Fellow Harvard graduates with President Obama: Professor Francis Boyle, Lecturer in law at the University of Illinois and John Quigley, Professor Emeritus of international law at the Ohio State University explain that the Executive Branch of the U.S. government does not have the power to declare war. That right, according to the US Constitution is the sole prerogative of Congress.
The suspension of deliberation, when Congress’s views are suspended under a state of emergency, in fact means that democracy, which is only possible when elected representatives come together and vote for and against something, thus distributing the responsibility for declaring war to the whole enfranchised population, is suspended. Congress’s somewhat slow deliberations can be considered a necessary brake in order to prevent rash decisions being made. When an issue is taken out of Congress’s hands – whatever it is, very real dangers that occur when an issue is ‘securitized’ are discussed. A similar situation exists in many other countries, including Russia.
