Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Lessons Of The Iran-Contra Affair: Are They Being Taught?, Philip C. Bobbitt

Faculty Scholarship

The issues I am going to talk about today vary from the very straightforward to the somewhat complicated. One thing ties them together – my dismay at how little the fundamental constitutional issues of the Iran-contra affair seem to have been brought to the surface, either by the hearings, or by the commentary in the press, or even by the schools that led us to this affair in the first place.

I want to talk about three issues which represent the failure of civics education in this country. The three questions are: 1) what is wrong with pursuing secret …

Foreign States And The Constitution, Lori Fisler Damrosch

Faculty Scholarship

This article does not advocate judicial abstention from deciding the constitutional claims of foreign sovereigns. Rather, the argument is that constitutional claims against the actions of the federal political branches must fail on the merits because of the relationship of foreign states to the federal structure. When, on the other hand, a claim does not directly confront or conflict with the political branches' foreign policy, the federal courts should adjudicate the merits of foreign state claims by applying constitutional jurisprudence to sustain or reject the claim. Part III of this article elaborates upon the relationship between the thesis in Part …