Crispin Smith

Crispin Smith is a researcher focusing on Iraqi security and law of armed conflict issues. He has written on the Iraqi security forces and the status of ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria. His 2018 Note in the Harvard International Law Journal, “Independent Without Independence: The Iraqi-Kurdish Peshmerga in International Law,” analyzed the legal status of the Kurdish security forces within Iraq. Crispin has led in-field research in Iraq’s disputed territories as a contractor for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, with the public findings published under the title “Wilting in the Kurdish Sun: The Hopes and Fears of Religious Minorities in Northern Iraq.” He has also briefed officials at the U.S. State Department on issues relating to violations of international human rights law in Iraq and Syria. His 2019 article, “Servants of Two Masters: the Risks Inherent in Iraq’s Hashd al-Sha’abi Legislation,” provides new insights into recent legislative history behind Iraq’s Shi’ite militias, and was published in the NYU Journal of International Law and Politics.
Crispin holds a JD from Harvard Law School, and a BA from the University of Oxford, where he studied Assyriology and Arabic. He is also on LinkedIn. Any opinions expressed are his alone.