Bordering on Crisis
A vessel plying the Pacific Ocean with approximately 500 migrants, some of whom might have deadly contagions, along with members of a terrorist organization, is emblematic of contemporary multiagency crisis response challenges: vague reports, agencies with overlapping authorities, balancing competing legal considerations, and an urgency to act. While crisis management isn’t new, the strategic response landscape now includes formal collaborative frameworks. A key element of interagency alignment involves lawyers who are increasingly being called upon to advise in crisis situations. More than a dozen states, multilateral instruments, and United Nations Security Council resolutions formally acknowledge the benefits of collaboration to address threats, yet the elements and competencies, as well as inclusion, of crisis lawyering receive scant attention. This chapter examines the role of an attorney in an inter-agency crisis management and includes “Rules for Crisis Lawyering in a Multiagency Environment.”