“Partnership, Not Pivot: NATO’s Legal Answer to the China Question” is the title of an article by Georgia Law alumna Lauren Brown, just published at 41 NATO Legal Gazette 27-45 (2020). The essay appears in an issue devoted to the subject of “Legal Aspects of Innovation.”

Brown wrote the article while serving in Spring 2019 as a full-semester NATO Legal Extern in Mons, Belgium, an experience she described in a prior post.

With reference to NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Brown’s Legal Gazette essay asserts:

“[T]he Organization is falling behind in addressing the multipolar reality that has defined the geopolitical landscape since the early twenty-first century. This multipolar world features as primary influencers the United States, the Russian Federation, and the People’s Republic of China. And it requires NATO to undertake innovation in its strategy; in particular, to broaden its partnership initiatives formally to include China.”

The essay proceeds to outline multiple ways by which such a partnership might be forged, and concludes that “NATO’s future relevance is contingent upon its ability to directly and formally engage China in a meaningful cooperative partnership.”

Brown earned her Georgia Law J.D. degree magna cum laude in 2019. Since then, she has practiced as an Associate in the International Trade Practice at the Washington, D.C., office of the global law firm Squire Patton Boggs.

She also holds a master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and B.A. in International Studies, with highest distinction, from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Before beginning her legal studies, she had worked as a news analyst in the Washington area. Her activities at law school included: Articles Editor of the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law; Research Assistant to Professor Harlan G. Cohen, our Center’s Faculty Co-Director; and Summer 2017 Global Extern at War Child Holland in Amsterdam.

Brown was Georgia Law’s inaugural NATO Legal Extern, thanks to a partnership between our Center and NATO Allied Command Transformation. That initiative is ongoing, as indicated by 3L Miles Porter’s recent post on his experience at NATO HQ SACT in Norfolk, Virginia.