President Obama will soon announce his pick to replace outgoing U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. KoreAm makes its case for State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh.
1. Longevity:A younger justice can stay on the court for 20 to 30 years. Koh is 55.
2. Empathy: Obama has expressed he wants someone who will protect the vulnerable and marginalized. Koh, a former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, told KoreAm earlier this year: “I spent time as a child in a wheelchair [due to polio], so when I see someone who’s disabled,
I tend to empathize with their point of view.”
3. Interpersonal Skills: An important requirement is the ability to work with, and even persuade, justices who hold different opinions. Koh has served in the Reagan, Clinton and Obama adminstrations. Despite his progressive views, conservatives respect him: Former Solicitor General Theodore Olsen, the top GOP attorney in the Bush administration, wrote that Koh was a “man of great integrity.”
4. Diversity: The process of selecting a Supreme Court nominee always includes a discussion about diversity, namely race, gender, religious beliefs and life experiences. It would be difficult to deny the historic and sellable narrative of the first Asian American Supreme Court justice, especially during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month!
5. Intellectual Firepower: The replacement for Justice Stevens will be expected, fairly or not, to be a liberal lion who can battle wits with the likes of Justices Antonin Scalia and John Roberts. The former dean of Yale Law School fits the bill.
6. Forward-thinking: Although conservatives may bristle at the notion of transnational jurisprudence, Koh’s presence on the nation’s highest court will strengthen the recognition that the U.S. is a part of, and not above, the system of international law.
7. He’s not John Yoo.
Photo via Yale Daily News
