University of St. Thomas

J.D., Harvard Law School
B.Phil., Oxford University
B.A., Columbia University
B.A., M.A. Oxford University

Robert Delahunty grew up in New York City. He was educated by the Jesuit order at Regis High School in Manhattan and graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University in 1968. He was awarded a Kellett Fellowship to study at Oxford University, from which he obtained a B.A. with First Class honors in Classics in 1970 and a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in 1972. He then studied or taught philosophy in England, Scotland, and Canada until 1980, holding research and teaching positions at Oriel College, Oxford University, and a tenured teaching position at the University of Durham in the north of England. During that time he wrote his book Spinoza, which was published in 1985.

Delahunty returned to the United States in 1980 to study law at Harvard Law School, from which he graduated cum laude in 1983. He began legal practice at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York City, where he was an Associate in the Litigating Section from 1983 to 1986, working primarily on a major probate proceeding. He joined the Appellate Section of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in 1986, and began working for the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department in 1989. He was Special Assistant to the Solicitor of Labor in 1991/1992, a Visiting Associate Professor of Law at the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America in 1999/2000, and Deputy General Counsel at the White House Office of Homeland Security in 2002/2003.

He spent most of his legal career before joining the UST faculty, however, at the Office of Legal Counsel, where he was made Special Counsel and a member of the Senior Executive Service in 1992. His work and writing at the Office of Legal Counsel focused on the constitutional law of foreign relations, Presidential war powers, public international law, treaties, and immigration law. His usual clients included the Office of the Counsel to the President, the Office of the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council, the Office of Management & Budget, the Office of the Attorney General, and the Office of the Legal Adviser to the State Department. He was selected, on Attorney General Janet Reno’s nomination, as an Atlantic Fellow in 1995/1996, enabling him to study and write on British and European asylum law at the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University.

Representative Scholarship

“Constitutional Justice” or “Constitutional Peace”? The Supreme Court and Affirmative Action, 65 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. -- (2008) (forthcoming). 

“All Quiet on the Western Front” and the Pursuit of Peace Through International Law, with John C. Yoo, -- Mich. L. Rev. – (2008) (forthcoming).

Reply to Professor Prakash, with John C. Yoo, -- Cornell L. Rev. – (2008) (forthcoming).

Paper Charter:  Self-Defense and the Failure of the United Nations Collective Security System, 56 Cath. U. L. Rev. 871 (2007).

Is the Geneva POW Convention “Quaint”?, 33 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 1637 (2007).

“Varied Carols:” Legislative Prayer in a Pluralist Polity, 40 Creighton L. Rev. 1635 (2007).

Federalism and Polarization, 1 St. Thomas J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 63 (2007).

Lines in the Sand, with John C. Yoo, The National Interest (2007).

The Battle of Mars and Venus:  Why Do American and European Attitudes Toward International Law Differ?, 4 Loyola U. Chicago Int’l L. Rev. 11 (2006).

Executive Power versus International Law, with John C. Yoo, 30 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 73 (2006).

Presidential Power and International Law in a Time of Terror, 4 Regent Journal of International Law 175 (2006) (symposium).

The CINC Authority and the Laws of War, 99 American Journal of International Law Proc. 190 (2005).

Against Foreign Law, with John C. Yoo, 29 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 291 (2005).

Moral Communities or a Market State?, with Antonio F. Perez, 42 Houston Law Review 637 (2005).

Emoluments Clause, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (David F. Forte ed. 2005).

Statehood and the Third Geneva Convention, with John C. Yoo, 46 Virginia Journal of International Law 131 (2005).

Thinking About Presidents, with John C. Yoo, 90 Cornell Law Review 1153 (2005).

Structuralism and the War Powers: The Army, Navy and Militia Clauses, 19 Georgia State Law Review 1021 (2003)(symposium).

The President’s Constitutional Authority to Conduct Military Operations Against Terrorist Organizations and The Nations That Harbor or Support Them, with John C. Yoo, 25 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 488 (2002).

Federalism Beyond the Water’s Edge: State Procurement Sanctions and Foreign Affairs, 27 Stanford Journal of International Law 1 (2001).

Perspectives on Within-Group Scoring, 33 Journal of Vocational Behavior 463 (1988).

Spinoza (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985) (a book in the “Arguments of the Philosophers” series, published by Routledge & Kegan Paul).

Descartes’ Cosmological Argument, 30 Philosophical Quarterly 34 (1980).

Courses Taught

Torts
Constitutional Law
International Law
Conflict of Laws

Mailing Address

MSL 400
1000 LaSalle Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55403-2015