PROFESSOR AMY C. GAUDION CO-AUTHORS THIRD EDITION OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY LAW AND THE CONSTITUTION CASEBOOK
July 2025—Associate Professor Amy C. Gaudion is a co-author of the third edition of National Security Law and the Constitution with Professors Geoffrey S. Corn of Texas Tech University School of Law, Jimmy Gurulé of Notre Dame Law School, Jeffrey D. Kahn of the American University Washington College of Law, and Gary Corn of the American University Washington College of Law.
The third edition of the casebook, published by Aspen Publishing in February 2025, provides a comprehensive examination and analysis of the inherent tension between the Constitution and select national security policies and explores the multiple dimensions of that conflict. The casebook explores the constitutional foundation for the development of national security policy and the exercise of a wide array of national security powers. Each chapter focuses on critically important precedents, offering targeted questions following each case to assist students in identifying key concepts to draw from the primary sources.
The third edition features a significant reorganization, including two revised and updated chapters that focus on government responses to domestic emergencies and the domestic use of the military. It includes a new chapter on the “The Role of Law, Lawyers, and Institutions in the National Security Decision-Making Process”—an excellent starting point for raising all students, regardless of experience or prior knowledge, to a basic understanding of core institutions and roles for lawyers in this space before introducing the doctrinal issues addressed in subsequent chapters.
The new edition provides a comprehensive treatment of the relationship between constitutional, statutory, and international law and the creation and implementation of policies to regulate the primary tools in the government’s national security arsenal; targeted case introductions and follow-on questions; text boxes illustrating key principles with historical events, and highlighting important issues, rules, and principles closely related to the primary sources; and practice experience from the authors’ work experiences (including with the federal judiciary and the Departments of Defense, Treasury, and Justice) and research specialties, reflecting their different perspectives on national security law.
The preface to the casebook describes the authors’ objectives: “We have written a casebook, not a treatise, and our choices reflect our aim to provide students with a serious introduction to a difficult subject—one that enlightens but does not overwhelm. We hope this text enables students to appreciate the challenge of responding to the many threats to national security in a way that aligns with our nation’s commitment to the high ideals of our Constitution and the rule of law. Now, more than ever, an understanding of the question at the heart of national security law—'how the interests of security and liberty are reconciled’—is crucially important.”
The casebook is available for adoption in fall 2025 semester.
Amy C. Gaudion is an associate professor of law at Penn State Dickinson Law as well as the founder of Dickinson Law’s annual cyberspace simulation with the U.S. Army War College. Her scholarship focuses on national security law, cyberspace, and civilian-military relations, and she leads Dickinson Law’s national security and cyberspace programs.