Law Commons^™

National Security Policy And Ratification Of The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Winston P. Nagan, Erin K. Slemmens

UF Law Faculty Publications

While no legal obstacles prevent the U.S. Senate's reconsideration of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), lingering doubts (about the effectiveness of the international treaty) and partisan politics (founded upon outdated ideologies of national sovereignty) may again foreclose the opportunity for the United States to lead a just and thorough regime of international arms control. By closely examining the U.S. Senate's previous rejection (and, by implication, the nation's non-ratification) of the CTBT, we assess the political process that failed to realize the security values now imperative to U.S. national defense. To this appraisal, we join analysis of the contemporary law, policy, …

An Overt Turn On Covert Action, Afsheen John Radsan

Faculty Scholarship

Long past the soul-searching of Watergate, very few people question the need for covert action as a part of American foreign policy. The world is so dangerous after 9/11 that it would be irresponsible to suggest that our intelligence agencies should be disbanded or that our government should acknowledge everything it does on the dark side. Today the question is not whether we should engage in covert action at all, but how often and under what circumstances.

Not everything stays secret. Our Nation has been conducting covert action with greater transparency and more congressional participation than during the Cold War. …

Asat-Isfaction: Customary International Law And The Regulation Of Anti-Satellite Weapons, David A. Koplow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article asserts the thesis that customary international law (CIL), even in the absence of any new treaty, already provides a legal regime constraining the testing and use in combat of anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons. This argument, if validated, is important for both legal and public policy considerations: the world (especially, but not only, the United States) has grown increasingly dependent upon satellites for the performance of a wide array of commercial and military functions. At the same time, because of this growing reliance (and hence vulnerability), interest has surged in developing novel systems for attacking a potential enemy’s satellites – …