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你可能喜欢Thursday, October 30, 2008
Copysquare
“Copysquare” is a copyright-licensing scheme I’ve proposed to empower DIY video producers, nano-budget filmmakers, and other citizen media creators by encouraging the sharing of the basic building blocks of media production. It’s the subject of a law-review
I’ve just published (here’s an ).
Here’s the pitch: Ordinary people now have the means of producing and distributing high-quality video content worldwide. But one shortcoming leaves the full potential of the citizen-powered media revolution unfulfilled: Creators lack ready access to stock footage, sound effects, soundtrack music, and still photography. By fostering a regime of sharing these media workparts, copysquare aims to provide desktop creators with the means to take on increasingly ambitious projects and to attain new levels of production quality.
Copysquare follows in the tradition of, and borrows much of its values from, the free-software/open-source movement and the Creative Commons effort. As with both of these endeavors, copysquare leverages copyright law and standardized licenses to construct a voluntary sharing regime that is insulated from outsiders who would undermine the project by taking unfair advantage of the participants’ generosity. Unlike these prior endeavors, however, copysquare uses certain unique licensing mechanics that are specifically designed to overcome problems associated with the sharing of media workparts. Copysquare’s three basic license provisions are: (1) a requirement of notification, (2) a right to reject, and (3) “favored nations” treatment. The copysquare license says, in short, “You can use my creative work – film footage, picture, sound effect, etc. – in your creative work, but you must notify me that you are doing so (the notification provision), give me a chance to opt out (the right to reject), and you need not pay me or credit me, but if you pay or provide credit to others for the same kind of contribution, you must pay me and credit me on an equal basis (the favored-nations provision).”
Having finished laying the groundwork, my next task is to draft the license itself and make choices about the details of how the scheme will work. (Here’s the .) If you would be interested in chipping in your two cents or possibly looking at license drafts, I would be extremely grateful – you can e-mail me at ejohnson@law.und.edu.
Posted by Eric E. Johnson on October 30, 2008 at 11:38 AM in ,
Friday, September 12, 2008
weekend suggestions
Since I'm sure at this point in the semester/ fall you have nothing better to do, here are a couple of semi-obscure suggestions for things to waste your time on:
If you liked , you might consider reading Oakley Hall's novel . I got to it because the current NYRB Classics edition has a blurb from Thomas Pynchon and an introduction by Robert Stone, two of my favorite novelists. But don't let that scare you away. It's a really literate western, like Deadwood in that it's about a frontier town (this time in the southwest), but more concerned with the issue of law enforcement -- specifically, the relationship between failed public law enforcement and a privately hired marshal whose employment and practices and friends have a number of unanticipated consequences for the town of Warlock.
If you like crime dramas and political thrillers, you might want to rent , a BBC miniseries from 2003 which played originally on the cable channel BBC America and is finally now out in the US on DVD. British TV tends to do spy thrillers (see especially the two ), political thrillers (see ), and crime drama (see ) better than the Americans, and this is just as good as the best of those -- very fast-paced, thrilling, and thoughtful. In episode one there's a classic moment where a newspaper calls in its attorney to go over its legal options after it has just received some very hot evidence crucial to a murder investigation. It seems both incredibly realistic and hilariously funny, all at the same time, and gives one a sense of how the press (from whose perspective the series views the world) views its lawyers.
Posted by Mark Fenster on September 12, 2008 at 02:56 PM in ,
Friday, August 08, 2008
Dinner and a Movie: How Terrorist Groups Come to an End
I've been a fan of TBS's Dinner and a Movie& for quite a while and I think academia can serve up the same sort of interesting pairings. If the recently issued
How Terrorist Groups End is the main course, then the Battle of Algiers is the movie. Rumor has it that the Pentagon screened this movie at the Pentagon as part of preparation for the occupation of Iraq. Though the Algierian uprising against the French occupation is& not a perfect analogy for the US role in Iraq or in its strategy to address al Qaeda, the movie raises several questions relevant to the struggle against terrorism and our involvement in Iraq. This movie addresses issues such as the military use of torture, the potential use of terrorism as a legitimate tool, and the role of human rights and their derogability in a time of terror.
For those of you that have already seen The Battle of Algiers, you might try . This movie deals with some similar issues during the Boer War, though its emphasis is on the political use of the court martial procedure. I don't want to give away too much, but this favorite of mine does a nice job of emphasizing both the limitations and the possibilities of law in wartime.
As an appetizer, or perhaps dessert, I'd like to recommend John Nagl's . Though I suspect Nagl and the authors of the Rand report disagree on the role of the military, (I can say for sure after I sit down to dine on the Rand report this afternoon), both seem to stress the vital importance of on-the-ground intelligence related to the nature of grievances and the& structure of insurgent or terrorist groups& rather than traditional military information seeking. For instance, Nagl writes in the preface that &understanding tribal loyalties, political motivations and family relationships was essential to defeating the enemy we face, a task more akin to breaking up a Mafia crime ring than dismantling a conventional enemy battalion or brigade. 'Link diagrams' depicting who talked with whom became a daily chore for a small intelligence staff more used to analyzing the ranges of enemy artillery systems.&& For those of you who've already seen Battle of Algiers, you may remember a scene involving the efforts to determine the members of the resistance using just such link diagrams.
Posted by Lesley Wexler on August
8, 2008 at 10:44 AM in
Capturing the Paskowitzes
The other night I saw the movie, . The documentary follows Dorian &Doc& Paskowitz on his life journey, starting with his penchant for laying
and naked calisthenics. The movie focuses on the period where he puts his Stanford Med degree behind him, and instead travels with his wife and 9 children& in a 24 foot camper to surf full time. I'm sure this movie's underlying story inspired countless reality tv shows--come survive with the Paskowitzes for a week!
In the ethically most problematic feature of the story, Doc never sends the kids instead, they wake each day to Chairman Mao's fight song and they learn about life through surfing and their time together.& One of the 8 sons, who now works in a restaurant kitchen, expresses some bitterness about the fact that by the time he reached adulthood, he realized he had to do ten years of remedial schooling if he were to attain the level of knowledge necessary to pursue his dream of becoming a doctor also. Fortunately most of the other siblings were able to find work in the film and music industry...
In any event, the movie is funny, touching, and at times, extremely uncomfortable.& Highly recommended. By the way, when my wife saw the movie here in the Hassee a few weeks ago as part of the Tallahassee Film Festival, she relayed the following story: at one point, Doc, at age 87, was talking about how much he loved sex.& He said somberly that &God speaks to us through fucking.&& The octogenarian sitting in the row in front responded loudly to his wife, &See, Millie, I told ya so.&&
Posted by Administrators on August
8, 2008 at 09:29 AM in
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The Dark Knight and the MPAA
has long been a target of criticism for its secret, often-arbitrary, moralistic, and frequently non-sensical .
The focus is totally on sex, nudity, profanity, and (as of recent years) drug use, while violence often gets a free pass. The board often focuses on individual words, scenes, or shots in isolation, ignoring context and the work as a whole. The result is that a rating often turns on whether the image of an orgasm lasts for five seconds or ten (some version of this story was told about ) or whether the nudity was "sexually oriented." And the board has long been accused of being much tougher on independent films than studio releases. Much of this story was told in the documentary . But despite years of criticism, nothing has changed much.
But I wonder if the Dark Knight could be the tipping point. The film got a PG-13 rating, but just about every review and commentary I have read has included a line that the rating was inappropriate, given the overall tone and themes of the film, as well as some of its violence. Some commentators have gone so far as to directly warn parents against letting young teens and tweens see the movie and to criticize the MPAA for giving it the lower rating. Of course, since the ratings process is secret, we do not know why the movie received what it di. But all the facts are in place to support every criticism and conspiracy about the MPAA: the movie has dark and violent themes, but no sex, drugs, it was releas it is a franchise movie, based on characters with which young teens and and it was intended as a summer blockbuster and an R-rating would have seriously cut into audience and profits.
The PG-13 rating famously was created in 1984 as a middle-ground category between PG and R, after . That summer blockbuster movie received a PG rating despite similarly dark and violent themes that scared the target audience and outraged parents, viewers, and commentators. If Dark Knight produces similar parental outrage, the solution will not be an additional rating category--additional categories would be pointless. Any solution will (finally and mercifully) require a more fundamental change to the system.
Posted by Howard Wasserman on July 22, 2008 at 11:35 AM in , ,
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
For a Good Time Call 555-0123: Liability-Free Phone Numbers for the Entertainment Media
A legislative proposal: Congress should set aside, or direct telephone companies to set aside, certain phone numbers that can be used in films and on television without fear of liability.
As you have no doubt noticed, when a line of dialog includes a phone number, the character on screen, often with intense earnestness, spits out a phone number with a “555” prefix. For example:
“Damnit! Get President Palmer on the phone! His direct, private cell phone number is 202-555-4248!”
Fearful that if they use a real phone number they will get complaints or even lawsuits, studios have taken to using the 555 numbers because they are reserved by the phone companies and never assigned to customers.1 Thus, they will not be unwittingly subjecting hapless folks to scores of midnight crank calls.
The problem? When you are engrossed in the make-believe world created by the film, hearing the fake “555” phone number brings you instantly back to reality – reminding you that you are watching an actor in a film, not, for instance, a heroic government agent trying to disarm a bomb. And if you are a lawyer, hearing the “555” phone number reminds you of the law, which means you are being reminded of your job while watching TV. It’s not good for anyone.
Therefore, I call on Congress, and, while I’m at it, the United Nations and the telecommunications companies of the world, to set aside a large enough slate of random-sounding numbers that movie-goers will not be subjected to instantly recognizable fakes.
The tough question that immediately confronts us: How do we get a slate of numbers that is safe for entertainment usage without screwing over the real customers currently using them. I have two proposals. The first is a bit silly, I admit.2
==More after the jump ...
My first plan would be to provide immunity for certain seven-digit phone numbers where an administrative rule-making body declares such phone numbers to have already been so tarnished through their use in media, that customers have little or no expectation of privacy with regard to them. The most obvious candidate? Why, of course: 867-5309. Those of you who remember the 80s (or have at least seen them on cable TV) will recall that that is Jenny’s number, from Tommy Tutone’s 1982 hit song, “867-5309/Jenny.”3
In fact, I’d say there is a good argument that any producer including 867-5309 in a movie or television show should be availed of an estoppel- or laches-type defense. And, for an analogy to property law, when new phone customers get 867-5309, it’s a lot like coming to the nuisance. Of course, the problem with clearing 867-5309 for producers is that the number is so engrained in pop-culture consciousness, using it in a movie is likely more jarring than using a 555 number.4
My second plan is a three-step approach: (1) Use computerized algorithms to comb seven-digit phone numbers to find those that are used by the fewest businesses and that are used in the fewest area codes. Put these phone numbers on a “Level I” list, then freeze the list, prohibiting phone companies from assigning these numbers to new customers. (2) Provide immunity for producers who use Level I phone numbers, so long as they use such numbers only in combination with an area code that does not correspond to a real telephone number. (3) Allow the Level I list
that is, allow the seven-digit numbers to become progressively cleaner and cleaner as users in different area codes naturally give up those numbers as they move or otherwise discontinue phone service. When a seven-digit number is no longer used in any area code, or when it reaches a certain threshold of disuse, place that number on a “Level II” list. Provide immunity to producers who use seven-digit numbers, sans area code, on the Level II list.5
If you agree with my proposals, comment below. If you disagree, please call 867-5309.
FN1: I don’t know if customers with phone numbers featured in films have sued producers, much less been successful in a lawsuit. But it is clear that the fear of such lawsuits, or at least complaints and associated ill will, have held studio standards-and-practices folks to the practice of using the 555 numbers.
FN2: This whole post is a bit silly, since, as you may have noticed, it uses footnotes.
FN3: Snopes.com reviews the real-life ramifications of 867-5309 .
FN4: But here’s an example of an intermediate case: 362-4350. That’s the number to call for the hit-woman personified by Joan Jett in her re-make of AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.” I’d have to say, though, I doubt 362-4350 has been exploited heavily enough for number holders to be fairly divested.
FN5: This proposal might fairly be called a “seven-point plan,” but I think that’s too many points. Better to keep it to three. Three-point plans are always better. And when you get down to three, for some reason I don’t entirely understand, it is plausible to call it a “three-step plan,” making it sound even easier. (I think part of the problem with saying “seven-step plan” is that if you have too many steps, then you are getting into the realm of dieting and addiction recovery, and that’s not where I’m going with this.)
Posted by Eric E. Johnson on March
4, 2008 at 10:10 AM in , , , ,
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Some Reactions to "The Lives of Others"
Though I missed the chance to see
with Ethan when he saw it on his recent trip here, I did get a chance to see it this past weekend, and I can't recommend it highly enough.& (This follows on the heels of , which is simply gorgeous and outstanding.)&
Here's a quick capsule :The film opens in 1984 in East Berlin, where we see Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) a captain of the East German secret police, teaching a class in extreme interrogation techniques. These include sleep deprivation, the spouting of Orwellian paradoxes (if the prisoner believes the state capable of detaining him for no reason, that belief alone is enough to justify his arrest), and, in a creepy detail, the collection of the prisoner's seat cushion after the interview to be preserved as an odor sample for police dogs. The real intrigue begins when Wiesler is assigned to bug and monitor the apartment of a successful writer, Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), and his girlfriend, a famous stage actress named Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck). Georg is neither a subversive nor a party loyalist: He's a go-along-to-get-along guy, too comfortable with his success to question the regime closely, even as it closes in on his scruffier and more outspoken fellow artists. But Wiesler's superior, Col. Grubitz (Ulrich Tukur), wants to further his career by impressing the party bigwig Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme), who is looking to get his swinish mitts on Christa-Maria by any means necessary. And Wiesler himself is a rigid ideologue, a socialist automaton who mistrusts all artists on principle—even if the meticulous care with which he runs his own surveillance operation hints at a thwarted creative desire.The Lives of Others is a more politically charged movie than the Namesake, and one that raises fascinating questions about tensions among law, criminality, artistic purity and personal loyalty--thus I have a few more comments to add than I normally do in my .& But these might only be of limited interest to those who have seen the movie, so I'll put them below the fold and invite others to weigh in on this with their own reactions in the comments.
The first half of the movie struck me initially as useful anti-communist cinematic propaganda, detailing and dramatizing the dangers of a surveillance state where the Stasi rules, where apparatchiks abuse state machinery for venal personal goals of lust and social currency.& Of course, that pro-Western vibe starts to deteriorate pretty rapidly the more one reflects upon the Bush Administration's penchant for sloppy or malfeasant surveillance operations of its own.& In this sense, the movie's early message -- Boo surveillance! -- is capable of appealing to liberal democrats' best instincts while also raising severe questions about the ways in which we have slipped (or leapt!) from those noble ambitions in our own efforts against terrorism.& Sure enough, the movie will hit home for those prawfs who readily admit that the Bush Administration has served to radicalize them, moving them from generic neoliberalism or moderate conservatism to full-throated skeptics of state power, verging on shades of crypto-anarchism.
As Wiesler's character -- a profile first in the banality of evil and then in courage -- develops through the arc of the film, the movie is transformed.& Wiesler's character microcosmically reflects a struggle of humans against &humanisms,& the overfed archetypes that permeate the GDR's administration.& Ideological abstractions and commitments become wellsprings of cruelty.& Basic decency is the most subversive rebellion.&
When Wiesler's eroico resistance is made out, his career suffers, and he's relegated to steaming envelopes open until he walks off the job on the day the Berlin Wall falls down.& Wiesler only finds his own serenity after the surveilled writer, Georg Dreyman (played by Koch, a German Pierce Brosnan double,) discovers Wiesler's action in the course of post-unification , and issues a subtle but no less monumental acknowledgement of gratitude.& The movie, which at first struck me as essentially political, stands, in the end, not for East or West, each of which is capable of its own (though differing) cruelties, but for a retrenchment from politics.& In this respect, it reflected what I take to be the ethos of literature generally: , &the notion that abstract ideas invariably contaminate [life] and should be kept at a safe distance from it.& Am I mistaken with this reaction? I'm curious to hear your thoughts if you've seen the movie.
Posted by Administrators on April 17, 2007 at 12:01 AM in
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Quick Reviews
While I was in Toronto last week, I had the chance to see in advance of its nationwide release on Friday.& If you haven't yet seen it, drop what you're doing and buy tickets for it today.& &It's an absolutely stunning film with a first rate performance by Kal Penn (of Harold and Kumar fame).&
On the other hand, if you were thinking of netflixing
to watch with your snugglepartner, don't bother: it's a snoozer that not even Jack Black can save.& The same can be said of The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (which is far more painful to watch, ); Babel (completely over- it's like Crash but globalized), and Miami Vice, a movie I'm reluctant to condemn given that I'm generally a fan of the genre.
In the reasonably worth-watching category: The Illusionist and Fast Food Nation. Just be sure to not to be eating burgers while watching the latter.
Finally: , which involves my
as the match-maker, is destined to become a movie.& Almost can't believe it wasn't a NYT April Fool's Joke last week.
Posted by Administrators on April 10, 2007 at 12:41 AM in
Friday, November 10, 2006
searching for a crim angle
My students will tell you that I have a propensity towards (or a weakness for) working current events into my course materials, and that, like an organic grocer, I prefer to keep things local.& I am traumatized by the fact that I cannot come up with a way to work
into either my criminal law or my bail-to-jail class.& Fraternity brothers from South Carolina suing the
producers for liquoring them up, convincing them that only foreigners would view their footage, and thus lulling them into a false sense of complacency such that they made racist, sexist comments that they of course never would otherwise have said?& Shades of , to be sure.& But unless &stupid& is legislated into a crime, I'm afraid I can't shoehorn this lawsuit into my classes.& May a gentle reader who teaches contracts have more luck.
Posted by Deb Ahrens on November 10, 2006 at 05:18 PM in ,
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
The Most Overrated Movie of All Time
I don't know if this one will ultimately take the prize, but the beautiful Dr. Dimino and I wasted 100 minutes last night watching
-- the Lana Turner version.& The movie centers around an adulterous affair and the lovers' plots to kill Turner's husband.& The acting is mediocre, the plot is predictable (apart from the suspended sentence of probation Turner gets for her guilty plea to manslaughter!), and the use of music is the worst I have ever heard.& Every time the main characters are about to kiss, the music rises to a roar, resulting in the scene being laughable rather than sexy.& Furthermore, the significance of the title is not clear until the very end, and I still think it was a poor choice.
Feel free to nominate other overrated movies in the comments.
Posted by Michael Dimino on September 26, 2006 at 11:18 AM in
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
The trouble with movie reviews: the Ruth Franklin School of Film Criticism
with novels, I tire of having to stretch my mind to come up with new ways of expressing the warm feelings I develop toward many movies.& I can certainly understand her frustration with respect to reviewing novels, which almost invariably are dead to me.& (Yes, I know, it's a sickness of sorts.)& But I definitely don't share the same ennui with non-fiction books with real op there I have little trouble registering more than an utterance of affection.& &
In any event, I'm not one to give up on innovations lightly.& Thus I'm starting a new feature at PrawfsBlawg, what might, in ironic homage, be called the &Ruth Franklin Movie Review.&& Here's how it works: I look at what's been successfully returned in my netflix queue, and the following genius erupts in prose.
Spanglish (2004): I liked it.
Yana's Friends (1999, Israel): I liked it.
Late Marriage (2001, Israel): I liked it!
The Limey (1999): Not so much, though I'm a fan of the genre generally.
Gandhi (1982): I liked it even more seeing it as a grownup.
March of the Penguins (2004): I fell asleep.
Feel free to add your own reviews in the comments. PrawfsBlawg is nothing if not Web 2.0!
Posted by Administrators on July 25, 2006 at 02:09 PM in
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Equal Protection for the X-Men!
With a hat tip to fellow Amherst alum Laurel Kilgour for the pointer, I came across , a-la-X-Men, by Ivan Ludmer, a law student at the other, other &UM& -- the University of Minnesota.
I only have two things to say in response:
I really need to go see .
It's too bad Ivan didn't write that as his Con Law exam.
Posted by Steve Vladeck on June
8, 2006 at 05:42 PM in ,
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Munich and Vengeance
Along with Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, and Brokeback Mountain, Steven Spielberg’s political thriller Munich has received as much attention from political commentators as from film critics. The film follows a team of Mossad agents under orders to find and kill eleven men thought to have had a hand in the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.
attacked the film for equating Israeli and Palestinian violence, while
accused Spielberg of actually favoring the Palestinians. The film received less criticism for omitting discussion of the , in which a Moroccan waiter named Ahmed Bouchiki was misidentified as terrorist Ali Hassan Salameh and then killed by Mossad. The film is loosely based on Juval Aviv’s book Vengeance: the True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team, and in this post I’d like to discuss the film’s treatment of revenge and its consequences.
Krauthammer faults the film for, among other things, humanizing and contextualizing the Palestinians targeted for assassination while leaving the Israeli athletes with nothing but names and faces. This is poor film criticism, since on a cinematic level the athletes are the counterparts of their captors and killers, who are not individuated even by name. The targets are the counterparts of the protagonists, and the latter of course receive far more character development than the former. The targets are foils for the protagonists, and their humanization is essential to understanding the psychological costs their deaths carry for the men asked to kill them. On a theoretical level, though, Krauthammer’s contrast is an important one, but not in the way he suggests. Retribution can be understood as agent-centered or victim-centered. By humanizing those targeted for assassination, the film seems to reject the idea that vengeance is motivated by hatred of wrongdoers rather than solidarity with victims. There is no need to demonize the targets, who are killed not for who they are but for what they have done and who they have wronged. Evil may not always be banal, but it is difficult to sustain the view that every individual deserving of punishment is more hateful than pitiful.
What of the film’s failure to individuate the athletes other than in name? Even if vengeance is exacted on behalf of or for the sake of a victim, it does not seem essential to the revenge genre that the victim is fully represented. In stories as diverse as Hamlet and Memento the victim is dead before the curtain rises. The focus is on the avenger, not on the avenged, and the relationship between the two is usually enough to explain a desire for vengeance even though the protagonist’s motives are usually mixed with guilt and grief. The drama arises from the lengths to which the protagonist goes and the psychological costs incurred in the process. In Munich the Mossad agents have no personal relationsh despite official disavowal the agents are state actors, individuals charged with carrying out a perceived collective responsibility. Munich is one of very few films dealing directly with the brutalization effect incurred on individuals charged with inflicting violence on other human beings.
It is possible to conclude that Munich is not a revenge film at all but a war movie focused on a different kind of war. When one Mossad agent confesses that “It is strange, to think of oneself as an assassin,” he is told to think of himself as something else, not as an avenger or executioner but as a soldier. What looks like revenge may simply be a series of retaliatory strikes, aimed at eliminating enemy leaders and deterring future attacks. The film’s final exchange draws a sharp contrast between the two outlooks. When the lead agent asks whether he committed murder, he wants to know whether those he killed were truly responsible for the Munich massacre. “If these men have committed crimes then they should be tried, like Eichmann.” When the case officer assures the agent that the targets were involved in a variety of terrorist conspiracies, he contrasts murder not with deserved punishment but with collective self-defense. Whether state violence is inflicted through soldiers, prison guards, or executioners, individual human beings must still experience an often debilitating conflict between their official role and the moral inhibitions built up over a lifetime of restraint and respect for the humanity of others. There is no easy resolution of this fact of political morality.
This is probably the last of my film-related postings. The others were , , , and . I hope shortly to begin posting on topics in criminal, international, and Islamic law.
Posted by Adil Haque on February
7, 2006 at 03:11 AM in
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Syriana, Iran, and Torture
It is morning in Tehran. An all-night party draws to a close. A young woman slips a pant suit, shades, and scarf over a short dress, exchanges her stilettos for flats, and walks out the door. The opening scene of
silently touches on several deep tensions within Iran's complex social order. The first tension is between the rulers and the ruled. Commentators often conflate the overthrow of the Shah and the subsequent rise of religious factions to political authority, referring to both as Iran's &Islamic Revolution.& The Shah was deposed by mass mobilization led by a number of groups, secular and sectarian, liberal and socialist. The religious faction filled the resulting power vacuum largely because it was the most efficient in providing local governance in rural areas and the most brutal in silencing political opposition.
Iran has never enjoyed a consensus regarding how to integrate Islam into a constitutional regime, in part because of a second tension, between the asceticism of Arab tribal practices thought integral to the religion despite its universalistic orientation and the celebratory dynamism of Persian culture. My Persian friends describe a tacit social compact, according to which the populace acquiesces to strict regulation of public behavior in exchange for relative freedom and privacy behind closed doors. The resolution of the second tension gives rise to a third, between a public sphere dominated by conservative norms and a private sphere in which personal behavior and intellectual exchange largely proceed as they always have. The film's opening scene identifies each of these tensions without a word of dialogue, which I consider a pretty neat trick.
Syriana also provides one of a growing number of representations of torture in film and television, in this case the disfigurement of George Clooney's character by a former CIA operative. On 24, protagonist Jack Bauer has shot and electrocuted suspects, broken their fingers, even faked the murder of one of their children to elicit information. During the first season of Lost, Jack and Sayid took a page out of , inserting a (sterile?) reed under Sawyer's fingernail to learn the location of Shannon's asthma medication. This March, Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman) will be subjected to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in V for Vendetta, originally scheduled for release on Guy Falk's Day (&Remember, remember, the Fifth of November&) but delayed following the London bombings. There's been
about whether these representations inform or desensitize, but the focus on 24, though understandable (given the popularity of the show, the frequency with which it portrays torture, and the narrative context of counter-terrorism operations), is slightly misleading because, on that show, those subjected to torture typically possess and divulge the desired information. The other examples involve the torture of characters who know nothing (Clooney, Sawyer) or whose resistance to torture is meant to be ennobling (Evey). It is also striking how many of these fictional torture victims are white, perhaps encouraging audience identification. I don’t have a settled view on whether the depiction of torture in fictional media is for the better or for the worse, so I’ll just open this topic up for discussion.
I will wrap up my film-inspired postings shortly with a longer discussion of Munich and the concept of revenge.
Posted by Adil Haque on January 26, 2006 at 10:51 AM in
Friday, January 20, 2006
The Constant Gardener and the Duty to Aid
is a beautiful film which raises all manner of questions regarding the role of multinational corporations in creating and perpetuating cultures of official corruption in developing nations. But the heart of the film lies in the moral transformation of a quietist in the diplomatic service (Ralph Fiennes) stationed in Kenya. Toward the middle of the film, Fiennes and his wife (Rachel Weisz) pass several young children beginning a long walk home. Weisz wants to give the children a lift in the couple’s car, but Fiennes refuses, saying that there are millions of people who need help, and the couple can’t help all of them. Weisz responds that these children are among those they can help, but to no avail. Toward the end of the film, Fiennes begs a plane crew to allow a child to board the plane and escape from a militia slaughtering the rest of her village. The crew refuses, reminding Fiennes that they cannot save everyone. Fiennes, predictably but (I think) not cornily, reminds them that they could have saved more.
Issues surrounding the limits of the duty to aid are raised in dozens of films. Schindler’s List is probably the most famous, but pretty much any film set in a developing country includes a scene in which a naive character gives some money to a poor child and is soon overwhelmed by a flood of equally compelling requests. What I liked about The Constant Gardener was that it identified one of a number of sources of widespread reluctance to aid distant others which may be characterized either as cognitive biases or as moral errors. The two exchanges illustrate the &drop in the bucket&effect, by which individuals infer from their inability to correct social injustices such as poverty, homelessness, and famine that they lack a compelling reason to assist any particular victim of such injustices. One contributing factor is that these injustices are conceived as abstractions, such that they survive assistance to even a very large number of victims so long as some victims remain. No matter how many individuals are provided with the resources and opportunities needed to flourish, &poverty& persists so long as others remain deprived. The framing of the problem rules out incremental or partial solutions.
A similar dynamic may partially explain why nations and individuals often respond more readily to concrete and acute crises (e.g., earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes) than to abstract and chronic problems. The former enjoy greater psychological salience, to be sure, and natural disasters make it difficult to blame affected communities for their own predicament. But it also may be that restoring a community to some status quo ante seems like a satiable, achievable goal, a fight that can be cleanly won and then left behind.
Confronted with equally valid claims to assistance, and without the means to address all of them, individuals might reach one of a number of false or misleading conclusions. One might conclude that since one has no more reason to help one person than another one lacks sufficient reason help either, forgetting that one has more reason to help either than neither. One might also think it would be unfair to help some rather than others on the basis of necessarily arbitrary considerations, revealing at the very least an overvaluation of fairness relative to other values and probably a misunderstanding of what fairness means and requires in the first place. One might repeatedly postpone helping others, reasoning that one lacks a decisive reason to help this person now rather than some other person later, and find at the end of the day that one has not helped anyone or at least not enough people. Finally, one might conclude that one’s duties to help others are extremely demanding, that one will probably fail to satisfy them, and that if one will fail morally one may as well do so at the least cost to oneself (&in for a penny, in for a pound&), perhaps on the view that morality is indifferent between partial compliance and noncompliance.
One point I took away from the film is that legal and philosophical discussion of the outer limits of the duty to aid, though interesting and important, should not distract us from that duty’s minimum requirements. When looking down the street or beyond our shores to people in need, the most pressing question is not where our duties end but where they begin, not where to stop but where to start.
Next week I'll post on Syriana, torture, and constitutional culture in Iran.&
Posted by Adil Haque on January 20, 2006 at 01:06 PM in
Friday, January 13, 2006
Kingdom of Heaven and the Concept of Jihad
Kingdom of Heaven was supposed to ride to commercial success on the strength of its director (Ridley Scott), the popularity of its leading man (Orlando Bloom), and the political controversy surrounding its subject matter (the Ayyubid conquest of Jerusalem that triggered the Third Crusade). When plans for the film were announced concern was quickly raised that the film would glorify religious conflict and ignite group antagonisms. As it became clear that the film’s message was one of peace and tolerance, a new set of critics attacked from the right, charging that the film presented
The film failed at the box office, but despite a number of cinematic limitations is well worth renting. The film provides a nice platform for discussing some disputed features of the concept of jihad and of the Islamic law of war.
The film of course takes plenty of liberties with history, both as to characters and to events, but the story is recognizable and surprisingly relevant to our own era. The film opens around 1187, during a period of peace between Baldwin IV, ruler of Jerusalem, and Saladin, sultan of the Ayyubid empire. The villains of the story are indeed a sect of religious fundamentalists bent on holy war: the Knights Templar, supported by Raynald of Chatillon and Guy of Lusignan. Through repeated attacks on civilians (Muslim traders and pilgrims) the Templars seek to provoke the great power of the region (the Ayyubids) into retaliatory strikes that will spark a global clash of civilizations. Baldwin preserves the peace by allowing Saladin to observe Raynald’s lustration and imprisonment. Baldwin succumbs to leprosy, and Guy, husband to Baldwin’s sister, becomes King. Raynald is freed, the attacks resume, and Saladin’s own sister is captured and killed. Saladin’s forces crush Guy’s at the Battle of Hattin, and after a lengthy siege Balian of Ibelin surrenders Jerusalem to Saladin, who promises to spare the city’s inhabitants and guarantee safe passage for Jews and Christians in the Holy Land. The film closes with Richard the Lionheart on his way to launch the third crusade.
What inspired conservative critics to accuse the film of aiding the cause of terrorists? One reason might be that both Hafez Assad and Saddam Hussein portrayed themselves as modern-day Saladins. That Saladin was an Iraqi Kurd makes Saddam’s invocation bitterly ironic. In any case, the film portrays Saladin as a reluctant warrior and a merciful victor, as temperate in his religious views and respectful of those outside his circle of faith. Contemporary leaders will generally suffer by comparison. From reports of
it seems the film’s intended message was received.
The other reason right-wing critics might find the film conducive to terrorist purposes is that Saladin played a critical role in revitalizing the concept of the lesser jihad (al-jihad al-asghar) (armed struggle undertaken for the sake of Islam) after centuries of relative desuetude. (The greater jihad (al-jihad al-akbar) refers to individual and collective struggle for spiritual and moral improvement). Saladin invoked jihad both to consolidate Syrian and Egyptian territories into a single sultanate, and later to characterize armed conflict with European forces. The film certainly understates Saladin’s religiosity and his preoccupation with the meaning and requirements of jihad. Critics might suppose that any favorable portrayal of Saladin amounts to an endorsement of the concept of jihad and with it recent ideological (mis)uses of that concept.
In the remainder of this post I’d like to focus on how the film deals with both the instigation and the conduct of war. With respect to the former, it is widely believed that the Islamic law of war divides the world into the Abode of Islam (dar al-Islam) and the Abode of War (dar al-harb), which division suggests a state of permanent belligerency between Muslim and non-Muslim states. These classifications derive not from foundational sources but from the
The rationale, as I understand it, was (if you will pardon the anachronism) largely Hobbesian: Nations exist in a state of nature with one another, in which the possibility of war exists even absent actual conflict, without a single sovereign to provide assurance of mutual restraint. Muslim states escape from the state of nature with respect to one another by accepting the shared sovereignty of God and the authority of Islamic law. The film makes clear, however, that Saladin rejected this juridical framework, embracing in addition the possibility of negotiated peace through bilateral (and presumably multilateral) treaties, giving rise to an Abode of Covenant (dar al-'ahd) or Abode of Peace (dar al-sulh).
The film is provocatively ambiguous regarding Saladin’s stance toward a fourth, less developed concept, that of the Abode of Justice (dar al-adl), which encompasses non-Muslim states which adhere to basic principles of Islamic justice: religious freedom, access to the courts, public assistance for the needy, and so forth. Saladin’s ambivalence is reflected in his final exchange with Balian, who, after surrendering the city, asks Saladin “What is Jerusalem worth?”, by which I think he means “What is Muslim rule of Jerusalem worth?” Saladin’s initial reply is “Nothing”. Here Saladin echoes Balian’s earlier speech to the city’s defenders, that ultimately it does not matter which group (Muslim, Christian, or Jewish for that matter) rules the city, so long as they rule justly and all are permitted to worship as they choose. From the point of view of justice, the difference between Baldwin and Saladin is minimal, and is eclipsed by the lives lost in the transition of power. But as Saladin walks back toward his troops he stops, turns, and offers a different answer: “Everything.” Is this latter statement an expression of vanity? Piety? Tribalism? The film leaves it to the audience, but the exchange is, I think, a telling one: It shouldn’t matter. But it does.
With respect to the conduct of war, the film of course highlights the fact that Saladin spares the lives of the Christian and Jewish residents of Jerusalem. When Balian reminds him that Christian armies slaughtered the city’s Muslim inhabitants in 1096, Saladin replies “I am not those men. I am Saladin.” This statement can be taken a number of different ways, though I prefer to think of it as a reflection of the principle, perhaps best stated by , that the laws of war are categorical and not based on reciprocity. The film glosses over the widespread use of slavery during this period, though this may be excusable as the film is intended as a parable of contemporary conflicts (which is, unfortunately, not to say that slavery is no longer widespread). What is harder to overlook is the film’s silence regarding Saladin’s decision to offer no quarter and take virtually no prisoners in the Battle of Hattin, as well as his decision to offer Balian terms of surrender (as he had offered Guy before Hattin) only after a lengthy and bloody siege. The consequences are depicted, but the choice is not. This omission is unfortunate, since it limits the usefulness of the film for airing issues such as the
and hors de combat. Still, the alarmism of right-wing critics should be tempered by Saladin’s concern for the lives of “the women, the children, the old, and the sick” and his desire to restrict the deaths caused by war to those who choose to fight. This is not a radical position, to be sure, but it is the position of Islamic law, stretching back to the prophecy and to the example of Muhammad and his companions.
Though Saladin, the great expositor of jihad, shared neither the worldview nor the tactics of those who today invoke that concept, he did confront and contend with a group which largely shared both. Several attempts were made on Saladin’s life by a secret society whose cavernous strongholds he later besieged. The society’s members referred to themselves as the fedayeen. Muslims who rejected their practice of murdering political leaders in public spaces called them hashshashins, from which the term “assassins” derives. Those who today invoke the concept of jihad to justify attacks on civilians as well as public figures follow the example not of Saladin but of his enemies.
For providing vivid (if not always historically accurate) illustrations of pressing issues in Islamic jurisprudence, Kingdom of Heaven is my Number 4 International Law Movie of 2005.
Posted by Adil Haque on January 13, 2006 at 01:40 PM in
Extreme Movie Makeovers?
Caryn James, a critic for the NYT,
this morning that a recent spate of long films (King Kong and Munich) need a nip and tuck, and should have followed the example of The New World, which just slimmed down as it went to wide release.& Having seen Munich just last night, I must register a slight dissent.& (Interestingly, Leon Wieseltier agreed with James: &.&)& Whereas King Kong was extravagantly long (and over-hyped), Munich actually was no problem for me to sit through, notwithstanding my fidgety nature.& On the merits of the film, I thought Spielberg crafted a visually compelling portrait of the Israeli government's response to the Munich massacre, and the anguished difficulties faced by the individuals involved in that response.& Tedium aside, Leon's principal complaint targeted Tony Kushner's screenplay for pushing the two opposing sides of Palestinian (and other Islamist) terrorism and Israeli counter-terrorism into moral equipoise. He writes that the movie's &complexity& reduces to the following: Palestinians murder, Israelis murder. Palestinians show evidence of a conscience, Israelis show evidence of a conscience. Palestinians suppress their scruples, Israelis suppress their scruples. Palestinians make little speeches about home and blood and soil, Israelis make little speeches about home and blood and soil. Palestinians kill innocents, Israelis kill innocents. All these analogies begin to look ominously like the sin of equivalence, and so it is worth pointing out that the death of innocents was an Israeli mistake but a Palestinian objective. (I am referring only to the war between the terrorists and the counterterrorists. The larger picture is darker. Over the years more civilians were killed in Israeli air strikes than in the Palestinian atrocities that provoked those air strikes. The justice of Israel's defense of itself should not be confused with the rightness of everything that it does in self-defense.) For what it's worth, neither my fiancee nor I left the film with the same quiet anger that Wieseltier did, even though I usually find myself persuaded by his arguments on political life.& The movie's intensity also benefits from the large screen, so if you were thinking about holding back or waiting until Netflix, you might want to reassess -- if only to enjoy the dissonance of seeing Daniel Craig, the new (blond and blue-eyed!) James Bond, play an assassin who claims that the only blood he cares about is Jewish blood.
Update--my bad manners and early senior moment: I neglected to link to Paul's
on Munich, with typically shrewd commentary.
Posted by Administrators on January 13, 2006 at 10:11 AM in
Friday, January 06, 2006
Stealth and the Laws of War
If you rent only one film this year about a computer-piloted fighter jet which goes rogue after being hit by lightning (!) but ultimately comes to recognize the sanctity of human life, I highly recommend , the latest philosophical blockbuster from the makers of The Fast and the Furious. Stealth often succumbs to the limitations imposed by its genre, but the moments in which it surpasses them are well worth watching.
On two separate occasions, a team of elite fighter pilots declines to strike a primary target in a manner which will guarantee its destruction while minimizing risk to themselves because the foreseeable number of civilian deaths will be too high. In the first case, one pilot risks death himself to execute a maneuver which achieves the objective while minimizing loss of innocent life. In the second, the pilots shift their attention from the primary target (nuclear warheads which if destroyed would send a radioactive dust cloud into a neighboring village) to secondary targets (missile casings and firing platforms), leaving the primary targets for retrieval by ground forces. This may be the first time principles of discrimination and proportionality have been referenced in a mainstream action movie. If you know of others please share.
The movie also features two short but intelligent discussions of the ethical implications of routine use of pilotless warplanes. A commanding officer defends the program as a rational means to achieve strategic objectives without risking the lives of human pilots. A pilot responds that such technology, by decreasing the internalized costs of warfare, will reduce disincentives to engage in armed conflict. (“War is horrible. It’s supposed to be horrible. If war stops being horrible, what’s to stop us?”) Every good
this one is pretty bright (in spots) as well.
It might seem that these moments in the film are unconnected: the proportionality principle is a norm of jus in bello which applies to commanders and soldiers in the field, while the prospect of dead soldiers primarily bears on political decisions to initiate, perpetuate, or terminate conflict. Yet it occurs to me that they might be connected in at least two ways.
The first connection has to do with certain nativist biases which distort moral reasoning.& I heard an Air Force lawyer (who’s name I’ve long forgotten and have not been able to find) at the New York Bar Association around two years ago, who said that the problem with the proportionality principle is that military commanders value their soldiers’ lives far more than the lives of foreign civilians, particularly civilians from different ethnic or religious groups. Similarly, the political evaluation of armed conflict is measured in the numbers of (our) soldiers lost, not the number of (their) civilians killed. By contrast, in the film the pilots deviate from their mission plans to save the lives of foreign civilians of two different ethnicities.
The second connection has to do with the nature of the proportionality principle itself, which demands a comparison of apparently incommensurable values: the preservation of human life and the achievement of military objectives. This fragmentation of value prompts Michael Walzer to write that “because I don’t know how to measure the relevant values or how to specify the proportionality, and because I don’t think anyone else knows, I prefer to focus on the seriousness of the intention to avoid harming civilians, and that is best measured by the acceptance of risk.” Arguing About War 137 (2004). Absent human pilots, the internalized risk incurred by future aerial strikes will be limited to the possibility of losing planes to anti-aircraft fire.
This does not mean that nations that are serious about minimizing loss of innocent life cannot use pilotless planes. On the contrary, subject to norms adapted to keep pace with technological innovation, pilotless planes may lead to fewer civilian deaths and a stricter regime of legal oversight. The use of human pilots in a mission indeed speaks to the importance placed on its success. But the fear of losing human pilots understandably leads commanders to adjust mission parameters to protect their safety (e.g., increasing the altitude at which bombs are dropped or missiles fired, increasing pilot safety but decreasing accuracy), and for better or worse international law permits some trade-off between the lives of soldiers and the lives of civilians. By contrast, where pilotless planes are used, it will be difficult if not impossible to justify failure to accept essentially financial risks where necessary to reduce civilian deaths. Since the loss of pilotless aircraft lacks the moral weight and demoralization costs of lost soldiers, commanders can also be fairly expected to comply with stricter legal requirements. Pilotless aircraft may therefore make war (politically) easier to start yet (legally) harder to prosecute. That’s hardly a wash, of course, and certainly no cause for celebration, but it may be the best we can expect from “the moral pit where [we] appear to have settled, surrounded by enormous [and ever-advancing] arsenals.” Thomas Nagel, War and Massacre (1972).
For bringing the laws of war to mainstream movie audiences, Stealth is my Number 5 International Law Movie of 2005.
Posted by Adil Haque on January
6, 2006 at 05:55 PM in
Thursday, January 05, 2006
My Top Five International Law Movies of 2005
Hi everyone. This is my first time posting on an academic blog, so I hope you’ll be patient with me as I scale the learning curve. I plan to eventually post in a more straightforward fashion on criminal, international, and Islamic law, but I’ve decided to start off with . . .
My Top Five International Law Movies of 2005:
2. Syriana
3. The Constant Gardener
4. Kingdom of Heaven
5. Stealth (no, really)
I’ll post about each film in turn as it touches on and illuminates issues ranging from torture and revenge to corruption and humanitarian aid to the concept of jihad and Iranian constitutional culture. Hope you all enjoy.
Posted by Adil Haque on January
5, 2006 at 08:06 PM in
Another Film for Business Associations
Yesterday at the AALS conference Larry Ribstein gave an entertaining presentation on the pedagogical uses of the Oliver Stone film Wall Street.& As Prof. Ribstein describes in this , &[t]he film is particularly useful for teaching because of Stone’s self-consciously didactic intent, and his quite deliberate use of technique to present a particular slant on the issues.&& Ribstein uses the film as a foil, illustrating why the lefty economics presented in the film are ultimately misguided.& He has an article further describing his approach .
I would add a further film to Professor Ribstein's list of useful films for Business Associations.&
is a 2001 documentary about the rise and fall of a small Internet startup company.& [For those who haven't seen the movie, there are some spoilers below.] We begin as one of the firm's founders is leaving his job at Goldman Sachs to devote himself to govworks.com, an Internet portal that connected people to state and local government services.& & The film takes us through the founders' efforts to secure VC funding, their first corporate retreat, the development of the website, an episode of corporate espionage, and the eventual firing of one of the firm's founders.& There are a number of moments in the film that illustrate important corporate law events:
The firm's name.& One of the founders and the eventual CEO, Kaleil Tuzman, debates with the other founders over whether the site should be called govworks.com, nextown.com, or untocaesar.com, and does some market research at Gray's Papaya.
The buyout of one of the firm's founders at the VC funding stage.& He walks away with $800,000 after an intense and personal round of negotiations.
The VC negotiations.& At one point the two founders are trying to get in touch with their attorney and are berating him to the camera for his unavailability.& It turns out that their attorney, a partner at Wilson Sonsini, had been at the printer for another deal.
The firing of one of the firm's founders.& After a back and forth between the founder and the board, he ends up getting escorted out of the building, and the security guard is warned not to let him back on the premises.
Although the film is intended for a general audience, it is actually quite sophisticated, and even law students might not pick up some of the nuances without prompting.& But it is a real company with real people suffering real consequences.& The level of access secured by the filmmakers is truly astounding.& We see almost everything.& And for that reason, I think it dovetails nicely with a highly stylized film like Wall Street.
Posted by Matt Bodie on January
5, 2006 at 10:41 AM in , ,
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Taking Stock of 2005...
And so, 2005 comes to a close, capped off by the Graham Amendment (for the final version, see pages 341-44 of ), the McCain Amendment (see page 340 of the ), , and .
Last night, some friends of mine and I were discussing over dinner two widely disparate questions: What was the best movie of 2005, and what was the most important legal development of 2005? (This is the problem with hanging out with friends who are lawyers -- we lose all sense of perspective.)
Anyway, I have to confess that I was hard-pressed to answer either question. Whether or not it's been a down year for movies, those movies that have succeeded have generally been rather dark (e.g., , , ). Even
was a darker version of the .
The parallels between Hollywood and the year of legal developments were, at least to us, striking.
and the Ten Commandment cases [ and ] notwithstanding, this was not the same kind of show-stopping year in the Supreme Court as 2004 was... Maybe the nominations of Chief Justice Roberts and Judge Alito will prove to be the most lasting legal developments, but short of that, lots of wrangling over torture, spying, and secret prisons -- along with painful questions about governmental responsibility in emergencies -- have been the dominant legal stories of at least the second half of 2005. And I had to stop and think to remember what the dominant legal story of the first half was, although Terri Schiavo has to be the runaway favorite (with
and its accompanying mess a close second).
And so, with 2006 already in full force on the other side of the world, what was (1) the best movie of 2005; and (2) the most important legal development?
My votes, for what very little they're worth, are for
(the movie) and, probably controversially, a pair of due process decisions by the Supreme Court that have flown at least somewhat beneath the radar --
Plenty of other developments were far more newsworthy, and arguably more important to a narrower class of cases. But both Castle Rock and Austin exemplify two separate, but equally important points: In general, contemporary due process analysis tilts heavily in the government's favor, especially where law enforcement or prison conditions are concerned (as in these two cases); and it is only an increasing misnomer to cast Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer as the Court's &liberals.& After all, Castle Rock was 7-2, and Austin was unanimous.
But, I'm equally sure that I'm in the minority in viewing Castle Rock and Austin as such important developments. So, let the disagreements begin!!
(And Happy New Year to one and all -- even Yankees fans).
Posted by Steve Vladeck on December 31, 2005 at 06:54 PM in , ,
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