Francis Boyle

Picture of Francis Boyle

Francis Boyle

A scholar in the areas of international law and human rights, Professor Boyle received a J.D. degree magna cum laude and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in political science from Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty at the College of Law, he was a teaching fellow at Harvard and an associate at its Center for International Affairs. He also practiced tax and international tax with Bingham, Dana & Gould in Boston.

 

He has written and lectured extensively in the United States and abroad on the relationship between international law and politics. His eleventh  book, Breaking All the Rules: Palestine, Iraq, Iran and the Case for Impeachment was recently published by Clarity Press. His Protesting Power: War, Resistance and Law (Rowman & Littlefield Inc. 2007)  has been used successfully in  anti-war protest trials. In the September 2000 issue of the prestigious The International History Review, Professor Boyle's Foundations of World Order: The Legalist Approach to International Relations (1898-1922) was proclaimed as "a major contribution to this reinterrogation of the past" and "required reading for historians, political scientists, international relations specialists, and policy-makers." That book was translated into Korean and published in Korea in 2003 by Pakyoungsa Press.

 

As an internationally recognized expert, Professor Boyle serves as counsel to  Bosnia and Herzegovina and to  the Provisional Government of the State of Palestine.  He also represents two associations of citizens within Bosnia  and has been instrumental in developing the indictment against Slobodan Milosevic for committing genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

 

Professor Boyle is Attorney of Record for the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, conducting its legal affairs on a worldwide basis. Over his career, he has represented national and international bodies including the Blackfoot Nation (Canada), the Nation of Hawaii,  and the Lakota Nation, as well as numerous individual death penalty and human rights cases. He has advised numerous international bodies in the areas of human rights, war crimes and genocide, nuclear policy, and bio-warfare.

 

From 1991-92, Professor Boyle served as Legal Advisor to the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East Peace Negotiations. He also has served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International, as well as  a consultant to the American Friends Services Committee, and on the Advisory Board for the Council for Responsible Genetics. He drafted the U.S. domestic implementing legislation for the Biological Weapons Convention, known as the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, that was approved unanimously by both Houses of the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. That story is told in his book Biowarfare and Terrorism (Clarity Press: 2005).

 

In 2001 he was selected to be the Dr. Irma M. Parhad Lecturer by the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary in Canada. In 2007 he became  the Bertrand Russell Peace Lecturer at McMaster University in Canada. Professor Boyle is listed in the current edition of  Marquis' Who's Who in America.

Subscribe

All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.

Institute for Social and Cultural Communications, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit.

Our EIN# is #22-2959506. Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law.

We do not accept funding from advertising or corporate sponsors.Ā  We rely on donors like you to do our work.

ZNetwork: Left News, Analysis, Vision & Strategy

THE WIND CRIES FREEDOM

The Wind Cries Freedom, the new book from Z co-founder Michael Albert, is a sweeping oral history of a future American revolution.

Through thirty interconnected chapters, it draws out the strategies, failures, turning points, and hard-won wisdom of a movement that called itself the Revolutionary Participatory Society. These are not the polished memoirs of politicians: they are the unfiltered accounts of people who organized in neighborhoods, hospitals, universities, stadiums, courthouses, and places of worship, and kept a shared vision alive through cynicism and exhaustion.

The result is speculative political fiction that reads like history: messy, human, and quietly hopeful in the way that only real experience and long thought can produce.

Get your copy and peruse more features on the book’s website below.

“Read it, argue with it, but don’t look away. The future it recalls is one we must still fight to deserve.”

Yanis Varoufakis

“The most unusual and intriguing combination of prophecy, manifesto, and movement building manual that I have ever encountered.”

Bill Fletcher Junior

“This work fills a huge gap in our social movement literature.”

Cynthia Peters

This is your article this month.

We’re glad you keep coming back. If Z’s work has informed, challenged, or inspired you, that’s no accident: there are no paywalls, no ads, and no billionaire owners here, and there never will be. Independent media survives because readers choose to support it.

Billionaires fund their own media. We fund ours. Help us reach 1,000 sustaining donors:

Number of donors690
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Already a sustainer? Click here and we won’t ask again. Thank you!

Your reading count is stored only in your browser and is never sent to us.

Sound is muted by default.Ā  Tap šŸ”Š for the full experience

CRITICAL ACTION

Critical Action is a longtime friend of Z and a music and storytelling project grounded in liberation, solidarity, and resistance to authoritarian power. Through music, narrative, and multimedia, the project engages the same political realities and movement traditions that guide and motivate Z’s work.

If this project resonates with you, you can learn more about it and find ways to support the work using the link below.

Independent media is not disappearing because the ideas are weak.

It is disappearing because platforms reward speed, outrage, and algorithmic visibility over thoughtful analysis.

More than 100,000 people read Z every month, free of paywalls, ads, and billionaire owners. It takes fewer than 1 in 100 of them to fund all of it: 1,000 donors who keep Z independent, for everyone, and build what comes next.

Number of donors690
Our goal1,000

Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.

Subscribe

Join the Z Community – receive event invites, announcements, a Weekly Digest, and opportunities to engage.