As of July 7, 2026, Indian authorities have renewed the delegation of preventive detention powers under the National Security Act, allowing designated officials to order detention without ordinary criminal charges during a period of heightened political sensitivity following nationwide protests. The case illustrates how extraordinary executive powers can be exercised through standing statutory authorities rather than formally declared constitutional emergencies, highlighting an increasingly important form of embedded exceptionality within ordinary governance.

In this discussion hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, John Yoo, William Galston, and Ilya Somin examine competing constitutional theories of executive power, separation of powers, independent agencies, war powers, and the original understanding of Article II against the backdrop of major Supreme Court cases concerning the unitary executive. The panel explores enduring questions about the constitutional limits of presidential authority and how competing interpretations of executive power continue to shape American constitutional governance.

On July 23, 2026, Spain activated an Emergency of National Interest for the first time in response to a wildfire crisis, temporarily centralizing national coordination of disaster response as fires spread across multiple autonomous communities during an intense heat wave. The declaration illustrates how democratic governments can reallocate operational authority through existing statutory emergency frameworks while leaving the constitutional order and ordinary civil liberties intact, highlighting an increasingly important model of emergency governance in an era of climate-driven disasters.

On June 29, 2026, President Trump invoked a little-known emergency authority under the Tariff Act of 1930 to temporarily suspend certain trade remedies on phosphate fertilizer imports from Morocco in response to global supply disruptions affecting American agriculture. ISSE examines this rarely used statutory emergency mechanism and explains how it differs from broader national emergency declarations, illustrating the growing role of sector-specific emergency powers in addressing supply chain and economic crises.

This analysis by Ashleigh Maciolek at the Brennan Center for Justice examines the Supreme Court's increasing reliance on its emergency, or "shadow," docket, noting that for the first time the Court resolved more substantive matters through expedited emergency procedures than through its traditional merits docket. Particularly relevant to ISSE's work, the article raises broader questions about how institutional procedures originally designed for exceptional circumstances can gradually become normalized within ordinary constitutional governance.

In this provocative essay, Stephen Vladeck argues that a defining feature of the Roberts Court’s emergency docket jurisprudence has been an effort to preserve and reinforce the Supreme Court’s institutional supremacy, often at the expense of lower courts and Congress while enabling expansive exercises of executive authority. The article raises broader questions about whether exceptional authority can become concentrated within judicial institutions as well as executive ones, and how the normalization of extraordinary power across multiple branches of government may affect democratic accountability, institutional legitimacy, and the constitutional balance of power.

Russian-installed authorities in occupied Crimea have declared a regional state of emergency following sustained Ukrainian strikes on energy infrastructure and military logistics. ISSE examines the declaration through the lens of international humanitarian law, exploring how emergency powers operate under military occupation and why this case differs fundamentally from emergencies declared by sovereign governments.

The President’s power to remove and control subordinate executive officers has sparked a constitutional debate that began in 1789 and rages on today.  Leading originalists claim that the Constitution created a “unitary executive” President whose plenary removal power affords her “exclusive control” over subordinates’ exercise of executive power.  Text assigning the President a removal power and exclusive control appears nowhere in the Constitution, however, and unitary scholars have instead relied on select historical understandings and negative inferences drawn from a supposed lack of independent regulatory structures at the Founding.  The comprehensive historical record introduced by this article lays this debate to rest...

On June 24, 2026, Venezuela declared a nationwide state of emergency following the most destructive earthquakes to strike the country in more than a century. ISSE examines the legal authorities invoked, the distinction between disaster-related and governance emergencies, and why even well-justified emergency powers should remain proportionate, transparent, and temporary.

In this Lawfare essay, George Croner examines recent court decisions addressing presidential authority to federalize the National Guard and considers what those rulings may mean for future invocations of the Insurrection Act, arguing that courts retain a critical role in reviewing whether presidents have satisfied the statutory conditions necessary to exercise extraordinary domestic emergency powers. The article explores how judicial oversight can serve as an important safeguard against the expansion and normalization of exceptional executive authority within ordinary constitutional governance.

On June 20, 2026, Bolivia declared a 90-day nationwide state of emergency after weeks of protests and road blockades disrupted fuel supplies, transportation, and access to essential services. ISSE examines the legal authorities invoked, the role of legislative oversight, and what the declaration reveals about how democratic governments use emergency powers during periods of prolonged political and economic crisis.

Kate Gilbert examines how the Department of Justice’s report uses the language of ordinary bureaucracy to frame extraordinary political claims. The article raises questions central to ISSE’s work: how exceptional political logics become embedded within routine democratic governance and how expansive interpretations of Unitary Executive Theory may reshape democratic governance. 

How can the most expansive forms of the unitary executive theory function as a standing state of exception within constitutional law? ISSE puts the recent legal disputes over the revocation of security clearances and the attempted federalization of National Guard within a deeper theory of presidential power. 

Should the Supreme Court craft a new rule of constitutional law cementing presidential control over the executive branch of government? Using the case studies of recent democratic decline in Hungary, Poland, and Turkey, David M. Driesen unpacks the implications of expanding executive authority.

How has the use of presidential “czars” undermined Congress and the Constitution?  Dr. Mark J. Rozell discusses his newest book “Unitary Executive Theory: A Danger to Constitutional Government.”

Examining the Supreme Court’s consideration of the Trump v. Slaughter case, Peter J. Wallison argues that permitting presidents to remove officials from independent regulatory agencies without a cause would fundamentally alter the balance between Congress and the executive branch. Relevant to ISSE’s work, Wallison warns that subtle judicial reinterpretations of constitutional structure over time accumulate excessive concentrations of executive power.

Drawing on a comparative study of countries' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tom Ginsburg and Mila Versteeg argue that courts, legislatures, and subnational governments remained important constraints on executive power during emergencies. The article develops a typology of crises to show that different emergencies require different modes of governance and concludes that many emergencies are better governed through Madisonian checks and balances than Schmittian executive dominance.

Contrary to the “Decision of 1789” myth, history shows that the first Congress rejected the exclusive unitary model of the presidency—and thus the presidential removal power should be subject to more congressional control than recent Supreme Court decisions have held.

Cass R. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule examine the past, present, and future of the unitary executive theory, exploring competing constitutional interpretations of presidential control over the executive branch. The article analyzes the Supreme Court's treatment of the doctrine, particularly in Seila Law, and assesses its implications for presidential authority, independent agencies, and the separation of powers.

Prerogative, the power to take extra-legal measures in extraordinary circumstances, is generally considered to be the exclusive domain of the executive. This article shows that James Madison, who is widely regarded as hostile to discretionary power in the executive, not only endorsed exercises of prerogative by the executive but also took steps toward developing a model of prerogative that gives primacy to the legislature in times of emergency. Madison’s views on “legislative prerogative” emerged in the context of congressional debates over avowedly unconstitutional proposals including a grant of military authority to seize private property during the revolutionary war, the creation of the Bank of North America under the Articles of Confederation, and the provision of financial assistance to refugees from St. Domingo. These cases reveal a strict constructionist resorting to extra-legal measures to pursue objectives not expressly authorized by the constitution then in place as a safer alternative to more permanent expansions of government power established through law.