Op-eds

The April 1, 2011 opinion of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), entitled “Authority to Use Military Force in Libya,” presents three main arguments in seeking to justify the constitutionality of the U.S. use of force against Libya: (1) the President has a “broad constitutional power” to order the use of force without congressional approval, particularly when the use of force isn’t really a war; (2) the existence of a United Nations Security Council resolution expands that power because the President has a responsibility to preserve the Council’s credibility and to ensure that its edicts do not turn out to be “empty words”; and (3) in any event, Congress has allowed the President to undertake this action through the War Powers Resolution, which permits him to use force for up to 60 days without specific, advance approval...