Terrorism As An Intellectual Problem, Charles W. Collier
Nov 2014
Terrorism As An Intellectual Problem, Charles W. Collier
Charles W. Collier
The past few years have been instructive for observers of religious terrorism. Events have conspired to reveal ever more of its grim visage, inner logic, and awful potential. Religious terrorism has been exhaustively analyzed as a security problem, a military problem, an economic problem, a political problem, and more. But it is also an intellectual problem, one with particular implications for the study of law, culture, and history. This Essay examines the intellectual assumptions of religious terrorism, and it does so from three distinct perspectives: the theory of religion and American constitutional law (Part I); the common law (Part II); …
Interpreting Force Authorization, Scott Sullivan
Sep 2014
Interpreting Force Authorization, Scott Sullivan
Scott Sullivan
This Article presents a theory of authorizations for the use of military force (AUMFs) that reconcilesseparation of power failures in the current interpretive model. Existing doctrine applies the same text-driven models of statutory interpretation to AUMFs that are utilized with all other legal instruments. However, the conditions at birth, objectives and expected impacts underlying military force authorizations differ dramatically from typical legislation. AUMFs are focused but temporary corrective interventions intended to change the underlying facts that prompted their passage. This Article examines historical practice and utilizes institutionalist principles to develop a theory of AUMF decay that eschews text in favor …
The Road Most Travel: Is The Executive’S Growing Preeminence Making America More Like The Authoritarian Regimes It Fights So Hard Against?, Ryan T. Williams
Aug 2014
The Road Most Travel: Is The Executive’S Growing Preeminence Making America More Like The Authoritarian Regimes It Fights So Hard Against?, Ryan T. Williams
Ryan T. Williams
Since September 11, 2001, the Executive branch of the Unites States government continues to accumulate power beyond which is granted to it under the U.S. Constitution. This Article examines how the Executive wields this additional power through a secret surveillance program, the indefinite detention of terror suspects, and the implementation of a kill list, where Americans and non-Americans alike are targeted and killed without any judicial determination of guilt or innocence. Moreover, Congress and the Judiciary have condoned the Executive’s unconstitutional power accumulation by not only remaining idle and refusing to challenge this taking, but by preventing other American citizens …
