Kira Jumet is Assistant Professor of Government at Hamilton College. Her research focuses on protest mobilization leading up to and during the 2011 and 2013 Egyptian uprisings, including the relationship between emotions and protest participation. Her most recent book is Contesting the Repressive State: Why Ordinary Egyptians Protested During the Arab Spring (Oxford University Press, 2017). In her book Jumet asks, “Why and how did thousands of Egyptian citizens suddenly take to the streets against the Mubarak regime in January 2011?” With insights based on 170 interviews conducted in Egypt during the Arab Spring, she argues that individuals are rational…

Reggie Govan, the former Chief Counsel of the FAA, played an integral role shaping public policy at the cutting edge of aviation technology, and he has a deep understanding of the impact of rapidly evolving innovative technology systems and operations on the regulatory environment. He is one of the architects of today’s regulatory framework for expanding commercial drone operations, ensuring counter-drone security, and expanding performance-based rulemaking. Govan is an advocate for a comprehensive reconsideration of the relative roles of federal, state, local, and tribal governments and of private industry to support low-altitude commercial drone operations. Before joining the FAA, Govan…

WITH William C. Banks, Director, INSCT W. George Jameson, Former Director, Office of Policy & Corporate Coordination, CIA* Robert B. Murrett, Deputy Director, INSCT Laurie Brown Hobart, Former Assistant General Counsel, US Intelligence Community, and Assistant Teaching Professor, SU College of Law W. George Jameson is a consultant, attorney, lecturer, and author on matters relating to intelligence and national security operations, policy, and law. He founded Jameson Consulting to provide independent counsel and advice to corporate and government clients and others on matters relating to national and international security, operations and business development, risk management, mediation, and governance. Jameson also…

Eric Schmitt is a Pulitzer Prize Winning journalist covering terrorism and national security for The New York Times. Since 2007, he has reported on terrorism issues, with assignments to Pakistan, Afghanistan, North Africa, Southeast Asia, among others. He is the co-author, with The Times’s Thom Shanker, of Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda, published in 2011.

The conflict in Kashmir is among the long-standing political conflicts in the world. It has taken a heavy toll on lives, on sanity and on the idea of normalcy. The film Khoon Diy Baarav made over nine years, enters the vexed political scenario in Kashmir through the lives of families of the victims of enforced disappearances. It explores memory as a mode of resistance, constantly confronting reality and morphing from the personal to the political, the individual to the collective.

BRETT KAVANAUGH HAS POWER TO STRENGTHEN DONALD TRUMP, BUT SUPREME COURT HAS BOOSTED PRESIDENTS FOR DECADES (Newsweek | July 20, 2018) Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s opposition to a sitting president potentially facing an indictment, as well as the court’s lengthy history in bending the Constitution to favor a president’s powers, could raise as much concern among opponents of President Donald Trump’s nominee as his potential threat to abortion rights. For a president who has openly flaunted what he believes is the power to pardon himself, Trump may have taken into account Kavanaugh’s views on executive power and how…

By the Hon. James E. Baker & Professor Laura A. Dickinson The ongoing operation of the US military commissions at Guantanamo Bay has posed significant challenges for multiple US administrations. Originally established by President George W. Bush in the aftermath of 9/11 to try noncitizen terrorism suspects, the commissions have been plagued with a variety of problems. Cases have languished, and no contested commission trials have become final, including the 9/11 case itself—for which a trial has not yet begun. (Military commission proceedings have resulted in 8 convictions pursuant to pleas, however). Much of the law related to commissions remains…

By David M. Crane (Re-published from The Jurist | June 26, 2018) June 26th is the United Nations’ International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. Its purpose — to denounce the crime of torture and proclaim solidarity with its survivors — is in stark opposition to the policy of my government. As a former Chief Prosecutor of an international war crimes tribunal in West Africa, I walked the countryside, interviewing hundreds of victims — often people who had been tortured by their own government. The atrocities scarred them physically, emotionally, and psychologically for life. But they shared their stories enthusiastically with…

INSCT Faculty Member David M. Crane will join other distinguished international law scholars and practitioners at “Crisis in Yemen: Accountability and Reparations,” an event designed to bring the world’s attention to a growing humanitarian disaster in this Middle East nation. The panel discussion takes place at The Stimson Center in Washington, DC, on June 26, 2018, from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The simulcast can be viewed here. Sponsored by the American Society of International Law, the Stimson Center, and the Washington Foreign Law Society, the panel also features Stephen Rapp, Former US Ambassador-At-Large for War Crimes; Mark Agrast, Executive…

INSCT Director of Research Corri Zoli has published “Terrorist Critical Infrastructures, Organizational Capacity, and Security Risk” in the engineering journal Safety Science. This interdisciplinary article is co-authored with Zoli’s Syracuse University colleagues Professor Laura J. Steinberg of the School of Engineering and Computer Science and Professor Margaret Hermann of the Maxwell School, along with Martha Grabowski, an engineering professor at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, NY. This essay addresses gaps between studies of terrorism and infrastructure resilience to explore “terrorist critical infrastructures” (TCIs) as one critically missing framework to understand the rise of terrorist political violence globally. This approach to global…