I just wanted to take a moment publicly to thank everyone at Temple University for the lovely conversation about my early draft paper on politics and method in public international law, which I offered yesterday at an international law seminar there. The redoubtable Peter Spiro, whose new book, Beyond Citizenship, is out from OUP and highly recommended even from a skeptic like me (I don’t think you can really take part in that debate without reading Peter’s book), organized things, and it was terrific. David Zaring, from Wharton, commented and was very patient and generous with comments on a very early stage, development stage paper. (You can see the gist of it in the post preceding this one.) I prefer to present very early stage papers where possible - meaning the point is not to show off something already done, but to develop it - precisely because I prefer getting comments at a point when the ideas are still being shaped. Once too far along, the ideas are a bit set in concrete and it feels like defending a completed paper, rather than getting help in developing a new one. David’s comments were extraordinarily useful. Likewise comments from the rest of the international law faculty and numbers of very thoughtful students. My thanks to everyone.
*
ps. A quick note to myself, so I don’t forget it when I get past the current crisis deadline and start working on this again. The broad background for this discussion, at least in matters of method, is the general decline of the humanities and the rise of social science as the way of explaining things. David was quite right to point to the method axis and suggest that it might better be labeled not prescriptivist and descriptivist, but humanities and social science. The subtext for the discussion of international law method might be the decline of Kant and the rise of Bentham. But it seems to me that a big part of this method issue in law is the role of quantitative modeling - and it is echoed across the academy as, for examples, business schools dump the marketing and motivational and leadership stuff and recast themselves as applied economics, etc. The humanities have themselves to blame for their loss of status, having embraced postmodernist theories that deprived them of any claim to authority, much less truth. No one looks to humanities, from novels to the essay to art to you-name-it, as a source of revelation. Social sciences, preferably with a statistical edge, have taken pride of place. The difficulty is that it is hard, at least in large swathes of law, to see that the new methods are as yet set to deliver. Mathematics in many of the new fields appears to be less a means of revelation than of a way of establishing an intellectual pecking order: the more math, the smarter you must be: but the relationship to truth in the real world appears murkier. Maybe one day the methods will pay off in unambiguous ways - I am no postmodernist, and I would like to hold out for ways of coming at complex social truth, including statistically. But much of it seems more promising as yet than able to deliver. How much of the stuff that I see in political science, IR, and international law in these new fields depends, for example, on survey research that cannot be made better than it is by any amount of statistical massage. Here is a moment for the humanities and its traditional emphasis on the interpretation of texts: consider the Pew survey questions for worldwide attitudes toward Americans, or about religions, etc., and consider the ambiguities that many of those polled might : when American pollsters are able to show a vastly better track record just for exit polls for national elections, then we might turn to consider the same issues on a worldwide cross cultural basis. But at the moment, it is more the promise of a method than a method. In that sense, the new quantitative methods of social science in the traditional humanities and law appear to be more exercises in post modernism than science. Sorry this is cryptic; it is really scattered notes to myself.
Thanks to Peter Spiro, David Zaring, and the folks at Temple University
Congrats to fellow health law blogger, David Harlow at HealthBlawg who does a wonderful job weaving together a special Valentine’s Day edition of Grand Rounds. David’s edition gets to the heart of the matter and includes a wide range of posts - covering the love hormone, the Dead, death from Q-tips, Lupercalia and so much more. Thanks David for including my last minute submission. David Harlow’s Grand Rounds Gets To the Heart of the Matter
Just pick up the latest news from Greg Piche of the Holland & Hart Healthcare Law Blog about the pending libel lawsuit against an anonymous blogger filed by Paris Regional Medical Center, a subsidiary of Essent. For some background on the case check out Jeff Drummond’s past post Hospital Sues Blogger.
The libel lawsuit filed last year by Paris Regional Medical Center seeks the unmasking of an anonymous blogger and nine other anonymous contributors or commentators on his/her blog.
The hospital sought the identity of the anonymous bloggers from Suddenlink who balked at disclosing the identity of the anonymous blogger until he/she was given notice and an opportunity to object. As a result the anonymous blogger appeared through an attorney and objected which were rejected by the trial court.
However, on appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana, In re: Does 1-10, No. 06-07-00123-CV (Dec 12, 2007) followed the standard set out in Doe. V. Cahill, 884 A 2d 451 (De. 2005), granted the writ of mandamus and ordered the trial court to vacate its order requiring Suddenlink to disclose the name and address of the anonymous blogger. Basically, the court sustained the anonymous bloggers First Amendment rights of free speech until such time as the hopsital can show in a hearing at the trial court level that it has actually been damaged by the content of the blog.
The court analyzed the situation as follows:
The cases that have decided this issue range from placing an extremely light burden (indeed, virtually no burden at all) on the plaintiff, to requiring the plaintiff to tender proof of its allegations that would survive a summary judgment, or even more stringent requirements. At least one case has essentially concluded that the mere allegation of libel is sufficient. Alvis Coatings, Inc. v. John Does One Through Ten, No. 3:04CV374-H, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30099 (W.D.N.C. Dec. 2, 2004). Other cases have articulated requirements that are so weak as to essentially require no more than allegations made in good faith (or not in bad faith), with some evidence to support the allegations. See Polito, 2004 Pa. Dist. & Cnty. Dec. LEXIS 340.
We cannot agree that either of these formulations is sufficient to survive any form of constitutional balancing. Thus, the question becomes the degree of actual proof that must be provided before the balance tips in favor of piercing the constitutional shield and disclosing the identity of the anonymous blogger.
We find ourselves more in alignment with the formulations set out in Cahill, 884 A.2d at 458-61. See extensive discussion about the application of this standard in Best W. Int’l, 2006 WL 2091695. The court in Cahill described the test as: “[B]efore a defamation plaintiff can obtain the identity of an anonymous defendant through the compulsory discovery process he must support his defamation claim with facts sufficient to defeat a summary judgment motion.” Cahill, 884 A.2d at 460. This standard does not require a plaintiff to prove its case as a matter of undisputed fact, but instead to produce evidence sufficient to create issues that would preclude summary judgment.
Hospitals and Anonymous Blogging: An Update of the Paris Regional Medical Center Lawsuit
Literature OrganizersDEW Filing Systems and Storage 1525 E. Apache Blvd. Tempe, AZ 85281 USA: Toll Free - 1-877-933-7238 Fax - 480-858-9777 Local - 480-858-0024 Email - sales@thefilestore.com
Literature Organizers, Mail Room Organizers and SlotsLiterature Organizers, Mail Room Organizers and Slots . Employee Mail, Forms, Catalogs, Reports and more are a snap to keep organized with Literature Organizers.
Literature OrganizersWelcome to the Literature Organizers Page! Tired of shuffling through your papers to find the one you need? Choose from Hertz’s large selection of literature organizers and keep .
