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
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
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...
Jefferson and Executive Power, Boston University Law Review (2008)
This paper argues that Thomas Jefferson was not the opponent of presidential power commonly assumed...
The Conservative Case against the Federal Marriage Amendment (with Anntim Vulchev), Issues in Legal Scholarship (2008)
This Essay criticizes the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment as inconsistent with the principle of federalism....
Making War (with Robert Delahunty), Cornell Law Review (2007)
We respond here to Unleashing the Dogs of War by Sai Prakash, which represents the...
Wartime Process: A Dialogue on Congressional Power to Remove Issues from the Federal Courts (with Jesse Choper), California Law Review (2007)
Many have long debated whether Congress may strip the federal courts completely of jurisdiction over...
International Law
Peace Through Law? The Failure of a Nobel Experiment (with Robert Delahunty), Michigan Law Review (2008)
Collective-security ideas that emerged from the First World War nobly sought to end the carnage...
Counterintuitive: Intelligence Operations and International Law (with Glenn Sulmasy), Michigan Journal of International Law (2007)
This essay addresses proposals for international regulation of intelligence gathering activities. We show that international...
Executive Power v. International Law (with Robert J. Delahunty), Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (2007)
Critics of the Bush administration's conduct of the war on terrorism and the wars in...
Force Rules, Chicago Journal of International Law (2006)
This piece criticizes U.N. proposals to reform the international legal rules on the use of...
International Law and the Rise of China (with Eric Posner), Chicago Journal of International Law (2006)
The rise of China raises questions about the future of international law. The current system...
National Security
Peace Through Law? The Failure of a Nobel Experiment (with Robert Delahunty), Michigan Law Review (2008)
Collective-security ideas that emerged from the First World War nobly sought to end the carnage...
Making War (with Robert Delahunty), Cornell Law Review (2007)
We respond here to Unleashing the Dogs of War by Sai Prakash, which represents the...
Wartime Process: A Dialogue on Congressional Power to Remove Issues from the Federal Courts (with Jesse Choper), California Law Review (2007)
Many have long debated whether Congress may strip the federal courts completely of jurisdiction over...
Counterintuitive: Intelligence Operations and International Law (with Glenn Sulmasy), Michigan Journal of International Law (2007)
This essay addresses proposals for international regulation of intelligence gathering activities. We show that international...
Judicial Review and the War on Terror, Geo. Wash. L. Rev. (2007)
This article examines the role of the federal courts in the war on terrorism, and...
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...