National and International Security

This year, Summer Public Interest Funding enabled HLS students to explore public service in 27 states and 35 countries around the world. More than $1.8 million Summer Public Interest Funding was awarded to 373 students this summer. Here’s a look at what four students did with their summer funding.

Michael B. Chertoff ’78, who will be stepping down as secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security next January when a new Presidential administration takes office, took time following a panel presentation in October to answer questions about his experiences on the job and his plans for the future.

Is the war on terror succeeding? That was the question for an all-star panel of experts at Harvard Law School on Oct. 24. (View webcast)

The following op-ed, "Indictments are not the best revenge," written by Professor Alan Dershowitz was published in the September 12, 2008, edition of the Wall Street Journal.

At a Dean’s Forum moderated by HLS Dean Elena Kagan ’86, Seth Waxman was joined by Professor Jack Goldsmith for a wide-ranging discussion of Boumediene v. Bush and the three earlier cases in which the Court has addressed post-9/11 constitutional and statutory questions.

Experts on terrorism were on hand for a panel discussion titled “Dealing with Terrorism: What Congress and the President Should Do.” The panelists discussed what changes they think should be adopted to better deal with the legal issues that have become controversial in dealing with the war on terror, including interrogation techniques, detention facilities, surveillance, and torture.

There’s a saying: Do what you love, and the money will follow. For Adam Szubin ’99, it’s a little different: With some early help from a Heyman Fellowship, he’s been able to do what he loves—and follow the money.

Assistant Professor Gabriella Blum LL.M. ’01 S.J.D. ’03, an international law scholar, is a native of Israel, where, as a young officer in the Israel Defense Forces International Law Department, she was involved in Israeli-Arab peace negotiations.

The following article, Buildup to the next war, written by Harvard Law School Professor Noah Feldman, was published in the New York Times Magazine on August 8, 2008.

Iraq war veteran Erik Swabb ’09 recently returned to Iraq and was embedded with a U.S. combat unit, hoping to gain an informed assessment…

Last week, five current Harvard Law School students who have served or are currently serving in the U.S. armed forces spoke to a packed audience about their experiences in Iraq. Panelists Robert Merrill '08, Geoff Orazem '09, Erik Swabb '09, Hagan Scotten '10, and Kurt White '10 each drew upon their varied military posts during the invasion, the Second Battle of Fallujah, and counterinsurgency operations, to explain what it is like to serve as a junior officer in Iraq.

In his new book, “Is There a Right to Remain Silent? Coercive Interrogation and the Fifth Amendment After 9/11,” (Oxford University Press 2008), Professor Alan Dershowitz examines the status of the Fifth Amendment privilege in a post 9/11 “preventive” state.

The following article, Vanishing Act , written by Harvard Law School Professor Noah Feldman, was published in the New York Times Magazine on January 13, 2007.

How should societies deal with the aftermath of cataclysmic war and mass atrocities? It’s a question documentary filmmaker Rebecca Richman Cohen ’07 has asked former Nuremberg prosecutors.

Perched on the 21st floor of an office building next to the Statehouse on Boston’s Beacon Hill, Juliette Kayyem ’95 has a spectacular view of the city’s waterfront. But when you’re the person in charge of Massachusetts’ homeland security, that view prompts vigilance more than anything else.

International law professor David Kennedy was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam era, but during his early years teaching at Harvard Law School he realized it was time to rethink his position on the valid use of military force.

The news from Baghdad this month tends to make me share Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.’s famous preference for “not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.”

Sabin Willett leads a double life as a lawyer. Most days, he works on bankruptcy litigation in the Boston office of Bingham McCutchen. He likes the work. Really, he says, sitting in a conference room with a sweeping view of Boston harbor.

Can a veteran prosecutor whip the Department of Homeland Security into shape? Michael Chertoff '78 has already started.

Nick Brown '02 gained fame as a contestant on the reality show "Survivor." Today his reality is the Green Zone in Baghdad, where he carries a laptop and a rifle as a U.S. Army JAG officer.

Christopher Cox '76 ('77) and Jane Harman '69 sit on different sides of the aisle, but the urgent threat of terrorism unites them.

In a nondescript building in suburban Virginia, two subway stops from the Pentagon, a team of a half dozen or so defense lawyers works on what is perhaps the toughest--and most controversial--legal assignment in America.

Last spring, an Oregon attorney named Brandon Mayfield was arrested by the FBI and jailed for two weeks. He was suspected of being linked to the Madrid train bombings, thanks to the FBI's mistaken match of a fingerprint to a print found on a bag of detonators near the scene.

In his recent book, "The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage," Frederick P. Hitz '64 gives credence to the saying that truth can be stranger than fiction.

It was December 2002 when House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt called Jamie Gorelick '75 to offer her the last Democratic slot on the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

Professor Philip Heymann '60 and his colleague from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government Juliette Kayyem '95 say Congress should provide much-needed legislation to deal with a number of issues that have emerged in the last three years in the fight against terrorism.

Ever since Professor Philip Heymann '60 began teaching a class on terrorism in the winter of 1988, it's drawn a crowd.

A Harvard Law School professor says a unilateral war on terror will not succeed. His solution: contain and isolate extremists by repairing frayed alliances and finding common ground with mainstream Islam.

Four HLS professors consider whether the old rules apply when the enemies don't wear uniforms and are willing to die with their victims.

Attorney Terry Lenzner '64 has made investigation his business.

In April, during one of the most violent periods of fighting in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, Assistant Professor Ryan Goodman's Public International Law class struggled to determine when the use of force is legal and what to do when force may be illegal yet legitimate.

HLS Library digitizes more than 1 million pages of Nuremberg Trial documents

Harvard Law School Professor Phil Heymann's new book, Terrorism, Freedom, and Security: Winning Without War, examines the United States' response to the September 11 attacks and concludes that the "War on Terrorism" is the wrong approach to combating global terrorism. Instead, Heymann argues, the U.S. needs to put more focus on diplomacy, intelligence and international law. In this video Q&A, Heymann discusses the administration's response to September 11 and the dangers of the current U.S. strategy.

War has a way of finding Jim Haynes '83. Just six months after President George Bush appointed him general counsel of the Army in 1990, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, sparking the Persian Gulf War.

In 30 years of practicing law, corporate bankruptcy attorney David Erne '68 had been in many negotiations--but none like this one.

Radio talk show host Juan Manuel García-Passalacqua '62 is urging his listeners--again--to go out and demonstrate. This time it's to stop the U.S. Navy from testing weapons on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques.

Congresswoman Jane Harman '69 had long been fearful that America would become a target for terrorists.

"We ordinarily don't try to respond to the news of the hour," said Frank Vogel, director of the HLS Islamic Legal Studies Program. But for Vogel, like for so many other people, everything changed on September 11.

The attack on Pearl Harbor impelled many Harvard Law School students to join the fight of their generation. Those who came back were changed men who had changed the world.

Most law school papers don't get glowing reviews from the New York Times Book Review. But most law school papers aren't like Mohsin Hamid's.