Harold Hongju Koh

Harold Hongju Koh is Sterling Professor of International Law and former Dean at Yale Law School, where he currently directs the Peter Gruber Rule of Law Clinic.  He has served four U.S. Presidents, at the U.S. State Department as Legal Adviser (2009-13) and Senior Adviser (2021) at the Office of the Legal Adviser and Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (1998-2001), as well as Attorney-Advisor at the US Department of Justice, office of Legal Counsel (1983-85). A Korean-American graduate of Harvard College, Magdalen College, Oxford (Marshall Scholar) and Harvard Law School, Koh clerked for Justice Harry A. Blackmun and Judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey before coming to Yale Law School in 1985. Since then, he has received 18 honorary degrees (including from the University of Toronto in 2024) and more than 30 awards for his human rights work, as well as awards from Columbia and Duke Law Schools, the Robert A. Katzmann Prize for Academic Excellence from the Burton Awards, and the ABA International Law Section for his lifetime achievements in international law.  An Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, and a member of the Council of the American Law Institute, he has been a visiting professor at many universities, including twice at U of T’s Faculty of Law. He has argued frequently before U.S. and international tribunals, including in 2025 for the world’s trade unions and since 2016 as Counsel for Ukraine against Russia before the International Court of Justice. Koh is the author of ten books and more than 250 articles, including most recently, The National Security Constitution in the 21st Century (Yale 2024) and The Trump Administration and International Law (Oxford 2d ed. forthcoming 2027).