About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

74 Ind. L.J. 1397 (1998-1999)
How Is International Human Rights Law Enforced

handle is hein.journals/indana74 and id is 1407 raw text is: How Is International Human Rights Law Enforced?t Addison C. Harris Lecture January 21, 1998 HAROLD HONGu KOH I am greatly honored to deliver this distinguished Lecture, particularly given the illustrious list of lecturers who have preceded me to this podium.' My own path to this podium began in Washington, D.C., where as a private lawyer I specialized in issues of international business and trade law: what most American law schools now think of as international business transactions.2 But even while working on these matters, I became increasingly diverted toward the novel, growing field of international human rights. While in private practice in the early 1980s, I became involved in the representation of the American hostages who had been held for 444 days in the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Once starting an academic career, I took occasional forays into international human rights advocacy,4 but my main focus remained on the law of international business transactions and United States foreign policy, two examples of what Henry Steiner and Detlev Vagts have felicitously dubbed Transnational Legal Problems.' t ) 1999 Harold Hongju Koh. * Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law and Director, Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights, Yale Law School (on leave), Assistant United States Secretary of State, Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. These remarks were originally delivered as the January 1998 Addison Harris Lecture at the University of Indiana School of Law-Bloomington. They grow out of a chapter in a forthcoming book entitled Why Nations Obey: A Theory of Compliance With InternationalLaw, which I am writing under the auspices of the Century Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation. This Lecture also shares thoughts with my 1998 Frankel Lecture at the University of Houston Law Center, Houston, Texas, and the 1997 Waynflete Lectures at Magdalen College, Oxford University. I am deeply grateful to Dean Alfred Aman, Acting Dean Lauren Rebel, Dean Kelly Townes, Professor David Williams, the Harris Lecture Speaker's Committee, and the Editors of the Indiana Law Journal for their enormous hospitality while I was in Hoosier country. Not long after delivering this Lecture, I was nominated and confirmed as Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor in the Clinton Administration. These lightly edited remarks, which have been footnoted for publication, obviously represent only my own views, and not necessarily those of the United States Department of State. 1. Past Harris lecturers include my former Harvard professors Paul Bator and Charles Fried, as well as my current Yale colleagues Guido Calabresi, Owen Fiss, Jules Coleman, and Robert Gordon. 2. See genera//y Harold Hongju Koh, InternationalBusiness Transactions in United States Courts, 261 RECUBILDES COURS 13 (1996). 3. See Persinger v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 729 F.2d 835 (D.C. Cir. 1984). 4. See, e.g., David Cole et al., Interpreting the Alien Tort Statute: Amicus Curiae Memorandum of International Law Scholars and Practitioners in Trajano v. Marcos, 12 HASTINGS INTL & CoN,,. L. REv. 1 (1988). 5. See generaty HENY J. STEINRR ETAL, RsNATIONAL LEGAL PRoBLEMS (4th ed. 1994).

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most