The National Security Constitution in the 21st Century with Professor Harold Koh

Please find a flyer for Professor Koh's book, including a discount code, here.

A deeply researched, fully updated edition of The National

Security Constitution that explores the growing imbalance

of institutional powers in American foreign affairs and

national security policy.

Since the beginning of the American Republic, a package of

norms has evolved in the U.S. Constitution to protect the

operation of checks and balances in national security policy.

This “National Security Constitution” promotes shared powers

and balanced institutional participation in foreign policymaking.

Today it is under attack from a competing claim of executive

unilateralism generated by recurrent patterns of presidential

activism, congressional passivity, and judicial tolerance. This

dynamic has pushed presidents of both parties to press the

limits of law in foreign affairs.

In his award-winning National Security Constitution (1990),

Harold Hongju Koh traced the evolution of this constitutional

struggle across America’s history. This new book brings the

story to the present, placing recent events into constitutional

perspective and explaining why modern national security

threats have given presidents of both parties incentives to

monopolize foreign policy decision-making, Congress

incentives to defer, and the courts reasons to rubber-stamp.

Koh suggests both a workable strategy and crucial

prescriptions to restore the balance of our constitutional order

in addressing modern global crises.

Harold Hongju Koh is Sterling Professor of International Law

and former dean at Yale Law School, and former State

Department Legal Adviser and Assistant Secretary of Human

Rights. He has received eighteen honorary degrees, more

than thirty human rights awards, and prizes from Columbia

and Duke Law Schools and the American Bar Association for

his lifetime achievements in international law. He is the author

of nine books, including The National Security Constitution.