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David Kennedy of Harvard Law School lectures based off his new essay Of War and Law. Of War and Law offers a fresh view of the notion of a "law of war." By analyzing the linguistic fault lines that dominate our approach to military politics and diplomacy, he argues that law, politics and war have merged in contemporary society.

The Geneva Conventions, the closest thing we have to a codified "law of war" today, are under scrutiny to determine whether they adequately address the conditions of the "war on terror" and the war in Iraq. With Congress, the courts, and the press debating how to apply the Geneva Conventions in the treatment of prisoners, the public may be justified in asking how two such different realms as law and war can be brought together.

David Kennedy is the Manley O. Hudson Professor of Law and Director of the European Law Research Center at Harvard Law School. He is the author previously of The Dark Sides of Virtue and co-author of The Canon of American Legal Thought.