International Law, Nonviolent Resistance, Intervention, and the Right to Assist

Experience the Episode

Meet the Faculty: Mary Ellen O’Connell

Mary Ellen O’Connell is the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law and Professor of International Peace Studies—Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame. Her work is in the areas of international law on the use of force, international dispute resolution, and international legal theory. She is the author or editor of numerous books, including, most recently, The Art of Law in the International Community (Cambridge University Press, May 2019; paperback 2020) and Self-Defence Against Non-State Actors (with Tams and Tladi, Cambridge University Press, July 2019). 

In 2020, Professor O’Connell was scheduled to be Distinguished Visiting Academic, University of St Andrews, Institute of Legal and Constitutional Research. In fall 2018, she was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago Law School and in the spring was a Fulbright Fellow at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo. In April 2018, she presented the Fifth Annual Justice Stephen Breyer International Law Lecture at the Brookings Institution, titled, Autonomous Weapons and International Law. From 2010-2012, she was a vice president of the American Society of International Law and from 2005 to 2010 chaired the International Law Association Committee on the Use of Force. Professor O’Connell served as a Title X professional military educator for the U.S. Department of Defense in Germany and was also an associate attorney in private practice with the international law firm of Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. She holds an MSc from LSE, an LLB and PhD from Cambridge, and a JD from Columbia. 

Meet the Speaker: Dr. Maria J. Stephan

Dr. Maria J. Stephan is the Co-lead & Chief Organizer at the Horizons Project, an organizing initiative focused on bringing people together across differences to dismantle tyranny and build an inclusive democracy in the United States anchored in human dignity, freedom, and justice. Maria is an award-winning author and organizer whose scholarship, public service, and work in civil society has focused on the role of nonviolent action and social movements in advancing human rights, democracy, and sustainable peace in the US and globally. 

Stephan is the co-author (with Erica Chenoweth) of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, which was awarded the 2012 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Prize by the American Political Science Association for the best book published in political science, and the 2013 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Their second book together, The Role of External Support in Nonviolent Campaigns: Poisoned Chalice or Holy Grail? was published by ICNC Press in 2021. Stephan is the co-author of Bolstering Democracy: Lessons Learned and the Path Forward (Atlantic Council, 2018); the co-editor of Is Authoritarianism Staging a Comeback? (Atlantic Council, 2015); and the editor of Civilian Jihad: Nonviolent Struggle, Democratization and Governance in the Middle East (Palgrave, 2009). Her work has been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Foreign Affairs, Just Security, Foreign Policy, and Waging Nonviolence, among other outlets. 

Before joining the Horizons team, Stephan founded and directed the Program on Nonviolent Action at the U.S. Institute of Peace, overseeing applied research, a global training program, and work with policymakers to support activists, peacebuilders, and social movements in their struggles to advance more just, peaceful, and democratic societies around the world.