BBC 2012 Third Reith Lecture: The Rule of Law

John Curran

The Aspen Institute Photostream

In Naill Ferguson`s third Reith Lecture the Professor focuses on the evolving nature of Anglo-American common law a comparative exercise allowing him to refer to alternative legal jurisdictions, most notably China where no separation of power or independent judiciary exists. In the West argues Ferguson the rule of law has degenerated into the rule of lawyer`s, especially in the USA, which was once the gold standard other legal jurisdictions measured themselves by the “United States was the rule of law” according to Professor Ferguson.The halcyon days Ferguson identifies are difficult to reconcile with America`s constitutional arrangement built on the premise that African-Americans were three-fifths human, the so called compromise of 1787. Jefferson author of the `Declaration of Independence` was also a slave owner and as Malcolm X quipped “we didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us”.  Indeed, women were also denied the vote prompting the Seneca Falls Convention 1848 to campaign for democratic rights a goal not achieved until 1920 a measure excluding African-American women living in the Deep South.