Harvard Law Professors Gabriella Blum and Philip B. Heymann win the 2010 IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law/Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize
Laws, Outlaws, and Terrorists: Lessons from the War on Terrorism, by Harvard University Law professors Gabriella Blum and Philip B. Heymann, has won the 2010 IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law/Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize.
The prize was established in 2007 by Chicago-Kent alumnus Roy C. Palmer and his wife, Susan M. Palmer, to honor an exemplary work of scholarship exploring the tension between civil liberties and national security in contemporary American society. Professors Blum and Heymann, whose book was published in September 2010 by The MIT Press, will present their work at Chicago-Kent in the coming months.
In Laws, Outlaws, and Terrorists, Professors Blum and Heymann reject the argument that traditional American values embodied in domestic and international law can be ignored in any sustainable effort to keep the United States safe from terrorism. They argue that the costs are great and the benefits slight from separating security and the rule of law.
Gabriella Blum has been a member of the Harvard Law School faculty since 2007. Professor Blum's scholarly interests include conflict management, counter-terrorism operations, laws of armed conflict, negotiation and public international law. She earned an LL.B., a B.A. in Economics, and an LL.M.—all from Tel-Aviv University. She then joined the Israel Defense Forces, serving in the International Law Department of the Military Advocate General's Corps. After earning her LL.M and S.J.D. degrees from Harvard Law School, she returned to the International Law Department of the Israel Defense Forces to lead the counter-terrorism desk. Professor Blum went on to serve as strategic advisor to the Israeli National Security Council before returning to Harvard as a visiting assistant professor in 2005.
Philip B. Heymann currently is the James Barr Ames Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He served in the Solicitor General's office during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and as an associate special prosecutor and consultant to the special Watergate prosecution force. He headed the Justice Department's criminal division during the Carter administration and was deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration. Professor Heymann has also held positions as acting administrator of the State Department's Bureau of Security & Consular Affairs, deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of International Organizations, and executive assistant to the undersecretary of state.
Professor Heymann received his undergraduate degree in philosophy from Yale University. He earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School and clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Harlan. His scholarly interests include political violence and terrorism and comparative criminal law.
Benefactor Roy Palmer, a lawyer and real estate developer, is a 1962 honors graduate of Chicago-Kent and a member of its board of overseers. He and his wife, Susan, are active in numerous civic, social and philanthropic organizations and are the recipients of the 1997 Outstanding Individual Philanthropist Award of the National Society of Fundraising Executives. In 2006, the Palmers pledged a $1 million gift to the law school.
The $10,000 Chicago-Kent College of Law/Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize is designed to encourage and reward public debate among scholars on current issues affecting the rights of individuals and the responsibilities of governments throughout the world. Previous prize recipients include constitutional scholars David D. Cole and Jules L. Lobel for their book Less Safe, Less Free: Why America Is Losing the War on Terror (The New Press), Harold H. Bruff for Bad Advice: Bush's Lawyers in the War on Terror (University Press of Kansas), and Scott M. Matheson, Jr., for Presidential Constitutionalism in Perilous Times (Harvard University Press).
