{"id":29562,"date":"2017-08-19T05:17:53","date_gmt":"2017-08-19T13:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=29562"},"modified":"2017-08-19T05:17:53","modified_gmt":"2017-08-19T13:17:53","slug":"time-to-call-the-question-is-presidential-first-use-of-nuclear-weapons-constitutional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/19\/time-to-call-the-question-is-presidential-first-use-of-nuclear-weapons-constitutional\/","title":{"rendered":"Time To Call the Question: Is Presidential First Use of Nuclear Weapons Constitutional?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adam Liptak wrote in the New York Times<\/i> several days ago that law schools are preparing to delve into numerous Constitutional questions that have been brought to a head by the Trump presidency, not the least of which is:<\/p>\n

\n
“Must Congress authorize a nuclear strike against North Korea?”<\/b><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

(See “New on This Fall’s Law School Syllabus: Trump.”<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Case in point: a conference taking place in Cambridge on November 4 will address the question, “Presidential First Use of Nuclear Weapons:  Is it Legal? Is it Constitutional? Is it Just?”<\/a>  The affiliations of the speakers – including Yale Law School, Georgetown University Law Center, University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, MIT – tend to affirm Liptak’s suggestion that this is a question that is being taken up in law schools and on campuses nationwide.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Also speaking at the Cambridge conference will be Massachusetts member of Congress Jim McGovern, a co-sponsor of HR669 “Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act of 2017.”<\/a> Central to HR669 are the principles that . . .<\/p>\n

“The Constitution gives Congress the sole power to declare war”; <\/i>

<\/i>“By any definition of war, a first-use nuclear strike from the United States would constitute a major act of war”; and<\/i>

<\/i>“A first-use nuclear strike conducted absent a declaration of war by Congress would violate the Constitution.”<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Of course, breathing life into HR669’s steely logic requires the participation of actual members of Congress, and in turn by the life-and-blood people they represent. It is worth noting that HR 669 now has forty-seven (47)<\/b><\/i> co-sponsors in the House, including representatives from . . . <\/p>\n

Arizona
California
Connecticut
Hawaii
Illinois
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Texas
Vermont
Washington
Wisconsin <\/p>\n

Food for thought: how many law schools and universities will avail themselves of the opportunity to invite their member of Congress to participate in a discussion of this vital question? As the list above indicates, “Presidential First Use of Nuclear Weapons:  Is it Legal? Is it Constitutional? Is it Just?” has now become the question people are asking everywhere.<\/p>\n

Related posts:<\/b><\/p>\n

Nuclear Weapons: People Power Over Trump Power<\/a><\/p>\n

“Thermonuclear Monarchy: Choosing Between Democracy and Doom” by Elaine Scarry<\/a><\/p>\n

Reprinted with permission from Scarry Thoughts<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adam Liptak wrote in the New York Times several days ago that law schools are preparing to delve into numerous Constitutional questions that have been brought to a head by the Trump presidency, not the least of which is: “Must Congress authorize a nuclear strike against North Korea?” (See “New on This Fall’s Law School […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":329,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-29562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/329"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29562"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29564,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29562\/revisions\/29564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29562"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=29562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}