Michael Glennon

My career began in 1968, when I came to Washington as a college sophomore for what would be the first of three summer internships in the office of Representative Don Fraser. I worked on arms control matters such as MIRVs and CBW. I was hooked, and decided that I wanted to work on the Hill on the same sorts of issues after finishing school. In 1973 I began work with the Senate Legislative Counsel's Office and in 1977 with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. There I dealt with issues concerning the end of the Vietnam War, war powers, arms control, international agreements such as the Panama Canal Treaty and SALT II Treaty, arms export controls, intelligence oversight, China recognition and the Taiwan Relations Act, and the myriad quotidian issues that bore upon law and American foreign policy. My views generally reflected those of Fraser, Fulbright, Javits, Church, and other liberal internationalists who sought to subject U.S. action abroad more fully to an international rule of law. I taught law part-time during this period, and, in the 1980s, went into full-time law teaching. The United States was, of course, still locked in its "long twilight struggle" with the Soviet Union. But hegemonic issues had already begun to emerge, concerning, for example, the extent to which the United States should submit to the same use-of-force rules applicable to other states. For me, the question was posed dramatically, and personally, by U.S. support of the contras in Nicaragua. After co-directing an on-site inspection of their activities, I testified, at the request of the Nicaraguan government, in its action before the World Court. I was only a "fact" witness, called to relate information we had gathered. But I had began to wonder whether it was accurate to regard the deeply disturbing questions raised by the Nicaragua Case as genuine legal questions. Plainly the case raised issues concerning policy, wisdom, and morality; but law? I was increasingly unsure. By the time of NATO's Kosovo intervention, which I supported, I had come to harbor abiding doubts concerning the authenticity of the legalist regime that purportedly constrained the use of force among nations. NATO bombed Yugoslavia in clear violation of the United Nations Charter. But the Charter ban on force has now been violated so often by so many states-states that disagree with one another profoundly on core issues-that international "law," I have concluded, no longer provides a satisfactory answer concerning the permissibility of intervention. (This conclusion is elaborated in my just-published book, Limits of Law, Prerogatives of Power: Interventionism after Kosovo.) I have come to wonder, further, under what conditions it may be in the United States' long-term interest to project hegemonic power even at the cost of weakening authentic legalist constraints. Indeed, I regard this as the transcendent issue confronting American foreign policymakers today. The tension between hegemony and the rule of law is not restricted to use of force. It arises in connection with international environment law, arms control, international human rights, and other areas where law and hegemony collide. Failure to think through the implications of hegemonic aspirations could result in precedents that forestall the emergence of a genuine, comprehensive legalist system that is capable of advancing U.S. interests more effectively than any assertion of raw power. Conversely, premature commitment to an inchoate legalist regime could incapacitate the United States when future action is required without the support of an international consensus. Striking the right balance is critical: The success of American policymakers in reconciling hegemony with the rule of law will determine for decades to come whether American foreign policy options adequately reflect the full range of American interests.
 

Expertise

International law; constitutional law; foreign relations law; use of force; international human rights; international environmental law; international organizations; presidential electoral process