In our latest episode of Bad News, Good Lawyers, host Tom Firestone, head of our Government Investigations & White Collar Practice, is joined by Benjamin Nathans, Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania.
They discuss Professor Nathans’ Pulitzer Prize-winning book, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement, and explore the role of law in dictatorships, including the concept of “civil obedience” and how a dictatorship’s own laws can be used to combat it.
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Key questions addressed in this episode
Why did “Respect the Soviet Constitution” become a slogan for some Soviet dissidents?
What do KGB files reveal about KGB interrogation techniques and the role of the KGB in the Soviet Union?
What dilemmas do international NGOs face in supporting human rights movements in dictatorships?
If you have any questions about our podcast, please contact Tom Firestone. And look out for future episodes in this series, where we discuss the intersection of law and politics, and how good lawyers can develop creative solutions to the toughest issues.