It begins

Dear Friends,

Paper phase over, people phase underway.

Had my first ¨real¨ interview yesterday evening with the president of an environmental NGO. A very good, informative session. I´m invited to a conference on Saturday and they (we were joined by additional members of the group towards the end of the meeting) have agreed to facilitate additional interviews and help with the acquisition of additional data. It´s very interesting to see just how few resources (political, economic, structural, etc.) a lot of these NGOs work from. Material resources facilitate, but at the end it´s work done by people who act out of a sense of duty, not cost.

This is interesting becuase it touches on the more interesting, important, and harder to get at philosophical aspect of Lobel´s work on PIL -- even if one ¨loses¨ (in court, for example, or on the battle field or in the extreme circumstance or during a daily interaction) there´s something to be said for doing the ´right´ or correct thing. At end actions, norms and, eventually, laws are important because they help guide us through seemingly lawless times. Law in the absence of law.

One reason I find ¨the conditions under which¨such an irritating and facile question.

So thanks to REC for the interview advice. Occasionally I do see the merit of the project.

Cheers to all.

BT