David Scharia holds an LLB, an LLM (Hons), and a PhD from Tel Aviv University. From 1995 to 2006, he served in Israel’s Attorney General’s Office as the lead attorney in major counterterrorism cases before the Supreme Court of Israel. He also chaired the inter-ministerial Counterterrorism Task Force and represented the Attorney General in the Israeli Knesset’s Law and Constitution Committee on counterterrorism matters.
Currently, Scharia is the Director and Chief of Branch for Counterterrorism at the United Nations Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED), where he oversees counterterrorism policy and leads a team of international experts advising the Security Council. His work covers counterterrorism legislation, terrorism financing, law enforcement, border control, human rights, gender issues, and the use of technology by terrorist organizations.
He has served as a Scholar in Residence at Columbia Law School and the NYU Center for Global Affairs and is a board member of leading research institutions, including the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) in Herzliya. Scharia has also participated in high-level policy groups, including the Council on Foreign Relations’ study group on U.S.-Israel relations. He co-chaired the World Economic Forum’s working group on IoT safety and security and serves on the advisory board for Rutgers University’s cybersecurity program.
His articles and books have been published by academic institutions such as Oxford University Press, Harvard National Security Journal, and Hebrew University Press. His expertise spans counterterrorism, cybersecurity, and the intersection of law and security policy.