With its decision last week to strike down the Bush Administration’s unilateral creation of military tribunals for trying detainees, the Supreme Court highlighted and reinforced the rule of law in the conduct of military operations.
Several recent publications provide rich background on military law.
The 2006 edition of the “Operational Law Handbook” (pdf) published by the Army Judge Advocate General is “a ‘how to’ guide for Judge Advocates practicing operational law. It provides references and describes tactics and techniques for the practice of operational law.”
The Handbook covers the gamut of issues that arise in the field, from the Law of War to intelligence-related law to detainee operations.
See “Operational Law Handbook (2006),” Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School (598 pages, 3.7 MB).
U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and the “war on terrorism” have raised a variety of novel legal issues, according to a 2004 study performed for the Army on “legal lessons learned.”
“Whether determining the applicability of the law of armed conflict to non-state terrorist actors, applying traditional and new fiscal authorities to a military occupation, or assisting in the development of rules of engagement (ROE) for an enemy that blended into civilian populations, JAs [judge advocates] and paralegals wrestled with cutting-edge legal issues during OEF [Operation Enduring Freedom] and OIF [Operation Iraqi Freedom].”
See “Legal Lessons Learned From Afghanistan and Iraq: Volume 1, Major Combat Operations,” Center for Law and Military Operations, 1 August 2004 (454 pages, 7.1 MB PDF).
Volume 2 of that study has recently been made public. See “Legal Lessons Learned From Afghanistan and Iraq: Volume 2, Full Spectrum Operations,” Center for Law and Military Operations, September 2005 (368 pages, 3.3 MB PDF).
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When a hurricane hits, it’s all hands on deck – that goes for federal data, too. Pulling back from our investments in timely, accurate, and accessible public data will only make us less prepared and put us all at greater risk.
This is bigger than a singular elimination of race and ethnicity questions. It could accelerate the second wave of widespread reductions to demographic data, leaving public health officials with even less information to deliver better health outcomes for all Americans.
Soft law was never meant to be a permanent solution. Treating it as one, and letting the sandcastle stand in for the skyscraper indefinitely, is how we end up with a decade of voluntary commitments and no enforceable accountability to show for it.
FAS has partnered with ICLEI USA to launch the CRI Local Advisory Council.