David W. Kennedy (born 1954)[1] is an American academic and legal scholar known for his work on international law.

He has been a professor at Harvard Law School since 1981, although for a few years he held an appointment at Brown University, as Vice President International Affairs and the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor of International Relations.

He then attended Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude with a J.D.

His book Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing International Humanitarianism (2005) offers a critique of the international human rights movement and puts forward an alternative vision of global governance.

In addition to dozens of articles on legal history and theory, Kennedy has authored several other books, most recently, The Canon of American Legal Thought (edited with William W. Fisher, 2006), Of War and Law (2006) and "A World of Struggle: How Power, Law, and Expertise Shape Global Political Economy" (2016).