Harold Hongju Koh
| Harold Koh | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Legal Adviser of the Department of State | |
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In office June 25, 2009 – January 22, 2013 |
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| President | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | John Bellinger |
| Succeeded by | Mary McLoed (Acting) |
| Dean of Yale Law School | |
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In office July 1, 2004 – March 23, 2009 |
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| Preceded by | Anthony Kronman |
| Succeeded by | Kate Stith (Acting) |
| Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor | |
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In office November 13, 1998 – January 20, 2001 |
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| President | Bill Clinton |
| Preceded by | John Shattuck |
| Succeeded by | Lorne Craner |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
December 8, 1954 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Mary-Christy Fisher |
| Children | 2 |
| Education |
Harvard University (A.B., J.D.) Magdalen College, Oxford (M.A.) |
Harold Hongju Koh (born Dec 8, 1954) is an American lawyer and legal scholar. He served as the Legal Adviser of the Department of State. He was nominated to this position by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2009, and confirmed by the Senate on June 25, 2009. He departed as the State Department's legal adviser in January 2013, and returned to Yale University as a law professor, being named a Sterling Professor of International Law.
Koh was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His parents grew up in Korea under Japanese rule in an area that later became part of North Korea. He has described his family thus:
They grew up under Japanese colonial rule, forbidden to speak Korean or even to use their Korean names. When their country was divided after World War II, my mother and her family were trapped in North Korea. In desperation, they hiked for days to the border to be picked up and were brought back to Seoul. But even there, they lived under dictatorship. For less than a year in the 1960s, (South) Korea enjoyed democracy. My father joined the diplomatic corps. But one day, tanks rolled and a coup d'etat toppled the government, leaving us to grow up in America.
After the coup, Koh's father, legal scholar and diplomat Kwang Lim Koh, was granted asylum in the United States. He moved to New Haven, Connecticut, with his family and took a teaching position at Yale. His wife, Hesung Chun Koh (Harold Koh's mother), had a Ph.D. in sociology and taught at Yale as well—they were the first Asian Americans to teach there.
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