For everything you do every single day. We hope you guys have had a wonderful christmas. For those of you who are with your families, that is a true blessing. For those of you still a little bit far away from home, we hope you had a chance to give them our best and let them know we love them as well. Michelle and i are looking forward to taking pictures with all of you. We see a couple of new babies this time. We always get our baby fix. When we take these photos. The main thing i want to say is keep up the extraordinary work. El and theon rest of the Commanding Officers here, thank you for doing an extraordinary job. Thank you for welcoming us as well. The only problem i got when i am here is having to work out with marines in the gym because i generally feel like your commander in chief is in pretty good shape. Then i get next to some guy curling 100 pounds and makes me feel small. [laughter] that is ok. It gives me inspiration. I will work harder to keep up with you next year. Thank you everybody. God bless you. President obama and his family are expected to remain in hawaii through the new year. When the president returns to washington, he will be nearly a week away from delivering his last state of the Union Address before a joint session of congress. That is scheduled for january 12. As always, we will have the speech live here on cspan followed by your calls and reactions by members of congress. As 2015 wraps up, cspan presents Congress Year in review. A look back at all the newsmaking issues, debates and hearings that took center stage on capitol hill this year. Join us thursday, december 31 at 8 p. M. Eastern as we revisit Mitch Mcconnell taking his position as Senate Majority leader. Pope francis historic address to congress. The resignation of House Speaker john boehner and the election of paul ryan. The debate over the nuclear deal with iran and reaction from congress on Mass Shootings here and abroad, gun control, terrorism and the rise of isis. Ongress year in review cspan, thursday, december 31 at 8 p. M. Eastern. This discussion about the role of american law in combating terrorism, it coincides with a 30th anniversary of the death of leon klinghoffer, a jewishamerican businessman killed by Palestinian Terrorist and the cruise ship in the mediterranean. We will hear from lawyers, authors and professors at this hourlong event hosted by the center for jewish history. Good morning, everybody. Good morning and on behalf of the center for jewish history and our partner organization, the American Jewish historical society, i welcome you to our course on combating terrorism through american laws. A historic moment for us. This is our first ever continuing Legal Education course. To all of you who are attorneys here, a very warm welcome. We are delighted to service the site for a dancing your advancing your education. To our general audience, we are happy to have you here as auditors today. Why here and why today . Today, we are marking the 30th anniversary of the 1985 takeover of the crew ship Achille Lauro and the murder of leon klinghoffer. The ensuing legal case against the terrorist group and the families ensuing an unprecedented settlement award opened the door to litigation against foreign terrorist organizations in the federal courts of the United States. It had a profound impact in prosecuting terrorism against american citizens at home and abroad through criminal and civil law and it is the jumping off point for our discussion today. Not so much the focus, but where we go from here. Klinghoffers daughters are here with us today. For them, it is a moment not only to commemorate these events but with purpose to donate their family papers to the American Jewish historical society. We are very grateful to them and acknowledge their generosity. If you would just stand. [applause] we only have one hour so let us begin. Out will briefly introduce the panel i will briefly introduce the panel. We dont normally do programs with so many cameras and lights. Cspan is here recording the program. Qwards the end when we do a, if you would wait until the mic comes around to you that would be helpful. Im going to start not directly to my right, but one over. Let me introduce first professor lawrence douglas. You all have programs, i hope, see you have the full bios, but i will let you know who everybody is. Lawrence douglas is the james grossfeld professor of law at amherst college. He has coedited 12 books on contemporary legal issues and has lectured in many countries, including addresses to the International Criminal tribunal for the former yugoslavia and the International Criminal court. Juliette, there she is. Next to lawrence. Is michael farbiarz. He is a professor at the center of administration for criminal law and the center for law and security. He has served as an assistant u. S. Attorney for more than 10 years and from 2009 to 2014, he supervised the countrys preeminent team of National Security prosecutors as the cochief of the terrorism and International Narcotics unit at the United StatesAttorneys Office for the Southern District of new york. Has spent 15em years managing complex policy initiatives and organizing government responses the major crises in both state and federal government. Currently, she teaches Emergency Management and Homeland Security as a faculty member at harvard. Businessfounder of a providing strategic advice to a range of companies in technology, risk management, venturecapital and more. The panellisist is oren segal who is the director of the research center. He is an expert on the radicalization process and criminal activity associated with homegrown extremists motivated by radical interpretations of islam. Immediately to my right is my great pleasure to introduce Ruth Edgewood who is our moderator. She is a professor of International Law and diplomacy at Johns Hopkins university and chairs the International Law program at the Johns Hopkins school of advanced International Studies in washington, d. C. She is a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of new york who investigated and tried acts of terrorism and has served as a member of the United NationsHuman Rights Committee and the pentagon defense policy board, as well as the u. S. Secretary of states Advisory Committee on private and public International Law. I turn this over to ruth and i wish you a good morning. [applause] prof. Wedgwood thank you all for coming out on this beautiful morning. I have not been on the Lower East Side for a very long time. Its an astonishingly beautiful neighborhood. It was a wonderful place to found the center. I want to give my heartfelt thanks to judy siegel for putting this together. And for giving me the opportunity to see former students, too. I have that one and that one. My grandfather was a tailor in brooklyn way back when. He spoke it is. This is sort of close to gentrified. It feels like a familiar neighborhood. I want to think obviously the klinghoffer family and the two daughters for being here. To a losso is gone know how tragic it is and how hard it is to assimilate. Having a kind of celebration of your parents bravery and courage and what one can do about this kind of activity terrorism, is something we all can relate to. So thank you for being here. We stand up for just one moment. [applause] prof. Wedgwood their father was a klinghoffer. Its a real immigration story. He owned a hardware store. In the Lower East Side. I wish i had known him. Corpsned the army air which my father belonged to in world war ii. He flew missions as a navigator b 24. 24 a then, i take it he had a kind of a handyman innovative quality. He created something called rotobroil. When i would not be able to let my stuff, i could have used that. He had a very happy marriage. Then, at a certain age, as one is entitled to, he took a vacation, sort of a passive vacation, getting a suntan, and the mediterranean on the Achille Lauro and failed to the middle of a terrible war. Which, surely her parents did not anticipate. And was made a hostage at a victim by the palestinian liberation fronts and ultimately was killed by being thrown overboard in his wheelchair. I cant think of a more insane kind of attack. Not even a fair fight shall we say, a gentle person in a wheelchair, and a bunch of strong armed thugs who chose to make a political point, we think, by engaging in a sadistic act of violence. It is a celebration of the family and their courage. It is the occasion to think through how one can take steps to make sure that these kinds of extremely rare. I think the story today will not only be about the klinghoffer events, but about what kinds of it will be measures one can take to prevent this kind of thing from happening. I have to when the audience that professor douglas i think some of the questions that i might put at his suggestion have more of a kind of ontological, so all subgoal philosophical [indiscernible] heres agwood wonderful question. If you are a lawyer, prosecutor or defense lawyer, you think of law as being founded on the acceptable norm of justice, but the one thing that most challenges the face that one has and lies when something completely off the books, out of field,e, out of left something incredible and inconceivable, happens whether it was 9 11, which to me was a stunning event as i flew down to washington for my first day at john hobsons. I knew it was the trademark motif of osama bin laden. Or Something Like the event that happens to mr. Klinghoffer. The first question [indiscernible] when you have an active , sadism,nary violence atrocity what does it mean to create a remedy of justice in that case . Putting people in jail seems banal. Than now what does it mean to have justice in the wake of this kind of atrocity . It is a pleasure to being here. Thank you to the klinghoffer family and judah for organizing this. As ruth mentioned, i wrote this question and was very much hoping that she would not visit to me. [laughter] that said, i think it is an extraordinarily difficult question to answer. I think crimes and acts of terrorism create particular challenges. One challenge that i would identify is simply this notion that very often when we talk about doing justice to the criminal law, we are trying to punish retrospective ask, ask that have occurred in the past. Very often, when we are trying to address the threat of terrorism, we are trying to eliminate threats in the future. It can be a very tricky business of using a tool, an instrument which is really meant to deal with acts that have occurred in the past as a way of trying to eliminate threats in the future. So, that i think is a very important thing to bear in mind. Then, when it comes to this question of what does it mean to do justice using lets say the Army Criminal law and again, criminal law does not have to be the only kind of response. Even the klinghoffer case makes clear that you can use civil lot responses also to ask of atrocity. But when he is the criminal law, as a response to acts of atrocity, i think there are both great opportunities with doing criminal law, but i think there are limitations, as well. One of the limitations that i think immediately comes to mind is, depending on the level of the crime, sometimes theyre almost seems to be a disproportion between a single individual in the dock or a couple of individuals and the dock and the level of the atrocity that is being considered before the court. I dont know if any of you this is a different case of terrorism one that is exit close to me, theres a documentary appearing on frontline about the lockerbie bombing. Very close to are me, and his brother who was killed was a very dear friend of mine in college. One thing i thought was interesting about that was, they were basically two parts to persons who were tried in his extraordinary court. Was a Scottish Court scotch court in the netherlands. There are basically two people kind of like to nondescript individuals, answering to this crime of mass anocity and it seems to be imbalance between the harm that was inflicted and these people in the dock. The other thing, the limitation, and dealing with the criminal law, there is always the chance of an acquittal. As one, criminal law is legal theorist once said, is always an irreducible risk with the criminal trial, and that is the risk of acquittal. For example, in the pan am 103 case of the two people who were prosecuted, one was acquitted. Very quickly on the opportunities and the strength of the criminal law, i do think it is very important to demonstrate that even the worst atrocities can be submitted to the rule of law. An adequate is response to atrocity as opposed to reaching the conclusion that no, we need to use some kind of extralegal response. The other thing, i think the law creates criminal law, creates an opportunity often for the victims or victims families to have a voice heard in a public forum. I think it also supplies, if done properly, a baseline account for the event. It creates a kind of baseline readilythat can be transmitted to it a public. I think criminal trials tend to attract galvanized International Attention and can play a very helpful role in clarifying the historical record in the wake of an active mass atrocity. So, i will stop right there. Since he is my former student, i am bound to contradict him. [laughter] prof. Wedgwood a quick question before we go on. If you go to loss go you take a course in criminal law and they tell you that the purpose of having criminal sanctions are several, rehabilitation, i dont think that would be probably pertinent in the case of most committed ideological terrorists. The other is deterrence, probably not that either, because then we would have to go into an exercise knowing it would in badly in some way. The others incapacitation. Send them off someplace where they would be harmless. Criminal law is not without its significant risks, one is that a person could be acquitted or a jury will hang because you never know what jurors will think. It is the fundamental premise of bushels case any wish law and american law. You cant query a jury while they reach their verdict and you cannot send them back to think more if you do not like the verdict. It is a huge gamble. Discovered, is that the process of gathering proof, and a proof, helterskelter terrorist attack is really awfully hard. The air of mystery that still surrounds lockerbie and who authorize the bombing, was a just libya or libya and friends . It will never be resolved by this kind of criminal investigative process. It requires something much farther to the ground in a way, intelligence sources, peoples recollections. And i cants respond . [laughter] prof. Wedgwood route of time. [laughter] prof. Douglas ill be extremely brief in the response. Obviously there is a risk of acquittal, but i think when ruth is talking about the basic purposes of a criminal trial, deterrence, or taking people out of circulation, i think she is right. It imperfectly applies to these crimes of atrocity but i do think it overlooks the fact that these trials also have an expressive purpose. That is, they have a kind of symbolic expressive purpose, and i think that is a very critical thing that these trials performed. For example, you could even go back and look at the record of trials involving perpetrators of the holocaust, something that i have written a lot about. Youll find that many of the prosecutors associated with those cases justify those trials not in terms of the law against attorneys, but in terms of the logic of making an expressive statement about rule of law capacity to respond to these types of acts. Prof. Wedgwood one last irony. Then we really will go on. If you look at the nuremberg statutes from an armored trials, which was the International Military tribunal for those crimes, it has a wonderful role of evidence, anything stated in the u. N. Document is taken to be true. It is not just hearsay, but it is quite true what you are saying. Let me ask my policy oriented people. Coral among yourselves. Tool, one of the greatest challenges you have is using criminal law as a way of either deterring or incapacitating people who are involved in terrorist action. I have been in the field before 9 11 as a lawyer at one stage. First i want to thank judy and the klinghoffer family. I dont want you to leave this room without knowing the significance that the klinghoffer family has for the world that we live in now. It is hard to imagine now, after 9 11, but the idea that victims of terrorism or some political gesture would have a voice about what their father mentor what their family meant and get some remedy did not exist, essentially, before. That this idea that they could go somewhere to express, not a larger policy issue about the rule of law, but for a remedy was just not a part of how people thought about terrorism. This was the plo and israel and there were these big geopolitical issues. So, the klinghoffer family and you guys brought it down to earth. These are human beings who have families. Through that you did go the courts, even some of the failures, but also getting eventually legislation passed in the United States that gave voice to the victims. What i think is interesting that has happened since then, is that through thisce sort of post9 11 world