Description:

Eric Posner, University of Chicago
7pm at Scott Hall 212

Eric Posner is a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He has published numerous articles and books on issues in international law and is well known as the co-author of Terror in the Balance and The Executive Unbound.

In his book of the same title, Posner argues that purposefully unenforceable human rights treaties are at the heart of the world's failure to address human rights violations. He looks to the foreign aid model instead, contending that we should judge compliance by comprehensive, concrete metrics like poverty reduction, instead of relying on ambiguous, weak, and easily manipulated checklists of specific rights.