Director, Americas Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Ryan C. Berg is director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also an adjunct professor at the Catholic University of America and a course coordinator at the United States Foreign Service Institute. His research focuses on U.S.-Latin America relations, strategic competition and defense policy, authoritarian regimes, armed conflict and transnational organized crime, and trade and development issues. Previously, Dr. Berg was a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he helped lead its Latin America Studies Program, as well as visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Changing Character of War Programme. Dr. Berg was a Fulbright scholar in Brazil and is a Council on Foreign Relations Term Member. He has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed academic and policy-oriented journals, including The Lancet, Migration and Development, the SAIS Review of International Affairs, and the Georgetown Security Studies Review. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, CNN.com, Los Angeles Times, and World Politics Review, among other outlets. He routinely testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Dr. Berg obtained a PhD and an MPhil in political science and an MSc in global governance and diplomacy from the University of Oxford, where he was a Senior Hulme Fellow. Earlier, he obtained a BA in government and theology from Georgetown University. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and is conversational in Slovenian.
CEO & Chairman of the Board, NeWay Capital and Próspera
Erick started his career in investment banking at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co, before working as an M&A advisor for AG Edwards & Sons (now Wells Fargo). He then joined Ernst & Young’s London advisory practice. After that, he led the creation of multiple business units as CFO of LATAM at the Borealis Group, and as an entrepreneur in the financial services industry. Erick is a member of the Society for International Development, in Washington DC.
Executive Director, Center for a Secure Free Society
Joseph M. Humire is a national security expert, specialized in analyzing Transregional Threat Networks in the Western Hemisphere. Mr. Humire provides regular briefings on countering China, Russia, and Iran’s authoritarian influence in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as combating the convergence of international terrorism and transnational organized crime. Mr. Humire has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress as well as the European and Canadian Parliament and in 2023 was awarded an Order of Defense Merit Medial from the Colombian Armed Forces.
Mr. Humire is a regular national security commentator and contributor for a variety of English and Spanish language media and has a regular weekly radio segment called the #NewWorldReport on the nationally syndicated show and podcast CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor and is the host of the Border Wars Podcast available on all digital platforms. Mr. Humire has published in both languages for various newspapers and academic journals across the Americas and released his first book in 2014 titled Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America, published by Lexington Books. More recently, in 2019, he wrote the foreword for the latest book by Dr. Max G. Manwaring, titled Confronting the Evolving Global Security Landscape published by Praeger Security International.
Mr. Humire currently serves as the executive director of the national security think tank—Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS)—based in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. Prior to SFS, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps with a combat tour in Iraq and a multinational training exercise UNITAS in Latin America and the Caribbean. After leaving the military, he graduated from George Mason University with a degree in Economics and Global Affairs. Mr. Humire began building SFS’s global network of more than 100 security scholars in almost 30 countries worldwide as the Director of Institute Relations at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. He is currently a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for National Security and a visiting professor-of-practice at Florida International University’s Adam Smith Center for Economic Freedom.
Former Acting Deputy Secretary, Department of Homeland Security
Senior Fellow for Homeland Security at The Center for Renewing America, Mr. Cuccinelli has been a trial and appellate litigator, including constitutional law, for over 25 years. Additionally, Mr. Cuccinelli served in state government in the Virginia State Senate from 2002-2010, and as Virginia’s Attorney General from 2010-2014. As Virginia’s Attorney General, Mr. Cuccinelli led national litigation against Obamacare and other illegal and unconstitutional federal overreach. He also led Virginia from being among the worst states in fighting human trafficking to becoming one of the best; and his successful prosecutorial efforts resulted in record enforcement against gangs, health care fraud and child predators, all while protecting life and constitutional rights.
Mr. Cuccinelli also served in the federal government, first as the Acting Director of
United States Citizenship & Immigration Services, and then as the Acting Deputy
Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. During his tenure, Mr. Cuccinelli
was a leading spokesman for the administration on immigration, election security and
homeland security issues. He was responsible for planning and managing a budget of
over $50 billion per year, while serving as the chief operating officer for the Department
of the federal government responsible for responding to most forms of crises in the
United States. Mr. Cuccinelli was appointed by the President to serve as an original
member of the Coronavirus Task Force upon the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Following his time in federal service, Mr. Cuccinelli assumed leadership of the joint
Susan B. Anthony List/American Principles Project Election Transparency Initiative, in
which position Mr. Cuccinelli seeks to fend off a federal takeover of state elections while
at the same time advancing election reforms to achieve security, transparency and
accountability in our elections.
Mr. Cuccinelli continues to be a frequent media contributor on the wide array of
subjects in which he is an expert.
Mr. Cuccinelli and his wife, Teiro, grew up and live in Virginia and they have seven
children, two sons-in-law and most joyously of all – four grandchildren (so far).
In his spare time, Mr. Cuccinelli enjoys spending time with his family, reading, shooting,
playing ultimate frisbee and watching college basketball.
Executive Director, Center for a Secure Free Society
Joseph M. Humire is a national security expert, specialized in analyzing Transregional Threat Networks in the Western Hemisphere. Mr. Humire provides regular briefings on countering China, Russia, and Iran’s authoritarian influence in Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as combating the convergence of international terrorism and transnational organized crime. Mr. Humire has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress as well as the European and Canadian Parliament and in 2023 was awarded an Order of Defense Merit Medial from the Colombian Armed Forces.
Mr. Humire is a regular national security commentator and contributor for a variety of English and Spanish language media and has a regular weekly radio segment called the #NewWorldReport on the nationally syndicated show and podcast CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor and is the host of the Border Wars Podcast available on all digital platforms. Mr. Humire has published in both languages for various newspapers and academic journals across the Americas and released his first book in 2014 titled Iran’s Strategic Penetration of Latin America, published by Lexington Books. More recently, in 2019, he wrote the foreword for the latest book by Dr. Max G. Manwaring, titled Confronting the Evolving Global Security Landscape published by Praeger Security International.
Mr. Humire currently serves as the executive director of the national security think tank—Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS)—based in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. Prior to SFS, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps with a combat tour in Iraq and a multinational training exercise UNITAS in Latin America and the Caribbean. After leaving the military, he graduated from George Mason University with a degree in Economics and Global Affairs. Mr. Humire began building SFS’s global network of more than 100 security scholars in almost 30 countries worldwide as the Director of Institute Relations at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. He is currently a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for National Security and a visiting professor-of-practice at Florida International University’s Adam Smith Center for Economic Freedom.
Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, revised and expanded edition, 2022), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, revised and expanded second edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Democracy and Political Ignorance has been translated into Italian and Japanese.
Somin’s work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, USA Today, Boston Globe, US News and World Report, South China Morning Post, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Associated Press, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, BBC, Reuters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Al Jazeera, and the Voice of America, among other media.
Somin’s writings have been cited in decisions by the United States Supreme Court, multiple state supreme courts and lower federal courts, and the Supreme Court of Israel. He is co-counsel for the plaintiffs in VOS Selections, Inc. v. Trump, a case challenging the constitutionality of President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Somin has testified on the use of drones for targeted killing in the War on Terror before the US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights. In 2009, he testified on property rights issues at the United States Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Somin writes regularly for the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, now affiliated with Reason magazine (previously affiliated with the Washington Post from 2014 to 2017). From 2006 to 2013, he served as Co-Editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review, one of the country’s top-rated law and economics journals.
Somin has served as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He has also been a visiting professor or scholar at the Georgetown University Law Center, the University of Hamburg, Germany, the University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Uriel Reichman University in Israel, and Zhengzhou University in China. He is a University Affiliate of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and an affiliated faculty member of the George Mason University Institute for Immigration Research. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, Somin was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, and J.D. from Yale Law School.
Trial Lawyer, Bennett Legal
Charles Bennett is the driving force behind Bennett Legal, a nationally recognized law firm specializing in winning Personal Injury cases. He is one of the nation’s top trial attorneys and consultants. He is invited to speak and teach nationwide, educating lawyers on tactics, tips, and procedures that empower them to take on the insurance companies and get significantly improved results. Charles has secured record-breaking results in a variety of categories, including: commercial/18-wheeler crashes, wrongful deaths with a specialty in negligent landlord cases, traumatic brain damage cases, motor vehicle crashes, and workplace injuries.
Charles is highly regarded among his peers as a top lawyer in his field. Whenever other trial lawyers face complex cases and need guidance, they turn to Charles Bennett for his expert advice. He has gained extensive knowledge and experience as a principal of Trial Structure LLC, an educational corporation that catered specifically to trial lawyers. He worked on thousands of cases with a diverse range of lawyers across the nation. He is known as the “lawyer’s lawyer” because of his reputation for trial skills and collaberation. Lawyers often partner with him on their difficult cases to maximize the results.
Charles is now the captain of the Justice College, an institution whose mission is to empower lawyers to face billion-dollar insurance companies without feeling overwhelmed. Charles and the instructors at the Justice College form a special forces unit of trial excellence capable of defeating any insurance team they face. The Justice College graduates become lifelong members of a tribe that share experiences to help the community stay at the top of their game and increase case value.
Charles is a cum laude graduate of SMU Dedman School of Law. Before pursuing law, he had an outstanding career as a college basketball player at Midwestern State University, where he exhibited excellent leadership skills and athleticism. He played professional basketball in Europe. Playing at the professional level necessitates an incredible work ethic, the ability to cooperate and work as a team, and competitiveness that he now applies in the courtroom with spectacular success.
During law school, Charles’s amazed everyone with his initiative and capability by obtaining international arbitration awards for professional basketball players and agents. Recognized as a member of The National Trial Lawyers Top 40 Under 40 and nominated as a Rising Star by Thomson Reuters, Charles’s legal acumen and commitment to excellence make him your best choice when you can’t afford to lose.
He and the Bennett Legal team actively engage in charitable events, reflecting their commitment to giving back and building meaningful connections within their local communities.
Partner, The Loree Law Firm
Philip J. Loree Jr. is the principal of The Loree Law Firm. He has 30 years of experience representing clients in complex disputes before federal and state trial and appellate courts, and arbitration panels, particularly in domestic and international arbitration-law, reinsurance, insurance, and other business and commercial disputes.
Before forming Loree & Loree in 2008 he practiced for nearly 17 years with one of the leading reinsurance practice groups in the United States, and was a litigation partner at two prominent New York City law firms, Rosenman & Colin LLP (now Katten-Muchin Rosenman LLP) and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP. When Philip J. Loree Sr. retired from the practice of law in 2020, Philip J. Loree Jr. (“Mr. Loree” or “Loree”) continued the practice of Loree & Loree as The Loree Law Firm.
Mr. Loree has extensive experience arbitrating and litigating matters involving nearly every significant, reinsurance-related issue, including statutory and GAAP reinsurance accounting; transfer of insurance risk; independent auditor liability; fraud and rescission; London Market disputes; pool administration; insolvencies; follow-the- fortunes and follow-the-settlements; allocation of environmental liability and asbestos settlements; number of occurrences; trigger of coverage; multi-year policy issues; interpretation of reinsurance contracts and insurance policies; underwriting practices; reserving; set off; late notice; pre-hearing and pre-answer security; utmost good faith; bad faith; allocation and recovery of declaratory judgment expenses; and liability of intermediaries, managing general agents and brokers. He has also handled coverage litigation. He has counseled clients in contentious and non-contentious matters involving insurance coverage; regulatory compliance; Office of Foreign Asset Control (“OFAC”) sanctions; reinsurance or insurance coverage for hurricane or storm damage; commutations; internal reinsurance reviews; contract and policy interpretation; Bermuda Form polices; property insurance, including insurance of a major oil rig; life reinsurance; life settlements; risk transfer; and other issues.
He has also represented and counseled clients in arbitration and litigation concerning commercial and business contracts, business torts, and fraudulent transfers.
As a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP he played key roles in a number of high-profile matters. He was a member of the four-partner trial team that obtained a $1.1 billion arbitration award in favor of a large, Japanese insurance and reinsurance company against Fortress Re, Inc., the manager of what was once one of the world’s largest aviation reinsurance pools. The arbitration concerned, among other things, Fortress Re’s accounting and reporting practices for financial reinsurance, and the $1.1 billion award is reputed to be the largest in the history of reinsurance arbitration.
He was also a key member of the team that represented the same Japanese insurance and reinsurance company in the related action it brought against Deloitte & Touche, LLP, the independent auditor of the Fortress Re Pool, seeking more than $1 billion in damages. That matter resulted in what was at the time reputed to be the second largest settlement of an independent auditor liability case in history. He and his former partners also represented a large, international reinsurance company in an internal review of finite reinsurance transactions that resulted in a restatement of earnings.
Mr. Loree also has extensive experience and expertise in practice and procedure under the Federal Arbitration Act, including matters arising under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, and is a recognized commentator on U.S. arbitration-law matters. He has represented clients in numerous proceedings involving the enforcement of arbitration agreements and the confirmation and vacatur of arbitration awards arising out of industry, commercial, business contract, employment, and trust arbitrations.
He argued Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Home Ins. Co., 429 F.3d 640 (6th Cir. 2005), which rejected an evident partiality and excess of powers challenge to a favorable award he helped his client obtain. Considering for the first time what legal standard should apply to an evident partiality challenge based on a party-appointed arbitrator’s alleged failure to disclose purported conflicts of interest, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected the challenging party’s argument that the district court applied the wrong standard. Courts, treatises and commentators have cited Nationwide extensively.
As a Loree & Loree partner he obtained on behalf of an English client partial vacatur of a reinsurance arbitration award in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The final award provided that the arbitration panel would remain constituted until the parties agreed that it should disband. When the arbitration panel would not disband after resolving all issues the parties submitted to it, his client petitioned the Court for an order vacating the retention-of-jurisdiction provision and confirming all other aspects of the award. He successfully convinced the Court to grant the petition in its entirety and hold that the retention-of-jurisdiction provision exceeded the arbitrators’ authority under Section 10(a)(4) of the Federal Arbitration Act. See KX Re Co. v. General Reinsurance Corp., 08 Civ. 7807 (SAS), 2008 WL 4904882 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 14, 2008).
Loree argued on behalf of the prevailing party Certain Underwriting Members of Lloyds of London v. State of Florida, Department of Financial Services, 892 F.3d 501, 503-04 (2d Cir. 2018) in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that “a party seeking to vacate an award under Section 10(a)(2) must sustain a higher burden to prove evident partiality on the part of an arbitrator who is appointed by a party and who is expected to espouse the view or perspective of the appointing party.” Id. “An undisclosed relationship between a party and its party- appointed arbitrator constitutes evident partiality, such that vacatur of the award is appropriate if[,]” explained the Court: “(1) the relationship violates the contractual requirement of disinterestedness [or another contractual requirement of the arbitration agreement]; or (2) it prejudicially affects the award.” 892 F.3d at 504 (citations omitted). (Read more about the case here.)
Loree is a prolific and skilled writer. He has written extensively on reinsurance and arbitration-related matters, and is the editor-in-chief of the Arbitration Law Forum (formerly the Loree Reinsurance and Arbitration Law Forum) (http://www.LoreeLawFirm.com/blog), which regularly posts online articles of interest concerning reinsurance and commercial and industry arbitration. In addition to the more than 300 articles he has published in The Arbitration Law Forum (and in its predecessor, the Loree Reinsurance and Arbitration Law Forum), he has written articles published in the New York Law Journal, the National Law Journal, U.S. Insurer, Global Reinsurer, and other publications, as well as several articles for Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation, the newsletter of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (“CPR”).
Mr. Loree’s publications include:
CPR conducted in 2020 several video conference interviews of Loree, and his friend, former trial judge, and fellow arbitration-law practitioner, Richard D. Faulkner, about various controversial arbitration issues pertaining to matters the U.S. Supreme Court either has been asked to hear. Links to those videos can be accessed here.
Mr. Loree’s speaking engagements include:
The Loree Law Firm’s predecessor practice, Loree & Loree, was selected by Expertise.com out of a group of 1,763 persons or firms reviewed as one of Expertise.com’s top 18 “Arbitrators & Mediators” in New York City for 2019, and now for 2020. (See here and here.)
His comments on arbitration matters have been quoted by Global Arbitration Review, a London-based trade publication that covers international arbitration; Business Insurance, and U.S. Law Week.
Loree obtained his B.A. from New York University in 1986 and his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 1989, where he was the Editor-in-Chief of the Brooklyn Journal of International Law, a Dean’s Merit Scholar, and a member of the Dean’s List.
He is admitted to practice in the State of New York, and in the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, and the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Sixth, and Eighth Circuits.
A Hemisphere at Stake: China, Cartels, and the Path Forward for U.S. Policy
Ryan C. Berg, Erick A. Brimen, Joseph M. Humire
As China deepens its presence in Latin America by owning nearly 40 ports—including a...
Immigration and the Question of State Invasion
Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, Joseph M. Humire, Ilya Somin
Immigration is a spotlight issue, especially heading into the next administration. Some say the United...
Recent Supreme Court Decisions: Implications for the Business World
Charles Bennett, Philip J. Loree
The U.S. Supreme Court continues to shape arbitration law through a strict interpretation of the...
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The Case for an AUMF Against Iran and Its Proxies
About 2,500 years ago, the Chinese military theorist Sun Tzu wisely observed that subduing the...