## Facts

- After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Congress enacted the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), authorizing the President to use necessary and appropriate force against those responsible for 9/11 and those who harbored them, and it stated that the AUMF supplied specific statutory authority under the War Powers Resolution.
- In 2002, Congress enacted a second AUMF authorizing force to defend U.S. national security against the threat posed by Iraq and to enforce certain U.N. Security Council resolutions; Congress also stated that this authorization supplied specific statutory authority under the War Powers Resolution.
- The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) developed out of al Qaeda–linked forces in Iraq; although later splits occurred within the broader terrorist movement, ISIL continued to denounce and target the United States.
- In 2014, President Barack Obama announced a military campaign against ISIL in Iraq and Syria, citing the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs as statutory authority.
- Congress did not pass a new, ISIL-specific AUMF during the period addressed in the complaint, but Congress repeatedly appropriated funds for the campaign.
- Plaintiff Captain Nathan Michael Smith, a U.S. Army officer, was deployed to Kuwait in support of the campaign and alleged his duties related to it.
- Smith sued President Obama in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking declaratory relief that the continuing military action against ISIL was unlawful absent new congressional authorization and that reliance on the existing AUMFs was improper.
- Smith asserted that the campaign violated the War Powers Resolution because it lacked specific statutory authorization, and he also invoked constitutional theories including the Take Care Clause.
- Smith claimed that uncertainty about the legality of the operation placed him in an untenable position as a service member who had sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution.
- The government moved to dismiss, arguing that Smith lacked Article III standing and that the claims presented a nonjusticiable political question.

## Issues

1. Did Captain Smith allege a concrete, particularized injury sufficient to establish Article III standing to challenge the legality of the military campaign against ISIL?
2. Even if Smith could establish standing, did the challenge present a political question that federal courts may not decide because it is committed to the political branches or lacks judicially manageable standards?

## Decision

- The court granted the government’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
- The court held that Smith lacked Article III standing because he did not plead an injury in fact; his asserted harm was an abstract disagreement and uncertainty about legality, not a concrete personal injury.
- The court rejected the idea that Smith’s oath and desire for legal clarity, without more, created standing, distinguishing prior “oath” cases that involved a direct, immediate conflict between legal duties and threatened penalties.
- The court also concluded, in the alternative, that the case was barred by the political question doctrine because evaluating the legality of ongoing hostilities against ISIL would require judgments committed to the political branches and would draw the court into military and foreign affairs decisions without workable legal standards.
- The court did not reach the merits of whether the 2001 or 2002 AUMFs authorized the campaign or whether the War Powers Resolution was violated.

## Legal Principles

- Article III standing requires an injury in fact that is concrete and particularized and actual or imminent; a generalized grievance or abstract disagreement with government action is not enough.
- A plaintiff’s uncertainty about the legality of government policy, standing alone, is not a cognizable injury in fact.
- An asserted conflict with an oath can support standing only where the plaintiff plausibly faces a direct, non-speculative choice between violating legal duties and suffering concrete consequences; a request for judicial reassurance does not satisfy injury in fact.
- Under the political question doctrine (including the factors identified in *Baker v. Carr*), federal courts will decline to decide disputes that are textually committed to the political branches, that lack judicially manageable standards, or that would require policy determinations unsuitable for judicial resolution.
- Challenges to ongoing uses of military force often raise political question concerns, particularly where Congress continues to appropriate funds for the operation and there is no clear institutional clash between Congress and the President that calls for judicial intervention.

## Conclusion

*Smith v. Obama* dismissed an Army officer’s suit seeking a declaration that the President’s military campaign against ISIL was unlawful without new congressional authorization, holding that the officer’s oath-based concern and uncertainty did not amount to a concrete injury for Article III standing and, alternatively, that deciding the legality of ongoing hostilities would present a nonjusticiable political question reserved to the political branches.


Smith v. Obama, 217 F. Supp. 3d 283 (2016)