Looking at International Law through the lens of Bush v. 2.1

Wednesday, November 17 6:30 PM
“New Forms of War, International Law, and the Foreign Policy of the Next Bush Administration” — Prof. William Bradford of IU-Indianapolis Law School.
Indiana Council on World Affairs: Butler University, Johnson Room in Robertson Hall

What will be the implications of the reelection of President Bush for American foreign policy and international law? Will relations with the United Nations get warmer? In the war with terrorists, how will the US comply with international agreements such as the Geneva Conventions, which were designed to deal with a very different type of war? What causes the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, and how can we prevent them from being repeated elsewhere? Answering these and other questions is Prof. William Bradford, one of the country’s leading experts on what may be the most important legal issues facing us today: national security and foreign relations law, and the law governing war and international conflicts. Because he defends the legitimacy under international law of the Bush Administration’s notion of preventive war, you might think Prof. Bradford is a particularly articulate and thoughtful conservative legal scholar. Prof. Bradford served in the US Army from 1990 to 2001, including as legal advisor to Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Gen Shalikashvili. He is the author of The Laws of Armed Conflict and Transnational Security in the Age of Terror, the first casebook of military law. Recent articles Prof. Bradford has written provide legal justification for the Bush Administration’s doctrine of preemptive war; examine American Indians’ claims for reparations; and propose a new post-9/11 framework for the law governing war. One of fewer than fifteen tenured law professors in the US, he was recently appointed United Nations Ambassador from the Miami tribe of Indiana. Don’t miss this important event. Go to the ICWA’s website for information about how to register.