National Security Law | Columbia Law School

Faculty

From international criminal law to bioethics and national defense, the Columbia Law School faculty’s experience encompasses both doctrinal and practical expertise in national security issues. Browse publications, videos, and news items featuring our faculty.

Philip Bobbitt is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  He has served as Associate Counsel to the President, the Counselor on International Law at the State Department, Legal Counsel to the Senate Iran-Contra Committee, and Senior Director at the National Security Council.  He has published seven books, most recently the New York Times-reviewed Terror and Consent.

Sarah Cleveland served as the Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State from 2009 to 2011. She serves as Faculty Co-Director of the Human Rights Institute, and is co-founder of the Working Group on Detention Without Trial.

Michael Doyle has served as assistant secretary-general and special adviser to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He has received the Charles Merriam Award of the American Political Science Association and was appointed alternate chair and member of the board of UNDEF (the U.N. Democracy Fund) for 2006—2010.  His most recent publication is the book Striking First. 

Harold Edgar’s experience bridges law and medicine and international law. He has served as the reporter for the UNESCO International Committee on Bioethics, which drafted the International Declaration on Human Rights and the Human Genome, subsequently adopted by UNESCO and approved by the United Nations.

George Fletcher has authored more than ten books in the area of torts and criminal law, particularly the area of international criminal law, including Defending Humanity: When Force is Justified and Why and Romantics at War: Glory and Guilt in the Age of Terrorism. In 2006, he wrote a brief in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, adopted by Justice Stevens and the four-vote plurality. 

Peter Rosenblum has served as a Human Rights Officer for the United Nations Human Rights Center, a member of the International Advisory Council, and as the United Nations Secretary General’s Resource Group on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has engaged in human rights research and field missions in Africa, Eastern Europe, and Asia. 

Matthew Waxman served in senior positions at the U.S. State Department, Department of Defense and National Security Council before joining the Columbia Law faculty. He was a Fulbright Scholar to the United Kingdom, where he studied international relations. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he also serves as Adjunct Senior Fellow for Law & Foreign Policy.