The New York Review of Books - USA (2020-11-05)

58 The New York Review

possessing 0.14 grams of meth, stealing a

pizza, and stealing $2.50 worth of socks.

To make progress, we must throw out the

idea that criminal law is an instrument of

truth: it’s about feeding public opinion and

making deals that are expedient for prose-

cutors. Our law enforcement system, from

local police to judges, fails to prevent, even

contributes to, an ongoing cycle of violence.

Indeed, one reason retaliatory violence is

endemic to this system is that low-income

communities, including many communities

of color, tend to distrust police, for reasons

the Black Lives Matter protests have made

evident. People in physical danger who do

not believe the police can help them will try

to solve problems on their own.

Fitzgerald worries that defendants may

retaliate if victims don’t agree to restorative

justice. But Sered’s program suggests oth-

erwise. Some victims, she shows, choose re-

storative justice to end a cycle of violence:

in her sessions, they have asked defendants

to pledge to tell their friends to back off.

Victims may fear retaliation if they opt

out, but they already fear retaliation if they

choose to prosecute the traditional way.

The question of how restorative justice

could re-traumatize victims is important,

especially in cases when defendants are

not remorseful or mentally able to explain

the reasons for their actions. But research-

ers find that restorative justice is more ef-

fective in addressing trauma than court.

This is in part because the legal process is

not designed to be therapeutic. It can re-

traumatize victims by subjecting them to

hostile cross-examination, exposing them

to public scrutiny, and leading them to feel

disbelieved or blamed during the investiga-

tive process. A process that takes seriously

all parties’ emotions and proceeds from the

defendant’s acceptance of guilt has proven

comparatively more successful than crim-

inal prosecution in reducing PTSD symp-

toms caused by the crime.

Still, it’s true that restorative justice sub-

verts the aims of Law as it stands. Where

traditional justice would assign fault, re-

storative justice wants to discover how peo-

ple can heal. It is fair to ask whether heal-

ing is what our system is for. But we can’t

answer that question truthfully without also

articulating the ultimate purpose of our

courts and jails, and asking whether they

are achieving their aims.

FAIRER COVID TRIALS

To the Editors:

While I sincerely appreciate Marcia An-

gell’s and Carl Elliott’s concern for the

well- being of potential Covid-19 challenge

trial participants [Letters, NYR, August

20], their opposition to challenge trials di-

minishes the agency of volunteers like my-

self, who acknowledge the uncertain and

significant risks involved and still want to

participate.

Over 35,000 people have expressed in-

terest in participating in a challenge study

with 1Day Sooner (where I serve as com-

munications director). Writing about this

organization, Elliott states that the “num-

ber of people willing to volunteer without

being told about the fine print” is a “recipe

for exploitation.” This claim is inaccurate

and misleading. Our survey makes clear

that there will be several rounds of pre-

qualification before volunteers could for-

mally consent to a challenge trial. 1Day

Sooner exists to prevent the very exploita-

tion that Elliott brings up: we are the only

organization comprised of challenge trial

volunteers that is actively working to in-

clude such volunteers in challenge trial de-

sign. We do not want to risk our lives for

a fruitless trial, and we have no interest in

dodging the fine print.

We are also not mere means to an end,

as both Angell and Elliott argue. Since our

motivation is to reduce the misery caused

by Covid-19, volunteering for a challenge

trial that could help scientists fight the

pandemic is entirely harmonious with our

rights, dignity, and interests. There may be

hidden, long-term impacts of Covid-19 that

we do not know when the trial begins, but

it is safer for young, healthy volunteers to

incur those risks in the context of a closely

monitored study, rather than vulnerable

populations without access to health care.

There is a long history of pathologizing al-

truism in medical contexts. Altruistic living

kidney donations were forbidden until the

1960s because researchers thought that po-

tential donors must be uninformed, irratio-

nal, or deranged. Now, we realize that this

is not the case. In the context of a potential

Covid-19 human challenge trial, we should

avoid repeating mistakes of the past.

That means ensuring a robust informed

consent process and free, high-quality

health care for trial participants, but it

also means not paternalistically dismissing

volunteers’ altruism as opportunities for

exploitation.

Abie Rohrig

Communications Director

1Day Sooner

New York, New York

Carl Elliott replies:

My criticism was not aimed at research

subjects. We all depend on the altruism

of people willing to volunteer for medical

research. But research studies must be de-

signed in ways that do not exploit that al-

truism. It is wrong to ask research subjects

to pay for their own medical care if they are

injured in a study; it is wrong to deny them

compensation for pain, suffering, and the

inability to work; it is wrong for sponsors

to rig research studies and bury or spin the

results; and it is wrong to deny poor peo-

ple access to necessary drugs, vaccines, or

medical devices, especially when they are

produced by research studies for which

those people have volunteered. I have not

seen any mention of these serious problems

by those advocating for challenge studies.

If it is paternalistic to insist that the prob-

lems be fixed, then I plead guilty to the

charge.

LIMITED NUCLEAR WAR?

To the Editors:

In her review of recent books on nuclear

forces and those who think about them, Jes-

sica Mathews [“The New Nuclear Threat,”

NYR, August 20] proceeds from the cold

war–era conceptualization involving use by

great powers of selected portions of their

arsenals in a way that can be “clearly sig-

naled...accurately interpreted by the other

side, and responded to not in rage or fear

but with calm reasonableness.” She doubts

this is possible, for good reason.

An alternative take on “limited” nuclear

war would be to consider the point of view

of the post–cold war class of smaller nuclear

powers. Their strategic focus is not lashed

to the larger global competition of the great

powers Dr. Mathews focuses on (as was that

of nuclear-armed UK, France, and China

during the cold war). Their use of nuclear

weapons would be limited by the relatively

few they have at their disposal. It is not

clear that, say, India and Pakistan accept

the cold war–era redline on use of these

weapons created by “effective deterrence,

fear of their destructiveness, and a...taboo

against their use” even though they doubt-

less are well aware of the horrors the use of

such weapons would involve. In a conflict

involving this dyad or, someday, the one

enmeshing Israel and Iran, the combatants

might well decide they are willing to treat

their limited numbers of nuclear weapons

as precious, vulnerable, potentially decisive

assets best used in a first strike once fight-

ing has begun. In particular, Pakistan has

suffered from India’s numerical superiority

in previous conventional wars and may well

not be willing to replay this script.

Rather than thinking in terms of deter-

rence and taboos, smaller nuclear powers

might use nuclear weapons like any other

weapons. During the heat of the opening

rounds of a new war they might coldly cal-

culate the counterforce and countervalue

options permitted or precluded by the size

and range of their arsenals, their estimates

of their enemy’s capabilities and intentions,

and their overall strategy for whatever they

think constitutes victory. Chances are that

pressures on them to conform to cold war–

era shibboleths regarding nuclear use from

the inaptly termed “international commu-

nity” might no longer be enough to hold

them back.

In addition, of course, we should think

about North Korea...

David B. Kanin

Adjunct Professor of European Studies

School of Advanced International Studies

Johns Hopkins University

Washington, D.C.

Jessica T. Mathews replies:

Professor Kanin is of course correct that

the new nuclear powers—India, Pakistan,

Israel, and North Korea—may think differ-

ently about the use of these weapons than

do the original five. Importantly, they also

think very differently from one another.

India and Pakistan, for example, are gener-

ally considered the world’s most likely nu-

clear flashpoint. Over the years Islamabad,

which is rapidly enlarging its nuclear arse-

nal, has explicitly threatened to use nuclear

weapons in a war facing India’s overwhelm-

ing conventional superiority: a policy of

“nuclear first use in the last resort.” These

threats are Islamabad’s primary way of de-

terring such a war. India’s nuclear forces

and doctrine, by contrast, are designed for

retaliation after a prior nuclear attack. It

is certainly possible that one or another of

these four countries might face conditions

in which it felt it had no option other than

to go nuclear. However, I doubt that any of

them—even North Korea—would not feel

the enormous weight of the taboo against

nuclear use and fear the international

consequences of crossing the nuclear

threshold.

QUERY

To the Editors:

For a biography of the Austro-American

mathematician Olga Taussky-Todd (1906-

1995), the first woman to receive a formal

teaching position at the California Institute

of Technology, I would be glad and pleased

to hear from any of her former students,

colleagues, or friends, or anyone with rem-

iniscences or with whom she corresponded.

Judith Goodstein

430 South Parkwood Avenue

Pasadena, CA 91107

626-793-4821

CORRECTION

In Simon Callow’s “Charm Defensive”

[NYR, September 24], the revival of David

Rabe’s Hurlyburly was directed by Scott

Elliott, not by Rabe himself.

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