Armed Conflict
Law of Armed Conflict/IHL
1,632 Articles

The Obama Administration’s Misguided Opposition to Tariq Ba Odah’s Request for Judicial Relief
On October 15, a federal district court in Washington, DC, will hear argument in Ba Odah v. Obama, a habeas challenge by a Guantánamo detainee whose prolonged hunger strike has…

The False Choice of Opposing Torture or Endless War: A Response to Samuel Moyn
In a thoughtful guest post Samuel Moyn has continued and deepened a debate we began in the pages of the current issue of Dissent on the relative merits of opposing war itself and…

Toward a History of Clean and Endless War
It is idle — but interesting — to speculate on what future historians will say about our own time. True: We can never know, and would probably find ourselves shocked by what…

The Special Rapporteur on Torture’s Report on Extraterritoriality Speaks to Migrant Crisis
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan E. Méndez, has issued a new expert’s report (his 17th)—this one on extraterritoriality. (JustSecurity’s extensive…

Precision Weapons, Mistakes, and the Need for Transparency
This post is the latest installment of our “Monday Reflections” feature, in which a different Just Security editor examines the big stories from the previous week or looks…

Was the Kunduz Strike a War Crime?
As reports poured in over the weekend that the United States bombed a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing at least 12 MSF staff members and…

Rest Easy Professeurs de Trahison, You Are Not Targetable Under LOAC
William C. Bradford’s article Trahison des Professeurs: The Critical Law of Armed Conflict Academy as an Islamic Fifth Column, published last summer in George Mason Law School’s…

When Do Countries Have to Investigate War Crimes?
In late August, the New York Times and others reported that the US Army had reopened a criminal investigation into the murders of at least 17 civilians in Afghanistan in 2012 and…

A Weapon That Keeps on Killing
When the cluster bombs fell on the town of Kaunda in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains in late May, local authorities collected the bomblets that were scattered about and placed them in…

European Countries Are Edging Toward Their Own War on Terror
A version of this article first appeared on the European Council on Foreign Relations website. The United States looks less lonely in its use of drone strikes against terrorist…

The UK’s Letter to the UN Security Council Leaves Plenty of Unanswered Questions About Last Month’s RAF Drone Strike
Yesterday, I wrote a post helping to untangle some of the international law questions involved in last month’s UK drone strike in Syria that killed three individuals, two of…

The Legal Questions About the UK’s Drone Strike in Syria
The recent revelations of a UK drone strike in Syria targeting British individuals alleged to be linked to the Islamic State has generated much discussion, and the British government…