University of Chicago Law School Chicago Unbound Journal Articles Faculty Scholarship 2009 Great Power Politics and the Structure of Foreign Relations Law Daniel Abebe Follow this and additional works at: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/journal_articles Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Daniel Abebe, "Great Power Politics and the Structure of Foreign Relations Law," 10 Chicago Journal of International Law 125 (2009). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Chicago Unbound. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of Chicago Unbound. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Great Power Politics and the Structure of Foreign Relations Law Daniel Abebe* I. INTRODUCTION Foreign relations law serves as an internal constraint on the unilateral exercise of foreign relations powers through the distribution of authority within the national government. Given the predominance of the executive branch in foreign affairs, courts routinely resolve questions regarding the breadth of the executive's authority by reference to the Constitution, legal precedent, historical practice, and functional considerations. Though courts generally focus on these domestic factors, they have been historically quite sensitive to the international political implications of their decisions. But we don't have a clear understanding of how or when courts consider international politics in resolving foreign relations law questions. We lack a framework to begin thinking about the relationship between international politics and the allocation of decisionmaking authority. This short Article frames foreign relations law as a function of international politics to explore the relationship between the strength of external international political constraints on a state and the levels of judicial deference to the executive in that state.