John Palfrey The first of the iLaw Webcasts is today, 4:00 p.m. Rio time. It’ll be Internet seer and Berkman fellow John Perry Barlow and Brazil’s Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil. They promise to make some interesting watching. It’s free and open. Tune in here.
The Berkman Center today, unlike the rest of the world, is very quiet. Students are on Spring Break. Most of the staff and faculty are in Rio at iLaw, our week-long extravaganza for lawyers and non-lawyers alike. (BTW, one session of iLaw per day will be Webcast. No special access needed to watch it. Thanks to … Read more
Things in international law are often incredibly hard to divine. It’s a fair and open question — “colorable”, as a lawyer might say — whether the US military action in Iraq is legal or illegal under international law. Jon Bonne of MSNBC — not a lawyer, but one of the smartest and most insightful people I’ve ever met and … Read more
The AP this morning quotes Justice Scalia as saying: “The Constitution just sets minimums,” Scalia said. “Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires.” Did I hear that right?  Â
Christopher Lydon’s new radio series debuted on WGBH in Boston this weekend and hit lots of other media markets across the country through PRI distribution. It’s a fantastic, globally-focused, wide-ranging series. He and his crack team, led by Mary McGrath, have also taken to the Net with real commitment to understanding and using the tech. … Read more
Charles Ogletree, Johnnie Cochran and other leading litigators are in the midst of a campaign to get reparations payments going. It will be interesting to see how juries or other decision makers will quantify any harms they may hold to have occurred (seems like there’s little debate that the bad things happened; just questions of how … Read more
Is there a good definition out there of The Commons?
The Globe story on the tough job of the college CIOs has some of the key issues outlined: e.g., how do you ensure the free expression of ideas over the university network while complying with the DMCA?
The Boston Herald ran a nice piece this morning on Dave Winer’s fellowship to the Berkman Center and on our blogging initiative that he’s heading up. I liked that Tom Walsh, the reporter, focused on the extent to which we’re aiming to help break down barriers at the university between the schools and the research … Read more
For those who are graduate students in something related to ICTs, there’s a cool program starting this summer at Oxford. In the school of full disclosure, the Berkman Center at HLS is a co-sponsor, as we’re convinced that the Oxford Internet Institute is up to something very interesting with this 25-person, two-week course.