James Bischoff is an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State (L). He most recently served as Legal Adviser at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, where he represented U.S. legal interests before U.N. specialized agencies; negotiated texts at the Human Rights Council and elsewhere; and managed the U.S. relationship with U.N. human rights treaty bodies, investigatory mechanisms, and other entities. From 2014-18, he served in L’s Human Rights section, where he argued cases before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, negotiated human rights resolutions, and drafted reports to treaty bodies. In previous L offices from 2008-14, he advised on matters ranging from the U.S.-Cuba legal relationship to consular notification to international parental child abduction. He previously served as a law clerk on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (2005-07) and on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (2007-08). Professor Bischoff has authored or co-authored a number of academic works, including the three-volume International Criminal Law Practitioner Library (Cambridge 2007, 2008 & 2009) and Accountability for Atrocities in International Law: Beyond the Nuremberg Legacy (3d ed., Oxford 2011). He holds an LL.M. in International Law with honors from Leiden University; a J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law; and an M.A. from the University of Texas Institute of Latin American Studies. He has previously served on journals including the Journal of International Criminal Justice and the Leiden Journal of International Law. Views expressed in the course of his academic work are his alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of State or the U.S. Government.
