I agree with Jack's analysis of the UK statement. I would add that the British legal position is not new.   The British relied on the doctrine of humanitarian intervention for their participation in the...

Here is the UK’s statement on “the legality of military action in Syria following the chemical weapons attack in Eastern Damascus on 21 August 2013.”  It maintains that “[i]f action in the Security Counc...

Big news from the Department of Defense this morning: two detainees have been transferred from the Guantanamo detention facility to the government of Algeria.

Oona Hathaway and Scott Shapiro argue in the WP that military force in Syria absent Security Council authorization would violate the U.N. Charter, and they sketch alternatives to intervention.   I agree ...

I have a pretty broad view of presidential power to use military force abroad without congressional authorization.  On that view, which is close to the past views of the Office of Legal Counsel, the plan...

For anyone interested, I’ve posted to SSRN my draft article, forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal, titled “The Constitutional Power to Threaten War.”  I’m pasting below the introduction, and I plan to pos...

Jack's and Ashley’s analyses have covered the waterfront, so far as concerns the Kosovo precedent’s meaning (legal, moral and so forth) for a possible Syria intervention.

George Friedman of Stratfor has an essay entitled Obama’s Bluff that has what I think is the best analysis of the problems the USG faces if Syria has crossed the President's red line.  The whole thing is...

As the United States apparently prepares to intervene militarily in Syria, it is perhaps worth noting that, in his less-than-coherent confirmation hearings, Secretary of State Kerry said: “I think a U.N....

The potential use of military force in Syria and its past use in Kosovo -- despite the likely "illegality" under international law and the U.N. Charter -- raise important general questions about the mode...

As at least some form of minimal military intervention in Syria now looks likely, it is worth reading carefully the letter that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey sent last Mond...

I agree with everything Ashley says about Kosovo’s value as a non-legal precedent, and why the USG might invoke Kosovo if it intervenes in Syria – better to be able to say that a similar intervention occ...