David Luban

Founding Editor

David Luban (@DavidLuban) is University Professor in Law and Philosophy at Georgetown University Law Center. He has written widely on just war theory, international criminal law, legal and military ethics, the U.S. torture debate, and legal philosophy. Luban’s most recent books are Torture, Power, and Law (Cambridge 2013) and Legal Ethics and Human Dignity (Cambridge 2007), as well as textbooks on international criminal law and legal ethics.

Luban has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center, and received awards from the American Bar Foundation and the New York Bar Association for distinguished scholarship. In 2011 he was a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, and in 2013-14 he is serving as Distinguished Visitor at the Stockdale Center for Ethics, U.S. Naval Academy. Luban is also on LinkedIn.

Areas of Expertise: Just War Theory, International Criminal Law, Legal and Military Ethics, Torture

Selected Media Appearances
Radio
Did Justice Department Lawyers Violate Ethics? – NPR (All Things Considered)
Judges and Conflicts of Interest – NPR (All Things Considered)
The Debate Over TortureNPR (Talk of the Nation)

Online
Ex-FBI agent critical of CIA interrogationsNBC News
Torture, American-Style – The Washington Post

Articles by this author:

The Biden Administration’s Moment of Truth on Torture Evidence

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Dec 1st, 2021

Course Correction Still Needed on Anti-Torture Obligations

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Aug 9th, 2021

Torture Evidence and the Guantanamo Military Commissions

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May 26th, 2021

The “Interests of Justice” at the ICC: A Continuing Mystery

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Mar 17th, 2020

The Guantánamo Ethics Mess

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Oct 29th, 2017

Indefensible: Why Guantánamo defense lawyers can’t ethically participate any longer

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Oct 15th, 2017

Why It Does Not Matter Who Rachel Brand Is

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Jun 20th, 2017

Shrinking the “Bloated” Federal Bureaucracy: A Bad Solution to a Non-Problem

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Nov 28th, 2016

The Case Against Serving

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Nov 14th, 2016

Trump and Torture

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Mar 21st, 2016

The APA Scandal

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Jul 13th, 2015

Security Council Passes Self-Reflective Resolution

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Apr 1st, 2015

Palestine and the ICC — Some Legal Questions

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Jan 2nd, 2015

Why Do We Talk About Torture The Way We Do?

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Dec 15th, 2014

“Just looking for loopholes…”

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Oct 19th, 2014

Remembering Abu Ghraib (2): Not Company Men and Women

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Apr 28th, 2014

Remembering Abu Ghraib (1): Torture Everywhere and the Accountability Gap

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Apr 28th, 2014

Russia’s 2010 Military Doctrine

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Mar 3rd, 2014

CJEU’s Definition of “Internal Armed Conflict:” The Diakité Case

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Feb 6th, 2014

Luban in NYRBlog: “Syrian Torture: What the US Must Do”

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Feb 3rd, 2014

European Court of Human Rights to Torture Victims: Get Lost

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Jan 15th, 2014

Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History — A Rejoinder from David Luban

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Oct 4th, 2013

Book Review — Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History

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Oct 3rd, 2013

Will Syria Redefine the Just War?

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Sep 24th, 2013