INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS CHALLENGES FOR THE NEXT ADMINISTRATION

An edited transcript of John Bellinger's address at the Georgetown Journal of International Law 2017 Symposium, "International Justice: Where We Stand, Where We Fall, and Where We Need to Be," held in Hart Auditorium, Washington DC, is presented. I am going to talk about some of the challenges that face Trump administration officials as they enter into office. A lot of the administration's approach to international and national security law is going to depend on the people that are put in place in the general counsel positions across the different departments and agencies. Right now we have a number of challenges already. We've seen the refugee and immigration Executive Order; we've seen the three leaked executive orders that were apparently circulated inside the White House but didn't go much farther than that after they were leaked. To a certain extent, it may be unfair to judge the administration fully on those because they hadn't actually been issued.