Vice President, Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, Advancing American Freedom
John G. Malcolm oversees Advancing American Freedom’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law as Vice President of the organization’s Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law. Malcolm brings to the challenge a wealth of legal expertise and experience in both the public and private sectors.
Prior to joining Advancing American Freedom in 2025, Malcolm was the Vice President of the Institute for Constitutional Government and the Director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation. Prior to joining Heritage in 2012, Malcolm was general counsel at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, as well as a distinguished practitioner in residence at Pepperdine Law School. From 2004 to 2009, Malcolm was executive vice president and director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association.
Malcolm served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division from 2001 to 2004, where he oversaw sections on computer crime and intellectual property, domestic security, child exploitation and obscenity, and special investigations. Immediately prior to that, he was a founding partner in the Atlanta law firm of Malcolm & Schroeder, LLP.
From 1990 to 1997, Malcolm was an assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta, assigned to the fraud and public corruption section, and also an associate independent counsel, investigating fraud and abuse in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He was honored with the Director’s Award for Superior Performance for his work in connection with the successful prosecution of Walter Leroy Moody Jr., who assassinated an 11th Circuit judge and the head of the Savannah chapter of the NAACP.
A graduate of Harvard Law School and Columbia College, Malcolm began his career as a law clerk to a federal district court judge and a federal appellate court judge, and as an associate at the Atlanta-based law firm of Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan (new Eversheds Sutherland).
Malcolm, who resides in Washington, D.C., serves on the Board of Trustees of the Washington National Opera and is a Senate-confirmed member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation, the largest funder of civil legal aid in the United States.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Senior Research Fellow, School of Civic Leadership, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law. He is also Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Civic Leadership and Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War, Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare, and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, Keio University in Japan, Trento University in Italy, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and been the Edwin Meese III Originalism Lecturer at the Heritage Foundation.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Partner, Arnold & Porter LLP
John Bellinger heads the firm's Global Law and Public Policy practice. He joined the firm in 2009, after holding several senior Presidential appointments in the US government, including as the Senate-confirmed Legal Adviser to the Department of State and Senior Associate Counsel to the President and Legal Adviser to the National Security Council (NSC) at the White House in the George W. Bush Administration.
Mr. Bellinger represents individuals, corporations, and sovereign governments in litigation in US courts and before international institutions. He has extensive experience in US foreign relations litigation involving the Alien Tort Statute, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the Anti-Terrorism Act, and the diplomatic and official immunities of foreign governments and government officials. He advises clients on other public international law matters, including treaties and international agreements as well as international humanitarian law and human rights law. He also counsels US and foreign clients on national security legal and policy issues, including US and multilateral financial sanctions and asset controls, the extraterritorial application of US criminal and civil laws, and transactions reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
Chambers Global ranks Mr. Bellinger among the best international lawyers in the world, reporting that he has "second-to-none experience in public international law, international litigation and foreign sovereign immunity" and that his "experience at the highest levels of the Executive branch...gives him a distinct and important vantage point on legal issues." Chambers adds: "For any cross border work he's just extraordinary, he knows the area inside-out."
Mr. Bellinger was the State Department Legal Adviser–the most senior international lawyer in the US Government–from 2005 to 2009, serving under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He directed more than 170 lawyers on domestic and international law matters affecting US foreign relations. Before joining the State Department, Mr. Bellinger managed Secretary Rice's Senate confirmation process and co-directed her State Department transition team. In 2009, Mr. Bellinger received the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award.
Mr. Bellinger has argued cases before the International Court of Justice (Mexico v. United States–(Medellin)) and the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague. He has appeared on numerous briefs in US federal courts, including the Supreme Court, in litigation involving international law issues.
As Legal Adviser to the NSC from 2001 to 2005, Mr. Bellinger advised President Bush, Cabinet officials, National Security Advisor Rice, and NSC staff on a wide range of national security and international law issues, including counterterrorism issues after the 9-11 attacks. He was one of the principal drafters of the legislation that created the Director of National Intelligence.
Prior to his service in the Bush Administration, Mr. Bellinger served as Counsel for National Security Matters in the Criminal Division at the US Department of Justice (1997-2001); Of Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1996); General Counsel of the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the US Intelligence Community (1995-1996); and Special Assistant to Director of Central Intelligence William Webster (1988-1991). Mr. Bellinger is an Adjunct Senior Fellow in International and National Security Law at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has testified before Congress on numerous occasions, is quoted regularly in the media on international and national security law matters, and has lectured at numerous US and foreign universities and law schools. He is the author of many law review articles and op-eds on international law, including op-eds in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Bellinger is a senior contributor to the Lawfare blog.
Mr. Bellinger is a member of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on International Law. He served from 2005-2019 as one of four US Members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and a member of the US "National Group", which nominates judges to the International Court of Justice. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Society of International Law. He is a member of the Council of the American Law Institute; the boards of directors of the American Ditchley Foundation, the Salzburg Global Seminar, and the Stimson Center; and the advisory committee of Foreign Affairs magazine.
Mr. Bellinger is a graduate of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and he holds an MA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and a JD from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard International Law Journal.
Associate Dean for Research Helen Strong Curry Chair in International Law Director, Cecil D. Branstetter Litigation & Dispute Resolution Program, Vanderbilt Law School
Ingrid Wuerth is a leading scholar of foreign affairs, public international law and transnational litigation. She joined Vanderbilt’s law faculty in 2007, was appointed director of the International Legal Studies Program in 2009, and was appointed director of the Branstetter Litigation & Dispute Resolution Program in 2018. She was named to the newly endowed Helen Strong Curry Chair in International Law in 2015. Professor Wuerth has served on the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law and on the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Public International Law. She is a member of the American Law Institute and was named as a Reporter for the Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. She has received numerous honors and fellowships, including the Morehead Scholarship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Fulbright Senior Scholar award, the German Chancellor's Fellowship, election to the German Society of International Law, election to the Order of the Coif and many teaching awards. She clerked for Judge Jan E. DuBois in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and for Judge Jane Roth on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The class of 2018 elected Professor Wuerth to give the commencement address. She is a contributing editor at Lawfare.
Algernon Biddle Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy; Director, Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law, Penn Law
Claire Finkelstein’s current research addresses national security law and policy, with a focus on ethical and rule of law issues that arise in that arena. In 2012, Professor Finkelstein founded Penn Law’s Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL), a non-partisan interdisciplinary institute that seeks to promote the rule of law in modern day conflict, warfare, and national security. In 2019, she was named Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). An expert in the law of armed conflict, military ethics, and national security law, she is a co-editor (with Jens David Ohlin) of The Oxford Series in Ethics, National Security, and the Rule of Law, and a volume editor of its four titles thus far: Targeted Killings: Law & Morality in an Asymmetrical World (Oxford University Press, 2012); Cyber War: Law and Ethics for Virtual Conflicts (Oxford University Press, 2015); Weighing Lives in War (Oxford University Press, 2017); and Sovereignty and the New Executive Authority (Oxford University Press, 2018). Professor Finkelstein has briefed Pentagon officials, U.S. Senate staff, and JAG Corps members on various issues in national security law and practice. She is a frequent radio, broadcast, and print commentator and has published op-eds in The New York Times and The Hill. Her prior scholarly work focuses on criminal law theory, moral and political philosophy, jurisprudence, and rational choice theory. She is also the editor of Hobbes on Law (Ashgate Publishing, 2005) and is currently completing a book called Contractarian Legal Theory.
James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Albert Clark Tate, Jr., Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Professor Saikrishna Prakash’s scholarship focuses on separation of powers, particularly executive powers. He teaches Constitutional Law, Foreign Relations Law and Presidential Powers at the Law School.
Prakash’s most recent book, “The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument Against Its Ever-Expanding Powers,” was published by Harvard Belknap Press in 2020. He also authored “Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive” (Yale University Press, 2015). The former book focuses on the modern presidency while the latter considers the presidency of the Founders.
Prakash has authored over 75 law review articles. Among them are “Of Synchronicity and Supreme Law” in the Harvard Law Review, “The Indefensible Duty to Defend” in the Columbia Law Review, and “50 States, 50 Attorneys General and 50 Approaches to the Duty to Defend” and “The Executive Power Over Foreign Affairs” in the Yale Law Journal.
Prakash has published op-eds in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. At the request of Democrats and Republicans, he has testified before Congress on matters of presidential removal, the Mueller Report and how Congress might better check the presidency. He is currently a Miller Center Senior Fellow. In 2015, he received the Roger Traynor award for faculty scholarship. In the same year, he received an honorable mention from the American Society of Legal Writers for his book “Imperial from the Beginning.” He has given named lectures at William & Mary Law School, Princeton University and Toledo Law School, and keynote addresses at several conferences.
Prakash majored in economics and political science at Stanford University. At Yale Law School, he served as senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and received the John M. Olin Fellowship in Law, Economics and Public Policy. He subsequently clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing in New York for two years, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and as an associate professor at Boston University School of Law. He then spent several years at the University of San Diego School of Law as the Herzog Research Professor of Law. Prakash has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. He also has served as a James Madison Fellow at Princeton University and Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution of War & Peace at Stanford University.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Rao was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March 2019. She graduated from Yale College in 1995 and the University of Chicago Law School in 1999. Following graduation, she served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and, in the 2001 October Term, as law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. Between her clerkships, Judge Rao served as counsel for nominations and constitutional law to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In 2002, she joined the international arbitration group of Clifford Chance LLP in London, England. From 2005-2006, she served as Special Assistant and Associate White House Counsel to President George W. Bush. From 2006 to 2017, Judge Rao was a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where she taught constitutional law, legislation and statutory interpretation, and the history and foundations of the administrative state. In 2014, she founded the Center for the Study of the Administrative State, a non-profit Center that promotes academic scholarship and public policy debates about administrative law. In July 2017, she was appointed to serve as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management Budget. She served in this position until her appointment to the D.C. Circuit.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Senior Research Fellow, School of Civic Leadership, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law. He is also Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Civic Leadership and Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War, Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare, and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, Keio University in Japan, Trento University in Italy, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and been the Edwin Meese III Originalism Lecturer at the Heritage Foundation.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Senior Legal Fellow and Manager, National Security Law Program, The Heritage Foundation
Charles “Cully” Stimson is a widely recognized expert in national security, homeland security, crime control, drug policy and immigration. A senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation since 2007, Stimson became Manager of the National Security Law Program in Heritage’s Institute for Constitutional Government in April 2013 after serving as Heritage’s chief of staff for a year.
Stimson writes and lectures on policy issues such as the law of armed conflict, terrorist detainee policy and interrogations, the Geneva Conventions, military commissions, the Patriot Act and FISA, criminal law and the death penalty, immigration and the war on drugs. As chief of staff to then-Heritage President Edwin J. Feulner, he was a key adviser on public policy matters as well as manager of Feulner’s office staff and Heritage’s day-to-day operations.
Stimson’s many research papers, op-eds and articles include special reports such as “Adult Time for Adult Crime,” a comprehensive study on the constitutionality of life sentences for teen-age murderers, and Sexual Assault in the Military: Understanding the Problem and How to Fix It, a ground-breaking paper detailing the inner workings of the military justice system compared to its civilian counterpart. His work on criminal and immigration law has been cited in briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court.
He testifies before the U.S. Senate and House on national security issues, and recently testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Law of Armed Conflict, Law of War, and the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force.
Before joining the think tank in 2007, Stimson served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs. He advised then-Secretaries of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates and coordinated the Pentagon’s global detention policy and operations, including at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was chairman of detainee-related panels such as the Defense Senior Leadership Oversight Committee, and the Special Detainee Follow Up Group. He represented the United States before the U.N. in Geneva, Switzerland in May 2006 where he led the DOD delegation in defense of the United States’ Second Period Report on the Convention Against Torture.
An accomplished trial lawyer, Stimson worked as a prosecutor at the local, state and federal levels, where he concentrated on violent crimes such as homicide, sexual assault and domestic violence. A third generation naval officer, Cully also served as a military prosecutor, defense counsel, and recently served as Deputy Chief Judge of the Navy-Marine Corps Trial Judiciary. He continues to serve, with the rank of Captain, as the Commanding Officer of the Preliminary Hearing Unit.
Stimson’s thousands of media interviews and appearances include Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNN, BBC, NPR and C-SPAN. He has been quoted by most major newspapers, including The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and London Times.
A businessman and educator by training, Stimson is Vice Chairman of his family’s commercial real estate company in Seattle. Before 9/11, he was a Vice President at a New York-based global financial services and insurance brokerage firm where ran the private equity mergers and acquisitions D.C. operation.
Stimson holds a law degree from the George Mason University School of Law, where he later taught as an Adjunct Professor of Law. He is a graduate of Kenyon College, where he was Captain of the men’s varsity soccer team and an All-Conference player. He also studied at Harvard and Exeter universities. An avid soccer player and triathlete, he serves as Chairman of the Board of the United States Soccer Foundation, the charitable giving arm of U.S. Soccer.
Professorial Lecturer in Law, George Washington University Law School
Theodore C. (Ted) Hirt was an attorney in the Department of Justice's Civil Division from August 1979 to March 2016. He was in its Federal Programs Branch from 1979 to 2008 (trial attorney, senior trial counsel, assistant director), and then in its Office of Immigration Litigation from 2008 to 2016 (trial attorney and senior litigation counsel). Among his responsibilities (September 2001 to March 2016) was being an advisor to the Assistant Attorneys General for the Civil Division, who serve ex officio on the Civil Rules Advisory Committee. Mr. Hirt’s areas of specialization include First Amendment issues, internet and telecommunications law, and electronic discovery. From 1976 to 1979, he was an associate at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Kampelman. From 1975 to 1976 he was an attorney in the Prehearing Division of the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Partner, Arnold & Porter LLP
John Bellinger heads the firm's Global Law and Public Policy practice. He joined the firm in 2009, after holding several senior Presidential appointments in the US government, including as the Senate-confirmed Legal Adviser to the Department of State and Senior Associate Counsel to the President and Legal Adviser to the National Security Council (NSC) at the White House in the George W. Bush Administration.
Mr. Bellinger represents individuals, corporations, and sovereign governments in litigation in US courts and before international institutions. He has extensive experience in US foreign relations litigation involving the Alien Tort Statute, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the Anti-Terrorism Act, and the diplomatic and official immunities of foreign governments and government officials. He advises clients on other public international law matters, including treaties and international agreements as well as international humanitarian law and human rights law. He also counsels US and foreign clients on national security legal and policy issues, including US and multilateral financial sanctions and asset controls, the extraterritorial application of US criminal and civil laws, and transactions reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
Chambers Global ranks Mr. Bellinger among the best international lawyers in the world, reporting that he has "second-to-none experience in public international law, international litigation and foreign sovereign immunity" and that his "experience at the highest levels of the Executive branch...gives him a distinct and important vantage point on legal issues." Chambers adds: "For any cross border work he's just extraordinary, he knows the area inside-out."
Mr. Bellinger was the State Department Legal Adviser–the most senior international lawyer in the US Government–from 2005 to 2009, serving under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He directed more than 170 lawyers on domestic and international law matters affecting US foreign relations. Before joining the State Department, Mr. Bellinger managed Secretary Rice's Senate confirmation process and co-directed her State Department transition team. In 2009, Mr. Bellinger received the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award.
Mr. Bellinger has argued cases before the International Court of Justice (Mexico v. United States–(Medellin)) and the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague. He has appeared on numerous briefs in US federal courts, including the Supreme Court, in litigation involving international law issues.
As Legal Adviser to the NSC from 2001 to 2005, Mr. Bellinger advised President Bush, Cabinet officials, National Security Advisor Rice, and NSC staff on a wide range of national security and international law issues, including counterterrorism issues after the 9-11 attacks. He was one of the principal drafters of the legislation that created the Director of National Intelligence.
Prior to his service in the Bush Administration, Mr. Bellinger served as Counsel for National Security Matters in the Criminal Division at the US Department of Justice (1997-2001); Of Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (1996); General Counsel of the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the US Intelligence Community (1995-1996); and Special Assistant to Director of Central Intelligence William Webster (1988-1991). Mr. Bellinger is an Adjunct Senior Fellow in International and National Security Law at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has testified before Congress on numerous occasions, is quoted regularly in the media on international and national security law matters, and has lectured at numerous US and foreign universities and law schools. He is the author of many law review articles and op-eds on international law, including op-eds in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Bellinger is a senior contributor to the Lawfare blog.
Mr. Bellinger is a member of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on International Law. He served from 2005-2019 as one of four US Members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and a member of the US "National Group", which nominates judges to the International Court of Justice. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Society of International Law. He is a member of the Council of the American Law Institute; the boards of directors of the American Ditchley Foundation, the Salzburg Global Seminar, and the Stimson Center; and the advisory committee of Foreign Affairs magazine.
Mr. Bellinger is a graduate of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and he holds an MA in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and a JD from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard International Law Journal.
Algernon Biddle Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy; Director, Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law, Penn Law
Claire Finkelstein’s current research addresses national security law and policy, with a focus on ethical and rule of law issues that arise in that arena. In 2012, Professor Finkelstein founded Penn Law’s Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL), a non-partisan interdisciplinary institute that seeks to promote the rule of law in modern day conflict, warfare, and national security. In 2019, she was named Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). An expert in the law of armed conflict, military ethics, and national security law, she is a co-editor (with Jens David Ohlin) of The Oxford Series in Ethics, National Security, and the Rule of Law, and a volume editor of its four titles thus far: Targeted Killings: Law & Morality in an Asymmetrical World (Oxford University Press, 2012); Cyber War: Law and Ethics for Virtual Conflicts (Oxford University Press, 2015); Weighing Lives in War (Oxford University Press, 2017); and Sovereignty and the New Executive Authority (Oxford University Press, 2018). Professor Finkelstein has briefed Pentagon officials, U.S. Senate staff, and JAG Corps members on various issues in national security law and practice. She is a frequent radio, broadcast, and print commentator and has published op-eds in The New York Times and The Hill. Her prior scholarly work focuses on criminal law theory, moral and political philosophy, jurisprudence, and rational choice theory. She is also the editor of Hobbes on Law (Ashgate Publishing, 2005) and is currently completing a book called Contractarian Legal Theory.
James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Albert Clark Tate, Jr., Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Professor Saikrishna Prakash’s scholarship focuses on separation of powers, particularly executive powers. He teaches Constitutional Law, Foreign Relations Law and Presidential Powers at the Law School.
Prakash’s most recent book, “The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument Against Its Ever-Expanding Powers,” was published by Harvard Belknap Press in 2020. He also authored “Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive” (Yale University Press, 2015). The former book focuses on the modern presidency while the latter considers the presidency of the Founders.
Prakash has authored over 75 law review articles. Among them are “Of Synchronicity and Supreme Law” in the Harvard Law Review, “The Indefensible Duty to Defend” in the Columbia Law Review, and “50 States, 50 Attorneys General and 50 Approaches to the Duty to Defend” and “The Executive Power Over Foreign Affairs” in the Yale Law Journal.
Prakash has published op-eds in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. At the request of Democrats and Republicans, he has testified before Congress on matters of presidential removal, the Mueller Report and how Congress might better check the presidency. He is currently a Miller Center Senior Fellow. In 2015, he received the Roger Traynor award for faculty scholarship. In the same year, he received an honorable mention from the American Society of Legal Writers for his book “Imperial from the Beginning.” He has given named lectures at William & Mary Law School, Princeton University and Toledo Law School, and keynote addresses at several conferences.
Prakash majored in economics and political science at Stanford University. At Yale Law School, he served as senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and received the John M. Olin Fellowship in Law, Economics and Public Policy. He subsequently clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing in New York for two years, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and as an associate professor at Boston University School of Law. He then spent several years at the University of San Diego School of Law as the Herzog Research Professor of Law. Prakash has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. He also has served as a James Madison Fellow at Princeton University and Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution of War & Peace at Stanford University.
Judge, United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Judge Rao was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in March 2019. She graduated from Yale College in 1995 and the University of Chicago Law School in 1999. Following graduation, she served as a law clerk to Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and, in the 2001 October Term, as law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. Between her clerkships, Judge Rao served as counsel for nominations and constitutional law to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. In 2002, she joined the international arbitration group of Clifford Chance LLP in London, England. From 2005-2006, she served as Special Assistant and Associate White House Counsel to President George W. Bush. From 2006 to 2017, Judge Rao was a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, where she taught constitutional law, legislation and statutory interpretation, and the history and foundations of the administrative state. In 2014, she founded the Center for the Study of the Administrative State, a non-profit Center that promotes academic scholarship and public policy debates about administrative law. In July 2017, she was appointed to serve as the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Office of Management Budget. She served in this position until her appointment to the D.C. Circuit.
Associate Dean for Research Helen Strong Curry Chair in International Law Director, Cecil D. Branstetter Litigation & Dispute Resolution Program, Vanderbilt Law School
Ingrid Wuerth is a leading scholar of foreign affairs, public international law and transnational litigation. She joined Vanderbilt’s law faculty in 2007, was appointed director of the International Legal Studies Program in 2009, and was appointed director of the Branstetter Litigation & Dispute Resolution Program in 2018. She was named to the newly endowed Helen Strong Curry Chair in International Law in 2015. Professor Wuerth has served on the board of editors of the American Journal of International Law and on the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Public International Law. She is a member of the American Law Institute and was named as a Reporter for the Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. She has received numerous honors and fellowships, including the Morehead Scholarship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Fulbright Senior Scholar award, the German Chancellor's Fellowship, election to the German Society of International Law, election to the Order of the Coif and many teaching awards. She clerked for Judge Jan E. DuBois in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and for Judge Jane Roth on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The class of 2018 elected Professor Wuerth to give the commencement address. She is a contributing editor at Lawfare.
Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley; Senior Research Fellow, School of Civic Leadership, Civitas Institute, University of Texas at Austin; Nonresident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute
John Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law. He is also Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Civic Leadership and Senior Research Fellow, Civitas Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Supreme Court, co-authored with Robert Delahunty, was published in 2023. Professor Yoo’s other books include Defender-in-Chief: Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power; Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons Change the Rules for War, Point of Attack: Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare, and Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George Bush.
Professor Yoo has published more than 100 articles in academic journals on subjects including national security, constitutional law, international law, and the Supreme Court. He also regularly contributes to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and National Review, among others.
Professor Yoo has served in all three branches of government. He was an official in the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on national security and terrorism issues after the 9/11 attacks. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has been a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and federal appeals Judge Laurence Silberman. He has been a visiting professor at Seoul National University in South Korea, the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, Keio University in Japan, Trento University in Italy, the University of Chicago, and the Free University of Amsterdam.
Professor Yoo supervises the Public Law and Policy Program and the California Constitution Center. He also serves on the boards of the Pacific Legal Foundation, the Federalist Society’s Separation of Powers and Federalism Division, the Universidad Cientifica del Sur Law School, and the Asia-Pacific Law Institute at Seoul National University. He is a winner of the Federalist Society’s Paul Bator award and been the Edwin Meese III Originalism Lecturer at the Heritage Foundation.
Professor Yoo graduated from Yale Law School and summa cum laude from Harvard College.
Former United States National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski (born 1928) was assistant to the president of the United States for national security affairs during the Carter administration (1977-1980). Later he was associated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. He authored several books through which he expounded his philosophies as well as his political beliefs and ideals.
David McIntosh is a leader for the principles of limited constitutional government and individual freedom. He is president of the Club for Growth, the leading advocate for economic liberty.
Former Congressman David McIntosh represented Indiana's 2nd Congressional District in the United States Congress from 1995-2001. As a Freshman, David chaired the Subcommittee on Regulatory Relief. He passed the Congressional Review Act and held extensive oversight and field hearings to build a record of public support for regulatory relief initiatives in energy, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, healthcare, transportation and technology sectors. Another issue that he championed was the elimination of the marriage penalty in the Federal Tax Code.
David served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and as special assistant to President Reagan for Domestic Affairs. During the first Bush administration, he served as executive director of the President's Council on Competitiveness and assistant to the Vice President. The Competitiveness Council coordinated the cost/benefit review of major regulations and promoted legal reform measures.
David is a co-founder of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy and serves on the Board of Directors. He remains active with several free market and conservative think tanks and grassroots organizations. David has also had stints at the Hudson Institute and as a Professor of Economics at Ball State School of Business.
Prior to the Club for Growth, David was a partner at Mayer Brown, LLP in Washington, DC.
David graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1983, and Yale University, BA, cum laude, in 1980. He and his wife, Ruthie, are the proud parents of Ellie age 17 and Davey age 13.
Former United States Secretary of Defense
Caspar Weinberger (August 18, 1917 – March 28, 2006) was an American politician and businessman. As a prominent Republican, he served in a variety of state and federal positions for three decades, including Chairman of the California Republican Party, 1962–68. Most notably he was Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1987.
Former United States National Security Advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski (born 1928) was assistant to the president of the United States for national security affairs during the Carter administration (1977-1980). Later he was associated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. He authored several books through which he expounded his philosophies as well as his political beliefs and ideals.
David McIntosh is a leader for the principles of limited constitutional government and individual freedom. He is president of the Club for Growth, the leading advocate for economic liberty.
Former Congressman David McIntosh represented Indiana's 2nd Congressional District in the United States Congress from 1995-2001. As a Freshman, David chaired the Subcommittee on Regulatory Relief. He passed the Congressional Review Act and held extensive oversight and field hearings to build a record of public support for regulatory relief initiatives in energy, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, healthcare, transportation and technology sectors. Another issue that he championed was the elimination of the marriage penalty in the Federal Tax Code.
David served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to Attorney General Edwin Meese III, and as special assistant to President Reagan for Domestic Affairs. During the first Bush administration, he served as executive director of the President's Council on Competitiveness and assistant to the Vice President. The Competitiveness Council coordinated the cost/benefit review of major regulations and promoted legal reform measures.
David is a co-founder of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy and serves on the Board of Directors. He remains active with several free market and conservative think tanks and grassroots organizations. David has also had stints at the Hudson Institute and as a Professor of Economics at Ball State School of Business.
Prior to the Club for Growth, David was a partner at Mayer Brown, LLP in Washington, DC.
David graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1983, and Yale University, BA, cum laude, in 1980. He and his wife, Ruthie, are the proud parents of Ellie age 17 and Davey age 13.
Former United States Secretary of Defense
Caspar Weinberger (August 18, 1917 – March 28, 2006) was an American politician and businessman. As a prominent Republican, he served in a variety of state and federal positions for three decades, including Chairman of the California Republican Party, 1962–68. Most notably he was Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan from 1981 to 1987.
Power and the Presidency: Executive Orders, Waging War and Battling the Judiciary in the Trump Administration
Philadelphia Lawyer Chapter
Philadephia, PATopics
Pausing Military Aid to Israel is the President’s Constitutional Call
Emotions on the issue of pausing weapons shipments to Israel are understandably intense, but the...
Topics
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...
Is Congress a Salvageable Institution?
Ted Hirt
A review of Philip A. Wallach, Why Congress (Oxford University Press 2023) Constitutional law...
Panel III: Unilateral Presidential War Powers
2021 National Student Symposium
Panel III: Unilateral Presidential War Powers
John B. Bellinger, Claire Finkelstein, Saikrishna Prakash, Neomi Rao, Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk, John C. Yoo
Presidents of both parties now regularly claim the authority to take offensive military interventions without...
Address by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger [Archive Collection]
Zbigniew Brzezinski, David M. McIntosh, Caspar W. Weinberger
On November 6-7, 1987, The Federalist Society held a symposium at the Grand Hyatt Hotel...
Address by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger [Archive Collection]
Zbigniew Brzezinski, David M. McIntosh, Caspar W. Weinberger
On November 6-7, 1987, The Federalist Society held a symposium at the Grand Hyatt Hotel...
War Powers, AUMF’s and the Legality Holding or Killing Terrorists
North Carolina Student Chapter
Chapel Hill, NCTopics
The Legal Bases for the Air Strikes Against Qassem Soleimani
On December 27, 2019, an attack against American interests in Kirkuk, Iraq, wounded several U.S....