Matthew Waxman is a law professor at Columbia Law School, where he co-chairs the Program on Law and National Security. He is also co-chair of the Cybersecurity Center at Columbia University’s Data Science Institute, as well as Adjunct Senior Fellow for Law and Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He previously served in senior policy positions at the State Department, Defense Department, and National Security Council. After graduating from Yale Law School, he clerked for Judge Joel M. Flaum of the U.S. Court of Appeals and Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter
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A recent State Department legal analysis highlights the unique roles that the United States plays in interpreting and enforcing maritime law in the South China Sea. This legal diplomacy also illustrates methodological challenges of customary international law.
On this day in 1918, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of a national draft. That ruling illustrates how military powers in the Constitution have continuously adapted throughout American history to changes in warfare.
We recently contributed to an essay in the 2020 "Strategic Survey" that discusses key international legal gaps in areas relating to international security and suggests how states can work to address them.
The United States has one of the world’s strongest and most sophisticated capabilities to launch cyberattacks against adversaries. How does the US Constitution allocate power to use that capability? And what does that allocation tell us about appropriate executive-legislative branch arrangements for setting and implementing cyber strategy?
President Trump’s recent refusals to commit to a peaceful transfer of power have called to mind historical contrasts.
Professor Stephen Griffin (of Tulane) and I have posted to SSRN what we’re calling our free “model casebook chapter” on constitutional war powers.
Eisenhower never initiated a major armed conflict. Still, his administration offers critical insight for modern war powers questions.