I recently received this email from Professor of Law, Anupam Chander about his support for Harold Koh's nomination as Legal Adviser to the State Department. It provides a lot of well written info that I thought folks would be interested in...

Dear Colleagues,
As you know, President Obama has nominated Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh to serve in the State Department as the country’s leading international lawyer.  He previously served in the State Department as the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the Clinton Administration, a position to which he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate and which he held from 1998 to 2001, faithfully executing the duties of his office.

Some have denounced Dean Koh for his long support for international law. They complain that he favors U.S. Entry into the International Criminal Court, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.  Where the previous Administration was hostile to international obligations, President Obama has a greater appreciation of the need for international cooperation to address our global problems.

Yale constitutional law scholar Bruce Ackerman has responded to the criticisms of Koh here.   Students at Yale Law School have set up a Facebook page to express support;  you can express support for Dean Koh by joining the group.

Please feel free to forward this to others who may be interested in the issue.

Under my signature below is my own letter supporting Dean Koh, provided only for background purposes.

Best,
Anupam Chander
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In his many decades of service to our country, Dean Harold Koh of Yale Law School has been a steadfast champion of the U.S. Constitution and its values around the world.  We are proud to endorse with great enthusiasm President Barack Obama's nomination of Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh to the position of Legal Adviser to the State Department.

In his writings, Dean Koh has always kept constitutional mandates close to mind. His 1990 book The National Security Constitution argued that the three branches of the federal government should work together to promote national security. The book won the praise of Congressman Lee Hamilton, Vice Chair of the 9/11 Commission, and earned the American Political Science Association's award for the best book on the American Presidency. His scholarship in the Harvard Law Review, the Yale Law Journal and other law reviews has consistently defended the constitutional foundations of the relationship of the United States to the rest of the world.

Dean Koh has demonstrated the courage of his convictions, challenging government's interdiction and detainment of Haitian refugees in Guantanamo in the 1990s, pressing that challenge even as a new administration took office. He earned the respect of President Bill Clinton, who asked him to serve as the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, a position for which he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. In that position, he pressed countries around the world on their human rights and labor standards and pushed for greater political freedoms. As Dean Koh has argued, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have undermined our history of championing human rights around the globe.

Dean Koh clerked for a Republican appointee to the D.C. Circuit, Judge Malcolm Wilkie, and worked as an Attorney-Advisor in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Reagan Administration. He has earned the respect of leading Republican lawyers such as former Solicitor General Ted Olson, who describes him as "a brilliant legal scholar and a man of great integrity."

His life story is itself testimony to the what he calls the "bright lights of freedom." The child of parents who fled dictatorship in South Korea, he has devoted his life to the service of freedom and the rule of law. In his oral history broadcast on National Public Radio's "This I Believe" series, he says simply his belief that "freedom is contagious."

We could not imagine a person more suited in experience, acumen, temperament, and wisdom to serve the role of Legal Adviser to the Secretary
of State.

We are grateful that Dean Koh is willing to serve in government again, and urge his swift confirmation.