Speaker Biographies

Susan Biniaz has been the assistant legal adviser for the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs at the State Department since 1991. The office handles international law aspects of issues such as Antarctica, transboundary air pollution, freedom of navigation and maritime interdiction, climate change, fisheries, trade in hazardous wastes, pollution of the marine environment, maritime boundaries, trade and environment, and scientific cooperation. Previously, she was the assistant legal adviser for European and Canadian affairs at the State Department, as well as an attorney-adviser in various parts of the Legal Adviser’s Office.

Rear Admiral John E. Crowley assumed his current position as the commander of the Ninth Coast Guard District on April 18, 2006. As the region’s operational commander, he leads more than 7,700 regular, reserve, auxiliary, and civilian men and women, two air stations, two air facilities, four sectors, one sector field office, four Marine safety units, eleven cutters, forty-six small boat stations, and five aids to navigations teams. Rear Admiral Crowley’s special assignments include serving as the special assistant to Secretary Tom Ridge of the Department of Homeland Security and the interim director of the Homeland Security Center. His portfolio include work in Department of Defense, Coast Guard, and incident management matters. He was assigned to work on Department of Homeland Security issues while detailed to the Transition Planning Office in the executive office of the president in August 2002. Most recently, Rear Admiral Crowley was the judge advocate general and the chief counsel of the United States Coast Guard. In this capacity he served as the principal legal advisor to the commandant and oversaw the administration of military justice in the Coast Guard.

Jack Landman Goldsmith is a visiting scholar at AEI and a professor at Harvard Law School. Goldsmith previously served for two years in the George W. Bush administration, first as special counsel to the general counsel of the Department of Defense and then as an assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. Mr. Goldsmith has held faculty positions at the University of Virginia School of Law and the University of Chicago Law School, and practiced law privately as an associate at Covington & Burling. Prior to these positions, Mr. Goldsmith clerked for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and served as a legal assistant to Judge George Aldrich on the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in the Netherlands. At AEI, Mr. Goldsmith studies international law, sovereignty, and intelligence reform. In addition to Who Controls the Internet? (Oxford University Press Publication Date: March 2006), Mr. Goldsmith is coauthor, with Eric Posner, of The Limits of International Law (Oxford University Press, 2005). W. W. Norton will publish his next book, The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment inside the Bush Administration, this fall.

Jeremy Rabkin is a professor of law at George Mason University. Before joining the faculty in June 2007, he was a professor of government at Cornell University for twenty-seven years. Rabkin is a renowned scholar in international law and was recently confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a member of the board of directors of the United States Institute of Peace. His most recent books include Law without Nations? (Princeton University Press, 2005) and The Case for Sovereignty (AEI Press, 2004).

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