robert_harris

Robert Harris

  • Lecturer in Law

Robert Harris, Assistant Legal Adviser for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, United States Department of State.

Robert Harris is Assistant Legal Adviser for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In this position he provides legal advice to senior State Department officials and policy makers at the National Security Council on all legal issues related to U.S. foreign policy in the Asia and Pacific region, including North and South Korea, China, Japan, and territorial and maritime disputes in the South and East China Seas.

Mr. Harris has been a lawyer at the Department of State since 1985 and a member of the Senior Executive Service since 1992, serving as Assistant Legal Adviser in the Offices of International Law Enforcement and Intelligence, Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, Human Rights and Refugees and as Deputy Legal Adviser. He has served as legal adviser and as head of delegation to more than fifty different bilateral and multilateral negotiations on topics ranging from migration, international aviation and trade in services, counterterrorism, counternarcotics trafficking, extradition of criminal fugitives, the international law of the sea, marine pollution and dumping at sea, maritime boundary delimitation, transboundary watercourses, global environment protection (including persistent organic pollutants and hazardous chemicals, biological diversity, biosafety, international conservation, and stratospheric ozone protection), sustainable development , international human rights, the protection of refugees, diplomatic privileges and immunities, and nuclear liability.

Mr. Harris is a graduate of Stanford Law School (JD), the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University (MPA), and Cornell University (AB History).