Steven J. Barela

Guest Author

Steven J. Barela (@StevenJBarela) is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Geneva and a member of the Law Faculty in the Department of History and Philosophy of Law. He is also an Associate Research Fellow at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. In addition to his Ph.D. in Law, he holds three master’s degrees: M.A. degrees in Latin American Studies and International Studies, along with an LL.M. from the Geneva Academy.

He has specialized in interdisciplinary scholarship that aims to tackle complex global problems—i.e., researching and integrating law, science and philosophy to formulate practical policy proposals. For example, with funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation, Barela led the Chairperson’s Editorial Group as Editor on the Principles of Effective Interviewing for Investigations and Information Gathering (the Méndez Principles), a science-grounded and human rights-based approach to interrogation. Furthermore, he has been studying, writing and publishing on the escalating menace of cross-border cyber operations using a cross-disciplinary approach.

Barela has published a monograph on counterterrorism with Routledge in 2014, an edited volume on armed drones with Ashgate in 2015 and was the lead editor of a book on interrogation and torture for Oxford University Press in 2020. For an overview of his policy work and excerpts from these books, you can visit his website: Legitimacy as a Target. He is also on LinkedIn.