Like the idea of sharia and 'international law' taking precedence over our Constitution? Than you'll love President Obama's pick to be the State Department's legal adviser, representing the US in the UN and elsewhere to negotiate international agreements on things like legal issues, arms control and trade.
Harold Koh is the ex-dean of Yale Law School ( a scary thought in itself )and as Meghan Clyne reveals in this New York Post piece, these are the views of the jurist Obama has tapped for this sensitive post:
He's a fan of "transnational legal process," arguing that the distinctions between US and international law should vanish.
What would this look like in a practical sense? Well, California voters have overruled their courts, which had imposed same-sex marriage on the state. Koh would like to see such matters go up the chain through federal courts -- which, in turn, should look to the rest of the world. If Canada, the European Human Rights Commission and the United Nations all say gay marriage should be legal -- well, then, it should be legal in California too, regardless of what the state's voters and elected representatives might say.
He even believes judges should use this "logic" to strike down the death penalty, which is clearly permitted in the US Constitution.
The primacy of international legal "norms" applies even to treaties we reject. For example, Koh believes that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child -- a problematic document that we haven't ratified -- should dictate the age at which individual US states can execute criminals. Got that? On issues ranging from affirmative action to the interrogation of terrorists, what the rest of the world says, goes.
Including, apparently, the world of radical imams. A New York lawyer, Steven Stein, says that, in addressing the Yale Club of Greenwich in 2007, Koh claimed that "in an appropriate case, he didn't see any reason why sharia law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States." {...}
Koh has called America's focus on the War on Terror "obsessive." In 2004, he listed countries that flagrantly disregard international law -- "most prominently, North Korea, Iraq, and our own country, the United States of America," which he branded "the axis of disobedience."
He has also accused President George Bush of abusing international law to justify the invasion of Iraq, comparing his "advocacy of unfettered presidential power" to President Richard Nixon's. And that was the first Bush -- Koh was attacking the 1991 operation to liberate Kuwait, four days after fighting began in Operation Desert Storm.
Koh has also praised the Nicaraguan Sandinistas' use in the 1980s of the International Court of Justice to get Congress to stop funding the Contras. Imagine such international lawyering by rogue nations like Iran, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela today, and you can see the danger in Koh's theories.
Koh, a self-described "activist," would plainly promote his views aggressively once at State. He's not likely to feel limited by the letter of the law -- in 1994, he told The New Republic: "I'd rather have [former Supreme Court Justice Harry] Blackmun, who uses the wrong reasoning in Roe [v. Wade] to get the right results, and let other people figure out the right reasoning."
The Left has defended Koh, particularly in his denial that he advocates Sharia. Unfortunately, as Daniel Pipes reveals, he's simply lying.
Koh has already gotten through the Senate judiciary committeee by a 12-5 vote. he now faces a vote in the full Senate.
If Koh can get through the Senate Confirmation process, he's been touted as a probable Supreme Court nominee.
One more time - this is why elections matter.
Nominating someone with Koh's views gives us a clear picture of President Barack Obama's views, and I hope the people who claimed that he would somehow 'govern from the center' are taking careful notes.
(hat tip and a commendation to Joshua's Army member Louie Louie for sending this in)
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