Nondelegation Canons

Reports of the death of the nondelegation doctrine have been greatly exaggerated. Rather than having been abandoned, the doctrine has merely been renamed and relocated. Its current home consists of a set of nondelegation canons, which forbid executive agencies from making certain decisions on their own. These canons forbid extraterritorial application of national law, intrusions on state sovereignty, decisions harmful to Native Americans, and absolutist approaches to health and safety.

The nondelegation canons are far preferable to the old nondelegation doctrine, because they are subject to principled judicial application, and because they do not threaten to unsettle so much of modern government.