National and International Security

Sarah Grant ’19 is one of 12 law students and early-career attorneys chosen for the 2018 Law Program of the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics to participate in a two-week program in Germany and Poland this summer, which uses the conduct of lawyers and judges in Nazi-occupied Europe as a way to reflect on ethics in the legal profession today.

In a landmark decision today, a federal jury found the former president of Bolivia and his minister of defense responsible for extrajudicial killings carried out by the Bolivian military. The landmark litigation began with a collaboration between Bolivian partners and the Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic

Vivek Krishnamurthy studies international issues in internet governance as a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Cyber Law Clinic. He spoke with the Gazette about the legal implications of the breach for Facebook, the laxity in U.S. privacy protections, and how Facebook’s difficulties may mark the end of the tech industry’s long deregulation honeymoon in this country.

In February, five students from Harvard Law School were selected to join their peers from 10 other leading U.S. law schools in Washington, D.C. to explore the future of public and private international law at the sixth annual Salzburg Cutler Fellows Program.

Earlier this month, about two dozen international experts gathered for “Humanitarian Disarmament: The Way Ahead,” the inaugural conference of the Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection Initiative (ACCPI) at Harvard Law School.

At a workshop on immigrants’ rights held Monday morning at the Memorial Church, attorneys Jason Corral and Cindy Zapata of the Harvard Immigration & Refugee Clinical Program shared legal advice on how to deal with the more aggressive enforcement of immigration laws under the Trump administration.

Three Harvard professors and a Ph.D. student in African and African American studies have launched the DACA Seminar, a series of events on campus aimed at sparking conversations about the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and immigration policy and reform, while working to understand options available to Harvard's undocumented students.

The Harvard Association for Law and Business (HALB) hosted Kim Koopersmith, chairperson of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, and Jami Wintz McKeon, chair of Morgan Lewis & Bockius, as a feature event in HALB’s inaugural Women's Leadership Speaker Series.

In early December, the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession (CLP) hosted two major events in India to celebrate the publication of 'The Indian Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization: The Rise of the Corporate Legal Sector and its Impact on Lawyers and Society.'

A panel of leading experts convened at Harvard Law School on Jan. 25 to explore the consequences of the Federal Communications Commission's recent Restoring Internet Freedom Order.

Harvard Law professor Jack Goldsmith shares his perspective on American institutions and the Trump presidency in a recent interview with Weekly Standard editor-at-large Bill Kristol.

The Harvard Law School Library uniquely owns and manages approximately one million pages of documents relating to the Nuremberg Trials: thirteen trials conducted just after World War II to prosecute leaders of the Nazi regime. To preserve the contents of these documents—which include trial transcripts and full trial exhibits—the library has undertaken a multi-stage digitization project to make the collection freely accessible online.

2017 was a year of notable accomplishments for Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC), and for Bonnie Docherty '01, associate director of Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection and lecturer on law at HLS.

The Berkman Klein Center's Cyberlaw Clinic, which provides pro-bono legal services to clients on issues relating to the internet, technology and intellectual property, has written in support of a number of technology cases in recent weeks.

The trajectory of state intelligence gathering and invasions of privacy made possible by a digital environment were the focus of a session titled “National Security: National Security, Privacy, and the Rule of Law,” part of the HLS in the World bicentennial summit which took place at Harvard Law School on Friday, October 27, 2017.

As part of Harvard Law School's bicentennial summit, a panel, “Special Prosecutors and Independent Counsels: Investigating the White House and the President of the United States,” gathered six Harvard alumni and faculty members who’ve been involved with nearly every high-profile investigation, from Watergate to Whitewater, to the leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity.

Each year, as we honor military veterans nationwide for their service, Harvard Law Today profiles students in the incoming class who have held positions in the Armed Forces. The Class of 2020 includes the largest number of former or current service members in Harvard Law's recent history.

As a JAG officer in the U.S. Marine Corps for more than six years, Jenna E. Reed LL.M. ’18 prosecuted and defended some of the most serious cases in that branch of the military, focusing on violent and special victims crimes, including shaken-baby cases and others involving children.

In becoming a Marine and then a lawyer, Nathan Garrett Jester ’20 is interested in someday going into local or state politics in his home state of Georgia, to serve the community where he was born and raised.

Steven Kerns ’20 was a high school dropout, a self-described ‘rebel without a cause’ from Long Beach, Calif., when he joined the U.S. Army as a teenager looking for adventure, with vague notions of changing the world.

Ever since she was little girl growing up in Washington, D.C., Isabel Marin ’20 has wanted to be a lawyer. But between graduating from Yale in 2012 and entering law school this year, Marin had an important goal: to serve as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps.

"A World (Dis)order," a panel with national security experts exploring the vulnerabilities of globalization and a changing world touched issues including climate change, cybersecurity, North Korea, ISIS, populism and authoritarianism.

As part of Harvard Law School's bicentennial summit, former Attorney General of the United States Loretta Lynch ’84 and Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School Annette Gordon-Reed ’84 looked back on their time together at Harvard Law School and discussed their subsequent careers.

Ambassador Samantha Power ’99 and Yale Law School Professor Harold Koh ’80 discussed what it means to be professors and former government officials, as part of Harvard Law School's bicentennial celebration on Oct 27.

On Thursday, Nov. 2, Dr. David Shulkin, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, will deliver the 2017 Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Distinguished Lecture at Harvard Law School. In advance of his visit to the law school, Secretary Shulkin answered a few questions about the Department of Veterans Affairs and its service to veterans.

In many ways, Jane's life in Kenya was idyllic: She was an educated, confident professional woman with a flourishing career, raising a daughter whom she loved dearly. There was only one problem in her life: her husband, who had become increasingly violent and abusive in the privacy of their own home.

The Harvard Law Review has announced the launch of the Harvard Law Review Blog, a new platform created to encourage timely discussion of current legal issues, and to connect readers to today’s leading legal scholars and practitioners, providing regular expert analysis of recent legislation, the latest legal theories, and pending cases across the country.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), with which Harvard's International Human Rights Clinic collaborated during the negotiations of a nuclear weapon ban treaty, received the Nobel Peace Prize today. IHRC joined ICAN and UK-based disarmament organization Article 36 in the efforts for the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. 

HLS Professor of Practice Naz K. Modirzadeh ’02 gave a talk at a United Nations General Assembly event on Sept. 22 called, “International Humanitarian Law: Addressing violations in light of recent conflicts,” which focused on failures of international law to protect health care systems in armed conflict in Syria involving designated terrorists.

In advance of a conference on Saturday, Sept. 23 at HLS, Harvard Law Professor Matthew Stephenson spoke with the Harvard Gazette about the global phenomenon of "populist plutocrats:" politicians who exploit anti-elite sentiment to win elections, then use the presidency to advance the interests of themselves and their allies.

A typical Harvard Law School student has limited free time. It might be filled with journal work, or student practice organizations, or intramural sports. For a year, Crispin Smith ’18, Nick Gersh ’18, and Ahsan Sayed ’18 spent their free moments exploring the successes and challenges facing religious and ethnic minorities in Iraqi Kurdistan on behalf of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

In an interview with the Harvard Gazette, cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier, a fellow with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, talked about government and corporate surveillance, and about what concerned users can do to protect their privacy.

Harvard Law School Professor and former Dean Martha Minow delivered a keynote address at Newport's Touro Synagogue. The Aug. 20 event commemorated the 70th public rereading of George Washington's letter to the Jewish community promising that the country would give “bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance."

In June, the Harvard Law School’s Veterans Legal Clinic filed a class action lawsuit in Massachusetts Superior Court on behalf of Army combat veteran Jeffrey Machado and an estimated 4,000 veterans from Massachusetts who have served abroad since 9/11, but deemed ineligible to receive the state’s $1000 Welcome Home Bonus for honorably discharged servicemembers.

Legal scholars from across the globe gathered at HLS in July for a two-day conference on law and development, the latest iteration of a series of conferences held periodically by a loose consortium of schools including Harvard Law School, the University of Geneva, Renmin University of China, and the University of Sydney, Australia.

In a victory for Harvard Law School’s Crimmigration Clinic, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that state authorities cannot detain someone for a U.S. immigration violation based solely on a Detainer.

Over the course of her career, as Bonnie Docherty ’01 has emerged as an international expert on civilian protection in armed conflict, she has also mentored scores of clinical students, from field researchers in conflict zones to advocates inside the halls of the U.N. in Geneva.

A sharp increase in web encryption and a worldwide shift away from standalone websites in favor of social media and online publishing platforms has altered the practice of state-level internet censorship and in some cases led to broader crackdowns, a new study by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University finds.

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program has released a far-reaching report, “Fulfilling U.S. Commitment to Refugee Resettlement,” that offers critical recommendations for resettling refugees, and recommendations for Congress and the Executive Branch on enhancing security, job creation, and equal treatment for all.

Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge in Massachusetts who is now a senior lecturer at Harvard Law School, spoke with the Gazette about the legal issues swirling around President Donald Trump and FBI Director James Comey's testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Each May since 2011, Harvard Law School has presented "HLS Thinks Big," a TED Talks-style event that invites faculty members to present a "big idea" in front of an audience of faculty, students and staff.

Sabrineh Ardalan ’02, assistant director of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program and a lecturer in the fields of immigration and refugee law and advocacy and trauma, refugees, and the law has been appointed assistant clinical professor at Harvard Law School.

In March, the Harvard Federalist Society, an organization of conservatives and libertarians espousing individual freedom, limited government, and judicial restraint, held its first alumni symposium on campus.

Several members of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Commission on Countering Violent Extremism gathered at HLS in March to discuss findings from the commission's November 2016 report, which outlines a strategy for the United States to diminish the appeal of extremist ideologies and narratives.

Former U.S. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus ’75 returned to the Harvard Law School campus on Feb. 8 for a question-and-answer session moderated by HLS Professor William Alford ’77, vice dean for the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies.

Congressman Adam Schiff ’85 (D-Calif.) is in the middle of one of the year’s biggest news stories – the investigation of Russia’s role in the last U.S. Presidential election. He brought some perspective on that story to Harvard on Tuesday, when he spoke at this week’s Journal on Legislation symposium.

When Sen. Ben Cardin (D.-MD.) spoke on foreign affairs at Harvard Law School this week, he began by identifying the greatest threat to global security in the world today: Russia, and, by extension, President Donald Trump’s cozy relationship with that country.

The Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (HLS PILAC) has released a new report titled "Indefinite War: Unsettled International Law on the End of Armed Conflict."

For the first time, Harvard Law School and the MIT Media Lab have collaborated to host an innovative January-term course, “Internet & Society: The Technologies and Politics of Control,” dedicated to understanding the legal and technical dynamics of the digital world.