The Trump Administration last week released its first “Report on the Legal and Policy Frameworks Guiding the United States’ Use of Military Force and Related National Security Operations.” The report continues a practice initiated at the end of the Obama Administration and subsequently codified into requirement by Congress by which the Administration makes clear (among other things) where and under...
I have a review up at the Washington Post. A great read. ...
Cross-posted at Balkinization If, as I argued earlier this week, the 2001 AUMF passed by Congress cannot be read to authorize the growing set of U.S. military actions against Syrian and Iranian forces in Syria, does the President’s Article II power standing alone support these strikes? The best articulated argument I’ve seen that the President has the Article II power to...
Cross-posted at Balkinization Because it’s too easy for our growing war in Syria to get lost amidst other also-pressing news, I want to be sure to note that last week ended with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee formally requesting the Trump Administration’s legal justification for a growing set of clashes between the U.S. military and armed forces allied with Syrian President...
Hope our New York-area friends will be around for this one - Cardozo Law School and the ICRC are hosting an evening panel discussion: "A View from Abroad on Current Trends in Targeting, Detention and Trials." The panel will be at Cardozo Law School, 55 Fifth Avenue in New York, May 18, 6:00-7:30p.m., and features OJ's own Kevin Jon Heller,...
In 2013, there was I think broad agreement that the United States lacked any international law justification for the use of force against Syria following its initial use of chemical weapons: there was no UN Security Council resolution authorizing such force, and no assertion by the United States (or anyone else) that this was an action taken in national self-defense....
It is early days, and much we don’t know – including, indeed, whether the draft Executive Order the new Administration is contemplating (as reported by the New York Times and Washington Post) is indeed an official document of the new Administration. For the time being, let me offer a few reasons why I’m worried, and reasons why I’m not...
For those interested in the policy merits of the Iran Deal, it's important to note the letter sent today by 37 leading American scientists, including multiple Nobelists, nuclear arms designers, former White House science advisers and the chief executive of the world’s largest general society of scientists -- detailing the effects of the deal to date and urging the...
Cross-posted at Balkinization There should by now be little doubt that various members of the incoming administration, including the President himself, would be willing to torture terrorist suspects should opportunity arise. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump expressed a desire to return to “waterboarding” terrorism suspects and “worse.” Mike Pence declined to rule out torture when asked about it expressly...
While I would like to be able to offer some meaningful insight into what we might expect from the foreign policy of Donald Trump, I don’t think it’s possible to overstate at this stage the depth of current uncertainty surrounding what he will actually do. Part of this uncertainty is a function of his preternatural ability to take every...
Anthony Dworkin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, has an interesting new report out about developing ways in which European governments are using force abroad to combat the threat of terrorism of various sorts. The study is full of useful data points so is worth reading in its entirety, but I write here briefly...
