Brief Bio

Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law and former Dean at Yale Law School, teaches public and private international law, national security and foreign relations law, and human rights. A Korean-American, he has served in four U.S. presidential administrations of both political parties. Professor Koh holds a B.A. degree from Harvard College and B.A. and M.A. degrees from Magdalen College, Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar, then earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was Developments Editor of the Harvard Law Review. Before coming to Yale, he served as a law clerk for Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court and Judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, worked as an attorney in private practice in Washington, and served as an Attorney-Adviser for the Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice during the Reagan Administration. From 1998 to 2001, he served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. From 2009-13, he served as 22d Legal Adviser of the State Department to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, service for which he received the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award. In 2021, he served as Senior Adviser (senior political appointee) in that same office in the Biden Administration. Professor Koh is the author or co-author of 10 books and more than 250 articles, and has been awarded 18 honorary degrees, more than 30 awards for his human rights work, and awards from Columbia and Duke Law Schools and the American Bar Association for his lifetime achievements in international law. He is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and has been George Eastman Visiting Professor and Arthur Smithies Lecturer at Balliol College, Oxford and Arthur Goodhart Visiting Professor of Legal Science and Fellow of Trinity and Christ’s College at the University of Cambridge. He has appeared before the United States Supreme Court and numerous international tribunals, including on behalf of Ukraine before the International Court of Justice. A member of the Council of the American Law Institute and a Fellow of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is a member of the Blackstone Chambers, London, and an Honorary Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn.

Course taught at CTLS

• Core Course: Transnational Law: Introduction and Selected Issues (Spring 2026)