Zachary D. Kaufman, J.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Law and Political Science & Co-Director of the Criminal Justice Institute
Zachary D. Kaufman, J.D., Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Houston Law Center, where he is Co-Director of the Criminal Justice Institute. He also holds appointments at the University’s Department of Political Science, Hobby School of Public Affairs, and Elizabeth D. Rockwell Center on Ethics and Leadership. During the Spring 2023 semester, Professor Kaufman will be the William & Patricia Kleh Visiting Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law. He previously taught at Stanford Law School, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, Yale University Department of Political Science, and George Washington University 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 (forthcoming with Cambridge University Press). His award-winning scholarship is also published or forthcoming in the Boston College Law Review, Southern California Law Review, George Washington Law Review, Harvard Journal on Legislation, Harvard International Law Journal, 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’s full biography is available here .
Education
- J.D., Yale Law School
- D.Phil. (Ph.D.) and M.Phil. (both in International Relations), Oxford University (Marshall Scholar)
- B.A. (Political Science), Yale University
Courses
- Criminal Law
- International Law
- National Security Law
- International Justice and Atrocities
Areas of Expertise
- Criminal Law
- International Law (including International Criminal Law, International Humanitarian Law, and International Human Rights Law)
- National Security Law
- International and Transitional Justice
- International Courts and Tribunals (including the International Criminal Court)
- Human Rights
- Race, Ethnicity, and Conflict
- Atrocity Crimes (including Genocide, War Crimes, and Crimes Against Humanity)
- Atrocity Prevention and Response
- Legislation (including Bad Samaritan Laws)
- Bystanders and Upstanders
- U.S. Foreign Policy
- U.S. National Security
- United Nations (including the UN Security Council)
- Social Entrepreneurship
- Africa (particularly Rwanda)
Publications
VIEW ALLBooks
- The Law and Politics of Bystanders and Upstanders (Cambridge University Press) (forthcoming)
- United States Law and Policy on Transitional Justice: Principles, Politics, and Pragmatics (Oxford University Press, hardback 2016, paperback with new afterword 2017)
- Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities: Changing Our World (Edward Elgar Publishing, hardback and paperback 2012) (editor)
- After Genocide: Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, and Reconciliation in Rwanda and Beyond (Oxford University Press, hardback and paperback 2009) (co-editor with Phil Clark)
Law Review Articles and Essays
- Police Policing Police, 91 George Washington Law Review ____ (forthcoming)
- Digital Age Samaritans, 62 Boston College Law Review 1117 (2021)
- Legislating Atrocity Prevention, 57 Harvard Journal on Legislation 163 (2020)
- Protectors of Predators or Prey: Bystanders and Upstanders amid Sexual Crimes, 92 Southern California Law Review 1317 (2019)
- Lessons from Rwanda: Post-Genocide Law and Policy, 31 Stanford Law & Policy Review Online 1 (2019)
- The Prospects, Problems, and Proliferation of Recent UN Investigations of International Law Violations, 16 Journal of International Criminal Justice 93 (2018)
- From the Aztecs to the Kalahari Bushmen – Conservative Justices’ Citation of Foreign Sources: Consistency, Inconsistency, or Evolution?, 41 Yale Journal of International Law Online 1 (2015)
- Transitional Justice for Tōjō’s Japan: The United States Role in the Establishment of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and other Transitional Justice Mechanisms for Japan after World War II, 27 Emory International Law Review 755 (2013) (invited contribution to symposium issue on “The Future of the International Criminal Court in Light of Recent Developments”)
- The United States, Syria, and the International Criminal Court: Implications of the Rome Statute’s Aggression Amendment, 55 Harvard International Law Journal Online 35 (2013)
- Comment (“Managing the Rule of Law in the Americas"), 42 University of Miami Inter-American Law Review 253 (2011) (invited contribution to symposium issue on “The Impact of Regional Trade Agreements on Human Rights and the Rule of Law”)
- The Nuremberg Tribunal v. The Tokyo Tribunal: Designs, Staffs, and Operations, 43 John Marshall Law Review 753 (2010) (invited contribution to symposium issue on “International Law in the 21st Century: The Law and Politics of the International Criminal Court”)
- Transitional Justice Delayed Is Not Transitional Justice Denied: Contemporary Confrontation of Japanese Human Experimentation During World War II Through a People’s Tribunal, 26 Yale Law & Policy Review 645 (2008)
- No Right to Fight: The Modern Implications of Japan’s Pacifist Postwar Constitution, 33 Yale Journal of International Law 266 (2008)
- Justice in Jeopardy: Accountability for the Darfur Atrocities, 16 Criminal Law Forum 343 (2006)
Book Chapters and Other Book Sections
- The United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, in The Encyclopedia of Transitional Justice (Nadya Nedelsky & Lavinia Stan eds., 2d ed. forthcoming)
- Transitional Justice Delayed Is Not Transitional Justice Denied: Contemporary Confrontation of Japanese Human Experimentation During World War II Through a People's Tribunal, in People's Tribunals, Human Rights, and the Law 163 (Regina Paulose ed., 2020)
- Rwanda: Recent History, in Africa South of the Sahara 2016, 969 (Iain Frame ed., 2015) (with Phil Clark)
- Transitional Justice as Genocide Prevention: From a Culture of Impunity to a Culture of Accountability, in Confronting Genocide in Rwanda: Dehumanization, Denial, and Strategies for Prevention 363 (Jean-Damascene Gasanabo, David J. Simon & Margee M. Ensign eds., 2014)
- Rwanda: Recent History, in Africa South of the Sahara 2015, 971 (Iain Frame ed., 2014) (with Phil Clark)
- Rwanda: Recent History, in Africa South of the Sahara 2014, 980 (Iain Frame ed., 2013) (with Phil Clark)
- International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, in The Encyclopedia of Transitional Justice 233 (Nadya Nedelsky & Lavinia Stan eds., 2012)
- Rwanda: Recent History, in Africa South of the Sahara 2013, 984 (Iain Frame ed., 2012) (with Phil Clark)
- Chapters in Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities: Changing Our World (Zachary D. Kaufman ed., 2012):
- Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities: Introduction
- Social Entrepreneurship in a Post-Genocide Society: Building Rwanda's First Public Library, the Kigali Public Library
- Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities: Lessons Learned and Conclusion
- Rwanda: Recent History, in Africa South of the Sahara 2012, 993 (Iain Frame ed., 2011) (with Phil Clark)
- Rwanda: Recent History, in Africa South of the Sahara 2011, 977 (Iain Frame ed., 2010) (with Phil Clark)
- Chapters in After Genocide: Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, and Reconciliation in Rwanda and Beyond (Phil Clark & Zachary D. Kaufman eds., 2009):
- After Genocide (with Phil Clark)
- The United States Role in the Establishment of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
- Tensions in Transitional Justice (with Phil Clark & Kalypso Nicolaidis)
- Rwanda: Recent History, in Africa South of the Sahara 2010, 968 (Iain Frame ed., 2009) (with Phil Clark)
- Rwanda: Recent History, in Africa South of the Sahara 2009, 924 (Iain Frame ed., 2008) (with Phil Clark)
- Rwanda: Recent History, in Africa South of the Sahara 2008, 927 (Iain Frame ed., 2007) (with Phil Clark)
- Sudan, the United States, and the International Criminal Court: A Tense Triumvirate in Transitional Justice for Darfur, in The Criminal Law of Genocide: International, Comparative and Contextual Aspects 49 (Ralph Henham & Paul Behrens eds., 2007)
- Rwanda: Recent History, in Africa South of the Sahara 2007, 935 (Iain Frame ed., 2006) (with Phil Clark)
- The Rwandan Experience, in Rwanda and South Africa in Dialogue: Addressing the Legacies of Genocide and a Crime Against Humanity 41 (Charles Villa-Vicencio & Tyrone Savage eds., 2001) (with Pierre-Richard St. Hilaire)
Book Reviews
- The Pinochet Effect, 32 Yale Journal of International Law 297 (2007) (reviewing Naomi Roht-Arriaza, The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights (2005))
- Designing Criminal Tribunals, 10 Yale Human Rights & Development Law Journal 209 (2007) (reviewing Lilian A Barria & Steven D. Roper, Designing Criminal Tribunals: Sovereignty and International Concerns in the Protection of Human Rights (2006))
Selected Commentary
- Officers Should Intervene as Matter of Law, Not Just Policy, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (June 8, 2022).
- Prosecutors Can Abuse Discretion to Seek Charges. We Propose Some Fixes., Chicago Tribune (Apr. 6, 2022) (with Ken M. Levy).
- Black Lives Matter and International Human Rights Law: The Challenge of Systemic Racism, American Society of International Law Proceedings 277-88 (2022).
- Laws Needed to Encourage Assisting Those in Peril, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Nov. 1, 2021).
- Addressing the Islamic State's Genocide Against the Yezidis at the Belgian Parliament, Opinio Juris (June 21, 2021).
- Prod Bystanders to be "Upstanders" like Darnella Frazier, Houston Chronicle (May 6, 2021).
- What Makes People Save Lives? Learning from Upstanders and Bystanders, New York Daily News (Oct. 27, 2020).
- No Cover for Abusers; California Must Close Gap in its Duty-to-Report Law, San Francisco Chronicle, June 23, 2019, at A15.
- When Speaking Up is a Civic Duty, Boston Globe, Aug. 5, 2018, at K6.
- Jesner v. Arab Bank: U.S. Foreign Policy and National Security Interests, Just Security (Oct. 11, 2017).
- Give the Nobel Peace Prize Posthumously, Foreign Policy (Oct. 5, 2017).
- New UN Team Investigating ISIS Atrocities Raises Questions about Justice in Iraq and Beyond, Just Security (Sept. 28, 2017).
- Islam is (Also) a Religion of Peace, Foreign Policy (Aug. 4, 2016).
- Transitions in Transitional Justice, Oxford University Press Blog (July 17, 2016).
- Term Limits at Home and Abroad, Harvard University Kennedy School of Government Blog (June 30, 2016).
- It'll Take More Than Political Rhetoric to Stop Genocide, Forbes (May 10, 2016).
- Addressing Japanese Atrocities, Oxford University Press Blog (Apr. 11, 2016).
- Social Entrepreneurship, Council on Foreign Relations Blog (Nov. 30, 2012).
Professor Kaufman's other publications are available here.