AUWCL Expert Faculty Share Insights on National, International Issues
Dec. 16, 2019
American University Washington College of Law professors are experts in their field, often sharing their renowned scholarship with the world through media interviews, appearances, and opinion pieces on pressing matters in the U.S. and abroad. Below are some examples from the last month.
Nancy Boswell, Op-Ed, The Washington Post
Nancy Boswell, adjunct professor and director of AUWCL’s Anti-Corruption Law Program, recently wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post discussing President Donald Trump’s record on fighting corruption.
“Republicans have a ready explanation for why President Trump held up U.S. military aid to Ukraine when they needed it to fight Russian aggression,” Boswell pens in the piece. “‘This whole thing is about corruption,’ the president told reporters last month. But if Trump is truly concerned about systemic corruption — in Ukraine or elsewhere — his actions don’t show it.”
Read the op-ed here.
Amanda Frost, TV Interview, France 24
Professor Amanda Frost talks about the increased instances of denaturalization in the U.S. and her forthcoming book on the topic, Unmaking Americans: A History of Citizenship Stripping in the United States, with France 24—an international news network based in Paris.
“The Trump administration, like many before it, started off targeting undocumented immigrants—those that are not legally in the U.S.,” Frost said. “Where I see the Trump administration as being different, is there’s an anti-immigrant sentiment throughout the administration…What they are trying to do is discourage people from coming into the United States, even legally.”
Watch the interview here.
Claudio Grossman, Newspaper Interview, El Mercurio
Professor and Dean Emeritus Claudio Grossman spoke with El Mercurio, Chile’s leading newspaper, to weigh in on the crisis happening in the country. Grossman is the R. Geraldson Scholar for International and Humanitarian Law and a member of the International Law Commission.
In the article, Grossman proposes a series of measures to address economic inequality in Chile that led to recent civil protests. Grossman’s proposals include the adoption of social reforms such as an increase in pensions and access to health care; reform of the public education system; accountability for human rights violations and reform of the police; support for a process of constitutional reform that would seek a broad consensus; and enlarging the consultation process to include civil society organizations.
Read the article here.
Rebecca Hamilton, Policy Analysis, Foreign Policy
Associate Professor Rebecca Hamilton, author of Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide, has written extensively on Sudan, particularly its governance problems under the dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir who ruled the country for three decades. In Foreign Policy, Hamilton takes a deep dive into a Sudan's society, which is seeking to excavate itself from 30 years of dictatorship.
“Sudanese have a proud history of protest, having overthrown two governments since independence from colonial rule,” she writes. “But previous efforts to oppose Bashir had faltered in the face of his regime’s ruthless intelligence services, who systematically detained and tortured protesters. This time though, was different.”
Read the piece, supported by the Pulitzer Center, here.
Robert Tsai, Live TV Interview, MSNBC
Professor Robert Tsai joined MSNBC anchor Richard Liu to discuss the House Judiciary's Impeachment Report. Tsai has been a frequent contributor to outlets seeking insight on the impeachment process.
“By comparison, President Nixon was incredibly cooperative,” Tsai says when asked about the contrast between the Nixon report. “What you see in the report here is an effort to lay out a strong pattern of obstruction on the part of President Trump from the top. They’ve got a long list in the first report from the intelligence committee detailing all the people who were subpoenaed, who have refused to comply categorically.”
Watch the segment here.