Zachary Kaufman

Professor Zachary D. Kaufman is a Visiting Associate Professor while on leave from the University of Houston Law Center (UHLC), where he is Associate Professor of Law and Political Science and Co-Director of the Criminal Justice Institute. Immediately before joining UHLC, Professor Kaufman taught at Stanford Law School and was a Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Previously, Professor Kaufman held academic appointments at Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, Stanford University, and New York University and taught at Yale University’s Department of Political Science and George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

Professor Kaufman is currently working on his fourth book, this one on the law and politics of bystanders and upstanders (under contract with Cambridge University Press). His award-winning scholarship is also published by or forthcoming in the Boston College Law Review, Southern California Law Review, Harvard International Law Journal, Harvard Journal on Legislation, Yale Journal of International Law, Yale Law & Policy Review, Yale Human Rights & Development Law Journal, Stanford Law & Policy Review, Emory International Law Review, Journal of International Criminal Justice, and other journals.

Professor Kaufman has served in all three branches of the U.S. government. In the judicial branch, he was a U.S. Supreme Court Fellow and clerk to a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. In the legislative branch, he was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In the executive branch, he served at the U.S. Departments of Justice and State. He also has served at three international war crimes tribunals: the International Criminal Court (where he was the first American to serve) as well as the UN International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and for the Former Yugoslavia. In the private sector, Professor Kaufman has practiced law at O’Melveny & Myers LLP and worked at Google.

A Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Professor Kaufman is involved in various academic organizations and think tanks. He currently serves as a member of the Yale Law School Association Executive Committee (which provides advice to the Law School and its Dean), Co-Chair of the American Society of International Law’s Human Rights Interest Group, Chair-Elect of the Association of American Law Schools’ International Human Rights Section, member of the Association of American Law Schools’ National Security Law Section’s Executive Committee, Co-Organizer of the Law and Society Association’s Collaborative Research Network (CRN) on Transitional Justice, Fellow of the Truman National Security Project, member of Genocide Watch’s Board of Advisors, and member of the American Political Science Association, the International Studies Association, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the International Network of Genocide Scholars, and the American Branch of the International Law Association.

Professor Kaufman received his J.D. from Yale Law School (where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law & Policy Review, Managing Editor of the Yale Human Rights & Development Law Journal, and Articles Editor of the Yale Journal of International Law); his Ph.D. and M.Phil., both in International Relations, from Oxford University (where he was a Marshall Scholar); and his B.A. in Political Science from Yale University (where he was the student body president, co-captain of the wrestling team, and an All American and Runner-up National Champion in the National Collegiate Wrestling Association).

Education

• JD Yale Law School (2006 — 2009)
• PhD University of Oxford (2004 — 2012)
• MPhil University of Oxford (2002 — 2004)
• BA Yale University (1996 — 2000)

Companies

• Visiting Associate Professor of Law Washington University in St. Louis School of Law (2022)
• Life Member Council on Foreign Relations (2021)
• Co-Director, Criminal Justice Institute University of Houston Law Center (2021)
• Associate Professor of Law and Political Science University of Houston Law Center (2019)
• Board Member and Senior Fellow Humanity in Action (1999)
• Member, Board of Advisors Indego Africa (2011 — 2020)
• Lecturer in Law and Fellow Stanford Law School (2017 — 2019)
• Senior Fellow Harvard Kennedy School (2016 — 2019)
• Visiting Fellow, Genocide Studies Program Yale University (2013 — 2019)

Skills

• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Nonprofit Organizations
• Program Evaluation

Other

Qualitative Research, U.S. foreign policy, Economic Development, Capacity Building, Leadership, Grant Writing, International Relations Theory, Litigation, Civil Society, NGOs, Democracy, International Criminal Law, Transitional Justice, Diplomacy, Social Enterprise, Social Entrepreneurship, Teaching, Legal Writing, Nonprofits, International Development, Politics, Rule Of Law, Research, Legal Research, International Law, Foreign Policy, Political Science, Policy, Policy Analysis, Human Rights, Public Policy, International Relations