Law Commons^™

The Operational And Administrative Militaries, Mark P. Nevitt

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This Article offers a new way of thinking about the military. The U.S. military’s existing legal architecture arose from tragedy: in response to operational military failures in Vietnam, the 1980 failed Iranian hostage rescue attempt and other military misadventures, Congress revamped the Department of Defense (DoD)’s organization. The resulting law, the Goldwater-Nichols Act, formed two militaries within the DoD that endure to this day. These two militaries – the operational military and the administrative military – were once opaque to the outside observer but have emerged from the shadows in light of recent conflicts. The operational military remains the focus …

Roundtable Discussion Transcript: The Legal And Ethical Limits Of Technological Warfare Symposium, February 1, 2013, University Of Utah, S.J. Quinney College Of Law, Amos N. Guiora, Harry Soyster, David R. Irvine, Geoffrey S. Corn, James Jay Carafano, Claire O. Finkelstein, Laurie R. Blank, Monica Hakimi, George R. Lucas, Trevor W. Morrison, Frederic Megret

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The Utah Law Review brought in a panel of experts for a symposium on the legal and ethical limits of technological warfare. This roundtable discussion crystalized the issues discussed throughout the symposium. The collective experience and diversity of viewpoints of the panelists produced an unparalleled discussion of the complex and poignant issues involved in drone warfare. The open dialogue in the roundtable discussion created moments of tension where the panelists openly challenged each other’s viewpoints on the ethics and legality of drone warfare. The discussion captured in this transcript uniquely conveys the diversity of perspectives and inherently challenging legal and …

The Great Writ Of Incoherence: An Analysis Of Supreme Court's Rulings On "Enemy Combatants", Gregory Dolin

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On June 28, 2004, the United States Supreme Court released its much awaited decisions in the cases posing a challenge to the Executive's self-professed authority to detain and indefinitely hold individuals designated as "enemy combatants." The cases arose from the "war on terrorism" that was launched after the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. When each decision is looked at individually, the result seems to make sense and, given the outcome (affording detainees rights of judicial review), feels good. Yet when these decisions are looked at collectively, it is hard to believe that they were issued by …

Handling The Truth, Kenneth Lasson

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No abstract provided.

Care For Those Who Wore The Uniform, Kenneth Lasson

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Considerations were granted to American war veterans as far back as 1636, when the pilgrims, in the midst of an Indian insurrection, devised a special law providing rights and assistance to those who fought. Various of the early American colonies passed similar laws for disabled veterans, and by the time of the Revolution the benefits concept had been firmly established.

Said Calvin Coolidge in 1920: "The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten." But such platitudes did little to solve the fragmented administration of veterans' affairs, which inevitably was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cases. Thus was …

Our First Televised Genocide, Kenneth Lasson

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It is absolutely appalling that we have come so casually to observe the carnage, so passively to view the starvation over breakfast papers or dinnertime newscasts, so helplessly to watch these totally bereft human beings trudging barefoot over treacherous terrain toward the middle of nowhere.

There are other questions as well, of course, not as easily answered. Where are all their voices now, those demonstrators who so vociferously opposed war, ostensibly out of an overweening reverence for life? Is the latter-day holocaust being systematically perpetrated in northern Iraq any less horrifying than a direct hit on a camouflaged bomb shelter …