Recent News


The Center on Law and Security 2012-2013

The Center hosted a number of public and private events during the 2012-2013 academic year, including:

The Law and Strategy of Iran Sanctions:  A lecture by Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen;

Policing Legitimacy: International Terrorism, Illegal Immigration, and Cyber Crime:  A presentation by Lord Ian Blair, former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London;

Adjudication Under Pressure:  A conversation between President (ret.) Dorit Beinisch of the Supreme Court of Israel and University Professor Jeremy Waldron;

Diplomacy in the Twenty-First Century — Challenges for a New Administration:  A discussion with Amb. Christopher Hill, Dr. Charles Kupchan, and Prof. Sujit Choudhry;

National Security Advisers:  Executive Branch Lawyering from a Global Perspective:  A panel discussion with President (ret.) Dorit Beinisch of the Supreme Court of Israel; Sir Daniel Bethlehem, former legal adviser to the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office; and Brig. Gen. (ret.) Kenneth Watkin, former Judge Advocate General of Canada;

Kill or Capture:  The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency:  A book talk with Daniel Klaidman, of Newsweek/The Daily Beast;

Civil/Military Relations for a New Era:  A lecture by Lt. Gen. (ret.) David Barno;

The Laws of War in a Changing World: A discussion with Prof. Emeritus Yoram Dinstein;

The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia:  A book discussion with Gregory Johnsen.

Political Islam, the 'Arab Spring,' and the Future of Egypt and Syria: A panel discussion with Ahmed H. al-Rahim, CLS Fellow and assistant professor at the University of Virginia;  Steven A. Cook, Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations; Michael W. Hanna, Senior Fellow at The Century Foundation;  Tarek Masoud, Associate professor of public policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government;  Andrew J. Tabler, Senior Fellow in the Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute;

Terrorism, the State of the Threat:  A discussion with Matthew Olsen, Director of the National Counterterrorism Center.


Sanctions and the Arab Spring: Innovations in National Security Strategy: A discussion with Luke Bronin, CLS Scholar-In-Residence, and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence

National Security Advisors: Advising Governments on the Use of Force and National Security

On Tuesday, December 4th, the Center on Law and Security  hosted a panel discussion featuring:

President (ret.) Dorit Beinisch served as the President of the Supreme Court of Israel from 2006-2012 and as Justice of the Supreme Court since December 1995. 

Sir Daniel Bethlehem KCMG QC is a barrister in practice from Chambers in London at 20 Essex Street.  From May 2006 to May 2011, he was the principal Legal Adviser of the United Kingdom Foreign & Commonwealth Office. 

Brigadier General (ret.) Kenneth W. Watkin, OMM, CD, QC, retired in April 2010 as the Judge Advocate General for the Canadian forces after 33 years of military service, including twenty-eight years as a military legal officer.  

Moderated by:
Professor Richard H. Pildes, Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law at NYU School of Law, is one of the nation’s leading scholars of public law and a specialist in legal issues affecting democracy. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has received recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow and a Carnegie Scholar. 

Please click here to see photos and further information on this past event. 

National Security Advisors: Advising Governments on the Use of Force and National Security

On Tuesday, December 4th, the Center on Law and Security  hosted a panel discussion featuring:

President (ret.) Dorit Beinisch served as the President of the Supreme Court of Israel from 2006-2012 and as Justice of the Supreme Court since December 1995. 

Sir Daniel Bethlehem KCMG QC is a barrister in practice from Chambers in London at 20 Essex Street.  From May 2006 to May 2011, he was the principal Legal Adviser of the United Kingdom Foreign & Commonwealth Office. 

Brigadier General (ret.) Kenneth W. Watkin, OMM, CD, QC, retired in April 2010 as the Judge Advocate General for the Canadian forces after 33 years of military service, including twenty-eight years as a military legal officer.  

Moderated by:
Professor Richard H. Pildes, Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law at NYU School of Law, is one of the nation’s leading scholars of public law and a specialist in legal issues affecting democracy. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has received recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow and a Carnegie Scholar. 

Please click here to see photos and further information on this past event. 

National Security Advisors: Advising Governments on the Use of Force and National Security

On Tuesday, December 4th, the Center on Law and Security  hosted a panel discussion featuring:

President (ret.) Dorit Beinisch served as the President of the Supreme Court of Israel from 2006-2012 and as Justice of the Supreme Court since December 1995. 

Sir Daniel Bethlehem KCMG QC is a barrister in practice from Chambers in London at 20 Essex Street.  From May 2006 to May 2011, he was the principal Legal Adviser of the United Kingdom Foreign & Commonwealth Office. 

Brigadier General (ret.) Kenneth W. Watkin, OMM, CD, QC, retired in April 2010 as the Judge Advocate General for the Canadian forces after 33 years of military service, including twenty-eight years as a military legal officer.  

Moderated by:
Professor Richard H. Pildes, Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law at NYU School of Law, is one of the nation’s leading scholars of public law and a specialist in legal issues affecting democracy. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has received recognition as a Guggenheim Fellow and a Carnegie Scholar. 

Please click here to see photos and further information on this past event. 

Recent Events

May 3, 2013

The Center on Law and Security is proud to announce it's newest Scholar-in-Residence Luke Bronin, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. We hosted a breakfast discussion with Mr. Bronin discussing Sanctions and the Arab Spring: Innovations in National Security Strategy. 

Additional Information

The revolts of the “Arab Spring” have seen the advent of a number of innovative new sanctions programs designed to promote human rights compliance, to prevent Libyan Government assets from being used to oppress the Libyan people, to stem the tide of terrorism and WMD proliferation, to facilitate democratic expression by the people of Iran, and to achieve other objectives.  How have these efforts been integrated into our larger national security strategy?  How much of a departure from previous uses of sanctions did U.S. policy during the “Arab Spring” constitute?

About the Speaker

Before he served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bronin was the Senior Advisor to the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Treasury.  He also served as an international affairs fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, and as Chief of Staff to the President of The Hartford Financial Service’s Group’s property & casualty operations.  In addition, he served as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, including a deployment to Afghanistan from September 2010 to April 2011, where he was a member of the military’s anti-corruption task force.  Bronin earned his JD from Yale Law School, a diploma in Legal Studies and a Master of Science in economic and social history from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Yale College.


Globalizing Official Islam? 

The Center on Law and Security is pleased to announce the launch of its project: Globalizing Official Islam?, which will be led by the Center’s Spring 2013 Fellow, Dr. Ahmed al-Rahim.  The project will explore a topic of critical importance to this country’s foreign policy, and to the American understanding of the proper relationship between government and religion—to what extent the United States must and/or should make determinations about the influence of Islamic religious doctrine in the foreign policy of Middle Eastern countries as it considers how to adjust its strategy towards the region in response to the “Arab Spring.”

The answer to this question depends, in turn, on an understanding of the role that political Islam is playing in shaping the foreign policy outlook and strategies of Middle Eastern countries in transition. While the parties in control of Egypt and Tunisia, and some Syrian opposition groups identify as Islamist, it is not clear how religious doctrine, as opposed to secular considerations, is responsible for their foreign policy choices. The project will therefore explore the influence of religion on the policy choices made by Islamist political actors in the Middle East, and how the United States should respond to their ascendance.

The way that the United States understands the changes taking place in the Middle East is significant because it prompts important questions about how the U.S. should make decisions about sensitive questions regarding the role of religion in foreign policy; questions that implicate the First Amendment to the Constitution.  For this country’s Constitutional traditions, and its strategic interests, counsel in favor of caution before making sensitive determinations about the role of Islam in the foreign policy choices of Middle East states.

Generous support for this project has been provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.