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Thinking About Presidents, John C. Yoo, Robert Delahunty
Thinking About Presidents, John C. Yoo, Robert Delahunty
John C Yoo
Why are some Presidents great and others not? Does their attitude toward the Constitution have anything to do with it? What do legal scholars have to contribute to presidential studies? This paper reviews and uses data from the book "Presidential Leadership" to suggest possible relationships between presidential success and their approach to constitutional interpretation. It argues that the formalist versus functionalist debate over the separation of powers has reached a stalemate, and that constitutional law can gain by study of political science approaches to the Presidency. It also suggests that presidential studies, which views reliance on a president's constitutional powers …
Beyond Formalism In Foreign Affairs: A Functional Approach To The Alien Tort Statute, John C. Yoo, Julian Ku
Beyond Formalism In Foreign Affairs: A Functional Approach To The Alien Tort Statute, John C. Yoo, Julian Ku
John C Yoo
This paper discusses the functional ability of federal courts to incorporate customary international law (CIL) through the vehicle of the Alien Tort Statute. In last Term's Sosa v. Alvarez Machain, the Supreme Court concluded that the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) is merely a jurisdictional statute, but also refused to stop the lower courts from allowing aliens to seek damages in federal court for certain international law violations. We use the Court's under-theorized conclusion as an opportunity to move beyond largely inconclusive formalist debates about the ATS's text, structure, and history. Instead, we conduct a comparative institutional analysis of the role …