"The kind of legal culture and legal problem solving that all of humanity needs" must include accountability for war crimes and the institutions which harbor the perpetrators.
The University of California's advocacy for the current U.S. Torture State began with a rather banal defense of its employee John Yoo, whose conduct and work at the Bush/Cheney Justice Department fell far outside established ethical standards. Berkeley Law Dean Christopher Edley sticks with his misapplication of the principle of "academic freedom" to provide safe harbor to his subordinate, despite repeated rebuttals from those, including numerous constitutional lawyers, who correctly understand that ethical, criminal and immoral action in the service of government are not protected.
Dean Edley taught Barack Obama at Yale and provided consultation services for his presidential campaign, and has upheld the President's decision to avoid investigation of criminal actions of the Bush administration. But political calculation must not be the basis for decisions involving the most basic principles of universal human rights. World Can't Wait urges people of conscience to reject the pretext of Fear being sold to the American public and to repudiate the illegal practices being used in the global "war" on terror.
It is time for Berkeley Law to come clean and fess up to what it actually represents, its "face" to the world, before the nickname "UC Law School for the Legal Justification of Torture" takes permanent hold. Join us today in our campaign to "Fire, Disbar, and Prosecute John Yoo."
