Professor Harold Koh Honored with Frederick K. Cox Humanitarian Award

Sterling Professor of International Law Harold Hongju Koh delivered the Klatsky Endowed Lecture in Human Rights and received the 2014 Frederick K. Cox International Law Center Humanitarian Award for Advancing Global Justice on March 18 at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. The lecture was titled “21st Century Problems—20th Century International Law.”

The Klatsky Seminar in Human Rights lecture series was launched in 2001, with an endowment from Bruce J. Klatsky, Chairman and CEO of Philipps-Van Heusen Corporation and a member of the University Board of Trustees at Case Western. Previous recipients include International Criminal Court (ICC) President Phillipe Kirsch, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, and ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

Koh began teaching at Yale Law School in 1985 and served as dean from 2004 until 2009, when he accepted a position as Legal Adviser to the U.S. Department of State. He returned to Yale Law School in January 2013, at which time he was named a Sterling Professor of International Law, among the highest honors bestowed on Yale faculty. A Marshall Scholar, Professor Koh graduated from Harvard, Oxford, and Harvard Law School and has received twelve honorary degrees and more than thirty awards for his human rights work.