He holds an honorary master`s degree in international relations from UNICIT and is an honorary graduate for his academic achievements at the Keesler Technical Centre, USA. He received the Madrid Bar Award for his work on legal resilience. Mr. Munoz Mosquera has received several awards, including the NATO Medal of Merit and the Medal of the French Republic of the former Yugoslavia. He is Caballero de la Orden de San Hermenegildo. NATO Administrative Tribunal, a totally independent body that offers all the usual legal guarantees. This is the reform I spoke about in Amsterdam. However, the process of improving the internal framework is ongoing. Much of the legal team`s work has been to ensure that NATO`s internal rules (e.g. on harassment) are compatible with international law, reflect the standards required by the rule of law and are in line with best practices in other international organisations and national systems. This required an ongoing process of review and, if necessary, revision of policies.
Steven Hill was appointed Legal Adviser and Director of the Office of Legal Affairs at NATO Headquarters in Brussels in February 2014 and served as Senior Legal Adviser to Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg until February 2020. Below, he reflects on some of his experiences in this role and offers some advice to new international lawyers. You are right that NATO deals with very specialized – one could even say esoteric – issues that require specialized knowledge. Fortunately, the NATO system has many talented legal advisers, many of whom have spent their entire careers working on specific issues. I would say that the most important thing for the lawyer to lead a team at NATO – and every IO – is a solid generalist knowledge of international law that includes not only the principles of IO law, but also an appreciation of what the current „age of responsibility” means for IOs. Because of NATO`s fundamental mission of deterrence and defence, the law of force and international humanitarian law as well as human rights were important. One thing that international law students may not appreciate is that the work of an IO lawyer has a lot to do with issues that arise everywhere for in-house lawyers: labor law, contracts, even real estate. (So pay attention to these classes too!) Of course, no one can master all these areas, so a large dose of humility is required! Part of the work I`ve found rewarding – and one of the things I`ve learned the most – has been working with teams of colleagues to develop integrated legal advice that spans many areas of expertise and perspectives. Another thing I`ve learned is how to be a more effective communicator of legal advice. When you work with such a diverse group of customers in an I/O environment, you realize that you need to communicate your message in different ways. You also need to listen to what the customer is saying and calibrate your own arguments, often spontaneously and in a high-pressure situation.
I hope to be able to use these skills more in the future, not only in law, but in life in general. Prior to working in New York, he headed the Legal Department of the International Civilian Office/European Union Special Representative in Kosovo and was a visiting professor of law at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center in China. Mr. Hill began his legal career in the Office of the Legal Counsel (L) of the U.S. Department of State. In a number of missions, he focused on diplomatic property law, economic sanctions, international humanitarian law and human rights. He has represented the United States on numerous United Nations human rights committees and treaty bodies, as well as before the International Court of Justice and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. From 2004 to 2005 and again in 2007, he served as Legal Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Mr.
Munoz Mosquera was born in Poissy (France). He is NATO`s Chief Legal Advisor for Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) and its Allied Command Operations (ACO) and reports directly to the Supreme Commander. Lord. Munoz Mosquera is the 5th Legal Advisor to SHAPE and its command, leading the 100 legal advisors and other legal staff of the ACO. Mr Munoz Mosquera joined NATO as a civil servant in 2000 and became Director of the ACO/SHAPE Office of Legal Affairs in 2014. He served in two cavalry regiments as secretario de causas (case officer/paralegal) and tank commander until 1991. From 1991 to 1999, he worked for the Spanish Chef de Cabinet as a permanent member of the interministerial delegation to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). He has been involved in rule of law cases since 2000 and developed the SHAPE concept of legal operations/legal vigilance.
Previously, he was Legal Advisor to the NATO Commander of Airborne Early Warning (NAEW) and NATO Special Operations Headquarters (NSHQ) and a judge on the EU Satellite Appeal Board. My approach – and that of my clients – has always been that, as a public institution, we have an obligation to be as transparent as possible in order to maintain the trust of our stakeholders – governments and the public – in the Alliance. But of course, there is a tension with the material that cannot be shared. One of NATO`s challenges is that we have not always controlled the classification of documents or information in Brussels. Rather, these decisions would be made by individual governments. To cite just one example, it was sometimes a legal challenge when NATO was asked to provide information for requests such as various national investigations into possible violations of the law of armed conflict. In these cases, my fellow lawyers and I spent a lot of time trying to get permission to release documents. Sometimes we succeeded and sometimes we didn`t.
You have to feel comfortable with that – it`s part of the job. In this capacity, Mr. Swords is the Chief Legal Adviser to Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. He leads the Office of Legal Affairs` multinational legal team, which provides timely legal advice on policy issues, develops consensus solutions to comply with multinational legal requirements, and promotes and defends the organization`s legal interests before numerous internal and external bodies.