War and Peace

New Thinking About the Causes of War and War Avoidance

Guest Speakers

Fall 2011

Professor John M. Owen

On October 5, Professor John M. Owen from the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics here at UVA will address the seminar. Professor Owen specializes in international relations (theory, U.S. foreign policy, international security, nationalism and world politics). He is the author of Liberal Peace, Liberal War (1997) and contributor to International Security, International Organization, and several edited volumes. He has received fellowships from the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard, and the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford, and the Center of International Studies at Princeton. His current research concerns why countries promote particular domestic institutions within other countries.

Davis Brown

Davis Brown will speak on October 26th on the validity of the democratic peace and incentive theory. He is a lawyer and political scientist, specializing in international law, international relations, and political theory. He has a J.D. from New York University, where he was a Fellow at the Center for International Studies, and an LL.M. in international law with highest honors from George Washington University, where he has also been a Visiting Scholar. He has an M.A. in international relations from the University of Virginia and is a Ph.D. student there also. In addition to his student work, Brown is the director of the Just War Theory Project and an occasional subject matter expert consultant for the Army JAG School. He was a JAG in the Air Force from 1994 to 2002 and deployed in support of Operations Southern Watch and Desert Fox.

Brown is the author of THE SWORD, THE CROSS, AND THE EAGLE (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), which is an exploration of the just war tradition in international law and the American military ethos. His earlier works include a study of the use of information systems in armed conflict (Harvard Int’l L.J., 2006), a two-part series on the legitimacy of the Iraq War (Hastings Int’l & Comp. L.Rev., 2003-4), and an assessment of the use of force against terrorism after 9/11 (Cardozo J. Int’l & Comp. L., 2003).

Lisa Davis

On November 16, Lisa Davis, Deputy Director of Programs and Director of RIGHTS Program at Freedom House in Washington, DC, will address the class. Ms. Davis serves as Director for a global research, technical assistance and training project promoting human rights and the rule of law. She also assists the Director of Programs in coordinating Freedom House's major program initiatives and overseas offices. She is a lawyer with over fifteen years of legal and democracy building experience. Ms. Davis manages Freedom House's RIGHTS Consortium, a global partnership between Freedom House, the American Bar Association, and the National Democratic Institute.  She has developed and expanded a portfolio of Freedom House human rights defender support programs in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa, and represents Freedom House in international human rights fora.  Prior to her international work, Ms. Davis was a trial attorney with the federal government.  Ms. Davis graduated with a Masters in International and Comparative Law with distinction from the Georgetown University Law Center and with a Juris Doctor from the University of Georgia, School of Law.