Sarah H. Cleveland

Louis Henkin Professor in Human and Constitutional Rights

Office: Jerome Greene Hall, Room 632
435 W. 116 Street
New York NY 10027
Tel: 212.854.2651
Fax: 212.854.7946
Email: scleve@law.columbia.edu

Assistant Info

Name: Khamla Pradaxay
Phone: 212.854.7422
Email: kprada@law.columbia.edu
Professor Cleveland is currently on academic leave to serve as Counselor on International Law with the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U. S. State Department. She will serve in this position until 2011.

Areas of Expertise

  • International Human Rights
  • Foreign Affairs and the Constitution
  • International Trade and Labor Rights
  • International Law in U.S. Courts
  • Federal Civil Procedure

Office Hours Spring 2009

  • Wednesdays, 2-4p.m., or by appointment

    Education

    • J.D., Yale Law School, 1992
    • M.St., Lincoln College, Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar), 1989
    • A.B. with honors, Brown University, 1987 (Junior Phi Beta Kappa)

    Media Contact:

    • Public Affairs, 212-854-2650.

    Detailed Biography

    Sarah Cleveland is the Louis Henkin Professor of Human and Constitutional Rights and Co-Director, Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School.

    Professor Cleveland is a noted expert in international human and labor rights, the constitutional law of U.S. foreign relations, international law in domestic law and the interface between human rights and international trade. Cleveland has testified before Congress on the relevance of international law in constitutional interpretation and has been involved in human rights litigation in U.S. courts and before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. As an expert on the Afghanistan Transitional Commercial Law Project Working Group, she helped draft a labor code for post-Taliban Afghanistan in 2003.

    Cleveland serves on the legal advisory boards of a number of human rights organizations and on the board of editors of the Journal of International Economic Law. Her writings include Our International Constitution (Yale J. Int’l L., 2006); Powers Inherent in Sovereignty: Indians, Aliens, Territories and the Nineteenth Century Origins of Plenary Power Over Foreign Affairs (Texas L. Rev., 2002); Human Rights Sanctions and International Trade: A Theory of Compatibility (J. Int’l Econ. L., 2002); and Norm Internalization and Economic Sanctions (Yale J. Int’l L., Winter 2001). She is a co-author of Louis Henkin’s Human Rights casebook (2nd ed., forthcoming 2009).

    A former Rhodes Scholar, Cleveland holds a baccalaureate degree from Brown University, a master’s degree from Oxford University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. She clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun and for Judge Louis Oberdorfer on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Prior to entering law teaching, she worked as a Skadden Fellow with Florida Legal Services, where she conducted impact litigation on behalf of migrant farm workers. Formerly the Marrs McLean Professor in Law at the University of Texas School of Law, where she received the Excellence in Teaching Award, Cleveland has also taught at the Michigan and Harvard law schools and at Oxford University. She  joined Columbia Law School in 2007.