Kevin J. Barry Award -- Prof. Saira Mohamed

Kevin J. Barry

Saira Mohamed

The National Institute of Military Justice is pleased to announce the winner of the 2022 Kevin J. Barry Award.

This award is intended to recognize substantial scholarship from the previous year, and will be evaluated for “excellence in military legal studies,” with the winner selected by a committee of law professors and practitioners.

The winner is:

Professor Saira Mohamed (Berkeley), for her article entitled Abuse by Authority: The Hidden Harm of Illegal Orders. 107 Iowa L. Rev. 2183 (2022).

Prof. Mohamed's piece "argues that international and domestic law should acknowledge [a] superior's order not only as a link to the crimes of the subordinate, but also as an abuse of the superior's relationship of authority over the subordinate."

Given that one of the most distinctive features of military criminal law is its recognition of a limited superior orders defense, this new theoretical framing of unlawful orders makes an important contribution to our field.