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Ethics

  • Michael Horowitz testifying on Capitol Hill

    ‘Our job is to bring accountability, and oversight, and transparency to government’

    February 10, 2021

    Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz ’87 recently spoke to Harvard Law Today about his work to ensure the integrity of the DOJ and beyond.

  • Closeup of man smoking and wearing a mask

    Should smokers be prioritized for COVID vaccine?

    February 2, 2021

    Should smoking be among the pre-existing health risks that qualify people for priority access to the COVID-19 vaccine? Harvard Law public health expert Carmel Shachar says the answer is yes. 

  • Harvard and Yale health law centers partner for COVID-19 seminar series

    January 28, 2021

    The Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School is joining forces with the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy, its counterpart at Yale Law School, to host a seminar series reflecting on ethical and legal issues raised by the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Jonathan Zittrain delivers the 2020 Tanner Lecture

    Gaining power, losing control

    January 28, 2021

    As the 2020 Tanner Lecturer on Human Values at Clare Hall, Cambridge, Harvard Law Professor Jonathan Zittrain explores the clash of free speech and public health online.

  • Ethics definition highlighted

    Draining the swamp

    January 25, 2021

    When Joe Biden began presidential duties last week, he issued an ethics pledge for his administration. And the students in the Harvard Law School course Legal Profession: Government Ethics—Scandal and Reform were paying especially close attention.

  • Bebchuk’s Study of Index Funds Wins IRRC Institute Prize

    Debating stakeholder capitalism

    December 16, 2020

    Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 crisis intensifying discussions about corporate purpose duties to stakeholders, the European Corporate Governance Institute and the London Business School Centre for Corporate Governance recently hosted a virtual debate on stakeholder capitalism between Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84 and London Business School Professor Alex Edmans.

  • Christopher Lewis

    Political philosopher Christopher Lewis, a scholar of criminal law system, to join HLS

    December 9, 2020

    Christopher Lewis, a political philosopher and scholar of the criminal legal system, has been named an assistant professor of law at Harvard Law School, effective Jan. 1.

  • Nuremberg trial

    Access to history

    December 9, 2020

    The Harvard Law School Library's Nuremberg Trials Project has been used by students, academics, filmmakers and artists among others to support their work in the retelling and documentation of World War II and the atrocities committed during that time.

  • President Trump with Michael Flynn

    All the president’s pardons

    December 1, 2020

    Can President Donald J. Trump pardon himself before his term ends in January? This hotly debated legal question was given new urgency by the president’s recent decision to pardon Michael T. Flynn, his first national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his contacts with Russia.

  • illustration of heart being passed

    Nudging organ donation in the United States

    November 13, 2020

    Cass Sunstein ’78, Robert Walmsley University Professor and former Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration, believes “Nudge theory” might help bridge the gap between supply and demand for organ transplants.

  • A woman looks at fire and smoke from oil wells set ablaze

    Confronting conflict pollution

    September 30, 2020

    A new report from the HLS International Human Rights Clinic and the Conflict and Environment Observatory establishes a new framework for addressing human harm resulting from the environmental consequences of conflict.

  • President Donald Trump

    Not ‘manifestly criminal’

    September 29, 2020

    Harvard Law Today spoke Monday with tax experts Keith Fogg and Thomas Brennan about the New York Times' report on President Donald J. Trump’s taxes.

  • United States distressed flag map

    A history of corruption in the United States

    September 23, 2020

    Anti-corruption law expert Matthew Stephenson focuses his recent scholarship on anticorruption reform in U.S. history.

  • A view into the courtroom from the interior hallway of U.S. Supreme Court.

    Should Democrats pack the Supreme Court?

    September 23, 2020

    Mark Tushnet discussed with Harvard Law Today the possibilities for, and potential pitfalls of, any effort by an incoming Democratic majority to pack the Supreme Court.

  • An unbalanced scale weighing COVID against a dollar sign, house, medical symbol, pyramid, and a man teaching

    The law is ‘tested and illuminated during this pandemic’

    September 16, 2020

    In the first colloquium of a sweeping new series, “COVID-19 and the Law,” five Harvard Law faculty members grappled with the challenges, limitations, and opportunities of governmental powers during a public health crisis.

  • illustration

    For the Sake of Argument

    July 23, 2020

    Singer seeks to help lawyers and the general public make reasoned arguments, promote civil discourse, and consider alternative perspectives.

  • A federal officer in a camouflage uniform wearing a gas mask pepper sprays a protester wearing a motorcycle helmet next to a graffiti covered building.

    Professor Crespo says events in Portland raise serious concerns about unlawful police tactics

    July 21, 2020

    Andrew Crespo ’08 recently discussed the federal government’s law enforcement actions in Portland, Oregon with Harvard Law Today.

  • Lessig, who argued on behalf of ‘faithless electors,’ responds to the Supreme Court’s decision

    July 8, 2020

    Lawrence Lessig issues a statement on the unanimous Supreme Court ruling that states can require Electoral College voters to back the victor of their state’s popular vote.

  • Beatrice Lindstrom talking to press

    Seeking overdue reparations for U.N.-caused devastation in Haiti

    June 24, 2020

    Beatrice Lindstrom, clinical instructor and supervising attorney in the International Human Rights Clinic, has been working for nearly a decade to secure accountability from the U.N. for a devastating cholera outbreak caused by UN peacekeepers in Haiti in 2010.

  • Hands holding prison bars

    Pandemic has exacerbated longstanding problems with the prison system

    June 9, 2020

    COVID-19 presents a unique threat to people in prisons and jails, agreed panelists at “Incarcerated Populations and COVID-19: Public Health, Ethical, and Legal Concerns,” a webinar hosted by Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics.

  • Machteld van Egmond

    Machteld van Egmond LL.M. ’20: A physician-researcher with a curious mind turns to the practice of law

    May 24, 2020

    A physician-researcher, Machteld van Egmond LL.M. ’20 explored the intersections among empirical science, law, and medicine during her LL.M. year at Harvard Law School.