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Yale Law Dean Tapped For State Dept. Job

Koh known for human rights work, criticism of Bush

By THOMAS B. SCHEFFEY

Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh, who has made a career of using the rule of law to combat tyrants, torture and international inhumanity, has been named by President Barack Obama to be the top legal advisor to the State Department.

If confirmed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Koh, 54, would work closely with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who graduated from Yale Law in the 1970s. Law school professor Kate Stith has been appointed acting dean until a successor is appointed, said Yale University President Richard Levin.

“From my first day as dean, I have spoken of Yale Law School’s abiding commitments to public service, globalization and the profession,” Koh wrote in an e-mail to the law school community, according to the Yale Daily News. “President Obama and Secretary Clinton have now offered me an opportunity to live those commitments myself, by joining their effort to help our country live up to its own best standards and principles.”

Koh has been dean of the law school since 2004, after excelling in a legal pentathlon of teaching, writing, government service, trial work and appellate advocacy in the field of international human rights law.

As a clinical professor in the early 1990s, Koh and his students revived the Alien Tort Claims Act as a modern tool to use against tyrants and warlords from the Caribbean to the Balkans, winning the right to sue a Serbian general in New York federal courts for “ethnic cleansing” brutalities.

From 1998 until the end of the administration of President Bill Clinton, Koh was assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor.

As an outspoken critic of the Guantanamo Bay prison and U.S. treatment of alien refugees, Koh took on government lawyers in both Republican and Democratic administrations and came away with an impressive string of court victories. In the process he was threatened with daunting court sanctions which could have been financially ruinous, but he prevailed on the merits.

Koh is also a prolific author, having written eight books and 140 legal articles. “The National Security Constitution” won an American Political Science Association award as the best book on the U.S. presidency in 1990. Koh also wrote "Why Nations Obey: A Theory of Compliance with International Law."

The Anti-Yoo

During the past eight years, another academic, John C. Yoo, of the University of California, was the Bush Administration’s top proponent for justifying various forms of torture and the practice of rendition, or taking prisoners to foreign countries to escape the human rights constraints of the U.S. Constitution.

Sometimes called the anti-Yoo, Koh criticized many of President George W. Bush’s post-9/11 interrogation and detention policies, and other aspects of the war on terror. He contends that policies allowing torture quickly erode human rights.

When Obama was elected in November, there was speculation that Koh would be on the short list of potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees. Some Republicans complained that he would be too liberal for the post, but other observers speculated that he might be able to overcome such criticisms because he would be the first Asian-American justice.

Wiggin and Dana lawyer Jonathan Freiman, a former student of Koh’s who is currently representing Yale in several court cases, commented: “The State Department is lucky to get him back. What the nation gains, New Haven and Yale will lose. But hopefully it's more a loan than a loss.”

Back in 1961, when Koh’s Korean immigrant parents and their six children came to New Haven, they hardly knew anyone in town. Since the, his parents have taught at Yale, and his siblings have continue to distinguish themselves.

In fact, one is even making the move to D.C. with him. His Boston-based brother, Howard, a Harvard Medical School scholar and former Massachusetts Department of Health Commissioner, was also asked to join the Obama Administration last week as top advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services.•