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Most recent discussion of the United States Constitution and war--both the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq--has been dominated by two diametrically opposed views: the alarmism of those who see many current policies as portending gross restrictions on American civil liberties, and the complacency of those who see these same policies as entirely reasonable accommodations to the new realities of national security. Whatever their contributions to the public discussion and policy-making processes, these voices contribute little to an understanding of the real constitutional issues raised by war. Providing the historical and legal context needed to assess competing claims, The Constitution in Wartime identifies and explains the complexities of the important constitutional issues brought to the fore by wartime actions and policies. Twelve prominent legal scholars and political scientists combine broad overviews of U.S. history and contemporary policy with detailed yet accessible analyses of legal issues of pressing concern today.

Some of the essays are broad in scope, reflecting on national character, patriotism, and political theory; exploring whether war and republican government are compatible; and considering in what sense we can be said to be in wartime circumstances today. Others are more specific, examining the roles of Congress, the presidency, the courts, and the international legal community. Throughout the collection, balanced, unbiased analysis leads to some surprising conclusions, one of which is that wartime conditions have sometimes increased, rather than curtailed, civil rights and civil liberties. For instance, during the cold war, government officials regarded measures aimed at expanding African Americans' freedom at home as crucial to improving America's image abroad.

Contributors. Sotirios Barber, Mark Brandon, James E. Fleming, Mark Graber, Samuel Issacharoff, David Luban, Richard H. Pildes, Eric Posner, Peter Spiro, William Michael Treanor, Mark Tushnet, Adrian Vermeule

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Introduction(p. 1)
• Part I
• War and the American Constitutional Order(p. 11)
• Emergencies and the Idea of Constitutionalism(p. 39)
• Accommodating Emergencies(p. 55)
• Part II
• Counter-Stories: Maintaining and Expanding Civil Liberties in Wartime(p. 95)
• Defending Korematsu? Reflections on Civil Liberties in Wartime(p. 124)
• Part III
• The War Powers outside the Courts(p. 143)
• Between Civil Libertarianism and Executive Unilateralism: An Institutional Process Approach to Rights during Wartime(p. 161)
• Realizing Constitutional and International Norms in the Wake of September 11(p. 198)
• Part IV
• The War on Terrorism and the End of Human Rights(p. 219)
• War, Crisis, and the Constitution(p. 232)
• Afterword: The Supreme Court's 2004 Decisions(p. 249)
• About the Contributors(p. 255)

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Library Journal Review

Tushnet (constitutional law, Georgetown Univ. Law Ctr.) has assembled 11 essays from legal scholars who largely paint a picture of constitutional rights subjugated during wartime. The Roman doctrine inter arma silent leges ("in time of war laws are silent") has guided American presidents and the Supreme Court on many occasions, but time has proven repeatedly the danger in the Latin logic. The example most frequently cited is Korematsu v. United States (1944), wherein the Supreme Court voted that military necessity justified the relocation of Japanese Americans, but it is not the only instance of the government overstepping constitutional authority in response to a perceived national security threat. Even more perplexing than the constitutional overreach is the propensity to repeat the error when the next crisis comes along. The explanation generally offered here is that the actions are taken under conditions of uncertainty when officials don't know how a war is going to turn out. Tushnet's own essay suggests a solution in which courts give no special deference to military judgments, addressing them as they do the decisions by other bureaucracies. He suggests that the government should also question whether policy responses are appropriate, given our inability to integrate the myopia of crisis with the clarity of retrospective analysis. A balanced study that strives for historical accuracy; for academic and public libraries.-Philip Y. Blue, New York State Supreme Court Criminal Branch Law Lib., First Judicial District, New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

This is an extraordinarily well done and useful collection of essays on a subject of great current relevance. From varying perspectives the authors focus on how and to what extent individual rights are protected, and how the Constitution is interpreted during times of war and emergency. They show the inadequacy of the oft-quoted aphorism "in time of war law is silent," while at the same time demonstrating how war and emergency almost necessarily strain constitutional rights doctrines. The US Constitution has only one emergency powers provision--only Congress may suspend the writ of habeas corpus--but the Supreme Court has interpreted executive and legislative powers in ways that permit appropriate emergency powers to be exercised, while at the same time resisting temptations to create broader, more permanent, and potentially more dangerous emergency powers that may be difficult to restrain when the emergency is over. Several authors also note that the expansion of national power can lead to an expansion of rights. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. General readers; upper-division undergraduates and above. J. B. Grossman Johns Hopkins University

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Mark Tushnet is Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown University Law Center. His many books include A Court Divided: The Rehnquist Court and the Future of Constitutional Law , The New Constitutional Order , Slave Law in the American South: State v. Mann in History and Literature , and Taking the Constitution Away from the Courts .