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David Mednicoff

Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Director, Middle Eastern Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Prof. David Mednicoff (J.D./Ph.D., Harvard) directs the Middle Eastern Studies program at the University of Massachusetts -- Amherst. His areas of expertise include Middle Eastern law and politics, international law, human rights, globalization studies, US foreign policy, and comparative public policy.

Prof. Mednicoff's publications and ongoing research deal broadly with interdisciplinary connections between legal and political ideas and institutions at the national and transnational levels, particularly as these relate to current policy issues in the Middle East. He is currently completing two book manuscripts on the politics of the rule of law, democratization and US foreign policy in five Arab societies. He also has written on Arab constitutional politics and Islam before and after the events of 2011, the legal regulation of migrant workers in the Arab Gulf, human rights in the Middle East and humanitarian intervention. He has presented his work at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the US Department of State, the Saudi Arabia Institute of Diplomatic Studies, and Georgetown, Harvard, Stanford and Yale Universities, among other places.

Prof. Mednicoff's teaching honors include a university-wide Lilly Teaching Fellowship for promising junior faculty, the U. Mass. College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Outstanding Teacher Award, and a national prize for innovative teaching related to the US after 9/11/01. Prof. Mednicoff was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in law in Qatar in 2006-7, where he taught legal and political philosophy at Qatar University. He was a Research Fellow in 2010-11 in the Dubai Initiative at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He will hold a Fellowship at the ZIF (Institute for Advanced Study) in Bielefeld, Germany in 2014 as a member of a research group on Religion and Human Rights in Constitution-Writing. He writes and comments frequently for the media.

Global Geopolitics Series

The US-Iran conflict and the consequences of international law-breaking

Jan 10, 2020 10:25 am UTC| Insights & Views

Editors note: Irans missile attack on a U.S. base in Iraq in retaliation for the Trump administrations killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani has dramatically escalated global tensions. Dozens of questions have...

Netanyahu’s hardline foreign policies may outlast his tenure

Mar 06, 2019 14:24 pm UTC| Insights & Views

The upcoming indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could end the long-serving conservative politicians career. But even an abrupt exit would leave his hawkish policies in the Middle East intact. The...

A Trump Administration casualty: Democracy and civil rights in the Middle East

Aug 28, 2018 15:26 pm UTC| Insights & Views

Donald Trump has shown little interest in encouraging democratic politics and human rights in other countries. This departure from decades of American foreign policy rhetoric has received comparatively little attention....

Global Geopolitics Series

US airstrike on Syria: What next?

Apr 08, 2017 05:36 am UTC| Insights & Views

Make no mistake. The April 6 U.S. airstrike on Syria following Bashar al-Assads chemical weapon attack is a remarkable shift in President Donald Trumps and Washingtons past policy. As president-elect, Trumps Middle...

Economy

The US is one of the least trade-oriented countries in the world – despite laying the groundwork for today’s globalized system

Given the spate of news about international trade lately, Americans might be surprised to learn that the U.S. isnt very dependent on it. Indeed, looking at trade as a percentage of gross domestic product a metric...

Beyond the spin, beyond the handouts, here’s how to get a handle on what’s really happening on budget night

Three weeks from now, some of us will be presented with a mountain of budget papers, and just about all of us will get to hear about them on radio, TV or news websites on budget night. The quickest way to find out what...

Johannesburg in a time of darkness: Ivan Vladislavić’s new memoir reminds us of the city’s fragility

Ivan Vladislavić is Johannesburgs literary linkman. He tells us, in the first pages of his new book, The Near North, that before cities were lit, first by gaslight and later electricity, people of means paid torchbearers...

Economist Chris Richardson on an ‘ugly’ inflation result and the coming budget

With Jim Chalmerss third budget on May 14, Australians will be looking for some more cost-of-living relief beyond the tax cuts although they have been warned extra measures will be modest. As this weeks consumer price...

Inflation is slowly falling, while student debt is climbing: 6 graphs that explain today’s CPI

Australias inflation rate has fallen for the fifth successive quarter, and its now less than half of what it was back in late 2022. The annual rate peaked at 7.8% in the December quarter of 2022 and is now just 3.6%, in...

Politics

US Urges China, Russia to Reject AI Control in Nuclear Arms, Align with Global Norms

Paul Dean, a senior U.S. arms control official, emphasized the critical need for China and Russia to join the U.S. in declaring that humans will always decide on the deployment of nuclear weapons, not artificial...

South Africa’s youth are a generation lost under democracy – study

South African president Cyril Ramaphosa recently painted a rosy picture in which the countrys youth democracys children had enormous opportunities for advancement, all thanks to successive post-apartheid governments led...

Sadiq Khan on track for third term as London mayor – but nearly half of Londoners dissatisfied with performance

Polls have consistently shown that the incumbent mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, appears to be on track to win a third term in office at the upcoming mayoral elections on May 2. One poll we commissioned as part of our...

Biden administration tells employers to stop shackling workers with ‘noncompete agreements’

Most American workers are hired at will: Employers owe their employees nothing in the relationship except earned wages, and employees are at liberty to quit at their option. As the rule is generally stated, either party...

Labour can afford to be far more ambitious with its economic policies – voters are on board

To say that the Labour party is flying high in the polls is something of an understatement. But despite its consistent lead against the Tories, the opposition finds itself in a rather odd position: on the cusp of power but...

Science

IceCube researchers detect a rare type of energetic neutrino sent from powerful astronomical objects

About a trillion tiny particles called neutrinos pass through you every second. Created during the Big Bang, these relic neutrinos exist throughout the entire universe, but they cant harm you. In fact, only one of them is...

The Mars Sample Return mission has a shaky future, and NASA is calling on private companies for backup

A critical NASA mission in the search for life beyond Earth, Mars Sample Return, is in trouble. Its budget has ballooned from US$5 billion to over $11 billion, and the sample return date may slip from the end of this...

A Nasa rover has reached a promising place to search for fossilised life on Mars

While we go about our daily lives on Earth, a nuclear-powered robot the size of a small car is trundling around Mars looking for fossils. Unlike its predecessor Curiosity, Nasas Perseverance rover is explicitly intended to...

The rising flood of space junk is a risk to us on Earth – and governments are on the hook

A piece of space junk recently crashed through the roof and floor of a mans home in Florida. Nasa later confirmed that the object had come from unwanted hardware released from the international space station. The 700g,...

Peter Higgs was one of the greats of particle physics. He transformed what we know about the building blocks of the universe

Peter Higgs, who gave his name to the subatomic particle known as the Higgs boson, has died aged 94. He was always a modest man, especially when considering that he was one of the greats of particle physics the area of...

Technology

SHIB, BONK, WIF's Sudden Price Jumps; What's Behind Them?

Recent surges in the cryptocurrency market have caught the attention of traders, particularly with tokens like Shiba Inu (SHIB), Bonk (BONK), and Dogwifhat (WIF) experiencing notable price hikes. Analysts attribute this...

Snowden Issues Final Bitcoin Warning, Takes Aim at Elon Musk and Puppy-Killing Politician

Edward Snowden, the famed whistleblower and advocate for privacy, sent shockwaves across social media platforms with his latest flurry of posts. Targeting Bitcoin developers, tech mogul Elon Musk, and South Dakota Governor...

Samsung Chief Lee Jae-yong Wraps Up Europe Visit, Includes Vatican and Zeiss

Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong returned to Seoul this Friday after a crucial ten-day European trip, where he met with Pope Francis and explored potential business collaborations. The Korea Herald reported...

Bitcoin Thrives: Whales Accumulate Over 47K BTC Amidst Price Rally

Bitcoin experiences a transformative moment as large-scale investors, known as whales, acquire over 47,000 BTC, valued at $2.9 billion, amidst a price retreat. This strategic move marks a pivotal shift in sentiment,...

Kraken Pro Boosts Shiba Inu with New Margin Trading Option

Kraken Pros announcement of Shiba Inus (SHIB) inclusion in its margin trading pairs signifies a significant milestone for the meme-inspired cryptocurrency. This move underscores SHIBs growing prominence within the crypto...