Professor Michael N. Schmitt

Professor Michael N. Schmitt is Chairman of the International Law Department at the United States Naval War College. He is also Honorary Professor of International Humanitarian Law at Durham University in the United Kingdom and Dean of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany. Before joining the Marshall Center, Professor Schmitt served 20 years in the United States Air Force as a judge advocate specializing in operational and international law. In 1996 he graduated first in class from the Naval War College's College of Naval Warfare.

From 2007 through 2008, he occupied the Charles H. Stockton Visiting Chair of International Law at the Naval War College. He has been the Sir Ninian Stephen Visiting Scholar at Melbourne University and an invited Visiting Scholar at Australian National University and Yale Law School. The Editor-in- Chief of the "International Law Studies," Professor Schmitt serves on many boards of institutions, learned and professional societies, and publications dealing with international humanitarian law. He has also been active in multiple international expert working groups, including those on the Manual on the International Law of Air and Missile Warfare (Harvard Program on Conflict Research), Direct Participation by Civilians in Hostilities (ICRC), Characterization of Conflict (Chatham House), and, as Project Director, the Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber War (NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence).

Professor Schmitt’s works on law and military affairs have been published in Belgium, Chile, Germany, Israel, Italy, Norway, Peru, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He has delivered the Sir Ninian Stephen Lecture at Melbourne University, the Hilaire McCoubrey Lecture at Hull University and the Waldemar Solf Lecture at the US Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School. His academic degrees include a JD (University of Texas), LL.M (Yale University), MA (Naval War College), and MA (Texas State University). In 2011, he was awarded a Doctor of Letters degree from Durham University in recognition of his research and publication of “high distinction, constituting a substantial and original contribution to scholarship in the field.”

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