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Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values
May 4, 2008 - May 5, 2008
Featuring:
- Philippe Sands, author and professor of Law at University College, London
- Scott Horton, legal affairs writer, Harper’s Magazine
About Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values
Beyond the infamous memo signed by Donald Rumsfeld, what do we really know about the torture that the U.S. government has signed off on? Philippe Sands, a seasoned prosecutor of war criminals including Augusto Pinochet and Slobodan Milosevic, details the systemic abuse at Guantanamo, including never-before published interviews with the lawyers and military officials that admit to compliance with interrogation orders coming from the top. And to be certain, it doesn’t stop at Guantanamo. The techniques have migrated from Gitmo to Abu Ghraib to Basra to Matrix Chamber. It is systemic, illegal, and will continue into the next Administration unless there is a drastic policy change. Would any of the presidential hopefuls have that courage?
SPEAKER
Philippe Sands is an international lawyer, professor of law, and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals in the Faculty at University College London. He is the author of Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules and is a frequent commentator on news and current affairs programs including CNN, MSNBC, and BBC World Service. He has been involved in many leading international cases, including the World Court trial of Slobodan Milosevic and the treatment of British detainees at Guantanamo Bay. He frequently advises governments, international organizations, NGOs and the private sector on international law. In 2003, he was appointed a Queen’s Counsel. He has been appointed to lists of arbitrators maintained by ICSID and the PCA.
He has previously held academic positions at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, Kings College London, University of Cambridge, and was a Global Professor of Law at New York University from 1995-2003. He was co-founder of FIELD (Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development), and established the programs on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. He is a member of the Advisory Boards of the European Journal of International Law and Review of European Community and International Environmental Law (Blackwell Press). In 2007 he served as a judge for the Guardian First Book Prize award.
| MODERATOR
Scott Horton is a lecturer at Columbia Law School, a legal affairs writer for Harper’s Magazine and a columnist for The American Lawyer. He is also an attorney known for his work in emerging markets, military law and international public law. He was from 1985 until January 2007 with the law firm of Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, from 1990 as a partner. He studied at the Universities of Munich and Mainz in Germany, and completed his J.D. degree at the University of Texas at Austin in 1981. Horton is particularly known for his work in the nations of the former Soviet Union. He represented Russian physicist and democracy advocate Andrei Sakharov and his wife, Elena Bonner, and serves today as a director of the Moscow-based Andrei Sakharov Foundation. He headed a project for Human Rights First studying the accountability of private military contractors that resulted in Private Security Contractors at War (2008), a study of the legal regime governing military contractors in theaters of war. He has testified twice before the House Judiciary Committee on questions relating to private security contractors. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the board of the International Law Association, the National Institute for Military Justice, and the EurasiaGroup, and chaired three committees of the New York City Bar Association. |