Preface.

• Author: Liu, Cory R.

Two years ago, during my first year of law school, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsamaev detonated two pressure cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring hundreds more. I recall vividly the federal troops that swarmed the city, the police cars that zoomed past my apartment, and the anxiety of waiting while the city was on lockdown. The Boston Marathon bombings were a gruesome reminder of the dangers of radical Islamic terrorism in the United States. Over the past year, the Islamic State has engaged in a murderous rampage across the Middle East. In February, they posted a video on Twitter showing the beheading of twenty-one Egyptian Christians. In April, they released a video showing the massacre of thirty Ethiopian Christians. The War on Terror continues to remain one of the most important issues of the twenty-first century.

For this Issue, the Journal asked a number of leading scholars to address some of the most difficult legal questions relating to national security and foreign affairs. Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales discusses the scope of the President's power to protect national security. Mr. William S. Castle argues for a new and flexible Authorization for Use of Military Force to combat the Islamic State. Professor Geoffrey S. Corn and Ms. Dru Brenner-Beck discuss the history of U.S. treaty practice as it relates to the laws of war.

In addition, Robert G. Natelson offers the first comprehensive examination of the original legal force of the Origination Clause, with important results for the future of the Affordable Care Act.

We are also pleased to publish three student pieces. In my Note, I argue that textualists apply a presumption of reasonable language use in order to preserve the legislature's ability to specify a bargain through language. David Casazza argues in his Note for a new judicial rule that checks delegations of legislative power to independent agencies. William K. Lane III critiques the Ninth Circuit's...