Biographical Summary for Edwin M. Smith

Edwin M. Smith, the Leon Benwell Professor of Law and International Relations, graduated with honors from Harvard College, later receiving his J.D. from Harvard Law School. After litigating for three years with Rosenfeld, Meyer and Susman in Beverly Hills, California, Smith spent one year in Seattle as a regional attorney for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Since 1980, Smith has taught at the Law Center of the University of Southern California. Named an International Affairs Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, he served during 1987-1988 as Special Counsel for Foreign Policy to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York. During 1991-1992, he was Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania.

Smith has been appointed by President Clinton as a Member of the Scientific and Policy Advisory Committee of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Smith was elected Chair of the Board of Directors of the Academic Council on the United Nations System. A member of the American Society of International Law since 1984, Smith has been elected Vice-President of the Society. He has also served on the Executive Council and the Nominating Committee of the Society, as chair of the International Organizations Interest Group, as a member of the Society's Congressional Outreach Committee, and as a member of the Hudson Medal Committee. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Smith currently participates on the Advisory Selection Committee for the International Affairs Program. A Founding Member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, Smith has participated on the Membership Task Force. He has also served as a member of the National Council of the United Nations Association of the United States, of the American Global Dialogue, and of the Advisory Committees of the Asia Foundation's Council on Asian Pacific Affairs. Smith has been a consultant to the Ford Foundation's Program on International Law and Organizations.

Smith participated in the Council on Foreign Relations Study Groups on Defining the National Interest, and on Collective Involvement in Internal Conflicts. He was also part of the Study Group for the Carnegie Endowment's Project on Self-Determination. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations NATO/European Community Briefing Delegation in May, 1992, he has subsequently lectured on cooperation between United Nations and NATO at Universidad Juan Carlos III in Madrid, Yale University, the Claremont-McKenna Colleges, International Studies Association Annual Meeting in Acapulco, Mexico and the 1994 U. S.-Japan-Canada Trilateral Conference on International Law in Tokyo, Japan. He has testified on the same topic before the Subcommittee on International Security, International Organizations and Human Rights of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the United States House of Representatives. He has spoken on economic sanctions at the Liberal Party Conference in Vancouver, Canada, the United Nations Secretariat in New York and at Stanley Foundation conferences at Airlie, Virginia and Annapolis, Maryland. He has served twice as co-chair of the Workshop on International Organization, sponsored by the American Society of International Law, the Academic Council on the United Nations System, and the Ford Foundation.

Smith's recent writings include The United Nations and NATO: The Limits on Cooperation Between International Organizations in Michael K. Young and Yuji Iwasawa, eds., TRILATERAL PERSPECTIVES ON INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ISSUES: RELEVANCE OF DOMESTIC LAW AND POLICY (Irvington, NY: Transnational Publishers, Inc. 1996); The Justification of Intervention in Fernando M. Marino Menendez, ed., LOS ESTADOS Y LAS ORGANIZACIONES INTERNACIONALES ANTE EL NUEVO CONTEXTO DE LA SEGURIDAD EN EUROPA (Madrid: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid 1995); THE UNITED NATIONS IN A NEW WORLD ORDER (co-authored with Michael G. Schechter) (Claremont, CA: Claremont McKenna College 1994); Collective Security: Changing Conceptions and Institutional Adaptation in Keith Krause and Andy Knight, eds., THE UNITED NATIONS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY (forthcoming); NATO and the European Community: Troubled Transitions, USC Law 2-11 (Fall 1992); The United Nations: Meeting the Challenges of the Post-Cold War World, 87th Annual Proceedings of the American Society of International Law 268-272; The Need for Effective Multilateral Sanctions, 86th Annual Proceedings of the American Society of International Law 303-308; Understanding Dynamic Obligations: International Arms Control Agreements, 64 Southern California Law Review 1549 (1991); The "Just War" and its Aftermath, Los Angeles Lawyer (May, 1991); and Unilateralism or Multilateralism: The U.S., The U.N. and the Iraq Crisis, Los Angeles Lawyer (November, 1990).

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You can send e-mail to Prof. Smith at: esmith@law.usc.edu
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