The ancient code of Hammurabi is a part of every law student’s homework. Close to 3,800 years ago the Babylonian king drafted the first comprehensive set of laws carving them into a great black stone cylinder.
While Hammurabi’s code is often dismissed as harsh justice — an eye for an eye — a closer look at the legal text shows it also to be the first charter of human rights.
38 centuries later the Iraqi inheritors of that code are attempting to rebuild a modern system of justice. Where the regime of Saddam Hussein leaned exclusively on the punishment side of law, the people in Iraq today are hoping for something closer to due process. Reckoning with the past and future, nothing but the truth.
Guests:
Mahmoud Othman, member of the Iraq Governing Council
Judge Methat Mahmood, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Iraq
Judge Donald Campbell, Superior Court Judge, State of New Jersey, former Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Justice in Iraq.