Stanford University

International Law

Curtis J. Milhaupt

Room N341, Neukom Building
Stanford Law School

(650) 724-8754
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Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William F. Baxter-Visa International Professor of Law
Faculty Affiliate at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
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Curtis J. Milhaupt’s research and teaching interests include comparative corporate governance, the legal systems of East Asia (particularly Japan), and state capitalism. In addition to numerous scholarly articles, he has co-authored or edited seven books, including Regulating the Visible Hand? The Institutional Implications of Chinese State Capitalism (Oxford, 2016), Law and Capitalism: What Corporate Crises Reveal about Legal Systems and Economic Development Around the World (Chicago, 2008) and Transforming Corporate Governance in East Asia (Routledge, 2008). His research has been profiled in The Economist, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal and has been widely translated. He is a Research Associate of the European Corporate Governance Institute and a member of the American Law Institute.

Prior to his Stanford appointment in 2018, Prof. Milhaupt held chaired professorships in comparative corporate law and Japanese law at Columbia Law School, where he served on the faculty for nearly two decades. He has held numerous visiting appointments at US and foreign universities and is the recipient of two teaching awards. He has been affiliated with think tanks such as the Bank of Japan’s Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies and has been a member of several international project teams focused on major policy issues in Asia, including one charged with designing an “institutional blueprint” for a unified Korean peninsula.

Prior to entering academia, Professor Milhaupt practiced corporate law in New York and Tokyo with a major law firm. He holds a J.D. from Columbia Law School and a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame.  He also conducted graduate studies in law and international relations at the University of Tokyo.

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Southeast Asia's Approach to China and the Future of the Region

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Donald K. Emmerson
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As the U.S.-China competition heats up, other countries in the Asia-Pacific region are watching closely. But despite rhetoric about third parties “being forced to choose sides,” the countries of Southeast Asia have more agency than outside analysts often give them credit for. A new collection of essays on Southeast Asia’s approach to China, The Deer and the Dragon, highlights just that. Donald K. Emmerson, head of the Southeast Asia Program in the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, is the editor of and contributor to the book. He talks with The Diplomat about the China-Southeast Asia-U.S. triangle, including the South China Sea question, and the fallout from COVID-19.

This interview was conducted by Shannon Tiezzi for The Diplomat. The original article is available here.

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Many commentators (in the region and without) have raised questions recently on the future of the “ASEAN Way” amid China’s efforts to use its allies within ASEAN to cast “proxy vetoes on Beijing’s behalf” (as you put it in the opening chapter). Do you see ASEAN’s modus operandi evolving in the face of such challenges? Is serious consideration being given to calls for “ASEAN Minus” formulations or minilateral groupings?

A way is a path or a principle, not a codified rule. Beijing’s ability to stop an ASEAN member from saying or doing something that China doesn’t like is a function of what the would-be proxy expects to gain from compliance and suffer from defiance. The purpose of the “ASEAN Way” is intramural, harmonic, and cosmetic — to ensure that the members’ fealty to public consensus limits their discord and veils their friction. ASEAN’s inability to evolve from an intergovernmental to a supranational body is in part a consequence of its success in keeping itself intact at an anodyne level of least disagreement. Significant “ASEAN minus” innovations on matters of security such as the South China Sea are almost certainly not being considered.

The book rejects the idea that the states of Southeast Asia are passive objects of the U.S.-China tug of war. In what way can regional states shape the outcome of that contest – and their own destinies?

“Don’t force us to choose between China and the United States,” or words to that effect, have become an entrenched mantra in statements by more than a few Southeast Asian leaders. In its most damaging form, the plea falsely assigns equivalence to the two big powers and assigns to Southeast Asia a purely reactive position equidistant between them. Next-door China is an entirely plausible future regional hegemon. The threat from far-off America lies not in its presence but in what could happen in its absence.  Emphasizing what you want others not to do begs the question of what you yourself should be doing to ensure, increase, maintain, or restore your own strategic autonomy and the independent creativity and proactivity that it allows.

Relevant in this regard are developments in the South China Sea. Beijing’s former fluctuation between “smile” and “frown” diplomacy has given way to expansionary Chinese anger not only along the PRC’s southern coasts, from Hainan through Hong Kong to Taiwan, but in acts of harassment and intimidation in the EEZs [exclusive economic zones] of some ASEAN states as well. Rhetorical pushback by some of those states has helped to revive a dormant 2016 ruling by an international arbitral court, convened at Manila’s request, against Beijing’s claims and behavior in the South China Sea.

As if to follow the Philippine example, Vietnam might possibly decide to pursue legal redress against Beijing under international maritime law. If Vietnam does muster a case, China will punish it for its temerity, and years will elapse before a judgment is made. Merely having strategic autonomy does not assure its successful use. But recent evidence of agency by some governments in Southeast Asia does at least suggest that they have not yet succumbed to fatalist passivity in the face of Chinese coercion.

With that in mind, how have Southeast Asian states reacted to the United States’ new rejection of China’s “historic rights” in the South China Sea?

The question deserves context. Omitted on lists of China’s exports to the world is a vital if hard to measure item: self-censorship. Southeast Asia’s leaders have learned to avoid publicly criticizing China for reasons of practicality and fear. Why endanger actually or potentially beneficial economic relations? Why risk retaliation?

A recent case in point:  On July 14, 2020 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a blistering rejection of China’s efforts. “The world,” he said, “will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire.” Most of the governments in Southeast Asia probably hoped Pompeo was right, and officials in Hanoi, Manila, and Jakarta did make relevant remarks. They were circumspect, however, so as not to anger Beijing.  Vietnam’s foreign ministry “welcome[d]” the “positions” taken by “countries” on the South China Sea “issues” as “consistent with international law.” The Philippine defense secretary “strongly agree[d]” with “the international community” that there should be “a rules-based order” in the South China Sea.” Indonesia’s foreign minister reiterated her country’s defense of its EEZ as consonant with international law and the 2016 court ruling. Understandably, however, most Southeast Asian governments, even as they agreed with Washington’s position, preferred not to align themselves explicitly with the United States.

In your chapter on the South China Sea, you suggest that Southeast Asian claimants could push back against growing Chinese control in the South China Sea if regional states (for example, the Philippines and Vietnam) negotiate a resolution to their own maritime disputes. Has there been any movement toward this goal in Southeast Asian capitals? What obstacles stand in the way?

Little to nothing has been done. Nationalisms are the obstacle. The disputes over sovereignty are many and complex. They may never be resolved. Without having to agree on the ownership of land features, however, the locations and extents of particular maritime zones and the rights of access to and usage in them are in principle more amenable to agreement. With claimant-specific conflicts over sovereignty set aside to the extent possible, three approaches do come to mind: negotiation, arbitration, and application.

ASEAN countries whose claimed zones are superimposed could acknowledge and try to negotiate or arbitrate the claims’ locations. An example: Although the coastal EEZs claimed by Vietnam and the Philippines do not overlap with each other, they both overlap with the coastal EEZ claimed by Malaysia. The three countries could seek a compromise with regard to these zones while applying the 2016 arbitral decision and leaving open the possibility of further alterations, contingent upon feedback from other littoral states and possible future court rulings. Another possibility: One or more ASEAN states, in cooperation with each other or with nonpartisan outside bodies, could draw up, apply, and publicize new navigational and other maps of the South China Sea — representations of the 2016 arbitral decision on computer screens and paper charts usable at sea. The most promising aspect of the latest pushback against China is the resuscitation of the court’s ruling as a prospective guide to conduct. Last but not least, legality aside, a coalition of the willing could agree to, and seek broad international support for, a brief statement that no single country should control the South China Sea.

What is the state of China’s soft power (and, as you evocatively call it, the opposite of “repellent power”) in Southeast Asia?

At the end of each year, the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute surveys the opinions of foreign policy elites in Southeast Asia. Confidence in China to “do the right thing” for “global peace security, prosperity and governance” was low in 2018 and still lower a year later. Among those who answered the question, the proportion who were “confident” or “very confident” that China would “do the right thing” shrank from 29 percent in 2018 to 16 percent in 2019. Those expressing such confidence in the United States actually grew a little, from 27 to 30 percent. And 60 percent in 2019 surely had Trump in mind when they agreed that a change of leadership in Washington would improve their confidence in the U.S. as a “strategic partner.” Also striking was the large proportion of respondents — 73 percent — who saw China as a “revisionist” power bent on turning their region into its “sphere of influence” (38 percent) or as “gradually” replacing America as “a regional leader” (35 percent). If there is an asset for Beijing in these results, it may not be enthusiasm for China’s soft power so much as resignation in light of its hard power.

What impact is the COVID-19 pandemic – which some analysts theorize could be a pivotal moment in the future of the world order – having on Southeast Asian countries’ relationships with China, the U.S., and each other?

Beijing has seized upon the pandemic as a chance to exercise soft power by donating or selling personal and protective equipment (PPE) to countries and organizations around the world. All 11 Southeast Asian countries have received gifts of Chinese PPE. These are humanitarian acts. But “mask-donor” diplomacy also serves to compensate for the damage done to China’s reputation by the coronavirus’ apparent origin in Wuhan.  Intentionally or not, gifts of Chinese PPE may also attenuate the bad press Beijing has received for its repressive-aggressive moves in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and the South China Sea, and for the bluntly disparaging comments leveled by some of its “wolf-warrior” diplomats against criticisms of China. Chinese fans borrowed the lupine label from “Wolf Warrior 2,” a popular action film starring the People’s Liberation Army. Its tagline runs: “Even though a thousand miles away, anyone who affronts China will pay.”

Washington has provided some pandemic-related help to Southeast Asian states, but on a scale insufficient to compete with China’s vigorous self-promotion across the region. By comparison, America, largely preoccupied with its crisis-wracked self, has gone missing in Southeast Asia. And available data show that, ranked by its ability to overcome the virus at home, the United States is the worst-performing country in the world. How could one expect it to be able to lead that world?  Three-fifths of the Southeast Asian influentials surveyed by ISEAS were right to agree in 2019 that replacing Trump would improve America’s standing as a would-be strategic partner — and that was before the pandemic got underway.

As for the virus’s impact on relations among Southeast Asian states, Singapore and Vietnam have been helping some of their fellow ASEAN members, and Indonesia has donated equipment to Timor-Leste. But ASEAN has not launched its own collective campaign against the pandemic.

Finally: If COVID-19 does not abate and disappear reasonably soon, habits acquired during shutdowns could become a new normal. In-person consultations and negotiations could remain less common than they were before the virus struck and Zoom took over. A lasting reduction in physical travel will save time and energy. But it will sacrifice direct awareness of the ideas, demeanors, and local involvements of counterparts and partners in their home environments. That loss of context could impede the diplomacy that will be needed to recover, repair, and rethink the multilateral arrangements that will be called upon to sustain a future international order — redux or revamped — and protect it from wolf warriors and animus-driven cold warriors alike.


<< Pre-order The Deer and Dragon here >>

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Strategy in the South China Sea

Donald K. Emmerson analyzes China’s tactics in the South China Sea and how the countries of Southeast Asia are reacting to the tensions in the disputed waterway.
Strategy in the South China Sea
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In an interview with The Diplomat, Donald Emmerson discusses how factors like the South China Sea, U.S.-China competition, and how COVID-19 are affecting relations between Southeast Asia, China, and the United States.

Oriana Skylar Mastro Awarded America in the World Consortium Prize for Best Policy Article

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We are happy to share that Oriana Skylar Mastro, an incoming FSI Center Fellow at APARC, has been awarded the 2020 America in the World Consortium Prize for Best Policy Article on U.S. Foreign Policy and Grand Strategy for her article, “The Stealth Superpower: How China Hid Its Global Ambitions” in Foreign Affairs. The award is given annually by the Consortium — which includes the Kissinger Center and Johns Hopkins SAIS, Duke University, and the University of Texas at Austin — for research articles by pre-tenure scholars addressing a major issue of American foreign policy.

Mastro's winning article provides an insightful analysis of the careful, deliberate efforts the PRC has undertaken to obscure its growing global influence. “Although Beijing has pursued an indirect and entrepreneurial strategy of accumulating power,” she writes, “make no mistake: the ultimate goal is to push the United States out of the Indo-Pacific and rival it on the global stage.” Her research as an academic and a United States Air Force Reserve officer focuses on rising global powers and how perceptions of power impact the process and precursors to conflict, particularly in regards to China and East Asian security. As an FSI Center Fellow, she will be based at APARC and also work with CISAC. 

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Mastro describes how the current administration in China epitomizes Deng Xiaoping’s counsel to “Hide your strength, bide your time” by exploiting gaps in international policy and American attention. Rather than compete outright, China leverages ambiguities in existing policies and practices in order to further its agenda and ambitions while still remaining within the rubric of international order. This strategy has allowed it to continue in its assertions in the South China Sea, establish rules on technology like AI that favor Chinese companies while stalling consensus on other issues like cybersecurity and “cyber-sovereignty,” and create a network of economic and political partnerships with nations traditionally outside the United State’s purview.

The result is that China is carefully cultivating a quiet but hugely impactful influence across the globe. To counter this strategy, Mastro urges the United States to lead out on the world stage by increasing its participation in international institutions and agreements, and through deepening and diversifying its relationships with allies and partners. In a time when international tensions are increasing and a pivotal election looms, these perspectives couldn’t be more timely.

Congratulations, Oriana, on the recognition for your excellent research and insight!

Read Oriana’s award-winning article here >>

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FSI’s Incoming Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro Discusses Chinese Ambitions, Deteriorating U.S.-China Relations

Mastro, whose appointment as a Center Fellow at Shorenstein APARC begins on August 1, considers the worsening relations between the world’s two largest economies, analyzes Chinese maritime ambitions, and talks about her military career and new research projects.
FSI’s Incoming Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro Discusses Chinese Ambitions, Deteriorating U.S.-China Relations
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APARC Announces Diversity Grant to Support Underrepresented Minority Students Interested in Contemporary Asia

To encourage Stanford students from underrepresented minorities to engage in study and research of topics related to contemporary Asia, the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center is offering a new Diversity Grant opportunity. Application reviews begin on September 1, 2020.
APARC Announces Diversity Grant to Support Underrepresented Minority Students Interested in Contemporary Asia
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Mastro, who begins her role as FSI Center Fellow on August 1, has won the AWC Best Policy Article on U.S. Foreign Policy and Grand Strategy award for her insights on how China leverages ambiguity to gain global influence and what the United States can do to counter the PRC’s ambitions.

The Role of Human Rights in Policy Toward North Korea

This twelfth annual Koret Workshop had originally been scheduled to be held on March 13, 2020, but had to be cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic. Now the workshop participants are able to convene virtually to discuss North Korea human rights issues in relation to policy toward North Korea. The conference will cover the following topics:

Day 1: The Role of U.N. in Generating Changes in North Korea

Day 2: Freedom of Information — How Access to Information is Changing North Korea

Day 3: Human Rights and Denuclearization of North Korea — Help or Hinderance?

Read related article here.

The annual Koret Workshop is made possible through the generous support of the Koret Foundation.

 

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‘Just Say No’ Is Not a Strategy for Supply Chain Security

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Herbert Lin
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On Feb. 12, White House National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien announced that the U.S. government has “evidence that Huawei has the capability secretly to access sensitive and personal information in systems it maintains and sells around the world.” This represents the latest attempt by the Trump administration to support an argument that allied governments—and the businesses they oversee—should purge certain telecommunications networks of Huawei equipment. The position reflects the preferred approach in the United States, which is to issue outright bans against select companies (including Huawei) that meet an as-yet-unknown threshold of risk to national security.

 

Read the rest at Lawfare Blog

 

 

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CANCELED: Human Rights in North Korea Policy: Human Rights and Security are not in Conflict

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THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED
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Over the last three years, the United States has done an about-face in terms of engaging North Korea on human rights. Some have argued that if we are to make progress on denuclearization with North Korea, we cannot press Pyongyang on human rights issues because we must develop a cooperative relationship. Raising human rights abuses will only make it more difficult to deal with security issues they argue. On the other hand, Ambassador King believes that human rights are not an issue that we raise after we have achieved our security goals. It is not just the right thing to do, it is an important and critical part of achieving real progress with North Korea on security issues and it is key to a better relationship between Washington and Pyongyang. Internal pressure from the North Korean elites and the public is necessary for positive change on security issues by the North, and this will only come about if there is progress on human rights.  Furthermore, North Korea, like all UN member states, has agreed to observe UN human rights obligations. If the North fails to carry out its commitments on human rights, what assurance do we have that it will fulfill security obligations it accepts?

robert king
Ambassador Robert King is former Special Envoy for North Korean human rights issues at the Department of State (2009-2017).  Since leaving that position, he has been senior advisor to the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a senior fellow at the Korea Economic Institute (KEI), and a board member of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) in Washington, D.C.  Previously, Ambassador King served for 25 years on Capitol Hill (1983-2008) as chief of staff to Congressman Tom Lantos (D-California), and staff director of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (2001-2008). Most recently, he was a 2019-20 Koret Fellow for the fall quarter at Stanford University.

This public event is part of the 12th annual Koret Workshop, "The Role of Human Rights in Policy Toward North Korea," and open to the general public with registration.

The event is made possible through the generous support of the Koret Foundation.

Advisory on Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)

In accordance with university guidelines, if you (or a spouse/housemate) have returned from travel to mainland China or South Korea in the last 14 days, we ask that you DO NOT come to campus until 14 days have passed since your return date and you remain symptom-free. For more information and updates, please refer to Stanford's Environmental Health & Safety website.

 

Robert R. King Former Special Envoy for North Korean Human Right Issues
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Mira Yoo

Shorenstein APARCStanford UniversityEncina Hall E301Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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Visiting Scholar at APARC, 2019-2020
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Mira Yoo joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as a visiting scholar for the winter and spring quarters of 2020 from the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Korea, where she serves as rapporteur judge, as well as director of the Basic Rights Research Team at the Constitutional Court's Research Institute.  At APARC, she will be conducting research on Korea's domestic and international political relations, particularly with North Korea, through the lens of Korea's legislation and constitutional adjudication.

The Strike on Qassem Soleimani: Implications for Iran, the Middle East and the World

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Panel discussion with Stanford international affairs experts on escalating U.S.-Iran tensions.

 

Register: Click here to RSVP

 

Livestream: Please click here to join the livestream.

 

About this Event: U.S.-Iran tensions are at a new high following the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani. Both sides continue to exchange threats of violence, and the implications for Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the fight against ISIS, and the U.S. presence in Iraq are expected to be profound. Join us for a panel discussion with Lisa Blaydes, Colin Kahl, Brett McGurk and Abbas Milani, moderated by Michael McFaul, on how recent developments may reshape the geopolitical landscape in one of the most volatile regions of the world.

 

This event is co-sponsored with Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Middle East Initiative at the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

 

Speaker's Biographies:

Lisa Blaydes is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. She is the author of Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2011). Her articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Middle East Journal, and World Politics. She holds degrees in Political Science (PhD) from the University of California, Los Angeles and International Relations (BA, MA) from Johns Hopkins University.

 

Colin Kahl is co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the inaugural Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a Professor, by courtesy, in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. He is also a Strategic Consultant to the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.

From October 2014 to January 2017, he was Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President. In that position, he served as a senior advisor to President Obama and Vice President Biden on all matters related to U.S. foreign policy and national security affairs, and represented the Office of the Vice President as a standing member of the National Security Council Deputies’ Committee. From February 2009 to December 2011, Dr. Kahl was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East at the Pentagon. In this capacity, he served as the senior policy advisor to the Secretary of Defense for Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, and six other countries in the Levant and Persian Gulf region. In June 2011, he was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service by Secretary Robert Gates. 

From 2007 to 2017 (when not serving in the U.S. government), Dr. Kahl was an assistant and associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. From 2007 to 2009 and 2012 to 2014, he was also a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a nonpartisan Washington, DC-based think tank. From 2000 to 2007, he was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Minnesota. In 2005-2006, Dr. Kahl took leave from the University of Minnesota to serve as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he worked on issues related to counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and responses to failed states. In 1997-1998, he was a National Security Fellow at the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University.

Current research projects include a book analyzing American grand strategy in the Middle East in the post-9/11 era. A second research project focuses on the implications of emerging technologies on strategic stability.

He has published numerous articles on international security and U.S. foreign and defense policy in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Security, the Los Angeles Times, Middle East Policy, the National Interest, the New Republic, the New York Times, Politico, the Washington Post, and the Washington Quarterly, as well as several reports for CNAS.

His previous research analyzed the causes and consequences of violent civil and ethnic conflict in developing countries, focusing particular attention on the demographic and natural resource dimensions of these conflicts. His book on the subject, States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World, was published by Princeton University Press in 2006, and related articles and chapters have appeared in International Security, the Journal of International Affairs, and various edited volumes.

Dr. Kahl received his B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan (1993) and his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University (2000).

 

Brett McGurk is the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at the Freeman Spogli Institute and Center for Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

McGurk’s research interests center on national security strategy, diplomacy, and decision-making in wartime.  He is particularly interested in the lessons learned over the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump regarding the importance of process in informing presidential decisions and the alignment of ends and means in national security doctrine and strategy.  At Stanford, he will be working on a book project incorporating these themes and teaching a graduate level seminar on presidential decision-making beginning in the fall of 2019.  He is also a frequent commentator on national security events in leading publications and as an NBC News Senior Foreign Affairs Analyst. 

Before coming to Stanford, McGurk served as Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS at the U.S. Department of State, helping to build and then lead the coalition of seventy-five countries and four international organizations in the global campaign against the ISIS terrorist network.  McGurk was also responsible for coordinating all aspects of U.S. policy in the campaign against ISIS in Iraq, Syria, and globally.

McGurk previously served in senior positions in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, including as Special Assistant to President Bush and Senior Director for Iraq and Afghanistan, and then as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran and Special Presidential Envoy for the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State under Obama.

McGurk has led some of the most sensitive diplomatic missions in the Middle East over the last decade. His most recent assignment established one of the largest coalitions in history to prosecute the counter-ISIS campaign. He was a frequent visitor to the battlefields in both Iraq and Syria to help integrate military and civilian components of the war plan. He also led talks with Russia over the Syria conflict under both the Trump and Obama administrations, initiated back-channel diplomacy to reopen ties between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and facilitated the formation of the last two Iraqi governments following contested elections in 2014 and 2018.

In 2015 and 2016, McGurk led fourteen months of secret negotiations with Iran to secure the release of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezain, U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati, and Pastor Saad Abadini, as well as three other American citizens.

During his time at the State Department, McGurk received multiple awards, including the Distinguished Honor Award and the Distinguished Service Award, the highest department awards for exceptional service in Washington and overseas assignments.

McGurk is also a nonresident senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

McGurk received his JD from Columbia University and his BA from the University of Connecticut Honors Program.  He served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist on the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Denis Jacobs on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2d Circuit, and Judge Gerard E. Lynch on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

 

Abbas Milani is the Hamid & Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University and a Professor (by courtesy) in the Stanford Global Studies Division. He is also one of the founding co-directors of the Iran Democracy Project and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His expertise include U.S.-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues. Until 1986, he taught at Tehran University’s Faculty of Law and Political Science, where he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the university’s Center for International Relations. After moving to the United States, he was for fourteen years the Chair of the Political Science Department at the Notre Dame de Namur University. For eight years, he was a visiting Research Fellow in University of California, Berkeley’s Middle East Center.

Professor Milani came to Stanford ten years ago, when he became the founding director of the Iranian Studies Program. He also worked with two colleagues to launch the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution. He has published more than twenty books and two hundred articles and book reviews in scholarly magazines, journals, and newspapers. His latest book is a collection he co-edited with Larry Diamond, Politics & Culture in Contemporary Iran: Challenging the Status Quo  (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2015).

 

Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Director and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He was also the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University from June to August of 2015. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. He is also an analyst for NBC News and a contributing columnist to The Washington Post. McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

He has authored several books, most recently the New York Times bestseller,  “From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia.”  Earlier books include Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; Transitions To Democracy: A Comparative Perspective  (eds. with Kathryn Stoner); Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (with James Goldgeier); and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin. His current research interests include American foreign policy, great power relations between China, Russia, and the United States, and the relationship between democracy and development. 

Prof. McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991.

Lisa Blaydes

Encina Hall West, Room 408
Stanford, CA 94305-6044

(650) 723-0649
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor of Political Science
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Lisa Blaydes is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. She is the author of State of Repression: Iraq under Saddam Hussein (Princeton University Press, 2018) and Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2011). Professor Blaydes received the 2009 Gabriel Almond Award for best dissertation in the field of comparative politics from the American Political Science Association for this project.  Her articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Middle East Journal, and World Politics. During the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 academic years, Professor Blaydes was an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. She holds degrees in Political Science (PhD) from the University of California, Los Angeles, and International Relations (BA, MA) from Johns Hopkins University.

 

Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Colin H. Kahl

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

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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
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Colin Kahl is the Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), an interdisciplinary research hub in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also the faculty director of CISAC’s Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance, and a professor of political science (by courtesy).

From April 2021-July 2023, Dr. Kahl served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the U.S. Department of Defense. In that role, he was the principal adviser to the Secretary of Defense for all matters related to national security and defense policy and represented the Department as a standing member of the National Security Council Deputies’ Committee. He oversaw the writing of the 2022 National Defense Strategy, which focused the Pentagon’s efforts on the “pacing challenge” posed by the PRC, and he led the Department’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and numerous other international crises. He also led several other major defense diplomacy initiatives, including: an unprecedented strengthening of the NATO alliance; the negotiation of the AUKUS agreement with Australia and the United Kingdom; historic defense force posture enhancements in Australia, Japan, and the Philippines; and deepening defense and strategic ties with India. In June 2023, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III awarded Dr. Kahl the Department of Defense Distinguished Public Service Medal, the highest civilian award presented by the Secretary of Defense.

During the Obama Administration, Dr. Kahl served as Deputy Assistant to President Obama and National Security Advisor to the Vice President Biden from October 2014 to January 2017. He also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East from February 2009 to December 2011, for which he received the Outstanding Public Service Medal in July 2011.

Dr. Kahl is the co-author (along with Thomas Wright) of Aftershocks: Pandemic Politics and the End of the Old International Order (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2021) and the author States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). He has also published numerous article on U.S. national security and defense policy in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Security, the Los Angeles Times, Middle East Policy, the National Interest, the New Republic, the New York Times, Politico, the Washington Post, and the Washington Quarterly, as well as several reports for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a non-partisan think tank in Washington, DC.

Dr. Kahl previously taught at Georgetown University and the University of Minnesota, and he has held fellowship positions at Harvard University, the Council on Foreign Relations, CNAS, and the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and International Engagement.

He received his B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan (1993) and his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University (2000).

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Michael A. McFaul

Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Director, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Department of Political Science
Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
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PhD

Michael McFaul is Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. Dr. McFaul also is as an International Affairs Analyst for NBC News and a columnist for The Washington Post. He served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

He has authored several books, most recently the New York Times bestseller From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia. Earlier books include Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; Transitions To Democracy: A Comparative Perspective (eds. with Kathryn Stoner); Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (with James Goldgeier); and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin. He is currently writing a book called Autocrats versus Democrats: Lessons from the Cold War for Competing with China and Russia Today.

He teaches courses on great power relations, democratization, comparative foreign policy decision-making, and revolutions.

Dr. McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. In International Relations at Oxford University in 1991. His DPhil thesis was Southern African Liberation and Great Power Intervention: Towards a Theory of Revolution in an International Context.

International Working Group on Russian Sanctions

The International Working Group on Russian Sanctions aims to provide expertise and experience to governments and companies around the world by assisting with the formulation of sanctions proposals that will increase the cost to Russia of invading Ukraine, and support democratic Ukraine in the defense of its territorial integrity and national sovereignty.
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A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
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Hideaki Yonekura

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Global Affiliate Visiting Scholar, 2019-20
Japan Patent Office
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Hideaki Yonekura is a global affiliate visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2019-20.  Yonekura has been working since 2009 for the Japan Patent Office, one of the external agencies of the Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry (METI) of Japan, as a patent examiner, handling applications in the field of microwave technology. 

Renee DiResta

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Renée DiResta is the former Research Manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory. She investigates the spread of malign narratives across social networks, and assists policymakers in understanding and responding to the problem. She has advised Congress, the State Department, and other academic, civic, and business organizations, and has studied disinformation and computational propaganda in the context of pseudoscience conspiracies, terrorism, and state-sponsored information warfare.

You can see a full list of Renée's writing and speeches on her website: www.reneediresta.com or follow her @noupside.

 

Former Research Manager, Stanford Internet Observatory
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