Lawrence Rockwood

Captain Lawrence Rockwood (born September 27, 1958) is a human rights and democratic socialist activist who is a former U.S. Army counterintelligence officer. He was separated from the US Army because of his action as a military intelligence officer. Concerned with human rights violations occurring in the proximity of US forces in Haiti in September 1994 and perceiving what appeared to be indifference on the part of his command toward those suffering from these violations, he conducted an unauthorized survey of the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince for which he was court martialed and dismissed from active service. Dr. Rockwood is now an internationally acknowledged expert on the relationship between military doctrine and human rights standards. ^[1]

He was born in Trenton to Lt. Col William Peck Rockwood, US Air Force, and Jane Hope (Priesti) Rockwood, a former Air Force nurse. ^[2] As a so-called service brat, he lived in Turkey, France, and Germany during his childhood. In 1968, his father retired from the military and moved to Gainesville, Florida where both parents worked for the University of Florida. After a traumatic experience during the eighth grade at a military school in South Carolina, he enrolled as a minor seminarian in the tenth grade at Saint Francis Preparatory Seminary run by the Capuchin Franciscan order in Lafayette New Jersey. After leaving the seminary and church due to a religious crises (after leaving the Roman Catholic Church as a young adult, he was a practicing Buddhist (Zen / Vajrayana) for 15 years), he received a diploma as a Licensed Practical Nurse. ^[3]

He was a fourth generation soldier with 23 years of uniformed service (1977-He served as an enlisted soldier / Non Commissioned Officer from 1977-83 serving as a Substance Abuse / Behavior Science Counselor in Germany. He was commissioned while enrolled in ROTC at the University of Florida while in graduate school from 1984-1986. He was trained as a Surface to Air Missile Operations Officer and later managed a surface to air missile (Patriot) fire direction center interfacing the NATO / US command structure (Federal Republic of Germany). He was rebranched as a Counterintelligence Officer in 1990 and served Counter Drug Intelligence Operations Officer responsible for the operation of three counter drug surveillance vessels and a forward based operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. It was while he was serving a counterintelligence officer during Operation Restore Democracy in Haiti in September 1994 that he was arrested and later court martialed in May 1995 for exceeding his authority for trying to document the identities political prisoners being held by the illegal regime of General Raoul Cédras. ^[3] He appealed his court martial all the way to the US Supreme Court on the basis of the military doctrine of command responsibility (his command’s responsibility for political prisoners in territory his command occupied). He was given various awards by the ACLU and other organizations for the very offense that was the subject of his prosecution. Between his court martial and the US Supreme Court denying his Writ of Certiorari in 2001, he pursued his PhD in diplomatic history at the University of Florida and worked as a human rights activists. Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).

After his separation from active military service, he served as a Fellow for Center for International Policy, a consultant for the Institute for Policy Studies, Amnesty International's Military, Police, and Security Working Group, and as been contracted as a human rights instructor for the Department of the Army and Department of Defense. He received his Ph.D. in American Diplomatic History in 2005 from the University of Florida. The University of Massachusetts Press published his book, Walking Away from Nuremberg: Just War and the Doctrine of Command Responsibility in the American Military Profession, in the fall of 2007. Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).

In June 2007, he served as a consultant on military doctrine at the Meeting of the Coalition of International NGOs Against Torture (CINAC) on “Diffusing the Ticking Bomb Scenario,” Geneva, Switzerland.  He recently ran as a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives for the 53rd US Congressional District in California.  He has taught American and intellectual history at numerous public universities and colleges.  He now works as a city historian in New York city.  [4]

On early, 2004, Lawrence Rockwood announced his candidacy running on the Green Party ticket for California's 53rd congressional district of the House, running an pro-humanitarian law campaign against a Democratic incumbent Susan Davis who voted against the International Criminal Court (ICC), where he pulled in 7,523 votes for 3.3% of total, twice the total the Green presidential ticket received in the district. ^[5]

• Lawrence Rockwood. “The Lesson Avoided: the Official Legacy of the My Lai massacre” in Ted van Baarda and Desirée Verweij (eds.), The Moral Dimension of Asymmetrical Warfare, Counter-terrorism, Democratic Values and Military Ethics, Netherlands Defense College ( 2008).
• Lawrence Rockwood. Walking Away from Nuremberg: Just War and the Doctrine of Command Responsibility in the American Military Profession, 2007, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007.
• Lawrence Rockwood. Preventing Torture Within the Fight Against Terrorism Newsletter, Vol. 1 Issue 3, September 2007, “The Prohibition Against Torture in U.S. Military Doctrine”
• Lawrence Rockwood and Amelia Simpson. Foreign Policy In Focus, January 21, 2000, “Training the World’s Police,” co-authored with Amelia Simpson.
• Lawrence Rockwood. Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, Spring 1996. "Confession of a Buddhist Soldier: Buddhism and Just War Theory.”
• Lawrence Rockwood. Wall Street Journal, April 4,1995, "Court Martial: A Soldier's Story.”
• Lawrence Rockwood and Amelia Simpson. Jumping the Wall: Human Rights and Military Ethics on Trial, book pending publication.”
• Oral Histories: US Army Command & General Staff College (1996), US Army Oral History Program; Samuel Procter Oral History Program (1998), University of Florida, FP-72; and Hoover Institution Archive (2004), Stanford University.
• Emily Eakin, New York Times, March 8, 2003, “Ethical War? Do the Good Guys Finish First?”
• Albert C. Pierce and Stephen Wrage. Journal of Military Ethics. “Captain Lawrence Rockwood in Haiti.” 2002, 1 (1):45-54.
• Anna Husarska, Village Voice. "Conduct Unbecoming, " April 11, 1995, 21-26

• [1] Case study by Dr. Jean Maria Arrigo
• [2] by Lawrence Rockwood
• [3]
• Series New York Times article
• [4] by Army prosecutor.
• [5] by Robert Weiner and F Ni Aolain
• [6] Military Appeals Decision in US v Rockwood
• [7]
• [8]

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