Cadets currently enrolled in the Department of Law’s Special Topics in the Law course have been privileged to welcome into the classroom some of the most experienced practitioners in the Law of Armed Conflict.
Colonel (Retired) RICHARD B. “DICK” JACKSON, the Special Assistant to the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General for Law of War Matters, spoke to cadets about cultural property and the Law of Armed Conflict.
Colonel Jackson retired from the U.S. Army after over 30 years in uniform, serving in Infantry, Special Forces, Joint and Coalition commands during his military career, including most of the last ten years as the principal legal advisor at a U.S. Army Division, Multinational Division North in Bosnia, the Army Special Operations Command, U.S. Army Pacific, and Joint Forces Command - Naples, a NATO Headquarters.
Colonel Jackson served in military operations in Panama, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq. He was also the Chair of the International and Operational Law Department of the Army Judge Advocate General's School, in Charlottesville, Virginia, and has written extensively in professional publications and lectured around the world on law of war matters. He has represented the U.S. government in several international conferences and negotiations regarding arms control, the law of war, and protection of cultural property. In 2010 he was elected to be the Chair of the Lieber Society Interest Group of the American Society of International Law, which is a private organization promoting dissemination and discussion between practitioners and academics on the law of armed conflict.
Along with numerous law review articles, Colonel Jackson is a contributing author to: The War on Terror and the Laws of War, published by Oxford University Press in 2009; The Law of Counterterrorism, published by the ABA in 2011; and the Aspen casebook, The Law of Armed Conflict: An Operational Approach,published in 2012.
MR. WILLIAM M. "WILLY" STERN, a veteran investigative journalist, spoke to the class about journalists on the battlefield. Willy Stern has roamed the world in search of news-- from the boardrooms of Tokyo to the battlefields of Iraq, from the secret prisons of Afghanistan to the wilds of the Nicaraguan jungle, and many points in between. A former staff writer at Forbes and Business Week, Stern has received many national journalism awards and honors. Stern's analytical, editorial and investigative writing has appeared in dozens of major publications around the globe, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The International Herald Tribune, The Chicago Tribune, The Weekly Standard and The New Republic.
Other distinguished speakers have included former Abu Ghraib prosecutor Cullen Sheppard, who shared his experiences prosecuting Soldiers involved in the Abu Ghraib prison abuse cases, and Professor David Frey, who spoke to cadets regarding the Holocaust from the Perspective of the Law of Armed Conflict.