Vik Kanwar's CV

Dissertation: The Politics of Necessity: International Sources of Emergency Governance. Analysis of international legal regimes regulating derogation from rights obligations during states of emergency and their theorization in constitutional theory.

Advisors: Benedict Kingsbury, Martti Koskenniemi, and David Garland

Activities: Institute for International Law and Justice (Annual Colloquia, History and Theory Group) Law and Security Colloquium, NYU Pre-Tenure Track Scholars Colloquium, Comparative Law and Politics Reading Group (New York Law School)

Master of Laws, Completed May 2001

New York University

New York, New York

Grade Point Average : 3.7/4.0

Honors : Law Review Graduate Editor, NYU Review of Law and Social Change (2000-2001).

Juris Doctor, Completed May 2000

Northeastern University School of Law

Boston, Massachusetts

Three-year course of study in law, including one full year of required practical legal experience. Substantial course-work in Legal Theory and Public International Law.

Honors : Denise Carty-Bennia Memorial Bar Award (2000); Moderator: Critical Studies Colloquium (1999); Public Interest Law Fellowship (1999); Editor: Immigrant Workers’ Human Rights Project (1997-98).

Bachelor of Arts : Social and Critical Theory, Completed May 1997

New College of Florida

Sarasota, Florida

Comprehensive four-year course of study at honors program in the philosophical underpinnings and methodologies of the social sciences and their application to problems such as social stratification and human rights discourse in post-authoritarian states. Completed three month-long Independent Study Projects, including two in South Asia, and a year-long Senior Thesis incorporating social theory, cultural history, and ethnography.

Honors : General Spaatz Award for Academic Excellence and Community Involvement (1997); Florida Academic Scholarship (1994-1997); New College Alumni Association Grant for Academic Research Abroad (1995); Foundation Grant for Fieldwork in Nepal (1995); “Connecting Communities” Urban Issues Panel (1995); Served as Vice President of Statewide College Section ACLU (1994-96).

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Bar Admissions and Memberships

Admitted to Practice in New York

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Legal and Policy Research Experience

Graduate Fellow, September 2005-Present

Center on International Cooperation

New York University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

New York, New York

Grant Fellowship. Research and publication at research center on international legal and policy issues such as non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and post-conflict peace building.

Global Fellow, November 2003-May 2005

Hauser Global Law School Program

New York University School of Law

New York, New York

Grant Fellowship. Research and administration at unique law school program sponsoring eminent faculty, dignitaries and fellows from around the world. Duties included assiting faculty appointments process, editing Working Paper Series, and participation in graduate admissions process.

Jules Lobel Research Fellow, December 2002 – May 2003

Center for Constitutional Rights

New York, New York

Grant Fellowship. Conducted a feasibility study and developed a strategic plan for challenging state and private arrangements providing prisoner telephone systems. Assembled comprehensive database of statutes, litigation, organizations, and secondary literature on CD-ROM. Wrote comprehensive qualitative account and analysis (“The Captive Call: The Monopolization of Telecommunications in the American Correctional System”) and other public education materials. Lead consultant in building capacity for national coalition, including legislative campaigns.

Research Intern, December 1999 - March 2000

Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law

New York, New York

Full Time. Policy and legal research for public policy organization’s Poverty Project. Designed and implemented research strategy for locating and documenting 600 cases dropped by Federal Legal Services restrictions. Researched New York welfare center access litigation and living wage legislation.

Ella Baker Fellow, September 1998 - March 1999

Center for Constitutional Rights

New York, New York

Full Time. Researched and helped litigate major constitutional claims involving civil rights, foreign intelligence surveillance, the Alien Tort Claims Act, and international human rights. Drafted several successful memoranda for Federal District and Circuit Courts.Attended administrative hearings, designed a proposal for a Citizens’ Complaint Review Board, served on several city-wide committees, and helped organize Affirmative Action Conference at Columbia University

Pre-Law Intern, February 1995 - May 1995

Gulf Coast Legal Services

Sarasota, Florida

Part Time. Research and public education projects for public interest lawyers’ Homelessness Prevention Project. Researched and implemented voice-mail system for homeless job-seekers. Served on county-wide Coalition.

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Other Research Experience

Research Assistant, June 1999 - September 1999

For Professor Anthony Farley

Boston College School of Law

Newton, Massachusetts

Full Time. Academic apprenticeship involving substantive research, citations, and copyediting on several legal-academic articles, including The Poetics of Colorlined Space (Critical Race Theory, forthcoming Rutgers Press). Assembled extensive critically-annotated bibliographies on hate speech and voting rights jurisprudence, and prepared supplementary materials for four law school courses.

Research Assistant, January 1998 – May 1998

For Professors Steven Subrin and Martha Minow

Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Northeastern University School of Law, Boston, Massachusetts

Part Time. Researched school desegregation case for textbook Civil Procedure: Doctrine, Practice, and Context, by Subrin, Minow, Brodin, and Main (2000 Aspen). Submitted paper, United States v. Eric Hall: Race, Schools, and Stories that Matter, incorporated into first chapter of textbook.

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Teaching Experience

Resident Instructor, June 2003 – August 2003

Excel Program at Williams College

Williamstown, Massachusetts

Full Time. Taught twenty-five sessions of “Criminal Justice, Human Rights, and Terrorism” course over five weeks for residential academic pre-college program. Same duties as previous summer.

Resident Instructor, June 2002 – August 2002

Excel Program at Williams College

Williamstown, Massachusetts

Full Time. Taught twenty-five sessions of “Criminal Law and Justice” course over five weeks for residential academic pre-college program. Duties included collaborating with diverse faculty on interdisciplinary projects, including international relations, ethics, social psychology, and journalism.

Senior Legal Studies Consultant, August 2001 – June 2002

The Federation Employment and Guidance Service (FEGS)

Bronx Leadership Academy

New York, New York

Part Time. Directed nine-month legal education and academic enrichment program funded by federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA) in law magnet public high school. Served as liaison between school and legal professionals. Taught classes in Constitutional Law, Family Law, Mock Trial, Torts, and Criminal Law. Wrote and compiled International Law text. Supervised full time Legal Education Associate and staff.

Law Lecturer, June 2001 – August 2001

The Federation Employment and Guidance Service (FEGS)

Youth Opportunity Center

New York, New York

Full Time. Formulated, directed, and taught an intensive seven week “Introduction to Law” course funded by U.S. Department of Labor as supplement to program providing legal internships to New York City public high school students from Bronx School of Law, Government and Justice and Bronx High School of Science, among others. Taught seven weeks introducing each of the first-year law school courses to five sections of students. Wrote and compiled course text. Program won numerous awards and was presented to U.S. Congress as a model curriculum.

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Other Professional Experience

Co-Editor, March 1999 – August 2000

Radical America

Somerville, Massachusetts

Part Time. Writing, interviewing, soliciting articles, copyediting, and handling business duties for quarterly progressive academic journal with over 3,200 institutional and individual subscribers worldwide. Published several back-issues, double issue on American labor issues, and a pamphlet on the Kosovo Crisis.

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Recent Legal Publications

Untimely Interventions?: David Kennedy on Humanitarianism as a Vocation (Book Review: David Kennedy The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism). Global Law Books Project, Edited by Joseph Weiler and Miguel Poiares Maduro (2005). (Publication forthcoming).

Book Review: Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception. I-CON: The International Journal of Constitutional Law (2005 Forthcoming).

Book Review: Karl-Heinz Ladeur’s Public Governance in the Age of Globalization. Global Law Books and European Law Books Projects, Edited by Joseph Weiler and Miguel Poiares Maduro (2005). (Accepted for Publication).

“Fechamento” e “Ruptura” em discurso da penalidade de morte, Lugar Comun, No.11, 2005, (Portuguese) (Translated by Abdul Karim-Mustafa).

“International Emergency Governance: Fragments of a Driverless System,” Critical Sense: Interdisciplinary Journal of Political Theory Spring 2004 (U.C. Berkeley).

Gouvernement International D'Exception, in Multitudes, 2005, (French) (Translated by Abdul Karim-Mustafa).

“The Captive Call: The Monopolization of Telecommunications in The American Correctional System,” prepared for publication 2003 as public education pamphlet by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Introducing International Law, textbook published 2002 by The Federation Employment and Guidance Service, Inc.

An Introduction to Law: Between Morality, Politics, and Coercion, textbook published Summer 2001 by The Federation Employment and Guidance Service, Inc.

Proposed as national model by FEGS Assistant Vice President to U.S. Congressional Sub-Committee, Washington, D.C., February 2002.

“Capital Punishment as ‘Closure’: The Limits of a Victim-Centered Jurisprudence,” NYU Review of Law and Social Change, Vol. 27, no. 2&3, p. 215-255 (2001-02).

The Immigrant Workers’ Human Rights Project: An Empirical Study, A continuing research project at Northeastern University. Editor from 1997-1998.

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Research Interests

“The Politics of Necessity: The Constitutional and International Sources of Emergency Governance.” The long-term development of doctoral dissertation into a series of discrete law review articles and a book theorizing and historicizing some longstanding problems of national “states of emergency” in light of recent comparative constitutional theory and overlapping regimes of international law.

“The Lone Gunman?: The Security Council and Nonproliferation.” A legal and policy assessment of recent proposals to strengthen the Security Council’s role in Non-Proliferation activities. Surveying normative and empirical challenges to adopting these approaches. Research will be published as policy brief as well as law review article.

“From Victors’ Justice to Victims’ Rights: An Alternative History of the International Criminal Court.” A revisionist history of the role of “victims’ rights” movements in the development of modern international criminal justice. Victims’ rights movements of the 1970s and 1980s, in their opposition to impunity have influenced diverse retributive and reconciliation models for post-conflict justice. Arguing it is the impact of these movements, rather than the legacy of Nuremburg that best explains the procedural contours of the new International Criminal Court (ICC). Combining concepts developed in the article “Capital Punishment as ‘Closure’” (2001-02), with ongoing research in the history of international law.

“The Fragmentation on International Law: The Pedagogical Dimension.” The current topic of the “fragmentation” of international law describes functional differentiation and specialization of “self-contained regimes.” Studies the impact of doctrinal fragmentation on the pedagogy of international law and possible responses in law teaching and textbooks. Arises out of 2005 NYU Colloquium “Rethinking the Table of Contents of International Law.”

“The Regulation of Coercion in International Law.” The early stages of co-editing a book with colleague at the Institute for International Law and Justice, Robert Dufresne, collecting original articles on the topic of coercion and violence in international law. Topics will include the violent expropriation of natural resources (the “militarization of commerce”) and the legal regulation of Private Military Firms in recent conflicts (the “commercialization of war”).

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Teaching Interests

Available to teach any basic common law subjects. The following three categories are ranked according to relevance to research agenda and experience:

All basic and advanced courses in Public International Law, including courses and seminars in International Organizations, Human Rights, the Law of War, Alien Tort Claims, and International Criminal Justice.

All courses related to Criminal Procedure and Criminal Law, including first-year courses, seminars on Law of Anti-Terrorism, and comparative and constitutional aspects of these issues.

More broadly, any courses that could contribute to interesting engagement with the doctrinal issues of the above topics, and help develop further specializations, including Torts, Jurisprudence, Comparative Constitutionalism, Conflict of Laws, Military Law, Law of Foreign Relations, and Immigration Law.

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Recent Presentations

“The Politics of Necessity, Part II: International Emergency Governance: Fragments Shored Against Ruins”, April 11, 2005, J.S.D. Colloquium, open to the academic community at New York University School of Law.

“Blogging, Flash Mobs and the iPod: Globalization and the Future of Artist and Audience”, June 13, 2004, invited moderator at National Performing Arts Convention, Pittsburgh, PA.

“Pre-Commitment and Prudence: International Theories of Emergency Governance,” January 30, 2004, The Turn to Scholarship: The Inaugural Conference of Doctorate of Juridical Science Candidates, New York University School of Law.

“The Politics of Necessity, Part I: Two Problems of Order”, October 6, 2003, J.S.D. Colloquium, open to the academic community at New York University School of Law.

“The Contours of Crisis: Legality and Legitimacy in States of Emergency”, March 10, 2003, J.S.D. Colloquium, open to the academic community at New York University School of Law.

“Liberty vs. Security: The Torture Debate,” July 2002 and 2003, public debates with counter-terrorism specialist on the legalization and proceduralization of torture. Williams College, Williamstown, MA.

“Discourse and the Dungeon: Victims Rights between Vengeance and Mercy,” April 2001, presented at the 2001 NYU Review of Law and Social Change Colloquium on the Death Penalty.

"Juridical Ways of Knowing: A Forgotten Genealogy" April 20, 2001, Human Sciences 7th Annual Conference at the Human Sciences Program, George Washington University.

“Monks and Murder: Power and Secrecy in Law and Literature” presented at “Secrets and Confessions,” the 2001 SUNY Stonybrook Annual Graduate Student Conference at the State University of New York at Stonybrook.

“Inquisition and the Birth of Scientific Inquiry” presented at 2001 Mephistos Graduate Student Conference for the History, Philosophy, and Sociology of Science at the University of Notre Dame.

“Mapping Methodologies,” introduction to Prof. Gerald Frug’s inaugural presentation “City-Making” at the 1999-2000 Critical Studies Colloquium at Northeastern University School of Law.

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