Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law
3501 Sansom Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6204
(215) 898-5798
www.law.upenn.edu/institutes/cerl/
Ethics, National Security and the Rule of Law
Professor Claire Finkelstein
Course Description
This year long Seminar seeks to enhance students’ theoretical and practical appreciation
for the concept of the rule of law as it intersects with a variety of current topics in national
security. Students in the Seminar work in teams and are assigned to research a particular facet of
national security law or policy that has ethical import and significance. The course is intended to
coordinate with the activities of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL), an
interdisciplinary center located at the University of Pennsylvania dedicated to the study and
preservation of the rule of law in the face of changes in the nature of contemporary warfare.
Students are expected to support the work of the Center by participating in CERL’s conferences
during the academic year as well as by engaging in research that assists in the planning and
preparation for CERL’s events. Students will select and research paper topics in the area of the
course and will work to produce highly professional papers of publishable qualities. Students
will present their work in progress at a seminar meeting, and potentially at a CERL conference if
appropriate. Topics for the current academic year will include Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD), the ethics of negotiation in armed conflict, the changing nature of classification
practices, recent changes in the nature of sovereignty and executive authority, educating leaders
of character and competence, the ethics of developing autonomous weapons systems, the
militarization of space, and others addressing contemporary challenges in national security law
and policy.
This seminar is intended to further CERL’s commitment to producing the next generation
of ethical scholars and practitioners devoted to the preservation and promotion of rule of law
values. The readings assigned over the course of the year will help to further this goal by
introducing students to some of the classic as well as contemporary scholarship informing the
work at CERL. Students will have the opportunity to assist in producing CERL edited volumes
from previous conferences on various topics in national security law. Selected papers will be
considered for inclusion in a CERL publication.
Schedule and Readings
Fall Semester:
Week 1: Introduction to Principles of Just War Theory
Thursday, September 3
12:00 – 2:00
Brown Bag Lunch
Introductory Lecture
Readings:
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, (New York: Basic Books,
1977), Chs. 1 - 3.
Week 2: The Ethics of Negotiation in Armed Conflict: Bargaining with the Devil
Thursday, September 17
12:00 – 2:00 pm
Buffet Lunch
Guest Speaker: David S. Jonas
Readings:
David Jonas, International Law Versus the Iranian Nuclear
Negotiations: Setting a Dangerous Precedent,
http://warontherocks.com/2015/05/international-law-vs-theiranian-nuclear-negotiations-setting-a-dangerous-precedent/.
G. Richard Shell, The Morality of Bargaining: Identity versus
Interests in Negotiations with Evil, Negotiation Journal Oct 2010;
p. 456 – 480.
Bertram I Spector, Negotiating with Villains revisited: Research
Note, Negotiating with terrorists 165–173 (2006).
Paul Sharp,
Diplomatic Theory and Appeasement, in Diplomatic
Theory of International Relations p 298-305
4:00 – 6:00 pm
Panel Discussion: Iran’s Nuclear Game of Chess,
Fitts Auditorium
Moderator: Claire Finkelstein
Speakers: Robert Litwak, Eleh Esfandiari and David S. Jonas,
Hoss Cartwright
Week 3: The Ethics of Negotiation in Armed Conflict: Negotiation Theory and the
Ethics of Deterrence
Thursday October 1
Seminar Paper Prospectus Due
12:00 – 2:00
Guest Speaker: TBA
Buffet Lunch
Gregory Kavka, Moral Paradoxes of Nuclear Deterrence,
Selections.
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, Chs. 16 & 17.
G. Richard Shell, Bargaining for advantage: negotiation
strategies for reasonable people, 89-113 (1999).
I. William Zartman, Preventing Deadly Conflict, 32
Security Dialogue 137–154 (2001)
Week 4: Sovereignty and the New Executive Authority
Thursday October 15
12:00 – 2:00
Readings:
Guest Speaker: Alex Guerrero
Buffet Lunch
Alexander Guerro, National Insecurity: Democracy, War,
and Popular Sovereignty (manuscript)
Claire Finkelstein, Secrecy, Targeted Killing and the Rule
of Law (manuscript)
Week 5: Lives of Combatants
Thursday, October 29
No Guest Speaker
12:00 – 2:00
Brown Bag Lunch
Readings TBA
Week 6: Post-Traumatic Stress Injury/Disorder: Trauma and Moral Injury
Thursday, December 3
12:00 – 2:00
Guest Speaker: Dr. William Alexander
Buffet Lunch
Readings:
Judith Herman, A Forgotten History & The Dialectic of Trauma
Continues in Trauma and Recovery pp. 7-32
Jonathan Shay, Moral injury, 31 PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY
182–191 (2014) (Excerpt, pp. 182-186).
David Wood, Moral Injury, THE HUFFINGTON POST,
http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/moral-injury (2014) (Excerpt,
.pdf, pp. 1-50; gray text optional).
Week 7: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Ethical Issues in Prevention and Treatment of
PTSD
Thursday, December 10
12:00 – 2:00
Guest Speaker: Dr. Steve Xenakis
Buffet Lunch
December 8-10
CERL Conference: Ethical Issues in the Prevention and
Treatment of PTSD Conference begins at 4:00 Thursday
December 10 and ends at 4:00 Saturday, December 12