Steven Arrigg Koh is Professor of Law and the R. Gordon Butler Scholar in International Law at Boston University School of Law. He teaches and writes in the areas of criminal law, foreign relations law, international law, constitutional law, and legal theory. Previously, he served as the Marianne D. Short and Ray Skowyra Sesquicentennial Assistant Professor of Law at Boston College Law School and as a fellow at Columbia Law School. Professor Koh is a fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University.

Professor Koh’s scholarship is informed by experience at both U.S. federal and international criminal legal institutions. As a Trial Attorney in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in Washington, D.C., he advised U.S. federal and state prosecutors on international, criminal, and constitutional legal issues arising in criminal cases with transnational dimensions. At DOJ, he also served as Counsel to the Deputy Assistant Attorney General and Counselor for International Affairs. During this time, Koh also taught International and Transnational Criminal Law as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center.

Professor Koh’s international legal experience spans multiple continents, including positions at two prominent international criminal courts in The Hague, Netherlands. He served as a Visiting Professional in the Presidency of the International Criminal Court and as an Associate Legal Officer at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where he worked on the trial of former President Radovan Karadžić. Additional international experience includes a term as Visiting Scholar at Seoul National University Law School under the mentorship of Professor Inseop Chung. He has also been a law clerk for the Honorable Carolyn Dineen King of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Professor Koh is a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) and holds an M.Phil. in Sociology from Yale University. He holds an A.B. cum laude from Harvard College, an M.Phil. in Social and Developmental Psychology from the University of Cambridge, England, and a J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he served as Senior Article Editor of the Cornell Law Review. In 2019, Cornell awarded him the Law School Alumni Exemplary Public Service Award for “commitment to the highest standards of public service.” He has also completed coursework in songwriting at Berklee College of Music. He speaks conversational Spanish; has studied Korean, Arabic, and French; and is a member of the bar in New York, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C.