Robert Chesney is a nonresident senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and the Charles I. Francis Professor in Law at the University of Texas School of Law, where he teaches courses relating to U.S. national security as well as constitutional law. He also serves as the law school’s Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and holds a courtesy appointment at the LBJ School of Public Policy.

Professor Chesney’s scholarship addresses a broad range of issues at the intersection of national security and law, including matters relating to military detention, the use of force, terrorism-related prosecutions, the role of the courts in national security affairs, and the relationship between military and intelligence community activities. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security, a senior editor for the Journal of National Security Law & Policy, a member of the ODNI’s Advance Technology Board, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Distinguished Scholar with the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, and a member of the American Law Institute. In 2009, he served as an advisor to the Detention Policy Task Force, which was created pursuant to Executive Order 13,493 and tasked with developing long-term policy in relation to the capture, detention, trial, or other disposition of persons in the context of combat and counterterrorism operations.

Professor Chesney previously taught at Wake Forest University School of Law, and before that practiced law with Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York. He clerked on both the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and is a magna cum laude graduate of both Harvard Law School and Texas Christian University. He and his wife are from San Antonio, and have three daughters.

He operates a listserv for practitioners, scholars, journalists, and students interesting in national security law issues, and is a co-founder and contributor to www.lawfareblog.com. Those interested in joining the listserv should email him with a request to that effect, at [email protected].

Law, Security & Defense, Innovation, Thought Leaders, Think Tanks, Brookings Institute, Policy, Public Policy Career,