Showing 11 - 20 of 25
Trump's anti-nuclear playbook looks like Obama's
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 10/08/2017
» Imposing United Nations sanctions on North Korea is the first major foreign policy success of the Donald Trump administration. The effort has a chance of working -- provided Mr Trump keeps following a model borrowed from president Barack Obama's dealings with Iran. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And the only way to pressure a nuclear or near-nuclear power to the table is with economic sanctions that weaken the regime without threatening its existence.
Comey's firing is a crisis of American rule of law
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 11/05/2017
» It's not a constitutional crisis. Technically, President Donald Trump was within his constitutional rights on Tuesday when he fired FBI Director James Comey. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is part of the executive branch, not an independent agency. But the firing did violate a powerful unwritten norm: that the director serves a 10-year, nonrenewable term and is fired only for good cause.
Syria's Kurds work all the angles for autonomy
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 17/05/2017
» Outside the headlines, something remarkable is going on in Syria. The Kurds, making a long-term play for an autonomous region, seem to have decided that their best bet is to buy it from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. And the US is signaling that it may be on-board -- a startling reflection of its pro-Russian, anti-Turkish policy.
Detention of Muslims is a horror we cannot forget
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 20/01/2017
» Innocent men detained for months or years after the Sept 11 attacks on suspicion of being Muslim will get their day in the US Supreme Court on Wednesday. The odds don't look good. The court will probably dismiss their constitutional suit against the government officials who implemented the policies that arrested immigrants who had overstayed their visas and held them in abusive conditions until after they had been affirmatively proved innocent, and sometimes beyond.
Trump's self-destructive bravado
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 02/02/2017
» The Monday night massacre -- as President Donald Trump's firing of acting Attorney-General Sally Yates was inevitably called -- lacked the grand madness of Richard Nixon's famous firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox on Oct 20, 1973, which prompted the resignations of the attorney-general and the deputy attorney-general.
Trump's ignoble attack on judiciary
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 07/02/2017
» It's no surprise that President Donald Trump initiated a Twitter attack Saturday on federal judge James Robart for freezing the executive order on immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries. The ultimate fate of the order will depend on proceedings in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which denied the government's emergency request to reinstate the ban, and possibly even the US Supreme Court. But because judges issue rulings, not press releases, it's also up to civil society and the news media to defend the judge and the rule of law from the president's bluster.
The presidency can bend to fit Trump's personality
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 29/11/2016
» Donald Trump is inheriting a more powerful presidency than any of his predecessors. And if history is any guide, he will seek to expand the power of the office. But how will he do it? One clue lies in noticing how the personalities of the last two presidents were reflected in their techniques of expansion. Barack Obama's administration took a very different route to its expansion of executive authority than did George W Bush's -- and Mr Trump's will probably be different still.
Constitutional crisis a risk in the UK
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 30/06/2016
» The phrase "constitutional crisis" looms large over the aftermath of Britain's vote to leave the EU. The possibility of such a crisis has been invoked in connection with what would happen if the Scottish parliament refuses to approve Britain's withdrawal; what might happen if Britain's main parliament should ignore the results of the Brexit referendum; and the possible consequences of taking seriously the popular petition calling for a second vote on the basis of a new "rule" requiring a 60% approval and 75% turnout on EU-related matters.
Sex offenders shouldn't have a right to use Facebook
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 14/05/2016
» North Carolina bans registered sex offenders from Facebook. Unsurprisingly, a sex offender wants the Supreme Court to strike down the law. Perhaps more surprisingly, he has support from 16 notable professors of constitutional law -- from left, right and centre.
Why humans fight, both now and 10,000 years ago
News, Noah Feldman, Published on 26/01/2016
» Is there a fundamental difference between war fought for reasons of belief and war fought out of self-interest? Is one more primitive than the other, or morally superior?