Congratulations to Philip Bobbitt, KBE

Guest Blogger

Akhil Reed Amar

Readers of this blog may be interested to learn that Philip Bobbitt, the Herbert Wechsler Professor of Federal Jurisprudence at Columbia University, was recently awarded an honorary knighthood by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.  What follows are excerpts from the June 8 announcement, and an additional note of appreciation. 

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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.

Tony Blair, Hilary Rodham Clinton, and Henry Kissinger have shared quotes about Prof. Bobbitt’s honorary knighthood:

“I am delighted that Philip has been recognised in this way. He has been a staunch, steadfast, and often passionate advocate for the USA/UK relationship, someone who combines the highest standards of intellectual thought and scholarship with a strong set of values and principles. He has been always a great friend to our nation and thoroughly deserves this recognition.”
--Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

“Philip Bobbitt warrants the uncommon granting of a UK knighthood for his important writings in law, philosophy and national security, his highly regarded teaching, his service in government, and his tireless commitment to preserving and enhancing the relationship between the US and UK. This is a well-deserved and timely honor.“
--Hillary Rodham Clinton, 67^th United States Secretary of State

“Philip Bobbitt is one of the most distinguished philosophers of our time. I have benefited enormously from his wisdom and so have the readers of his extraordinary work. I’m happy that he has received this important recognition.”
--Henry Kissinger, 56^th United States Secretary of State

This is a rare honor for any American. Previous recipients include philanthropists Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, and Mark Getty; former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford and Martin Dempsey; and the filmmaker Steven Spielberg. It is rarer still for an American law professor to receive an honorary knighthood (the last one appears to have been in 1948), which speaks volumes about Philip Bobbitt’s contributions to US-UK relations.

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 including The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History and Terror and Consent: The Wars for the 20th Century. In his scholarship and public service roles, he has argued for a new Atlanticism; for coordination with the UK in US European policy; and for closer economic and trade planning between the US and UK in the G20.  In 2001, he called for an Alliance of Democracies, an idea that has recently re-emerged on the agenda of President Biden.

The UK honours system recognizes exceptional achievement and service to the nation and includes non-British nationals who receive honorary titles for their important contribution to British life. All British honours are awarded on merit, and honorary titles are conferred by HM The Queen.

Personal Statement by Professor Bobbitt

 I am delighted to accept this distinguished honour.  I think it is more a tribute to the UK/US “special relationship” than it is to any one person, however, so let me say a few words about this familiar phrase of Winston Churchill’s.

The special relationship is unique not because it is built out of affinity or simply the calculation of self-interest, but because it is built out of history – and out of our shared reliance on law. Law is most effective when it is consonant with our cultural predispositions as well as when it efficiently serves our interests. But there is far more to the rule of law – the ‘thrilling Anglo American tradition’ as Henry Hart called it – than effectiveness. It is the stuff out of which our commitments are made and carried out.  

Throughout my work I have argued for the primacy of the human conscience as the indispensable element in that legal and political tradition. On that basis, and only on that basis, can a legitimate democracy be maintained. Moreover, the geopolitical security of the democracies also depends upon a common commitment to the values of liberal constitutionalism and human rights. The institutions of the common law, the legal fortifications of rights against the State, an alliance system for collective defense, and the search for common economic interests with other nations are among the legacies Britain has bequeathed to the United States.

That inheritance doesn’t mean that these institutions can be put on auto-pilot; there will be lapses and mistakes and disappointments.  I might describe the special relationship as Auden described most romantic relationships in a poem called Law Like Love:

Like love we don’t know where or why,

Like love we can’t compel or fly, 

Like love we often weep,

Like love we seldom keep.

If the most successful individual is one who sees himself as others see him, the most successful relationships often consist of those who see each other as each sees himself. I hope my work has contributed to some degree, however modest, to this special – and on the whole, successful – relationship.  And on the occasion of this handsome honour, I hope that both countries will take guidance from that worthy man, Chaucer’s Knyght who loved, “Trouthe and honour, freedom and curteisie.”

Philip Bobbitt

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Additional post by Akhil Reed Amar:

Many years ago, my then five-year-old son asked me when the Americans and the British became friends.  It was a question  both delightful and profound, and my answer back then built on things that my own friend Philip Bobbitt had taught me over the course of many years of gentle conversation.  The friendship between America and Britain, I told my son, began many centuries ago, when mainland American colonists considered themselves proud and loyal British subjects.  Even when Americans broke away from Britain, they did so in the name  of deeply British ideas, and the constitutional order they founded was rooted in British history and British common-law understandings, even as the Americans also added their own distinct and thrilling ideas. In the twentieth century, the special relationship between the two nations deepened, I told my son.  Today, my son is in college studying world history.  Were he were to re-ask his question to me, I would now add a happy coda to my earlier answer: The special friendship between America and Britain remains crucial, and the hono(u)r that our family friend Philip has received is a glorious embodiment of that special bond.

Akhil Reed Amar is  Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University. You can reach him by e-mail at akhil.amar at yale.edu