Harold Koh

Harold Hongju Koh is the Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School in the Law faculty. A leading expert in public and private international law, national security law, and human rights, he first joined Yale Law School in 1985 as an associate professor, became a full professor in 1990, and held the Gerard C. & Bernice Latrobe Smith Professorship of International Law from 1993 to 2009. Koh served as the fifteenth Dean of Yale Law School from 2004 to 2009. From 2009 to 2013, he was on leave from Yale as the Martin R. Flug ’55 Professor of International Law to serve as the 22nd Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State, for which he received the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award. He previously held the position of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor from 1998 to 2001. Earlier in his career, Koh clerked for Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1981 to 1982 and for Judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1980 to 1981. He also worked as an associate at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., from 1982 to 1983 and as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice from 1983 to 1985.

Koh’s distinguished academic background includes an A.B. in Government summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1975, where he was a Phi Beta Kappa member and Harvard National Scholar; a B.A. with First Class Honours in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Magdalen College, Oxford University in 1977 as a Marshall Scholar; a J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1980, during which he served as Developments Editor of the Harvard Law Review; and an M.A. from Oxford University in 1996. A prolific scholar, he has authored or co-authored nine books, including The National Security Constitution: Sharing Power After the Iran-Contra Affair (Yale University Press, 1990; winner of the Richard E. Neustadt Award), Transnational Legal Problems (Foundation Press, 4th ed., 1994), and The Trump Administration and International Law (Oxford University Press, 2019), and has published more than 200 articles. Koh has testified regularly before Congress and litigated numerous international law cases in U.S. and international tribunals. His honors include the Louis B. Sohn Award for Lifetime Achievement in International Law (2005), fellowships in the American Philosophical Society and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, membership on the Council of the American Law Institute, and 18 honorary degrees. He teaches courses such as Procedure, Public and Private International Law, Human Rights, Law and National Security, and International Business Transactions.

Professional Email: harold.koh@yale.edu