Shibley Telhami holds the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, and is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Previously, he was the Director of the Near Eastern Studies Program at Cornell University and has taught at Ohio State University, the University of Southern California, Princeton University, Columbia University, Swarthmore College, and the University of California at Berkeley. His publications include Power and Leadership in International Bargaining: The Path to the Camp David Accords (Columbia University Press, 1990); International Organizations and Ethnic Conflict, ed. with Milton Esman (Cornell University Press, 1995); and Identity and Foreign Policy in the Middle East , ed. with Michael Barnett (forthcoming, Cornell University Press, 2001); and numerous articles on international politics and Middle Eastern affairs.

Professor Telhami has actively been bridging the academic and policy world. He served as advisor to the United States delegation to the United Nations during the Iraq-Kuwait crisis, and was on the staff of Congressman Lee Hamilton. He is the author of a report on Persian Gulf security for the Council on Foreign Relations, and the co-drafter of a Council report on the Arab-Israeli peace process. Professor Telhami is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the advisory committee of Human Rights Watch/Middle East. He has been a member of the American delegation of the Trilateral American/Israeli/Palestinian Anti-Incitement Committee mandated by the Wye River Agreement between Israel and the Palestinians and has a weekly radio commentary broadcasting widely over the Middle East.

He received his B.A. from the Queens College of the City University of New York (1974), M.A. from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley (1978), and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley (1986).

Professor Telhami will be reporting on his latest poll of Arab public opinion and interpreting the results on key issues.

Amr Hamzawy is Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a noted Egyptian political scientist who previously taught at Cairo University and the Free University of Berlin. Hamzawy has a deep knowledge of Middle East politics and specific expertise on the reform process in the region. His research interests include the changing dynamics of political participation in the Arab world, the role of Islamist opposition groups in Arab politics, with special attention both to Egypt and the Gulf countries.

Hamzawy's studies at Cairo University focused on civil society and democratization in the Arab world, Islamism, and the cultural impacts of globalization in Muslim majority societies. He received his Ph.D. from the Free University of Berlin, where he worked as an assistant professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Some of his publications include The Saudi Labyrinth: Evaluating the Current Political

Opening, (Carnegie Paper 68, March 2006); Human Rights in the Arab World: Independent Voices, coedited with Anthony Chase, (University of Pennsylvania, 2006); Zeitgenössisches Arabisches Denken: Kontinuität und Wandel, (Verlag des Deutschen Orient-Instituts, 2005); Civil Society in the Middle East, (Verlag Hans Schiler, 2003); Religion, Staat und Politik im Vorderen Orient, coedited with Ferhad Ibrahim, (Lit Verlag, 2003)

Amr Hamzawy holds a Ph.D from Free University of Berlin; M.A. from the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, M.A. from the University of Amsterdam, and B.Sc. from Cairo University.

This talk will analyze the evolution of lawfare, what Jeremy Bentham called "an irregular system of warfare." Meierhenrich introduces lawfare as a conceptually and analytically distinct type of warfare, and a political strategy not previously theorized in any systematic fashion. In his conceptualization, lawfare is a revolutionary strategy for broadcasting power, by which he means a strategy aimed at the systematic and comprehensive overhaul of the foundations of politics and society. This strategy comprises, inter alia, constitutional enactments, ordinary legislation, presidential decrees, and other regulatory instruments. Based on evidence from cases, Meierhenrich illustrates the economy with which the strategy of lawfare may be used and the ingenuity that it requires. Restating an influential aphorism, he shows how law made the state, and the state made law. By so doing, he explains why this irregular system of warfare stands in much higher favor with men in general than that which is carried on by open force -- illustrating the dark side of democracy and the rule of law.

About the speaker:

Jens Meierhenrich is Assistant Professor of Government and of Social Studies at Harvard University, where he is also a Faculty Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. He recently served as the Carlo Schmid Fellow in Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and has previously worked with Luis Moreno Ocampo, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Professor Meierhenrich is the author of a genocide trilogy, forthcoming from Princeton University Press, comprising "The Rationality of Genocide," "The Structure of Genocide," and "The Culture of Genocide." His book "The Legacies of Law" on the function of legal norms and institutions in the transition to - and from - apartheid, is currently under review. Meierhenrich's publications also include a series of articles on comparative and international law and politics. Work in progress includes a book on judicial responses to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, a comparative analysis of international courts and tribunals, and a long-term project on state formation and state collapse. He has conducted extensive field research in several international organizations as well as in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.

Jens Meierhenrich was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where he earned a D.Phil. in politics and international relations.