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"Anwar Al-‘Awlaqi Against the Islamic Legal Tradition"
Yale Law School, Public Law Working Paper No. 217
Islamic Law and Law of the Muslim World Paper
ANDREW F. MARCH, Yale University
Email: andrew.march
In this paper I, examine the existing Islamic justifications for perfidious violence against one’s own state of citizenship, both when the target is a military one and when it is a civilian one. I show how the primary examples of such justifications, most notably in the case of the Yemeni-American Anwar al-‘Awlaqi, fail to address the consensus position in the Islamic legal tradition that it is impermissible to violate a contract of mutual security with a non-Muslim state of residence. I also discuss what the phenomenon of ‘Awlaqi says about the state of authority and knowledge in Islamic law and the relevance of Islamic jurisprudence for Muslim minorities.
Full Journal Article Author Details
By: Robert M. Chesney
Robert M. Chesney is Charles I. Francis Professor in Law at UT-Austin School of Law. Chesney is a national security law specialist, with a particular interest in problems associated with terrorism. Professor Chesney recently served in the Justice Department in connection with the Detainee Policy Task Force created by Executive Order 13493. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security, a senior editor for the Journal of National Security Law & Policy, an associate member of the Intelligence Science Board, a non-resident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the American Law Institute. Professor Chesney has published extensively on topics ranging from detention and prosecution in the counterterrorism context to the states secrets privilege. He served previously as chair of the Section on National Security Law of the Association of American Law Schools and as editor of the National Security Law Report (published by the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security). His upcoming projects include two books under contract with Oxford University Press, one concerning the evolution of detention law and policy and the other examining the judicial role in national security affairs.
