Press Releases | Jun, 12 2021
Jun 08, 2021
Award recognises American legal scholar for services to UK-US relations and public life
(NEW YORK – 8 JUNE 2021): The British Consulate-General in New York is pleased to announce that Professor Philip Chase Bobbitt has been made an honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE). The honorary knighthood was awarded in recognition of Prof. Bobbitt’s “services to UK/US relations and public life.”
Prof. Bobbitt is the Herbert Wechsler Professor of Federal Jurisprudence at Columbia University in New York, Director of the Center on National Security at the Columbia Law School, and Distinguished Senior Lecturer at the University of Texas in Austin. He is most widely known in the UK for his work on international security and constitutional law, and has published 10 books, mostly written from his home in London, including The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History and Terror and Consent: The Wars for the 20th Century. In 2004, Prospect Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential public intellectuals in Britain.
Besides a rich academic career, Prof. Bobbitt has been a devoted public servant and has served the U.S. government during seven administrations, Democratic and Republican. He earned his D. Phil. (Modern History) from Oxford where he was Anderson Senior Research Fellow at Nuffield College and a member of the Oxford University Modern History Faculty. In 2011, he was elected to membership in the Common Room at All Souls College. He also has been the Marsh Christian Fellow in War Studies at Kings College, the University of London; the James Barr Ames Visiting Professor at the Harvard Law School and the Florence Rogatz Visiting Professor at the Yale Law School. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and a former trustee of Princeton University. Prof. Bobbitt has served on the board of Wilton Park (a conference centre of the Foreign Office) and the executive committee of the Anglo-US Pilgrims Society. He has also been a long-time friend to Kings College, Ditchley, and other British institutions.
After announcing the award, Antony Phillipson, Her Majesty’s Consul General in New York and Trade Commissioner for North America, said: “I congratulate Professor Bobbitt on this well-deserved honour. For forty years, his scholarship and influential writing have made significant contributions to international security to the benefit of all nations including the UK. Through his many decades of study and teaching at leading UK and US institutions, he has championed UK-US cooperation.”
Upon accepting the title, Prof. Bobbitt said: “I’m greatly moved by this honour which I take as a recognition and reaffirmation of certain bonds that link the United States and the United Kingdom—commitment to the rule of law, collective security, and the preservation of the values of liberal democracy—to which my work has been devoted. Our many friends in America and Britain I imagine will be deeply pleased. They all know, however, that I am only a placeholder for the countless persons who have long nurtured a tradition of mutual affection, esteem, and reliance between our two countries.”
The UK honours system recognises exceptional achievement and service to the nation and includes non-British nationals who receive honorary awards for their important contribution to British interests. All British honours are awarded on merit, and honorary awards are conferred by HM The Queen on the advice of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Secretary. The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire was founded in 1917. Prof. Bobbitt may forthwith use “KBE” after his name should he wish to do so.
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For more information, please contact:
Toby Usnik, Head of Communications
Toby.Usnik@fcdo.gov.uk
