The Center on Law and Security is a research and policy institute dedicated to examining the legal dimensions of national security; both domestically and internationally. Through its public forums, databases, publications, specialized policy groups, and international roundtables and summits, the Center has become a unique and valued resource in the United States policy community.
The Center has three points of focus:
- Domestic Programs – featuring the Terrorist Trial Report Card, a database of defendants indicted in terrorism-associated cases in U.S. criminal courts since 9/11 and the resulting prosecutions; the Civilian/Military Project; the Accountability Project, an edited, online compendium of official documents related to the war on terror; and our publications on wiretapping, detention, and interrogation.
- International Programs – including the Center’s flagship Global Security Forum convened annually at Villa La Pietra in Florence, Italy, where counterterrorism and foreign policy practitioners, officials, scholars, and analysts from around the world meet for a series of candid, off-the-record discussions.
- Special Topics in the Middle East and Muslim Communities – concentrating on Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Yemen; the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; radicalization and deradicalization; and al Qaeda.
The Center has received the support of The Markle Foundation, The Carnegie Corporation, The John Merck Fund, The William C. Bullitt Foundation, The JEHT Foundation, the Department of Homeland Security, private individuals, and others. The Center’s work has been noted widely by The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, NPR, CNN, and many others.
The Center’s former fellows include Peter Bergen, author and terrorism analyst for CNN; Peter Clarke, former head of New Scotland Yard’s Anti-Terrorism Branch; Barton Gellman, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author; Michael Sheehan, author and former Deputy Commissioner of Counterterrorism for the NYPD; and Lawrence Wright, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and staff writer for The New Yorker. Participants in the Center’s recent events include Gen. John Abizaid, Richard Clarke, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Jane Mayer, Frances Townsend, and Kenneth Wainstein.
Faculty Co-Directors: Stephen Holmes, David M. Golove, Richard H. Pildes, and Samuel J. Rascoff
