Sarah Cleveland

Sarah Hull Cleveland (born September 4, 1965), an American judge, lawyer, law professor, and former State Department official, is a judge on the International Court of Justice and the Louis Henkin Professor of Human and Constitutional Rights at Columbia Law School (currently on leave of absence).

Cleveland is an expert in public international law, international and comparative human rights, international humanitarian law, national security law, constitutional law of U.S. foreign relations, and federal civil procedure. She previously served as the Counselor on International Law in the U.S. State Department, an independent expert on the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the Co-Coordinating Reporter of the American Law Institute's project on the Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States, the U.S. Independent Member on the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, and a Member of the Media Freedom Coalition's independent High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom.

Early life and education Cleveland grew up in Alabama and earned a Bachelor of Arts with honors from Brown University in 1987, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, an M.St. in British Imperial and Commonwealth history from Lincoln College, Oxford University, as a Rhodes Scholar in 1989, and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1992.

Legal Career Judicial clerkships and fellowship Immediately after law school, Cleveland clerked for Judge Louis F. Oberdorfer on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and then for Justice Harry Blackmun of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1993–1994 term.

Cleveland has written widely, including several dozen scholarly articles, on issues of international law, human rights, and U.S. foreign relations law. She is a co-author of Louis Henkin's Human Rights casebook (2nd ed. 2009 and update 2013) and a co-editor of The Restatement and Beyond: The Past, Present, and Future of U.S. Foreign Relations Law (Oxford University Press, 2020).

She has been involved in international law and human rights litigation in the United States and before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Public service (United States and international) From 2009 to 2011, Cleveland served as the Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State, where she supervised the office's legal work relating to the law of war, counterterrorism, and Afghanistan and Pakistan, and assisted with its international human rights and international justice work.

In March 2014, the U.S. Government nominated Cleveland to serve as an independent expert on the Human Rights Committee. The committee, the United Nations treaty body that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, holds three month-long meetings each year to review state implementation of the multilateral treaty. The states parties to the treaty elected her to the committee on June 24, 2014. She served on the committee for a four-year term that encompassed the calendar years 2015-2018. On the committee, Cleveland was Special Rapporteur for Follow-up to Concluding Observations (2015-2017), Special Rapporteur for New Communications and Interim Measures (2017-2018), and Vice Chairperson (2018).

In July 2019, Cleveland was appointed by Lord Neuberger to the Media Freedom Coalition's independent High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom.

On August 10, 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Cleveland to be the Legal Adviser of the Department of State.

In August 2022, the United States National Group to the Permanent Court of Arbitration decided to nominate Cleveland to be the U.S. candidate for election as a judge on the International Court of Justice. The national groups of over 50 other states also nominated her. In the 2023 ICJ election, on November 9, 2023, the UN General Assembly and Security Council each elected her, from nine candidates for five seats, to a nine-year term (2024-2033). She was the sixth woman elected to the Court since it was established in 1945. She was sworn in as member of the Court on February 6, 2024.

Memberships of boards and institutions Cleveland has served as a member of the American Law Institute, a Council Member of the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute, a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists, a member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law, and a member of the board of directors of Human Rights First.

Selected publications Louis Henkin, Sarah H. Cleveland, Laurence R. Helfer, Gerald L. Neuman, Diane F. Orentlicher, Human Rights (Foundation Press, 2nd ed., 2009, and 2013 update) Paul B. Stephan and Sarah H. Cleveland, eds., The Restatement and Beyond: The Past, Present, and Future of U.S. Foreign Relations Law (Oxford University Press, 2020).