Stanford University

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Round table with Internet Freedom Fellows

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The Internet Freedom Fellows program brings human rights activists from across the globe to Geneva, Washington, and Silicon Valley to meet with fellow activists, U.S. and international government leaders, and members of civil society and the private sector engaged in technology and human rights. A key goal of the program is to share experiences and lessons learned on the importance of a free Internet to the promotion of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly as fundamental human rights.  As a part of the Silicon Valey tour, the six fellows for this year will stop at Stanford for a round table discussion. 

The fellows will present their work pertaining to internet freedom and challenges they face, that we will have a chance to discuss.  The event is free and open to the public.
You can find more information about the fellowship program at:

 

The internet freedom fellows for this year are:

 

Mac-Jordan Disu-Degadjor

@MacJordaN

 

A co-founder and executive of the sole blogging association in Ghana, Blogging Ghana, Mr. Disu-Degadjor promotes the freedom of expression through blogs and social media both on and off-line. Starting in 2009, Mac-Jordan and other young Ghanaians organized 18 BarCamps across Ghana, providing aspiring Ghanaian bloggers with technical help and networking opportunities. These conferences are designed to inspire youth to get on-line wherever and however they can.

On several occasions, Mac-Jordan has presented on the need to use blogs and other social media to amplify youth voices. In 2009, Global Voices appointed him as their aggregator for Ghana, and Dr. Dorothy Gordon, the Director-General of Ghana's Advanced Information Technology Institute, stated that he was a critical and necessary voice for the advancement of the nation.

Michael Anti

@mranti

 

Michael Anti was a computer programmer before turning to journalism in 2001. He is a longstanding advocate for a freer internet in China, noting that social media is the force that may ultimately challenge the political foundation of the country. Mr. Anti believes that the internet will facilitate a new conception of civic participation, inspiring the Chinese to see freedom of speech as a fundamental right. Microsoft MSN was forced to delete his award winning blog under pressure from the Chinese government, causing a media uproar in 2005. He has been an advocate of Virtual Private Networks for Chinese citizens, stating that those who don’t use them are “second-class citizens in the world of the internet.” Mr. Anti is known for his prolific career as a journalist, his 2012 Ted Talk, and his commitment to a freer China.

Edetaen Ojo

@EdetOjo; @MRA_ Nigeria

 

Edetaen Ojo is the director of The Media Rights Agenda, an organization that promotes excellence and professionalism in journalism. He spearheaded and orchestrated the movement that led the Nigerian legislature to pass the Freedom of Information Act, which empowers journalists to seek and access information from government establishments.

Mr. Ojo holds over twenty years of experience promoting and defending internet freedom as part of the broader right to freedom of expression, through monitoring transgressions and limitations on freedom and human rights online. His involvement in international human rights includes positions on the advisory group for the BBC World Service Trust-led Africa Media Development Initiative (AMDI) and the Task Force of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). Mr. Ojo also serves as Convenor (Chair) of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), a global network of organizations with its secretariat in Toronto, Canada.

Grigory Okhotin

@okhotin; @OvdInfo

 

Grigory Okhotin is a prominent journalist and human rights activist in Russia. Previously the director of the news site Inosmi.RU, Mr. Okhotin resigned in protest of the censorship imposed upon public media in Russia. After his resignation, Mr. Okhotin began writing publically about censorship and human rights violations in Russia.

After experiencing detainment himself, Mr. Okhotin co-founded the portal ovdinfo.org to provide a public forum for sharing information about Russian citizens detained while exercising their right to freedom of assembly. Mr. Okhotin’s website is unique in that it provides real-time detailed information about those who have been detained, and features mini-interviews in which activists describe the manner of their arrest and the conditions of their confinement. According to Mr. Okhotin, “That helps us to understand what happens behind closed doors.”

 

Usamah Mohamed

@simsimt

 

Usamah Mohamed is a computer programmer and human rights activist, who currently owns and operates an IT business in Khartoum. During the recent wave of anti-government demonstrations in Sudan, Mr. Mohamed organized peaceful demonstrations from the Twitter page he supervises and supplied international media with fresh pictures and news on demonstrations across the country. The government took several steps to halt Mr. Mohamed’s work, including subjecting him to a period of detention. Undeterred, Mr. Mohamed continues to use social media to promote human rights in Sudan. The U.S. Embassy follows his blog daily, considering it an important source of news and opinions about Sudan. In April 2012, Usamah was chosen to be a part of the Sudan Social Media Team to meet with the U.S. Department of State’s special representative to Muslim communities, Farah Pandith.

Mr. Mohamed currently trains activists to use online tools effectively and efficiently. This includes training on blogging, bypassing online censorship, using circumvention tools, digital and online security, citizen journalism, effective audio and video recording, and live-tweeting for the coverage of events such as protests, sit-ins, and forums.

 

Bronwen Robertson

 

Bronwen Robertson is the Director of Operations for a London based NGO called Small Media. While in Iran working on a PhD in music, Ms. Robertson became interested in working for the rights of repressed Iranians, especially homosexuals. In Iran, Ms. Roberson spearheaded a research project and report entitled “LGBT Republic of Iran: An Online Reality?” The report, published in May of this year, led to a number of projects that connect Farsi speaking communities worldwide. One such project is a website called Degarvajeh, which gives online support to the LGBT community by providing general information and the proper Farsi vocabulary to discuss LGBT issues in a non-derogatory fashion.

Through Small Media, Ms. Robertson works to counter Iran’s efforts to block websites and censor information. Small Media spends much of its time working on creating new and innovative ways to make the internet safe and useful for Iranians. The group holds numerous online training sessions in personal online security, citizen journalism, and general information. They also report on related issues such as cultural censorship in Iran, Iranian women sports, and struggles faced by Iranian Bloggers. Recently, the group held an awareness raising workshop to demonstrate the challenges faced by Iranians using the internet under oppression.

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Panel Discussions

CDDRL-CISAC Special Seminar: The Logic of Violence in Drug Wars: Cartel-State Conflict in Mexico, Brazil and Colombia

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Abstract:

Why have militarized crackdowns on drug cartels had wildly divergent outcomes, sometimes exacerbating cartel-state conflict, as in Mexico and, for decades, in Brazil, but sometimes reducing violence, as with Rio de Janeiro's new 'Pacification' (UPP) strategy?  CDDRL-CISAC Post Doctoral Fellow Benjamin Lessing will distinguish key logics of violence, focusing on violent corruption--cartels' use of coercive force in the negotiation of bribes. Through this channel, crackdowns can lead to increased fighting unless the intensity of state repression is made conditional on cartels' use of violence--a key difference between Mexico and Brazil.

Speaker Bio:

Benjamin Lessing is a recent Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a joint postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center on International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), and will join the Political Science faculty at University of Chicago as assistant professor in 2013.

Lessing studies 'criminal conflict'—organized armed violence involving non-state actors who, unlike revolutionary insurgents, are not trying to topple the state. His doctoral dissertation examines armed conflict between drug trafficking organizations and the state in Colombia, Mexico and Brazil. Additionally, he has studied prison gangs’ pernicious effect on state authority, and the effect of paramilitary groups’ territorial control on electoral outcomes. 

Prior to his graduate work, he conducted field research on the licit and illicit small arms trade in Latin America and the Caribbean for international organizations like Amnesty International, Oxfam, and the Small Arms Survey, as well as Viva Rio, Brazil’s largest NGO, and was a Fulbright Student Grantee in Argentina and Uruguay.

 

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Benjamin Lessing Post-doctoral Fellow Speaker CDDRL and CISAC

Beatriz Magaloni

Dept. of Political Science
Encina Hall, Room 436
Stanford University,
Stanford, CA

(650) 724-5949
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Professor of Political Science
beatriz_magaloni_2024.jpg MA, PhD

Beatriz Magaloni Magaloni is the Graham Stuart Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science. Magaloni is also a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, where she holds affiliations with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She is also a Stanford’s King Center for Global Development faculty affiliate. Magaloni has taught at Stanford University for over two decades.

She leads the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (Povgov). Founded by Magaloni in 2010, Povgov is one of Stanford University’s leading impact-driven knowledge production laboratories in the social sciences. Under her leadership, Povgov has innovated and advanced a host of cutting-edge research agendas to reduce violence and poverty and promote peace, security, and human rights.

Magaloni’s work has contributed to the study of authoritarian politics, poverty alleviation, indigenous governance, and, more recently, violence, crime, security institutions, and human rights. Her first book, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2006) is widely recognized as a seminal study in the field of comparative politics. It received the 2007 Leon Epstein Award for the Best Book published in the previous two years in the area of political parties and organizations, as well as the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Section. Her second book The Politics of Poverty Relief: Strategies of Vote Buying and Social Policies in Mexico (with Alberto Diaz-Cayeros and Federico Estevez) (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores how politics shapes poverty alleviation.

Magaloni’s work was published in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Criminology & Public Policy, World Development, Comparative Political Studies, Annual Review of Political Science, Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing, Latin American Research Review, and others.

Magaloni received wide international acclaim for identifying innovative solutions for salient societal problems through impact-driven research. In 2023, she was named winner of the world-renowned Stockholm Prize in Criminology, considered an equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the field of criminology. The award recognized her extensive research on crime, policing, and human rights in Mexico and Brazil. Magaloni’s research production in this area was also recognized by the American Political Science Association, which named her recipient of the 2021 Heinz I. Eulau Award for the best article published in the American Political Science Review, the leading journal in the discipline.

She received her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and holds a law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.

Director, Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab
Co-director, Democracy Action Lab
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Seminars

Custer makes last stand in Stanford T-shirts and Ray-Bans

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Overlooking the golden prairie beneath the big Montana sky, a young man turned to address his followers, cocking his head and squinting into the sun.  

“For those of you who haven’t already heard of me with great admiration, yeah, I’m the real deal: the greatest, biggest, baddest Indian fighter in the West. But for you, well, you can call me General George Armstrong Custer. I fully believe the battle that we will have here today will be the biggest, best, crowning achievement of my life.” 

Or not. 

One hundred and thirty-six years later, the Battle of Little Bighorn remains one of the most contentious in American history, and Custer’s so-called “last stand” has become the stuff of legend and debate. Did Custer’s oversized ego lead his men to a certain death? Or did cowardly 7th Cavalry comrades abandon him to die? 

Those are among the dozens of questions recently posed and played out by a group of Stanford sophomores along the banks of the Little Bighorn River about an hour outside Billings. Jeffrey Abidor played the first of four Custers as they walked the famous battlefield points: Medicine Tail Coulee, Weir Ridge, Reno’s Retreat and Last Stand Hill, where simple white grave markers still pepper the prairie where Custer, his younger brother Tom, other cavalry comrades and Native American opponents fell. 

“No matter how many times you read about it, you have to be here,” said Abidor, who also played Custer’s Crow scout, Curley. “To see it and to see the land they had to fight on and visualize where they were, what they had to face – that makes all the difference.”

As I led my warriors into battle, I said, `Come on, die with me. It’s a good day to die; cowards to the rear!” -- Jacob Winkelman as Crazy Horse.

 

The Face of Battle class is part of the university’s Sophomore College, designed to take a small group of incoming sophomores and throw them together for three weeks before the academic year begins. They live together and travel together, digging deep into an issue such as the important American battles, U.S. foreign policy, Darwin and the Galapagos or hip hop as a universal language. They get to know their professors well and bond with one another in ways they hope will make them lifelong friends. 

“I think the best part is that we all found people who have similar interests,” said Katie Jarve, who portrayed Native American Bloody Knife and Capt. Thomas Weir on the staff ride in September. “There are people going into public policy and political science and it will be really nice to have that connection with them by taking the same class.”

The Face of Battle focused on Gettysburg and Little Bighorn, as well as the Korengal Valley campaign in Afghanistan. The college was co-taught by CISAC’s senior fellow Scott D. Sagan and senior research scholar Joseph Felter.

The students visited Pentagon officials in Washington before heading out to the battlefields, and then back at Stanford attended seminars on the ethics of war in historical and contemporary conflicts, such as in Afghanistan. 

“The battle of the Little Bighorn is particularly valuable to study for insights into counter-insurgency doctrine, in which combat often takes place in villages rather than on isolated battlefields,” said Sagan, an international security expert whose distant relative, Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett, led the final Confederate charge at Gettysburg. 

“I think the best part is that we all found people who have similar interests,” said Katie Jarve, who portrayed Native American Bloody Knife and Capt. Thomas Weir on the staff ride in September. “There are people going into public policy and political science and it will be really nice to have that connection with them by taking the same class.”

The Face of Battle focused on Gettysburg and Little Bighorn, as well as the Korengal Valley campaign in Afghanistan. The college was co-taught by CISAC’s senior fellow Scott D. Sagan and senior research scholar Joseph Felter.

The students visited Pentagon officials in Washington before heading out to the battlefields, and then back at Stanford attended seminars on the ethics of war in historical and contemporary conflicts, such as in Afghanistan. 

“The battle of the Little Bighorn is particularly valuable to study for insights into counter-insurgency doctrine, in which combat often takes place in villages rather than on isolated battlefields,” said Sagan, an international security expert whose distant relative, Maj. Gen. George E. Pickett, led the final Confederate charge at Gettysburg. 

Sophomore College students from the Face of Battle class gather at the national monument to the Battle of Little Bighorn.
Photo Credit: David Grubbs

The 16 Face of Battle sophomores – some of whom aspire to be CISAC honors students their senior year – were required to investigate the battlefield characters they would portray and be prepared to defend their actions on that day in 1876. The students, wearing Stanford garb and sunglasses, had five minutes to make their characters come to life on the same land where they had once fought for their lives. 

“Walking this terrain and recounting the many individual decisions and actions the led to Custer's famous defeat – on the very ground they occurred – provides unique context for the students,” said Felter, a counterinsurgency specialist and recently retired U.S. Army Special Forces officer who had combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

“The challenges faced by the members of General Custer's 7th Cavalry are in many ways similar to those faced by modern counterinsurgency forces, including those in Afghanistan today,” he said. “The difference between overwhelming success and utter defeat in this type of conflict can turn on seemingly small and trivial decisions and actions, not only by senior leaders but down to the very lowest levels of command.” 

In 1876, Lakota Chief Sitting Bull had called thousands of Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne off their reservations to a large encampment on the banks of the Little Bighorn. He had hoped to create an alliance to deal with the white gold miners encroaching on the Black Hills, which had been given to the Sioux by the U.S. government. 

I’m the real deal: the greatest, biggest, baddest Indian fighter in the West. But for you, well, you can call me General George Armstrong Custer. I fully believe the battle that we will have here today will be the biggest, best, crowning achievement of my life.” -- Jeffrey Abidor as Custer

President Ulysses S. Grant had sent Custer and the 7th Cavalry out West to force Native Americans back onto their reservations. Grant despised Custer, as the Civil War hero had testified against his administration about alleged corruption in the Indian affairs office. 

“Our tribe, the Lakota, were at the very height of power,” said Uttara Sivaram, playing Lakota war chief Crazy Horse. “We interacted with the white man rarely; they fought among themselves. They seem to naturally assume that we were weak and this put them at a fatal disadvantage. As long as these men would continue to think this way, my strategy and timing would always catch them off guard – which would lead them to their greatest defeat against the Indians at the Battle of Little Bighorn.” 

On June 25, 1876, Custer and his battalion of some 260 men charged against Sitting Bull’s encampment along the river. 

Jacob Winkelman, another student playing Crazy Horse, spoke about the warrior’s confidence and patience going into battle. He fastened a hawk feather in his hair and prepared his Winchester carbine and war clubs. He raised his hands to the sun and called on the Lakota’s great spirit, Wakan Tanka, to protect him in battle. 

“My own patience in the face of attack allowed me to outmaneuver General Custer, whose rash decisions led to the demise of him and his followers,” Winkelman’s Crazy Horse said. “I told my soldiers: Do your best and let us kill them all off today, that they may not trouble us anymore. As I led my warriors into battle, I said, `Come on, die with me. It’s a good day to die; cowards to the rear!” 

Custer had been ordered to wait for reinforcements at the mouth of the Little Bighorn. But when he saw the size of the Native American encampment, he immediately planned an attack from three sides. What he didn’t know was that Sitting Bull had already forced the 7th’s Capt. Frederick Benteen and Maj. Marcus Reno into retreat. Custer and his men were eventually surrounded, outmanned and killed. 

Face of Battle students walking the trails through the national Little Bighorn battlefield. 
Photo Credit: David Grubbs

The defeat led to national debate about whether Custer had died a tragic military hero or an arrogant hothead. Reno – who hated Custer and survived the battle – demanded a military court of inquiry to clear his name of allegations of dereliction of duties and Benteen fought charges that he neglected Custer’s plea for more ammunition packs. 

“Not two years after joining Custer’s 7th, I saw what made him truly despicable,” said Allen Xu said, playing Benteen. “But as they say – karma turned out to be a harsher mistress than Libby Custer.” 

Chase Basich, who portrayed Reno and Crazy Horse, said it was chilling to walk the trails the soldiers took, to see the rocks they hid behind and where they finally fell. 

“By thoroughly researching our assigned persons, we became intimate with them,” Basich said. “It really drove home one of the main focuses of the class: looking through battle from the eyes of individuals, to see that battle was not something simply to be viewed from the point of view of generals and policy makers, and was not colored dots moving around a map. The battle was a collection of individuals making their own choices and decisions, each exerting their own influence on the outcome of the battle. 

Reed Jobs, a junior who was a course assistant, played the final Custer by posthumously defending his decisions of that day. 

“I regret that I could not have testified against that drunken lollard Marcus Reno,” Jobs said as Custer. “For it was his retreat which was out of cowardice, not out of strategy, which cost us valuable time. But it was Benteen who I would have liked to seen hanged for cowardice that day. I knew that even as we were being shot at and the bullets were raining down on us, as we stood trying to hold our position in futility, that I was still – and Tom was still – more man than Benteen could ever be. 

“Soon I felt a bullet lodge deep in my left shoulder, near my heart,” he continued. “I knew I had only a few moments before I perished here on this hill. Had we had more time, had Benteen shown up, I believe we would have … finally ended this Indian scourge on our great nation.” 

Though the Native Americans won the battle, the deaths of Custer and his men reinforced the U.S. government efforts to subdue the indigenous tribes. Within five years, nearly all the Sioux and Cheyenne would be confined to reservations. 

Face of Battle course assistant Reed Jobs acts out the role of General Custer with the Little Bighorn national monument reflected in his sunglasses.
Photo Credit: David Grubbs

 

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The Historical Dimensions of South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program

A three-day conference in Pretoria, South Africa, to discuss the historical dimensions of South Africa's nuclear weapons program. CISAC was strongly represented at the event. Hosted by Monash University, Australia. 

The conference presentation, "The Vela Event of 1979 (Or The Israeli Nuclear Test of 1979)" by CISAC Affiliate Leonard Weiss, is available for download below. 

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David Holloway

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E214
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 723-1737 (650) 723-0089
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Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies
Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History
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David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. It has been translated into seven languages, most recently into Chinese. The Chinese translation is due to be published later in 2018. Holloway also wrote The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983) and co-authored The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: Technical, Political and Arms Control Assessment (1984). He has contributed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, and other scholarly journals.

Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.

Faculty member at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
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David Holloway Panelist

Leonard Weiss

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Leonard Weiss is a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). He is also a national advisory board member of the Center for Arms control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, DC. He began his professional career as a PhD researcher in mathematical system theory at the Research Institute for Advanced Studies in Baltimore. This was followed by tenured professorships in applied mathematics and electrical engineering at Brown University and the University of Maryland. During this period he published widely in the applied mathematics literature. In 1976 he received a Congressional Science Fellowship that resulted in a career change. For more than two decades he worked for Senator John Glenn as the staff director of both the Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Nuclear Proliferation and the Committee on Governmental Affairs. He was the chief architect of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978 and legislation that created the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. In addition, he led notable investigations of the nuclear programs of India and Pakistan. Since retiring from the Senate staff in 1999, he has published numerous articles on nonproliferation issues for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Arms Control Today, and the Nonproliferation Review. His current research interests include an assessment of the impact on the nonproliferation regime of nuclear trade with non-signers of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and more generally the relationship of energy security concerns with nonproliferation.

For a comprehensive list of Dr. Weiss's publications, click here.

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Leonard Weiss Panelist

Frank Pabian

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Frank Pabian is a globally recognized expert in the fields of nuclear nonproliferation and satellite imagery intelligence analysis with one half century of professional experience, beginning with the CIA’s Office of Imagery Analysis, followed by employment at US and European National Nuclear Laboratories. During the period from 1996-98, Frank was a Nuclear Chief Inspector for the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) during ground inspections in Iraq, focusing primarily on equipment/materials “Hide Sites” and “Capable Sites” potentially associated with weapons of mass destruction development and/or production. His Iraq Action Team’s efforts helped garner support for the IAEA and its Director General to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Frank is recipient of the US Intelligence Community’s highest  award for contractors, the Gold Seal Medallion, for “sustained superior performance” for Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty verification support to the IAEA during South Africa’s denuclearization, and for associated discoveries derived from original analysis of all-source information. He was also named a Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow in 2013, having served as the senior geospatial open-source information analyst in both the Global Security Directorate and the Earth and Environmental Sciences Division to help solve key intelligence questions in a geospatial context until retirement in May 2017. During 2014-2016, served as a Senior Fellow Researcher during USG authorized overseas service at the Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy; and is continuing as an Affiliate at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation where, previously, Frank was a Research Fellow during the 2011-2012 academic year.
 

Although now fully retired, Frank remains a consultant to the CISAC IMINT Team and continues to lecture on new developments for Open Source Geospatial Intelligence.  Frank is a “Certified Mapping Scientist, Remote Sensing” with the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASP&RS) and an American Mensan.

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How to Engage Iran: Abe Sofaer in conversation with Allen Weiner on Diplomacy and the Iranian Nuclear Crisis

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About the Speakers: Abraham Sofaer was appointed the first George P. Shultz Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution in 1994. Sofaer's work focuses on the power over war within the US government and on issues related to international law, terrorism, diplomacy, and national security. His most recent books are The Best Defense?: Legitimacy and Preventive Force and Taking On Iran: Strength, Diplomacy and the Iranian Threat. From 1985 to 1990, he served as a legal adviser to the US Department of State. He received the Distinguished Service Award in 1989, the highest state department award given to a non–civil servant.

Allen Weiner is senior lecturer in law and co-director of the Stanford Program in International Law at Stanford Law School. He is also the co-director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. For more than a decade, he practiced international law in the U.S. Department of State, serving as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser and as legal counselor at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague. Weiner is the author of "The Torture Memos and Accountability" in the American Society of International Law Insight and co-author of International Law. Other publications include "Law, Just War, and the International Fight Against Terrorism: Is It War?" in Intervention, Terrorism, and Torture: Contemporary Challenges to Just War Theory.

CISAC Conference Room

Abraham Sofaer George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and National Security Affairs, Hoover Institution, Stanford Speaker

Allen S. Weiner

Stanford Law School
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Neukom Faculty Office Building, Room N238
Stanford, CA 94305-8610

(650) 724-5892 (650) 725-2592
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Senior Lecturer in Law
Director, Stanford Program in International Law
Co-Director, Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation
CISAC Core Faculty Member
Europe Center Affiliated Faculty
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Allen S. Weiner is senior lecturer in law and director of the Stanford Program in International Law at Stanford Law School. He is also the co-director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. He is an international legal scholar with expertise in such wide-ranging fields as international and national security law, the law of war, international conflict resolution, and international criminal law (including transitional justice). His scholarship focuses on international law and the response to the contemporary security threats of international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and situations of widespread humanitarian atrocities. He also explores the relationship between international and domestic law in the context of asymmetric armed conflicts between the United States and nonstate groups and the response to terrorism. In the realm of international conflict resolution, his highly multidisciplinary work analyzes the barriers to resolving violent political conflicts, with a particular focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Weiner’s scholarship is deeply informed by experience; for more than a decade he practiced international law in the U.S. Department of State, serving as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser and as legal counselor at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague. In those capacities, he advised government policy-makers, negotiated international agreements, and represented the United States in litigation before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the International Court of Justice. He teaches courses in public international law, international conflict resolution, and international security matters at Stanford Law School.

Weiner is the author of "Constitutions as Peace Treaties: A Cautionary Tale for the Arab Spring” in the Stanford Law Review Online (2011) and co-author (with Barry E. Carter) of International Law (6th ed. 2011). Other publications include “The Torture Memos and Accountability" in the American Society of International Law Insight (2009), "Law, Just War, and the International Fight Against Terrorism: Is It War?", in Intervention, Terrorism, and Torture: Contemporary Challenges to Just War Theory (Steven P. Lee, ed.) (2007), ”Enhancing Implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540: Report of the Center on International Security and Cooperation” (with Chaim Braun, Michael May & Roger Speed) (September 2007), and "The Use of Force and Contemporary Security Threats: Old Medicine for New Ills?", Stanford Law Review (2006).

Weiner has worked on several Supreme Court amicus briefs concerning national security and international law issues, including cases brought involving "war on terror" detainees.  He has also submitted petitions before the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf of Vietnamese social and political activists detained by their governing for the exercise of free speech rights.

Weiner earned a BA from Harvard College and a JD from Stanford Law School.

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Allen Weiner Senior Lecturer in Law; Co-Director, Stanford Program in International Law; Co-Director, Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation; CDDRL and CISAC Affiliated Faculty Member; Europe Center Research Affiliate Host
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The Problem of Emergence

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CISAC Conference Room

Woody Powell Professor of Sociology, Organizational Behavior, MS&E, and Communication Speaker Stanford
Deborah Gordon Professor of Biology Commentator Stanford University
Amir Goldberg Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior Commentator Stanford Graduate School of Business
Seminars

Windows of Volatility?: Unpacking the Relationship Between Nuclear Proliferation and Time

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Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Vipin Narang Stanton Nuclear Security Jr. Faculty Fellow Speaker CISAC

Scott D. Sagan

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E202
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

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The Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science
The Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education  
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
rsd25_073_1160a_1.jpg PhD

Scott D. Sagan is Co-Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, and the Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He also serves as Co-Chair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Committee on International Security Studies. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon.

Sagan is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989); The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993); and, with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate (W.W. Norton, 2012). He is the co-editor of Insider Threats (Cornell University Press, 2017) with Matthew Bunn; and co-editor of The Fragile Balance of Terror (Cornell University Press, 2022) with Vipin Narang. Sagan was also the guest editor of a two-volume special issue of Daedalus: Ethics, Technology, and War (Fall 2016) and The Changing Rules of War (Winter 2017).

Recent publications include “Creeds and Contestation: How US Nuclear and Legal Doctrine Influence Each Other,” with Janina Dill, in a special issue of Security Studies (December 2025); “Kettles of Hawks: Public Opinion on the Nuclear Taboo and Noncombatant Immunity in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Israel”, with Janina Dill and Benjamin A. Valentino in Security Studies (February 2022); “The Rule of Law and the Role of Strategy in U.S. Nuclear Doctrine” with Allen S. Weiner in International Security (Spring 2021); “Does the Noncombatant Immunity Norm Have Stopping Power?” with Benjamin A. Valentino in International Security (Fall 2020); and “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants” and “On Reciprocity, Revenge, and Replication: A Rejoinder to Walzer, McMahan, and Keohane” with Benjamin A. Valentino in Ethics & International Affairs (Winter 2019).

In 2022, Sagan was awarded Thérèse Delpech Memorial Award from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at their International Nuclear Policy Conference. In 2017, he received the International Studies Association’s Susan Strange Award which recognizes the scholar whose “singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency" in the international studies community. Sagan was also the recipient of the National Academy of Sciences William and Katherine Estes Award in 2015, for his work addressing the risks of nuclear weapons and the causes of nuclear proliferation. The award, which is granted triennially, recognizes “research in any field of cognitive or behavioral science that advances understanding of issues relating to the risk of nuclear war.” In 2013, Sagan received the International Studies Association's International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award. He has also won four teaching awards: Stanford’s 1998-99 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching; Stanford's 1996 Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching; the International Studies Association’s 2008 Innovative Teaching Award; and the Monterey Institute for International Studies’ Nonproliferation Education Award in 2009.     

Co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Scott D. Sagan Senior Fellow Commentator CISAC
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Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb

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About the Topic: The history of Pakistan's nuclear program is the history of Pakistan.  With unique insider perspective, Brig. Feroz Khan unveils the fascinating interplay that took place and reveals how international opposition to the program only made it an even more significant national issue.   Written by a 30-year professional in the Pakistani Army who played a senior role formulating and advocating Pakistan's security policy on nuclear and conventional arms control, 'Eating Grass' is a seminal study that tells the fascinating story of how and why Pakistan's government, scientists, and military, persevered to develop nuclear weapons capability in the face of international resistance, domestic political upheavals and regional military crises.   

 

About the Speaker: Brig (Ret.) Feroz Hassan Khan is a lecturer in the Department of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He last served as director of arms control and disarmament affairs, in the Strategic Plans Division of the Joint Services Headquarters in Pakistan. In that position, he was a key contributor in formulating Pakistan’s security policies on nuclear and conventional arms control and strategic stability in South Asia. He produced recommendations for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and represented Pakistan in several multilateral and bilateral arms control negotiations. He is the author of recently published book Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb.

CISAC Conference Room

Feroz Khan Brigadier (Retired), Pakistan Army; Lecturer, Department of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School Speaker
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