NEW BOOKS

Well, one brand spanking new, the other just new.

• John Shattuck, Freedom on Fire: Human Rights Wars & America's Response, Harvard UP (2003). A self-proclaimed "human rights hawk," Shattuck gives an insider's account of his years as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor under Clinton. He argues that there was a collective learning process in the U.S. government in the mid-1990s, as the consequences of a failure to intervene in failed and failing states as wide-scale atrocities are perpetrated became clear. The book cuts a path from the failure to intervene in Rwanda, through halting efforts in Haiti and Bosnia, to ultimate success in Kosovo. Chapters on the dilemmas of reaction to China's human rights record and the relationship between human rights intervention and the war on terrorism round out the book. It's a good read with a strong argument.


• Louis Fisher, Nazi Saboteurs on Trial: A Military Tribunal & American Law, Kansas (2003). Published in April (not exactly hot off the presses but close enough), this book is a detailed examination of ex Parte Quirin, perhaps the most famous twentieth Supreme Court case on the President's authority to use military tribunals. In the introduction, Fisher notes that this book is an introductory study for a broader historical work on the relationship between military tribunals and the constitution. Nazi Saboteurs on Trial is a counterpoint to attempts to rely on Quirin in defense of President Bush's executive order establishing military tribunals for use in the war on terrorism. (See also this WaPo editorial by Willliam Barr and Andrew McBride; Fisher notes that Barr was one of the brains behind the proposal to use military tribunals in terrorism cases.)