Experts

Ashley Deeks

Faculty Senior Fellow
deeks-cv-9-18.pdf

Fast Facts

  • Served in the Biden Administration as White House associate counsel
  • Member, U.S. State Department Advisory Committee on International Law
  • Member, board of editors, American Journal of International Law
  • Senior fellow, Lieber Institute for Law and Land Warfare
  • Expertise on international law and litigation, national security law, terrorism

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • American Defense and Security
  • War and Terrorism
  • Domestic Affairs
  • Law and Justice

Ashley Deeks is the Class of 1948 Professor of Scholarly Research in Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, which she joined in 2012 after two years as an academic fellow at Columbia Law School. Her primary research and teaching interests are in the areas of international law, national security, intelligence, and the laws of war. She has written articles on the use of force, executive power, secret treaties, the intersection of national security and international law, and the laws of armed conflict. She is a member of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law, and she serves as a senior contributor to the Lawfare blog. Deeks also serves on the boards of editors of the American Journal of International Law and the Journal of National Security Law and Policy. She is the supervising editor for AJIL Unbound, and is a senior fellow at the Lieber Institute for Law and Land Warfare.

Deeks served in the Biden Administration as White House associate counsel and deputy legal adviser to the National Security Council. Before joining Columbia in 2010, she served as the assistant legal adviser for political-military affairs in the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Advisor, where she worked on issues related to the law of armed conflict, the use of force, conventional weapons, and the legal framework for the conflict with al-Qaida. She also provided advice on intelligence issues. In previous positions at the State Department, Deeks advised on international law enforcement, extradition, and diplomatic property questions. In 2005, she served as the embassy legal advisor at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, during Iraq’s constitutional negotiations. Deeks was a 2007–08 Council on Foreign Relations international affairs fellow and a visiting fellow in residence at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Deeks received her JD with honors from the University of Chicago Law School, where she was elected to the Order of the Coif and served as comment editor on the Law Review. After graduation, she clerked for Judge Edward R. Becker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Ashley Deeks News Feed

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Lawfare Daily: Frictionless Government and Foreign Relations, with Ashley Deeks and Kristen Eichensehr
Ashley Deeks and Kristen Eichensehr discuss their forthcoming law review article, “Frictionless Government and Foreign Relations,” which focuses on the dangers that can arise in moments where there appears to be broad consensus on a particular set of policies.
Ashley Deeks, Kristen Eichensehr Lawfare
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Professor Wins Prize for National Security Law Scholarship
University of Virginia School of Law professor Ashley Deeks has been awarded the 2024 Mike Lewis Prize for National Security Law Scholarship for her article “(Sub-)Delegating National Security Powers.”
Ashley Deeks UVA Law
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Frictionless Government and the National Security Constitution
The disappearance of partisan, interbranch, and interagency checks can amplify cognitive biases that often arise in decision making, including groupthink, and result in governmental actions that spark or escalate conflict, trigger actions by U.S. adversaries that undercut U.S. security goals, and unlawfully target domestic constituencies perceived to be linked to foreign adversaries.
Ashley Deeks, Kristen Eichensehr Just Security
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Using Artificial Intelligence in Warfare Creates Constitutional Concerns, Argues Professor
Professor Ashley Deeks of the University of Virginia School of Law looks at the legal implications of using autonomous systems during war in a new paper, “Delegating War Initiation to Machines.”
Ashley Deeks UVA Law
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Safeguarding the homeland
Kenneth L. Wainstein, UVA alum and under secretary for intelligence and analysis for the Department of Homeland Security, discusses homeland and election security with Ashley Deeks, director of UVA’s National Security Law Center and a Miller Center faculty senior. Wainstein oversees building and maintaining an intelligence program in the United States that detects and prevents threats to the homeland and serves as an information-sharing bridge linking federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies with state, local, tribal, territorial, and private sector partners—all while maintaining a focus on civil liberties and individual privacy.
Ashley Deeks Miller Center Presents
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Lawfare Daily: Ashley Deeks and Mark Klamberg on AI and National Security
Ashley Deeks, Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, and Dr. Mark Klamberg, Professor at Stockholm University, Visiting Professor at American University, and Fellow with the Atlantic Council, join Lawfare's Tarbell Fellow Kevin Frazier and Senior Editor Alan Rozenshtein to discuss the weaponization of AI. The group explores a number of related topics including ongoing domestic and international efforts to regulate military use of AI, the national security implications of weaponized AI, and whether AI companies bear any legal responsibility for military use of their AI systems. Professor Deeks and Dr. Klamberg bring their extensive AI knowledge to the fore in this illuminating podcast. Keep an eye out for their respective forthcoming publications on military use of AI.
Ashley Deeks Lawfare