Parliament's Secret War

Reviews / Votes

The literature on parliamentary control of military action has blossomed since the predictably ill-fated war in Iraq. Parliament's Secret War represents its clear high point. It is exceptionally well researched, intellectually well rounded, and responds fully to the challenge it sets itself, showing why the war powers convention falls short and making a compelling case for reforms which might remedy some of its current failings. -- Paul F Scott, School of Law, University of Glasgow * Public Law * By any measure, this is an excellent book. It is innovative, timely, thorough, and challenges orthodoxy in a sustained, compelling, and methodical way. Bringing together research from both domestic and international legal scholarship gives the book depth and nuance. -- Leah Trueblood, St Hilda's College, University of Oxford * Law Quarterly Review * The book is a timely, comprehensive, and necessary study of 'how Britain constitutionally decides to go to war', or, 'how the House of Commons is and should be involved in the decision to send British troops into harm's way'... The book's core message - that we must strive to keep in good health the political constitution, that we must continue to expose and scrutinise those 'hidden power structures' - will resonate not only with those concerned specifically with the issue of domestic accountability arrangements vis-a-vis UK war powers, and the place of the nascent War Powers Convention within these arrangements. The book will be of interest to those keen to understand how the UK's constitutional machinery continues to evolve against the backdrop of pressing issues of contemporary constitutional import, more broadly. -- Mark Bennett, School of Law and Social Justice, University of Liverpool * Legal Studies *