2003 Annual Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award
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Shane McKenzie
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Information on the Journal is available at www.columbia.edu/cu/jtl
Columbia Journal of Transnational Law Honors Professor Harold Hongju Koh for Achievements in International Law
The Columbia Journal of Transnational Law is pleased to announce that Professor Harold Hongju Koh is the 2003 Recipient of the Annual Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award for outstanding contributions in the field of international law. Professor Koh will give the keynote address, to be published in Volume 42 of the Journal, at the Annual Friedmann Award Banquet, to be held April 24, 2003 at The Mark Hotel in Manhattan. The Friedmann Award celebrates both the amazing contributions of this year's recipient and the legacy of Wolfgang Friedmann.
Every year since 1975, the Journal has presented the Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award to a distinguished scholar or practitioner who has made outstanding contributions to the field of international law. Past recipients of the award include Dr. Hans Blix (2002); James A. Baker III (1996); Boutros Boutros-Ghali (1995); and Philip C. Jessup (1975). This year, we are pleased to present the 29th Annual Friedmann Award to Professor Harold Hongju Koh, Professor at Yale Law School since 1985 and former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Professor Koh has written more than eighty articles and several books, including The National Security Constitution, which won the American Political Science Association Award for the best book on the American Presidency.
A Korean-American, Professor Koh and his family moved to New Haven in 1961. Since then, he has excelled in every endeavor he has undertaken. He graduated summa cum laude in Government from Harvard University, as a Marshall Scholar with First Class Honours in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford and was the Developments Editor of the Harvard Law Review. Professor Koh went on to serve as law clerk to Judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the D.C. Circuit and Justice Harry Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court. Before coming to Yale, he practiced law at the Washington D.C. law firm of Covington and Burling and at the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice. From 1998 to 2001, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.
Professor Koh has written more than 80 articles and several books, including The Human Rights of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities: Different But Equal (2003 Oxford with S. Herr & L. Gostin); Transnational Business Problems (2003 Foundation with D. Vagts and W. Dodge); Deliberative Democracy and Human Rights (1999 Yale with R. Slye), Transnational Legal Problems (2d ed. 1984 Foundation with H. Steiner & D. Vagts) and The National Security Constitution (Yale 1990).
Professor Koh continues to be honored for these remarkable achievements. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, an Overseer of Harvard University and on the Visiting Committee of Harvard Law School, an Editor of the American Journal of International Law and a member of the American Law Institute. He has received Guggenheim and Century Foundation Fellowships and has been awarded seven honorary doctorates and law school medals from the Villanova Law School and Touro Law School. He has also received more than twenty awards for his human rights work. He was named by American Lawyer magazine as one of America's 45 leading public sector lawyers under the age of 45, and by A Magazine as one of the 100 most influential Asian-Americans of the 1990s.
Currently, Professor Koh lives in New Haven with his wife, Mary-Christy Fisher, a legal services attorney, and their children Emily (16) and William (12). In addition, he continues to make a profound impact both on his students and on the promotion of human rights throughout the world. The Columbia Journal of Transnational Law is honored to include Professor Koh among its distinguished recipients of the Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award.
The Columbia Journal of Transnational Law is the oldest student-run journal of international law. It was founded in 1961 by the late Wolfgang Friedmann, a professor of international law at Columbia Law School, and has since enjoyed premier status in the international legal community. Four decades of scholarship have not only established the Journal as a premier forum for publication by leaders in both academia and government, but also as a forum for one of the highest levels of dialogue between scholars and policymakers on timely topics of international importance.
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