Chairs Conferred on Harold Hongju Koh, Oona Hathaway ’97, and Jean Koh Peters

Three chairs have been conferred on Yale Law School faculty members by the Yale Corporation.

Former dean Harold Hongju Koh, who served as the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law since 1993, has assumed the inaugural Martin R. Flug ’55 Professorship of International Law. Koh is currently serving as Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State and will resume teaching at Yale Law School when his public service ends. The Flug professorship was established by Martin R. Flug ’55 to be held by a preeminent scholar with a uniquely distinguished reputation who has demonstrated continued excellence, innovation, and intellectual vitality in the field of International Law. An expert on public and private international law, national security law, and human rights, Koh began teaching at Yale Law School in 1985 and was named its 15th dean in 2004. From 1998 to 2001, he served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. He holds a B.A. from Harvard College, B.A. and M.A. degrees from Oxford University, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Oona Hathaway ’97 has assumed the Smith Chair that Koh vacated. Hathaway joined Yale Law School in 2002 and left in 2008 to teach law at the University of California at Berkeley. She returned to Yale Law School in July 2009 as a tenured professor. She has led the way in using tools of empirical analysis to analyze international law and human rights. Her recent work on the techniques, evolution, and consequences of what she calls “international lawmaking” has forced reexamination of the contemporary use of executive agreements in the international arena. She holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

Jean Koh Peters, through the generosity of Jane Goldman, a daughter of the late Sol and Lillian Goldman, assumes the Sol Goldman Clinical Professorship. Peters’ outstanding work in the area of children, families and the law makes her uniquely suited to become the inaugural Sol Goldman Clinical Professor. She is also Supervising Attorney with The Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale Law School. She joined Yale Law School in 1989 after spending three years at Columbia Law School as an assistant clinical professor and associate director of the Child Advocacy Clinic. Her publications include Representing Children in Child Protective Proceedings: Ethical and Practical Dimensions. She holds a B.A. from Radcliffe and a J.D. from Harvard.