Waxman Named Adjunct Sr. Fellow at Council on Foreign Relations

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August 28, 2008 (NEW YORK) – Columbia Law School Professor Matthew C. Waxman has been named Adjunct Senior Fellow for Law and Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. The appointment of Waxman, an expert in national security law and domestic and international legal aspects of counterterrorism, underscores Columbia’s longtime leadership in international and foreign relations law.

Waxman, who joined the Columbia Law School faculty in January 2008, had for the prior six years served in senior national security policy positions within the executive branch. From 2005 to 2007 he served as Principal Deputy Director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff. From 2004 to 2005 he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, a position created after the Abu Ghraib prison crisis in Iraq to advise on and help manage the improvement of U.S. military detention policy and operations, including those related to the fight against al Qaeda. Prior to that, he served at the National Security Council, including as special assistant to the National Security Advisor (2001-02).

In his capacity as Adjunct Senior Fellow, Waxman will host a roundtable series on Rule of Law and Foreign Policy during the 2008-09 year. The series of meetings in New York will bring together distinguished speakers and participants from academia, the policy community and the private sector to discuss international legal issues. Waxman also plans to foster greater exchange between the Law School and the Council by bringing scholars from each to participate in the other’s programs.

Waxman, who served from 2007-08 as International Affairs Fellow at the Council, is one of 75 experts in the Council’s David Rockefeller Studies Program, the Council’s “think tank.” Fellows include scholars, business leaders, lawyers, journalists and former government officials. Waxman joins fellow Columbia Law School Professor Jagdish Bhagwati, an expert in international trade, economic policy reforms and immigration, who serves as Senior Fellow for International Economics at the Council. 

The work of the David Rockefeller Studies Program is integral to achieving the Council’s goal of contributing to the foreign policy debate. Fellows in the Studies Program do this by researching, writing, and commenting on the most important challenges facing the United States and the world.

Waxman holds a J.D. from Yale Law School. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter and for Judge Joel M. Flaum of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He was a Fulbright Scholar to the United Kingdom where he studied international relations. He has authored several books on the use of military force as an instrument of American foreign policy.

The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators, students, civic and religious leaders, and other interested citizens in order to help them better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries.