Marik String

Senior National Security Fellow

Marik A. String is a Senior Fellow for National Security Law at the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law.  He was previously Acting Legal Adviser (General Counsel) of the U.S. Department of State, serving as the chief legal officer of the Department and principal legal adviser to the Secretary of State.  In this role, he argued before the International Court of Justice in Iran v. United States—Alleged violations of the 1955 Treaty of Amity.  He previously served as Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, supervising the US Government’s $200 billion annual defense trade portfolio and administration of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

Previously, he served as Senior Adviser to Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan and Deputy Chief Counsel and Senior Professional Staff Member for European and Eurasian Affairs on the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations under Senator Richard G. Lugar.  He is an officer in the US Navy Reserve.

He was in private legal practice for nearly a decade at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP in Washington, D.C., advising clients on matters at the intersection of national security, international trade, and cross-border investment.  He has been a scholar affiliated with The Atlantic Council and Aspen Institute Berlin.  His commentary on legal and national security issues has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs and Bloomberg.

He was educated at Georgetown University (J.D., Global Law Scholar), where he was an editor of The Georgetown Law Journal; the University of Vienna (M.A., Fulbright Scholar); and the University of Notre Dame (B.A.). He speaks fluent German.