Matthew C. Waxman

Adjunct Senior Fellow for Law and Foreign Policy

Expert Bio

Matthew C. Waxman is adjunct senior fellow for law and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also the Liviu Librescu Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, where he directs the National Security Law program, and he previously served as co-chair of the Cybersecurity Center at Columbia University’s Data Science Institute. 

Waxman previously served at the U.S. Department of State as principal deputy director of policy planning. His prior government appointments included deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, director for contingency planning and international justice at the National Security Council, and executive assistant to the national security advisor. He is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, and studied international relations as a Fulbright Scholar in the United Kingdom. After law school, he served as law clerk to Supreme Court justice David H. Souter and U.S. Court of Appeals judge Joel M. Flaum.

affiliations

  • Columbia Law School/Columbia University, Liviu Librescu Professor of Law
  • Academic Exchange, executive committee member
  • Kibu, Inc., advisor
  • Skydio, advisor
  • WestExec Advisors, senior advisor
  • West Point Lieber Institute for Law & Land Warfare, senior fellow

Media Inquiries

For media inquiries, please contact [email protected].
Clear All
Regions
Topics
Type

Top Stories on CFR

Indonesia

Prabowo Subianto was named the winner of the Indonesian presidential election. But it is unclear which version of Prabowo—the more moderate candidate from the campaign trail or the self-styled strongman—will govern Indonesia.

Russia

The mass casualty theater attack in Moscow was a reminder that affiliates of the Islamic State have reorganized and infiltrated even powerful states.

India

With India's development continuing to gain steam, one of the biggest challenges will be to avoid the mistake that others have made when they failed to recognize their newly acquired global systemic influence and adapt accordingly. Both China and Big Tech show that it is never too early to start managing one's own rise.