UF Levin college of law

Zachary D. Kaufman

Lawyer and Law Professor, UF Levin College of Law

Professor Zachary D. Kaufman, J.D., Ph.D., is an award-winning scholar and practitioner of Criminal Law, International Law, National Security Law, and Transitional Justice.

Professor Kaufman is currently Professor of Law at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he serves as Co-Faculty Advisor to the Florida Journal of International Law, Co-Faculty Advisor to the Criminal Law Society, and Faculty Advisor to the International Law Society. He also holds courtesy appointments in the Department of Political Science and Center for African Studies.

Before joining the University of Florida faculty, Professor Kaufman taught at Stanford Law School, Yale University Department of Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, Boston University School of Law, George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs, University of Houston Law Center, and University of Puerto Rico School of Law. In addition, he was a Senior Fellow at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government and has held other academic appointments at Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, Stanford University, and New York University.

Professor Kaufman received his J.D. from Yale Law School. He received his D.Phil. (Ph.D.) and M.Phil., both in International Relations, from the University of Oxford . He received his B.A. in Political Science from Yale University .

Professor Kaufman has served in all three branches of the U.S. government. In the judicial branch, he was a U.S. Supreme Court Fellow and clerk to a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. In the legislative branch, he was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, during which he was a lead architect of both the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act (enacted in January 2019) and the Syrian War Crimes Accountability Act (enacted in August 2018 as section 1232 of the National Defense Authorization Act). In the executive branch, he served at the U.S. Departments of State and Justice. He also has served at three international war crimes tribunals: the International Criminal Court (where he was the first American to serve) as well as the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and for the Former Yugoslavia. In the private sector, Professor Kaufman has practiced law at O’Melveny & Myers LLP and worked at Google.