John Knox is interested in the international law of human rights, the environment, and trade, and much of his scholarly and pro bono work concerns how those areas overlap with one another. In the last year, he has advised a special representative of the UN Secretary-General on human rights and corporations, and has worked with the Center for International Environmental Law on the implications of climate change for the human rights of the Maldives. For four years, he chaired a national advisory committee to EPA on the environmental organization created by NAFTA, the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation. His coauthored book, Greening NAFTA, is about NAFTA's effort to further free trade and environmental protection in North America. In 2003, he was awarded the Francis Deák Prize, established by the American Society of International Law to honor a younger author who has made a "meritorious contribution to international legal scholarship."
After graduating from Stanford Law School and clerking for Judge Joseph T. Sneed of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, John served as an attorney-adviser at the Department of State, where he negotiated international agreements and litigated international disputes. He then spent four years in private practice in Austin, Texas and taught at Penn State for eight years before joining Wake Forest in 2006. He is married to Julie Winterich, who teaches at Guilford College, and they have three daughters, in second, fifth, and seventh grades.
