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News
When sitting president Viktor Yushchenko was eliminated from the first round of the Ukraine's recent elections, garnering less than six percent of the vote, he urged voters in the run-off election to vote against both candidates. That six percent proved to be more than enough to block Yushchenko's former ally, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, from achieving victory.
News
He survived repeat imprisonment, a car bombing that resulted in the loss of his arm, and vision in one eye, but through it all, Albie Sachs counts himself lucky to have played a pivotal role in his country's history. And on February 5, Sachs, recently retired from the Constitutional Court of South Africa and promoting his new autobiographical book, The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law, shared his tales of activism, exile and incarceration at Harvard Law School.
News
Harvard Law School's newest first-year required course was a winter-term success, according to many 1L students. The Problem Solving Workshop was the last of the curriculum reforms to be implemented after a 2006 faculty vote to change the required 1L courses, which also added Legislation and Regulation and an international law elective course to the first-year schedule.
Opinion
You've just discovered that this company has violated your contract by secretly creating a knock-off of the design you licensed to them—and selling it in the Chinese market! They deny wrongdoing, and they also want to renegotiate your original contract. You are so angry you can hardly think straight. But what should you do? Should you bargain with this devil? This question, which arises in so many situations, is central to Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight, a new book by Professor Robert H. Mnookin '68, Chair of the Program on Negotiation.
Opinion
One year after the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, the territory is still strangled by a comprehensive, tightening siege. And the consequences of last winter's war, which ran from December 27th to January 18th, have been few. Despite the horrific outcomes and images of civilian death and destruction caused by Israel, war criminals are still at large, and numerous reports by well-known human rights organizations and independent international bodies have done little to effect accountability and freedom.
Opinion
As Delhi prepares for the 2010 Commonwealth games, the city is being completely transformed. I traveled there in January to research the right to food for a UNDP report, two years after my first visit. This time, having come to see what had changed, I was greeted by streets lined with piles of bricks and mounds of dirt. Women in tightly wrapped saris hoed the earth as their children played next to them, and mixed groups of men and women laid bricks in new walls. I watched them daily as my auto-rickshaw was crisscrossing the city to deliver me to meetings, and I wondered whether all this construction was really any good - if this was employment for the unemployed or if, when the games came, undesirable people would be swept out of sight. I wanted to know whether life had really improved for those at the bottom of society.
News
As the leadership of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau passes to a new generation, its programatic initiatives are continuing to build upon the ongoing needs of the economically disadvantaged in the Greater Boston area.
News
Harvard Law Schol Professor Cass Sunstein '78, now head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), is once again under fire for one of his academic papers. Civil liberties blogger Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com warns that the paper proposes that government agents "cognitively infiltrate" websites of activists who spread "false conspiracy theories" against the government.
Opinion
The Citizens United decision has caused an uproar. President Barack Obama '91 has said of the decision that he "can't think of anything more damaging to the public interest." Justice Stevens wrote in his partial dissent that the Court has rejected a century of history of regulating corporate electioneering, a claim that many pundits have taken up. In all, the critics have painted a picture of Citizens United as a dangerous innovation that will allow unbridled abuse of the electoral system by corporations and shake the very foundations of our democracy. These hysterics are overblown for a number of reasons.
Opinion
January 2010 is an occasion that is widely celebrated around the country, particularly in the African American community. Not only does it mark the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but it also commemorates the anniversary of the election of President Barack Obama '91 a year ago this past week. For African Americans, there is a great amount of pride as they look upon these two historic figures and their contributions to equality and justice in America. While celebrating Dr. King's accomplishments, there is also the challenge in trying to assess the impact of President Obama's election.
Opinion
The Framers of the Constitution were obsessed with corruption and saw it as one of the greatest threats to democracy. The recent decision of the Supreme Court ignores this history, undermining the Constitution's efforts to curb corruption at the highest level.