War, responsibility, and the age of terrorism.

• Author: Yoo, John C.

Just as John Hart Ely made a defining and singular contribution to the problem of judicial review with Democracy and Distrust, (1 so too he contributed to the study of war powers with War and Responsibility. (2) Like Democracy and Distrust, War and Responsibility crystallized a generation's thinking about a problem, wrought consensus out of myriad views, and accomplished these tasks while firmly grounding its argument and analysis in constitutional structure. (3) Also like Democracy and Distrust, War and Responsibility found its answer in process rather than substance. Ely believed that deliberation by multiple institutions, and ultimately the electorate, would produce good public policy. Finally, both books called on the federal judiciary to play a central role in maintaining the functioning of that process. Process itself is important, and monitoring process is a job that judges can largely perform without injecting their personal views into the controversies before them.

Ely's framework for war powers can be clearly and simply stated. Not only did the Constitution vest in Congress the power to declare war, he concluded, but "the [Framing] debates, and early practice, establish that this meant that all wars, big or small, 'declared' in so many words or not--most weren't, even then--had to be legislatively authorized." (4) Once Congress had given ex ante approval for military hostilities, the Commander-in-Chief Clause allowed the President to conduct military hostilities. The only exception allowed unilateral presidential action in response to a direct attack on the United States. According to Ely, the Constitution imposed a duty on the federal courts to intervene if Presidents waged wars without congressional approval. "[T]he court would ask whether Congress had authorized [the war], and if it hadn't, rule the war unconstitutional unless and until such authorization was forthcoming." (5) This process, Ely concluded, was designed with the substantive goal in mind of making it difficult for the United States to enter into war. It is fair to say that Ely's view represents the majority view among academics and has a certain intuitive attraction because it appeals to the standard working model of the separation of powers that prevails in domestic affairs.

To honor Professor Ely's contribution to the field, this Article will discuss various elements of War and Responsibility with particular attention to the current war on terrorism. It is my hope, however, that this Article will make a contribution that goes beyond a critique aimed solely at War and Responsibility--in part this is because Ely's views are shared so broadly among those who study war powers, constitutional law, and international politics. Part I critiques Ely's approach, both his method of constitutional interpretation and his substantive goals for the warmaking process. It will propose a different vision for war powers that provides more flexibility to the political branches. Part II asks whether Ely's process actually produces his desired substantive outcomes, and questions whether the costs and benefits of different warmaking processes are sufficiently clear to cement one into place as a matter of constitutional law. Part III discusses the transformation of warfare and threats to American national security since War and Responsibility. International terrorism of the kind that attacked our nation on September 11, 2001, rogue nations, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) place new demands on the Constitution's system for making war. This Article counsels against establishing a fixed constitutional process for war powers when the struggle against al Qaeda is still early and the costs and benefits of different approaches cannot yet be measured with any confidence. In such times of uncertainty and of new challenges to American national security, I argue that the more effective constitutional framework would allow the political branches to shape war decisions without any interference from the federal judiciary.

I

By requiring Congress to preapprove all wars through the Declare War Clause, the Framers, Ely believed, had used process to seek a substantive end. Introducing multiple institutions into the decision to make war simply would limit the number of conflicts. The Framers sought to remove the war power from the executive because they believed it to be the most prone to military conflict. If the President and Congress had to agree on war, Ely believed, then the United States would enter fewer wars and those conflicts would arise only after reason and deliberation. As Ely put it, "[T]he point was not to exclude the executive from the decision--if the President's not on board we're not going to have much of a war--but rather to 'clog' the road to combat by requiring the concurrence of a number of people of various points of view." (6) The resulting deliberation would ensure not just fewer wars, but also that those wars that did occur would have the backing of the people.

This Part will focus on Ely's reliance on the original understanding of the Constitution. I am not the one to question his decision to base his theory on the Framing, as I (along with most other war powers scholars) have sought the answers there as well. (7) I think, however, that he narrowly relied on a few well-known statements by leading Framers to such an extent that he missed important pieces of historical evidence that would have led away from his strict reading of the Declare War Clause. Unlike Democracy and Distrust, War and Responsibility finds the original understanding so conclusive that it overlooks textual and structural sources that undermine the notion that Congress must approve all military conflicts ex ante. These sources suggest that the Constitution does not impose a fixed method for going to war, but instead allows the political branches a substantial amount of flexibility to shape the decisionmaking process for engaging in military hostilities.

First we turn to the constitutional text and structure. Ely bases his argument on a commonsense understanding of the power to "declare" war as the power to decide whether to start a war. This comports with a popular imagery of declarations of war as marking American entry into the most significant conflicts of the twentieth century, World Wars I and II. The Constitution, however, does not consistently use the word "declare" to mean "begin" or "initiate." Article I, Section 10, for example, withdraws from states the power to "engage" in war; if "declare" meant "begin" or "make," the provision should have prohibited states from "declaring" war. (8) Article III defines treason as "levying War" against the United States. (9) Again, if "declare" had the clear meaning of "begin" or "wage," then Article III should have made treason the crime of "declaring war" against the United States. Eighteenth-century English speakers would have used "engage" and "levy" broadly to include beginning or waging warfare, but not "declare," which carried the connotation of the recognition of a legal status, rather than of an authorization. (l0)

The structure of different constitutional provisions supports the notion that declaring war did not mean the same thing as beginning, conducting, or waging war. As just mentioned, Article I, Section 10 generally prohibited the states from engaging in war. It allowed states to conduct hostilities, however, if Congress approved. "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, ... engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay." (11) Here, in a nutshell, is a constitutional provision that creates the exact process that Ely wants: states cannot engage in war without congressional permission. It even contains the unwritten exception he needs for unilateral responses to actual attacks. If one believes that the Framers were consistent throughout the Constitution, they should have written that "the President may not, without the Consent of Congress, engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay." Instead, the Constitution gives Congress the Declare War power and the President the Commander-in-Chief power without any description of process.

We also should not overlook Article I, Section 8, Clause 11--the very provision that houses the Declare War Clause. In addition to the power to declare war, that provision also vests in Congress the power to grant letters of marque and reprisal and to make rules concerning captures. (12) Both are provisions relating to the recognition or declaration of a legal status, rather than the authorization to carry out the activities. Rules on capture, for example, do not authorize captures in wartime but only determine their ownership, while letters of marque and reprisal extend the benefits of combat immunity to private forces. (13) Reading the clauses to share a common nature, because of their grouping, suggests that the Declare War Clause similarly vested Congress with a power devoted to declarations of the international legal status of certain actions.

The absence of a defined process is telling, because the Constitution usually makes very clear when it requires a specific process before the government can take action. Most saliently, Article I establishes the finely tuned system of bicameralism and presentment necessary to enact federal statutes. (14) The only method that the Constitution permits for the enactment of a statute is through the precise process set out in Article I, Section 7. Other forms of governmental action have their own detailed procedures. Article II, Section 2 declares that Presidents can make treaties subject to the advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate, while appointments can be made subject to a majority of the Senate. (15) Both provisions establish a process, the order in which each institution acts, and the minimum...