Gerry Simpson in conversation with Ruti Teitel

Speaker: Professor Ruti Teitel (New York Law School)

Ruti Teitel, Righting our Global Wrongs: The President and Justice for American Empire 

Consider the US in the context of an “age of global accountability”. Despite significant scholarly literature US accountability in foreign affairs is conspicuously absent. Rather, US engagement on issues of accountability is denoted by exceptionalism. Thus, the question of “transitional justice,” of reckoning with the past with an eye to the future, has been largely a subject of American export. Starting with exploration of actions taken by the Obama administration, this book argues that there are important questions of ongoing relevance about responsibility-taking for international intervention. The book traces the ways the US executive has addressed these questions over the country’s history and considers this legacy in comparative perspective. The inquiry’s focus here into the exercise of executive power reflects upon the ways the president has been able to move from conflict to peace engaging a range of versatile and dynamic practices, including pardons/amnesties as well as political gestures such as apologies and acknowledgements.