John Yoo is a legal scholar and former government official who serves as the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. He became known for his legal opinions in the early 2000s concerning executive power, warrantless wiretapping, and the Geneva Conventions while serving in the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice during the George W. Bush administration.

Yoo was born in Seoul, South Korea. His parents were anti-communist, having been refugees during the Korean War. He immigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was a young child and grew up in Philadelphia. Yoo graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude with a B.A. in American History, then earned a J.D. from Yale Law School.