# Oona A. Hathaway

Oona Anne Hathaway (born 1972) is the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, Professor of the Yale University Department of Political Science, Professor at the Jackson School of Global Affairs, and Director of the Yale Law School Center for Global Legal Challenges. She is also a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. She has been a member of the Advisory Committee on International Law for the Legal Adviser at the United States Department of State since 2005. In 2014-15, she took leave to serve as Special Counsel to the General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Defense, where she was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence. She is the Director of the annual Yale Cyber Leadership Forum and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

## Early life and education

Hathaway was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. While in high school, she participated in the We the People and Mock Trial programs as a student at Lincoln High School, where she was also student body president.
She received her B.A. summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1994; She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a John Harvard Scholar, and on the Dean’s List. Furthermore, at Harvard, she received the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize, the Gerda Richards Crosby Prize, and the Elizabeth Agaziz Award. Hathaway received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1997, where she was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal, the managing/articles editor of the Yale Journal of International Law, and participant in the Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic.

## Career

After law school graduation, Hathaway clerked for D.C. Circuit Judge Patricia Wald and, during the 1998 Term, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court. Following her clerkships, Hathaway held fellowships at Harvard University's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and Center for the Ethics and the Professions. She was an associate professor at Boston University School of Law and served as Professor of Law at UC Berkeley School of Law. In 2014–15, Hathaway took leave from teaching at Yale Law School to serve as the Special Counsel to the General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Defense, a position for which she received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence.
Hathaway is currently the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law, Professor of the Yale University Department of Political Science, Professor at the Jackson School of Global Affairs, and Director of the Yale Law School Center for Global Legal Challenges, an Executive Editor at Just Security, and a nonresident scholar in the Global Order and Institutions Program at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace.
From 2009 to 2013, 2010 to 2014, 2013 to 2017, and 2016 to 2020, the last period in which a study was done, Hathaway was one of the ten most cited international law scholars. She was both the only woman in the top 10 and also youngest person on both lists. She is also among the top 10 most cited legal scholars in any field born in 1970 or after. Her book with Scott J. Shapiro, The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World, received wide acclaim by The New Yorker, The Financial Times, and The Economist, among others. She has published widely and been quoted in the media as an expert on international law, national security law, the law of war, foreign relations law, and constitutional law. Recently, she has been a prominent commentator on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

## Personal life

Hathaway is married to Jacob S. Hacker, professor of political science at Yale University. They have two children.

## Scholarship
### Books

* The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World (with Scott Shapiro) (2017, Simon & Schuster)
** Editions: U.K. Edition (Penguin Allen Lane) published September 2017; Japanese Edition published 12 October 2018; Italian Edition published November 2018; Chinese Edition published in Fall 2021.
* Foundations of International Law and Politics (with Harold H. Koh) (Foundation Press 2004) (a reader intended for legal and political science audiences)

### Articles
#### Foreign relations law

* Major Questions about International Agreements, University of Pennsylvania Law Review (2024) (with Kristen Eichensehr)
* The Rise of Nonbinding Agreements, 90 University of Chicago Law Review 1981 (2023) (with Curtis Bradley & Jack Goldsmith)
* The Transparency Crisis for Executive Agreements: An Empirical and Normative Analysis, 123 Harvard Law Review 629 (2020) (with Curtis Bradley & Jack Goldsmith)
* Asking for Directions: The Case for Federal Courts To Use Certification Across Borders, Yale Law Journal Forum (November 2015) (with Michael Wishnie).
* The Treaty Power: Its History, Scope, and Limits, Cornell Law Review (2013) (w/ Spencer Amdur, Celia Choy, Samir Deger-Sen, Haley Nix, John Paredes & Sally Pei).
* Presidential Power over International Law: Restoring the Balance, 119 Yale Law Journal 140 (2009).
* Treaties’ End: The Past, Present and Future of International Lawmaking in the United States, 117 Yale Law Journal 1236 (2008).

#### War and national security

* War Reparations: The Case for Countermeasures, Stanford Law Review (2024) (with Maggie Mills & Thomas Poston)
* Constraints on the Use of Force, 14 Harvard National Security Law Journal 336 (2023)
* Congressional Oversight Over Modern Warfare, 63 William & Mary Law Review 137 (2021) (with Tobias Kuehne, Randi Michel & Nicole Ng)
* National Security Lawyering, 68 UCLA Law Review 2 (2021)
* What is a War Crime? Just Security (April 15, 2019) (with Paul Strauch, Beatrice Walton, and Zoe Weinberg)
* War Manifestos, 85 University of Chicago Law Review 1139 (2018) (with William Holste, Scott Shapiro, Jacqueline Van De Velde, and Lisa Wang Lachowicz)
* War Manifestos Database, Yale Law School (with William Holste, Scott Shapiro, Jacqueline Van De Velde, and Lisa Wang Lachowicz)
* Consent is Not Enough: Why States Must Respect the Intensity Threshold in Transnational Conflict, 165 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 11 (2016) (with Rebecca Crootof, Daniel Hessel, Julia Shu, and Sarah Weiner).
* Consent-Based Humanitarian Intervention, 46 Cornell International Law Journal 499 (2013) (with Julia Brower, Ryan Liss, Tina Thomas, & Jacob Victor).
* The Law of Cyber-Attack, California Law Review (2012) (with Rebecca Crootof, Philip Levitz, Haley Nix, Aileen Nowlan, William Perdue, Julia Spiegel).
* Limited War and the Constitution, Michigan Law Review (2011) (with Bruce Ackerman).

#### Human rights Law

* Aiding and Abetting in International Law, 104 Cornell Law Review 1593 (2019) (with Srinath Kethireddy, Alexandra Francis, Alyssa Yamamoto & Aaron Haviland)
* Why Do Nations Join Human Rights Treaties?, 51 Journal of Conflict Resolution 588 (2007)
* Do Human Rights Treaties Make a Difference?, 111 Yale Law Journal 1935 (2002)