ACSblog recently caught up with Michael P. Scharf, Professor, Case Western Reserve University School of Law; Director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center; Director of the Cox Center War Crimes Research Office. Scharf co-authored Shaping Foreign Policy in Times of Crisis, which he discusses below.
Tell us about your new book, Shaping Foreign Policy in Times of Crisis.
Shaping Foreign Policy in Times of Crisis is my thirteenth book, following on the heels of Enemy of the State, which told the behind the scenes story of the capture, trial, and execution of Saddam Hussein. My new book grew out of a series of meetings that my co-author, Paul Williams, and I convened with all ten of the living former State Department Legal Advisers -- from the Carter Administration to that of George W. Bush. Based on their insider accounts of the role that international law actually played during the major crises on their watch, the book explores whether international law is real law or just a form of politics that policymakers are free to ignore whenever they perceive it to be in their interest to do so. The book is written in a style that will appeal to the casual reader and serious scholar alike. It includes a forward by the Obama Administration's State Department Legal Adviser, Harold Koh; background on the theoretical and historical underpinnings of the debate about whether international law is binding; chapters that recount the experience of each former Legal Adviser; roundtable discussions with the U.S. State Department Legal Advisers and with Foreign Ministry Legal Advisers from other countries; and an in-depth case study of the treatment of detainees in the war on terror.
