Name: John Choon Yoo
Born: 1967, in Seoul, South Korea
Profession: Attorney, law professor
GW Bush Administration Position:
-
Deputy assistant attorney general assigned to the powerful Office of Legal Counsel
War crime charge(s):
- Complicity in the commission of a war crime – torture, ill-treatment of detainees.
- Drafted legal memos saying President Bush could waive the Geneva Conventions regarding the invasion of Afghanistan by labeling it a failed state and that prisoners seized during that operation would not be covered by the Geneva Convention protections.
- Issued other legal memos arguing that the commander in chief was justified in ordering torture during wartime.
Primary Association:
- Professor of Law, University of California at Berkeley School of Law at Boalt Hall
- Visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution
Secondary Associations:
- Visiting scholar, American Enterprise Institute, 1150 Seventeenth St. NW, Washington, DC 20036
- Member, Federalist Society, 1015 Eighteenth St. NW, Suite 425, Washington, DC 20036
More Information:
- 12-8-08 Memorandum of Recommendation to Berkeley City Council re John Yoo and Torture
- John Yoo Returning to Berkeley
- Yoo in Heated Debate at Chapman
- Bush Attorneys Who Wrote Terror Memo Face Backlash
- Judge Allows Civil Lawsuit
- 7-01-09 10 Most Wanted War Criminals
- 7-10-09 Yoo Authorized Warrentless Wiretaps
- 7-14-09 Court Allows Padilla Suit Against Yoo to Proceed
- 8-10-09 The torture memos and Berkeley’s law-school schedule
- 8-24-09 Torture and Academic Freedom
- 9-09 John Yoo informational flier (PDF)
- 9-29-09 Profile: Jay S. Bybee
- 9-29-09 Berkeley agrees to UN rights treaties
- 10-30-09 Berkeley Law students petition for investigation of John Yoo
- 11-11-09 Bush torture ‘architect’ sits on court that will rule on another torture ‘architect’
- 12-09-09 Annotated Agression: Being Jay Bybee
- 12-29-09 Power of Attorney
- 1-29-10 Justice Dept. Clears Yoo, Bybee of Misconduct
- 3-1-10 Yoo Cartoon
- 3-4-10 BAAT Press Release: Berkeley Law Students and Bay Area Lawyers Demand Full-Scale Investigation of Professor Yoo
- 3-28-10 Hoos Against Yoo – lots of great info, questions to be raised in any public event with Yoo, videos, etc.
- 4-1-10 Who is John Yoo? Human Rights Info 101
- 2-6-17 John Yoo Thinks Presidents Can Legally Torture Children. Even He Has “Grave Concerns” About Donald Trump.
- 7-19-20 Scoop: Trump’s license to skirt the law
Note:
“Congress doesn’t have the power to tie the President’s hands in regard to torture as an interrogation technique….It’s the core of the Commander-in-Chief function. They can’t prevent the President from ordering torture.”
From Officials of Torture, website of Sandra Koponen.
Yoo Can Torture, 16×20 oil on canvas, Sandra Koponen © 2015
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
John Yoo
DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel Deputy Assistant Attorney General 2001 – 2003
Yoo was a member of the Bush administration’s self-styled “War Council” composed of senior administration lawyers. Yoo was one of the primary authors of the memos that supplied the legal basis for the torture programs of the CIA and the DOD. His August 1, 2002 memo authorized the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding. (He had reportedly given the CIA interim approval to use the techniques several months prior.) And his March 14, 2003 memo gave expansive authority to the military to torture detainees. He also drafted numerous other memos giving the executive nearly unchecked authority in the “war on terror,” including memos in which he concluded that the President had the unilateral authority to suspend the United States’ obligations under international treaties. In crafting his memos, Yoo repeatedly set aside arguments from top State Department officials and military service lawyers that his reasoning was legally flawed and would have profoundly negative consequences for the United States.*
**https://www.aclu.org/infographic/infographic-torture-architects
