The National Constitution Center and Renew Democracy Initiative present a discussion exploring how the rule of law is protected in constitutional systems around the world—including the United States—and how to ensure its survival when threatened by modern challenges. What happens to constitutions when legal and political norms are violated, and how can we defend rule of law and ensure that our civic institutions remain strong? The panel will feature a unique set of perspectives, including both foreign dissidents who have risked their lives to fight for freedom in their home countries—Garry Kasparov, chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative, and Judge Claudia Escobar, former magistrate of the Court of Appeals of Guatemala and distinguished visiting professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University—and legal experts Robert P. George and Kim Lane Scheppele of Princeton University. Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, moderates. Uriel Epshtein, executive director of the Renew Democracy Initiative, provides remarks.
This program is presented in partnership with the Renew Democracy Initiative and the SNF Paideia Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
Video
Podcast
Participants
Garry Kasparov is the chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative. Now Russian dissident in exile, he is a former world chess champion and Russian opposition politician. Kasparov is the author of several books, including Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped, How Life Imitates Chess, Deep Thinking, and two acclaimed series of chess books. He also serves as the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation.
Judge Claudia Escobar is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. She is a lawyer and former magistrate of the Court of Appeals of Guatemala. She fled her country after receiving death threats for exposing corruption and now serves as the executive director of Be Just, an organization that promotes the rule of law by strengthening the institutions of the justice sector, supports anti-corruption initiatives, and respect for human rights.
Kim Lane Scheppele is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. She joined the Princeton faculty in 2005, after nearly a decade at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she is still a faculty fellow. She has also held visiting faculty positions in the law schools at Michigan, Yale, Harvard, Erasmus/Rotterdam, and Humboldt/Berlin.
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author, co-author, and editor of 24 books including In Defense of Natural Law, The Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Jurisprudence, most recently Mind, Heart, and Soul: Intellectuals and the Path to Rome.
Uriel Epshtein is the Executive Director of the Renew Democracy Initiative. Prior to joining RDI, he worked in the private sector—first as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group and then in strategy at start-ups in the mobility space including DoorDash and Uber. He is also the founder and chairman of the Peace & Dialogue Leadership Initiative at Yale University.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources
- Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man
- Garry Kasparov, Winter Is Coming: Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped
- Robert George, Regent University Law Review, “Reason, Freedom and the Rule of Law: Their Significance in Western Thought"
- Freedom House, "Freedom in the World"
- Lon Fuller, The Morality of Law
- Kim Lane Scheppele, University of Chicago Law Review, “Autocratic Legalism”
- Claudia Escobar, Global Americans, “Honest judges confronting systemic corruption”
- Claudia Escobar, Foreign Affairs, “Triangle of Corruption: Why Washington Needs to Get Tough on Central American Kleptocrats”
- Sean Ingle, The Guardian, “Interview: Garry Kasparov: ‘Why become a martyr? I can do much more outside Russia?’”
- Ed. Mark Lasswell, Fight for Liberty: Defending Democracy in the Age of Trump
- National Constitution Center, Interactive Constitution, "Article II"
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript may not be in its final form, accuracy may vary, and it may be updated or revised in the future.
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