My future Notre Dame colleague Mary Ellen O'Connell joins the fray criticizing Harold Koh's crabbed definition of hostilities. Here's a taste: Harold Koh, legal adviser to the U.S. State Department, attempted to convince Congress on June 15 that the "limited nature" of U.S. military operations in Libya are not "hostilities" as envisioned in the War Powers Resolution, and, therefore,...
The controversy over the Administration's interpretation of the War Powers Resolution has some people conflating that issue with the broader one of when the President can use force without congressional authorization. This isn't surprising, since the Administration has used a similar tack in both contexts. With respect to the War Powers Resolution, the Administration claims the Libya operation does not constitute...
If you had been thinking about submitting a paper or a panel proposal for the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law but had missed the deadline, despair not! The deadline has been extended to this Friday, June 24th. The webpage for submissions is here. And, in case you hadn't seen it already, this is the theme statement...
I'm on vacation in God's Own Country, the Eastern Sierra Nevada, where I am going almost wholly offline. One or two vital emails, but basically no blogging, websurfing, mindlessly hitting link buttons. I'm going to break my addiction to restless, pointless web cruising, and here in the land of perfect light - hiking, biking, a great gym, the Sierra Nevada...
The Supreme yesterday gave the green light to an individual asserting a Tenth Amendment defense in a criminal prosecution under a federal statute enacted pursuant to the Chemical Weapons Convention (Bond v. United States). The facts of the case are certainly more lurid than our run-of-the-mine foreign relations law cases. The basic claim: the Treaty Power doesn't add anything to...
Here is the Administration's legal analysis (in full) of why the 60/90-day clock of the War Powers Resolution doesn't apply to the continuing Libya operation: The President is of the view that the current U.S. military operations in Libya are consistent with the War Powers Resolution and do not under that law require further congressional authorization, because U.S. military operations are...
The Wall Street Journal national security reporting team, followed closely by the Washington Post and the AP, have been reporting in the last couple of days on the CIA being tasked to carry out an expanded Predator drone targeted killing program in Yemen. I’ve been meaning to blog on this, following on Deborah's post below discussing the AP story, but...
Some of you will recall the series of posts a few weeks back about the new authorization for use of military force (AUMF) legislation that the House of Representatives debated and passed at the end of May. Among other things, the bill would prohibit the use of Defense Department funds to transfer Guantanamo detainees to the United States for...
For those who follow these topics, two items of note. First, an AP story today reports that the United States is building a secret CIA air base in the Persian Gulf region to support U.S. targeting operations in Yemen. The story is sourced to anonymous government officials, and reports that “U.S. forces have stepped up their targeting as well, because...
The International Law Commission (ILC) has adopted the Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations (RIO). The final version of the articles is available on the ILC’s website. As the Chairman of the Drafting Committee noted, the adoption of these articles marks a historic occasion as the ILC has been working on the law of responsibility for over 60 years.The...
Christopher Caldwell does not quote Milton Friedman’s famous observation in this New York Times opinion piece, but it underlies it. Caldwell is a senior editor of the Weekly Standard and columnist for the Financial Times — as well as being the author of the most important book on Europe by an American that I’ve read in years, Reflections on the Revolution in...
Out-going Defense Secretary Gates has been delivering a series of farewell speeches that are noteworthy for their bluntness. His latest is perhaps the bluntest yet - on the future of the NATO alliance, which he sees as grim. The New York Times reports here; the Wall Street Journal has an editorial comment here. At one level, the problem is simply...
