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61 N.Y. L. Sch. L. Rev. 31 (2016-2017)
The Enduring Legacies of the Haitian Refugee Litigation

handle is hein.journals/nyls61 and id is 31 raw text is: 





















HAROLD HONGJU KOH


     The Enduring Legacies of the Haitian

     Refugee Litigation

     61 N.Y.L. SCH. L. REv. 31 (2016-2017)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Professor Koh is the Sterling Professor of   International Law at Yale Law School.
He first began teaching at Yale Law School in 1985 and served as its fifteenth Dean from 2004 to 2009. From
2009 to 2013, he took leave as the Martin R. Flug '55 Professor of International Law to join the U.S. State
Department  as Legal Adviser, service for which he received the Secretary's Distinguished Service Award.
From  1998 to 2001, he served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.
He  was Counsel of Record in Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, Inc., 509 U.S. 155 (1993) and Haitian Centers
Council, Inc. v. Sale, 823 F. Supp. 1028 (E.D.N.Y. 1993). This is a footnoted, edited version of a keynote
address delivered at the Storming the Court symposium held at New York Law School on October 16, 2015. It
draws heavily upon a number of earlier articles and book chapters cited throughout the footnotes, including
remarks delivered at a prior symposium on the Haitian litigation at Yale Law School in March 2014, and
shares thoughts with a forthcoming article, The Emerging 21st Century Law of War in the Emory Law Review.

Professor Koh adds:
     I thank the editors of the New York Law School Law Review for the opportunity to discuss the Haitian
refugee litigation and Brandt Goldstein for telling the world a memorable story that might otherwise have gone
largely untold. I can never adequately thank my remarkable co-counsel-Lucas Guttentag, Joe Tringali, Robert
Rubin, Jennifer Klein, and Susan Sawyer-and the extraordinary group of students and lawyers who gathered at
New  York Law School, described infra note 9, to remember the Haiti case. I remember with special affection
one of the first volunteer attorneys who went to Guantinamo on behalf of our Haitian clients, my late Yale Law
School colleague Professor Carroll Lucht, who passed away on July 3, 2016. I also thank Christina Frohock for
her help securing materials from the Cuban American Bar Association (CABA), which recently celebrated the
twentieth anniversary of the Cuban refugee litigation. See infra text accompanying notes 78-91. 1 am grateful to
Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld and Nathaniel Zelinsky of Yale Law School for excellent research assistance.
     I dedicate this article to my incomparable friend and co-counsel, Michael Ratner, who left us on May
11, 2016. Michael was a friend and colleague to treasure. When you were in a fight, there simply was no one
better or more generous. He never gave up; he always had an idea; he was always in a good mood; and he
always had stunning perspective on every issue that tormented us during the Haitian refugee litigation. When
we were the target of a Rule 11 motion by the U.S. government, I was aghast. Rule I's were motions I had
only heard of in my nightmares. But Michael said, Think of it as a badge of pride. I can never remember not
being Rule 11'ed. During the Haitian case, we had an endless series of conference calls among co-counsel.
One  night when we proposed to set one for eleven o'clock the next morning, Michael asked, Can we do it at
noon? I'm scheduled to get arrested at eleven! We will never see another like him. See generally Harold
Hongju  Koh, Michael Ratner: The Leading Progressive Lawyer ofa Generation, JUST SECURITY (May 12, 2016,
8:05 AM), https://www.justsecurity.org/31010/michael-ratner/


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