On October 24, 2019, Chapman University hosted its first Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, Dr. Harold Koh. Dr. Koh presented a lecture, “The Trump Administration and International Law,” based on his recently released book of the same title. The talk addressed the then-current impeachment inquiry and the Trump administration’s adversarial relationship with transnational rules of law and the institutions/alliances of the post-World War II world, placing it all in context with the rise of anti-globalist nativism in autocratic regimes worldwide.
Harold Hongju Koh, J.D. is Sterling Professor of International Law, former Dean (2004-09), and co-founder of the Rule of Law Clinic at Yale Law School, where he has taught since 1985. He served as Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State from 2009-13; Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor from 1998-2001; and Attorney-Adviser, Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, from 1983-85. He has testified regularly before Congress and has argued at the U.S. Supreme Court, the International Court of Justice and many other domestic and international courts. He has received 17 honorary degrees, more than 30 human rights awards, the Wolfgang Friedmann Prize from Columbia Law School, and the Louis B. Sohn Award from the American Bar Association’s International Law Section for his lifetime achievements in international law.
