War with Iran: Domestic and International Implications
About the Panelists:
Charli Carpenter: Charli Carpenter is a Professor of Political Science at UMass Amherst, Chair of the Five Colleges International Relations Consortium and Director of Human Security Lab. Her work focuses on the laws of war, civilian protection, and humanitarian disarmament, examining how norms around civilian harm and wartime conduct are debated, institutionalized, contested and defended. She is a bi-weekly columnist at World Politics Review on human security and international law and the author of multiple books, most recently 'Lost' Causes: Agenda-Vetting in Global Issue Networks and the Shaping of Human Security.
Sohail Hashmi: Sohail H. Hashmi is Professor of International Relations (Alumnae Foundation Chair) and Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College. His scholarship bridges Western and Islamic moral and political philosophy, focusing on comparative international ethics, just war and peace, and the role of Islam in domestic and international politics. He examines Islamic ethical debates over war and peace, humanitarian intervention, and Muslim engagement with international law, offering a framework for thinking carefully about the moral and legal stakes of contemporary conflict in the Middle East. He has edited or co-edited major volumes on the ethics of war and religion in global politics, including Just Wars, Holy Wars, and Jihads (Oxford University Press).
David Mednicoff: David Mednicoff is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Public Policy at UMass Amherst. Trained as a lawyer and political scientist, his research highlights the roles of legal and political ideas and institutions to contemporary Middle East politics, with a focus on the rule of law, human rights, constitutionalism, migration and refugee policy, religious politics, and U.S. engagement in the region. His publications have examined these issues in Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Tunisia, and the UAE, and he is completing a book manuscript on the politics of the rule of law across these five Arab societies. Mednicoff has also held major research appointments and fellowships, including a Fulbright Senior Scholarship in Qatar, and is currently a Fellow in the Middle East Initiative at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He does frequent media commentary related to issues in the Middle East.
About the Moderator:
Jamie Rowen: Jamie Rowen is a Professor of Legal Studies and Political Science at UMass Amherst and Director of the Center for Justice, Law, and Societies. Her research focuses on how law is used to redress mass atrocity and support vulnerable groups, spanning domestic and international legal institutions and justice practices after violence. She is the author of Worthy of Justice: The Practices and Politics of Veterans Treatment Courts (Stanford University Press, 2025) and Searching for Truth in the Transitional Justice Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Sponsored by the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and co-sponsored by the College of Humanities and Fine Arts.