David H. Moore
Dean, Sterling and Eleanor Colton Endowed Chair in Law and Professor of Law
Dean Moore is a scholar of foreign relations law, international law, international human rights, and international development. His publications have appeared in the Harvard, Columbia, NYU, and Virginia Law Reviews, among others. Dean Moore has taught international law, international human rights, U.S. foreign relations law, civil procedure, legal scholarship, and international human rights and international religious freedom clinics. As a teacher, he has been recognized with the University's Wesley P. Lloyd Award for Distinction in Graduate Education and R. Wayne Hansen Teaching and Learning Fellowship. At the law school, he has received the Alumni Association Teacher of the Year Award, the Student Bar Association First Year Professor of the Year Award, and the Student Bar Association Distinguished Service Award. He is a member of the American Law Institute and an Adviser on the Restatement (Fourth) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States.
A human rights expert, Dean Moore has served on the roster of experts of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Moscow Mechanism. In 2020, he was elected to a brief term on the United Nations Human Rights Committee, a body of independent experts that oversees states’ compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. From 2019 to 2023, Dean Moore was as an Associate Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, which seeks to secure the blessings of freedom of religion or belief for everyone, everywhere.
Between 2017 and 2019, Dean Moore served, variously, as the Acting Deputy Administrator and General Counsel of the U.S. Agency for International Development, the federal government’s lead agency for international development and humanitarian assistance. From 2016 to 2017, he was the Associate Dean for Research and Academic Affairs at Brigham Young University Law School. He was a Visiting Professor at the George Washington University Law School from 2008 to 2009.
Before joining BYU, Dean Moore clerked for Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. during the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2007 Term. From 2003 to 2007, Dean Moore was an Assistant and then Associate Professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law. He arrived at the University of Kentucky after researching and teaching at the University of Chicago Law School as an Olin Fellow from 2001 to 2003. From 2000 to 2001, Dean Moore clerked for Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. From 1996 to 2000, he was an Honor Program trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Division, Federal Programs Branch.
Dean Moore is a summa cum laude graduate of Brigham Young University Law School, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review and graduated first in his class. He received his BA from Brigham Young University, where he was a Benson scholar and graduated summa cum laude, with University Honors, as co-valedictorian of his college, and first in his class. He and his wife Natalie are the parents of seven wonderful children.
CV/SSRN
Courses Taught
- Civil Procedure
- Legal Scholarship
- Plenary Powers Colloquium
- Public International Law
- U.S. Foreign Relations Law
Education
- B.A., Brigham Young University
- J.D., Brigham Young University
- What If Pennoyer Was Right?, 95 Tex. L. Rev. See Also 124 (2017). [SSRN]
- Constitutional Commitment to International Law Compliance?, 102 Va. L. Rev. 367 (2016). [SSRN]
- United States Courts and Imperialism, 73 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. Online 338 (2016). [SSRN]
- Treaties and the Presumption Against Preemption, 2015 BYU L. Rev. 1555. [SSRN]
- Taking Cues from Congress: Judicial Review, Congressional Authorization, and the Expansion of Presidential Power, 90 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1019 (2015). [SSRN]
- Beyond One Voice, 98 Minn. L. Rev. 953 (2014). [SSRN]
- Kiobel and the New Battle Over Congressional Intent, in Agora: Reflections on Kiobel, AJIL Unbound e-9 (2014). [SSRN]
- The President’s Unconstitutional Treatymaking, 59 UCLA L. Rev. 598 (2012). [SSRN]
- Do U.S. Courts Discriminate Against Treaties?: Equivalence, Duality, and Treaty Non-Self-Execution, 110 Colum. L. Rev. 2228 (2010). [SSRN]
- Medellín, the Alien Tort Statute, and the Domestic Status of International Law, 50 Va. J. Int’l L. 485 (2010). [SSRN]
- Law(makers) of the Land: The Doctrine of Treaty Non-Self-Execution, 122 Harv. L. Rev. F. 32 (2009). [SSRN]
- Sosa, Customary International Law, and the Continuing Relevance of Erie, 120 Harv. L. Rev. 869 (2007) (with Curtis A. Bradley & Jack L. Goldsmith). [SSRN]
- Setting the Record Straight: Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain and the Debate Over Customary International Law, in Outsourcing American Law (Jack L. Goldsmith & John C. Yoo, eds., 2007).
- Accommodating Concerns for International Law and Proper Governance, 101 Am. Soc’y Int’l L. Proc. 264 (2007). [SSRN]
- An Emerging Uniformity for International Law, 75 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1 (2006). [SSRN]
- Agency Costs in International Human Rights, 42 Colum. J. Transnat’l L. 491 (2004). [SSRN]
- A Signaling Theory of Human Rights Compliance, 97 Nw. U. L. Rev. 89 (2003). [SSRN]
- Comment, Religious Freedom and Doctrines of Reluctance in Post-Charter Canada, 1996 B.Y.U. L. Rev. 1087. [SSRN]
- Canada’s Limitation of Hate Speech: A Comparative Perspective, 8 J. Int’l & Area Stud., Winter 1996, at 34. [SSRN]
- Note, The Parol Evidence Rule and the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods: Justifying Beijing Metals & Minerals Import/Export Corp. v. American Business Center, Inc., 1995 B.Y.U. L. Rev. 1347. (A version of this note was also published at 3 Int’l. Trade & Bus. L. Ann. 57 (1997).). [SSRN]