IN THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH, WHO HAS THE FINAL WORD ON INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ISSUES?
“One of the battles that continues to this day revolves around ‘Who is the final word on international law inside the executive branch?’ In the first term of the Bush administration there got to be a squabble between the State Department under Will Taft and the Office of Legal Counsel [at DOJ] on the interpretation of the Geneva Conventions, and the OLC finally decided that rather than try to convince the Legal Adviser’s office that they were right, they simply stated that OLC, working for the Attorney General, is the final decider on all legal issues, domestic or foreign. The Legal Adviser’s office disagreed with that and felt that the Justice Department was the final word on domestic law issues, but that the Legal Adviser’s office was the final word on international law issues. That’s an issue that has still not been sorted out. It’s a fair point that if the Attorney General is the final arbiter on domestic issues but the Secretary of State is the final arbiter on international issue
