Certificate of Advanced Study in National Security & Counterterrorism Law

Using a series of case studies that jump off the front page, this course examines critically the hardest US national security law and policy challenges of the decades ahead. Topics include:

• Decisions to intervene and what laws apply if we do intervene in humanitarian crises, insurrections, or civil wars.
• Dealing with the “Arab Spring.”
• Dealing with Iran and North Korea, related to nuclear weapons.
• Anticipating and controlling new technologies in warfare and surveillance.
• Managing civil/military relations in protecting the homeland.
• Countering cyber threats to our infrastructure and cyber attacks waged by nation states, such as China and Russia.
• Managing public health as a national security issue.
•  Resource depletion and global warming as a national security issue.

This course concerns US and international law responses to terrorism and include a brief overview and history of terrorism. Topics include:

• Legal definitions of terrorism.
• Investigation and intelligence collection in the US and abroad.
• Apprehension of terrorists across borders.
• Immigration and border controls.
• Prosecution of terrorists.
• Sanctions against terrorism and its supporters, including reprisal, assassination, and asset freeze and forfeiture.
• Crisis and consequence management in the event of terrorist attacks, including martial law and detention, domestic use of the military, catastrophic emergency measures, and hostage and rescue operations.
• Law reform issues.

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This is a three-credit, one semester course on the legal, policy, and management aspects of cybersecurity. It is conducted through a series of seminars co-taught by a professor from the School of Information Studies and a professor from the College of Law’s Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism. The course combines legal, political economy, and technology perspectives, examining cybersecurity from the standpoint of private sector activities, national governments, and international law and politics. In recognition of the interdisciplinary nature of cybersecurity problems, the co-teaching between Law and iSchool provides a richer environment for the students. The course also welcomes students from public administration, policy studies, communications, and computer science. Students will be exposed to some basic technical material regarding the nature of the Internet, cyberspace, vulnerabilities, exploits and incident response techniques and methods, but this is not a technical course and does not require computer science expertise.

Offered by William Snyder (College of Law) and Lee McKnight (iSchool).

This seminar examines US engagements with foreign governments, organizations, and individuals. We will focus on the diversity of legal orders, actors, and spheres of action implicated in contemporary foreign relations. Central questions include:

1. How does the US government negotiate coexisting obligations under conventional, customary, constitutional, statutory, and administrative legal orders?
2. What roles do legislatures, executives, courts, agencies, non-state entities, non-governmental organizations, and multi-national corporations play in ordering foreign relations?
3. How do the foregoing legal orders and actors function differently across contexts of war, occupation, migration, trade, aid, intervention, and reconstruction?

We also will consider normative debates surrounding the preceding descriptive questions. By both canvassing and critiquing the law, policy, and history of US foreign relations, students will acquire the basic knowledge and skills required for analysis and argument within the field.

This course introduces students to the legal framework and underlying principles in the developing field of homeland security law. While national security is hierarchical, secretive and strategic, homeland security is collaborative, transparent and operational. This is a simulation-based course with a focus on administrative law processes in critical infrastructure protection, emergency management, border control, and counterterrorism efforts.

The National Security and Counterterrorism Research Center serves as a working research laboratory for law and other graduate students interested in national security and counterterrorism issues. Students will work in teams on research projects assigned by the director. Other faculty within Syracuse University and experts outside the University may also participate in the development and implementation of research projects. Typically, the projects will involve assessments of legal and law-related issues of concern to federal, state, and local government officials in responding to national security and terrorism threats. Other projects may examine private sector security concerns. Research projects may by arrangement with sources external to Syracuse University, while others may be developed from within the College of Law or the University.

A course that covers the fundamental topics in national security law, using case studies, simulations, and class discussions.

• Part 1: Framework of National Security Law
• Part II: International Law as ”Our Law”
• Part III: Using Force Abroad
• Part IV: Intelligence Operations and Collection
• Part V: Homeland Security