This course considers the constitutional, statutory, and other legal limitations on what government agencies can do and how they can do it. What constraints govern the power of agencies to make law, decide cases involving private parties, and investigate citizens? How much "due process" must government agencies give citizens whose lives they affect; what limits has Congress imposed on the procedures for agency decision making; and to what extent can people call on courts to check what they regard as abuses of governmental power? These are among the questions addressed in the course, which draws together problems ranging from the legitimacy of New Deal institutions to the dramatic procedural innovations of recent federal administrations and problems created by renewed Congressional interest in the details of agency decision making.

Virtually all areas of law today involve a substantial element of administrative law.  This course introduces you to the role of administrative agencies and how law and political factors shape their powers and work.  This includes materials on how they are empowered and constrained by the Constitution, Congress, presidents, and the courts.  We also study ways in which agencies generate law and develop policies.  This class coverage includes, among other topics, materials on citizens’ abilities to petition, shape, and litigate over agency actions; changing views of presidents’ roles and powers over agencies; and statutory factors and doctrine shaping judicial review of agency law interpretation, reasoning, responsiveness, policy shifts, and engagement with science and facts.   

Foreign Intelligence (FI) law as a field is marked by a complex statutory and regulatory framing. Increasingly, it is coming into play in ordinary Article III courts in the United States, as well as in European courts overseas. Simultaneously, new and emerging technologies present fundamental challenges to the traditional FI collection paradigms. This course, accordingly, provides students already broadly familiar with the contours of the national security infrastructure and foreign intelligence collection with the opportunity to do a deep dive with a particular eye towards ways in which technology alters threat vectors and presents new opportunities, and risks, to the foreign intelligence regime.

It begins with the constitutional framing and historical background undergirding the introduction of statutory and regulatory measures. The course then dissects the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and its expansion in 1994 to incorporate physical search and again in 1998 to include the use of pen register and trap and trace devices, as well as certain business records. The attacks of 9/11 led to additional changes, with further alterations implemented by the 2008 FISA Amendments Act. Discussion centers on targeting, querying, and minimization procedures adopted by the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and National Counterterrorism Center, as well as reports detailing use of FISA.

The course next turns to new technologies that have fundamentally shifted the type of information available to the intelligence community (IC). Special emphasis is given to technologies of import for metadata: social network analytics and algorithmic sciences. It looks at how these technologies mesh with the legal analysis, with particular attention paid to FISA sections 215 and 702.

The course then addresses Executive Order 12333, delving into the associated DoD Directives, Instructions, Manuals, and Annexes; Attorney General Guidelines; CIA Regulations and Directives; and parallel regulatory and policy documents throughout the IC. With the advent of the Internet of Things, next generation social media, 6G networks, artificial intelligence and machine learning, the landscape is about to again shift. Accordingly, the course will further address new and emerging technologies, looking at how they fit – or fail to fit – current law.

The course ends with a unit focused on doctrinal developments (specialized Article III courts, geographic Article III courts, and European tribunals), as well as Article II deliberations introduced via Executive Order in autumn 2022.

This course will examine how sovereign States apply the law of sea, other international and domestic laws, and oceans policy to issues affecting national security. Foundational provisions of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, to include baselines, maritime zones, transit regimes, flag and port State control of activities aboard ships, marine environmental protection and access to seaborne resources, and military uses of the sea, will be explored through case studies and hypotheticals. Students will examine how the substance, structure, and practice of the developing law of the sea intersects with other international legal principles and regimes, such as territorial sovereignty and the law of armed conflict, and with domestic and international laws and policies concerning space, cyberspace, electronic warfare, and intelligence collection and sharing. Students will assess the various mechanisms States have implemented to avoid dangerous incidents at sea, seek peaceful resolutions to maritime disputes, and combat illegal seaborne activities. From Great Power Competition to Pacific Island Nation food security, from countering nuclear proliferation to humanitarian assistance/disaster relief, students will explore how the law of the sea is both shaped by and shapes States’ responses to national security challenges.

Learning Objectives:

Students will:

• Exhibit an understanding of the history, foundational provisions, and differing interpretations of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
• Gain an understanding of how law of the sea and oceans policy interrelates with current national security issues.
• Develop the skill to apply the law of the sea, other international and domestic laws, and oceans policy to national security challenges and effectively communicate opinions and analysis to senior national security leaders.

This seminar is intended to provide students with an interest in international humanitarian law (IHL) with an opportunity to undertake indepth research, and write a substantial paper, on key issues in IHL. Potential topics include thresholds for the application of IHL, the interface of IHL with human rights law and domestic law, the protection of civilians and non-combatants from the effects of conflict, the application of IHL protections to unprivileged belligerents, the standards for detention under IHL, including both permissible duration and treatment, emerging trends regulating the use of lethal force as a first resort under IHL, arms control and IHL (landmines, cluster munitions, autonomous weapons), the application of IHL to cyber “warfare”, U.S. interpretation of customary and treaty IHL, the efficacy of IHL in current conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and other topics. Building upon a foundation of assigned readings on core IHL topics, the professors and students will tailor classroom work to coincide with the students’ research projects. Students will be expected to participate actively in class and to share their own research during the semester with other students.

Students will receive individualized feedback from the professors on outlines and drafts of their paper, as well as an opportunity to present their paper to the professors and other students in class to help identify issues and sharpen their analysis.

Learning objectives:

Through a structured process, to develop a scholarly paper on international humanitarian law, we aim to give the student, working closely with the professor, an opportunity to explore his or her topic in depth and to write a paper worthy of publication in a law journal.

This two-credit course provides students with an appreciation of the legal, ethical, and technical issues raised by the proliferation of artificial intelligence in the field of national security. The focus of the course is to enable students as lawyers, leaders, and policymakers to grapple with these issues by giving them an understanding of how artificial intelligence operates; its potential and likely use in different national security settings; and how each use raises distinctive legal and ethical questions involving predictability, trustworthiness, responsibility, and accountability. The course will use examples and case studies to illustrate these issues, as well as videos to depict some of the technical aspects of artificial intelligence.

The specific learning objectives for the course are for students to understand the following:

(1) How artificial intelligence operates, including the concept of an algorithm, how it is trained on data, the statistical models that underlie this training and the basis for its outputs, machine learning, deep learning and neural networks, and the ways in which human choices and interactions shape this process. No technical background in statistics or computer science is necessary, since the goal is to explain these concepts in accessible terms.

(2)  Artificial intelligence as a system involving human-machine teaming, the roles that each member of the team potentially plays at different points in the process, and the concept of trustworthy artificial intelligence.

(3) The role that artificial intelligence is playing in the national security field, its capabilities and potential applications to specific areas, and the extent to which global competition to employ and refine artificial intelligence is itself a national security issue.

(4) Limitations and risks of artificial intelligence, and possible ways to address them.

Assessment will be based on paper of 3,000 words (about 12 doubled-spaced pages) discussing a legal, ethical, or technological issue relevant to the course.

The course, taught by practitioners in the field, covers contemporary and cutting-edge aviation topics such as international commercial aviation, aviation security, and the integration of advanced aviation (i.e., drones and advanced air mobility aircraft) into the national airspace. The course material will encompass most aspects of aviation law, including the law of international civil aviation, the economic and safety regulation of air transportation, aircraft registration and certification, aircraft accidents, airport law, government immunity from tort liability, and airline liability for the carriage of passengers and cargo domestically and internationally under the Montreal Convention. Students are exposed to a range of materials, including cases, treaties, executive agreements, and regulations, with a view towards imparting practical skills that can be applied to any field of law.

The current fierce conflict between Israel and Hamas highlights an important feature of the modern world: the vast majority of hostilities since World War II have been between states and nonstate armed groups. These include insurgencies against states such as such as Northern Ireland, Colombia, Israel, Turkey, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Yemen, and many others. They also involve conflicts between states and transnational terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and Hezbollah.

These hostilities call into question the assumptions that are the foundations of the post-World War II international regulation of force designed to provide greater protection for human rights, especially the right to life. The legal system governing state use of military force is based on the assumption that the greatest threat to life is armed conflicts between states, known as international armed conflicts. This legal regime, known as International Humanitarian Law (IHL), therefore sets forth detailed rules regarding protection of the right to life during armed conflict between states, with only minimal reference to hostilities between states and nonstate armed groups. The assumption is that state use of force to protect life from violence by private actors will involve police operations against criminal behavior, which is governed by International Human Rights Law (IHRL).

This gives rise to a clear division of regulation: IHRL governs state response to nonstate criminal threats to life during peacetime, while IHL governs state response to threats to life posed by other states during war.  Each legal regime protects threats to life that may arise both from others and from the state. Each does this in a distinctive way by imposing significantly different limits on state use of lethal force. 

The assumptions of the post-war system for regulating state use of force, however, do not easily apply to most conflicts since World War II.  This gives rise to several difficult questions.

First, at what point may a state conclude that it needs to resort to military force against nonstate groups because police operations governed by IHRL are ineffective? In other words, when do hostilities evolve from crime or social disturbances to what is known as a non-international armed conflict (NIAC) that requires the conduct of military operations governed by IHL?

Second, IHL provides detailed guidance on state use of military force against other states, but says very little about state use of force during a NIAC.  Where should states turn for guidance in the absence of explicit regulation? Should they apply provisions of IHL by analogy? Should they rely on IHRL because the threat comes from private groups?  Or are conflicts with nonstate armed groups sufficiently distinctive that other rules should apply? If so, what is the source of such rules?  Should it matter whether a NIAC is solely internal or whether it crosses state boundaries?

Third, it is now widely accepted that regulation of states by IHRL to protect human rights does not cease during armed conflict, but that IHRL and IHL are both applicable during wartime. How must a state reconcile these two divergent legal regimes when using force in an armed conflict?  Is it realistic to harmonize such dramatically different sets of rules?  Or can each body of law make its own distinctive contribution to protecting the right to life during wartime in ways that complement one another?

These are questions at the cutting edge of international law regarding the use of force. The course will draw on case studies from several hostilities, including US counterterrorism activities against transnational terrorist organizations; the conflict between Israel and Palestinian non-state groups; the 30-year hostilities between the United Kingdom and the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland; the 50-year conflict between Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC); and the ongoing violence involving Mexico and the drug cartels.

In sum, the predominance of hostilities between states and nonstate groups in the modern world requires complex sophisticated judgments by decision-makers and lawyers about how to use force. States must protect life from violence by others, but must do so in ways that minimize state infringement on life. This course will give students an appreciation of this challenge and explore how best to meet it in order to protect the right to life from violence both by non-state armed groups and by the state itself.  New events that illustrate the issues in the course undoubtedly will arise during the semester, and discussion of these will be incorporated into the course.

Learning Objectives:

Learning objectives for the course are for students to become familiar with:

(1) basic concepts in international human rights law, United Nations and European Conventions on basic human rights, and their impacts on domestic law;

(2) basic provisions of international law that deal with when states may use military force, and international law governing how such force may be used in armed conflict; and

(3) based on your understanding of the subjects described above, for students to appreciate how many contemporary conflicts with non-state groups present challenges that do not fall squarely within either international human rights law or the international law governing military force.  This means that students must be able to think creatively about how best to protect human life in the setting of complex modern conflicts.

This course is intended to introduce mid-career LLM attorneys to the substance, process, and practice of national security law at the national level. Thus, it mimics the structure of the longer three-credit “Managing National Security” course in structure, but defers in two important ways. First, it focuses on legal policy at the national level, e.g., instead of considering the law of armed conflict at a tactical level and strategic level, the focus is on how Presidents make use of force decisions. Second, it assumes mid-career knowledge of the law. Thus, there is less survey of the material and substantive law and more discussion of contemporary issues and challenges, geared toward preparing mid-career lawyers to meet the substantive and ethical challenges of senior billets. In this way, the classroom will almost be "flipped."

Requirements: The grade will be based on class participation (50%) and a 10-20 page paper (50%) addressing a procedural or legal issue of national security importance. In addition, students will be required to meet at least once with the professor to discuss their career path and goals.

Over the past forty years, China has gone from one of the most isolated countries in the world to a major player in international affairs, a leading exporter, and a much more influential voice on regional security matters. Yet even with the rapid economic growth and increased influence that China has achieved over the past several decades, it maintains an ambivalent attitude towards many key aspects of international law and the architecture of global order. This class will explore China’s ambivalent engagement with international law in the context of its increasing prominence as an emerging power, and will in particular look to address the question of how China might adapt to the existing world order, and the ways in which it might look to influence its evolution. The class will cover a range of issues, including China’s membership in the WTO; its engagement with the international human rights regime; China’s approach to international cooperation on issues like global warming and nuclear non-proliferation; and international law aspects of the dispute over the South China Sea; among others.

Learning Objectives:

This class will provide you with a solid understanding of China’s approach to key international law issues, and also a sense of the Chinese government’s views on international law and international legal institutions more generally. By the end of the semester, you should have a sense of how China fits into the existing global legal order, and the ways in which it is seeking to influence or even alter it. In-class discussions will also bring out the ways in which other states have sought to influence Chinese behavior, which will give you a sense of how and when relatively powerful states like China can be convinced to alter their approach to key international law issues.

For students who have not previously taken a class on public international law, this course will serve as a basic introduction to key concepts of international law (although the readings will focus very heavily on the Chinese approach, rather than the underlying law itself); for those who have taken prior international law courses, this course will serve as a useful refresher.

A core goal of the class is to understand international law from the perspective of the Chinese state. In other words, students will develop a sense of why China makes the choices it does on key international law issues, and what values and political and historical dynamics drive its decision-making. In so doing, students will gain insight into a different political-legal culture, and seek to understand how different political-legal systems – including non-democratic ones like China – come to grips with legal questions in ways that may differ markedly from the approach of the U.S. government. At the same time, having taken steps to articulate China’s perspective, students may be able to see more clearly the values and political and historical factors that drive American decisions on key international law issues.

Finally, a core goal of the response papers – above and beyond demonstrating an understanding of the substance of the readings – will be to give students the chance to build their skills at analyzing legal arguments, and in building their own written arguments in response to them. As noted below, response papers will be graded both on the basis of demonstrated mastery of the material, and also on the basis of the successful construction of a persuasive and fact-based argument.

This course will provide an overview of U.S. domestic legal regimes that govern commercial spaceflight activities, including those managed by the Federal Aviation Administration, Federal Communications Commission, Department of Commerce, U.S. Defense Department and State Department. The course will examine existing regulations and statutes as well as current discussions about changes to policy and law to address the evolving nature of the space industry and U.S. national space priorities. Examples include the Space Force, space traffic management, and oversight of non-traditional commercial activities in light of international treaty obligations. 

This course will examine the historical, current, and prospective legal and regulatory treatment of communications services, devices, service providers, and platforms. Focusing on current regulatory and policy developments, we will cover issues concerning telephone companies, wireless carriers, Internet application and service providers, device manufacturers, and broadband network operators. The emphasis of the course will be on the rules, policies, and processes of the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”), but we also will discuss the roles of Congress, courts, and the Executive Branch. Once armed with a firm background in existing statutory and regulatory requirements, students will explore current legal and policy questions regarding communications law. In particular, our focus this semester will be on the structure and functions of the FCC, mobile broadband networks; recent debates surrounding the regulation of broadband networks and online platforms; and some special “hot topics.”

This course will survey the historical, current, and prospective legal and regulatory treatment of communications services, devices, service providers, and platforms. We will examine legal and regulatory issues regarding telecommunications services, mobile communications, broadcasting, cable, and broadband networks. The emphasis will be on the rules, policies, and processes of the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”), but we will also discuss the roles of Congress, courts, the Executive branch, states, and localities.  Armed with a firm background in statutory and regulatory models, students will explore current and future legal and policy questions regarding communications law, considering the challenges technological convergence and innovation pose for existing regulatory frameworks in areas such as competition, spectrum policy, broadband subsidy, and net neutrality.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the regulatory framework for the communications sector, including the statutory framework for the FCC’s regulatory authority.
• Understand the roles, as well as the institutional competence and limitations, of the other key players in communications law and policy – Congress, the Executive branch, courts, states, and localities.
• Deepen students’ understanding of major communications policy topics, so that they can identify key concepts and attendant arguments in play.
• Analyze communications issues in an interdisciplinary manner, recognizing the intersection of economics, technology, policy, and law. 
• Practice skills useful to participating in the regulatory advocacy process by drafting a short, mock ex parte letter to the FCC on a designated issue.  Skills practiced will include, among others, making legal arguments, discussing policy rationales, and appealing to policymakers’ agendas.

This course will explore the legal issues that judges, legislators, prosecutors, and defense attorneys confront as they respond to the recent dramatic increase in computer-related crime. In particular, we will consider how crimes online challenge traditional approaches to the investigation, prosecution, and defense of crime that have evolved from our experience with crimes in physical space. Topics will include: the Fourth Amendment online, the law of electronic surveillance, computer hacking and other computer crimes, the First Amendment and the Internet, and special issues in transnational and national security investigations.

This seminar deals with Congress’ powers to conduct oversight and investigations of the Executive branch. This seminar will cover the scope of Congressional inquiries and investigations, Congress’ subpoena powers, grant of immunity powers as well as hearing and rulemaking powers, the use of select committees, the GAO, and other special investigative techniques. The course will examine the use of prehearing depositions, rights of witnesses, preparation of witnesses, the role of the press and the interaction between Congress and prosecutorial functions including investigations conducted by special and independent counsel statute. In addition to the traditional use of lectures, class discussions and outside speakers, the course will be built around mastering the subject matter and surfacing ethical issues by working on complex problems. Students will be expected to work in small groups on contemporary issues to simulate the work of Committee members, Committee Staff, White House Counsel Staff and members of the news media.

This seminar explores the range of issues involved in congressional investigations, with special attention paid to the differing perspectives of the major players, both inside and outside of Congress, in a congressional investigation. Congressional investigations involve a unique interplay of legal and political issues. Legal issues -- involving such matters as the rights of private institutions and private citizens who may be implicated in a congressional investigation, the legal and political ability of the Executive Branch to resist congressional probes, the authority of the Judicial Branch to interfere with or limit the conduct of congressional investigations, and the relationship of congressional investigations to related criminal and civil inquiries conducted by other governmental entities -- must be factored into the political calculus of the contending political forces involved in a congressional investigation. Political determinations -- which underpin such issues as the scope and duration of an investigation or whether witnesses should be interviewed, deposed or called to testify live at a hearing -- may have significant legal ramifications. This seminar will address these issues at both the practical and the theoretical levels. As part of the course, class members will be asked to participate in mock problems concerning different aspects of the process.

“Quite important as lawmaking is vigilant oversight of administration.”

“The informing function of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function.”

The above quotes capture the central theme for this seminar, which explores Congress’ oversight of the Executive Branch. Oversight and investigation are one of Congress’ primary means of asserting its role in the Constitutional scheme of separated powers. Historically, this assertion creates tensions that forces interplay among the three coordinate branches of government: legislative, executive, and judicial. This course will examine these issues as well as review the tools Congress uses to execute its powers. This includes the full range of Congress’ compulsory powers through the issuance of subpoenas, grants of immunity, contempt rulings, and enforcement actions in civil and criminal court. Students will use major investigations as case studies to demonstrate these processes. Students will be asked to assume roles as various actors in the process, which includes members of Congress and their staffs; officials in the executive branch, and the judiciary.

¹Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government, (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1885), 303

Learning Objectives:

1. Students will understand the interplay among the three coordinate branches as a result of our constitutional structure, and how these structural relationships impact law and policy-making.
2. Students will understand the tools at Congress’s disposal to effect legislative oversight and congressional investigations. To borrow a phrase from one of our texts, “you will learn how the worlds of lawmaking, law-implementing, law-interpreting, and law-enforcing connect.”

This seminar deals with the distribution of powers between the president and Congress in the areas of war, diplomacy, international organizations, foreign assistance, commerce, money, etc. as well as the distribution of powers between the national and state governments. Such related matters as the impact on individual rights and the political question doctrine in this context are also discussed.

Corporate National Security Law explores important legal issues arising out of the U.S. government’s reliance on the private sector for its national security, and the increasing convergence and conflict between national security, technology, and the private sector. The course will focus on: (1) privatization and insourcing/outsourcing issues for the U.S. government in the national security arena; (2) government contracts issues in the national security sphere; (3) export controls; (4) classified information and secrecy issues; and (5) emerging issues at the intersection of national security, technology, and the private sector. 

“Criminal law across borders” studies two bodies of law. One is domestic (national) criminal law applied to crimes committed outside national territory. The other is crimes under international law: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression. These are the “core crimes” tried by courts like the Nuremberg Tribunal, the tribunals for Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and former Yugoslavia, and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Along with the substantive law on these issues, we examine procedural law on topics such as jurisdiction and immunity from prosecution. As a 1L course, it will introduce basic doctrines of criminal law and international law. The course will also examine the problems confronting international criminal justice today, including the political backlash against holding leaders accountable for core crimes. The aim is to introduce students to basic doctrines of international criminal law, as well as doctrines concerning the extraterritorial application of U.S. criminal law. The course combines law, policy, and history.

Please note that we will read about and discuss some difficult issues in this course, including genocide, torture, sexual violence, and legal issues in current ongoing armed conflicts, including the Russia-Ukraine war and Israel’s conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah.

This seminar explores white-collar criminal practice in the transnational context.  “Transnational” cases generally involve the potential application of one or more country’s laws to alleged criminal activity that crosses borders. We begin by introducing students to the general differences in the legal structures, concepts of criminal law, and varied standards for corporate and individual liability, that apply in civil and common law systems. We will study the substantive U.S. law that is implicated in many transnational prosecutions and learn when U.S. law applies extraterritorially. The substantive provisions we study may include proscriptions on corruption, fraud, money laundering, tax evasion, data breaches/hacking, or violations of economic sanctions. We will explore the tools available for obtaining evidence abroad, as well as some of the national laws and regulations that impact transnational investigations. Some of the challenges we will explore are regulations regarding data privacy, employment laws, national security/state secret laws, and blocking or economic protection statutes. At the conclusion of the class, we will consider a number of case studies that illustrate issues companies face in attempting to forge a global resolution among regulators and prosecutors from different countries. These include managing competition between sovereigns, joint and parallel national investigations, and the division of penalties.

Learning Outcomes

This course, as its title suggests, is designed to expose students to important issues they will face in the transnational practice of law. One of our goals, then, is very practical: to give students information they will need to be successful practitioners in this area.

Another goal is to challenge students to take a step back and think about larger questions:  When criminal conduct crosses borders, which sovereign should prosecute?  Should U.S. criminal law extend as far as it does? Is it fair or efficient to permit multiple countries to address such conduct criminally?  Should expedited evidence-gathering tools be available to both the defense and prosecution?  What liability rules would best serve the purposes of punishment?

Like all writing seminars, the class also seeks to enhance students’ ability to conduct legal research, capacity to engage in critical thinking, and prowess in communicating effectively, in writing and in class.

This seminar will examine legal and policy issues related to cybersecurity -- that is, hacking and other intrusions on global computer and communications networks. The primary focus will be the national security implications of cybersecurity and the current challenges that senior lawyers, policymakers, and the private sector face in addressing those issues.  The course will look at international and U.S. domestic law and will examine cyber issues both from the perspective of (1) the U.S. government entities that seek to use cyber tools to further military and other national security aims, and (2) the many government and private sector actors who must defend against the use of these tools use by others.  The goal of the course is to introduce students to the complex legal and policy issues that senior national security decision-makers must address and to provide insight into the practical challenges they present.  The focus of the class is law and policy, not technology.  You do not need a technical background to take the course.

The cyber threat landscape is constantly changing: threat actor tactics and technological advances, including the proliferation of AI solutions, are rapidly evolving as the legal field tries to keep pace. While cyber defense and national security considerations are often thought of as governmental responsibilities, the private sector has a critical role to play in addressing cybersecurity threats. The management and mitigation of, and defense against, cybersecurity risks is multifaceted, and the public and private sectors are closely intertwined in this effort. 

This advanced, discussion-based seminar will focus on the intersection of the private and public sectors in the cybersecurity field with a particular focus on legal considerations and challenges the private sector faces in the industry. We will cover a range of topics, including: intelligence and information sharing; cybersecurity threats, updates, and trends; private sector cybersecurity laws and regulations; cybersecurity investigations and threat actor disruptions and prosecutions; and challenges and tensions between the public and private sectors in these contexts. At the end of the seminar, students will participate in a live “tabletop” cyber-attack simulation with the goal of developing practical skills in the practice of cybersecurity law. 

This class will focus on the laws, standards and liabilities that govern cybersecurity. The course will examine cyber threats and risks such as ransomware/extortion, destructive malware, critical infrastructure attacks, personal data breaches, email account take-overs, exfiltration of proprietary data and intellectual property, exploitation of software and internet hardware vulnerabilities, insider threats, malicious and defensive use of artificial intelligence, and state-sponsored cyberattacks. 

Students will examine the roles of various government agencies such as the White House, FBI, DOJ, NSA, HHS, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Commerce Department, Treasury Department, the intelligence community, financial regulators, and their respective international counterparts, etc. 

The roles of boards of directors and corporate governance will also be explored. Readings will include a broad range of cybersecurity laws and regulations, executive orders, judicial decisions, enforcement actions and settlements, government and expert reports, agency guidance, corporate filings, and news articles. Current cyber developments will be discussed regularly, and students will be expected to participate actively. 

This seminar will serve as an advanced LL.M. and J.D. seminar covering topics in cybersecurity, data privacy, and surveillance law and policy, with a focus on national security, military, and international current and emerging issues. The seminar will also include a significant intelligence law and policy component as it relates to current U.S. legal and policy debates surrounding nation state cyberspace activities and government access, collection, and use of commercial and public data. Throughout the course, students will examine foundational U.S. law and policy in these related legal fields, as well as evolving digital technologies, the digital threat landscape, domestic cybersecurity issues, government interagency roles in safeguarding our digital world, and congressional oversight of government activities in cyberspace.

 This seminar is designed to provide an overview of the threat posed by domestic violent extremism (DVE) and the complex legal and policy issues raised by efforts to counter the threat.  Although not a new threat, in recent years domestic violent extremists increasingly have organized themselves into paramilitary units, committed racially and politically motivated violence, intimidated people seeking to exercise their constitutional rights, and threatened government officials fulfilling their responsibilities.  The increased threat on one side of the political spectrum has at times prompted corresponding threats from the opposing side.

Addressing domestic violent extremism raises a host of complex questions relating to law enforcement, national security, constitutional rights, and the appropriate scope of counterterrorism operations.  This course will introduce students to these issues, enhance their ability to engage in rigorous analysis of them, and enable them to formulate practical responses consistent with the rule of law and in respect of civil rights and civil liberties.  This analysis will be informed by an understanding of the history, nature, and sources of DVE, as well as the organizational and associational structures that it may take.

The learning objectives for this course are for students to:

(1) Become familiar with the history, nature, sources, and structure of DVE in the United States and its global connections;

(2) Understand and be able to analyze the wide range of constitutional issues that policymakers and lawyers must assess in attempting to address DVE;

(3) Understand and be able to analyze the statutory and common law legal considerations that are relevant in addressing DVE;

(4) Appreciate the policy considerations that should inform analysis of DVE; and

(5) Formulate potential responses to DVE at the federal, state, and local level that appropriately weigh competing considerations based on rigorous analysis of the issues described above.

Assessment

This seminar is intended to be interactive and thought-provoking.  I expect students to have read the assigned materials before each class session and to come prepared to participate in discussion on the relevant topic.  It is likely that students will have different viewpoints on some of the topics covered, and we must all be respectful and courteous to each other, as well as to any guest speakers, during our in-class discussions.  Thirty percent of the grade will be based upon contributions to class discussions.

Seventy percent of the grade for the course will be based upon a 2,500- to 3,000-word paper analyzing a legal or policy issue related to DVE and proposing an option or options for addressing it. The paper should not be a summary of an issue or rehash the work of others, but should demonstrate thoughtful analysis and creative, legally sound proposals.

Social media is revolutionizing what we buy, who our friends are, where we work, how we game, why we vote for certain candidates, and so much more. For the first time in history, anyone with an internet connection can speak and be heard across the globe in seconds, by audiences of one to one million. Rapper Travis Scott held a metaverse concert with tens of millions of viewers, South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol generated huge campaign buzz with his charming digital avatar AI Yoon, and generative AI companies like ChatGPT and Midjourney can turn us all into Shakespeare, Taylor Swift, or Picasso (as long as they don’t try to manipulate us or take over the world). This is just the beginning—Meta is building AI that interprets brain waves, and Google has filed similar patents. Haptics allow users to physically feel feedback from digital images, integrating the experience. Such innovations will continue to transform our daily interactions, melding our digital and physical lives in ways we cannot yet fully predict. The impacts on society are profound, and yet social media is fundamentally a business. 

In most cases, a social media platform’s first loyalty is to shareholders. As social media swells, the legal frameworks lag far behind in recognizing the critical roles social media and the internet play in our lives. Courts are only now starting to tackle the thorny issues raised by social media across a variety of contexts.

This course offers an overview of social media law through the lens of its economic, policy, and national security implications. In the social media space, the realpolitik of corporate regulatory strategy collides with the pressing needs of society unlike almost anywhere else in the law. Students will leave this course able to converse about the major legal and policy issues in a practical and compelling way with anyone in the social media ecosystem—be it consumer advocates, regulators, platform leaders, entrepreneurs, financiers, engineers, or others.

This course will explore foreign direct investment in the United States from the national security perspective through an analysis of the Executive Branch inter-agency body known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).  Students will review the evolution of CFIUS from the Exon-Florio amendment, to the Committee as it exists today, including, but not limited to, the relevant authorities, policy implications, case law, and transactional risk analysis frameworks upon which CFIUS.  The course will also examine current events in the national security space to determine how those events have informed recent legislative action taken by Congress with respect to CFIUS and how those legislative changes are implemented by the committee in regulation.

This course will use a mixture of case studies and more conventional course materials to examine the role that the law and lawyers play in making U.S. foreign policy and addressing related challenges, with a particular focus on legal innovation. The course lectures will address lawyers' roles in the inter-agency policy-making process and models of legal decision-making and how they intersect with bureaucratic process. The case studies, which may include the following, will periodically feature guest speakers who were actively involved in the cases being discussed:

• The 1979 Iran Embassy hostage crisis, the negotiation of the Algiers Accord, and the establishment of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal;
• The 1988 Lockerbie bombing and its aftermath, leading up to the 2003 agreement to normalize U.S.-Libyan relations;
• The establishment of U.N. sanctions regimes following the 9/11 attacks, and the manner in which they were implemented by U.N. member states;
• The Development Fund for Iraq established by the United Nations and United States following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the manner in which it was used to help Iraq navigate its economic normalization; and,
• The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) relating to Iran's nuclear program, and the manner in which it interacted with relevant sanctions and other legislation.

This is an advanced course on constitutional principles bearing on U.S. foreign relations: primarily, separation of powers, federalism and judicial review of Executive acts and Congressional legislation. It focuses on some of the most challenging issues that have divided the American polity from the inception of the Republic and continue to do so today, e.g., the allocation of foreign affairs power between the Executive and Congress; the scope of Presidential power to protect the nation in times of danger; and the proper role of the courts in deciding legal issues relating to national security.  We will study historical materials that inform the legal arguments on both sides of current controversies over Presidential and Congressional power and discuss foreign relations issues under judicial review in 2024. We also study the power to make treaties and executive agreements, the Supremacy clause and application of customary international law by U.S. courts.

The Russian Federation’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine brings to the forefront the question of aggressive war. The 1946 Nuremberg Charter labeled aggression a “crime against peace,” and the Nuremberg Tribunal called aggressive war the supreme international crime. The UN Charter forbids the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state. In its turn, Russia has invoked its right of self-defense under the Charter.

Legal questions pale in comparison with the life-and-death issues on the ground—but the legal questions are important, and will have long-term consequences. They include questions about how to define international crimes, mechanisms of accountability (the International Criminal Court, a proposed special tribunal for aggression, domestic prosecutions), immunities, and the very nature of sovereignty.

The seminar will tackle these questions not only from a legal point of view, but also from the points of view of history, philosophy, political theory, and practical questions. We will look closely at the Nuremberg trials and the formative era of the UN. We will consider the question of whether the United States has also waged aggressive wars – in Vietnam, the Balkans, and Iraq. This will require an examination of so-called “anticipatory self-defense” (preventive war) and humanitarian military intervention as justifications for use of force.

Although the focus will be on crimes against peace, the seminar will also treat other core international crimes: genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

This course examines how the United States increasingly relies on two committees to assess risks to national security arising from foreign investment in the United States and foreign participation in U.S. telecommunications. Specifically, this course provides students the opportunity to compare and contrast the assessment processes established by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the United States Telecommunications Services Sector (Team Telecom). To establish a foundation, students will consider the history of CFIUS and Team Telecom since the millennium and examine how successive administrations and Congress have shaped foreign risk reviews, which have dramatically increased in frequency, gravity, and complexity with greater public visibility. Students will assess how CFIUS and Team Telecom reviews fit within the broader U.S. national security strategy and will consider the increasingly prevalent view that economic security is national security. Students will learn that although national security priorities vary from administration to administration, bipartisan attention has continued to focus on risks related to foreign investment in the United States, particularly regarding the development of critical technologies (e.g., microelectronics, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing among others). Throughout this course, students will be encouraged to consider how the government balances the benefits of foreign investment and participation, including promotion of economic growth, productivity, competitiveness, and job promotion, while protecting national security.

In recent years, the U.S. has developed a comprehensive policy framework that recognizes gender equality as a pillar of U.S. foreign policy and international law. This class will introduce and analyze these policies, including the U.S. National Security Strategy; Women, Peace and Security Act of 2017; U.S. Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence Globally; U.S. Strategy on Women’s Economic Security; State Department and USAID policy guidance on gender. We will examine the legal basis for women's human rights, as well as the body of evidence linking women's advancement to development, prosperity, and stability. Issues covered will include gender and economic growth, peace and security, political participation, development, gender-based violence, and international institutions and treaties. This class will feature prominent guest speakers in the field.

In 1977, the United States adopted the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”) to combat bribery of foreign public officials. As with many U.S.-led initiatives, it was seen at the time as naïve, quixotic, myopic, and doomed to failure. A little more than 20-years later, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) adopted its Convention on Combatting Bribery of Foreign Public Officials, and as required by the Convention, the countries of Western Europe promptly adopted organic statutes modeled, in large measure, on the FCPA.

In the ensuing decade and a half, prosecutions of corporations for foreign bribery have become perhaps the most important prosecutorial priority for the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and Securities & Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and certainly the most financially lucrative U.S. prosecution initiative. Transnational investigations have become a staple of these prosecutions. All 10 of the largest FCPA prosecutions have occurred since 2008; of these, eight have involved foreign corporations.

This course will cover the development of U.S., international, and foreign initiatives against public-official bribery. Because (at least in the US) most of these cases have been resolved without litigation, we will focus on critical, unresolved issues, such as the FCPA’s definition of a foreign “instrumentality” and a “foreign official,” as well as the scope of U.S. extra-territorial jurisdiction. In addition to addressing the substance of foreign and international laws and conventions, we will explore the critical issues that arise from the growing trend in trans-national investigations and prosecutions, including double jeopardy, res judicata, and international data collection.

We will explore these issues through fact-based, real-world scenarios drawn, in large part, from the “Bonny Island” case, which involved a scheme by four international corporations to bribe three successive Nigerian presidents (as well as a constellation of lower-ranking officials) to secure multi-billion dollar contracts for the construction of an LNG facility in Nigeria. We will use this factual setting to frame class participation and in-class exercises and projects, with the goal of sharpening critical thinking, tackling complex legal questions in concrete factual settings, and honing advocacy skills.

Learning Objectives:

We have the following expectations of learning outcomes:

1. We expect each student to achieve mastery of the basic concepts underlying the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, including the basic statutory terms, the elements of the various offenses, and the scope of U.S. jurisdiction. In our experience, it is impossible to fully understand and discuss more challenging questions about the scope or application of the statute without mastery of the fundamentals.
2. We expect each student to gain an understanding of the roles and policies of the U.S. enforcement authorities, the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the manner in which FCPA cases are investigated, prosecuted, and defended, as well as how the U.S. enforcement agencies would approach a problem and what outcomes are likely to result.
3. We expect each student to gain an understanding of the global enforcement landscape for anti-corruption. Students are expected to achieve a basic understanding of the OECD Convention on Bribery, other international anti-bribery conventions, and the leading state laws, including the Brazil Clean Companies Act, the UK Bribery Act, and the French Sapin II. Students will also gain an understanding of the role of the World Bank and other multi-lateral development banks in the worldwide scheme.
4. We expect students to learn the basic principles of anti-corruption compliance programs, and the manner in which anti-corruption compliance impacts the prevention, detection, investigation, and prosecution of FCPA cases, as well as violations of similar foreign laws.
5. Through scenario-based learning, we expect students to gain a facility in applying law to fact and an understanding of how governments and defense counsel approach challenging question of jurisdiction, enforcement, and punishment in a multi-jurisdictional, cross-border setting.

Around the world, people are mobilizing to defend democracy, protect human rights, and promote sustainable development. We’ll study the international legal framework for civic activism, examining laws governing protests, social justice movements, and and nonprofit organizations. We’ll also explore the impact of national security, authoritarianism, and digital technology on civic space.

We'll take a global tour, comparing approaches in the US, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. We'll discuss current events, play the role of UN Ambassadors, and help countries draft laws.

This class will provide skills and contacts to help you pursue a career in international human rights law. Past classes have spoken with UN officials, a lawyer for a group allegedly engaged in terrorism, and frontline human rights defenders.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of the semester, you should have the ability to:

1. Analyze international law governing the freedoms of association, assembly, and expression;
2. Evaluate the extent to which national legislation complies with international law;
3. Craft arguments to bring national legislation closer to international law and good practice;
4. Communicate effectively with diplomats, government officials, and civic activists;
5. Analyze ethical aspects that arise in crafting laws that affect the freedoms of association, assembly, and expression; and
6. Assess the impact of law on nonprofit organizations, social movements, and protests.

Imagine you are the benevolent dictator of a country, and your population wants a new personal data privacy law. You are then tasked to design such a policy from scratch. This seminar discusses the many relevant decisions policymakers should make when shaping data privacy regimes.

In particular, this seminar covers: (i) what are the economic and non-economic reasons to regulate data privacy; (ii) what different bundles of rights are usually found in different data privacy laws, and how they interact with one another; (iii) the trade-offs involved in adopting a single comprehensive regime versus many sector-specific regimes; (iv) what are enforcement options to ensure that parties follow the laws on the books; and (v) how privacy laws interact with competition, innovation, national security, and other policies.

This seminar will focus on consumer/citizen data privacy laws. It complements rather than substitutes for Information Privacy Law (LAW 342).  The seminar is not a general survey of black letter information privacy law, nor will it cover U.S. Fourth Amendment privacy and other similar topics. Ideally, students should have some prior exposure to privacy/data protection law before enrolling. We will cover the key privacy laws that you need to know in the initial class sessions.

Students will be encouraged to think about law as institutional engineers—that is, thinking critically about whether given legal provisions make sense and help further laws’ stated goals. Data privacy is a field in flux, so class readings will be a mixture of privacy laws from different jurisdictions and academic articles in fields such as law, economics, computer science, and others.

Learning Objectives:

• Exposure to an array of doctrinal, statutory, regulatory, and policy landscapes in privacy law, and the complex interrelationships among them.
• Exposure to privacy compliance considerations that confront both private- and public-sector organizations.
• Awareness of international differences in the treatment of information privacy issues and comparative exposure to European data protection law in particular.
• Refinement of analytical and writing skills.

This course will examine the Inter-American Human Rights System, its impact on the protection of the individual, the strengthening of democratic institutions and the rule of law in the Americas. The course will be divided in two parts. The first part of the course will examine the practice and procedure of the two main institutions of the Inter-American Human Rights System: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the Inter-American Court on Human Rights (IACtHR); including a practical training that will enable students to engage in a lively interaction with the IACHR. The second part will examine the main developments of this regional system’s jurisprudence. Specifically, in this part of the course there will be a discussion of the approaches of the Inter-American System with respect to impunity and transitional justice, freedom of expression, the rights of women, indigenous peoples’ rights and the rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex persons. In this section of the course, we will also analyze U.S. engagement with the Inter-American System.

Learning Objectives:

Through this course, students will acquire a strong substantive and practical understanding of the functioning, challenges and opportunities of the Inter-American Human Rights System and how it can be used to protect human rights in the Americas.

This course will examine the U.S. immigration system through legal and policy perspectives. We will explore the source, scope and constitutional limits of congressional power to regulate immigration; the executive branch implementation of immigration legislation, particularly procedures for entry and removal, and the extent of, as well as constitutional constraints on, Presidential power; and the administrative and judicial review of executive branch action. Close attention will be paid to how membership laws and policies are established and implemented: What laws and policies govern U.S. citizenship? Who is eligible to become a legal immigrant? How are annual admissions numbers set? How and why are family and employment priorities created? How does the U.S. protect refugees? With respect to the arrival of unaccompanied children from abroad, we will consider the laws and policies that govern how the U.S. government treats them. Unauthorized migration will also be examined to understand why some migrants do not use the legal route into the U.S. and what laws and policies the U.S. has in place to deter such unlawful movements at the border and control unlawful presence in the interior. We will analyze the impact of the major 1996 immigration control legislation and its implementation, with particular attention to detention and removal. We will closely examine the role of the Justice Department’s Immigration Courts, with special attention to access to justice issues. We will explore the extraordinary need for, and challenges of, immigration law reform, as well as the particular situation of the Dreamers, children without lawful immigration status brought to and raised in the United States by their parents. Finally, we will assess the various changes implemented by the Trump and Biden Administrations, particularly in connection with the treatment of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, the resettlement of refugees from abroad, and the removal of unauthorized immigrants.

This class will cover the constitutional and political framework for the U.S. Immigration System, enforcement and adjudication agencies, immigrants, nonimmigrants, removals and deportations, detention and bond, immigration hearings, judicial review, grounds for removal and inadmissibility, “crimmigration,” immigration reform, “Chevron” deference, refugee and asylum status and other international protections. It will also include reading and analyzing major immigration cases like INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421 (1987) (well-founded fear) and Matter of Kasinga, 21 I&N Dec. 357 (BIA 1996) (female genital mutilation).

The attempted extradition of Gen. Pinochet from the U.K. to Spain to account for torture and disappearances in Chile, a tragic car accident in Washington, D.C. in which a sixteen year old is killed by a Georgian diplomat, the alleged expropriation of your corporate client’s investment interests by a foreign government, a civil lawsuit against President Mugabe of Zimbabwe during a visit to the U.S., a criminal case in Chicago against a foreign consular officer for aiding and abetting a fugitive -- such cases bring into sharp relief the operation of international immunities. This two-credit course aims to introduce students to the range of jurisdictional immunities recognized by international law and how they are implemented in domestic law. We will cover diplomatic and consular immunity, foreign sovereign (or foreign state) immunity, the immunities accorded to heads of state and government, and the special status of international organizations and their staff and member representatives, including the United Nations, its specialized agencies and individuals on special missions. Increasingly, practicing lawyers (especially those who represent governments and international organizations or who practice in places where embassies, consulates, missions and international institutions are located) need to be familiar with the reach of these rules and doctrines, and the exceptions thereto. Our focus will be on the practical application of the various international conventions, domestic statutes, and judicially crafted rules which define the law of international immunities.

Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, the spread of misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the threat of deep fakes have all increased government – and public – attention on the national security threats posed by both state and non-state actors' use of information and disinformation. Whether referred to as propaganda, psychological operations, influence operations, or information warfare, states have long used the information domain to further their national interests.
While these activities are not new, cyber capabilities and modern communications technologies have increased both their reach and effectiveness. The use of data to micro-target audiences via social media, leveraging hacked and leaked information, the dissemination of non- and misattributed messages to a mass audience, and the potential use of deep fakes all challenge current policy approaches and existing legal norms. This class will examine the U.S. domestic legal and policy issues, as well as the International legal issues, arising from the use of information and disinformation as an instrument of national power.
Learning Objectives
The learning objectives for the course are for students to:

1. Become familiar with how states use information as an instrument of national power, to include past use of propaganda and modern use of disinformation.
2. Appreciate how cyber capabilities have transformed the use of information by States, and the increased threats to national security posed by these activities.
3. Gain an understanding of the domestic and international law governing state informational activities, including the limitations faced by the U.S. Government imposed by the Constitution and U.S. federal law.
4. Understand the role of, and rules applicable to, private actors in monitoring and controlling online communication.
5. Understand how to analyze the different information activities and the applicable legal regimes.

This course provides an introduction to information privacy law both on the books and on the ground. Topics covered include the common law, constitutional, and statutory foundations of U.S. information privacy law; philosophical bases for privacy protection; first amendment constraints on privacy law; information privacy compliance, enforcement, and regulatory practice; the European approach to privacy and data protection; privacy constraints on law enforcement activities; cybersecurity; and cross-border data flows. Special attention will be paid to issues raised by the information economy.

Learning goals for this course: Critical mastery of the existing doctrinal, statutory, regulatory, and policy landscapes and the complex interrelationships among them; critical mastery of the privacy compliance considerations that confront both private- and public-sector organizations; introduction to European information privacy and data protection law and the relationship between privacy and global information flows.

Whenever merchandise crosses an international border, it is subject to customs laws and procedures.  And with the grow of international trade and commerce over the years, customs laws and procedures have become increasingly more internationalized, important, and complex.  Therefore, knowledge of customs laws and procedures is important to the practice of international trade law.

This course will provide a basic introduction to the rules and principles relating to both international and U.S. customs laws and procedures.  This will include an examination and review of those rules and principles relating to tariff classification, customs valuation, rules of origin, border enforcement of intellectual property rights and regional trading arrangements.

International efforts to facilitate trade and to harmonize and simplify customs laws and procedures will be examined and reviewed together with international organizations dealing with international customs laws and procedures (such as the World Trade Organization and the World Customs Organization).

Customs authorities are the guardians of national borders.  The role of customs authorities in combating terrorism and criminal activity and in securing and safeguarding national borders will also be examined and reviewed.

There are no prerequisite courses required for this course. 

Examines selected issues involving the application of criminal law to international activities and across national boundaries. The course covers both the procedural aspects of international cooperation in criminal matters (including extradition,  cross-border investigations, mutual legal assistance, and recognition of foreign penal judgments) as well as the developing substantive international law (e.g., war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, cybercrime, and trafficking in drugs, people and firearms). Particular attention is paid to the question of jurisdiction over criminal activities at the international level, in the context of activities such as money laundering, organized crime, and computer crime, including the reach of Constitutional protections to investigations and law enforcement activities overseas. Addresses the structure, jurisdiction, and jurisprudence of the ad hoc criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the statute and rules of evidence and procedure of the International Criminal Court.

This course studies two bodies of law, both concerned with “criminal law across borders.” One is domestic (national) criminal law applied to crimes committed outside national territory. The other is crimes under international law: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression. These are the “core crimes” tried by courts like the Nuremberg Tribunal, the tribunals for Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and former Yugoslavia, and the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the ICC’s indictment of President Putin, and many states’ proposal to establish an international tribunal for aggression make international criminal law exceptionally salient today.

Along with the substantive law on these issues, we examine the foundational topics of jurisdiction, extradition, and immunity from prosecution. The course will also examine the problems confronting international criminal justice today, including the political backlash against holding leaders accountable for core crimes. The aim of the course is to introduce students to basic doctrines of international criminal law, as well as doctrines concerning the extraterritorial application of U.S. criminal law. It also provides an overview of the work of international criminal tribunals and the challenges they face. The course combines law, policy, and history.

The textbook for the course is International and Transnational Criminal Law, 4^th edition, by David Luban, Julie O’Sullivan, David P. Stewart, and Neha Jain.

International anti-corruption has become an increasingly “hot topic” among lawyers and policymakers: governments, international organizations, and technical experts all identify corruption as a serious impediment to comprehensive economic development. If left unchecked, corruption threatens to undermine the effectiveness of development initiatives in both the public and private sectors. Growing enforcement of legal instruments such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the UK Bribery Act have placed anti-corruption squarely on the agenda of a wide variety of transnational organizations. With so many variant actors invoking the importance of anti-corruption, lawyers must not only have a working knowledge of what corruption entails, but also understand how the development of an international anti-corruption legal framework is changing the way business is conducted in a global economy.

This course explores the international legal framework of anti-corruption, the scope of anti-corruption instruments, the methodologies employed by international actors enforcing these instruments, and the policy dilemmas implicated by these endeavors.

Given the dynamic nature of anti-corruption initiatives, the course presents an interdisciplinary, interactive approach to the subject matter. The class will introduce and discuss perspectives from academic texts, policy papers and media. It is hoped that this broad-based approach will provide students with a strong theoretical foundation in anti-corruption law, foster a practical understanding of international anti-corruption work, and inspire students to integrate this avenue of study into their future professional endeavors.

Students will complete a research paper 20-25 pages in length.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this course, students will have a working knowledge of the role anti-corruption policy and political institutions (i.e., FCPA, OECD, and UNCAC) play in the field of anti-corruption. Students will be able to engage in professional discussions on the historical context of international anti-corruption efforts, the state of the current political and international climate, and the future of anti-corruption by making connections between past policy and current events. Students will be able to articulate original views, back them up with research and defend them through strategic thinking by engaging with guest-lecturing practitioners and the final oral presentation. Students will further deepen their knowledge on a particular topic within the field by conducting a research paper in which they will need to provide insightful analysis making connections among historical and current policies, institutions, and governments.

The course focuses on international law applicable to the leading environmental and natural resource issues.  It provides a framework for identifying and addressing the legal issues, links international law with relevant national laws, and focuses on ways to strengthen compliance with international obligations.  The course covers climate change, ozone depletion, transboundary pollution and hazardous waste disposal, fresh water (both surface and ground water), marine resources, biodiversity, the links between human rights and environment and between environment and trade, and the financing of sustainable development.  Special attention is given to cutting edge issues, such as synthetic biology and ecocide as an international crime.

Learning goals for this course: To enable students to become effective counsel, litigators, negotiators, arbitrators, judges, or legal advisors on a broad range of international environmental problems; to understand international instrucments and negotiations; and to be able to apply legal concepts developed in the course within different national settings for implementing international law. 

This course examines the law, institutions, and advocacy strategies designed to protect international human rights.  We will analyze civil and political rights and economic and social rights, as well as international humanitarian law, and explore key enforcement mechanisms at the national, regional, and international levels. The evolving role of NGOs and civil society actors in advancing human rights, and the responsibility of corporations, will also be examined. Both progress and enduring challenges in making human rights real “on the ground” will be a focus of this course, together with the need for effective enactment of legal standards, enforcement of those standards, and empowerment of affected communities. Current legal issues and strategies concerning climate change and human rights will also be highlighted.  

This course provides an intensive survey of international human rights law and practice, with a principal focus on interpretation and implementation of human rights obligations, commitments, and norms in the practice of states. The course has three main components: in the first unit, we examine the development of the substantive law of human rights and its sources (including treaties, customary international law, and non-binding international instruments). In the second unit, we examine implementation of international human rights in the international, regional, and domestic systems, focusing on UN organs such as the Human Rights Council and treaty bodies as well as regional systems such as the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights.  Finally, in the third unit we look at the application of the substantive law and implementation mechanisms in the context of current issues in international human rights, including in the context of atrocities, and the refugee crisis. The course highlights selected contemporary ethical problems in international human rights law such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and torture; application of human rights obligations, commitments, and norms to non-state actors (including corporations); positive duties on states to protect individuals from abuses by non-state actors; universality of human rights and cultural relativism; and the need to protect human rights while countering terorism, including issues relevant to U.S. law and practice. Along the way we examine issues related to international immunities, impunity, human rights litigation under the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act and Torture Victim Protection Act, and international criminal tribunals. 

This course provides an intensive survey of modern international human rights law. Tracing the historical evolution of human rights norms, we will first explore how they became a dominant feature of the post-World War II, post-colonial, and post-Cold War international orders. We will cover the doctrinal and institutional mechanisms of the modern human rights system, including the core treaties and international and regional bodies, with a particular focus on how courts, both international and domestic, can give human rights the force of law--or deprive them of it. We will examine how international human rights law defines specific rights (e.g., the right to life, the prohibition of torture), struggles to overcome structural and historical biases (e.g., discrimination on the basis of sex, gender, or race), and adapts to different contexts (e.g., climate change, armed conflict, social media and surveillance). Throughout the course, we will study why states and businesses respect human rights, why they don't, and how lawyers, NGOs, and other actors can work to ensure that most human rights norms are honored most of the time. Our readings will draw from case law, treaties, academic works, legal briefs, and other sources that offer a real-world sense of how 21st Century human rights law is articulated, litigated, and adjudicated.
Learning Objectives:

• be able to identify and apply IHRL treaties, norms, and jurisprudence to historical and contemporary legal and policy issues, including genocide, climate change, torture, racial discrimination, gender discrimination, LGBTI rights, corporate accountability, and online privacy and expression;
• be able to identify the key human rights mechanisms at the international and regional levels;
• be able to strategize how human rights disputes can be brought before these mechanisms or domestic courts.

This project practicum will provide an opportunity for students to be involved in two projects designed to further accountability for war crimes and other atrocities.

Most of the work will be on the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group (ACA), which is a project established by the United States, European Union, and United Kingdom to assist the Ukraine Office of Prosecutor General (OPG) in investigating and prosecuting war crimes and atrocities committed during the conflict that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

A second project is the Innovation Council for International Justice (ICIJ), which is an initiative that will bring together experts from a wide variety of fields to analyze efforts to achieve accountability for war crimes and atrocities in order to draw lessons for innovative future approaches to this challenge. 

In the project portion of the course, students will be involved in activities with the ACA and the ICIJ that will give them a ground-level view of how institutions to provide accountability for atrocities operate in practice. These activities will enable them to acquire skills that go well beyond the typical law school experience, and may include:

(1) coordinating, developing agendas for, attending, and summarizing meetings involving ACA subject matter experts;

(2) helping organize visits to the US by Ukrainian prosecutors, investigators, and officials, as well as ACA events;

(3) working on initiatives requested by the OPG such as a victim and witness support protection and support program;

(4) supporting the collection of information on the Ukrainian population’s experience of the war and their conceptions of what would constitute accountability for harm; and

(5) conducting occasional research for the OPG.

The seminar portion of the course will:

(1) provide students with a solid understanding of how substantive international law attempts to ensure accountability for war crimes and other atrocities;

(2) give them an appreciation of the jurisdictional issues that arise in international criminal law and their implications for seeking justice;

(3) illuminate political and social challenges in creating mechanisms to seek justice for war crimes and atrocities;

(4) prompt consideration of the conceptual and jurisprudential issues involved in ascribing criminal liability to individuals who may have engaged in significantly different activities, through discussion of concepts such as command responsibility and joint criminal enterprise;

(5) invite reflection on ethical questions that arise in seeking accountability for war crimes and atrocities, such as potential tensions between obtaining an end to conflict and securing justice; the concept of a just peace; the extent to which political considerations should inform prosecutorial decisions; the appropriate role in prosecution decisions of local communities who have been harmed by atrocities; and the relative weight in prosecution decisions of considerations such as the gravity of an offense, strength of evidence, public attention, specific deterrence of allegedly culpable individuals, and general deterrence of future perpetrators.

In these ways, the practicum is designed to enable Georgetown law students to serve as leaders in the next generation of lawyers and policymakers devoted to seeking international justice.

With the end of World War II and the establishment of the UN, particularly Articles 2(4) and 51 of the UN Charter, the international community has endeavored with mixed success to regulate the use of force. International relations have traditionally been conducted with a Westphalian view of individual state sovereignty and territorial integrity. Respect for state sovereignty encourages stability. Today non-state actors operating across state boundaries present a new and complex set of problems. And states tend to act in what they perceive to be their own self-interest, which may or may not be in strict compliance with Art. (2)(4). In addition, technology has expanded the ways in which states can now use force to attempt to alter outcomes. Targeted killings (or non-judicial killings) using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are but a recent example of the application of limited force to obtain a desired outcome. Covert activities, while raising substantial policy issues, may avoid some of the legal and political difficulties associated with the use of overt military force and may become an increasingly attractive option in situations, including threats to human rights, where diplomatic or economic coercion are not sufficiently viable and action is deemed necessary by state decision makers. There is a tremendous amount of scholarship emerging that focuses on this and other aspects of covert activities. The United States conducts covert operations through both the CIA and Department of Defense. In this course we will first examine the U.S. law regulating such activities, including Title 10 and Title 50 and Congressional Oversight. But most of the course will be devoted to reviewing the relevant areas of international law (including the Law of Armed Conflict, International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law) that are most often invoked in analyzing the legality of the use of force. We will examine several types of specific operations, including renditions, reprisals and humanitarian rescue operations. The course will examine a variety of scholarly legal arguments in the context of specific covert operations that have been reasonably well documented. We will discuss the law enforcement model often proposed where targeted killing is involved and compare it with the more traditional approach found in the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law. This course will examine how neutral legal norms are applied in specific contexts and how political reality can shape outcomes and the application of such norms.

This one-credit course is designed to provide incoming graduate program (LL.M.) students with (i) a review of the basic purposes, principles and instruments of international law and (ii) an introduction to the U.S. approach to the field. It is mainly intended for those who have previously taken a basic international law course (especially in a non-U.S. school) and who would benefit from a short "refresher" before undertaking more advanced or specialized courses at Georgetown. In addition to the essential elements of public international law, the course will touch on relevant aspects of private international law and the ways in which both public and private international law principles and obligations are given effect ("domesticated") in U.S. law. The format will be interactive discussion, permitting participants to focus on issues of greatest relevance and importance. The examination will be in a short-answer take-home format.

This survey course introduces students to the nature, sources and institutions of international law and major developments in the contemporary international legal system. It considers such topics as treaties, executive agreements, customary international law and jus cogens; recognition of states and governments; the principle of self-determination; methods of international dispute resolution, especially before international courts including the ICJ and though international arbitration; domestic jurisdiction over disputes with international elements; international immunities; the role and operation of the United Nations and other international and regional entities, such as the EU and the OAS; International Human Rights Law; Law of the Sea; Law of Outer Space; Private International Law; how the international system protects (or fails to protect) the environment; International Criminal Law; the use of force in self-defense against other countries, rebellions, or terrorist groups, humanitarian intervention, etc.

Learning goals for this course:

Ability to analyze and interpret treaties, judgments and other international law instruments. Awareness of relationship between international and domestic law, how international law is made and applied, how domestic legal systems differ in their approach to international law.

This course deals with the nature and sources of international law and major developments in the international legal system, including the interaction of international law and municipal (domestic) legal systems. It considers such topics as treaties, executive agreements, and customary international law; jurisdiction over disputes with international elements; foreign sovereign immunity; methods for international dispute resolution; the role of international law in the U.S. legal system; how the international system protects (or fails to protect) human rights and the environment; and the use of force against other countries, rebellions, or terrorist groups.

Learning Objectives:

This course will expose you to a different legal system – the regime of contemporary public international law governing the conduct of states and international organizations – as well as the way that legal regime is incorporated in the law of the United States. It also serves as a general precursor to other international law courses in the Georgetown Law curriculum.

This course is a broad introduction to public international law. Students will consider the nature of international law as law, sources of international law including customary international law, and the role of national and international tribunals in international dispute resolution. The course will also cover topics including the fundamentals of treaty law, statehood, recognition of states and governments, jurisdiction and immunity, state responsibility, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, international environmental law, the law of the sea, and international commercial disputes. The course will touch on other relevant topics as time permits.

This course will explore the global fight against impunity -- specifically, as it pertains to curbing war crimes, human rights violations, grand corruption and looted antiquities -- through class discussions, lectures and guest speakers with personal experience in fighting the impunity that is so often associated with war crimes and economic crimes. It is based on the premise that those that are willing to slaughter thousands of innocents, are also willing to steal millions of dollars and loot our collective cultural heritage – and that the fight against impunity includes both war crimes and economic crimes (and often, the international trend to focus on the former, ignores the domestic interest in prosecuting the latter). Over the semester, students in a seminar-size class will be exposed to the basics of international criminal law, international human rights law and international economic crimes, as well how the fight against impunity impacts national security and foreign policy issues. The class will focus on issues related to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, as well as the recent global efforts to fight grand corruption and recover looted assets and antiquities, including UN Convention Against Corruption and the new UN-World Bank Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative. Students will be allowed to write a paper of their choice regarding international law and the fight against impunity. Class grades will be a combination between class participation (20%) and a seminar paper (80%). Required readings (cases, statutes, articles, book excerpts, on-line treaties, etc.) will be illuminated by lecture and discussion from a professor with first-hand experience in the global fight against impunity through his personal experience with the Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein and Omar al-Bashir matters, as well his background with the UN war crimes tribunal, the White House, the Pentagon, and the World Bank’s StAR Initiative, and helping recover stolen assets on behalf of various governments. In order to take advantage of Georgetown’s unique position in the intersection of law, politics, and international affairs, the course will feature high-profile guest speakers who will highlight their own personal efforts to fight impunity and how such international efforts impact national security and foreign policy matters.

The global trade in arms is estimated to be worth at least $127 billion dollars (in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available), and has been increasing since 2015. This trade involves not only major powers such as the USA, Russia, and China but also many countries in the global North and South. It also involves a range of technologies, from light weapons and ammunition to aircraft, missiles, drone systems, weapon launchers, through intelligence, information and cyber systems. Recent human rights activism and investigative journalism have drawn public attention to the devastating human rights implications of the trade in what are deemed “conventional” arms. Civil society actors decry the fact that small arms and light weapons have caused the death of millions of individuals in civil wars in the last two decades. Yemeni and European human rights lawyers have initiated legal proceedings against European corporations for complicity with war crimes committed by Saudi Arabia in Yemen with weapons purchased in Europe. Seventeen news organizations joined hands with Amnesty International to investigate Israeli spyware Pegasus, revealing how it has provided authoritarian rulers with the means to surveil their populations and concentrate power.

Indeed, beyond the taking of life, the arms purchased legally by states around the world directly and indirectly harm a wide range of human rights protected in international law, including health, liberty, privacy, free speech and association, and religious freedom. In this course we will explore how international law regulates the global arms trade, focusing on the place of human rights considerations in this regulation. This international regulation is fractured. While weapons of mass destruction and weapons deemed particularly cruel or destructive are subject to specific bans or stringent transfer restrictions, the trade in the bulk of conventional weapons is subject to norms deriving from international humanitarian law, international criminal law, international human rights law, international trade law, non-binding multilateral regimes coordinating export controls, and binding and non-binding rules on business and human rights. After an introduction to the history, trends and political science of the global arms trade, we will discuss the above legal norms and their enforcement mechanisms. In addition to legal sources such as treaties and case-law, we will read scholarship in international law and international relations critically assessing the law from a human rights perspective. The course’s overarching aim is to understand whether international law limits the global arms trade’s harms to human rights, or to the contrary facilitates them. In the process, by examining how various subfields of international law address the arms trade, we will explore the relative strengths and weaknesses of these subfields to protect human rights, of formally binding rules and soft law, and of regulation targeting states, individuals and corporations.   

Learning Objectives:

The main learning objective is for students to understand the various international norms regulating the arms trade, including the emerging body of scholarly literature in international law and international relations discussing those norms. Until recently, the international regulation of the conventional arms trade was severely under-studied and under-researched. The course will introduce students to the principal scholars in the field, enabling them to continue researching these issues should they wish to do so in the future. This course will also introduce students to the global arms trade, its main economic and geo-political characteristics, and its human rights implications. They will also learn about the main sources of reliable information about this trade.

More broadly, through discussions in class drawing on legal and international relations literature, the course aims to help students develop critical perspectives on international law, in particular on questions of norm fragmentation, norm enforcement, North-South relations, and the relations between humanitarian and economic considerations. By focusing on a narrow question (the human rights implications of the arms trade) and examining how it is addressed in various subfields of international law, the students will also develop a comparative perspective on these subfields, and hopefully reach new understandings on some of the characteristics, and strengths and weaknesses of each.

The scramble to secure steady supplies of inexpensive energy to generate electricity and to power industry and transport has defined much of the twentieth and, thus far, twenty-first centuries. Climate change and renewable energy (appropriately) dominate the discussion today, particularly in the developed world, but, absent a major unforeseen technological breakthrough, non-renewable sources such as oil and natural gas are still expected to meet the majority of the world’s energy needs for decades to come (according to the US Energy Information Administration, 82% of energy consumed worldwide will still come from non-renewable sources in 2050).

The oil and gas industry lies at the intersection of global business, international law, geopolitics, the environment and particularly in the developing world, economic development. This seminar will address the international legal norms and public policy principles that have shaped, and continue to guide, this industry. It is designed for students interested in careers in energy, energy policy, project finance, international arbitration, environmental regulation or development – whether for a law firm, energy company, NGO, international organization or government – as well as students simply interested to learn more about an industry that impacts our daily lives in countless ways. 

This course examines key issues arising from the criminalization of transnational business conduct and attempts to enforce national laws extraterritorially, as well as how to counsel clients to comply with inconsistent or conflicting legal regimes. Topics covered will include: bribery of foreign officials, crime on the internet, economic embargoes and export and reexport controls, securities fraud, money laundering, and price-fixing. Attention will be paid to foreign governmental opposition to U.S. assertions of jurisdiction via "blocking" statutes, secrecy laws, and use of local court injunctions, as well as to mechanisms for resolving jurisdictional conflicts, including international agreements for notification, consultation, mutual legal assistance, "positive comity," and exchanges of confidential information among enforcement authorities. The course will also focus extensively on compliance and ethics issues and on techniques for dealing with government law enforcement agencies.

This course provides an overview of major principles, theories, operational concerns, and public policy issues related to complex humanitarian emergencies. The course highlights selected contemporary crises, examining causes and consequences of these emergencies. Examples include Ukraine, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, Myanmar and others. A particular focus is the role of humanitarian issues in foreign policy and international relations.

Pearl Harbor fundamentally changed Americans’ sense of security. Together with an existential threat in the form of the Cold War, national security institutions rapidly proliferated. Many focused on the collection of foreign intelligence, with the result that by the 1970s, numerous entities were engaged in collecting information on U.S. citizens. Congress responded by passing the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and creating specialized courts to oversee applications for electronic surveillance. Simultaneously, the Executive Branch issued an Executive Order to provide guidelines for all other intelligence activities. Today, FISA, together with Executive Order 12333, provides a framing for the collection of foreign intelligence. Additional instruments, such as National Security Letters, Administrative Subpoenas, and Sneak and Peak Warrants, play a further role in anticipating and responding to threats.

This course, designed for students new to foreign intelligence collection, provides an overview of the key constitutional questions and jurisprudential distinctions. It addresses the statutory and regulatory framework for classified national security information and nuclear-related materials as well as institutional arrangements that comprise the intelligence community. The course then addresses different tools available to the government to obtain information, before addressing some of the most difficult and timely FI questions.

As a rule, investigating and prosecuting cybercrime is fraught with challenges. Ephemeral electronic evidence, international evidence-gathering obstacles, and anonymizing technologies can frustrate conventional law enforcement investigative techniques. Recently, distinctions between traditional cybercrimes and crimes committed by foreign actors with national security objectives have eroded, creating new investigative challenges: cybercriminals and national security cyber actors now both steal information for personal financial gain; nation-states have reportedly enlisted criminal organizations to act as their proxies to conduct cyber attacks against United States companies; and the tradecraft used by some nation-state actors includes tools and tactics commonly used by cybercriminals, such as botnets and ransomware. The intersection between conventional cybercrimes and national security crimes with a cyber nexus raises novel legal and policy questions involving the extraterritoriality of criminal statutes, the application of international data privacy regulations, and the boundaries of international legal cooperation. Furthermore, the burgeoning role of private actors in data breach response and cyber threat intelligence gathering are altering how cyber offenses are investigated.

This course will take a practical look at how U.S. federal law enforcement pursues investigations and prosecutions of sophisticated cyber threat actors using investigative and prosecutorial criminal tools that at times are augmented by national security authorities. It will furnish a background in criminal statutes that are the bedrock of electronic evidence gathering (e.g., the Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2510 et seq.; the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2701 et seq.; and the Pen Register/Trap and Trace Act, 18 U.S.C. §  3121 et seq.); the substantive laws used to indict cyber actors (e.g., the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030); the constitutional questions raised by surveillance techniques used to gather domestic evidence against international actors; and national security issues that prosecutors confront when handling hybrid criminal cases (e.g., discovery issues associated with the use of national security authorities). Students in this class will learn how a federal case against transnational cybercriminals and national security cyber actors is built and the legal landmines that can surface while gathering evidence in "cyberspace."

No technical background is required to take this course, but you will be taught the basics of Internet technology to better understand how technology affects the application of certain criminal laws.

This seminar addresses modern military weapons – their development, acquisition, proliferation, use, control, and elimination – considering a set of problems that will raise the most difficult security concerns for the United States and the rest of the world in the post-cold-war era. In the seminar, we will explore a wide range of weapons technologies--including nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional armaments--and the political and legal mechanisms that constrain them. The seminar will address historical allegations concerning the dissemination and use of these weapons; the rise and fall of various strategic doctrines; the bureaucratic processes of government decision making; and the evaluation of relevant ethical considerations surrounding possession and use. The bulk of the seminar will focus on contemporary legal and political issues such as ongoing treaty negotiations, export controls, verification of compliance, enforcement of treaty commitments, and the dismantling of redundant weaponry. The seminar is particularly recommended for those interested in exploring careers in public international law, but will also be relevant to others interested in the role of the lawyer in influencing United States public policy more generally. Each student will prepare a substantial original research paper and participate in small exercises designed to provide some simulated experience in characteristic legal tasks, such as drafting, analyzing, briefing, etc.

This seminar will address the relationship between courts-martial and civilian judicial proceedings, focusing on the allocation of responsibilities in the military justice system to commanders, judges, and lawyers. Specific topics will include the contemporary debates regarding sexual misconduct and combat-related offenses. The assigned readings will utilize materials available on the internet, including judicial decisions, legislative and regulatory materials, and law review articles. The seminar paper will take the form of a draft judicial opinion based upon topics covered in the course. The seminar is designed for students interested in national security, judicial review, and the constitutional allocation of legislative, executive, and judicial powers.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the key features of military legal practice, the distinctions between military and civilian jurisprudence, and the primary factors considered by Article III courts in reviewing cases arising in the military justice system.
• Assess the impact of congressional legislation and oversight, as well as the role of the President in the military justice system.
• Enhance research skills through analysis of briefs and source materials.
• Enhance writing skills by preparing a judicial opinion.

This seminar examines both progress and ongoing challenges in seeking meaningful justice and accountability for serious international crimes, including crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes. We’ll begin with an overview of the challenges of effective atrocity prevention and an examination of fundamental developments over the last few decades establishing international and hybrid criminal tribunals and other mechanisms of transitional justice, including truth and reconciliation commissions. Building on this foundation, and drawing upon legal scholarship, social science research, and country case studies, we will then explore a range of responses to key justice challenges recurring in a number of countries emerging from conflict. These challenges include: (1) the often complicated relationship between peace processes and justice initiatives; (2) the question of whose justice goals are being pursued and how national, regional, and international stakeholders interact in such efforts; and (3) the complexities of building enduring justice on the ground through meaningful domestic rule of law reform, outreach, cultural engagement, and other means. Students will write a substantial seminar paper within the subject matter scope of the seminar.

This course explores the development of law (domestic and international) governing space operations generally, application of the law to present day national security activities, and emerging issues in national security space law. The course will address the impact of the UN space treaties to national security activities, international and domestic law governing national security space operations, the role of commercial space actors in conflict, and current issues in national security space law. It will also consider U.S. strategic competitors’ (Russia and China) approaches to the law of space operations.

Robots, artificial intelligence, and autonomous systems have long been the realm of science fiction, but they are increasingly a part of contemporary life as well. Computers fly airplanes, write compelling text, play Jeopardy, drive cars, trade stocks, and fight in wars. Autonomous systems are no longer a thing of the future, but a fact of modern life, and Moore’s Law suggests that these changes will increase not incrementally, but exponentially. This course will examine whether or when we need a Law of Robots to regulate these autonomous agents, or where it is more appropriate to reason by analogy and regulate these systems by existing statute, regulation, or common law. The course will examine emerging issues across the spectrum of tort law, property law, copyright law, the laws of war, laws of agency, and criminal law. The class will not be a survey of existing law, but instead an examination of how to regulate emerging issues in law – how to extrapolate and reason by analogy, in robotics and beyond. Paper required.

Surveys the law of armed conflict (LOAC) and customary international law as applied by the United States in warfare. From where does LOAC arise? What is a war crime – and who decides? What is “unnecessary suffering,” and what drives that legal determination? When does LOAC apply and what role do other rules of law, such as domestic U.S. law and International Human Rights Law play in regulating the conduct of armed conflict? Does it cover non-state actors? What are U.S. LOAC obligations, and how are they enforced? How does one distinguish illegal combatants from prisoners of war? Where do military commissions come from, and who may be tried by them? Could the atomic bombing of Nagasaki have been a war crime? Can a superior’s order constitute a defense to war crime charges? What is the U.S. position in regard to laser weapons? Land mines? Non-lethal weapons? Torture? Rendition? Reprisals? The assassination of enemy commanders? What is an illegal order, and what should a soldier do if she receives one? How may battlefield war crimes be prosecuted? Our inquiry will focus on the law applicable to the conduct of U.S. military operations in past and current conflicts, whether or not they be declared, whether they be internal or international. Although primarily focused on the law of land warfare, the law of air and naval warfare, as well as space and information warfare, will be considered.

Learning objectives:

To gain a firm understanding of the law of armed conflict and to consider, through discussion of practical exercise from the textbook, how the law is applied in an operational context.

This course is a “disaster law” simulation based on the post Hurricane Katrina legal reforms, particularly the Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act. That bill, along with ones passed in response to Hurricane Sandy, reorganized the United States emergency management system and highlighted the particular issues of vulnerable groups.

This simulation course will give students an in-depth experience of working on disaster law issues in the context of a legislative inquiry and hearing. Students will conduct mock interviews, review legislation and legal precedent, and then conduct a legislative hearing to determine whether further changes to the law are necessary. This course present students with the opportunity to work in an emerging area of law, honing their legal skills with a focus on disaster victims and vulnerable populations.

This short course addresses the practical problem of providing legal advice to senior government political appointees in general, and national security appointees in particular, in situations where statutory provisions are ambiguous and policy desires may be in conflict with legal constraints.  The course will focus on one or two actual or hypothetical situations based or closely based on events experienced by the professors.  The professors have decades of experience in both the defense policy and legal aspects of national security decision making.  Several situations will be covered as an introduction to  the topic followed by detailed investigation of  one or more cases in which students will be tasked to role play relevant policy and legal positions in the Department of Defense, take opposing positions and argue their assigned points of view.   The two professors for this course, Frank Kendall and Susan Raps, were until recently Under Secretary of  Defense for Acquisition Technology and Logistics, and the lead counsel for Defense Acquisition in the Office of the  DOD General Counsel. 

This course surveys various principles and aspects of admiralty and maritime law of the United States, including: the historical and constitutional bases for its existence; the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the courts; the substantive law of maritime contracts and maritime torts; the application of criminal law at sea; the laws governing carriage of goods and passengers by sea; the public order of the oceans at the national and international levels; protection of the marine environment; and federal-state maritime issues. Consideration is given not only to the current state of the law in these areas, but also to related U.S. government policies and international and comparative law issues.

This course reviews the basic principles of international law related to the many exclusive and inclusive uses of ocean space, especially on those critical issues affecting U.S. national security. Students will develop a comprehensive understanding of the legal regimes governing the ocean, from internal waters and other coastal zones through the regimes of the high seas, and an overall appreciation for U.S. ocean law and policy, based on relevant principles of international and national law. Topics include navigation and overflight rights, living and non-living ocean resources, military and law-enforcement activities, protecting the marine environment, marine scientific research, the law of naval warfare, and the formal and informal processes for developing ocean policy and for resolving international disputes. Students will research and engage in class discussions on a number of problems involving national security issues and the use of ocean space, including resources on the continental shelf, maritime terrorism, military exercises, maritime transportation systems, at-sea trafficking in illicit drugs, piracy, weapons of mass destruction, collection of intelligence, and naval rules of engagement.

The rapid pace of technology presents tremendous opportunities as well as risks for U.S. national security. It also generates a certain amount of grey area as statutory and regulatory provisions fall behind the tech curve. It is not at all clear how existing doctrinal, statutory, and regulatory regimes apply to phenomena like the metaverse, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, and biomanipulation. This course, accordingly, tackles the interstices between law and tech, particularly as it presents in the online world. Part I lays a groundwork to ensure that students who do not come from either a national security or tech-intensive background have a firm understanding of constitutional doctrine, institutional delineation, and the basics of Ethernet and WiFi; IP Addresses, Protocols, and Routing; and circuit and packet switched networks. Part II shifts to analysis of online communications, storage, and computing. In conjunction with a deep dive on fourth amendment interception and third party doctrine, the course examines the enterprise network environment and cloud computing. It then moves into decryption and quantum computing, taking these in conjunction with the All Writs Act and covert action requirements. Part III focuses on network analytics. It emphasizes algorithmic sciences, data structures, sorting and searching, and artificial intelligence. The corresponding legal analysis centers on first amendment doctrine and social media platform practices, exploring how efforts to come to grips with misinformation and online manipulation have faltered in the face of first amendment considerations. Part IV focuses on online gaming technologies, addressing in the process blockchain and cryptocurrency and ways in which technology design and data collection is now enabling biomanipulation. The legal analysis engages, inter alia, the law of armed conflict. The course ends with a gaming lab, where students will have the opportunity to go online using haptic gaming equipment to deepen their understanding of legal challenges presented by the online world.

The struggle to respect and ensure human rights while also protecting national security raises important and complex legal and policy challenges. This course will examine current issues at the intersection of human rights and national security, with a focus on the use of force.

The first half of the course will cover the legal frameworks governing the use of force, including the UN Charter and jus ad bellum, the law of armed conflict (also known as the law of war or international humanitarian law), human rights law, and the U.S. Constitution. Students will examine how the rise of transnational terrorist organizations and advancements in armed drone technology have blurred the line between wartime and peacetime legal rules and placed tremendous pressure on these legal frameworks in the decades following the 9/11 attacks. By the end of this portion of the course, students will be able to analyze uses of military force in the daily news to determine whether the use of force is lawful under domestic and international law.

The second half of the course will cover key issues at the intersection of national security and human rights including: U.S. drone strikes, indefinite detention and the use of military commissions at Guantanamo, the CIA’s torture program after 9/11, the climate crisis, and more. Where feasible, we will cover current events and have practitioners from the field join us for a discussion of the topic. In past years, we have had speakers from the State Department, Defense Department, Congress, and human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First.

Student learning objectives for the course are to use class sessions and the preparation of a paper:

• To become familiar with basic human rights standards that govern the use of force in law enforcement settings, with particular emphasis on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights;
• To become familiar with basic international law standards that govern the grounds for resort to force (jus ad bellum) and regulate the way force may be used in armed conflicts (jus in bello or law of armed conflict/international humanitarian law);
• To gain an appreciation of the complex ways in which many current security threats and responses to them have features that do not fall squarely into the categories of either crime subject to law enforcement operations or armed conflict subject to conventional military operations; and
• To become familiar with a range of complex issues at the intersection of national security and human rights and the diversity of professional opportunities in these areas.

This seminar will look at the president’s authorities in the areas of national security and foreign relations, how the exercise of presidential powers in this area has developed and how it is constrained. The course will explore the historical and doctrinal foundations of presidential national security authorities, as well as more recent practices and controversies. A particular focus will be the how executive branch lawyers have grappled with these issues and the many conflicting demands and challenges they face. The course will look at issues such as the separation of powers framework, constitutional war and foreign affairs powers, constitutional and statutory emergency powers and their impact on civil liberties, intelligence authorities, and authorities related to the classification and control of sensitive information. Regularly throughout the semester the students will be asked to discuss case studies and to focus on how some of these issues have been – or should have been – handled by executive branch lawyers. 

Learning Objectives: The course learning objectives are to deepen students’ understanding of  the President’s national security authorities, how they have developed, how they are used and constrained, and the practicalities of providing legal advice on these issues. The goal is for students to come away from the course not only understanding these issues, which have significant current relevance, but appreciating of the challenges of practicing in this area and how lawyers might navigate those challenges.

The seminar will address the pernicious problem of malicious use of the Internet by States and the efforts both internationally and domestically to use law and policy to define responsible state behavior in cyberspace. Students will learn about the framework on Responsible State Use of ICTs developed in two United Nations cyber working group processes and will discuss U.S. and other countries’ domestic efforts to deter malicious state activity below the use of force, including the use of diplomatic, law enforcement, military, and economic tools.

Students will discuss the applicability to state cyber operations of international rules and principles, including sovereignty, non-intervention, and the prohibition on the use of force, and will consider the thresholds under the law of state responsibility for potential response options, including the differences among unfriendly acts, retorsions, and countermeasures. The class will also explore the concept of due diligence. In an interconnected world, a state’s failure to act—whether to secure its own systems or to take steps to address malicious activity that is emanating from its territory—can also be destabilizing. The class will consider several contexts—hacking by non-state malicious actors, disinformation on social media, and poor private sector cybersecurity—and discuss whether there is a requirement or expectation for states to ensure that information and communications technology infrastructure in their territory is not used to inflict significant harm on another state.

This seminar will address the law governing national security investigations and related litigation. Topics will include electronic surveillance (e.g., the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act), national security letters, mail covers, and the handling of classified information at trial (e.g., the Classified Information Procedures Act). National security law is often inaccessible, and can be particularly hard to follow when divorced from the context of historical tradition, governmental structures, and operational reality in which it functions. The seminar will aim to present the law in context, exposing students as much as possible to the real-world effects of legal standards and rules. Requirements include participation in a four-hour investigative exercise at the end of the semester, submission of two short papers during the course of the semester, and class participation.

This class will address the law governing national security investigations and related litigation. Topics will include foundational legal authorities, electronic surveillance, national security letters, and the differences between Article III courts and military commissions. National security law is often inaccessible, and can be particularly hard to follow when divorced from the context of historical tradition, governmental structures, and the operational reality in which it functions. While steering clear of classified or confidential aspects of the practice, the class will attempt to present the law in context. Class participation and three short papers are required.

This introductory, survey course will explore national security law as developed from the U.S. Constitution, relevant federal statutes, case law, and historical experience, as well as from principles and influences of international law and foreign relations.  It will cover key components of, and debates over, the Federal Government’s exercise of national security authorities, including: decisions to use force and how to employ it; detention and interrogation of combatants; collection, protection, and sharing of intelligence; military and civilian prosecutions for national security-related criminal charges, including terrorism, espionage, export control, and state-sponsored cybercrimes; civil litigation involving national security interests and concerns; protection of homeland security; and economic aspects of national security policy. Themes of the course will include: (1) the separation of powers among the three branches of the Federal Government, and appropriate roles for these branches in the conduct of national security activities; (2) the interplay between international law and domestic law; (3) textual, historical, and functional modes of legal argument as applied to national security issues; and (4) the evolution of modern warfare and its implications for relevant legal regimes. 

Course Goals/Student Learning Outcomes:

This course will provide students with exposure to the broad reach of modern national security law in the United States, and the many as-yet unresolved and knotty legal, policy, practical, and moral issues that arise as the Government strives to protect national security, while preserving the generally free and open society that most U.S. persons expect.  Students will examine with a critical eye the justifications offered for, and scope of, security-based governmental actions, while considering practical alternatives and results.

The student learning outcomes will be the following:

1. Analyze current and emerging issues in national security law, and understand the policy arguments underlying the balance of ensuring security and protecting individual rights
2. Assess the justifications offered for, and scope of, security-based governmental actions
3. Examine the effects that national security measures have on individual rights of U.S. citizens and non-citizens, and on U.S. institutions, norms, and governance.

This course will examine the substantive, ethical, moral, procedural, and practical challenges of practicing national security law in the government. Government national security and foreign affairs lawyers have significant influence on operational and policy decision-making, but generally encounter fewer external checks and less oversight than lawyers in other areas. Because of threshold doctrines such as standing and political question, courts address national security legal questions relatively rarely. There are few timely, formal checks in the area of international law, which develops over time and by consensus and often lacks a direct enforcement mechanism. In addition, much of the subject matter about which national security lawyers provide advice is classified, which can limit the scrutiny of legal analysis by Congress, the press, and the public. Therefore, national security lawyers, who provide advice on what are often extremely high stakes and difficult legal issues, shoulder a great deal of responsibility to carry out their roles ethically and effectively.

The course will use case studies and hypotheticals to explore these important challenges. Students will discuss a variety of issues, including: the players and process of national security legal decision-making; flexibility, constraint, and accountability for the national security lawyer; the challenges in providing balanced advice; whether and when it is appropriate to “push the envelope” on legal advice; the impact of secrecy on legal advice and decision-making; the importance of transparency about national security legal advice and why it is so difficult; prosecution, litigation, and national security; the appropriate role of lawyers and the law in the national security policymaking process; lawyering when the law is not developed; and the challenges and responsibilities of lawyering during war and other national security crises.

Students will be graded on several short reaction papers and one longer final paper. Class discussion will also be considered in grading.

This course will provide students with an understanding of the current matrix of nuclear non-proliferation treaties, multilateral arrangements, laws, regulations, initiatives, proposals, and organizations that aim to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and prevent nuclear terrorism. The goal is to examine the full array of tools employed by the United States to address nuclear proliferation, as well as how the Executive Branch brings these tools to bear through the inter-agency process and its joint efforts with Congress and international partners.  Virtually every element of the nonproliferation toolbox was deployed to address the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea, so considerable time will be spent examining these critical cases.  We will also examine how the nuclear programs of India and Iraq shook and ultimately altered the nonproliferation regime.  Throughout the course, we will consider nonproliferation efforts in the context of great power strategies, alliance obligations, and regional rivalries, on how these factors influence the decision-making of proliferating countries and countries seeking to prevent proliferation.  A continuing theme in the course will be the evolution of nonproliferation tools over time and the role of and lawyers in that evolution.

This course will focus on the legal, public health and medical challenges presented by ongoing pandemics and epidemics, most notably COVID-19, as well as preparedness for future pandemics through the lens of the “One Health” paradigm—an integrated 3-part framework that takes into account the health of humans, animals, and the environment.

The course will address the legal response to epidemic disease, focusing particularly on the World Health Organization's International Health Regulations (IHR), including the process for deciding whether to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) (including historical examples of COVID-19, Ebola, Zika, MERS, Yellow Fever, polio, pandemic influenza, and more). It will also look at other legal mechanisms for pandemic preparedness, such as the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework and examine reforms to global governance for health emergency preparedness that have been proposed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prof. Lucey will provide his personal perspective based on on-the-ground work in responding to Ebola, COVID-19, Zika, MERS, SARS Flu, Plague, and more. This work overseas led to his proposal in 2014 to create an Exhibition on Global Epidemics at the Smithsonian Museum of National History, which opened in 2018 and has been extended to 2022 to add COVID-19. The class will include a tour of this exhibit.

The course will be discussion-focused, including readings, videos, interactive lectures, and classroom outbreak simulation ("tabletop") exercises. During these exercises students will be given a fact pattern and assigned a role (e.g., the WHO Director-General, US Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC) officials, NGOs, etc.) and asked to negotiate with others and reach agreement.

Government agencies have broad powers to act for the public good. This includes the ability to investigate individuals and organizations and to conduct surveillance about their activities, a capacity strengthened by recent technological advances. But the ability to perform these functions is limited by various constitutional protections, including the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and various statutory laws.

This course will explore the intersection of contemporary surveillance practices with the need to safeguard civil liberties. The course will place special emphasis on the ways in which surveillance is used to control and manage populations of people, the intersection between mass incarceration and surveillance, and the communities that experience the greatest degree of scrutiny. Throughout the course, we will investigate how race, faith, national origin, immigration status, penal status, class and other categories fundamentally shape who is being watched and why.

The course will begin with an exploration of privacy law and the limits that apply to surveillance practices, both electronic and non-electronic. We will examine free speech and freedom of expression under the First Amendment, search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment, and relevant statutory and regulatory laws. We will then explore an array of surveillance and policing practices.

We will also discuss how lawmakers, advocates and local communities are pushing back against overreaching policies, and situate these calls for reform amidst broader social and political movements, including Black Lives Matter. Our texts will include a variety of sources ranging from case law, legal scholarship, government manuals, and coalition letters to podcasts, TED Talks, and investigative journalism.

Learning Objectives: 

1. Introduce some of the major issues in state surveillance, law enforcement, and privacy, and critically examine different approaches to these issues;

2. Test our approaches against current and rapidly developing surveillance practices, both electronic and nonelectronic;

3. Explore the intersection between mass incarceration and surveillance, and the war on crime and the war on terror;

4. Understand how surveillance practices are used to profile and monitor particular communities, including on account of race, faith, national origin, immigration status, penal status, class and other categories;

5. Examine different methods for challenging surveillance; 6. Anticipate the durability of these methods going forward.

The Proseminar in National Security Law serves as the gateway course for National Security Law LL.M. Students, and it is one of the distinguishing features of the program. The Proseminar is composed solely of National Security Law LL.M. students. Taught in the fall semester, the course provides students with a foundation in cutting-edge national security law topics and an opportunity to think more broadly about the field. The Proseminar helps ensure that students who leave Georgetown Law to join different parts of the national security law dialogue—e.g., civilian and military government agencies, human rights organizations, boutique law firms, in-house at technology companies, contractors, civil liberties organizations, and academic institutions—have an opportunity to be in direct dialogue with each other.

This course examines domestic refugee law and policy, with particular focus on asylum and other refugee-related claims for protection that arise in the U.S. legal system. Students will become familiar with the key actors in the asylum and refugee law arena, including the U.S. Congress, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the federal courts, and international entities.

The course objectives are: (1) to equip students with an understanding of the principles of refugee policy, asylum law, and the United States' procedures for refugee protection, and (2) to provide students with a practical appreciation for how refugee policy is formed and a working knowledge of asylum law, which will serve as a foundation for academic research, clinical study, employment, pro bono work, and/or internship opportunities within the U.S. government and the NGO community.

In addition to focusing on the refugee definition as interpreted by U.S. courts, we will examine the processes for adjudicating asylum claims -- where the system works and where it fails. We will also seek to understand the limits of asylum law and explore the toughest issues facing asylum adjudicators and policy makers today.

Whether they are representing couples in transnational adoptions or multinational enterprises in cross-border mergers, legal practitioners increasingly are expected to consult international and foreign legal materials. This course will familiarize students with the best tools for researching international law and the domestic law of jurisdictions outside the U.S., enabling them to approach these tasks with confidence, rather than trepidation. Students will learn how to efficiently locate multilateral and bilateral treaties, decisions issued by international tribunals, documentation produced by the United Nations and other international organizations, as well as legislation and case law from selected foreign jurisdictions, including the European Union. Tools for topical research in specialized fields, such as human rights, international trade, and investor-state arbitration, also will be covered. Students will refine their information-gathering skills through a series of in-class research exercises and take-home quizzes based on real world, practice-oriented scenarios. This course will be especially beneficial for journal editors, students participating in the Jessup International Moot Court competition and other international competitions, and for students interested in pursuing careers in international law or in practicing law outside their home jurisdiction.

This course offers students an opportunity to learn the definitions of “rule of law” and how to reform legal and judicial systems, including measuring the impact of those reforms. The field of rule of law reform is an expanding area of practice, be it focused on strengthening the concept of ‘Rule of Law’ and its indicators or to achieve certain economic, social and/or political goals.

The course begins by reviewing various definitions of what is meant by “rule of law”, recognizing that different institutions, governments, public and private sectors want to promote reforms to legal/judicial systems perhaps seeking the same end, but through different ways. The course uses a case study methodology, including specific sessions with U.S. and foreign judges and other rule of law practitioners active in reform efforts. Topics include: Democracy and the rule of law; Access to justice; Criminal justice and Criminal procedural reform; Court administration and Case management; Commercial court reform; Alternative dispute resolution (ADR); Judicial independence and Accountability; National security and Transitional justice; Indicators to measure the rule of law; and a discussion of the role played by legal actors in addressing corruption, both within and outside the legal system.

We will consider the rationale behind rule of law reforms by examining experiences around the world, including in the United States. We will see how reforms may target more competitive market economies, stronger law enforcement, gender equality or social justice. We will learn the impact of an increase in demand from users of justice systems who want improved services, not only “formal” justice users in courts, but informal justice services like paralegals and chieftaincy also. The course will also address the often overlapping or inconsistent agendas of donors, international organizations (e.g., United Nations, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, IMF, USAID, U.S. Military, among others) in the discussion and analysis.

Learning Objectives:

At the end of the course. Students will have acquired an understanding of the various definitions of ‘rule of law’ and the factors leading to and preventing successful reform efforts.

At the end of the course, students will have acquired some understanding of the differences and similarities among international organizations and their approaches to Rule of Law to be able distinguish varying objectives (e.g. democracy promotion, economic development, human rights and social justice, anti-corruption and law enforcement).

At the end of the course, students will have acquired a vocabulary and understanding of overlapping (and even inconsistent agendas) to be able to identify the “drivers” of reform and provide inputs for the design or evaluation of Rule of Law reform efforts.

This course offers an understanding of social media law in the face of disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, extended reality, and blockchain.  For the first time in history, anyone with an internet connection can speak and be heard across the globe in seconds, by audiences of one to one million.  Traditionally in-person activities are going digital, as the Super Bowl held a virtual halftime show with Saweetie, and South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol generated huge campaign buzz with his avatar AI Yoon.  User-generated content is also changing, as generative AI companies like Midjourney and ChatGPT can turn you into Frida Kahlo or Shakespeare with just a written prompt.  This is only the beginning—haptics will allow users to physically feel their online interactions, while companies like Meta and Google are experimenting with AI that interprets brain waves.
In this course, we will examine these developments through a legal lens, discussing issues like Section 230, the First Amendment, antitrust, and privacy laws.  Students will also leave the course conversant in the economic and policy considerations that frame regulatory discussions in the space, including platform business models, the creator economy, and national security concerns. As social media and the internet increasingly swallow all aspects of public life, lawyers of all stripes will need to tackle the new challenges that arise. This course is an all-important first step.

In the age of social media, private companies have unprecedented power to shape and control the visibility and content of online speech.  And as government struggles to keep pace with developing technology in an age of political polarization, litigation has emerged as a key tool for questioning and challenging the role social media platforms have come to play in American society.  This course is designed to introduce students to the legal principles that have shaped the birth, growth, and dominance of social media platforms over online speech, from the First Amendment to Section 230.  It will explore the history of the main players in this space and invite students to consider how different legal avenues might lead to change in this ever-developing industry.

Overview:

Never before have so many individuals had such a tremendous opportunity to access information, to engage with others, and to express their views on a global scale. Simultaneously, 24/7 online access means that actors can more easily manipulate networks, foment hatred, reach audiences poised to engage in violence, and spread false information. Platforms seemingly protected by the First Amendment, moreover, can be used to undermine and destabilize democratic systems and to radicalize and recruit adherents to violent causes. The risks to national security could be profound.

Does the government have the right to remove content from these sites? Can it require the same of private actors? What should the role of the platforms themselves be in light of the enormous political, social, and economic implications of restricting—or failing to restrict—online speech and association? What options are there for dealing with false, misleading, or manipulative information? What are the risks posed by the different courses of action? How should we think about traditional areas of the law, such as antitrust, when agreement among social media providers results in effective de-platforming of certain individuals and views? What are the privacy implications of micro-targeting and social media evolution in the advertising and marketing arena? And what happens when effective targeting is moved to a political realm?

The issue is far from static: technology is catapulting social media forward at warp speed. 5G and 6G networks will make it possible to deploy online experiences previously cabined to science fiction. A number of apps such as Snapchat, have integrated real time digital overlay features, as augmented reality (AR) blends the digital and 3-Dimensional world. Apple has deployed Quick Look AR that allows customers to “see” products in AR, interact with others, and buy the products directly. Users already can build virtual worlds, in games such as Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnight, and Second Life. Niantic is now taking it to the next level, developing what it calls full-world AR, leveraging Pokemon GO to crowdsource data to generate 3D space. Google glasses and Facebook Smart Glasses transform AR to a feature of daily 3D interaction. These devices allow companies to collect engagement metrics and to use them to further target users.

The move to virtual reality will be even more profound. Patents have been filed for collecting biopotential signals, tracking muscle and eye movements to re-create individuals’ expressions and actions in an online environment. Others allow users to feel digital images in a 3D world, integrating the experience. The recording of what is done in the VR allows users to share the experience with others, even as hardware attached to other users will be able to mimic the experiences of the original user. How should we think about brain computing and online actions in light of criminal law?

In short, how should we think about social media in light of the current constitutional, statutory, and regulatory environment?

This course begins with a deep dive into technology and the business of social media before turning to First Amendment doctrine and contemporary social media cases. It then looks at issues related to misinformation and disinformation and electoral manipulation, with a particular emphasis on Russian and Chinese practices in regard to social media.

The course mixes traditional lecture background with Socratic exchange and intense debates. Students taking it for 2 credits (either p/f or for credit) will draft 8 1-page, weekly response essays for the readings. Students taking it for 3 credits will have the opportunity to develop a longer paper with the aim of developing a law review article that could be submitted for publication. Those students will also have the chance to present their work to the class for feedback.

Learning outcomes:

As a result of taking the course, students will be able to:

• articulate the opportunities and risks presented by social media;
• ascertain ways in which online platforms challenge our traditional understanding of the First Amendment;
• analyze how criminal law provisions apply to the online environment;
• identify the privacy concerns at stake in new and emerging technologies and discuss how they fit within prominent paradigms, such as the DGPR and CalECPA;
• discuss the application of antitrust measures to deplatforming and verification regimes;
• advance a legal position, identify the strongest counter-arguments, and respond; and
• advocate ways in which the doctrine should evolve to take account of the rapidly-changing world in which we live.

This seminar addresses the international and domestic laws governing outer space. Class discussion will include issues such as: liability for damage caused by space objects, use of outer space resources, rescue of astronauts and return of objects launched into outer space, environmental issues in outer space, and other more specific topics such as NASA and the International Space Station, commercial space operations, U.S. Government agencies involved in outer space, and the role of the United Nations in outer space.

This course will examine the applicable international and domestic law to State actions in cyberspace, including affirmative State actions such as intelligence collection, information warfare, and cyber effects operations; the responses by victim States and entities; and responses by private actors in the United States. The course will specifically delve into the international legal regimes pertaining to State sovereignty and the United Nations Charter; draft Articles of State responsibility and the doctrine of prohibited intervention; responsive actions under the doctrines of countermeasures, retorsion, and reprisal; and the application of the Jus-In-Bello. Additionally, the course will review current U.S. domestic law governing both actions by the U.S. government in cyberspace, whether in offense or defense, as well as limitations on response options by private entities. These legal and policy regimes will be explored through historic case studies and hypotheticals with a focus on analysis of those areas where there are competing views and interpretations. Students will assess the various legal and policy regimes through the lens of multiple actors, both States and non-States, with constantly evolving and advancing technology.

This seminar will explore several significant legal and policy concerns presented by the conduct of foreign intelligence activities in peace and war. To the extent possible we will focus on current or recent issues. We will discuss the role and history of Congress in authorizing, overseeing and regulating intelligence activities. We will also briefly review the constitutional authorities (primarily Art. II) of the President to undertake activities protecting the national defense in the absence of specific statutory authority, as well as the role of the federal courts in resolving national defense disputes.

More specifically we will discuss legal and structural issues associated with covert action, espionage, electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and its impacts on privacy interests. We will consider the crimes of insurrection, conspiracy, and litigation issues involving the use of classified information in criminal and civil cases, including the use of secret evidence in criminal prosecutions. This discussion will include the state secrets privilege and the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA). We will examine unauthorized disclosures of classified information and whistleblower protections. And finally, we will briefly discuss the role of a free press in our democracy.

The overall approach of the seminar will be to have an open analysis and interesting discussion of these and possibly other related topics. Questions are welcome and can be addressed to Prof. Dyson at dd1117@georgetown.edu.

This course will examine the security requirements for voting systems (particularly those used for civil elections in the United States), how various technology designs and implementations meet or fail to meet these requirements, and how such systems can be improved. The course will focus on the implications of various vote-casting technologies ("voting machines") as well as the "backend" election management systems and processes that define ballots, register voters, provision precinct equipment, and count and report vote tallies. While it will not be our main focus, we will also examine the interaction between modern social media and foreign and domestic influence operations aimed at affecting election outcomes.

We will devote particular attention to understanding how the legal framework and historical threat models for elections relate to specific technical requirements, how technical failures can affect election outcomes, and the limitations of various remedies when such failures occur. We will look at a range of formal and informal proposed designs for election systems, specific systems that have been or are currently in active use, and various studies that have been made of these systems and designs. The course will focus on technical security issues, but will also touch on usability, threat modeling, and legal and governance issues. 

Our primary reference will be the 2018 National Academies study "Securing the Vote" as well as readings drawn from the technical, legal, and policy literature. 

Student papers will focus on some issue at the intersection of technology and voting, depending on the specific background and interests of the student. 

Federal employees and contractors safeguard our nation’s most sensitive information and secrets. However, many do not consider that national security is a major consideration when employing civil servants or making decisions regarding their continued employment.  As of 2017, over 4.3 million Americans possess a security clearance and even more have access to sensitive, unclassified information. Security clearances and suitability reviews assess the reliability, trustworthiness, and character of prospective employees. 

Because security clearance and suitability adjudications often determine whether a person is hired - and in some cases, fired - they invoke the application of employment protections under laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, and the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008. The decision to deny employment based on a security clearance or suitability decision is considered an adverse action. While some actions are subject to judicial and/or administrative court review, others are not.  Therefore, executive orders, federal regulations, and agency guidance are necessary to ensure that vetting is both thorough and fair. In the last decade, courts and agencies have grappled with issues ranging from discrimination to the stigmatization of mental health issues in security clearance and suitability adjudications.

This course will examine the intersectionality of national security issues and employment; specifically, how national security concerns shape vetting in federal employment from security clearances to suitability reviews. Moreover, it will serve as an introduction to understanding the interplay of federal case law, executive orders, federal regulations, and agency guidance in this area.

It is commonly assumed that law imposes virtually no constraints on the President when he or she decides whether and when to use military force overseas.  In fact, however, nothing could be further from the truth.  There is an enormously detailed and complex corpus of laws, foreign and domestic, that constrains and guides (and sometimes authorizes) the use of force.  Therefore, the legal decision-making process within the Executive branch on such matters is as difficult and challenging as in virtually any other area of federal action.  The purpose of this seminar is to introduce students to the most important of the myriad legal questions that confront decisionmakers and their attorneys whenever the Executive branch contemplates a possible use of force.  The U.S. domestic laws we will examine include, among other things, the constitutional allocation of “war” and other military-related powers between Congress and the President; statutory authorizations and limitations; presidentially-imposed constraints; and covert action authorities and limitations.  We will then examine the principal international-law limits on the use of force, with particular attention to the jus ad bellum (the prerequisites for the decision to use force in the first instance, particularly as prescribed by the United Nations Charter), and the jus in bello (a/k/a the “laws of war,” or international humanitarian law) that governs the conduct of fighting—that is, how force may be used.  In light of the recent conflicts in Ukraine and in Israel and Gaza, we will almost certainly discuss the most pressing and vexing legal questions associated with those ongoing actions.  We will also study “test” cases, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 2000 NATO campaign in Kosovo, strikes by the United States in Syria in recent years, and the 2011 Libya campaign, to illustrate the complexity of the issues.     

Learning Objectives:

Students should become familiar with the vast array of domestic- and international-law questions involving the use of force.  They should also develop a rich understanding of the legal issues that government decision-makers and legal advisors must consider in the course of deciding whether and how the United States (and other nations) can and should use force abroad (and in the United States).  Students will be expected to learn how to assess the reading materials critically, to identify unresolved questions, and to constructively respond to and critique views of their colleagues.  Students who enroll for three credits will demonstrate an ability to produce an original research paper of high quality.

The Doctors Trial considered the fate of twenty-three German physicians who either participated in the Nazi program to euthanize persons deemed "unworthy of life" (the mentally ill, mentally retarded, or physically disabled) or who conducted experiments on concentration camp prisoners without consent. The Doctors Trial lasted 140 days. Eighty-five witnesses testified and almost 1,500 documents were introduced. Sixteen of the doctors charged were found guilty. Seven were executed.

The Doctors Trial provides a significant and important example of human rights violations and serves as a lesson in law and bioethics vital to understanding how law evolved from an initial eugenics policy to and including the horrible examples that framed human atrocities during WW II. 

This course will highlight examples from Jeanne Guillemin's "Hidden Atrocites, Japanese Germ Warfare and American Obstruction of Justice at the Tokyo Trial", Joel Dimsdale's  "Anatomy of Malice" examining the psychological assessments necessary for the trials, and Vivien Spitz's "Doctors from Hell", delving deep into the actual court transcripts from the proceedings. Ben Ferenz's work, one of the actual prosecutors at the trials, will also be included as insight into this tragic period. 

Understanding and dealing with U.S. export control and sanction laws have become increasingly important skills for lawyers advising clients who compete in the global economy, including manufacturers, service enterprises, financial institutions, and companies licensing their technology abroad.  This course surveys the federal laws and implementing regulations governing the export and re-export of goods, services, technology and software from the United States or by persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction, the extraterritorial reach of re-export controls, prosecution strategies, restrictions on dealings with or in sanctioned countries, prohibitions against dealing with blacklisted parties, and other sanctions that apply to non-U.S. companies and individuals.

The course is designed to impart the practical skill sets and strategies you will need to use and understand the complex regulatory regimes underpinning U.S. export controls and sanctions, and to communicate effectively with the relevant government actors.  The applicable laws include statutes such as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Trading with the Enemy Act, the Export Control Reform Act, and regulations issued by federal agencies such as the U.S. Departments of Commerce and Treasury. Our study of these rules will include review of case law, agency guidance and prior government enforcement actions.

The course will also focus on the enforcement environment, including the trend of ever-increasing fines.  We will discuss defense strategies and the potential for global settlements with the Departments of Justice, Treasury, and Commerce.
Finally, the course will emphasize developing the working knowledge necessary for hands-on practice and problem-solving in this field.

Understanding and dealing with U.S. export control and sanction laws and regulations have become increasingly important skills for lawyers advising clients who compete in the global economy, including manufacturers, service enterprises, financial institutions, and companies licensing their technology abroad. This course provides an in-depth survey of the federal laws and implementing regulations governing the export and re-export of goods, services, technology and software from the United States or by persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction, the extraterritorial reach of re-export controls, restrictions on dealings with or in sanctioned countries, prohibitions against dealing with blacklisted parties, and other sanctions. 

The course is designed to impart the hands-on, practical skill sets needed by those who wish to practice in the increasingly in-demand area of export controls and sanctions compliance, including the skills needed to use and understand the various complex laws and regulations systems that implement U.S. export controls and sanctions, such as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Trading with the Enemy Act, the Arms Export Control Act, and the Export Control Reform Act, as well as regulations issued by various federal agencies, including the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Treasury, and State. 

This course also will provide the skill sets necessary to communicate effectively with licensing agencies, how to approach foundational determinations of agency jurisdiction and classification, and how these issues affect direct investment in the United States as regulated by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

The course also will focus on the civil and criminal enforcement environment, including the trends of ever-increasing fines and global settlements with the Departments of Justice, State, Treasury, and Commerce. 

Mass atrocities and conflicts have an enormous impact on victims. Since Nuremberg, policymakers and lawyers have led the way in developing new legal frameworks, definitions, and legal processes to break the cycle of impunity. While painstaking and important progress has been made, particularly focusing on criminal prosecution and documentation, the voices of those most affected by atrocities - victims, survivors, and their communities - tend not to be solicited or given sufficient weight when policymakers design responses to atrocities. The disproportionate political and financial focus on holding perpetrators accountable risks neglecting other measures survivors prioritize, like reparations, truth-telling, memorialization, and searching for missing persons, let alone informal justice and healing processes. This 1-credit seminar will provide Georgetown law students the opportunity to consider how decision-makers can set justice priorities so that victims caught amidst conflict and mass atrocities are not an afterthought, but are placed at the center. We will explore 1-2 specific case studies.

Course Goals/Student Learning Outcomes:

● Understand the arc and architecture of the international justice movement, the current gaps and critiques of the field, and where the field seems to be going.
● Understand the complex landscape of actors, organizations, and institutions, as well as their roles, influence, and interests
● Develop sensitivity to and awareness of how to prioritize the experiences of affected
communities and their perspectives on justice as part of a holistic effort to seek accountability
● Gain a detailed understanding of the multiple strategies and activities necessary for meaningful and holistic justice for atrocities, beyond criminal accountability
● Learn about the strengths and limitations of different types of mechanisms designed to facilitate transitional justice and victim-centered justice processes that enable communities affected by atrocities and conflict to move toward more stable political and social arrangements
● Understand the legal, political, social, jurisprudential, and ethical dimensions of efforts to seek justice for atrocities

Throughout the twentieth century and into the present, international humanitarian law developed not only to regulate the conduct of war, but to punish those who would violate it; be it national prosecutions for war crimes or international criminal courts. In recognition of that fact, international humanitarian law seeks to divide the politics of war from the law of war by requiring minimal standards of due process, even for the most heinous offenders. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, for example, famously provides that in armed conflict, all criminal punishment must be “pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.”

But what is a "regularly constituted court" and what are indispensable "judicial guarantees"? When war often means a threat to and even a breakdown of civilized society, how is the balance struck between due process, public safety and vindicating the victims of war crimes?

This class will guide students through the salient areas of international criminal law by reading, analyzing and discussing the statutes and precedents from WWII, modern IHL tribunals, and the Military Commissions convened at Guantánamo Bay. The issues covered will range from how crimes are defined, to who is subject to law of war jurisdiction, to theories of liability, to the rules of evidence, including the use of national security information and evidence derived from torture, to the problems associated with distinguishing lawful acts of guerrilla warfare from terrorism.

Over and above this treatment of the substantive aspects of the law, the course will encourage students to consider such problems as fact-finding through adversarial litigation, the reliance on common law crimes, the use of such tribunals in place of domestic courts and truth and reconciliation commissions, and what due process is possible before law of war tribunals.

Students will be evaluated on the basis of class participation and a research paper on one aspect of international criminal law. Course administration will be conducted through CANVAS, where students can download the readings for class.