Thomas H. Lee

Research and Teaching Interests

International Law; Laws of War; U.S. Foreign Relations Law; Federal Courts; Legal History; Cyberlaw; National Security Law; International Commercial and Investor-State Arbitration; Civil Procedure; Constitutional Law; Law and Political Theory

Bio

Thomas Lee is the Leitner Family Professor of International Law; he was also Director of Graduate and International Studies from 2006 to 2019. He has written many articles about international law, U.S. foreign relations law, constitutional law, federal courts, and legal history. His forthcoming book, Justifying War (Oxford University Press), examines the history of legal grounds for war and their connection to moral justifications, global politics, and policy decision-making. He has also been a visiting law professor at Columbia, Harvard, and the University of Virginia; U.S. law adviser to the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Korea; and Special Counsel at the U.S. Department of Defense, for which he received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service. Before his academic career, Lee clerked for Judge Michael Boudin of the First Circuit and Justice David Souter of the Supreme Court and served as a U.S. naval cryptology officer, mostly aboard submarines but also ashore in Korea, Japan, and with the National Security Agency. Professor Lee is Of Counsel at Hughes, Hubbard & Reed, adjunct professor at NYU School of Law, and a member of the ICSID Panel of Conciliators and of the American Law Institute. He is also active in pro bono trial and appellate litigation in state and federal courts involving constitutional rights, data privacy, federal jurisdiction, U.S. foreign relations, national security, and landlord-tenant relations. He holds A.B. (summa cum laude), A.M. (Regional Studies—East Asia), and J.D. degrees from Harvard, where he was Articles Chair of the Harvard Law Review and a Ph.D. candidate (ABD) in Government.

Selected Publications

Article IX, Article III, and the First Congress: The Original Constitutional Plan for the Federal Courts, 1787-1792, 89 Fordham L. Rev. 1895 (2021)
International Law and U.S. Judicial Power in Paul Stephan and Sarah Cleveland, eds., The Fourth Restatement and Beyond (2020).
The United States and Individual and Collective Self-Defense in Northeast Asia in Masahiro Kurosaki and Matthew Waxman, eds., Strengthening the U.S.-Japan Alliance (2021)
In Defense of International Comity, 93 So. Cal. L. Rev. 169 (2020) (with Samuel Estreicher)
Toward an Interest-Group Theory of Foreign Anti-Corruption Laws, 2019 U. Ill. L Rev. 1227 (with Sean J. Griffith)
The Law of Nations and the Judicial Branch, 106 Geo L. J. 1707 (2018)
Natural Born Citizen, 67 Am. U. L. Rev. 327 (2017)
Double Remedies in Double Courts, 26 Eur. J. Int’l L. 519 (2015) (with Sungjoon Cho)
The Law of War and the Responsibility to Protect Civilians: A Reinterpretation, 55 Harvard Int'l L. J. 251 (2014)
The Three Lives of the Alien Tort Statute: The Evolving Role of the Judiciary in U.S. Foreign Relations, 89 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1645 (2014)
The Civil War in U.S. Foreign Relations Law: A Dress Rehearsal for Modern Transformations, 53 St. Louis L. J. 53 (2008)
The Safe-Conduct Theory of the Alien Tort Statute, 106 Colum. L. Rev. 830 (2006)
University Dons and Warrior Chieftains: Two Concepts of Diversity, 72 Fordham L. Rev. 2301 (2004)
International Law, International Relations Theory, and Preemptive War: The Vitality of Sovereign Equality Today, 67 Law & Contemp. Probs. 147 (Autumn 2004)
The Supreme Court of the United States as Quasi-International Tribunal, 104 Colum. L. Rev. 1765 (2004)
Making Sense of the Eleventh Amendment: International Law and State Sovereignty, 96 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1027 (2002)