Siven Watt

Siven Watt  (LinkedIn – X) is the Legal Fellow at Just Security, based at NYU School of Law, and a barrister of England and Wales (currently unregistered/non-practicing), called to the Bar by Gray’s Inn. His work focuses on U.S. accountability, democracy, executive power, immigration detention, national security, public international law, and rule of law litigation.

At Just Security, he is the author of the Immigration Habeas Tracker: Government Obstruction, Judicial Trust, and Accountability; coauthor of The “Presumption of Regularity” in Trump Administration Litigation; and a contributor to the Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions. 

Across his current and prior work, Siven’s research and analysis have been featured on 60 Minutes, cited in congressional oversight materials, and relied on in U.S. federal litigation, including Supreme Court amicus briefing.

Earlier Just Security work includes leading and drafting the American Autocracy Threat Tracker, the Trump Trials Clearinghouse, and the Trump Master Calendar, as well as coauthoring the Mar-a-Lago Model Prosecution Memo. He has also written and edited work on investigations, prosecutions, civil litigation, and congressional oversight; law enforcement failures in the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell matters; and public international law issues, including the August 2021 U.S. drone strike in Kabul and South Africa v. Israel before the ICJ. He previously served as Associate Editor of Just Security’s Early Edition.

More broadly, his professional experience includes strategic research and advisory support on U.S. democracy, election integrity, executive accountability, and rule of law matters; senior fellowship work at the U.K. law reform and human rights organization JUSTICE across criminal justice, inquests, public inquiries, parole, wrongful convictions, deaths in custody, and institutional accountability; and work with senior international counsel on public law litigation, human rights mechanisms, detention reform, legal scholarship, and public legal education.

He received the Prince of Wales Scholarship, one of Gray’s Inn’s most prestigious merit scholarships, and BPP University’s full-fee Chancellor’s Award for Bar training, as well as the Lord Blunkett Widening Access Award for LL.M. study in International Human Rights. He holds a BA (Hons) in Politics, Philosophy and History and a graduate-entry LL.B. (Hons).