The Future is Today: US v. Maduro after U.S. v. Noriega

M-RCBG Senior Fellows M. Alejandra Parra-Orlandoni and David M. Mizrachi will lead a study session analyzing potential assertions of immunity, as well as constitutional and procedural objections, in the ongoing federal case against former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The discussion will draw on U.S. judicial precedents and legal theories such as the protective principle, act of state, head-of-state immunity, and constitutional due process, and will contrast the case against General Manuel Antonio Noriega and its related precedents with the facts of the Maduro case.

M. Alejandra Parra-Orlandoni is the COO of Pasteur Labs, a dual-use AI company. Her career spans emerging technology, international law, and national security. Early in her career, she advised on cross-border legal matters in Latin America at Arnold & Porter and served as a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy. Having lived in Venezuela, she also holds personal ties to the region. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy (B.S. Systems Engineering), MIT (M.S. Mechanical Engineering), and Harvard Law School (J.D.), she focuses on evolving frameworks at the intersection of innovation and power.

David M. Mizrachi is a Panamanian lawyer admitted in Panama and Florida and teaches International Law at the college level in Panama. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (BA in Economics and Political Science with Departmental Honors), of Tulane Law School (JD cum laude) and of Columbia Law School (ELLM Global Business Law). As a JD Student at Tulane Law School in 1990 he wrote a paper titled United States. v. Noriega: Constitutional and Jurisdictional Considerations under International Law.