In his treatise The Free Sea, Hugo Grotius, considered the founder of international law, claimed
the idea that the sea is a shared territory that all are free to use.
It provided a general view of political normativity. Political normativity singularizes contemporary political, economic and moral phenomena within the question of how decisions, actions and development are explained and legitimated with reference to a common good. It is not parasitic on legislated law by one nation or another.
Inspired by Hugo Grotius, in his lecture Nobel laureate Amartya Sen makes a similar appeal to the global status of rights, rights that all human beings are supposed to have. Sen argues that human
rights come not from specific national legislation, but from the
recognition that these freedoms come from general appreciation of
normativity, which means that we are supposed to consider human
rights from an ethical perspective connected with our common good,
focusing on basic importance of human freedoms.
Regards,
- Kate Li
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Saturday, November 10, 2012
An Open Letter to Al Gore
Dear Mr. Gore,
An Inconvenient Truth (2006) from rajiv dixit on Vimeo.
I am Yueyi Lee (my English
name is Kate), a 16-year-old Chinese girl from Qingdao Number Two
Middle School (which is the best school in Shandong province, one of
the largest provinces in China). I became concerned about
environmental problems at a very young age. Before the age of five I
lived in a tranquil village near Qingdao. A clear and beautiful
stream cut across the village. The stream was my heaven. My friend
and I loved to float on the stream, lying in the sun on the raft
which we made of twigs and tree trunks. When it was scorching, we
enjoyed swimming in the cool and limpid river. I moved out of that
village at five. Four years later I went back to visit my friends. What I saw was nothing short of a nightmare. The majestic stream had
dried up and turned into a malodorous and dirty trash pool due to
sewage discharge, overuse of water and global warming. Although I
have never gone back to that village, I became determined to do
something, to do my part in helping clean the environment. I save
every drop of water by collecting washing face water to flush the toilet. I dissuaded my mom from buying a second car since her present car consumes less gasoline. I joined several organizations like YMP, which is an environmental project let by Lunds universitet in Sweden.
Yesterday I had a chance
to watch your movie, An Inconvenient Truth and the TED presentation
you gave prior to its release. I was totally astonished, by our
vulnerable atmosphere, by increasing temperatures, by melting
glaciers, by horrific hurricanes, by the possibility that my
hometown, Qingdao, may be under water. And we need – I need -- to
stop it!
An Inconvenient Truth (2006) from rajiv dixit on Vimeo.
I truly
appreciate CERCLA -- the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation and Liability Act. I consider it the most effective and
innovative environment program in the world. I believe that companies will
take action to reduce energy consumption, especially if they are
forced to pay for the pollution they created. I am of the opinion that China
should adopt and enforce such laws to reduce carbon emissions as well.
I want
to protect our world, and especially my motherland. I want to make a
difference. But my strength is meager. Mr. Vice President, what
should I do next?
Regards,
-- Kate Li
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Several readings for November
During this month we'll be reviewing the following papers:
Dodd-Frank note/paper (think extended essay), brief (think Common App standard essay), slide show and embedded videos example:
Cheers,
-- David Scott Lewis
- The Architecture of First Amendment Free Speech (Michigan State Law Review, 2011).
- Security Council Resolution 1973 on Libya: A Moment of Legal and Moral Clarity (Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, 2011).
- Occupy Wall Street and the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division: A Hypothetical Examination of the Slippery Slope of Military Intervention during Civil Disturbance (George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal, 2012).
- Which Science? Whose Science? How Scientific Disciplines Can Shape Environmental Law (University of Chicago Law Review, 2012).
- The Life of the Law: What Holmes Meant (Whittier Law Review, 2012). Note that this paper represents an excellent example of an historical biography. (Think Marcus Aurelius, think Neil Armstrong, think Aurelius Augustine, among others.)
Dodd-Frank note/paper (think extended essay), brief (think Common App standard essay), slide show and embedded videos example:
- The Political Economy of Dodd-Frank: Why Financial Reform Tends to be Frustrated and Systemic Risk Perpetuated (Cornell Law Review, 2012).
- Common App standard essay "brief" example (454 words), posted to The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation.
- Supplemental slide show. We'll be using SlideRocket for our slide shows.
Cheers,
-- David Scott Lewis
Our Mission Statement
Welcome to Beyond English Briefs ... and this inaugural post.
This blog will serve as a forum to showcase our "Go Ivy From China" students here at Beyond English, a firm dedicated to helping the brightest high school students in north China attend Tier 1 American undergraduate colleges (including liberal arts colleges), with a focus on those students pursuing studies in the arts, humanities and social sciences.
As noted on this blog's tagline, our "briefs" will be reflections on all things philosophical and legal, although there are no hard rules and our students will be allowed to write a "brief" (as broadly defined) on pretty much whatever fancies them. Most briefs will be between 250-500 words (think Common App standard essay), although some briefs won't be so brief and might be as long as 4,000 words (think IB Diploma extended essay). And we'll likely post occasional 150 word activity reports (think Common App extracurricular activity essay).
Most briefs will be based upon a weekly reading assignment or something that we viewed in class. Our students have weekly reading assignments covering a wide-range of hot legal issues (for developing vocab in context and critical reading/thinking skills) and philosophical issues (e.g., something on ethics from The Stone blog in The New York Times, an article in Philosophy Now or a BMCR/NDPR book review). However, the fact is that their reading assignments cover the gamut of political and literary magazines: If it's a source covered by Arts & Letters Daily, then it's fair game for a reading assignment.
In-class viewing and listening is from video and audio podcasts. Key sources: The Council on Foreign Relations, the Cato Institute, Washington Week in Review, (Harvard) Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Brookings, Meet the Press, Carnegie Council, Commonwealth Club, Global Voices, RAND, the IMF, Philosophy Bites, AmCham China, TPZ (archived episodes), Johns Hopkins SAIS, and numerous law schools (including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Chicago, Cornell). And their daily at-school viewing assignment: Good 'ol Brian Williams (and Lester Holt).
Saving the best (and the legal) for last, reading assignments just over the past month have included:
Bottom line: They're smart students, scary smart kids. And they like to be pushed, they want to prove themselves. Having HYS-on-the-brain for focus probably doesn't hurt, either. (Note to Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore & Company: They have WAS-on-the-brain, too. In fact, I tend to push liberal arts colleges with as much or even more fervor than national universities.)
For administrative reasons, I'll do the actual postings. (Great Firewall access problems, I use OpenVPN, things like this.) But the original author will be noted by their closing (with their English name) and label (with their Chinese name).
Cheers,
-- David Scott Lewis
This blog will serve as a forum to showcase our "Go Ivy From China" students here at Beyond English, a firm dedicated to helping the brightest high school students in north China attend Tier 1 American undergraduate colleges (including liberal arts colleges), with a focus on those students pursuing studies in the arts, humanities and social sciences.
As noted on this blog's tagline, our "briefs" will be reflections on all things philosophical and legal, although there are no hard rules and our students will be allowed to write a "brief" (as broadly defined) on pretty much whatever fancies them. Most briefs will be between 250-500 words (think Common App standard essay), although some briefs won't be so brief and might be as long as 4,000 words (think IB Diploma extended essay). And we'll likely post occasional 150 word activity reports (think Common App extracurricular activity essay).
Most briefs will be based upon a weekly reading assignment or something that we viewed in class. Our students have weekly reading assignments covering a wide-range of hot legal issues (for developing vocab in context and critical reading/thinking skills) and philosophical issues (e.g., something on ethics from The Stone blog in The New York Times, an article in Philosophy Now or a BMCR/NDPR book review). However, the fact is that their reading assignments cover the gamut of political and literary magazines: If it's a source covered by Arts & Letters Daily, then it's fair game for a reading assignment.
In-class viewing and listening is from video and audio podcasts. Key sources: The Council on Foreign Relations, the Cato Institute, Washington Week in Review, (Harvard) Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Brookings, Meet the Press, Carnegie Council, Commonwealth Club, Global Voices, RAND, the IMF, Philosophy Bites, AmCham China, TPZ (archived episodes), Johns Hopkins SAIS, and numerous law schools (including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Chicago, Cornell). And their daily at-school viewing assignment: Good 'ol Brian Williams (and Lester Holt).
Saving the best (and the legal) for last, reading assignments just over the past month have included:
- Name, Shame, and Then Build Consensus: Bringing Conflict Resolution Skills to Human Rights (by the Founding Director & Founding Staff Attorney at the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic, Stanford Law School; Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, 2012).
- Barricading the Information Superhighway to Stop the Flow of Traffic: Why International Regulation of the Internet is Necessary to Prevent Sex Trafficking (American University International Law Review, 2012). This article was read as a supplement to a viewing of a presentation given at Stanford Law School and Harvard's i-lab ("innovation lab").
- CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act) in a Global Context (Southwestern Law Review, 2012).
- AEP v. Connecticut's Implications for the Future of Climate Change (The Yale Law Journal Online, 2012). This article and the "CERCLA" paper were read as supplements to a viewing of An Inconvenient Truth.
- Aristotle on Human Rights (Ave Maria Law Review, 2012). This article was read as a philosophical supplement to the "Name, Shame, ..." paper.
Bottom line: They're smart students, scary smart kids. And they like to be pushed, they want to prove themselves. Having HYS-on-the-brain for focus probably doesn't hurt, either. (Note to Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore & Company: They have WAS-on-the-brain, too. In fact, I tend to push liberal arts colleges with as much or even more fervor than national universities.)
For administrative reasons, I'll do the actual postings. (Great Firewall access problems, I use OpenVPN, things like this.) But the original author will be noted by their closing (with their English name) and label (with their Chinese name).
Cheers,
-- David Scott Lewis
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