Power Without Impunity: War Crimes and Illegal Orders
Legal scholars Ryan Goodman, Tess Bridgeman, and Mary McCord examine accountability for war crimes and the constitutional limits on presidential military authority.
Why we picked this
Three of the country's leading national security lawyers — from Just Security and Georgetown Law — tackle the question of who bears responsibility when illegal orders are followed, at a moment when that question is no longer hypothetical.
When unlawful orders are given — in times of war, in moments of domestic unrest — who bears responsibility, and where does accountability actually lie? NYU Law professor Ryan Goodman moderates a conversation with two of the country’s most authoritative voices on the subject: Tess Bridgeman, co-editor-in-chief of Just Security and founder of the War Powers Resolution Reporting Project; and Mary McCord, executive director of Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection and former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security.
The panel examines the global legal frameworks that govern war crimes alongside the specific constitutional constraints of the American system. The discussion ranges from the potential criminal exposure of federal agents and cabinet officials to the constitutional limits on presidential authority to deploy the military domestically — a set of questions that have acquired new urgency in recent years.
This is a serious evening of legal analysis, not punditry. All three panelists have worked at the intersection of law and national security at the highest levels, and the conversation is likely to illuminate frameworks that rarely surface in public debate.