Jeffrey Kahn

Jeffrey Kahn is University Distinguished Professor, the Justice John and Lena Hickman Distinguished Faculty Fellow, Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor, and Professor of Law at SMU Dedman School of Law.  While in Oxford, he will continue his work on Russia’s admission to, membership in, and departure from the Council of Europe, particularly the effects these episodes had on Russian legal reform and Russia’s reciprocal impact on Council of Europe institutions and other member states.

Kahn has previously been a Fulbright Research Scholar at the PluriCourts Centre of Excellence in the Faculty of Law at the University of Oslo, O’Brien Research Fellow in Residence at McGill University Faculty of Law, and Visiting Professor of Law at Washington & Lee School of Law.  In autumn 2025, he will become professor of law and director of the Program on Law and Government at American University Washington College of Law.

Kahn teaches and writes on U.S. constitutional law, Russian law, human rights, and national security law.  His work on Russian law has been published in various journals including the European Journal of International Law, Post-Soviet Affairs, Problems of Post-Communism, Russian Politics, and the Review of Central and East European Law.  He has submitted briefs to the European Court of Human Rights and the Russian Constitutional Court and worked with the Clooney Foundation for Justice to report on human rights and fair trials in Russia.

Prior to academia, Kahn clerked for Judge Thomas Griesa in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and served as a trial attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington D.C. He received both his D.Phil. in politics and M.Phil. in Russian and East European Studies from Oxford (St. Antony’s College).  He received his law degree from the University of Michigan and a B.A. from Yale.