Courses

    This course focuses on legal issues arising in the conduct of U.S. foreign relations. The main perspective is necessarily constitutional (the distribution of powers between the President, the Congress and the courts on the one hand, and between the federal government and the states on the other) but we will also discuss a variety of statutory regimes (such as war powers). Much of our attention will be directed to contemporary controversies, including those that have emerged since the September 2001 attacks (use of force in the war on terrorism, prosecutions by military commissions, protection of individual freedoms). We will also examine issues related to judicial supervision of the diplomatic and national defense functions, the status of international law in U.S. courts, the scope of the treaty power, the political question and act of state doctrines, and the federal common law of foreign relations.