Arent Fox Los Angeles Managing Partner Robert C. O’Brien’s article “Trying Circumstances,” which was published in Los Angeles Lawyer magazine, explores the history and constitutional issues surrounding the use of US military commissions to try captured Al Qaeda terrorists and other detainees in the war on terrorism.

To read the full article, please click here.

From 2007-2011, Robert served as co-chairman of the United States Department of State’s Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan. He remains a member of the Executive Committee.

In October 2011, Robert was named to Governor Mitt Romney’s Foreign Policy and National Security Advisory Team as a senior advisor and co-chair of the International Organizations Working Group.

President George W. Bush nominated and the US Senate confirmed Robert as the US Alternate Representative to the 60th session of the United Nations General Assembly, which met in New York 2005-2006. In July 2008, Robert was appointed by President Bush to serve a three-year term on the Cultural Property Advisory Committee, which advises the US Government on the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act.

From 1996 to 1998, Robert was a legal officer with the United Nations Security Council (Compensation Commission) in Geneva, Switzerland, where he led a multinational team of attorneys, loss adjusters, and accountants in the government claims (F) section and was responsible for the Secretariat’s review and processing of billions of dollars in claims resulting from Iraq’s 1990-91 invasion and occupation of Kuwait.

Robert served as a major in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps of the US Army Reserve.