Armed Conflict
Just Security’s expert authors provide analysis on the legal, policy, and strategic dimensions of armed conflict, including the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Hamas war, counterterrorism operations, conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa, and other armed conflicts across the globe, with a focus on international humanitarian law, war crimes and accountability, mitigating and remedying civilian harm, and the humanitarian impacts of warfare.
3,582 Articles
New Court Orders Signal More Drone Documents Are on the Way
For more than four years of Freedom of Information Act litigation concerning the government’s targeted-killing program, the government managed to avoid releasing a single document…
Joint Chiefs of Staff: Bergdahl exchange vital to keeping faith with American service members
All seven members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have written a separate letter to the Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee stating their support for the exchange of the…
The D.C. Circuit, Article II, and the Constitutionality of the Guantánamo Transfer Restrictions
When President Obama transferred five Taliban detainees from Guantánamo in exchange for American POW Bowe Bergdahl, forests were felled over whether the Obama Administration…
Immunity Before the African Court of Justice & Human & Peoples Rights—The Potential Outlier
As is clear from our prior coverage of the issue, the availability of jurisdictional or defensive immunities is ever-present in discussions of how to ensure accountability for…
Autonomy, “Killer Robots,” and Human Control in the Use of Force – Part II
[Editor’s Note: This is Part II of a two-part guest post from Paul Scharre, a fellow and Project Director for the 20YY Warfare Initiative at the Center for a New American…
Autonomy, “Killer Robots,” and Human Control in the Use of Force – Part I
[Editor’s Note: This is Part I of a two-part guest post from Paul Scharre, a fellow and Project Director for the 20YY Warfare Initiative at the Center for a New American…
Immunities and Criminal Prosecution within the United States & Beyond
The African Union’s controversial effort to grant sitting heads-of-state and “other senior state officials” immunity before the proposed new African criminal chambers (see…
Social Science Data on Public Reactions to Drone Strikes and Civilian Casualties
One of the hats I wear is that of a social scientist. I don’t often write at Just Security in that capacity, but recent empirical research — on public attitudes toward…
The Stakes of al-Bahlul, Nine Months Later…
This past Monday marked nine months since the en banc oral argument in al-Bahlul v. United States, in which the D.C. Circuit is considering whether military commissions at Guantánamo…
Fifth Circuit on Extraterritorial Application of Fourth and Fifth Amendments
On the heels of this morning’s Fourth Circuit decision in the Abu Ghraib case comes another significant circuit-level decision–this one from the Fifth Circuit. The…
The importance (and difficulty) of the Stimson Task Force transparency recommendations . . . and a couple of legal corrections
Like Steve, I strongly recommend to Just Security readers the report on drone policy that the Stimson Task Force published yesterday. The report is very thoughtful and balanced,…
Analysis of the Stimson Drone Task Force Report
The Stimson Center Drone Task Force report published yesterday is a forceful critique of key aspects of current U.S. drone strike policy and practice. Importantly, and unlike…