Resident Faculty: Beard

Appointments

• Assistant Professor of Law, 2011

Biography

Professor Jack Beard joined the law faculty in May 2011. Before coming to Nebraska, he was a member of the faculty at the UCLA School of Law. He previously served as the Associate Deputy General Counsel (International Affairs) in the Department of Defense where he was responsible for a variety of legal matters, including those associated with arms control agreements, defense cooperation and basing agreements in the Middle East region, and programs assisting states of the former Soviet Union in the dismantlement of weapons of mass destruction and other nonproliferation activities. In this capacity, he served as the senior lawyer on numerous U.S. delegations negotiating international agreements related to a wide range of U.S. military operations and activities. He is also a Lieutenant Colonel in the Judge Advocate General's Corps, U.S. Army Reserve (Retired) and served as the Chief, International Law Section, International and Operational Law Division, Office of The Judge Advocate General.

Professor Beard was voted Professor of the Year by the graduating class of 2008 at the UCLA School of Law, presented the Excellence in Teaching Award by the graduating class of 2003 at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., and received the Distinguished Adjunct Professor Award at the Georgetown University Law Center in 2001.

Professor Beard's research interests include the international legal implications of new military technologies and techniques and their employment in cyberspace and outer space. His most recent works have explored international legal issues raised by remote-controlled weapon systems and autonomous military technologies. Currently, Professor Beard is working on a variety of projects, including a book under contract with Oxford University Press entitled "Modern Technology and the Law of Armed Conflict."

Articles

• Law and War in the Virtual Era, 103 American Journal of International Law 409 (2009)
• The Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime and Nuclear Realities: Repair or Resassessment?, 101 American Society of International Law, Proceedings 438 (2007)
• The Shortcomings of Indeterminacy in Arms Control Regimes: the Case of the Biological Weapons Convention, 101 American Journal of International Law 271 (2007)
• The Geneva Boomerang: the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and U.S. Counterterror Operations, 101 American Journal of International Law 56 (2007)
• A New Urgency about Anthrax: Recent Efforts to Prevent the Proliferation of Biological Weapons in the Former Soviet Union, 96 American Society of International Law, Proceedings 275 (2002)
• America's New War on Terror: The Case for Self-Defense, 25 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 559 (2002)

Research Areas

• International Law
• National Security Law
• Modern Technology and the Law of Armed Conflicts
• International Criminal Law
• Military Commissions
• National Security Space and Cyber Law
• Arms Control

• National Security Law (3 credit hours)
• International Telecommunications Law: Cyber and Other High Technology Warfare and Crimes (3 credit hours)
• International Law II: International Criminal Law and Related Topics (3 credit hours)
• National Security Space Law (1 credit hour)
• Arms Control (2 credit hours)