There could be no dispute that Syria uses banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention, and ignored the urging of the UN Security Council. That, of course, was Donald Trump explaining his decision to order missile strikes on a Syrian airbase and retaliation for the country's use of chemical weapons. The strikes have already become a major political and foreign policy issue, but they are also sparking
important legal questions. Did the President violate either international or US law? We're gonna ask two experts in the field. We have Michael Glennan. He's a professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at tuss University. And William Banks. He is the director of the National of the Institute for National Security and counter Terrorism at Syracuse Syracuse University Law School. Welcome to you both, Um, Bill Um and Mike you can jump in here too if if you
want to. But can you explain what your understanding is of what basis the President and his administration have articulated to say that he was authorized to order these strikes. Well, the administration so far has done very little to explain the legal basis for the strikes. The statement last night talked about the purpose being to deter assade from using chemical weapons, and also made mention of the fact that the strike it was deemed to be proportionate to uh
the underlying cause, which was the chemical weapons attack. But neither of those offers much of a legal explanation. Well, Mike, what what would the president have to show, say, under international law to justify a strike like this. Well, under the United Nations Charter, use of force or threat of force is prohibited absence an armed attack against the state, and when a state is the victim of an armed attack,
it can seek assistance from other states. But there's no claim that the United States was acting in this latter capacity of collective self defense, coming to aid anybody as a third party. The question is whether humanitarian interventions so called is permissible under international law, and the answer under the Charter, of course, is no. There there are two possibilities.
One is the Security Council authorizes the use of force, and the other is that you're acting self under under Article fifty one in response to an armed attack for purposes of self defense. And neither one of those rational supplies here, Bill, what do you think about about that interpretation of the U N Charter. I think I think some people like Harold co have a little broader interpretation
of what countries are allowed to do. What what do you think, Well, I think Mike's absolutely correct about the Charter. Harold and some others do advance the idea that humanitarian intervention might sometimes be permitted. I think Harold takes a pretty nuanced view and would allow a humanitarian operation only
under certain, very carefully circumscribed limits. And you know, there have been some cases Kosovo in uh Syria in two thousand and eleven where you might argue that one of the rationales for acting on behalf of the United States was humanitarian intervention. But in in Libya in two thousand eleven, the UN Security Council had acted just as Mike suggested they would have to to enable an action like this.
And in Kosovo, I think most of servers at the time concluded that the United States had done the right thing, but had acted in violation of international law. That may be what happened here. Well, Mike, you know, if the so, it sounds as though the president perhaps should have gone to the at least under the Convention should have gone to the u N and ask the security counts to
authorize this um. But in a situation like this is not really practical if you've got a you've got a situation where there's nobody really on the ground who can ask for help. In a lot of ways, everybody's fighting. The US is really allied with anybody in Syria right now, and um, the you know, but somebody's got to stop aside from using chemical weapons. So is it really practical to say you should go through that sort of international um,
that sort of international procedure. Well, it's practical in the sense that, of course there's no emergency. Uh, if the objective is to deter the use of chemical weapons and to punish Assad, that could be done a week from now, and the Security Council could conceivably authorize it within a week. So the problem is not practicality. The problem is political. There's a Russian veto that inevitably would be confronted, So you'd be in a situation, as Bill pointed out, rather
like Kosovo where you're confronting massive human rights violations. That's that's not really I think disputable at this point. But uh, the paralysis of the Security Council, and that the unfortunate reality is that, uh, the international legal regime as it exists today doesn't adequately deal with these humanitarian crises. Bill, what do we do about that? We only have about
a minute left now. But but I mean, if Mike is right, um, that that there is this political paralysis, and you know, it's certainly highly likely that Russians would have vetoed any Security Council resolution. You know, is there just no way around that in terms of practicalities and international law. Well, I think Mike is correct. But there's some things that we could have done and that we could still do or should have done and still could do.
One is to get the support of some allies. There was no no announcement of support from our friends and allies before the fact or aft of the fact last night. Uh. And the second thing is that he could have gone to Congress to add some legitimacy to this, As Mike said, in a week's time or less, the Security Council could have met. I daresay Congress could have done the same.
And judging from the reactions this morning and last night, the Republican Congress would have supported an authorization for the president to undertake these actions. We're talking about the legal basis for, or perhaps lack of legal basis for the missile strikes on Syria last night. Our guests are Michael Glennon of the Fletcher School at Tussa University and William Banks of Syracuse University Law School. Um, Mike, the I
have some talking points from the White House here. Uh. One of the things in terms of their legal basis, and one of the things they point to is opinion issued by Barack Obama's Justice Department the Office of Legal Council as a basis for the intervention in Libya. In your mind, does that does that documents help the Trump
administration out at all? Here? It may, But I think the most important pronouncement to come from Barack Obama was the statement that he made just before he was elected president. As a candidate for office. He gave the best one sentence summary of the president's independent power I think that anybody has given. Here's what he said. The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve an
actual or imminent threat to the nation. There is no actual or imminent threat of the United States posed by Syria today. There was not three days ago before we launched this attack. The question that he that he pointed to is whether there's an emergency. And this is the issue that Bill touched upon just just before the break. Clearly, if the President wanted to, he could go to the Congress.
There's there's no set of exigent circumstances that required that this strike be launched when it was uh, There's there's plenty of time to hold hearings and hear experts, views pro and con It may be a good idea, it may not. But the bottom line is, if the President is going to expose the United States to the risk of involvement in a large war or the risk of a retaliation against American forces or civilians, unless there's a unless there's an emergency, he's got to go and get
congressional approval first. Well, Bill that the President and some of the Republican supporters of of the president's actions here are appointing to Article two of the Constitution as power as commander in Chief and also the and also the War Powers Act, that he's going to go to Congress afterwards to to get authorization for further action. Is that what is the legal framework here for what the president
is supposed to do in terms of involving Congress. Well, the President used military force on behalf of the United States and needed so unilaterally without either seeking the authorization of or the at least the consultation of Congress. As we know from our you know, Civics education as children, the use of force by the United States follows process that's very clearly stated in the Constitution. The Congress authorizes, and then the president carries out the will of Congress.
That didn't happen in this case, and as we noted before the break, he certainly could go to Congress for that authority. It's it's important of the listeners to understand the difference between this military operation and the ones that President Trump, like the president before him, President Obama, taken with respect to EISL in Syria. Those operations, whatever one thinks of them, were authorized by an authorization for the use of military force enacted by Congress a few days
after nine eleven. It's a bit of a stretch in many of us our views to apply that to EISEL, but there was at least authority on paper for military operations. This one here was out of whole cloth. Mike. It's I hear you and Bill both sort of making an argument about, you know, the constitutional powers of the respective branches, but haven't as a matter of practice, haven't we sort of ceded to the president and I we I mean
in part Congress in the courts. Uh, you know, an awful lot of power to act very quickly and then maybe go back to Congress and and retroactively get authorization for for for what they just did. Now, I don't think so. First of all, when you look at those incidents, you find that almost all of them in flights with pirates, clashes with cattle, rustler's, trivial naval engagements, very minor uses of force that didn't risk involving the United States in
the large scale war. That's really the issue here, Um, what is the risk that is incurred on behalf of the nation as a whole. And that's what distinguishes all these other incidents. There are just a small handful of incidents like this that create this level of risk. And let's be clear that risk is substantial. There American troops on the ground in Syria, in Iraq at the in
syric of air base in Turkey right across the border. Uh. This is uh, this is a risky action, and it's a kind of risk that ought to be decided upon by the elected representatives to the people. I want to thank our guests. That was Michael Glennon talking. He is a professor at the Fletcher School at tuss University and William Banks he is director of the Institute for National
Security and counter Terrorism at Syracuse Law School. We've been talking about the missile strike ordered by Donald Trump against against Syria and discussing whether there was legal authorization for that, and UH, there are certainly some questions that I have a feeling we are going to revisit in the coming weeks.