Legal Commentary

Earlier today I started blogging about a teaching technique for a Public International Law course:  playing four square.  The problem:  student resistance to the idea that international law is law.  The solution: the game of four square as a classroom exercise.  Here's my summary of the game and how it could be used in class.

The Game

For those who have not played four square recently (which I suspect is most readers), four people play at a time, in a square area divided into equal quadrants. The basic idea is to bounce the ball from player to player. If the ball bounces into your quadrant, you have to hit it (not catch it) so that the ball?s next bounce is in another player?s quadrant. Play continues until someone misses.

When I was a kid we played for points -- first person to miss 10 balls was ?out? -- and we played elimination-style until one player was left. My kids, however, play a quite different game. First, the quadrants are numbered #1 through #4. Player #1 is the ?Monarch.? (My contribution to the game was to convince my kids to use a gender-neutral term instead of ?King? or ?Queen.?) The Monarch always starts play, and also can end play by catching the ball. That gives the Monarch a significant advantage, but not an absolute guarantee of staying in power. (Sort of like a powerful nation-state.) Whoever misses gets knocked down to the #4 position, and everyone below them moves up.

On the surface, the game thus played helps to illustrate how power is unequally allocated, just like it is in the world. A more important point, however, is that all players have agreed to abide by the same rules. There are no referees, and no overt enforcement mechanisms. Players only abide by the rules because they have agreed to.

So far, so good -- but things got really interesting when my kids started to elaborate on the basic rules, so that the system evolved as we played. First, someone needed a time out for a bathroom break. Everyone agreed (certainly mutual benefit came into play on that one). Then there were disputed calls, which usually were resolved using the time-honored solution of the ?do over.? And then my daughter introduced two new rules: the ?Black Magic? rule and the "School Bus" rule.  If the Monarch yelled ?Black Magic!,? players were supposed to run to the center of the court ASAP, and the last one there would be demoted to the #4 quadrant. The "School Bus? rule was the same, except players were to run to the outside corner of their quadrants. I suggested that the #4 player be given the Black Magic and School Bus powers as a way to level the playing field somewhat, but that innovation was widely rejected. When I tried to do that anyway (I was player #4 at the time), no one followed suit, and my attempt at effecting a rule change (via violating the rules) ended right there. Eventually the kids grew tired, tempers flared, and the game broke down into fights and tears, so we went inside.

Implications for the Classroom

The game of four square thus offers some rich material for teaching Public International Law to a resistant student audience. It would be interesting, and I think quite useful, to actually have 4 students (or even better, 3 students plus the professor) play it in front of a class, and to introduce new rules and rule changes during play. Feints and cheating could be encouraged, to show how disputes might be resolved among the players. Following the game (which needn't be more than 5 minutes long or so), various questions could be discussed, including:

• Why does the game work on a horizontal basis? Does its horizontal nature mean that there are no rules, only power?
• If there are rules, does that mean power (in the form of threats or violent action) is irrelevant?
• Do rules always prevent cheating? Just because someone cheats and gets away with it does that make the rule not really a rule, but a nonbinding ?guideline??
• Can violating the rules be a way to effect a change in the rules?
• Why would players all agree as to who was Monarch? Why not just refuse to recognize a Monarch?
• Why do some rule innovations get adopted but not others?
• Are ?time outs? and ?do overs? akin to international law general principles, since they are features common to many playground games (just like notions of due process are common to the major legal systems of the world)?
• Who benefits when there is no cooperation?
• Did players (and spectators) defer to the professor as an ?expert? in deciding what the rules were or should be? Why -- and what does that tell us about sources of international law?

All in all, I think this is a useful exercise, and I will consider using it next time I teach the course. If nothing else, it would mix things up in the classroom and keep it interesting -- but I also think it could get the point across rather well.  And if I were to win the game, then all the better.