Episode 10: Inside the Obama Administration with former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes



Ben Rhodes was one of President Obama’s most trusted foreign policy advisors, the author of many of his key foreign policy speeches, and Deputy National Security Advisor. In this episode we discuss the development of two signature international agreements of the Obama years—the Iran Deal and the Paris Accord—as well as the difficulty of securing Senate consent to treaties; the role of lawyers in the Obama White House; and the current tensions between the US and China.



About the Podcast

The Society's podcast International Law Behind the Headlines, hosted by Catherine Amirfar and Kal Raustiala, tackles, through interviews with today's top legal experts, the international legal issues dominating today's headlines. All episodes are available via iTunes, SoundCloud, and here.

Catherine Amirfar is a litigation partner at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, Co-Chair of the firm's Public International Law Group and a member of the Management Committee. Her practice focuses on international commercial and treaty arbitration, international and complex commercial litigation, and public international law. Prior to rejoining Debevoise in 2016, Ms. Amirfar spent two years as the Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State and received the State Department's Superior Honor Award in recognition of her contributions to the Department. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Law Institute, and the U.S. State Department Advisory Council on International Law (ACIL). In 2020 Ms. Amirfar was elected President of the Society, having previously served as Vice President from 2016 to 2018.

Kal Raustiala is professor at UCLA School of Law and the UCLA International Institute. Since 2007 he has served as director of the UCLA Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations, and from 2012-2015 as UCLA's Associate Vice Provost for International Studies. A graduate of Duke University, Professor Raustiala holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, San Diego. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Chicago, Columbia, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, National University of Singapore, and Princeton. A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former member of the editorial board of the American Journal of International Law, from 2016-2018 he served as Vice President of the American Society of International Law.