Oxford University Press Sovereignty and the New Executive Authority (Ethics, National Security, and the Rule of Law)

The idea of sovereignty and the debates that surroundit are not merely of historical, academic, or legal interest: they are also potent, vibrant issues and as current and relevant as today's front page news in the United States and in other Western democracies. In thepost- 9/11United States, the growth of the national security state has resulted in a growingstruggle to maintain the legal and ethical boundaries surrounding executive authority, boundaries that help to define and protect democratic governance. Thesepost-9/11 developments and their effect on the scope of presidential power present hard questions and arefueling today'sintensedebates among political leaders, citizens,constitutional scholars,historians, and philosophers. This volume will contribute to the public conversation on the nature of executive authority and its relation to the broader topic of sovereignty in several ways. First, readers will learn that the current vital questions surrounding the nature of executive authority and presidential power have their intellectual roots in historical and philosophical writings about the nature of sovereignty. Second, sovereignty has historically been a complicated topic; this volume helps identify the terms of the debate. Third, and most critically, citizens' understanding of the concept of sovereignty is essential to grasping the available options for confronting current challenges to the rule of law in democratic societies. The volume's 15 essays, drawn from among the disciplines of law, political, science, philosophy, and international relations,covers an expansive series of topics, from historical theories and international affairs, to governmental transparency and legitimacy. The volume also focuses on thechanges in the concept of sovereignty post-9/11 in the United States and their impact on democracy and the rule of law, particularly in the area of national security practice. About the Author Claire Finkelstein is the Algernon Biddle Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, and Director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law, University of Pennsylvania. She has published extensively in the areas of criminal law theory, moral and political philosophy as applied to legal questions, jurisprudence, and rational choice theory. One of her distinctive contributions is bringing philosophical rational choice theory to bear on legal theory. She has focused in recent years on the implications of Hobbes' political theory for substantive legal questions. She is the series editor, with Jens Ohlin, of the Oxford Series in Ethics, National Security and the Rule of Law. Within that series, she has co-edited three volumes to date: Targeted Killings: Law & Mortality in an Asymmetrical World (2012), Cyberwar: Law and Ethics for Virtual Conflicts; and Weighing Lives in War (2017). She is also the editor of Hobbes on Law (2005). Michael Skerker is an associate professor in the Leadership, Ethics, and Law department at the U.S. Naval Academy. His academic interests include professional ethics, just war theory, moral pluralism, theological ethics, and religion and politics. Publications include works on ethics and asymmetrical war, moral pluralism, intelligence ethics, and the book An Ethics of Interrogation (2010). He is currently working on a book Soldiers and Soldiers: The Moral Equality of Combatants which defends the post-Westphalian idea of the moral equality of combatants. The manuscript won the 2013 Charles Sharp Memorial Prize for best unpublished work on military ethics.