John Yoo received his B.A., summa cum laude, in American history from Harvard University. Between college and law school, he worked as a newspaper reporter in Washington, D.C. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Yale Law Journal. He then clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the D.C. Circuit. Professor Yoo joined the Boalt faculty in 1993, then clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. He served as general counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee from 1995-96. From 2001 to 2003, he served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on issues involving foreign affairs, national security and the separation of powers. Professor Yoo has been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and the Free University of Amsterdam, and he held the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Law at the University of Trento, Italy in 2006. He has received research fellowships from the University of California, Berkeley, the Olin Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, and is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Professor Yoo also has received the Paul M. Bator Award for excellence in legal scholarship and teaching from the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy. He has testified before the judiciary committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and has advised the State of California on constitutional issues.
Books
Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush (2010)
However bitter, complex, and urgent today's controversies over executive power may be, Yoo reminds us...
War By Other Means: An Insider's Account of the War on Terrorism (2006)
John Yoo, the key legal architect of the Bush administration’s response to 9/11, delivers a...
The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11 (2005)
Since the September 11 attacks on the United States, the Bush administration has come under...
Constitutional Law
Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush (2010)
However bitter, complex, and urgent today's controversies over executive power may be, Yoo reminds us...
Administration of War, Duke L J (2009)
This essay asks whether the Constitution’s implicit grant of the removal power to the President...
Lincoln and Habeas: Of Merryman, Milligan, and McCardle, Chapman L Rev (2009)
This essay examines the costs of judicial intervention in wartime policy through the lens of...
Unitary, Executive, or Both?, U Chicago L Rev (2009)
This essay argues that the “unitary executive” of the American Constitution includes both a procedural...
Andrew Jackson and Presidential Power, Charleston Law Review (2008)
This paper examines Andrew Jackson's role in establishing the foundations of the Presidency. He is...
International Law
Fixing Failed States, California L Rev (2011)
Failed states pose one of the deepest challenges to American national security and international peace...
Kant, Habermas and Democratic Peace (with Robert J. Delahunty), Chicago J Int'l L (2010)
Philosophers of great stature rarely write about international law or international relations. When they do,...
Great Power Security (with Robert J. Delahunty), Chicago J Int'l L (2009)
The change of administration in the US may have encouraged the belief that collective security...
The 'Bush Doctrine': Can Preventive War Be Justified? (with Robert J. Delahunty), Harvard J L & Pub Policy (2009)
We continue to live in a dangerous world. We are exposed to the risk that...
National Security
Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush (2010)
However bitter, complex, and urgent today's controversies over executive power may be, Yoo reminds us...
Administration of War, Duke L J (2009)
This essay asks whether the Constitution’s implicit grant of the removal power to the President...
Great Power Security (with Robert J. Delahunty), Chicago J Int'l L (2009)
The change of administration in the US may have encouraged the belief that collective security...
Lincoln and Habeas: Of Merryman, Milligan, and McCardle, Chapman L Rev (2009)
This essay examines the costs of judicial intervention in wartime policy through the lens of...
Popular Press
Supreme Court grabbed more power in recent term, Philadelphia Inquirer (2008)
The U.S. Supreme Court's 2007-08 term had something for everybody. Liberals came away with a...
The Supreme Court Goes to War, Wall Street Journal (2008)
Last week's Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush has been painted as a stinging...
The Democrats' Super Disaster, The Wall St. Journal (2008)
The Democratic Party's grant of primary voting rights to superdelegates, many of them members of...