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The University of Tulsa College of Law hosted an impressive group of legal scholars on March 25 at the Tulsa Law Review Symposium Honoring the Work of The Honorable Aharon Barak. The text of the presentations below are available at volume 47 of the Tulsa Law Review.

Panels include judicial activism vs. judicial restraint (9:00 a.m.), judicial oversight for aggressive interrogation and the treatment of detainees (10:30 a.m.), and transnational jurisprudence (1:30 p.m.). Barak's remarks will begin at 4:00 p.m.

Barak is Professor of Law at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya and Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School. He was a former Justice and President of the Supreme Court of Israel and the former Attorney General of Israel.

His decisions as President of the Supreme Court created an immense impact on Israeli law and the Supreme Court through his championing of a proactive judiciary that has interpreted Israel's Basic Law as its constitution and challenged Knesset laws on that basis. Barak was involved in one of the leading legal issues of the day with his landmark ruling explicitly banning torture during interrogation of terrorism suspects. Legal scholars have praised the practical activism of Israel's Supreme Court for defining the balance between legitimate national security considerations and equally legitimate civil rights in a time of war.

Barak is the 1975 recipient of the Israel Prize in jurisprudence and the 2006 Gruber Justice Prize of the Peter Gruber Foundation for his outstanding courage and principle and for devoting his life to the promotion of justice and the just rule of law.

Other presenters at the symposium are:

• Daphne Barak-Erez, Stewart and Judy Colton Professor of Law, Chair of Law and Security, Tel-Aviv University
• Ariel L. Bendor, Franck Church Professor of Legal Research, Faculty of Law, Bar-Ilan University
• Owen M. Fiss, Sterling Professor of Law, Yale Law School
• Sanford Levinson, W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law, University of Texas School of Law
• The Honorable Yigal Mersel, District Court of Jerusalem, Israel, and Registrar for Supreme Court of Israel
• Markus Wagner, Associate Professor of Law, University of Miami School of Law
• Melissa A. Waters, Professor of Law, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law
• Lorraine E. Weinrib, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto