On September 2, President Trump ordered the United States Navy to a destroy small speed boat in the Caribbean. Everyone on board died. International lawyers have uniformly criticized the killings as unlawful. Commentators called the attack a “performative” use of force with no material connection to national self-defense or crime suppression. The current administration has continued to order these strikes resulting in dozens of deaths. These strikes are intended to “send a message” to drug traffickers. Such a violation of the right to life is likely the most “dangerous assault on the rule of law” of the administration to date. The question is, how do we reverse course?

Mary Ellen O'Connell, is the Robert and Marion Short Professor in the School of Law and Concurrent Professor of International Peace Studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame. Her latest major publication is What is War, 113 Geo. L.J. 319 (2024). 

She has published and commented extensively in the media on armed conflict, weapons, and lawful methods of dispute settlement. In 2018 and 2022, she was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago School of Law. 

In May 2025, she delivered the inaugural Peter Wallensteen Lecture in Sweden, AI for Peace. In November 2023, The Netherlands named Professor O’Connell to the Global Commission on Responsible AI in the Military Domain. In 2018, was a Fulbright Scholar at the Norwegian Nobel Institute and delivered the Fifth Annual Justice Stephan Breyer International Law Lecture at the Brookings Institution. In 2014, she gave the Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures in Cambridge, UK. From 2010-2012, she was a vice president of the American Society of International Law, and from 2005-2010, she chaired the International Law Association Committee on the Use of Force. She continues to be a committee member and is also a member of the San Remo Institute for International Humanitarian Law. From 1995-1998, Professor O’Connell served as a professional military educator for the U.S. Department of Defense at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany. She has received grants and fellowships from the Macarthur, Humboldt, Fulbright, and Templeton Foundations. She holds degrees from Northwestern University, the London School of Economics, the University of Cambridge, and Columbia University.

This event is cosponsored by the University of Chicago Law School's International Programs and International Law Society.

Lunch will be provided. Please submit dietary requests eight business days prior to the program to Aican Nguyen at aican@uchicago.edu. Although we will try to accommodate dietary needs, it is not guaranteed.