For reasons best known to themselves, Sarah Cleveland and Michael Posner, have posted Open Letter In Support of Harold Hongju Koh.
In the briefest of terms, Prof. Koh added to his resume a stint as Legal Adviser to the U.S. Department of State in the Obama Administration and is now seeking to teach international human rights law at NYU. His invitation to that position is being opposed.
The letter of support is deeply misguided.
For example, Cleveland and Posner claim:
Professor Koh has been a leading scholar of, and advocate for, human rights for decades. While some may disagree with him on particular issues of law or policy, he is widely known for his unquestionable personal commitment to human rights and his eminent professional qualifications to teach and write on the subject. Any number of reports confirm that Professor Koh was a leading advocate for preservation of the rule of law, human rights and transparency within the Obama Administration, including on the drones issue.
We will only ever have unsubstantiated rumors for Koh’s positions within the Obama Administration since Presidential advice is by its very nature, secret.
Moreover, even assuming that Koh did oppose the excesses of the Obama Administration, his very presence gave legitimacy to their illegal activities. He participated in given a “color of law” protection to those excesses. Excesses, that unlike the general public, he knew or should have know were ongoing.
Cleveland and Posner conclude:
The world needs more human rights professionals who are willing to commit themselves to government service on behalf of their nation.
Really? The world needs more human rights professionals who pad their resumes with government service, at the expense of innocent lives, and then escape moral accountability by claiming they argued against criminal activity?
That’s a very strange moral calculus.
It isn’t the moral calculus that was followed by special prosecutor Archibald Cox, Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus.
Moral people make moral decisions with real world consequences, for themselves. They don’t go along to get along to further their careers.