credibility of the president particularly when we have had so many on the right to actually speak against the president have in my opinion, and choosing terms that overtly are racist, remarks against the president, how the character is an on right wing blogs and the first lady. how they elevated vladimir putin to a status that goes with edward snowden. all of these things that you do not think show the world we have unity.y -- we have any i want to know what mr. green thinks of how the rest of the world perceives our president when we get home politically are so >> first thing i would say is that this happens, unfortunately, to republican and democratic presidents. much of the world is used to the

cacophony in washington and the point scoring. our allies, recently, the impasse and governments and the difficulty we have passing a budget. it does cause some concern. president obama himself is pretty popular in asia. he is considered a president who gets the region. there are, however, concerns -- frankly, his toughness. what was devastating was the serious crisis. when the white house put down a redline. the philippines looking at a theing chinese navy, american president drawing a redline and walking away from it

is a very unnerving thing. it is something president obama is going to have to compensate for. his popularity will help him, but likely, some of the dysfunction raises questions abroad about our competence. republicansing the and democrats have to work on. >> on his way heading to asia shortly, a number of republican lawmakers already there. the special delegation is visiting the prime minister there. a quote from paul ryan in the wall street journal, he writes, howant to underscore important it is for us like agriculture and autos. theircrete evidence that alliance remains strong in the face of a newly assertive china. >> we have the privilege to welcome you to this future of

human rights program. those mostinfluenced important issues of the day. nowhere is this more evident than in the field of human rights. animated 50has years of essays. reflected in 50 years of insightful and often critical essays. more thantributed dwarkin. ronald he taught us what it meant to take right seriously. and including those which later appear in the book, taking right seriously deeply influenced a generation of activists, judges, government leaders, and scholars.

even when they engage with him rather than follow him. our focus today on the future of human rights accords with our own deep commitment to human rights at georgetown. it is essential central part of our educational mission. georgetown's human rights institution was founded to educate students so that they would have opportunities to master and engage human rights law while on campus. professor rosa brooks on our first panel. and a commitment to human rights is part of our legacy at georgetown, including faculty members like professor sam dash so father dryden that did

much to bill georgetown law and made historic contributions to the campaign for human dignity. we are just delighted to be part of this event today that brings together the new york review of books. ofhonors the memory and analyzesrkin human rights in the future. and cosponsored by the center for human law. binghammed after lord that was one of the most revered law lords in the united kingdom. in the center already in its four-year history is making profound marks as an ngo devoted to human rights and human dignity. our ownlike to thank special events team for the work they did putting this event together and i would like to thank professor david cole helping put together this

wonderful event and bring you to georgetown. my pleasure to introduce robert silvers, editor of the new york review of books. he has been the editor since its founding 50 years ago and remarkably enough thomason's the death of his co-editor barbara epstein, has personally edited every single piece in every issue of the new york review of books. i am proud if i read an entire issue. to edit an entire issue is remarkable. there is probably no other publication in english that more clearly is an expression of the editor's personality than the new york review. reflection ofis a the deep concern that has marked the editor as mr. silvers has written. the great political issues of power and its abuses have always

been national questions for us. questions for the new york review and for robert silvers, it's an honor to present robert silvers. [applause] >> thank you. say, i'm to particularly happy to be cosponsors of this conference. and i felt very happy and about the panel this afternoon. approaches, the principal that is the essence. the probing and appropriate discussion.

that quitee noticed a few of the participants here have been contributors to the new yorker. beginning with ken and jeremy and going on this evening to many and the author of so dissents.ense -- [laughter] as well as his book on making democracy work. us as the climax approaches. years, the chairs , aiew on human rights

husband of chief justice marshall. a treasured panelist tonight, as thisl know, instrumental is over our conference. they dedicate this meeting can be sponsored by the law school and the bingham center. romney divided his life between the u.s. and the u.k. and admired the big and center. happy that theen professor and first director of would also center

gain the law school. and he would be particularly happy that he is with us today taking part in this discussion. victims center is a unique organization in the u.k. and dedicated to the rule of law and demonstrating how that rule can impose respect for human dignity and foster economic progress internationally. as, for example, its work on judicial institutions with the palestinian authority. it was a historic moment for us, the first time the bingham center has been involved in a big project in america. and we hope it's a collaboration

that will continue. between 1966 and the lecture overblished, they wrote 100 interviews for the review. apart.e quite and the mother-in-law's empire, just before, recently, religion without god. it was 1967 at the height of the vietnam war when young men were desperately resisting conscription to a war that they morally disapproved of. ronnie wrote an essay that became famous called taking

rights seriously. and in it, they argued that the. institutions had a majority , thated to the minority this problem is -- promise could be applied to the conscientious objector. was beginning to outline with a moreaborated moral reading of the constitution. years later, he summed it up for us in a few words. i believe the principles set out in the bill of rights commit the united states to the following political and legal ideas. they have equal moral and

political status. must attempt in good faith to treat them all with concern and must respect whatever individual freedoms are indispensable to those ends, including but not moreed to the freedoms specifically designated in the freedoms of speech and religion. and in dedicating this evening to his memory, i would be wrong of his highnote moral commitment and principal. books, it was the context of what such a moral view of the law was harshly contested.

book, he was11 particularly cautionary about the issue raised this afternoon. adequacy of the institution ,f judicial review itself especially in relation to human rights. he pointed out that while representative government is a necessary institution for a large political community to prosper, many nations have survived without judicial review. he thought judicial review might well be less necessary for nations with stable majorities and a strong record of correctly identified and respecting the rights of individuals and

minorities. he did not say exactly which regime he had in mind. he wrote that history discloses that few such nations, even among the mature democracies, and here i quote him. the recent reactions of the u.s. and the u.k. to terrorist threats illustrated a failure of in both ournor political cultures. it wasngland, he thought a cause for optimism. to reformation of the house elect members that had not served in the house of commons by cause the institution both to have more popular support and remade -- remained sufficiently

able to baro be legislation contrary to british human rights act. however, as to the american supreme court, he said that whether it had improved democracy in the u.s. might depend on a judgment that you and i might make differently. wrote, i was accused of defending judicial review because i approved of the decision of the court. i am no longer open to that charge. i had to judge the american supreme court only on its record the last few years, i would judge it fair. but i believe that the overall balance of the historical impact

depends on the character of future judicial nominations. we must keep our fingers crossed. we must keep our fingers crossed. introduce anote, we no lester and gent and no less fair critic of the court. one of the most distinguished constitutional lawyers and commentators today. he's the author of such groundbreaking books by justice at war, enemy aliens, and we depend on him at the new york review. we are lucky to have him as moderator tonight. david gold. [applause]

>> thank you, bob. and thank you to all of you that have come out this evening. you need no introduction. to my immediate left, there is a writer. he also holds a day job that pays income in a slightly better fashion. retired and marvin marshall is known for her incredibly important decisions interpreting insurance law in massachusetts. firstso for writing the constitutional decision recognizing the constitutional requirement of marriage equality for gay couples. ad jeffrey has never been justice or chief justice, but he

does have a more initial name than the other two. have a microphone, which is still better. we have a very transnational panel here. and justice breyer is married to a native british. chief justice margaret marshall came from south africa and has become a u.s. citizen. jeffrey is also from south africa and is a major scholar in the u.k.. i thought i would start by about them to speculate the degree to which it matters that they are international human rights as opposed to domestic constitutional rights. in the united states, we have a constitution. we don't talk much about international human rights.

in south africa, they adopted a constitution that expressly borrows from the international covenant on civil and political rights. and in the u.k., they are little bit behind the times and still don't have a written constitution. but they adopted the human rights act and the european convention on human rights and made a judicially enforceable in their own courts. the question that was much discussed in the prior panel in particular was about whether rights should be differently defined for those within the domestic community. citizens or whether they should be predicated. we will go down the panel and the extent to which it matters

that we have a domestic rights , particularly with respect to foreign nationals. matters to whom in echo >> from my perspective, i am the judge. i have a court that i work in and courts decide cases. in the cases come up and we try to decide them as best we can. we don't always agree, but it's a big country. 310 million people. they don't always agree. tradition where it is more likely but not completely out of the question that i will be interpreting the words of the document if it is a constitutional question in the first 10 amendments. but be very careful saying it is exclusive. even a case this morning that we heard happened to be about

argentina, which wanted a certain judgment procedure before they went to execution. his technical and i won't go into it. about the rights of parents whose children are objected. about overseeing, overhearing, overlooking. all kinds of activities that take place where when we had for guantánamo cases, all of which the guantánamo detainee one, we had to look at the geneva convention. there are lots of things that we look at. the argument is much less definite and much less determined and much less important than people think in my opinion. an ordinary citizen, i

would say i don't care what the source is. i do care about whether i can say what i want. i do care about people not putting me in jail arbitrarily and i care about having some kind of protection for unpopular -- yound i do care about can list them. but i don't care about what the might think. south africa does incorporates the constitution. i am not sure. do we really cases from other places in echo i don't count them. i am the spreader of chaos. i'll not give a definite answer.

and we do this case and the next case. it will get me closer to the correct answer. in ourrect answer will, world of democracy and protection of individual liberties, will probably has something to do with how best to protect them which sometimes means no protection. >> first, i want to complain. >> that is your right. >> i will put it in the overall human rights context which is that 6 million women were oppressed. so why put me after the justice when i should have gone first? i could say all those wonderful brilliant things. >> because that is not equality.

and out of justice, that's ok. >> we put you right in the center. >> i know, believe me. an injustice breyer is correct. if you are a judge, the panel which preceded us didn't have judges. that's fine. they do great work. but they don't have to face this case and the next case every day. and if that helps the judges and all of you, the written word that we interpret has a meeting which is not only an historical meaning.

the subject to their dominion, i have massachusetts, i know. i am from massachusetts, don't blame me. was, ifral constitution you think about it, an arrangement between the states and the fictional documents to begin with. we are not signing onto this. that you won't do certain things to us. it is the first amendment or second amendment or third amendment. the massachusetts constitution starts with all people are created equal. it doesn't start with same gender marriage. the very first case that came out of the massachusetts supreme haven't had it

since 1783. said, excusecourt me, all people are created equal. the justices that were holdovers from the former regime, conservatives, you have given a document and you do the best you can. we don't have with the south african constitution has. and the federal constitution, it was explicit and we want to look to the rest of the world. put it in their constitution as we do. we are not isolationists. but that was not the problem

that the founding fathers faced. they faced a government over there and they wanted to make sure the government didn't do it to them again. it is a list of things that justice breyer would mention. i would say, i don't want to be tortured. i have friends that were tortured and i heard about it. respectedprivacy because i had a government that was watching me every minute of every day. and if i hear one more person in the united states saying, i've done nothing wrong, so what do i care if the government watches simply demonstrating you have never been watched. i was doing nothing wrong. i was doing nothing illegal. it is not nice to know that every telephone call and every movement is being watched.

of course you have a different perspective. it is partly historical and we live in the world, and the fact that people are not judges and lawyers, i happen to love lawyers. think that the judicial review depends on whatever it is and there is a development of equal rights, dignity, human rights supplied every individual. >> i have nothing to complain about. why should i complain? jointly sponsored between the bingham center and the new york review of books. in the company of great observers. i won't tell you about all my addictions but one of them is the new york review of books.

peoplee with these great i have known for some years and considered good friends. by giving a long lecture that may take the rest of the evening. straight on the united kingdom constitution. it is not to say that our thetitution is not worth paper it is not written on. practices, campaign finances. are conventions that are difficult to describe but we talk about the culture established over the years and it hereto by and large the flexible changing.

we even get our judges saying, this is a constitutional right. being because you are conferred to distraction by parliament, you cannot prevent a prisoner from writing to his lawyer. because that is part of the rule of law. it is a constitutional principle. by a statute that is true but we presume it applies unless specifically excluded. another such principle is the presumption of freedom. it has to be absolutely clear and that is also a constitutional right expressed and so on. and then you have, in addition to that, the notion of elementary sovereignty which i prefer to call the principal of

representative government. things may be changing in that direction. since 1998, we have incorporated that into our law. the european convention, by the way, is as english as fish and chips and as american as apple pie. it was written by people that looked at the declaration of human rights drafted to an extent by eleanor roosevelt and others. considered clinical right. not to be tortured, free expression. due process, all things very familiar with.

i will stop my lecture, but why we are happy to have it. why do we feel bound for treaty obligations. why was the treaty entered into? it was entered into 1950 in the aftermath of the second world war. it was it a try to stop some of the horrors that occurred during the traumatic time. the persecutions, the killings, complete disregard for rights by governments in nazi germany that were not popularly elected. and as applied to all the non-communist countries try to bind them together and it had been extremely successful in doing so and they all subscribed to it and they all subscribed to the interpretation to the international court. so we are partly exporting anglo-american values.

and we're also binding, and that is the mission. that is why we are happy to consider that as part of the law of the united kingdom. >> it is interesting because the united states system of having in thependent judiciary sense that it wasn't subject to parliamentary supremacy was founded on the notion of having been where you could go say, what my government has done to me, although sometimes my next-door neighbor, it violates these rights. we have a common goal. it wasn't enough. so we did this. recognizepeople don't is it was that way until 1948. no other country anywhere has that system until germany.

onegermany was the first that did it nationally. you get this adoption, and although the common law and parliamentary supremacy is what you call the deleterious rule -- egalitarian rule, the end of the 20th century, most new democracies or states, nations claiming to be democracies looked to the model that says the fundamental rights and can take away on any individual. that is what you see increasingly. you can't discriminate on the long list of national origins.

you position the view --ut whether or not you have in a way, i would say that jeffrey is looking to those he has and saying charter, a bill of rights document, and the independent that should not be elected, not subject to majority law when they don't agree with this independent branch that is trying very hard to interpret in the judicial and legal way, what the document says, the government cannot do. it is an interesting and difficult task. >> i will come back for a moment to the beginning of my question to the end of my question which

is to ask if this difference between national and international conceptions of human rights and the domestic conception has implications for the breath of rights section. important of the most post-9/11 decisions in the world is tom bickham's judgment in the bill marsh case for those of you not aware. adopted a law that allowed for the indefinite detention of foreign nationals that were deportable, terrorist threats. suspected terrorist threats, but could not be deported because the countries to which -- from which they came, they might face torture there. the law justified their indefinite detention. made,e challenge was predicated on the european

convention of human rights that this violates that the pulls of liberty. the u.k. says, it violates principles of liberty, but we have a justification with an emergency situation and the court said, it's an emergency situation, but you have discriminated because you have authorized the detention only of foreign nationals that pose a threat to national security. british nationals are terrorist threats. , andhave the same risks it's part of our immigration regulations that it is perfectly for someone that poses a terrorist threat. and we have a concept of constitutional

rights that has extended rights to foreign nationals. is, does the domestic form of ultimate rights or action lead to more to deny rightsy to those that are not us then say an international system where they have the same tendency but you don't have to answer to not just those judges and the constitution, but the european conventions. >> did you want me to talk about that? >> if you can. >> you don't have to be a citizen. it uses the word person. there are plenty of cases. no place is going to give someone who is not a national of a country the same rights as everybody else. you're aow right now foreign national and you walk up

the street to the embassy and apply for a visa, and they wrongly withhold it from you, we will not review that. taken abroadions to give people visas are simply out of the scope of judicial review in the united states. i would be pretty surprised if there is any country in the world that doesn't have a category of decisions which involve people that are in some distant place not them and treat them differently. and similarly, if you were here on a visa and the visa expires in six months, in six months, you are gone. -- there are loads of distinctions and there are questions in the law about should there be this and should there be that? in guantánamo, we said the particular rights at issue did apply to people not american citizens. in one of the cases, some of the

judges thought that there were americanons on just citizens and others said we are not answering that question. it is a very complicated area of the law and the answer isn't one over the other. can see an expert. i something both ways. if your source of protection of human rights is universal foreign documents, it may be a good thing. we had better jump on the bandwagon. there might be some places that enforced that less vigorously because they think it is not ours. sometimes it might help you and sometimes it might hurt you. if i were to say, what are the questions, bob silver is an institution. great institutions tend to be founded by one person.

you find an institution that works well and you will see there is one person, maybe two of them. but that institution keeps us up-to-date. what is being written, about what, on topics that interest us throughout the world. one bit of wise advice, don't just talk to your contemporaries. talk to your grandchildren, their friends, artists, moviemakers, painters, writers. because they will tell you what is going on. you won't know. take, asjob will be to

jeffrey said, they'll use that are universal and come from the past, a lot of errors come from the french enlightenment. apply them to this world that can be byd what it's like only people in those younger generations and people who are on the pulse. that isn't going to be somebody who is me. be grandchildren, artists, moviemakers, whoever. the third point and the last one i want to make is i would argue, is it one or two? i'm going to say, think big. think big and think small. why do i say think big and simple? when we talk about what britain does or south africa, or france, we are talking to each other. i say who and where are the

great problems of human rights? there are plenty of rollins in the u.s. and europe. there are problems elsewhere. but i talk to people that are elsewhere in the world, they want to know something very simple. how do we establish a rule of law? the yearink back to 1215 were the great contribution of the magna carta was not freedom of speech or freedom of anything. don't act in an arbitrary way. the king can't come and take you in prison. follow a rule of law. thisometimes i am asked question. one of the most important rights is not in the restitution is indeed mistreated procedure act. it is because i taught administrative law. there are seven or eight of us that love the subject. if it isn't public, if it isn't published, it isn't law.

if it isn't law, you can't do it. of how many totalitarian systems we have seen where the real problem is somebody goes on a rest now and i will tell you why later. that is all over the place. it is called protection against arbitrary behavior. i say it is important to think small because some of the time you can make a little -- what the word? progress. how? by thinking small. the discussions i've had, this is very interesting. scholars with a chinese and how do we begin to get this thing? you think people were brainstorming. and maybe one of the things to do would be to pay the judges

more. invite the press. what about the rule against ex parte communications echo fabulous. -- communications? fabulous. let's have a rule against ex parte communications. nobody can talk to the judge unless they are in the case. maybe they will accept it, may be bit by bit. thinking small, you make a little progress. the rule of law, making progress, little bit by little bit. must think about them because i don't have the answers to those. and thinking about what younger generations are feeling even in this country, and do they know? and how can you participate? do they know when they graduate from high school but the next

thing is to do? those are problems that are grand problems. and it is possible to make progress. we are on the same wavelength, so if the point? >> my second complaint. minutes to the floor. come on, nathan. >> and you are right in the center. go to jeffrey for a moment because he is someone that has founded an institution. and notably, the bingham center for the rule of law. not the bingham center for the -- for human rights. how,der why the choice and when you're traveling around the world, advising governments and intervening on questions, that question manifests itself. you are a rule of law organization rather than a human rights organization.

>> i will answer the question. i am so pleased that steve mentioned the notion of talking to grandchildren because he has revealed my second addiction. on the rule of law, i was watching recently a program on the bbc of an actual historian going around the democratic republic of the congo. a place, potentially the richest country in the world cursed by bloodshed and conflict, 5 million people have died. absolutely dreadful. and he described what can only be described as the bloated classes taking in all the profits. and the haunted masses getting nothing. and the brutality.

he was asked about human rights and he said that is too sophisticated for me. we want to hold others to account and we want to know where the money goes. we also want to make the place work by enforcing contracts and property rights. and then the investment might come in. that come first and afterwards, bring on the rights. bingham this in the center and that is why it is called the center for the rule of law. not that we have anything against human rights, but law brings in human rights. it is not the chinese version that says anything authorized by law is fine, but there is a notion of accountability and access to justice and it must be certain and predictable and at the same time, we must be able to challenge administrative law.

it is so important. and we're finding this. if you can challenge decisions, that is the first route in. then you have an independent judiciary. we're finding this in burma where we have been working. now that i'm elected to parliament, what committee would you like to be an? i would like the committee called the rule of law committee of the burmese myanmar province. and in other places, too. what is holding things back? these judges are just not qualified in burma and also simply don't understand the words independence. they will hold in favor on the government. traction, we of are finding, in places where we go all over the world and in the united kingdom. the book came out on the rule of

law that said two things. it was important. first of all, it is a universal concept. the qualities we're just they apply to everybody. they may bite in different ways, but they apply. they are also quite specific. you can challenge your government and you must have law that people have access to. your rightsablish whether their rights to contract or human rights, and you must do so through a fair trial and the judiciary that gets you a long way. >> so with two administrative law professors and two judges on the panel, of course there'll be agreement on the importance of courts and the importance of the obligation to answer that is the predicate of administrative law.

thender what you think of concern that a focus on human ,ights and enforceable by court ,nforceable by the rule of law in which court enforceability is led uscal element, has to focus on civil and political rights over and above socioeconomic rights. panel,ooks asked the where are we? some progress on rights, but on poverty, we are nowhere. we have not made any progress whatsoever. i wonder if the fact that it's , thehard to enforce rights rule of law doesn't really if we have focused on something that we can handle but

have ignored what may be the bigger problem. >> i have two or three responses to that. the first is, in the united they said it is protection of life and liberty. it is a very important one in the united states constitution and the massachusetts constitution with the protection of property rights as well. when you talk about enforcement of economic rights, it's a long series of cases that go to all of our courts which really protect the rights of people who have property, including people that were denied the right to unionize, for example. other kinds of cases, it had

enormous economic impact. when you talk about civil and political liberties in the sense that we now think about it, mainly the speech associations. don't overlook the fact that in a way, the courts of been doing this for quite a long time. if it is atalk about protection of how things and basic medicines and things like that. get into a long discussion and what i think the court has done, for example, with respect to its housing case, it has likened the health case, but i can assure you that if you look at what happened in those cases and made the decision carefully, which is what judges have to do when

somebody points those out to us, they really didn't in any fundamental way address the redistribution of poverty issues. what essentially amounted to is that you haven't done it including -- according to the administration. so you have to go back to the government and tell the government to get it right. you have to pay for housing. i don't want to belabor the fact here that the people he were the economic scale. because thernment, government came and forcibly removed them, it was not an ultimate power. it was government action that taught these people and threw

coverut when they had no and no access to anything. and the constitutional court said, you've got to plan for surviving. it was a procedural discussion. i have had this discussion in the united states and i think bringing those back to almost any court in the united states, there were specific provisions of the constitutional court under any of the administrative law, i think you would get the same result. again, i go to the justices point that it depends on what the claim is and what the solution might be. theynly thing i would say, are both huge experts in administrative law. animal.common-law

own waythem in their has said that we have to go to a that says this hasn't been complied with. -- ihat place has to be don't know a better system of judges that can stand back and say, use the authority. the government can't do this. we take that for granted. i know the justices and i have both had this experience. totalitarianviet says, how do you get them first? the question is not getting the order. they carry out the order when you don't have an army and you it.t have a way to enforce

and we forget what is much better on this point. but to take a simple example and i can only talk from my experience. in massachusetts when the court issued the same gender marriage case, we had a governor that said he was strongly opposed on public policy grounds. he couldn't it made more clear his opposition and never once did he suggest that he would not obey that judgment. differencevery big to where weiffer as have a place and somewhere you can go.

what it means, what somebody says is that someone has authority or jurisdiction. people of the same gender can marry, what happens if the government has the issue of marriage licenses? yes, no, economic rights. it depends. resistancerica, huge for the government following some of the judicial decisions. ultimately, the government has never said we are not going to -- we're just not going to obey the constitution. he's shaking his head, and that's what i'm saying.

and when that begins to happen, it doesn't matter if justice scalia will remind you any time. whatever the soviet constitution says, all of those wonderful you might as will burn the piece of paper. >> one of the consequences of quartz -- courts protecting rights against majority area and -- majoritarian views which is ultimately what constitutional rights, that is where they have their teeth. >> minorities. if you want a principles, look to see if it despises minorities.

even though they are the majority of people. >> right. the question i guess is how should courts think about the reactions that are likely to be spurred by decisions that protect unpopular rights. marshall knows there's very much from the reaction from the goodrich decision. the supreme court when they protected flagburning. a smart congress to stay in session for three days for every member of congress to criticize the court's decision and pass a federal flag act. ., the most resistance there has been to the european court of human rights and the european convention of human rights has been in response to the judgment of the court of human rights that requires the

british to afford voting rights to detain prisoners. justices, do you just ignore those concerns because your job is to protect rights or do you have to take those into account in some way in your assessment of what you can do? >> yes, no. >> elaborate, please. why have a court? go read the federalist. the reason that hamilton thought it was a good idea to have a court that would review and has the power to set aside rules of congress -- this was not john marshall's idea. set aside laws of congress -- why? he says because if no one has the power to set aside actions

of government officials that are contrary to the document, let's hang up in the national gallery. he didn't actually -- anyway. it is not -- it has no impact. somebody has to. the president? he will become a tyrant. congress? congress is fabulous. they will do it as long it is popular. they are experts on popularity. they wouldn't be there if they didn't know that. our document is written for the least popular, as well as the most. never heard of people without the power of the person. we will give them the job. read the federalist and that is what you will see roughly. whole point is the reason that courts have this is a much -- i am not going to say nothing

is 100% -- it is there for the decision that is not popular. not. and may be very important, and --the way, may be wrong unanimous about 50% of the time. by the way, when they are 5-4, somebody is wrong. somebody is wrong. we are human. theyen will people decide aren't going to follow decision of a court where it is important, makes a difference to me, i don't like it, it is horrible, and it is wrong. when you get a majority or enough of a people and the country saying ok i will do it then you are beginning to establish a rule of law. that is why we talked before about this. we made an enormous emotional impact.

i was sitting at the 10th anniversary of the supreme court of south africa. it is a marvelous building and they are not certain whether he is going to do what mr. mandela told him he was going to. namely follow a court decision when it is unpopular. into the dinner, the judges were nervous about it. they didn't say it directly but into the dinner walks mr. mandela. fabulous, his magnetism. he says, i want to tell you a story and mr. mbeki was sitting there. ms. mandela said, i want to tell you a story in he told the richard -- the same story richard gholston told me. mr. mandela said, i told them no. you have to follow the court. if you don't fall the court, we don't have a rule of law. you could hear the sigh of

relief palpable from the judges and lawyers. how do you get there? i get the question from the woman who was trying -- the ghana court. she is going -- you try to bring that to ghana. 1-0.udges i don't have a secret. where ourat includes court did not enforce that northern georgia did not belong to the charities. we could not enforce it. maybe 9000 judges. the president has the troops and he sent the troops and they threw the indians out. when i hear president george bush say, i don't like the guantánamo decision but i will follow it. and i hear vice president gore say, don't trash the court. i think whether they know it or not, they are speaking about 200

years of american history. if i have a choice and could teach one thing to those high school students, i would like them to understand that distinction you began to make. what is the this things in between economic rights and human rights? -- maybersonal views courts can do something about the economy, usually not much. can they do something about some poor person -- not a poor person but this person was thrown into jail without a trial. this person was deprived of his schooling because of the color of his skin. and i would like the students to know the difference. the reason i would like them to know the difference is because of this document that i carry around, the constitution, says this is basically a country boothpeople to the voting

-- through the voting booths will make a decision about what kind of country they want. do they want to have this kind of system of economy or that kind of system? tremendous leeway but it is bounded and in part it is bounded by the desire to protect basic rights and the desire to have rule of law and a desire to have power spread around so no one gets too much of it. the desire to have a certain degree of equality. and i wantoundaries the students to understand the difference between the boundary conditions which often the judges will decide and their responsibility to decide as voters and participants in the political process that a vast area of what kind of country do you want between the boundaries. if they decide not to follow the court or the boundary conditions, i think we have had it. that is a little self-centered.

if they decide to make up their own minds and what kind of economy, environment, etc. that they want, fine. that is great. i say go out and participate. that is the message. >> how do you think about this, margaret? >> i wanted to pick up on ken's point which is a lot can be done by the court but political leadership which is what my lessons to government is as wel l. died was widely celebrated mostly for reconciliation. that was one of the things that i admired about him. comment about's what he told that group of judges -- there were several great moments, one of which was when the constitutional court, think justice goldstone was

sitting at the time, issued an opinion right before the first political vote in south africa. and those millions and millions of people waiting for hours to vote. the south african constitutional court said to the african congress when mandela was the head at the time, you have done it wrong. it was going to upset the entire election if they did not fix it. stepsa went out onto the of parliament the next day. essence, today's decision of the court is a victory for all south africans. instead of criticizing the court , you could hear it in his language.

it doesn't matter who you are. you could be the most powerful anytical party so choose country that you want to think of at the moment where the head of the party, head of the government goes out onto the steps of parliament or the kremlin or whatever and they say today is a victory because the judges have shown that it doesn't matter how powerful you are. mandela storyt firsti love is the very decision of the south african constitutional court. a great decision outlawing the death penalty. held unconstitutional. even say that is obvious because president mandela would've been executed. the constitutional conversation leading up to the adoption of the constitution of south africa, that was a hotly considered topic.

constitutional preservation against the death penalty or to allow the death penalty. eventually, the parties decided to punt the issue. that is what legislators and other officals do. it came to the concert additional court, the first kate -- he came to the constitutional court, the first case. they knew exactly what the founding fathers had intended because they were the founding fathers and mothers. and theto the court court decided it was unconstitutional. even though the constitution didn't say a thing about it. the next day, the deputy president who had left mandela out of prison, he was mandela's deputy, he says this decision was an outrage. that the majority of the people were in favor of the death

penalty. we should put this thing to a referendum right away. that some familiar to me, right? mandela says nothing. doesn't criticize his deputy president. doesn't criticize the court. language, hethe says, if there is to be a referendum, there should be two questions. should we change the constitution so that it no longer allows -- so it allows for that penalty? should we change the constitution so it doesn't protect property rights? the last time anybody talked about the referendum about a constitutional vote in south africa. you don't have to be chief justice marshall blabbering on about an independent judiciary or people follow orders. you can do it in a more political way, ken.

--lly ugly educated brilliantly educated. i don't think a justice could do that. mandela could do that and that presidents anded prime ministers and other people , and set up every time you get a negative -- you can criticize a decision. you can try to change the massachusetts constitution. change the united states constitution. in england, all we have to do is change the collective representatives. >> i want to turn to jeffrey because i think both of the justices have talked about the importance of executive branch officials, political representatives following what the judges say. in the u.k., the human rights act, made an interesting choice because of parliamentary sovereignty.

lawlords if they declare an act of parliament to be inconsistent with the european court of human rights, they don't strike it down. they don't have the power of judicial review which you both emphasize as important but it is also important that the politicians agree to on or it -- honor it. in the u.k., you have built that requirement into the system so that the court clears something incompatible but it is up to parliament to respond. thus far, parliament has always responded by following it. even though the court does not have the power to declare the law invalid, -- >> it is a political halfway house. the courts can declare a provision statute to be incompatible with european convention of your rights.

in 29 cases where this is happened, in 28 of them, parliament has said they will do it. there huge pressure to do it. forlegitimacy of the court, the reasons i gave earlier, it is defined by the united kingdom. russia and then you will get part of ukraine but not all of it today. last week, all of ukraine. that is the enterprise and that is why it is being done. the conventions require it. there was a british magnet, hugh cudlet, who once said the relationship between the press and politicians is bad and it is getting worse and on no account should be allowed to improve. to some extent, we might think

that should apply also to the relationship between the court and politicians. maybe it is desirable. checks and balances and all that. it is probably inevitable because it is protecting unpopular minorities, they will be unpopular but in the end, they might not be so unpopular because an authoritative court -- people tend to follow the law, not only in an authoritarian society. can i go back to the socioeconomic rights? i was very interested in what was said on that. i was in st. petersburg recently, i give a lecture in half the audience gave me applause which was rare in my life. theylooked at me as if wanted to kill me but that is russia the moment. of constitutional

law in st. petersburg university came to me and said, you don't understand. what don't i understand? in russia, people are very poor. they don't need rights, they need food. reply and themal way i did it. how are they going to -- going to get food if they cannot challenge the decisions? it will end up with the elite and powerful as it always does with aid. she look that make was a klee and said china. -- quizzically and said china. that is the product of social development. ruled by law, whatever is authorized is law but not law and the rich and thick sense as we know it. china,e of weeks ago in all discussion about independent -- judiciary was banned and those who did discuss it were taking away and reeducated like

in the old days and put back into the posts after that. does a a challenge the lot of africa and asia looks to china and is amazed at the socioeconomic developments and is impressed. singapore and others are looking at that kind of command and control model. it is something we all should really grapple with because it does seem to be working. the conventional wisdom is that you have to have both. it didn't seem to work. on socioeconomic writes -- rights in south africa, as margaret said, it is extraordinary because during the ,ime of change there countries came to them and said, can you take my constitution, said the germans and the united states. the british couldn't because they don't have it that they

would've. south africa so rightly said we have a clean slate. what are our objectives? inequality. -- equality. it is also deprivation. let's try the socioeconomic rights. with on available resources, access to rights and progressive realization. a number of us said and there was hefty debate on this, get your judges reallocating. judges can't do that. judges shouldn't have their hands in the public till. they should look at principle and not policy. they went ahead with it and people were very skeptical. it was dealt with brilliantly int two ways. the other was law. did you really think about whether this was an aspiration

you cannot do anything about it? when it came to the radius resident -- previous president saying we're not rolling out and try retroviral -- antiretrovirals drugs because i don't believe aids is caught that way and i am a denier. the campaign brilliantly led organizations all the way to the constitutional court and that was held but those drugs have to be rolled out because what the president was doing was a deprivation of the right of health care. there is something to be said in some countries. on the question -- i will stop here -- on independence of judges, mandela, wonderful. you can see other judges in places not so far way from south africa and zimbabwe for example.

the minute a court like the new south african development court gave a mandate to apply the south african treaty on the rule of law. some white farmers against the president, they are being disbanded. it has been suspended. in other countries, a judge has to look over their shoulder because they know if they do hold against the government, their house might be taken away or their salary may be docked. these are terminally difficult questions. professor and scholar of human rights, and only -- emily burton has shown more and more countries have adopted and signed on to human rights conventions and at the same time, there have been more and more human rights abuses. there is not much connection between the adoption of the human rights commitment and

actual human rights protection, but when she sort of look more closely at which countries due in fact protect human rights versus those that don't, it is the rule of law values and the stability of the court system that is respected. up to your it questions. justice breyer security detail was secured -- was concern about your questions but just as breyer said bring them on. walk up to the microphone because we are webcast. can continue to ask if there are not questions. yes? >> hi. i am representing the world justice project. i wanted to ask -- one of the things we do is the culture that respects the rule of law. we heard today law can also lead

to human rights violations. how do we foster this culture while also encouraging others to question the loss? aws? especially in places where the not be -- there may not be spaced you ask questions. >> that is probably a question for you, jeffrey. i was in brazil a couple of years ago. i was in the supreme court which is done most impressive -- what is most impressive for me about it are the number of impressive things. in the basement, there are about 200 people working a television studio talking constantly with a huge circulation, readership audience on the rule of law question.

at the decision came out of the court that will be debated and discussed, it happens to a greater extent here in the u k. .k. that his criticism. yes, part of the rule of law should be that involved freedom canxpression so that people criticize the law, not necessarily disobey it, but criticize it. and predicted begin debate and discussion about the limits of law and the most important will always be in any vibrant and functioning democracy which i believe brazil to be, should be the respect and roles of the politicians. even though we can say judges can do something about social economic development, one must be very careful about just it -- but judges sticking to what they

do best and politicians do what they do best. that is a fascinating debate. >> i am going to close with one question. the title of this panel was the "future of the human rights." theeems to me that one of many challenges that we face, at least in this country in terms of the future of human rights as our criminal justice system, as lead -- we we are the are supposedly the leader of the free world but we are without question the leader of the incarcerated world. we have five percent of the world population, but 25% incarcerated population. offenderssentences on that are far more extreme than any other developed country for

the same conduct. tremendous racial disparities in our criminal justice system. to be one of me the real future challenges to human rights. i guess the question is is this something that is really outside the ambit of the courts and the ngos? to see -- if the supreme -- the supreme court were addressed with this question in one case in which case the client was in -- it was affected by the race of the victim in georgia. the georgia system was much more likely -- four times more likely to commit an offender to death if his victim was white and then it is victim was black. the court wrote a decision in which they said ultimately we

cannot address this problem. this problem is too big for us. if we recognize the racial disparities that you have would have towe be reviewing every aspect of the criminal justice system for disparities. this is a question for congress, not the courts. of course, congress has done very little. i guess is this an area where we really have to look to political organizing and ngos or is this an area where courts can and should play a role? >> there are a lot of different aspects were talking about. i will simply repeat in respect to them. no, many more times i have spoken about it. a great thing for me is the human memory is fallible so you may not have heard them.

everything has been said but not everyone has said it. let me repeat -- there are two aspects that i find particularly important. we did get some sentencing written. then, they provide for very long sentences. at the time, i said to many, i said you not hear there is one virtue and very long sentences. -- it is veryive. expensive and people will discover that. they are discovering it at this moment. they may work out that maybe that isn't the wisest thing to do. how long a sentence is for a particular crime is within very broad limits a matter for congress. the only thing which i think i am the only one that feels is a significant or would like to push the aspect of it and i have, one thing that is really reason ing to me for

will explain is that when you look at the trials in the united states -- we have a fairly good system of trials. it is not necessarily perfect. look at what happens in 95%, 92%, 98%s, of people plead guilty. maybe they are. i assume they are. but wait. whoften have prosecutors have very long sentences that they might attach to a crime -- or maybe we will charge with this other crime. that can happen too. you plead guilty to this other one and you're not going to go to jail for so long. that has been known to happen. that happens or doesn't happen, the system in the united states is not, in my opinion,

inquisitorial. the person who decides is the prosecutor. not always but often. if that is so, you say, what should we go? decry it? -- what about systems that have inquisitorial systems? in france, they train prosecutors as justices. they will have the decision. when they make that decision, they will have criteria, they will understand they are not to rack up some victory tally but rather that they are charged with being -- seeing if this person is guilty or innocent. my brother said he would never prosecute a person who is innocent, never. he says some of them are innocent. now you are saying some

are innocent and when you were a prosecutor you say you never prosecuted an innocent person. he said we had better prosecutors then. i am focusing on a problem and it isn't a problem that you need simply to cry. it is a problem you could do something about in the same thing is true about the length of sentences. these things can be pointed out to people. and do you really want to pay? do you really want to? how long? this man is now 82 years old, are you sure? you still want him at the cost of $40,000? you see the point. the reaction that i have is let's see what we can do. unless -- tote, either of you want to address the criminal justice issue? >> i just want to make sure this audience knows it was the 1970's

justice when the chief and the current justice was not involved. this is not a modern day conservative supreme court case. >> it was post-warren but pre-breyer. >> that doesn't matter. >> probably the biggest human rights organization is the council of europe. and runs the european convention of human rights. 47 states within it. the secretary general of that body has recently said that prison overcrowding is the biggest problem in europe at the moment. the faults are not necessarily in these cases. 30 states in particular. david -- i know i am a state court judge so in the if youstates, in 2010,

took every case file at every federal court, every case file in every federal court excluding -- that means overcrowding cases. there were about 385,000 cases. if you took all those cases, 48 million. that is were criminal justice is taking place in the united states. there you have elected prosecutors, elected and reimported judges in fortis said -- in 47 states. that is a problem. can you do something about this? look at north carolina. judge who went on to be president of two universities

and is now at university -- at north carolina. he was the chief justice for administration. he did precisely what justice breyer has said. he had a bipartisan committee and he said, you tell me, legislators, what are the worst, worst crimes? you tell me. we will go into sending order -- in the sending --descending order. if you give everybody who is guilty a 25 year sentence, they could not believe it. justice breyer -- it was 15 years ago. north carolina changed it sentencing laws. on that ground. the racial question is a very different question. in massachusetts, i am the chief clear evidencead because it was an excellent

independent sentencing commission that showed what made the biggest racial difference in massachusetts was school zoning statutes. why? because a vast majority of african-americans live in cities and most of the cities if you do school zoning -- if you are convicted of a drug sale and live one mile of a school zone, it gets vastly increased. you canap of boston, hardly ever be outside of school zone. there is a few in places out there. that has the biggest impact. >> the court did what? >> they entered it into the legislature. governor patrick has attempted to change that. not in a huge way, but in a way

that is making a difference. not a dramatic difference. i think people who are serving 25 year sentences and really don't want to wait until the elected representatives wake up to what is costing them. you just have to knowledge with the problem is. i don't think those are the facts in the case, the death penalty case. know, that initial -- the judicial branch can work with the others. people in south africa but not in the united states. >> we started with the global question of international human rights and we have now identified that the solution, the problems and the solutions are often intensely local and often involve not just the courts on whom we are absolutely

dependent for the protection of our rights but also the involvement of the other branches and ngos like jeffrey's. we will close now. i invite you all to a reception immediately following. please thank our wonderful guests. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014]

>> several authors and scholars sat down for debate last month on the future of the speech. topics include college campus censorship, defamation, and hate speech on the internet. here is more about that. practice the wonderful balancing test that evolves into lawsuits and shutting down. arele with political power using it against people without political power. setting aside that very big issue of can you had these very fine linen -- fine tune the

i would argue that history is on my side. i have seen in the past 20 years hate speech against homosexuals is a resource in the liberation of gay people in this country. died.named fred phelps you can see what he did is a legal. -- illegal. he picketed military funerals. that is way out there. the human rights campaign could've hire this guy because he exposed the hate on the other side. it helps us when we have these people to argue against and when they are out there front and center, you have 20 years of extraordinarily successful movement to prove it. >> that was part of an event held by the national constitution center.

you can see the entire event tonight in about one in minutes at 8 p.m. youhis week, we are showing american history tv on prime time. the 1964 speech that brought ronald reagan to political attention. that will be followed by an extension -- a discussion. we will look at president reagan during the cold war. it starts night at eight eastern -- 8:00 eastern on c-span three. thaterybody acknowledges consumers have the right to an antenna. everybody egg knowledge is that a consumer has rights to have content for the cells -- for themselves. there is nothing wrong with the combination of an antenna. the debate seems to be where that equipment is located findingnobody has the

of facts which was h individual consumer controls their own antenna. each individual consumer makes that own copy unique, distinct. never mingles with anybody else's and watches it themselves. none of those facts have been this field -- disputed. doas a country and society, we permit this idea of private conduct which the courts have consistently found, yes. congress has been encouraging the idea of consumption of local broadcast television. the idea that a new way of capturing this signal by individual should be prohibited is absolutely wrong. incorrect policy. the devastating blow to innovation in the next step of our industry which is movement

of all of these technologies away from the consumer's home into the cloud. >> the supreme court will take up whether aereo it is violating broadcast law. head from the aereo tonight. after the communicators, book tv in prime time. books on slavery and emancipation. of necessity, slavery, freedom, and deception in the free world. after that, slavery's exiles, the story of americans. brion davis david talks about his new book. next week, the senate is expected to take up a bill that will restore a series of tax credits.

this is 15 minutes. it's time for our weekly " your money" segment. the senate is expected to take up legislation that would temporarily restore text that expired or soon to expire and some of those credits are directly aimed at the energy industry. first of all, explain to our viewers what the expire actives. guest: it is the latest elvis comes up every now and again that has a huge area of tax credits. some of them are for energy but also other things. it could be for making movies or tv commercials. research and development credit is another popular one. these tax credits were aimed to sunset that have a strong political constituency. they come up for renewal and you get these they catch all bills to push them forward for a year or so all at once.

typically, these things are a grab bag. this is about $85 billion and has a pretty significant energy piece to it. host: talk to us about the details of the energy component. -i thinkhe biggest piece this is the second biggest these of the whole bill -- it would redo tax credit for renewable energy production largely for wind for about two years. it would push it forward for a couple of years. wind developers take advantage of that and there are other renewable energy sources. it provides two point three cents a kilo watt hours and it is one of the prized pieces of policy for the wind industry and is a heavy lobbying battle to get it done. one reason the industry is interested in this credit is it has been around for decades. it has been allowed to lapse, you will see growth in the

industry and that falls off a cliff when the credit shows up again, it starts to go back up again so that shows you how necessary it is for this industry. host: say these credits are extended, what do these companies do? industrypending on the -- sometimes they lay off people. the credit got extended at the 11th hour last year. in advance of that credit, there was not the demand for new orders because developers did not have that level of knowledge about whether the credit will either. -- would be there. you had a big wind turbine reduce her in colorado having layoffs. year, new wind power installations went off a cliff. now that the head of the expiration of that credit -- what i came back into force, companies ramped up again so you will see very little new wind power generating capacity added

over last year but in the coming year, it looks like there will be a lot because once it gets extended and the companies wrap up again, they place new orders. host: late last year, you wrote a piece looking at senator max baucus from montana. walk us through that and what we see from him on this front. guest: before he became interested in china, he did what most chairman of the tax writing committee-he does not want to be just a caretaker. some of the policies they like but because there is a long-term unicorn of a goal of a broader tax reform, he said let's try to really shake up how our existing super confusing patchwork of green energy incentives work. he would boil it down to just a couple and on the electricity say, the main one would there is a technology neutral

credit so you could be making wind or power from natural asked or power from other types of sources and depending on how cleaner power it is and how much of a carbon emissions reductions you get, the credit would expand the cleaner you get. senator wyden is backing him and pushing forward for this bill. they want to put their own stamp on the policy. you can tell from the title of the extenders bill this year that he is not a huge fan of doing it in a rushed way every couple of years. activesled the expire way of saying one more time but then let's have a rudder set of tax policy overhauls. mant: our guest is ben gie with "the national journal."

could you walk us through some of the politics of this? the wind tax credit has bipartisan support because the wind kind of blows in places that are both red states and blue states. texas is the biggest producer of wind power which is a very conservative state. senator chuck grassley of iowa who is conservative is the father of the wind power tax credit. -- whenuite interesting the bill was marked up in committee, you had a republican amendment to strip away these energy tax incentives and it split the republicans. republicans including senator john thune of south dakota and senator grassley, they said we

would not vote for the amendment and some republicans did vote for it. they lined up generally for where you don't have a lot of wind power. have gotten of it more difficult for the wind industry over the last couple of years. because ofel, it's the size of the growth of this industry. when the wind and the tree was very small, the tax credit did not cost the federal government very much. as the industry has grown, the credit has become more and more expensive and more controversial. you could say it's a victim of its own success. it's spending the credit for it decade and that would cost about $13 billion. at the same time, you have had a hardening of political lines on green energy over the last several years. the federal loan guarantee or a -- program became quite controversial and republicans became critical of it when the solar company solyndra collapsed.

you have two headwinds working against the credit. the industry has grown and you have had this hardening of political lines ran green energy. host: the senate energy committee member lamar alexander criticize the tax credit. [video clip] >> the problem here is that congress is picking winners and losers when it gives wind power such a big subsidy that sometimes the subsidy is more than the cost of electricity. our:this does is undercut nuclear plants. what that does is put us at risk as a country. any country that uses that much electricity needs these big plants that operate almost all the time called nuclear to keep the lights on and have the jobs and the cars. we cannot run on windmills. when the wind blows great we cannot run only on solar power when the sun shines. we have to have the baseload

power. subsidyof the wind picking and choosing winners and losers, it undercuts the baseload power and its cause the center for strategic c e combination of this could cause 25% of our nuclear plants to close in the next 10 years. host: what is your take? guest: the senator from tennessee has been a longtime opponent of the wind energy credit. ofmentions the question being right on the issue of intermittency. certain types of renewable sources of energy like wind and solar will not come onto the grid at all moments. policy makersce, are trying to get right is making sure you have both a certain level of baseload power and also being able to integrate

cleaner and greener sources. a very small still percentage right now of the country's electricity. i think it is roughly four percent. solar is far less than that. they have had the growth of the renewables industry and epa regulations soon to come online that are creating some other headwinds for the coal industry. conservatives and republicans are concerned that this could affect the reliability of the electricity grid. has been almost bent over backwards to say they are mindful of that creating these new regulations. the energy department tried to the loan- revive program the other day and one thing they are focusing on is technologies that help integrate renewable energy into the grid so storage technology and that sort of thing. the telephone numbers to

call him are on your screen. let's go to a couple of questions from twitter -- guest: in the main, the tax credit covers geothermal and certain types of i/o mass and wind energy and perhaps a couple of others. i don't believe the existing generation of hydropower is covered by the credit. i want to return to something the senator said -- even in that short clip -- he said we should not be picking winners and losers. if an alien came down to the house and senate hearings and understood what was being said,

they would conclude quickly that ticking winners and losers is one of the greatest crimes you could ever have in our society. that is something that critics of green energy policies tend to say. we should be allowed in the market to decide that. the other side of that question is the fact that some of the fossil fuel technologies and joy some parts of the tax code that are permanent so that don't have to have to your battles to see the extension of their credits because it is kind of there in perpetuity. host: another question from twitter -- guest: that's a good question. beings the question debated. the cost is been coming down for wind and solar. thanare newer technologies some of our longer-term energy

sources like coal and natural gas and oil which is used for transportation. these are technologies that have been around far longer at scale. folks in a knowable's say we can envision a time or we don't need the support but at the moment, even though we are making , we still need the support. there is also a sense that perhaps the subsidies in getting the cost down to the point where you don't need them work in concert. ,he more you are supporting it in the shorter-term, that's what's helping the cost come down. much of the debate around the when the credit -- voted againsthune this amendment in committee and killed the wind credit but his view is let's give a glide path downward but not cut it off entirely. the next caller is john in

mechanicsburg, pennsylvania on the line for republicans. thing is going on and they bundy ranch want the chinese to invest in windmills there. how do you stop politicians from getting their hands in their? we have natural gas, more than the middle east. that sounds like a better energy source for us. we don't have to put all this money into the other green energies. guest: the caller mentions natural gas in pennsylvania. i was up there looking at the natural gas development couple of weeks ago. the shale gas revolution has led the united states to be the largest natural gas producer in the world. that creates both challenges and opportunities for combining natural gas with renewables.

than coals is cleaner when you burn it to create power. it creates about half the carbon emissions of burning coal and that's a big reason why u.s. greenhouse gas emissions have been falling in recent years and are about 10% below the level they were one year ago. one of the questions around whether natural gas is a friend or ally in the fight against climate change depends in part on how successful regulators at the state and federal level and industry is at clamping down on leaks of methane. when you're finishing up a well or you are compressing the gas or storing it or trance porting it could be leaking out at different points. for natural gas to really be a winner on the climate change front, you cannot only make sure

that is just not the fact that a person's cleaner when you use it to make energy but you have to make sure it is not springing leaks along the development chain. while natural gas is a much more greenhouse gas friendly fuel than coal, a lot of scientific oddities say that eventually we will need incredibly steep reductions in greenhouse gases, certainly by the midcentury, to avoid some of the most dangerous effects. of climate change. secretary will say ,hat natural gas is a good way a bridge technology, in the coming decades. from a climate change standpoint but eventually, we will have to find a way to not only get carbon emissions sucked out of coal-fired energy production but we need to de-

the futuren of free-speech max. a and look at how technological advances affect the middle class. about incomealks inequality and the wealthy. >> now first amendment authors and scholars debate the nature of free speech in america. this event, hosted by the national constitution center in philadelphia, is just over an hour. >> ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the national constitution center.