James Baker: Lasting Post: Love, Law and Laureates: The Forgotten Legacis of WW

Judge James E. Baker explores WWI's influence on letters, law, remembrance and the concept of service.

Appointed by President Clinton, Judge Baker currently serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, which is an appellate body composed of five civilian judges that handles cases arising under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He has been involved in decision-making processes regarding international law, armed conflict, security and intelligence throughout his career and has consulted on decisions regarding military actions in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and to combat Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. He is considered to be one of the country’s finest national security scholars and is known for pursuing a philosophy of national security policy and process that is carefully crafted within the confines of the established laws that govern them.

Judge Baker attended Yale University as an undergraduate, served in the Marine Corps as an infantry officer and graduated from Yale Law School in 1990. He was a legislative aide to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and went on to serve in a variety of important civil service capacities including appointments to the U. S. Department of State, the National Security Council, the Council to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory and Intelligence Oversight Boards, and as Special Assistant to the President and Legal Advisor to the National Security Council.

He is the author of In the Common Defense: National Security Law for Perilous Times (a text widely used in the study of the subject), and, with Michael Reisman, Regulating Covert Action. Judge Baker is the recipient of the 1999 Colonel Nelson Drew Memorial Award (the NSC’s highest honor) and the Director of Central Intelligence's "Director's Award." He is also the great-grandson of John Henry Twachtman and a grand-nephew of WWI veteran J. Alden Twachtman, both formers members of the Cos Cob art colony.