Dr. Jennifer Maddocks, Ph.D.

Dr. Jennifer Maddocks is an assistant professor in the Department of Law and Philosophy at the United States Military Academy. She teaches the department’s course on comparative legal systems and serves as a faculty fellow with the Lieber Institute for Law and Warfare. She is also the managing editor for the Lieber Institute’s Articles of War blog. Her research interests include the law of state responsibility, the law of armed conflict, and international human rights law.

Dr. Maddocks began her legal career in private practice, spending eight years as an employment lawyer at firms in London and Dorset, England. She later served for more than 13 years as an officer in the British Army Legal Services. During her military career, she held a range of assignments, including operational deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq. She also spent one year with the International Military Advisory and Training Team in Sierra Leone and three years with the Service Prosecuting Authority in Germany.

From 2016 to 2018, Dr. Maddocks was assigned to the Stockton Center for International Law at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. There, she began her Ph.D. studies, focusing on state responsibility for international law violations by nonstate actors in armed conflict under the supervision of Professor Michael Schmitt.

After returning to the United Kingdom, Dr. Maddocks served as a legal adviser at an operational headquarters, providing guidance on a range of international law issues. She was awarded her Ph.D. in January 2022 and joined the USMA faculty in September 2022.