Naz K. Modirzadeh

Naz K. Modirzadeh is a Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School and the Founding Director of the HLS Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (PILAC).

At HLS, Modirzadeh writes and teaches primarily in the field of public international law, with a focus on non-use of force, armed conflict, and counterterrorism issues. She teaches doctrinal courses on public international law and the laws of war. Her seminars and reading groups span such topics as the United Nations Security Council, international lawyering, Global South statecraft, and international counterterrorism law. She is a recipient of the Francis Lieber Prize of the American Society of International Law’s Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict.

As the head of PILAC, Modirzadeh is responsible for the Program and its cutting-edge initiatives. Established in 2014, PILAC is dedicated to producing and distributing knowledge on international law, peace, and war. The Program publishes independent analyses ranging from primers to extensive reports and evidentiary catalogs. Governments, U.N. actors, humanitarian bodies, armed forces, human-rights officials, think tanks, NGOs, and scholars routinely draw on PILAC’s evidence and analysis to help identify and address contemporary legal policy challenges. The Program also convenes briefing series and workshops that foster research-informed conversations among senior scholars, diplomats, legal advisers, and specialists.

Modirzadeh frequently briefs senior decision-makers and advises governments, U.N. bodies, international humanitarian organizations, and NGOs. She has briefed three of the United Nations’ principal organs: the Security Council, the General Assembly, and the Economic and Social Council.

Modirzadeh is on the Board of Trustees of the International Crisis Group and has served on a number of advisory boards for high-level U.N. and other initiatives. She is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Lieber Institute for Law and Warfare at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

For the first decade of her career, Modirzadeh engaged in applied research and policy work with conflict actors, humanitarian organizations, and affected communities on the interpretation and implementation of international law in relation to situations of armed conflict and other humanitarian crises and emergencies, with a focus on Afghanistan, the Middle East, and North Africa. She has extensive experience leading trainings and facilitating discussions on international law and policy for diplomats as well as human-rights and humanitarian actors at headquarters and in conflict-affected areas.

Modirzadeh received her undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.