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U.S. Department of State Office of the Spokesman Press Statement

Press Statement by James P. Rubin, Spokesman
November 16, 1998

On Friday, November 13, Harold Hongju Koh was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. As Assistant Secretary, Mr. Koh will advise Secretary Albright on U.S. policy on democracy, human rights, labor, theh rule of law, and religious freedom.

At the time of his swearing in, Mr. Koh said, "As Secretary Albright recently put it, "Freedom is America's purpose." I am honored to have the opportunity to work with the President and the Secretary to promote human rights, democracy, and labor as core goals of U.S. foreign policy."

Assistant Secretary Koh formerly served as the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law and Director of the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School. Before beginning his professorship at Yale in 1985, Mr. Koh clerked for both Judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court, and worked as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Assistant Secretary Koh has authored more than seventy articles on international law, human rights, constitutional law, and international business transactions and trade, and is author or editor of several books on international relations, law, and human rights. He has received numerous honors for his human rights work, including the Asian American Bar Association of New York's 1997 Outstanding Lawyer of the Year Award and recognition by American Lawyer magazine as one of the country's 45 leading public-sector lawyers under the age of 45.

Assistant Secretary Koh earned a B.A. from Harvard University in 1975, an Honours B.A. from Oxford University in 1977, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1980. He has been a Visiting Fellow and Lecturer at Oxford University, and has taught at the Hague Academy of International Law, the University of Toronto, and the George Washington University National Law Center.

Assistant Secretary Koh succeeds John Shattuck, who was sworn in last week to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic.

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