and Executive Producer, NCsoft
Review
“These essays, by the best thinkers in their fields, will be read, debated, taught, and cited in court cases as we struggle to figure out how to live in a world which is part digital and part social, part real and part imaginary.”
-Henry Jenkins,author of Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
Review
“Is useful and interesting for students of surveillance.”
-Surveillance and Society,
Review
“With diverse essays from game designers, social scientists and legal scholars, The State of Play is a provocative consideration of virtual jurisprudence.”
-Paste Magazine,
Synopsis
The State of Play presents an essential first step in understanding how new digital worlds will change the future of our universe. Millions of people around the world inhabit virtual words: multiplayer online games where characters live, love, buy, trade, cheat, steal, and have every possible kind of adventure. Far more complicated and sophisticated than early video games, people now spend countless hours in virtual universes like Second Life and Star Wars Galaxies not to shoot space invaders but to create new identities, fall in love, build cities, make rules, and break them.
As digital worlds become increasingly powerful and lifelike, people will employ them for countless real-world purposes, including commerce, education, medicine, law enforcement, and military training. Inevitably, real-world law will regulate them. But should virtual worlds be fully integrated into our real-world legal system or should they be treated as separate jurisdictions with their own forms of dispute resolution? What rules should govern virtual communities? Should the law step in to protect property rights when virtual items are destroyed or stolen?
These questions, and many more, are considered in The State of Play, where legal experts, game designers, and policymakers explore the boundaries of free speech, intellectual property, and creativity in virtual worlds. The essays explore both the emergence of law in multiplayer online games and how we can use virtual worlds to study real-world social interactions and test real-world laws.
Contributors include: Jack M. Balkin, Richard A. Bartle, Yochai Benkler, Caroline Bradley, Edward Castronova, Susan P. Crawford, Julian Dibbell, A. Michael Froomkin, James Grimmelmann, David R. Johnson, Dan Hunter, Raph Koster, F. Gregory Lastowka, Beth Simone Noveck, Cory Ondrejka, Tracy Spaight, and Tal Zarsky.
About the Author
Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. is the Jesse Climenko Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School.
Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College. Their previous collaborations for NYU Press include
From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America (2006),
When Law Fails: Making Sense of Miscarraiges of Justice (2009), and
The Road to Abolition? The Future of Capital Punishment in the United States (2010).
Nasser Hussain is Associate Professor in the Department of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought at Amherst College. He is the author of The Jurisprudence of Emergency: Colonialism and the Rule of Law.