Harold Koh as a potential Supreme Court Justice

[natedogg1777]

This guy would be bad news. He is Obama's nominee for State Dept. legal adviser. In other words, the guy giving Hillary Clinton legal advice. Based on his high regard for using international (and even Shariah) law as legal precedent, I would say he would be REAL bad for the 2nd Amendment.

Please read:

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=323391460856338

Who Is Harold Koh?

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, March 31, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Law: President Obama's nominee for State Department legal adviser could be a future Supreme Court pick. He believes U.S. law should be based on foreign precedent, and even Shariah law could find a home here.


We have commented many times on the opinion of a number of U.S. Supreme Court justices that American jurists should include foreign law and precedent in their decisions. In several prominent cases, this has already happened.

In a speech in South Africa, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the March 2005 Roper v. Simmons decision, in which a 5-4 majority ruled against executing murderers who were 17 or younger, "perhaps the fullest expressions to date on the propriety and utility of looking to the 'opinions of (human)kind.' "
Koh: Man of the world.

Koh: Man of the world.

More recently, Justice Stephen Breyer said: "We see all the time . . . how the world really . . . is growing together. The challenge (will be) whether our Constitution . . . fits into the governing documents of other nations." Whether our Constitution fits?

Agreeing with Ginsburg and Breyer is one Harold Koh, a former dean of Yale Law School who's been nominated by President Obama to be the State Department's legal adviser. He's an advocate of what he calls "transnational legal process" and argues that the distinction between U.S. and international law should vanish.

Koh believes laws of places like Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka should carry equal weight with the laws of Virginia and South Dakota, and that it's "appropriate for the Supreme Court to construe our Constitution in the light of foreign and international law" in its decisions.

He also believes foreign law trumps U.S. law on issues such as the death penalty. Echoing Ginsburg, he has said: "The evidence strongly suggests that we do not currently pay decent respect to the opinions of humankind in our administration of the death penalty. For that reason (italics added), the death penalty should, in time, be declared in violation of the Eighth Amendment."

In Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down that state's anti-sodomy laws, Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion cited a 1967 British parliamentary vote repealing laws against homosexual acts and a 1981 European Court of Human Rights decision that such laws were in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Agreeing with Kennedy, Koh himself filed an amicus brief in the case that argued that international and foreign court decisions compelled the Supreme Court to strike down the Texas law. Koh has also submitted an amicus brief to the Connecticut Supreme Court arguing that foreign precedents require recognition of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

He also values the opinions of the world's imams. A New York lawyer, Steven Stein, says Koh in 2007 told the Yale Club of Greenwich that "in an appropriate case, he didn't see any reason why Shariah law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States."

Koh thinks America is the bad guy on the world stage. He blasted Operation Desert Storm as a violation of international law despite the U.N.'s blessing. He supported the Sandinista move to get the International Criminal Court to force Congress to cut off funding of the Contras in Nicaragua.

In 2004, after Operation Iraqi Freedom had begun, Koh lumped the U.S. in with North Korea as part of an "axis of disobedience" regarding international law.

Koh says the Supreme Court is now divided between "nationalist" judges who believe our Constitution is the only one that counts and "transnationalists" who believe "we the people" should be changed to "we are the world."

The next appointment will tip the balance one way or the other, Koh says. He just might be Obama's first pick to fill the next vacancy. Neil Lewis of the New York Times last year said Koh was widely regarded as a leading contender.

This is the man who'll be giving Secretary of State Hillary Clinton legal advice. This is the man who could quite possibly be the next Supreme Court justice. This is Harold Koh.

[yellowfin]

If this is accurate, it is horrifying. Have we really gone this far down this fast?

[EZ G]

Not only is it accurate, it is way way worse than that. He is openly for throwing out the Constitution and ending US sovereignty. He would do away with just about all things American in favor of faceless international mandarins controlling the lives of Americans.

[Aldemar]

Did anyone else hear BHO's press conference today??? Talk about pandering to the rest of the world! This nominee would fit right in with agenda he is setting us up for.

By the way, I heard it on radio, not TV. He didn't sound as sure of himself when answering questions. Did he look as foolish as he sounded?

Al

[tiki]

http://www.law.yale.edu/faculty/HKoh.htm


Harold Hongju Koh
Dean and Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law
Harold Hongju Koh is the 15th Dean of Yale Law School and Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law. On March 23, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Dean Koh to be Legal Adviser to the United States Department of State. His day-to-day duties are currently being assumed by Acting Dean Kate Stith, until a successor is chosen.

He began teaching at Yale Law School in 1985 and has served since 2004 as its fifteenth Dean. From 1998 to 2001, he served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, and previously had served on the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Public International Law. Before joining Yale, he practiced law at Covington and Burling from 1982-83 and at the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice from 1983-85.
Dean Koh is a leading expert on public and private international law, national security law, and human rights. He has argued before the United States Supreme Court and he has testified before the U.S. Congress more than twenty times. He has been awarded eleven honorary doctorates and three law school medals and has received more than thirty awards for his human rights work. He is recipient of the 2005 Louis B. Sohn Award from the American Bar Association International Law Section and the 2003 Wolfgang Friedmann Award from Columbia Law School for his lifetime achievements in International Law. He is author or co-author of eight books, including Transnational Litigation in United States Courts, Foundations of International Law and Politics (with O. Hathaway); Transnational Legal Problems (with H. Steiner and D. Vagts), Transnational Business Problems (with D. Vagts and W. Dodge), and The National Security Constitution, which won the American Political Science Association's award in 1991 as the best book on the American Presidency. He was also the editor of The Justice Harry A. Blackmun Oral History Project (1994-95). He has published more than 150 articles on international human rights, international business transactions, national security and foreign affairs law, international trade, international organizations, international law and political science, and procedure.


He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, a former Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, and a member of the Council of the American Law Institute. He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Century Foundation. He has sat on the Board of Overseers of Harvard University and sits on the Boards of Directors of the Brookings Institution, Human Rights First, the American Arbitration Association, and the National Democratic Institute. He has been named one of America's “45 Leading Public Sector Lawyers Under The Age of 45” by American Lawyer magazine and one of the “100 Most Influential Asian-Americans of the 1990s” by A magazine.

A Korean-American native of Boston, he holds a B.A. degree from Harvard College and B.A. and M.A. degrees from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar. He earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was Developments Editor of the Harvard Law Review, and served as a law clerk for Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court and Judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.


Education
M.A., Oxford, 1996
J.D., Harvard, 1980
B.A., Oxford, 1977 (Marshall Scholar)
A.B., Harvard, 1975

Courses Taught
Balancing Civil Liberties & National Security after September 11
International Human Rights: Law and Policy
Introduction to Transnational Law
Procedure

[tiki]

Anyone have these articles? He has written these and they sound like we should have a look. Any of you lawyers out there have these things laying around the office?

"The Constitution and the Bill of Rights," 85 American Society of International Law Proc. 199 (1991)


Found this one...

A World Drowning in Guns, 71 Fordham L. Rev. (2003) (http://law.fordham.edu/publications/articles/500flspub11111.pdf)

[1BigPea]

Crazy stuff, just crazy. Actually it's sickening to me. :puke:

This guy is nuts...just goes to show how crazy NoBama's ideaologies are.

I heard him on the radio today too, sounded terrible...

[SeanCasey]

God help America...

To think in 1776 my direct ancestors joined the fight to create this country and this is what has become of the shared dream and spirit of the revolution?

[natedogg1777]

God help America...

To think in 1776 my direct ancestors joined the fight to create this country and this is what has become of the shared dream and spirit of the revolution?

It is sad indeed. I think a new revolution is brewing, albeit a peaceful one. Anyone else planning on going to your local Tea Party on Tax Day?

[M. Sage]

Hooray! I can feel the HopeChange already! Thanks, guys who voted for Obama; it totally wasn't a mistake and I should have joined you!

[/sarcasm]

[remington]

You know, no other forum gets me more disturbed than Calguns. Stuff like just makes me feel horrible about things I like to do that harm no one, and in fact contribute hundreds of millions into the ecomony and Dept of Interior. I joke with my son that everytime i get new gun, its really his when I pass on. The reality is, by the time that happens, they will have to be hiden away in a basement. Never to be shot, or admired in public. He will have to admire them by himself, never tell anyone about what he has. Even if it is single shot .410. My son will be a felon. But, I guess that is okay because think of how much safer America will be after guns are banned. Whatever.

We are not Somolia or any other of these 3rd world **** holes. Its not about guns, its about people. We have 200 million guns and and you dont see us doing the things that are happening over there. Its about respect for life and others. Thats why the 2nd Amendment works in this nation.

[nick]

Why is it that the most absurd animations turn out to be the prothetic ones? Remember Simpsons the movie and their crazy chief of EPA? Well, check out the moonbat appointed as the Chief of EPA now. Now this... Remember that South Park episode about the "new Canadian Prime Minister's" laws?

[M. Sage]

We have 200 million guns...

According to the article this guy wrote that's linked above, there are 639 million documented firearms in the world.

US citizens hold 1/3 of the guns in the world!?

Rock on!!!

[nick]

According to the article this guy wrote that's linked above, there are 639 million documented firearms in the world.

US citizens hold 1/3 of the guns in the world!?

Rock on!!!

Well, why not? We're one of the few countries where it's still legal (hence the 'documented' part).

[chris]

once again the gun owners who voted for BHO failed to see the real prize of the election which is SCOTUS. but i guess change was more important than our rights. that once taken away will not be restored.

[Aldemar]

Koh's ideas are have some VERY deep roots: I don't recall why I remembered this from High School History (I graduated in 1969).

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/05/dialectic.htm

He is truly a very dangerous person.

[Bad Voodoo]

Obama is going to have to be impeached before he does serious damage to our Constitution and national security. I can't believe there isn't a giant groundswell of anger at the actions he's already taken. Now there's a chance a real enemy to the Constitution would be nominated to the USSC?

[nicki]

Well,

Someone may get nominated, but the senate still has to approve the nomination and I if the American people don't care to hold their senators accountable to nominating judges who would destroy the US Constitution, well, what else can I say.

Nicki

[paul0660]

once again the gun owners who voted for BHO failed to see the real prize of the election which is SCOTUS

As well as the doofusses who voted for Ron Paul.

[rabagley]

This guy would be bad news. He is Obama's nominee for State Dept. legal adviser. In other words, the guy giving Hillary Clinton legal advice. Based on his high regard for using international (and even Shariah) law as legal precedent, I would say he would be REAL bad for the 2nd Amendment.

Please read:

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=323391460856338

:TFH::TFH::TFH:

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade of Obama bashing, but Koh never said anything of the sort. He acknowledges the existence of laws outside the US (including Sharia law), but he has never stated that these extra-national laws should supercede US laws.

There are plenty of things about Obama's plans to get in a twist over. Koh is not one of them.

[M. Sage]

As well as the doofusses who voted for Ron Paul.

Ah, yes. Because we should vote for the lesser of two evils instead of voting for the good. Gotcha. Thanks for the lecture and insult.

Paul "stole" many votes from the other side, too. And the margin wasn't even near close enough for Ron Paul to have helped McCain out.

I have no idea who stood McCain up there. The guy is so far left he should have run on a Dem ticket. If the Republican leadership had had any brains, they'd have run Palin. But they've been a bit too busy pretending to be Democrats for the past few years...

[paul0660]

And the margin wasn't even near close enough for Ron Paul to have helped McCain out.

That argument, which I have heard many times before, only makes sense if one knew the outcome when they voted (if they did). And, I did not even start to lecture, and that insult has to be assumed. See you in 4 years or so.

[rabagley]

Koh's ideas are have some VERY deep roots: I don't recall why I remembered this from High School History (I graduated in 1969).

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/05/dialectic.htm

He is truly a very dangerous person.

That page is a stupendously dumb analysis of Hegel's philosphy and argument. Just because a person uses big words does not mean they're making a reasonable argument. A principle that should be applied when reading the above link.

The fact that Marx used a simplistic single-axis economic dialectic as part of his rhetoric (much the same way that Republicans and Democrats divide up US politics on a simplistic left-right axis) does not mean that that's what Hegel had in mind.

Hegel was proposing that in almost all cases, neither extreme of a proposed dilemma is likely to be useful in resolving real-world problems. I.e. things are very rarely black and white, most of the time there are nuances and complexities which mean that the most useful choice is somewhere in the grey.

Hegel himself went on to state that situations and decisions that can actually be resolved by two-point dialectics are few and far between. Most situations do not involve choices along some linear axis between two extreme cases. There is a cloud of possible choices and balancing all of the concerns to try to resolve an ideal choice is a problem fraught with complication.

As for Marx, his argument was that he saw it as a natural progression that capitalist systems turn into oligarchical kleptocracies, which is exactly what all of us are complaining about happening to the US as we speak. Marx's analysis of the problem was absolutely on the money. Downright prophetic.

Where Marx fell down was with his proposed solution. Trying to take an age-old economic system that works for families and small community groups (communal sharing) and force it on huge groups of people (communism) is a guaranteed disaster. Communal resources doesn't work unless everyone is accountable to everyone else, which only happens when the group size is under 150 or so.

Back to the topic at hand: if Koh references Hegelian philosophy in his writings, and actually understand what he's writing about (which seems to be the case based on what I've read), we could do a lot worse.

Just my opinion, of course.

[paul0660]

Rabagley, that post should put THIS thread to bed!:tt1: Anyway, Koh's bent for domestic law being influenced by international tribunals seems to be my main problem with him. If Hegel said that the most extreme opinions have to be treated as valid and averaged into the mix, he was wrong. And, if you think Marx was prescient, you must be in awe of those busted clocks that get it right twice a day......................cheers.

[rabagley]

And, if you think Marx was prescient, you must be in awe of those busted clocks that get it right twice a day......................cheers.

Separate for a moment two parts of what Marx had to say. Marx identified a problem (capitalism always becomes oligarchy). Marx proposed a solution (communism). One of these was very smart, one of these was disastrously stupid.

Just because I think Marx said at least one correct thing does not make me a Marxist. I consider myself a "l"ibertarian. Even if I agree with his description of the problem, I don't agree with Marx's proposed solution.

And this is way off topic, so I'll leave that tangent right there.

[mblat]

That argument, which I have heard many times before, only makes sense if one knew the outcome when they voted (if they did). And, I did not even start to lecture, and that insult has to be assumed. See you in 4 years or so.

With all due respect anybody with half brain knew outcome of this election WAY before the election date.....

[G17GUY]

http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/2008/09/22/bill-would-ban-sharia-law-and-advocates-from-us.htm

[mblat]

http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/2008/09/22/bill-would-ban-sharia-law-and-advocates-from-us.htm

I think Gene has a sig
Left hates guns and right hates rights.

Let me see
"Advocating the installation of a Sharia law system in the United States shall constitute a ground for revocation of a person's naturalization under this subsection."

Somewhere I've read something about freedom of speech...... don't quite remember where was it..... :eek:

[tankerman]

Right buddy...........:thumbsup:
There are plenty of things about Obama's plans to get in a twist over. Koh is not one of them.Obviously you don't know much about Koh (or are intentionaly trying to divert attention). Trying reading his manifesto, the entire thing.

A World Drowning in Guns, 71 Fordham L. Rev. (2003) (http://law.fordham.edu/publications/articles/500flspub11111.pdf)

[lioneaglegriffin]

Ah, yes. Because we should vote for the lesser of two evils instead of voting for the good. Gotcha. Thanks for the lecture and insult.

Paul "stole" many votes from the other side, too. And the margin wasn't even near close enough for Ron Paul to have helped McCain out.

I have no idea who stood McCain up there. The guy is so far left he should have run on a Dem ticket. If the Republican leadership had had any brains, they'd have run Palin. But they've been a bit too busy pretending to be Democrats for the past few years...

Palin didn't run in the Primaries. The crop was piss poor to begin with and Republicans somehow ended up with Mccain.

[rabagley]

Right buddy...........:thumbsup:Obviously you don't know much about Koh (or are intentionaly trying to divert attention). Trying reading his manifesto, the entire thing.

Interesting read. A few points stand out:


He's basically saying that military arms manufacturers (including the US) are partly responsible for the various ethnic conflicts that use those weapons so destructively.
His focus in that paper is the very real problems in the world resulting from the proliferation of assault rifles (real assault rifles, not made-up assault weapons).
The US has sold guns and ammunition into at least five locations in 1998 (and presumably other years as well) where those arms were later used against US soldiers. I know that this is true in Afghanistan.
If his suggestions were implemented (tracing of military small arms sales), Mexico's gun problems would be easier to solve.
He simultaneously points out that small arms are durable, lasting for 20-50 years or more, yet spends most of the paper discussing proliferation control (when the horses are way, way out of the barn).
Despite the opportunity to rhetorically compare the gun violence of the inner city to third world disaster zones (an opportunity that Feinslime would jump on), legally owned guns in the US aren't a part of the problem.
He believes that the 2nd Amendment is a collective right.
He seems very willing to work within an interpretation of the 2nd as an individual right, and even predicted several components of Heller.
Does not believe "more guns, less crime" is at all valid.


I think "more guns, less crime" is locally valid. Where there is rule of law (i.e. not in Compton) more guns does equal less crime. Where there is no rule of law, gangs, warlords, "might makes right" rules appear. In those situations, more guns could very well mean more violence, more death.

Alternatively stated: while a well-armed US West may have been a polite society and not at all the "wild west" of thrilling serials, the well-armed cities of Somalia are not polite societies, but are the deadliest and most violent societies on the planet. The differences that make for more guns in one situation to be a help instead of a disaster is probably worth a book and a lot more research, not just a late-night posting by an armchair researcher like myself.

Back to Koh, he's very well informed and well-read. I also suspect that he will work within Heller, even if he would like to see the return to a collective interpretation of the 2nd (which isn't going to happen any time soon). Even with that paper, he's not some sharia-promoting devil here to subvert the Constitutional United States.

And if he is selected to replace Ginsberg or Stevens on the SCOTUS, based on what I'm seeing, he's pretty much an even swap or even slightly to the center. Ginsberg and Stevens are differently liberal, but in the end, Koh isn't some raging left-wing libtard. He won't change the makeup of the court at all IMHO.

[tiki]

Right buddy...........:thumbsup:Obviously you don't know much about Koh (or are intentionaly trying to divert attention). Trying reading his manifesto, the entire thing.

No, I don't know a lot about Koh, and no, I am not trying to divert attention.
I found a link to one of his articles and posted it. Settle down.

[Number 6]

Anyone have these articles? He has written these and they sound like we should have a look. Any of you lawyers out there have these things laying around the office?

"The Constitution and the Bill of Rights," 85 American Society of International Law Proc. 199 (1991)


I have a copy of this one and will take a look at it later on today when I get a chance.