Executive Branch
Just Security’s expert authors provide analysis of the U.S. executive branch related to national security, rights, and the rule of law. Analysis and informational resources focus on the executive branch’s powers and their limits, and the actions of the president, administrative agencies, and federal officials.
4,601 Articles
Delay and Detention at Obama’s Guantánamo: The Missing PRBs
As Steve Vladeck noted last week, lawyers for Guantánamo detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi filed a motion in his habeas corpus case demanding that the Obama administration…
Abu Ghraib and the Perversion of the Political Question Doctrine
I’ve written extensively about the important and complex legal questions raised by state-law tort suits against private military contractors, many of which have arisen in…
ISIL’s Online Offensive: Challenges in Countering ISIL in Cyberspace
The US-led campaign against ISIL is going well in neither the terrestrial nor cyber realms. ISIL’s successful offensives against Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria in late May…
Major Second Circuit Ruling Sides With Immigrants Subjected to Post-9/11 Roundup
I’ve written at some length in the past about judicial hostility to damages suits brought by victims of allegedly unlawful post-9/11 counterterrorism policies. I may have…
The OPM Hack and the New DOD Law of War Manual
Last Friday was a big day in cybersecurity news. OPM announced that, in addition to the compromise of the personnel information of federal employees revealed on June 4, Chinese…
Why al Bahlul is Rightly Decided
Over at Lawfare, I have a pair of longer posts following up on Friday’s quick-and-dirty summary of the D.C. Circuit’s ruling in al Bahlul v. United States, in which…
UN’s David Kaye on Encryption, Anonymity, and Human Rights
In his first report as UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye fired a shot across the bow of governments…
Britain’s Al-Saadoon Case: A Matter of Human Rights Law and the use of Military Force Overseas
In March, the High Court of Justice of England and Wales found that the United Kingdom’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) can be activated extraterritorially…
What Rights Does International Law Afford Umm Sayyaf?
The legal machinations within the US government must have been considerable last month after an American special operations raid in Syria captured Umm Sayyaf, the wife of suspected…
Zivotofsky podcast
Jack Goldsmith and I break down the case, discussing many of the questions we’ve both been blogging about, here. * * * * My posts (and a podcast) on Zivotofsky:
Thoughts on Zivotofsky, Part Six: Why the majority’s surprising decision on executive exclusivity is unpersuasive
As I noted in my previous post, although it was unnecessary to the Court’s holding, the proposition that Zivotofsky will now stand for—in briefs, in articles, and in constitutional…
Thoughts on Zivotofsky, Part Five: Why did the majority choose to decide whether the President’s “recognition” power is exclusive?
“Congress may not enact a law that directly contradicts” the President’s “formal recognition determination.” That’s the constitutional proposition in Justice Kennedy’s…