Harold Hongju Koh

Harold Hongju Koh (born December 8, 1954, Boston, MA, United States) is an American lawyer, legal scholar, former U.S. State Department official, and current Dean of the Yale Law School (since July 1, 2004). His name has been mentioned as a possible U.S. Supreme Court Justice nominee in the event of a Democratic Presidential victory in 2008.

Biography

A Korean-American native of Boston, he graduated in 1971 from the New Haven prep school Hopkins, graduated "summa cum laude" and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard, then received a Marshall Scholarship to study at Magdalen College, Oxford University, and graduated "cum laude" from Harvard Law School in 1980. He was a law clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court, and has held a variety of positions in private practice, government service, and academia, including at the Hague Academy of International Law.

Koh became Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor on November 13, 1998. He was nominated by President Clinton on September 10, 1998 and confirmed by the Senate on October 21, 1998.

Koh is the author of a number of books, including "The National Security Constitution: Sharing Power after the Iran-Contra Affair" (Yale University Press,1990); "Transnational Legal Problems" (with Harry Steiner and Detlev Vagts, Foundation Press, 1994); and "Deliberative Democracy and Human Rights" (with Ronald C. Slye, Yale University Press, 1999). He has also written many book chapters, law review articles, and other published works.

Koh is prominent as an advocate of human rights and civil rights, and has argued and written briefs on a wide number of cases before U.S. appellate courts. He received the Human Rights Award of the Cuban-American Bar Association in 1994, the Justice in Action Award from the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund in 1993, and the Human Rights Award of the American Immigration Lawyers' Association in 1992 for his work. He is also a member of the Constitution Project's bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee. [http://www.constitutionproject.org/libertyandsecurity/members.cfm?categoryId=3]

Koh has testified before the U.S. Congress more than a dozen times. In January 2005, Dean Koh, along with Franklin Pierce Law Center dean John Hutson, testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to the appointment of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general of the United States, because of his alleged role in attempting to provide legal guidance to the U.S. military justifying abusive interrogation practices, including that the War on Terror "renders obsolete" and "renders quaint" aspects of the Geneva Conventions. Koh has drawn criticism as a "highly partisan Democrat"Fact|date=July 2008 and as promoting political polarization within the Yale Law School in a fashion avoided by his predecessors, Anthony Kronman and Guido Calabresi.

He is the brother of former Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner Howard Koh.

External links

* [http://www.law.yale.edu/faculty/HKoh.htm Faculty profile at Yale Law]
* [http://www.law.yale.edu/faculty/2508.htm Faculty C.V. at Yale Law]
* [http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people3/Koh/koh-con1.html Interview]
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5199021 The Bright Lights of Freedom] , Koh's radio essay on freedom and democracy that was broadcast on NPR
* [http://thepolitic.org/content/view/27/37/ Conceptions of the Court]
* [http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_04_01-2007_04_07.shtml#1175739296 Criticism of Koh's Politics]
* [http://www.abovethelaw.com/2006/12/harold_and_linda_sittin_in_a_t.php Koh and Linda Greenhouse]