Eric Alter is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. Additionally, Alter is the dean of the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi, a professor of international law and diplomacy, and an attorney-at-law (Paris Bar). Before his work in Abu Dhabi, he served as a United Nations civil servant and as a senior consultant to international organizations, including the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, World Trade Organization, European Union, United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Alter also worked with embassies in Aden (South Yemen), Beirut, and Cairo.

He has decades of experience in multilateral diplomacy, global legal frameworks, and foreign policy education. He received his PhD from Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne, is an alumnus of the Institute of Higher International Studies of Paris II Pantheon-Assas, and holds an LLM in entertainment and media law from Southwestern Law School.

Alter was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Michigan Law School and a senior research fellow at the University of Georgetown Law School Center. Alter speaks fluent French and has limited proficiency in Arabic and Italian.