Spring 2026
Professor(s):
Chris Mirasola (FACULTY)
Credits: 3
Course Areas: Constitutional and Criminal Law
International Law
Time: 1:00p-2:30p TTH Location:
Course Outline: National security law is a wide-ranging, and expanding, field of law. It combines constitutional doctrines dating to the earliest days of the Republic, detailed statutory laws, complex regimes of appropriations law, and a patchwork of international law commitments. It spans foreign and domestic affairs. It is used to justify a tremendous range of government action. And its consequences are often existential—both for those on whom the law operates and for our body politic.
This course will address seven topics: an introduction to the constitutional underpinnings of the modern national security state, government lawyering in the national security state, foreign relations law, foreign and domestic intelligence collection, the military and armed conflict, and national security in domestic affairs. Assessments will be both written and oral, modeling the skills integral to the practice of government lawyering (and client-facing lawyering more generally).
Course Syllabus:
Course Notes: (Face-to-Face) The UH registration system instruction mode for this course is listed in parenthesis. After student registration opens, there may be instruction mode changes to this course up through two weeks before the first day of classes for the term, but notice of such changes will be sent to then-registered students. For this instruction mode, instructors and students are expected to normally be physically present in the classroom. If the course has a final examination, it will be in a classroom requiring your physical presence. Other assessment, such as a mid term exam, may also be in a classroom. Whether this instructor will offer “remote presence” (starting a zoom meeting from the podium computer to enable student remote access on an occasional basis) for part or all of the semester is not known, but students should not rely on an expectation that remote presence will be available.
Prerequisites:
First Day Assignments:
Final Exam Schedule:
This course will have:
Exam:
Paper:
Satisfies Senior Upper Level Writing Requirement: No
Experiential Course Type: No
Bar Course: No
DistanceEd ABA: No
Pass-Fail Student Election: Available
Course Materials
Book(s) Required
Course Materials: The primary text is STEPHEN DYCUS, WILLIAM BANKS, EMILY BERMAN, PETER RAVEN-HANSEN, & STEPHEN VLADECK, NATIONAL SECURITY LAW (8th edition, 2024). ISBN: 9798889062905