John Knox, Senior Counsel

John H. Knox is a professor of law at Wake Forest University, where he teaches and writes about international environmental law, human rights, and international trade.  His scholarly and pro bono work has often focused on the areas where those fields overlap or conflict. 

In recent years, he has advised the UN Human Rights Council, the World Bank, and the Government of the Maldives on the relationship between climate change and human rights law, and provided assistance to the special representative of the UN Secretary-General on human rights and corporations.  Until 2005, he chaired a national advisory committee to EPA on environmental cooperation among the three North American governments.  He is a member scholar at the Center for Progressive Reform. 

Before joining academia, Professor Knox served as an attorney in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the Department of State, where his responsibilities included the negotiation of the first regional environmental agreement in North America as a side agreement to NAFTA.  After leaving the State Department, he worked for four years in private practice in Austin, Texas, representing clients in environmental litigation.

His recent work includes articles on climate change and human rights law, transboundary environmental harm, and the duties of corporations under human rights law.  His co-authored book, Greening NAFTA, analyzes the NAFTA environmental regime.  His most recent article, A Presumption Against Extrajurisdictionality, on the application of U.S. law outside U.S. territory,was published in the July 2010 issue of the American Journal of International Law.  He is currently writing a book on human (and other) environmental rights in international law.  

Professor Knox graduated from Rice University magna cum laude in 1984 and from Stanford Law School with distinction in 1987.  He then spent a year clerking for Judge Joseph T. Sneed of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, before joining the State Department. 

Mr. Knox can be reached at knoxjh@wfu.edu.