Bio

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and a former president of the National Lawyers Guild. She wrote "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law," co-authored "Cameras in the Courtroom: Television and the Pursuit of Justice, and Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent," and edited and contributed to "The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration and Abuse, and Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues." Her articles are archived at www.marjoriecohn.com.

Cohn lectures throughout the world regarding international human rights and U.S. foreign policy. She has also been a consultant for CBS News and a legal analyst for Court TV and has provided legal and political commentary on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, NPR and Pacifica Radio. Her articles have appeared in numerous journals, including Fordham Law Review, Hastings Law Journal and Virginia Journal of International Law, as well as The National Law Journal, The Christian Science Monitor and Chicago Tribune. Cohn is a contributing editor to Jurist and National Lawyers Guild Review, and her columns appear frequently on Truthdig, The Huffington Post, Truthout, CommonDreams, Counterpunch, OpedNews, ZNet and GlobalResearch.

Cohn has been a criminal defense attorney at the trial and appellate levels for many years and was staff counsel to the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board. She is the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the Association of American Jurists and is deputy secretary general of the Bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers.

Cohn as been recognized with multiple awards, such as the San Diego County Bar Association's 2005 Service to Legal Education Award, Esq, and the Excellence in the Teaching of the Law by the San Diego Law Library Justice Foundation award, the 2007 Bernard E. Within award. She also was recognized as one of San Diego's Top Attorneys in Academics for 2006, 2008 and 2009. She also received the 2008 Peace Scholar of the Year Award from the Peace and Justice Studies Association, the 2009 Amnesty International-San Diego Digna Ochoa Human Rights Defender Award, and the 2010 Alumni Achievement Award from the Santa Clara University School of Law.

Cohn is part of the board of directors of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign and the advisory board of Veterans for Peace and is a civilian member of the board of GI Voice. She is also a member of the advisory board for the American Constitution Society – San Diego Chapter. In 2008 she testified before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties about government torture policy, and she has testified at military courts-martial about the illegality of U.S. wars, the duty to obey lawful orders, and the duty to disobey unlawful orders. Cohen was legal observer in Iran on behalf of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers in 1978 and has participated in delegations to Cuba, China and the former Yugoslavia.