Philip Bobbitt and Matthew Waxman join Columbia law faculty

It is not a secret, I suppose, that Columbia Law School, long a center of international law, and despite the presence of major scholars such as Jose Alvarez, Lori Damrosch, Michael Doyle, and others, has nonetheless suffered from one might call - well, call it the NYU syndrome ... Anyway, it has made a major play in the international law and national security law scholar games, so to speak, with two exciting hires this year - the preeminent Philip Bobbitt, and the young and brilliant Matthew Waxman. Here is the press release.

Philip Bobbitt, a leading authority on constitutional law and international security law, served in the White House, the U.S. Senate, and the National Security Council. He joins Columbia from the University of Texas. With scholarly interests that include the history of strategy, Professor Bobbitt holds a Ph.D. from Oxford and a J.D. from Yale. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Bobbitt has published six books—most recently The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History (Knopf, 2002), described by The London Times Literary Supplement and The Economist as one of the best books of the year. His essays on foreign policy appear in The New York Times and The Guardian (of London). Bobbitt is currently working on a book about terrorism. His interests range beyond the law. He endows the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, awarded by the Library of Congress. It is one of the top prizes to recognize the most distinguished book of poetry written by an American and published during the preceding two years.

Matthew Waxman, an expert in the domestic and international legal aspects of fighting terrorism, holds a J.D. from Yale Law School. He clerked for Associate Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter and Judge Joel M. Flaum of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and served in senior positions at the U.S. State Department, Department of Defense and National Security Council. Professor Waxman was a Fulbright Scholar to the United Kingdom, where he studied international relations. He authored several books on the use of military force as an instrument of American foreign policy.

Congratulations to them, and to Columbia.