CHRGJ Faculty Director and Co-Chair Ryan Goodman has been appointed special counsel to the general counsel of the US Department of Defense. Goodman will take leave from the faculty starting September 1, 2015 to undertake his work in Washington, DC. In his new role at the Department of Defense Goodman will focus primarily on national security law and law of armed conflict. 

Prior to joining NYU Law in 2009, Goodman was the Rita E. Hauser Professor of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and director of the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School. He previously served at the US Department of State, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and nongovernmental organizations in India, South Africa, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United States. Goodman clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He received a JD from Yale Law School in 1999 and a PhD in Sociology from Yale University in 2001. 

One of the nation’s leading scholars in national security and human rights law, Goodman co-founded Just Security, an online forum for the rigorous analysis of law, rights, and national security, in 2013. Just Security, which is hosted at CHRGJ, quickly achieved international prominence for providing balanced and broad analysis of major legislation and executive action, information about the impact of US national security policies around the world, and scrutiny of international legal developments in the national security area.  During his time with the Defense Department, Goodman will discontinue his work with Just Security.