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Cost-Benefit Analysis and National Emergencies: A Review of Richard Posner's Not a Suicide Pact

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2012

Alon Harel
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Extract

In a short book and in his contribution to this volume, Richard Posner articulates his vision concerning the most talked about subject in today's legal world: the legal treatment of terrorism. I deliberately say the most talked about subject in today's legal world, rather than the most urgent or important subject because I do not share the conviction that terrorism is a major threat to the U.S. or to the West. I believe that in fifty years historians will look at our era in a way similar to the way we look at the destructive global hysteria which led to the First World War. Of course I immediately concede that neither my view nor, if I may add, Posner's view on the matter, is particularly indicative of the future. People, including geniuses, seem to be notoriously bad at distinguishing between real and unreal risks, and the worst is that even time will never tell us whether the risks we face now are real or imaginary but only whether they materialized or not. So if we meet in fifty years to discuss the issue, we could continue the debate whether the risks posed by terrorism were indeed real, irrespective of what happened in the world.

Type
Symposium on Richard A. Posner's Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency
Information
Israel Law Review , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , 2009 , pp. 225 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2009

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References

1 Posner, Richard A., Not a Suicide Pact: the Constitution in a Time of National Emergency (2006)Google Scholar.

2 See in this issue, Posner, Richard A., Précis: National Security and Constitutional Law, 42 Isr. L. Rev. 217 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar [hereinafter Posner, Précis].

3 Some constitutional theorists raised doubts whether Posner's book is indeed faithful to the values of the American Constitution. See, e.g., Cole, David, The Poverty of Posner's Pragmatism: Balancing Away Liberty after 9/11, 59 Stan. L. Rev. 1735 (2007)Google Scholar.

4 See Posner, Précis, supra note 2.

5 Id. at 218-19.

6 Posner, supra note 1, at 24.

7 Id. at 31.

8 Id. at 24.

9 Posner, Précis, supra note 2, at 218.

10 Id.

11 For the distinction between these two ways of understanding balancing, see Harel, Alon, Book Review; Skeptical Reflections on Justice Aharon Barak's Optimism, 39 Isr. L. Rev. 261, 277–78 (2006)Google Scholar.

12 Posner, Précis, supra note 2, at 218.

13 Id.

14 Id. at 219.

15 Id. at 218-19.

16 The primary examples are Ronald Dworkin and Robert Nozick. For a short survey of these questions, see Harel, Alon, Theories of Rights, in The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory 191, 197–98 (Golding, Martin P. & Edmundson, William eds., 2005)Google Scholar.

17 Id.

18 See Harel, supra note 11.

19 Posner, Précis, supra note 2, at 220.

20 See, e.g., Rachlinski, Jeffrey J., Heuristics and Biases in the Court: Ignorance or Adaptation?, 79 Oregon L. Rev. 61 (2000)Google Scholar.

21 See, e.g., Waldron, Jeremy, Torture and Positive Law: Jurisprudence for the White House, 105 Columbia L. Rev. 1681 (2005)Google Scholar.

22 Posner, Précis, supra note 2, at 219.