A Nonpartisan, Nonprofit Interdisciplinary Center for
Advanced Scholarship and Education About Legal Issues
Affecting U.S. National Security

A Message from the Director, Professor John Norton Moore

Welcome to the Web site for the Center for National Security Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. Established at the University of Virginia School of Law in April 1981, the Center has an active publications program and sponsors scholarly conferences and national security law courses. The Center also sponsors an annual National Security Law Institute during the summer which is designed to provide advanced training for government officials and professors of law and international relations in this growing field.

Through its varied programs, the Center endeavors to further professional and public understanding of such important issues as:

• The separation of constitutional powers between the President, the Congress, and the courts in the national security field, including: war powers, the making and interpretation of treaties and other international agreements, and the oversight of intelligence activities;

• International and domestic legal constraints on the use of force in international relations, including case studies of specific conflicts such as those in Indochina, Central America, Afghanistan, the Gulf, Iraq, and the "war on terror";

• National and international legal issues raised by the struggle against international terrorism, including the use of civil litigation in the "war on terror";

• Promotion of democracy and the rule of law, including analysis of democracies/non-democracies and a propensity of nations to initiate aggressive wars;

• Legal aspects of National Security issues involving arms control, the International Court of Justice and other means of international dispute resolution, and legal constraints on the foreign transfer of technology and information with national security implications; and
  
  
• Incentive Theory as a new paradigm in foreign and national security policy, developed by Professor Moore.

As part of the University community, the Center cooperates with and endeavors to strengthen other organizations and institutions. For example, it has provided support to the John Bassett Moore Society of International Law, the Virginia Journal of International Law, the Student Legal Forum, the Arthur J. Morris Law Library at the School of Law, and funding for relevant faculty research in other departments as well.

We invite you to explore the Center Web site and to contact us with any questions or comments regarding our activities. Thank you for your interest in the Center for National Security Law.

Professor John Norton Moore

Director, Center for National Security Law
Walter L. Brown Professor of Law
University of Virginia School of Law

If you would like to receive information about the work and programs of the Center for National Security Law, please provide the following information by email, fax, or mail: name, title, postal address, state, zip, phone number and email address.