An alumnus and member of our Dean Rusk International Law Center Council has garnered well-deserved praise from a fellow public servant and longtime colleague.

In “A Tribute to Charles A. Allen,” published Friday at Lawfare, Jeh Johnson, a partner in the Paul Weiss law firm and the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security from 2013 to 2017, celebrated the 20th anniversary of the day that Allen took up the post of Deputy General Counsel (International Affairs) at the U.S. Department of Defense. Johnson wrote:

“To the benefit of us all, he remains in office today, with the vast responsibility of overseeing the legal aspects of the U.S. military’s operations abroad.

“Put simply: Chuck is one of the finest public servants I know. He embodies the best in federal civilian service.”

Johnson, also former general counsel both of the Department of Defense and of the U.S. Air Force, took particular note of Allen’s service, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, “at the legal epicenter of the U.S. military’s armed conflicts against al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Taliban; the Iraq War; the conflicts in Libya and Syria; the maritime disputes with China and Iran; and many other conflicts, treaties and defense issues too numerous to list.”

Allen, Johnson continued, is “an earnest, low-key public official who consistently works long hours, mentors young national security lawyers and grinds out an extraordinary volume of work” – and the recipient of a Presidential Rank Award.

We at the University of Georgia School of Law are proud to call Allen (JD’82) an alumnus, former Research Editor of the Georgia Law Review, and author of two articles published in our Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law: “Civilian Starvation and Relief During Armed Conflict: The Modern Humanitarian Law” (1989) and “Countering Proliferation: WMD on the Move” (2011).

As stated in Allen’s DoD biography, he also earned an undergraduate degree from Stanford and an LL.M. from George Washington University. His service in the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General Corps included a stint as Deputy Legal Adviser, National Security Council, and Attorney-Adviser, Office of Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State. In his current position, Allen’s responsibilities include

“legal advice on Department of Defense planning and conduct of military operations in the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq, including the law of armed conflict and war crimes, war powers, coalition relations and assistance, and activities of U.S. forces under international law and relevant UN Security Council Resolutions; arms control negotiations and implementation, non-proliferation, and cooperative threat reduction; status of forces agreements; cooperative research and development programs; international litigation; law of outer space; and multilateral agreements.”

(credit for 2015 International Committee of the Red Cross photo, above, of Charles A. “Chuck” Allen at Minerva–ICRC conference on International Humanitarian Law, held in Jerusalem 15-17 November 2015)