2653 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– REPLIES INTERNATIONAL LAW, U.S. WAR POWERS, AND THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM Ryan Goodman ∗ and Derek Jinks ∗∗ In Congressional Authorization and the War on Terrorism, 1 Profes- sors Curtis Bradley and Jack Goldsmith provide a useful framework for interpreting the contours of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Mili- tary Force 2 (AUMF). Written with the rigor and erudition characteris- tic of their work, the Article will no doubt make an enduring contribu- tion to debates about the role of law in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). The broad, general nature of the AUMF, however, poses real challenges for any effort to define in pragmatic and principled terms the outer limits of the authority Congress has conferred on the President. Professors Bradley and Goldsmith argue that the interna- tional law of war — what we will call the law of armed conflict (LOAC) — informs the proper interpretation of the AUMF. In other words, the AUMF arguably authorizes the President to do whatever LOAC permits, in part because this well-established, widely endorsed body of law defines the rights and obligations of belligerents. We agree. 3 However, Professors Bradley and Goldsmith systematically understate the interpretive significance of LOAC and thereby blunt the ∗ J. Sinclair Armstrong Assistant Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law, Harvard Law School. ∗∗ Associate Professor of Law, Arizona State University College of Law; Assistant Professor of Law Designate, University of Texas School of Law. We thank Naomi Loewith and Deirdre Mask for excellent research assistance. 1 Curtis A. Bradley & Jack L. Goldsmith, Congressional Authorization and the War on Ter- rorism, 118 HARV . L. REV . 2047 (2005). 2 Pub. L. No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (2001). 3 Because LOAC is directly incorporated into U.S. domestic law and military policy, it plays an important role in other interpretive factors identified by Professors Bradley and Goldsmith. Congress passed the AUMF against the background of robust, unequivocal commitments to LOAC in past executive practice, see, e.g., Dep’t of Def. Directive 5100.77, DoD Law of War Pro- gram, para. 5.3.1 (1998) [hereinafter DoD Law of War Program] (establishing a policy to observe the laws of war in all conflicts and the “principles and spirit” of this law in all other operations); U.S. Dep’ts of the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marine Corps, Army Regulation 190- 8/OPNAVINST 3461.6/AFJI 31-304/MCO 3461.1, Enemy Prisoners of War, Retained Personnel, Civilian Internees and Other Detainees § 1-1 (1997) (requiring that all enemy detainees be treated in accordance with the basic principles of the Geneva Conventions); statutes, see, e.g., War Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C.A. § 2441 (West Supp. 2004); and treaties, see, e.g., Bradley & Goldsmith, supra note 1, at 2056 n.25 (collecting citations).