Experts

Matthew C. Waxman

Adjunct Senior Fellow for Law and Foreign Policy

Expertise

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About the Expert

Expert Bio

Matthew C. Waxman is adjunct senior fellow for law and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also the Liviu Librescu Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where he directs the National Security Law Program, and he previously served as Co-Chair of the Cybersecurity Center at Columbia’s Data Science Institute. 

Waxman previously served at the U.S. Department of State as principal deputy director of policy planning. His prior government appointments included deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, director for contingency planning and international justice at the National Security Council, and executive assistant to the national security advisor. He is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, and studied international relations as a Fulbright scholar in the United Kingdom. After law school, he served as law clerk to Supreme Court justice David H. Souter and U.S. Court of Appeals judge Joel M. Flaum.

Affiliations: 

  • Columbia Law School/Columbia University, Liviu Librescu Professor of Law
  • Academic Exchange, executive committee member
  • WestExec Advisors, senior advisor
  • West Point Lieber Institute for Law & Land Warfare, senior fellow

Explore More on International Law

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Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
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Backgrounder by CFR.org Editors April 20, 2023

Taiwan

Why China-Taiwan Relations Are So Tense
Differences over Taiwan’s status have fueled rising tensions between the island and the mainland. Taiwan has the potential to be a flash point in U.S.-China relations.

Backgrounder by Lindsay Maizland April 18, 2023

United Kingdom

Moving Past the Troubles: The Future of Northern Ireland Peace
The Good Friday Agreement has dampened sectarian tensions and brought stability to Northern Ireland, but the peace deal’s twenty-fifth anniversary has been marred by a Brexit-related trade impasse that has thrown the region’s hard-won gains into doubt.

Backgrounder by Charles Landow and James McBride April 6, 2023

Top Stories on CFR

United States

Out of the Debt Ceiling Fire, But Still in the Frying Pan
Now that Congress voted to pass a bill based on the Biden-McCarthy compromise, an immediate debt ceiling crisis appears to have been averted. Still, a much larger debt problem awaits.  

Blog Post by Christopher M. Tuttle June 2, 2023 Renewing America

Supply Chains

Down and Dirty: The Global Fertilizer Dilemma

Podcast
Feeding the world's eight billion people has never been easy. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine shocked the market for fertilizer, that task has gotten even harder. The fertilizer crisis threatens to exacerbate food insecurity worldwide, especially in low-income countries already reeling from record-high inflation and rapidly depreciating currencies. What is fertilizer’s role in the food supply chain?

Podcast with Gabrielle Sierra, Michelle Gavin and Laura Cross May 25, 2023 Why It Matters

Middle East and North Africa

Turkey’s Growing Foreign Policy Ambitions
Turkey’s geography and membership in NATO have long given the country an influential voice in foreign policy, but the assertive policies of President Erdogan have complicated its role.

Backgrounder by Kali Robinson June 1, 2023