Both in politics and in academia, a heated polemic is being waged about the extent to which traditional norms of civil rights and international humanitarian law have become obsolete and counterproductive in the face of new realities engendered by modern terrorism. Less noted is the considerable degree of overlapping consensus, which the polemic tends to obscure. By approaching the important areas of disagreement from this basis of shared assumptions, constructive progress could be made toward achieving reform of national and international law to make both more responsive to new challenges without undermining the civilizing mission of the rule of law.