The Senate has confirmed the nomination of former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh to be the State Department's legal adviser. The Senate voted 62-35 to confirm Koh to the position where, The BLT reports, he will advise the secretary of state "on a wide variety of issues."

Koh's nomination faced opposition from some conservatives who, The BLT reported, "questioned his commitment to U.S. sovereignty. Slate's Dahlia Lithwick wrote of the opposition that, "The underlying legal charge from the right is that Koh is a ‘transnationalist' who seeks to subjugate all of America to an elite international court." Lithwick said the charges essentially amounted to one thing: "The mere acknowledgement that a body of law exists outside the United States is tantamount to claiming that America is enslaved to that law. The recognition that international law even exists somehow transforms the U.S. Supreme Court into a sort of intermediate court of appeals that must answer to the Dreaded Court of Elitist European Preferences."