John Knox is an internationally recognized expert on human rights law and international environmental law. In 2012, the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed him to a three-year mandate as its first Independent Expert on the issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. In 2015, his mandate was extended for another three years and his title changed to Special Rapporteur. In that position, he reports to the Council on the relationship of human rights and environmental protection. For more information about his work as the Special Rapporteur, visit srenvironment.org.

His recent scholarship addresses a wide variety of issues, including the human rights obligations of corporations, the application of human rights law to climate change, citizen suits in international environmental law, and the extraterritorial application of U.S. law. 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.” For four years, until 2005, he chaired a national advisory committee to EPA on the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation, the first regional environmental organization in North America. More recently, he provided pro bono assistance to environmental groups and to the Maldives, a small island state in the Indian Ocean, and acted as of counsel to the Center for International Environmental Law.

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 from 1988 to 1994. He 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.