John B. Bellinger, III

He has represented numerous clients in lawsuits in federal courts, involving the Alien Tort Statute, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the Anti-Terrorism Act, the Helms Burton Act, and other U.S. foreign relations laws. He is frequently consulted by sovereign governments for advice and assistance on diplomatic and government official immunity as well as other public international law matters. John has represented numerous former U.S. government officials and foreign governments in sensitive investigations conducted by the Department of Justice and congressional committees. He also advises clients on many other national security legal and policy issues, including U.S. financial sanctions, investments reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, and the extraterritorial application of U.S. criminal and civil laws. He has represented the families and employers of several U.S. hostages and wrongfully detained persons.

As State Department Legal Adviser from 2005 to 2009, John was the most senior international lawyer in the U.S. Government, serving under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He directed more than 170 lawyers on domestic and international law matters affecting U.S. foreign relations. He represented the United States in cases before the International Court of Justice (Mexico v. United States–(Medellin)) and the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal and appeared on numerous briefs in the Supreme Court and other federal courts in litigation involving international law issues.

Before joining the State Department, John managed Secretary Rice's Senate confirmation process and co-directed her State Department transition team. In 2009, John received the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award.

As Legal Adviser to the NSC from 2001 to 2005, John advised President Bush, Cabinet officials, the National Security Advisor, and NSC staff on a broad spectrum of sensitive national security and international law issues. He worked closely with senior lawyers and officials of the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Treasury, and Homeland Security as well as with U.S. intelligence agencies.

John previously served in the U.S. Government as Counsel for National Security Matters in the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice; Of Counsel to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence; General Counsel of the Commission on the Roles and Capabilities of the U.S. Intelligence Community; and Special Assistant to Director of Central Intelligence William Webster.

John is an Adjunct Senior Fellow in International and National Security Law at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has testified before Senate and House committees on many occasions, is interviewed regularly by U.S. and foreign television, radio, and print media on international and U.S. national security law matters, and has lectured at more than two dozen U.S. and foreign universities and law schools. He is the author of numerous law review articles and op-eds on international law, including op-eds in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Politico. John is a senior contributor to the Lawfare blog.

John is a member of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on International Law. He is one of four U.S. Members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and a member of the U.S. "National Group", which nominates judges to the International Court of Justice. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Society of International Law. He is a member of the Council of the American Law Institute; the boards of directors of the American Ditchley Foundation, the Salzburg Global Seminar, and the Stimson Center; and the advisory committee of Foreign Affairs magazine.

John is a graduate of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and he holds an M.A. in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard International Law Journal.