Prof. Michael Newton
“ Always ask the question, what else is going on contextually? What are we not seeing? What radio transmissions are we not hearing? ”
Michael Newton is a professor at Vanderbilt Law School and is an expert on terrorism, transnational justice, and conduct of hostilities issues. An authority on the law of armed conflict, Newton served as the senior adviser to the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues in the U.S. State Department from January 1999 to August 2002, during which he implemented a wide range of policy positions. He negotiated the “Elements of Crimes” for the International Criminal Court. He has been involved in coordinating U.S. support to accountability mechanisms worldwide, both at the international and domestic levels. For example, he is currently assisting judges and legislators addressing atrocity crimes committed in Ukraine under a USAID led project. He led the team teaching international law to the first group of Iraqis who began to think about accountability mechanisms and a constitutional structure. He later shuttled back and forth to Baghdad assisting international and Iraqi lawyers prosecuting cases before the Iraqi High Tribunal while serving as the International Law Adviser to the Judicial Chambers from 2006 to 2008. He began assisting Iraqi officials, victims and civil society groups on legal issues associated with documentation and investigation of crimes committed by Da’esh on Iraqi soil days after Yazidi victims fled towards Mount Sinjar. Newton remains active in providing assistance to the Iraqi judiciary in Da’esh related prosecutions. He served as the U.S. representative on the U.N. Planning Mission for the Sierra Leone Special Court and was a founding member of its academic consortium. Newton is the editor of The United States Department of Defense Law of War Manual: Commentary and Critique (Cambridge University Press).
