Drobak: New center director
By Ann Nicholson
March 23, 2001
The School of Law will inaugu- rate its new Center for Interdisciplinary Studies on March 30-31 at a conference on "Norms and the Law," featuring two Nobel laureates in economic science and an array of internationally prominent legal scholars, economists and political scientists.
Topics range from behavioral science insights into jury damage awards to the effect of race on judicial independence to the tension between intellectual property rights and the Internet's shared resources.
Drobak: New center director |
Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize winner for his work on poverty and master of Trinity College at Cambridge University, will deliver the keynote address on "Norms, Law and Poverty" at 2 p.m. March 31. The conference, which is free and open to the public, runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. March 30-31 in Anheuser-Busch Hall.
The other Nobel laureate, Douglass North, Ph.D., the Spencer T. Olin Professor and professor of economics in Arts & Sciences, will be among the conference presenters and commentators. Other presenters are John Ferejohn, political science professor at Stanford University and professor at New York University School of Law, and his co-author Larry Kramer, professor at NYU law school; Lawrence Friedman, Stanford University law professor and legal historian; Kathryn Abrams, professor at Cornell University School of Law; Cass Sunstein, professor at University of Chicago School of Law; Lynn Stout, professor at Georgetown University Law Center; Elinor Ostrom, political science professor and director of Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University; Lawrence Lessig, professor at Stanford University School of Law and special master in the Microsoft antitrust litigation; and Robert Ellickson, professor at Yale University School of Law.
Chief Judge Harry Edwards of the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, will join 10 prominent faculty members from Washington University and other universities nationally who are serving as respondents.
"The inaugural conference theme explores the interrelationships between formal legal processes and norms --social principles and informal constraints that guide behavior," said John Drobak, J.D., center director and professor of law and economics. "In today's complex world, these intersections offer fascinating insights into human behavior and the role of law in addressing contemporary issues."
The new center will annually bring together renowned experts in various disciplines to explore prominent legal issues from multiple perspectives. "While the inaugural program applies economic, political and behavioral sciences to legal issues, next year's conference with the School of Medicine will focus on the 'Legal and Ethical Aspects of the Human Genome Project,'" Drobak said. "Future programs will involve connections between the law and new developments in business, biology or psychology."
The March 30-31 conference is the culmination of three fall symposiums on "Judicial Norms" (various constraints on the United States' otherwise independent and autonomous judiciary), "Norms of the Commons" (rules for governing common resources and property) and "Cognition and Complexity" (the intersection between law and social sciences focusing on the human mind, economic theory and social dynamics). The symposiums' presenters are returning for the inaugural conference to formally present papers, which will be published in a book.
Law school dean Joel Seligman, J.D., the Ethan A.H. Shepley University Professor, said the center represents a new direction in legal education.
"The Center for Interdisciplinary Studies is developing a path-breaking approach to teaching, researching and examining legal issues across a variety of disciplines," he said. "The program capitalizes on the law school's existing interdisciplinary strengths, including its joint-degree programs and joint-faculty appointments, while forging new ties with other schools and departments within the University, nationally and internationally."
The center also will immerse students in interdisciplinary approaches to legal problem-solving, as well as provide interaction with distinguished visiting scholars. Each year, a course specifically coinciding with center topics will allow students to read selections from the full body of work by a given conference presenter, and then discuss with the scholar the evolution of his or her ideas.
Drobak said the interaction between the students and the scholars last fall proved highly successful and further underlined the appropriateness of interdisciplinary study of legal issues. For example, while one group of students was hearing from Friedman about how the 2000 presidential debates between Al Gore and George W. Bush were an embarrassment compared to those between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, Kramer was regaling other students on how both sets of debates demonstrate how little politics have changed.
"It was funny, as I went from one group to another, to hear how both of these highly respected individuals had such totally different perspectives," Drobak said. "What both were saying was accurate, it was just a matter of perspective. The discussions emphasized how our interdisciplinary approach offered a variety of insights both on an historical event and current politics."
Second-year law student Shiya Rochester agreed that meeting the scholars and "asking them personally any question you might have to clarify the issues, after reading their work, was a fantastic aspect of the class." He added that the interdisciplinary approach emphasized how broad and difficult a number of the issues were, while underscoring that numerous disciplines --even those beyond what the group studied --are needed to fully consider a given problem.
For more information on the center or conference, call 935-7988 or visit the law school's Web site at http://law.wustl.edu.
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