In Praise of some Lawyers: Tony Blair and International Law

This morning CNN broadcast a major speech on terrorism by British Prime Minister Tony Blair. It was the finest speech I have ever heard in my long life. Churchill shone and sparkled wen he roused the British people to resist Hitler, but he was a wartime rather than a peacetime leader. Blair clearly is both. His speech combined eloquence with intelligence and good sense. He gripped his audience on both sides of the Atlantic.

His background is interesting. Born in 1953, he is not yet fifty, so he should be active for decades. We hear much about Europe's empty churches, and, indeed it is a tragedy that only small congregations listen to the superb choirs of English cathedrals. They explain why Blair is a devout Anglican. He is a product of that very British institution, the chorister school, in his case that of Durham. He attended St. John's College, Oxford, and then Lincoln`s Inn for the law. Although not born a member of the working class, he has always shown compassion for them. He lists as his clubs Trimdon Colliery and Deaf Hill Working Men's, Trimdon Village Working Men`s, and Fishburn Working Men`s He lives inTrimdon Station, County Durham He has been Labour MP for Sedgefield sincc 1983, when he was thirty. These are in the colliery district. More working class you cannot get.

Lawyers are not very popular, and their critics love to quote Shakespeare's "First, we will hang all the lawyers". In fact, this was said by a rabble-rouser who was urging a mob to disregard the law, and whom Shakespeare, a believer in law and order, despised. Presumably the legal jargon which annoys us was the common speech of his day. Indeed, today as Blair and co. fight terrorism, we need international law. At "The Hesperides", following the WAIS conference on globalization there was a discussion about international law. Lawyer Philip Huyck and others argued that it does not really exist. To which we reply something like "If God does not exist, we must invent him". One of the most urgent tasks for the present age is to create a global international law, and this will be one of the themes of WAIS.

A basic problem is that there are different legal systems, and, in the issue of terrorism, there is the problem of Islamic law and of sharia. Most of us know little about it, and it confuses and repels us. According to Islamic law, a man is allowed to have four wives. The Taliban regime claims it is imposing pure Islam, but bin Laden reportedly has seven. David Westbrook, a law professor who spoke at the WAIS conference on globalization, has published "Islamic International Law and Public International Law: Separate Expressions of World Order" (Virginia Journal of International Law, Summer, 1993). Since we are now in a war, but not at war, another of his articles is relevant: "Law Through War" (Buffalo Law Review, Winter 2000). I am forwarding both articles to Stanford Law Professor Tom Campbell, a specialist in international law. I will post any comments her wishes to make.

Ronald Hilton - 10/2/01