Professor Harold Hongju Koh

Harold Hongju Koh is Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, where he has taught since 1985, and served as 15th Dean from 2004-09. Professor Koh was elected to the ALI in May 1992 and was elected to the Council in May 2013. He previously served as Counselor of the Restatement Fourth, Foreign Relations Law of the United States project, and as an Adviser on the Transnational Rules of Civil Procedure project.

From 2009 to 2013, Professor Koh took leave as the Martin R. Flug ’55 Professor of International Law to join the State Department as its 22d Legal Adviser, service for which he received the Secretary of State 's Distinguished Service Award. He returned to that office in 2021 as Senior Advisor under President Joe Biden. From 1993 to 2009, he was the Gerard C. & Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, and from 1998 to 2001, he served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. He also previously served as Attorney-Adviser, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice (1983-85), law clerk to Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the U.S Supreme Court (1981-82), and law clerk to Judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit (1980-81). He is the recipient of 17 honorary degrees and more than thirty awards for his work in human rights and international law.

EDUCATION: Harvard College, A.B.; Oxford University, B.A.; Harvard Law School, J.D.; Oxford University, M.A