The University of Texas at Austin   School of Law

This is a course about the legal authority of the national government over foreign affairs.  The course examines the constitutional origins of authority over foreign affairs, and the legal mechanisms that limit the exercise of that authority, including separation of powers, federalism, and the protection of individual rights.  The course proceeds by examining the legal responses to important events in American life, including President Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, the Vietnam, Kosovo and Iraq wars, as well as recent tensions between civil liberties and responses to the war on terrorism.  The topics to be considered include the distribution of foreign affairs authority between the three branches of the federal government (including the power to initiate and regulate the use of force); the role of courts in foreign affairs (including foreign sovereign immunity, the political question and act of state doctrines); the relationship between the federal government and the states in regulating foreign affairs; the domestic status and scope of treaties and other international agreements; the status of international law in U.S.  courts; and the extraterritorial application of the U.S.  Constitution and federal statutes.

Civil Liberties

Constitutional Studies