Paul Barrett gave a talk earlier this week at Temple on his Law of the Jungle. It's a terrific journalistic account of the epic 20-year battle over Chevron's pollution of Ecuador's rain forest. For anyone with a vague awareness of the case the book supplies a highly readable cheat-sheet. I suspect like many with incidental interests in international law, I had...
After a flurry of commentary in the wake of Obama's speech last week and the on-background legal justification that came with it, the silence has been deafening. The immediate reaction to the AUMF hook for the ISIL operation was something approaching disbelief. It came out of the blue and everyone felt blindsided. But it is attracting some support. Marty Lederman offers...
The concern over ISIL foreign fighters had ramped up even before President Obama announced that he will preside over a September 24th UN Security Council Meeting on the subject. No surprise that politicians are jumping on the bandwagon. Ted Cruz introduced legislation last week in the Senate that would purport to terminate the citizenship of those associated with terrorist organizations....
I'll pile on in deploring the legal justification for the expanded operation against the Islamic State. No one is buying the AUMF basis. In addition to Jens below, Jack Goldsmith and Jennifer Daskal have devastating critiques here and here. The justification could have lasting negative consequences for interbranch relations in the war powers context. The 2001 AUMF involved a context in...
It looks like President Obama learned his lesson. Last summer he decided to seek Congress's advance approval for a strike against Syria's chemical weapons capabilities. Political support for the operation evaporated. Obama looked weak and waffly (the decision was taken on a dime after a 45-minute South Lawn stroll with chief of staff Denis McDonough, almost certainly not vetted through...
As predicted last week, it was only a matter of time before someone on the Hill dropped a bill to terminate the citizenship of Americans who are fighting with the Islamic State. Ted Cruz has taken the plunge, so it will probably get a little more attention than if some backbencher had adopted the cause. Press statement here; text of...
It's only a matter of time before we start seeing proposals to take away the citizenship of Americans fighting for ISIS/ISIL forces in Syria and Iraq. They have drawn renewed attention in the wake of James Foley's beheading (apparently by a British citizen) and the death, reported at length today in the NYT, of American Douglas McCain in Syria. Several...
The naturalization ceremony is now a part of the July 4th ritual, right up there with picnics, parades, and fireworks. The script is faithfully recounted in newspapers across the country. Dignified surroundings (courtrooms, historic sites, ballparks) with presiding local luminaries (judges, office holders, public intellectuals), celebratory family members in tow. US flag-waving applicants from [fill-in-the-blank] number of countries. Short summaries...
Not much surprise that the Supreme Court's ruling in the recess appointments case NLRB v. Noel Canning would draw on historical practice, since there wasn't much else to draw on. Breyer's opinion in the case sets out a notable defense of practice as precedent: [I]n interpreting the [Recess Appointments] Clause, we put significant weight upon historical practice. For one thing, the...
Canada last week enacted a major amendment (Bill C-24) to its citizenship law. As a general matter it makes citizenship harder to get and easier to lose. Residency periods for naturalization are lengthened and physical presence requirements toughened up, English and civics tests will apply more broadly, and naturalization fees are tripled. This on top of the elimination of the...
As David Kaye notes, treaty-power advocates everywhere may be breathing a collective sigh of relief with the Supreme Court's decision in Bond v. United States. I'm not so sure how big a difference it makes, given the Senate's persistent refusal to put an expansive treaty power to work. From an academic perspective the decision is a big let-down. No big...
The decision is here. The Court found unanimously that the federal government overreached in prosecuting Carol Anne Bond under a federal statute implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention for what was otherwise a simple assault in a lovers' quarrel. The six-justice majority decided the case on non-constitutional, statutory grounds -- interpreting the statute (and the treaty) not to cover such conduct, but...
