I had the pleasure of participating on a panel a couple of weeks ago on Presidential War Powers, in light of the recent proposal to authorize the use of force against ISIS. The panel was hosted by the New York City Bar Association and chaired by Prof.Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall. It included Prof. Ryan Goodman of NYU and Prof....
I am slammed with a couple of projects right now, but I can't help throwing this question out to the legal blogosphere. Does the new "Bipartisan Trade Priorities and Accountability Act" recently introduced by leading U.S. Senators violate the U.S. Constitution's bicameralism and presentment requirements as stated by the U.S. Supreme Court in INS v. Chadha? The BTPAA seems crucial as...
Newsweek published a long article today about a petition organized by NYU students, alumni, and non-law faculty claiming that it would be "unacceptable" for Harold Koh to teach international human-rights law at the law school. Here is a snippet: While working for the Obama administration, Koh was the most public legal defender of the president’s drone strike program. Last month, a...
The op-ed, which appears in today's New York Times, argues that the ICC is the most appropriate venue for prosecuting ISIS's many international crimes. I have great respect for John, who is unique among former high-ranking US government officials in his willingness to defend the ICC, but the op-ed makes a number of arguments that deserve comment. It certainly makes more...
My friend Rogier Bartels published two excellent posts at Just Security over the past few days (here and here) in which he argues that it is inherently perfidious to launch an attack from a military object disguised as a civilian object. Just Security has just posted my lengthy response. Here is how I conclude the post: At the risk of sounding like an...
Since the United States has made clear that its "deal" with Iran will NOT be a binding legal commitment under international law, one wonders what all the fuss over the Iran Letter from US Senators was about. As Duncan explains in his great post below, there is little doubt that the President can enter into a nonbinding "political commitment" and...
Without weighing in on the merits of any deal with Iran on nuclear matters, I'll express some frustration over the rhetoric used in the current firestorm between the White House, 47 Senators (plus Governors Perry and Jindal), Iran's Foreign Minister, and the 4th Estate on what kind of deal the United States might conclude with Iran and the so-called P5+1 (the...
In a number of posts (see, for example, here and here), I have claimed that the League of Arab States (LAS) formally rejected the "unwilling or unable" test in the context of Israel's 2006 attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Thanks to comments by Ori and Tom Ruys on the most recent post, I now realize I have been guilty of the same...
Most of the US Senate's Republican membership has signed an open letter to Iran's leaders "informing" them about the nature of the U.S. constitutional system with respect to international agreements. It is actually a very accurate statement of US foreign relations law, even if it is a little strange and potentially intrusive into the President's foreign affairs power. It...
How does an international-law doctrine become conventional wisdom without actually having support in the practice of states? It starts with one article asserting the doctrine, but failing to defend it. Then another article makes the same claim, citing only the first article. And then another. And another. And so on -- until no one remembers that the first article did not...
A bipartisan group of US lawmakers proposed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act last week. The proposed law would "would enhance U.S. monitoring of Hong Kong’s autonomy and human rights and ensure that these issues remain a cornerstone of U.S. policy," according to the bill's chief sponsor, Rep. Chris Smith. Reactions in Hong Kong and China are already pretty negative. "We...
Big news -- and news I wasn't expecting: A former prisoner at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from Australia on Wednesday won a legal challenge to his terrorism conviction before a military court. The U.S. Court of Military Commission Review struck down the March 2007 conviction of David Hicks in a unanimous ruling that reverses what had been one...
