Jens David Ohlin is the Allan R. Tessler Dean and Professor of Law at Cornell Law School. Professor Ohlin’s work stands at the intersection of four related fields: criminal law, criminal procedure, public international law, and the laws of war. Trained as both a lawyer and a philosopher, his research has tackled questions as diverse as criminal conspiracy and the punishment of collective criminal action; the philosophical foundations of international law; and the role of new technologies in warfare, including cyberwar, remotely piloted drones, and autonomous weapons.
Professor Ohlin’s latest research project involves foreign election interference. This project resulted in a monograph published on the eve of the 2020 election by the Cambridge University Press entitled “Election Interference: International Law and the Future of Democracy” as well as a forthcoming edited volume published by the Oxford University Press and written with Duncan B. Hollis entitled “Defending Democracies: Combating Foreign Election Interference in a Digital Age.”
Professor Ohlin is also a dedicated teacher and the sole author of three new casebooks in three different fields: “Criminal Procedure: Doctrine, Application, and Practice”; “Criminal Law: Doctrine, Application, and Practice”; and “International Law: Evolving Doctrine and Practice.” The “Criminal Procedure” book is also available in two splits: “Investigative Criminal Procedure” and “Adjudicative Criminal Procedure.”
In addition to dozens of law review articles and book chapters, Professor Ohlin has published several monographs and edited volumes, including “Interrogation and Torture: Integrating Efficacy with Law and Morality” with S.J. Barela, M. Fallon, and G. Gaggioli; “Oxford Handbook on International Criminal Justice” with K. Heller, F. Mégret, S. Nouwen, and D. Robinson; “Weighing Lives in War” with L. May and C. Finkelstein; “Research Handbook on Remote Warfare”; “Necessity in International Law”; “The Assault on International Law”; “Targeted Killings: Law and Morality in an Asymmetrical World” with A. Altman and C. Finkelstein; “Cyberwar: Law and Ethics for Virtual Conflicts” with C. Finkelstein and K. Govern; and “Defending Humanity: When Force is Justified and Why” with George Fletcher. He is co-editor, with Claire Finkelstein, of the Oxford Series in Ethics, National Security, and the Rule of Law, and a steering-board member of an international working group researching secondary liability for international crimes.
