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How Private Actors Are Impacting U.S. Economic Sanctions

Maryam Jamshidi[*] [This essay is available in PDF at this link] Economic and trade sanctions are typically understood as the exclusive province of governments and intergovernmental organizations. Private parties have, however, long played a role in sanctions regimes. For example, private plaintiffs holding unsatisfied, terrorism-related civil judgments have used various U.S. federal statutes to enforce those judgments against assets blocked by U.S. sanctions. Most recently, plaintiffs with judgments against the Taliban have used...

The Concept of “The Human” in the Critique of Autonomous Weapons

Kevin Jon Heller[*] [This essay is available in PDF at this link] The idea that using “killer robots” in armed conflict is unacceptable because they are not human is at the heart of nearly every critique of autonomous weapons. Some of those critiques are deontological, such as the claim that the decision to use lethal force requires a combatant to suffer psychologically and risk sacrifice, which is impossible for machines. Other critiques are consequentialist, such as the claim that autonomous weapons will never be able to comply...

Return to Sender?: Analyzing the Senior Leader “Open Letter” On Civilian Control of the Military

Maj. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., USAF (Ret.)[*] [This essay is available in PDF at this link] In response to the September 2022 open letter, “To Support and Defend: Principles of Civilian Control and Best Practices of Civil-Military Relations,” by eight former secretaries of defense and five former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this Article adds a piece to the unsettled puzzle of civil-military relations. The Letter attempts to detail “core principles or best practices” (CP/BP) regarding civil- military relations, and in...

Sovereignty, Article II, and the Military During Domestic Unrest

Christopher Mirasola[*] [This essay is available in PDF at this link] In this article, I contest two theories of inherent presidential power, rooted in Article II, to use the military to respond to domestic unrest during peacetime. This question is more contested than one might imagine. Based on all available evidence, in June 2020 President Trump relied on a doctrine of inherent Article II authority to deploy thousands of National Guard personnel to the streets of Washington, D.C. in response to Black Lives Matter protests. On...

How the Erosion of U.S. War Powers Constraints Has Undermined International Law Constraints on the Use of Force

Oona A. Hathaway[*] [This essay is available in PDF at this link] The last several decades have witnessed a dramatic decline in the capacity of the U.S. Congress to constrain the president’s unilateral decisions to send the United States to war. That erosion of congressional authority has accelerated since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Today, Congress’s ability to limit the exercise of presidential decisions to deploy force abroad is highly constrained. Presidents of both parties have expansively interpreted...

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