Courts at War: Executive Power, Judicial Intervention, and Enemy Combatant Policies since 9/11

In the war on terror" that followed the 9/11 attack, it was not only the military forces that entered into armed conflict. The institutions of government themselves became wartime actors, especially the Supreme Court. By declining to rubber-stamp the executive branch's actions, the Court broke with a longstanding tradition of deference to the executive in wartime national security cases and established judges as key players in shaping national security policies. In a variety of areas concerning enemy combatants-including detention, interrogation, military trials, surveillance, and targeted killing-lawyers, lawsuits, and court decisions have repeatedly altered the policy landscape, with important consequences for presidential authority, the separation of powers, and the treatment of individuals suspected of posing a threat to the United States. In Courts at War, Gregory Burnep traces the creation and evolution of these enemy combatant policies from 2001 to 2018, during which time the courts became heavily involved in the post-9/11 armed conflict. But the Supreme Court was involved in conflict in another sense-namely, with the other branches of government, especially the executive. As a result, these policies have become increasingly insulated from presidential control and reflect the input from other actors and institutions. The widely feared imperial presidency, rooted in the Bush administration's rhetoric and legal arguments, ultimately did not materialize in the actual policies that were implemented, which reflected the ongoing dialogue between various institutional actors. A case study in the separation of powers, Courts at War demonstrates the important role the judiciary has played in post-9/11 policy development"--

• | Author: Gregory Burnep
• | Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• | Publication Date: February 08, 2021
• | Number of Pages: 248 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Hardcover
• | ISBN-10: 0700630473
• | ISBN-13: 9780700630479