JD Candidate, Harvard Law School
Trevor is a second-year law student at Harvard Law School. Prior to starting law school, he lived in Taiwan as a Fulbright Scholar studying Taiwanese industrial policy, and he worked as a research assistant at a Washington think tank focused on strategic trade controls where he investigated companies involved in the Chinese defense industry.
Senior Policy Advisor, Akin Gump LLC
Thomas Krueger advises clients on matters resolving international trade policy matters related to international technology transfers subject to U.S. export, import and investment screening regulations. This includes export control policies and/or economic sanctions with regards to China, Russia and other countries of concern. Thomas has experience with traditional technology fields such as aerospace and defense exports and particular experience with emerging technology policies and regulations such as artificial intelligence, quantum and advanced semiconductor technology. He has conducted numerous risk assessments on cutting-edge technology transfers and advises clients on risk mitigation measures.
Previously, Thomas served as a Director of Strategic Trade and Nonproliferation at the National Security Council. In that role, he was responsible for advising the President and National Security Advisor on technology transfers, as well as coordinating interagency positions on U.S. export controls and technology transfer policies.
Prior to his work in at the National Security Council, Thomas held several positions at the U.S. Department of State, including as a Senior Foreign Affairs Officer. Among other duties, he served as the senior advisor to State Department leadership on export controls and technology transfer policies and regulations. Thomas represented the Department of State’s foreign policy positions on EAR-related technology licenses and regulations to the Department of Commerce. He also led the State Department’s nonproliferation reviews of Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) filings and sanctions-related export controls policies. Thomas also served as a Defense Trade Controls Analyst in the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. Thomas is a retiree from the U.S. Army.
Partner & Chair, National Security Practice, Wiley Rein LLP
Professor of Law, Notre Dame University
Roger P. Alford joined the Notre Dame Law faculty in January 2012. Alford teaches and writes in a wide range of subject-matter areas, including international trade, international arbitration, international antitrust, and comparative law.
Alford earned his B.A. with Honors from Baylor in 1985, his J.D. with Honors from New York University, and his LL.M. from Edinburgh University. Before entering the legal academy, he served as a law clerk to Judge James Buckley of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Judge Richard Allison of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. He practiced law with Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells) in Washington, D.C., and was also a senior legal advisor to the Claims Resolution Tribunal for Dormant Activities in Zurich, Switzerland.
In addition to publishing widely in leading law reviews and journals, Alford is the general editor of Kluwer Arbitration Blog and on the Executive Committee of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration.
He is Concurrent Professor at the Keough School of Global Affairs, a Faculty Fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, and a Faculty Fellow at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies. He was the Academic Director of the London Global Gateway from 2016-2017 and Associate Dean for Graduate and International Programs from 2013-2017.
He served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for International Affairs with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 2017-2019.
JAMS Mediator and Arbitrator
Gary Birnberg, Esq., FCIArb is a seasoned ADR professional, specializing in the resolution of a diverse array of commercial matters both domestic and international. He has served as mediator, arbitrator, or special master in hundreds of disputes and is known for employing his legal acumen and business skills to quickly grasp the facts in complex cases. He is appreciated by attorneys and clients for his ability to nurture trust and for the determination and creativity that he employs to find common settlement ground among the parties.
Mr. Birnberg is a Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit and Appellate mediator admitted to the Bar in four U.S. states, including New York and the District of Columbia, and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He has served as an arbitrator or mediator and sits on panel lists maintained by institutions worldwide, including CAM-CCBC, ICC, ICDR, and JAMS. He is a sought-after speaker and trainer in various areas of ADR. Recently, he single-handedly mediated to settlement a US$600 million limit of liability insurance claim in an international, multi-lingual mediation with 56 participants, including insured, insured’s institutional shareholders, numerous insurers and re-insurers, and attorneys for all direct and interested parties.
Mr. Birnberg is a U.S. citizen and permanent resident of Brazil, fluent in English, French, and Portuguese with conversational capacity in Italian and Spanish. He is active within the international legal community, staying current on local and international issues to continue his growth and expertise as a neutral.
Mediation Specialist, Office of the Ombudsman for UN Funds and Programmes, The United Nations
Mushegh Manukyan is a technology enthusiast international lawyer with significant in-house experience who has a passion for solving novel legal problems and navigating through different legal systems with a special focus on EMEA, APAC, and Latin America. He is a true believer in alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and enjoy resolving complex legal disputes through negotiations, mediation, and arbitration. His current efforts focus on developing capacity and encouraging international mediation with the United Nations system.
He is a graduate of Harvard Law School and admitted to practice law in New York, Washington D.C. (Special Legal Consultant), and Armenia.
Of Counsel, DLA Piper LLP (US)
Harout J. Samra – a Board Certified Specialist in International Law – focuses his practice on international dispute resolution and arbitration matters, including international civil litigation in US courts.
Harout has represented clients from both the public and private sectors, including foreign governments, public officials and clients from a variety of industries. He has experience in international arbitrations administered under the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC), Bogota Chamber of Commerce, Madrid Court of Arbitration and International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) arbitration rules.
Harout currently serves as a member of the Florida Supreme Court Judicial Nominating Commission, by appointment of Governor Ron DeSantis. He previously served, by appointment of Governor Rick Scott, as a member of the Florida Third District Court of Appeal Judicial Nominating Commission, and was elected as Chair of the Commission from 2018-2019.
Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress Action Fund
Alan Makovsky is a Senior Fellow on the National Security and International Policy team at American Progress. From 2001 to 2013, he served as a senior professional staff member on the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he covered the Middle East, Turkey, and other related issues.
At the Washington Institute for Near East Policy—a private think tank where he worked from 1994 to 2001—Mr. Makovsky wrote widely on various Middle Eastern and Turkish topics. He also founded and directed the Washington Institute’s Turkey Research Program.
At the State Department where he worked from 1983 to 1994—Mr. Makovsky variously covered southern European affairs and Middle Eastern affairs for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He also served as the political advisor to Operation Provide Comfort in 1992 and as the special advisor to the special Middle East coordinator from 1993 to 1994.
Director of National Security, Bipartisan Policy Center
Blaise Misztal is the director of BPC’s national security program. He previously served as the project’s associate director and senior policy analyst. At BPC, Misztal has researched a variety national security issues, including Iran and its nuclear program, Turkey, cybersecurity, stabilizing fragile states, and public diplomacy in the 21st century. He has testified before Congress and published op-eds in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, and Roll Call. In addition, Mr. Misztal wrote and directed the 2009 “Cyber ShockWave” simulation that aired on CNN.
Prior to joining BPC, Mr. Misztal spent a year as a Nuffield Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University. He was selected as a future leader by the Foreign Policy Initiative in 2010 and named as a national security fellow by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in 2011.
Mr. Misztal is currently completing his Ph.D. in political science at Yale University, where his research focuses on the relationship between democracy, liberalism, and social stability. He holds an M.Phil. in political science from Yale and an A.B. with honors from the University of Chicago.
Head of U.S. Policy and Strategic Advocacy, Electric Coin Company
Paul Brigner is the Head of U.S. Policy and Strategic Advocacy at the Electric Coin Company. He has served in senior level technology policy and government relations roles for the last eighteen years with another ten years of hands-on technical experience at the beginning his career after serving in the United States Army.
He holds an MBA from the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University and a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center. He received a Bachelors degree from Stephen F. Austin State University where he was named the Outstanding Computer Science Graduate.
Senior Vice President, Strand Consult
Roslyn Layton, PhD is a leading international expert on technology policy. She is Senior Vice President of Strand Consult, an independent consultancy serving the global mobile telecom industry. She is also a Visiting Researcher at Aalborg University Copenhagen where she earned a doctoral thesis on network neutrality by measuring the outcome of the policy across 53 countries over 5 years. She served on the Presidential Transition Team for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and her work was critical to the FCC’s defense for the Restoring Internet Freedom Order. She has testified to the United States Senate and House on multiple topics including spectrum, broadband, mobile mergers, competition, and privacy. She founded the think tank China Tech Threat to study the problems of technology produced by the People’s Republic of China. She serves as the Program Chair for the Telecom Policy Research Conference, the leading interdisciplinary academic gathering. Her recent paper on rural broadband describes the empirical case for policy reform to recover network infrastructure costs from streaming video entertainment providers. She is a Senior Contributor to Forbes.
Partner, Cooley
Rob McDowell advises telecommunications, media and technology clients on their most significant regulatory, legal and business matters. As a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and a highly regarded industry leader, Rob has been at the forefront of the most complex and groundbreaking issues facing telecommunications.
Mr. McDowell was first appointed to the FCC by President George W. Bush in 2006 and again by President Obama in 2009. He was unanimously confirmed both times by the US Senate. During his tenure, Mr. McDowell led efforts to expand consumer access to spectrum through his work on the two largest wireless auctions in US history at the time, played a key role in the 2009 digital television transition and led efforts to establish the first federal civil rights rule in a generation by creating a ban on racially discriminatory practices in broadcast advertising. He also worked extensively on several large and complex mergers, including Sirius/XM and Comcast/NBC-Universal.
He is an advocate for internet freedom, serving on the US delegation to the 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications and exposing an international bid to regulate vital aspects of the Internet through multilateral treaty-based organizations. Mr. McDowell authored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal opposing multilateral internet regulation that led to a resolution passed unanimously in the House and Senate, as well as the ultimate defeat of the international bid at a treaty negation in Dubai later that year.
Prior to the FCC, Mr. McDowell was senior vice president for CompTel, the Competitive Telecommunications Association, where he led advocacy efforts before several government agencies, the White House and Congress.
Mr. McDowell is often called upon for speaking engagements and frequently appears on TV and radio. He has written opinion pieces for many high-profile publications, including the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post.
Founder and President, Salt Point Strategies
David Redl is the Founder and President of Salt Point Strategies, a strategic advising firm focused on the technology and telecom sectors. David is an attorney and former government executive with experience in both the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government in the telecommunications, media, and technology fields.
David previously served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information and the Administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. During his tenure, he led U.S. efforts to ensure American leadership in 5G, to bring broadband to more rural Americans, and to promote a free, open, and secure Internet around the world.
David also represented the United States in international forums, including leading U.S. efforts before the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the International Telecommunication Union.
In the legislative branch, David served as Chief Counsel for Communications and Technology on the majority staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce. While at Energy and Commerce, he worked extensively on telecommunications, media, and technology laws, including the successful passage of laws authorizing the first-ever spectrum incentive auction, the creation of the First Responder Network Authority, and reauthorization of the satellite television laws.
Prior to his government service, David started his career as Director of Regulatory Affairs at CTIA, an international trade association of the wireless communications industry.
Mr. Redl received his B.A. in Journalism and his B.A. in Political Science from the Pennsylvania State University and his J.D. from the Catholic University of America with a certificate from the Institute for Communications Law Studies. He is a member of the New York and District of Columbia Bars.
Partner, HWG LLP
Patricia Paoletta is a partner with the law firm of HWG LLP, where she specializes in telecommunications, trade and technology policy. Ms. Paoletta provides advice on regulatory, trade and legislative policy to clients before the FCC, Congress and the Administration. Her clients include providers of content, cloud, mobile broadband, VoIP, international telecommunications, small cells, cognitive radio, public safety and homeland security solutions. She serves on Advisory Boards for several entities engaged in information services, communications and technology.
Ms. Paoletta has accrued considerable experience with telecommunications trade and policy in the public sector. From 1990 to 1995, she was senior advisor to the International Bureau Chief and Office Director at the Federal Communications Commission. In the mid 1990s, Ms. Paoletta served as Director of Telecommunications Trade Policy in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President, where she worked on the WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA) and the Basic Telecommunications Agreement. After USTR, Ms. Paoletta served as Majority Counsel to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. She then moved to Level 3 Communications, as Vice President, Government Relations.
Ms. Paoletta is on the Steering Committee of the Transatlantic Roundtable on Telecommunications and Information Technology of the European Institute. She is a member of the USTR Alumni Association, Washington International Trade Association, the Federal Communications Bar Association (FCBA), and Women in Technology. Ms. Paoletta has served on the Board of Advisors for the Inter-American Dialogue's Latin America Telecom Advisor, Co-Chairman of the American Bar Association International Communications Committee, and as a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Technology Policy Committee.
Ms. Paoletta served as a delegate in 2012 to the ITU-R's Study Group 6 Working Party 6A Meeting and in 2009 and 2010 to the ITU-R's Study Group I Working Party IB Meetings; the 2009 meetings of CITEL (the Committee on International Telecommunications at the Organization of American States) PCC-II; the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Telecommunications Standards Assembly (2000); the ITU Internet Protocol Telephony Experts Group and the ITU World Telecommunications Policy Forum in 2001; as Chairman of the National Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC) Steering Committee (2000-2001); as Board Member for the Voice on the Net Coalition (2001); as Co-Chairman of the FCBA's Annual Seminar Committee (2009-2011); as a member of the FCBA's Ad Hoc Speakers Committee (2006-2007); as Co-Chairman for the FCBA International Practice Committee (2001-2002 and 2005-2006); and as a Co-Chairman of the FCBA Legislative Practice Committee (1999-2000).
Clayton J. and Henry R. Barber Professor of Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and Co-Chairman, Board of Directors, The Federalist Society
STEVEN GOW CALABRESI is the Clayton J. & Henry R. Barber Professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. He has also co-taught in the Fall semester at Yale Law School from 2013 to the present. Calabresi clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia and Judges Robert H. Bork and Ralph K. Winter. He was a Special Assistant to Attorney General Meese from 1985 to 1987 and worked with Ken Cribb as his deputy in 1987 on the second floor of the West Wing of the Reagan White House. Calabresi has written books on presidential power and comparative constitutional law and the origins of judicial review. He and Gary Lawson are the co-editors of a casebook on U.S. Constitutional Law, and Calabresi is also the co-editor of a casebook on comparative constitutional law. He has written over seventy law review articles since 1990.
[Free to Choose Network] We Hold These Truths: The Global Quest for Liberty
In We Hold These Truths, Federal Judge Douglas Ginsburg explores the enduring influence of...
America's Expanding Semiconductor Export Controls
Trevor R. Jones, Thomas Krueger, Nazak Nikakhtar
Much of global economic competition today centers around gaining market share in the semiconductor industry....
The Singapore Convention on Mediation: What it Means for International Litigation and Arbitration
Roger P. Alford, Gary Birnberg, Mushegh Manukyan, Harout J. Samra
The Singapore Convention on Mediation was opened for signature on August 7, 2019, with the...
Turkey in NATO - Podcast
Alan Makovsky, Blaise Misztal
Turkey’s President Erdogan has secured authoritarian rule through constitutional restructuring. He does not tolerate dissent...
Regulating a World Wide Web - Podcast
Paul Brigner, Roslyn Layton, Robert M. McDowell, David Redl, Patricia J. Paoletta
Net Neutrality has been the subject of intense policy discussion in recent years, but the...
The Discipline of Prosecutors: Should Intent be a Requirement?
The American prosecutor is an amalgam in terms of historical background. The office as it...
Pirates We Be
Steven G. Calabresi
The Wall Street Journal Wednesday, May 14, 2003 P. A14 Rule of Law by Stephen...