On Opinio Juris, international law professor Julian Ku, noting my series of posts on Harold Koh and the responses they’ve received from Koh’s defenders, says that it’s not “fair for Koh defenders to dismiss criticism of Koh’s substantive legal views” and poses ten excellent questions he’d like to see Koh answer. Also on Opinio Juris, international law professor Kevin Jon Heller observes that I have “offered well-reasoned criticisms of Koh that deserve proper rebuttal.” Might Koh’s defenders begin engaging my arguments?
Heller’s comment, I’ll highlight, comes as a postscript to his post faulting me, with good cause, for harsh rhetoric that I used against Koh’s defenders. As I note in a comment on his blog, I agree with him that I resorted to intemperate rhetoric in a recent post, and I had already modified that post to moderate its tone. I do think that the record will show that I was responding to baseless insults from Koh’s defenders—“absurd,” “pretty shameful attacks,” “nativist rants,” “full crazy,” “nativist paranoia,” “wild conspiracy theories,” “nonsensical,” and so on—unsupported, as Heller’s postscript would seem to acknowledge, by meaningful argument. By contrast, the excessive rhetoric that I flung back was accompanied by explanations. But while these facts may be mitigating, they don’t justify my rhetorical excesses, and I will strive to accord to Koh’s defenders a greater charity of spirit, whether or not they accord that to me.