E-mail:
Jack Balkin: jackbalkin at yahoo.com
Bruce Ackerman bruce.ackerman at yale.edu
Ian Ayres ian.ayres at yale.edu
Corey Brettschneider corey_brettschneider at brown.edu
Mary Dudziak mary.l.dudziak at emory.edu
Joey Fishkin joey.fishkin at gmail.com
Heather Gerken heather.gerken at yale.edu
Abbe Gluck abbe.gluck at yale.edu
Mark Graber mgraber at law.umaryland.edu
Stephen Griffin sgriffin at tulane.edu
Jonathan Hafetz jonathan.hafetz at shu.edu
Jeremy Kessler jkessler at law.columbia.edu
Andrew Koppelman akoppelman at law.northwestern.edu
Marty Lederman msl46 at law.georgetown.edu
Sanford Levinson slevinson at law.utexas.edu
David Luban david.luban at gmail.com
Gerard Magliocca gmaglioc at iupui.edu
Jason Mazzone mazzonej at illinois.edu
Linda McClain lmcclain at bu.edu
John Mikhail mikhail at law.georgetown.edu
Frank Pasquale pasquale.frank at gmail.com
Nate Persily npersily at gmail.com
Michael Stokes Paulsen michaelstokespaulsen at gmail.com
Deborah Pearlstein dpearlst at yu.edu
Rick Pildes rick.pildes at nyu.edu
David Pozen dpozen at law.columbia.edu
Richard Primus raprimus at umich.edu
K. Sabeel Rahmansabeel.rahman at brooklaw.edu
Alice Ristroph alice.ristroph at shu.edu
Neil Siegel siegel at law.duke.edu
David Super david.super at law.georgetown.edu
Brian Tamanaha btamanaha at wulaw.wustl.edu
Nelson Tebbe nelson.tebbe at brooklaw.edu
Mark Tushnet mtushnet at law.harvard.edu
Adam Winkler winkler at ucla.edu
"If your Constitution is so good, how come you're sending drones against us?"
Mark Tushnet
That's a question asked of me at a session with trainees for the Pakistani civil service at their academy in Lahore, where I was over the past few days. The politics of the comment are of course interesting -- that the trainee felt licensed to ask the question, that I have no idea to what extent he [the trainees were about 4/1 male/female] was representative. For now, though, I'm interested in the perspective on the US Constitution reflected in the comment: that, because the Constitution is a template for justice, anything that's unjust must be inconsistent with the Constitution. Part of my response was that, though the drone strikes might be morally problematic (I should note that I'm quite "conservative" on this question, thinking that at the very least as between bombs and drones, drones are pretty clearly morally superior), the law dealing with the moral issues might be international law or international human rights law or the law of armed conflict, but not US constitutional law. I think there's a reasonably obvious connection between this point and the one Sandy Levinson's been urging -- that maybe we shouldn't be excoriating the Supreme Court's Heller decision, but the Second Amendment for removing important policy issues from ordinary political resolution. (Another post on conversations in Pakistan to follow.)