“The President is the sole organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole representative with foreign nations,” according to a statement made in 1800 by John Marshall.
This so-called “sole organ” doctrine has frequently been invoked by the executive branch “to define presidential power broadly in foreign relations and national security, including assertions of an inherent executive power that is not subject to legislative or judicial constraints,” writes constitutional scholar Louis Fisher in a new Law Library of Congress study (pdf).
“When read in context, however, Marshall’s speech does not support an independent, extra-constitutional or exclusive power of the President in foreign relations.”
“The concept of an Executive having sole power over foreign relations borrows from other sources, including the British model of a royal prerogative,” Fisher concludes.
Fisher’s analysis of the sole organ doctrine is the first in a series of new studies of inherent presidential power prepared at the request of Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV). A copy was obtained by Secrecy News.
See “The ‘Sole Organ’ Doctrine” by Louis Fisher, Law Library of Congress, Studies on Presidential Power in Foreign Relations, Study No. 1, August 2006.
“One thing became increasingly clear: AI doesn’t simply introduce a new category of risk. It changes the speed, scale, complexity, and interaction of risks that already exist.”
In an ideal world, we would not have state or federal climate intervention research bans. We would have researchers and institutions that would not shy away from revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly of these technologies and doing so responsibly.
“What excites me is that it’s very tempting to be very discouraged, and say, ‘Oh, we’ve got these archaic institutions that are calcified and you could never change them.’ But I think we’re in the middle of a technological revolution that will upend lots of things, and does provide a window.”
Ask people what worries them most right now, and they’ll say the cost of living and their livelihoods, not climate change. But those concerns are not separate.