John Yoo, South Korean-American lawyer, author, and educator
John Choon Yoo (Korean: 유준; born July 10, 1967) is a Korean-born American legal scholar and former government official who serves as the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Yoo became known in the early-2000s for his legal opinions concerning executive power, warrantless wiretapping, and the Geneva Conventions while serving in the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) of the Department of Justice, during the George W. Bush administration. Yoo was the author of the controversial Torture Memos, which set to determine the legal limits for the torture of detainees during the War on Terror.
In 2009, President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13491, rescinding the legal guidance on interrogation authored by Yoo and his successors in the Office of Legal Counsel after September 11, 2001. In 2008 and 2014 some individuals and groups called for the investigation and prosecution of Yoo under various anti-torture and anti-war crimes statutes.