Michael N. Schmitt, Professor of International Law, Mike Schmitt

Michael N. Schmitt is the 2007-2009 Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Law at the United States Naval War College. Until establishment of the Chair in 1951, the requirement for international law instruction at the College was met through shorter visits by such scholars as John Bassett Moore, George Grafton Wilson, and Manley Hudson. The first Stockton Professor was Hans Kelsen. Professor Schmitt is the forty-sixth Stockton Chair holder.

Prior to assuming the Chair, Professor Schmitt was Professor of International Law at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. The Marshall Center is a German-American governmental institute offering graduate level educational programs for officials, military officers, and diplomats from the United States, Europe, and Eurasia. While there, he directed, inter alia, the Program in Advanced Security Studies and the Senior Fellows Program.

Professor Schmitt served in the United States Air Force for 20 years before joining the Marshall Center faculty. During his military career, he specialized in operational and international law and was senior legal adviser to multiple Air Force units, including units conducting combat operations over Northern Iraq. Formerly on the faculties of the United States Air Force Academy and Naval War College, he also has been a Visiting Scholar at Yale Law School and lectures regularly at the International Institute of Humanitarian Law and the NATO School.

His academic degrees include a BA and MA (Political Science) from Texas State University, an MA (National Security Policy and Strategic Studies) from the Naval War College, a JD from the University of Texas, and an LL.M from Yale University. The author of many scholarly articles on law and military affairs and contributing editor for multiple volumes of the International Law Studies series (Blue Books), Professor Schmitt's works have been published in Belgium, Chile, Germany, Israel, Italy, Norway, Peru, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Professor Schmitt is a member of the American Society of International Law, International Law Association, and European Society of International Law. He serves on the Editorial Boards of the International Review of the Red Cross, Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, and Martinus Nijhoff's International Humanitarian Law Series; the Executive Committee of the ASIL's Lieber Society; the British Institute of International and Comparative Law's International Humanitarian Law Advisory Board; the Steering Committee for Harvard University's International Humanitarian Law Research Initiative; and Office of the High Commissioner for Human Right's Advisory Board on Human Rights Training for National Armed Forces. In 2002, Professor Schmitt was elected a member of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law. The following year he was selected to deliver the Sixteenth Waldemar A Solf Lecture in International Law to the US Army's Judge Advocate General's Legal Center and School. Professor Schmitt was the 2006 Sir Ninian Stephens Visiting Scholar at Melbourne University 's Asia Pacific Center for Military Law.

E-mail: schmitt@aya.yale.edu