Customer Reviews

National Security Law 2nd Edition

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There must be some kind of agreement between the authors and the publishers at Carolina Academic Press to restrict the use of this book to law schools only. I had to borrow a copy to develop my undergrad course. They worship the book like it was golden or something over at Duke Law, and I don't know how popular it is at other places, but readers might want to check out the cheaper National Security and Military Law in a Nutshell or the Stephen Dycus textbook. There really aren't any good books on the subject. Everything you'd expect to find, and more, is here, however. The most original piece is chapter 2 on theoretical frameworks that the authors have come up with for classifying NS law (balance of power, collective security, world federalism, functionalism, and incentive theory). The rest is all pretty much a straightforward casebook. Several early chapters address the law of war, and OPLAW is also covered. Terrorism, crimes against humanity, and arms control are covered in some of the middle chapters, but those looking for in-depth analysis of peacekeeping operations should probably look elsewhere. I found a few of the latter chapters interesting, like those on intelligence, technology, and homeland security, but there were many chapters I didn't find at all useful, such as Chapters 14 (Law of the Sea), 15 (Outer Space Law), and 32 (Environmental Law). These are specialized areas of law which for my taste only involves an occasional criminal justice interest, such as how CJ is sometimes interested in piracy and/or maritime law as an example of customary law, outer space law as an example of treaty law, and environmental law as a way to learn about state, corporate, or white collar crime. Also less useful to me were Chapters 16 (Powers of Congress), 17 (Powers of President), 18 (Treaties), and 19 (Lawyers). With the exception of chapter 19 (which is career advice on how to become a national security lawyer), the others constitute the kind of emphasis which would be found in a Political Science Department, and indeed, most syllabi for such courses reflect use of the national security topic to accomplish the learning of political science insights into the basic workings of government. Also less useful to me were Chapters 21 (Domestic Terrorism), 22 (Secrecy), 23 (Freedom of Expression), 24 (Fourth & Fifth Amendment concerns), 25 (Espionage), 26 (Immigration Law), and 30 (FEMA). It's not that these topics are unimportant, but what you need to know about them are touched on elsewhere in other chapters, and these chapters are not that well-developed or well-integrated with the book. For example, chapter 21 on domestic terrorism is less than ten pages long, and probably does not technically qualify as a textbook chapter. The other chapters are either like that, consist of the contributor talking about war stories from their career, or are an extended legal brief of one or two court cases. Students should understand that in the areas of national security law and/or the international law of conflict management, there are few matters which are settled or definitive, and that controversial yet legitimate points of view exist.