NEW YORK (December 10, 2007) New York Law School Professor Tai-Heng Cheng, Associate Director of the Law School’s Center for International Law and an expert in international law and international arbitration, is available to offer expert commentary on the latest U.S. intelligence assessment which does not support the Bush administration's claim that Iran is building nuclear weapons. “The Secretary of State’s position that Iran is an urgent danger, despite revised intelligence estimates that Iran stopped nuclear weapon development in 2003, along the call for new sanctions represents a missed opportunity. Iran may be the key to stability and peace in Iraq and the Middle East,” said Professor Cheng. 

Last spring, Professor Cheng took part in a fact-finding mission in Iran with global security think tank Network 2020. The delegates interviewed persons representing a cross-section of Iranian society ranging from students, soldiers, and entrepreneurs to government officials, mullahs, NGO leaders and university chancellors. One meeting was with Iran’s first woman vice-president, Massoumeh Ebtekar, who was involved in the 1979 taking of U.S. Embassy hostages. The fact-finding mission resulted in a report that called for reframing talks between the U.S. and Iran, and made several recommendations for improving relations and focusing on issues important to both countries. Click here read the Iran Project report, “Reframing Iran: Views from the Field.”

Professor Cheng added:  “Rather than press for new sanctions against Iran, it is in the United State’s interests to engage the people of Iran, which represent the world’s largest Shia population.  The people of Iran can help stabilize Iraq, which has a majority population of Shias.”

About Professor Tai-Heng Cheng

Cheng is an expert on complex issues in public and private international law, especially state succession and regime change, international trade and investment, and international dispute resolution. Additionally, he also has a geographical focus on Asia. Cheng is Fellow of the Foreign PolicyAssociation, a member of the Academic Council of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration, and a charter member of Network 2020, a global security think-tank.

From 2001 to 2003, he advised the Singapore Police Force on counterterrorism, international security arrangements, human rights, and diplomatic law. During that time, he also advised the Prosecutor-General of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor. Cheng regularly addresses policymakers, legal practitioners, and scholars on international law and policy. He has given presentations at the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, the United Nations, and Yale Law School.

Cheng was previously associated with the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in New York, where he was involved in the Dahbol arbitrations concerning the largest foreign investment in the Republic of India, and the global defense of an asbestos conglomerate. Among his recent publications, he is the author of a law review article on the Central Case theory, which was widely cited in opinion editorials and legal blogs in reference to the controversial execution in Singapore of an Australian drug trafficker.

Cheng can be reached at 646.239.4054 or via e-mail to tcheng@hnrklaw.com.

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