Invitation: The 5th Annual National Security Law Faculty Workshop

THE 5^th ANNUAL NATIONAL SECURITY LAW FACULTY WORKSHOP

 May 17-18, 2012

Houston, TX

Hosted by:    The University of Texas School of Law (Prof. Robert Chesney, co-host) The South Texas College of Law (Prof. Geoff Corn, co-host) The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School (U.S. Army) The International Committee of the Red Cross _________________________________________________________ The National Security Law Faculty Workshop, now in its fifth year, is a unique event.  It brings civilian law faculty together with Judge Advocates from the U.S. military and with representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross for two days of article workshops intermixed with training, discussion, and debate relating to the law of war and other national security-related topics. As in years past, we employ a unique format, with sessions devoted to article presentations giving way to training/discussion sessions and then back again.  We’ve found that this keeps everyone fresh and engaged.  For the article workshop sessions, we use a discussant format that entails a relatively brief presentation of the paper by someone other than the author (including comments and criticism), followed by extensive Q&A involving all attendees. In the past this event has been held at Wake Forest, UT (twice), and the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School in Charlottesville, Virginia.  We are very excited that this year we will for the first time hold the event in Houston, on campus at South Texas College of Law in the heart of Houston’s vibrant downtown (as luck would have it, the Astros will be playing at home that week against the Brewers and then the Rangers, so we’ll do our best to set up a group event at the game on one of the evenings). In light of space constraints, we currently anticipate having 20 slots available for attendees.  Five of these will go to the authors of papers selected for presentation at the workshop, the other fifteen are open slots (though some of the open-slot attendees will be asked to serve as discussants for the selected papers, and everyone of course is expected to read and be prepared to comment on the papers during the Q&A). All slots will be allocated based on a review of the papers and attendance requests submitted to Professors Chesney and Corn, who will review them in coordination with Lieutenant Colonel Rich DiMeglio, the Chair of the International and Operational Law Department at TJAGLCS.  Toward that end: Authors:          Please submit your draft or at least an abstract to both Bobby Chesney (rchesney@law.utexas.edu) and Geoff Corn (gcorn@stcl.edu) no later than February 1, 2012.  It is fine if you are so early in the writing process that you have only an abstract at the time of submission.  The main thing is to have a substantial working paper three weeks prior to the event itself.  But do not submit work that already is in print or that will be by the time of the workshop.      A note on topics: While this event is oriented toward IHL issues, it is conceived as a “national security” workshop rather than just an IHL workshop.  As such, we are open to inclusion of papers on topics having nothing to do with IHL or international law, so long as there is an obvious security-related angle.   Other attendees:       Please submit your request to attend, along with a brief explanation of your interest, to both Bobby and Geoff at the emails listed above, also no later than February 1, 2012. There is no registration fee or paperwork for those who are selected to attend (nor CLE credit).  You will be responsible for all travel and  other expenses, though we will provide lunches both days of the event and hope to be able to subsidize or even pay for dinner on one or more nights. We will provide further details on travel (both Houston George H.W. Bush Intercontinental and Houston Hobby airports are close by) and lodging (we likely will have a preferred rate available at a nearby Marriott) to those individuals selected to participate. Please continue reading to see the agenda from last year’s event, which will give you a good sense of the structure we intend to follow for this year’s event: Agenda For Last Year’s Event Wednesday March 31 Icebreaker – Wednesday, 18 May from 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm (5^th Floor JAG School)   Day 2 – Friday, 20 May