ON SEPTEMBER 23, 2004, THE CENTER ON LAW AND SECURITY SPONSORED an open forum at New York University School of Law entitled “Torture: The Legal Road to Abu Ghraib and Beyond.” This event brought together noted experts in the fields of law, academia, and journalism to discuss the implications of the recently released memos and reports on the Bush administration's torture policy. The panelists included defense attorney Joshua Dratel, NYU law professor Stephen Gillers, journalist Anthony Lewis, military lawyer Major Michael Dan Mori, journalist Dana Priest. NYU law professor Burt Neuborne served as moderator. Below are the proceedings from the event.

Burt Neuborne: Montesquieu observed that this is a society dominated by law and legalism. There is no stronger proof of Montesquieu's thesis than the enormous role that lawyers have played in the evolution of the policies on torture that have brought us to this place.

Historically, it is an unfortunate truth that there is no inherent relationship between legalism and decency. The sad fact is that law has been placed in the service of barbarity as often as it has been placed in the service of decency. One has only to look at the role of Nazi lawyers and Nazi judges, the finest trained legal minds in Europe. The German legal profession in the 1930s consisted of the most brilliant collection of lawyers that had ever been put together in any place at any one time.