The American Foreign Law Association has invited leading scholars to comment on the Supreme Court’s role in foreign affairs.  AFLA is pleased to welcome Professor John Q. Barrett, the world’s leading scholar on Justice Robert H. Jackson.   In the last AFLA lecture on the subject, Professor Martin Flaherty singled out Justice Jackson’s vision of the Supreme Court’s role as the clearest and most consistent with the vision of the nation’s founders. Justice Robert H. Jackson is considered to be one of the greatest justices ever to serve on the Supreme Court.  He worked in executive branch including as Solicitor General 1938-39 and then Attorney General 1940-41 preparing for WWII; served on the Supreme Court 1941-54.   In 1943, Jackson wrote the majority opinion in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, which overturned a public school regulation making it mandatory to salute the flag, and imposing penalties of expulsion and prosecution upon students who failed to comply.  Jackson was at the heart of big decisions involving foreign affairs during WWII and then the Cold War.   He was away from the Court during 1945-46, at President Truman’s request, serving as U.S. chief prosecutor at Nuremberg of Nazi war criminals.   On his return, he was involved with the racial segregation cases culminating in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

John Q. Barrett is a Professor of Law at St. John’s University in New York City, where he teaches Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure, and Legal History. He also is Elizabeth S. Lenna Fellow and a Board member at the Robert H. Jackson Center in Jamestown, New York. Professor Barrett is a renowned teacher, writer, commentator, and lecturer on law and history topics, in the United States and internationally. He is writing a biography of U.S. Supreme Court Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954).  It will include the first inside account of Jackson’s service following World War II, by appointment of President Truman, as the chief prosecutor of the principal surviving Nazi leaders.

Please see the invitation here.