The Cooper-Church Amendment

Is It Constitutional?

Our sortie into Cambodia has stimulated the more articulate elements of American society, and not necessarily those most learned in that recondite subject, international law, into numerous emphatic pronuncia- mentos. These elements, including many of the same people, have expressed confident opinions regarding the Church- Cooper Amendment (a bill which would limit the authority of the President to order or maintain our Armed Forces in Cambodia), not always recognizing the problems of constitutional law that such a statute would present. Here we shall discuss not the wisdom or the folly of that sortie, but the legal question involved in the public debate it has aroused.

Is It Constitutional?

Our sortie into Cambodia has stimulated the more articulate elements of American society, and not necessarily those most learned in that recondite subject, international law, into numerous emphatic pronuncia- mentos. These elements, including many of the same people, have expressed confident opinions regarding the Church- Cooper Amendment (a bill which would limit the authority of the President to order or maintain our Armed Forces in Cambodia), not always recognizing the problems of constitutional law that such a statute would present. Here we shall discuss not the wisdom or the folly of that sortie, but the legal question involved in the public debate it has aroused.