Courts & Litigation

Just Security’s expert authors offer analysis and informational resources on key litigation impacting national security, rights, democracy, and the rule of law. Our content spans domestic and international litigation, from cases at the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and other international and regional tribunals, to those in U.S. courts involving executive branch actions, transnational litigation, and more.

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2,854 Articles
Trump speaks during the daily briefing of the coronavirus task force at the White House on April 22, 2020 in Washington, DC. He does not wear a face mask.

Broadcasters and Trump’s False Information on Coronavirus: What Role for the FCC?

Should the regulator require disclosure when information aired is false or scientifically suspect? Maybe "no" is the best answer.
Side by side photographs of Liza Goitein, Andrew McCabe, Mary McCord, and Julian Sanchez.

Top Experts Analyze Inspector General Report Finding Problems in FBI Surveillance

Expert takes on the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz's recent report on FBI procedures for obtaining secret warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance…
People without face masks protest the stay at home orders designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus and keep people healthy. They hold signs encouraging people to demand that businesses be allowed to open up, and people allowed to go back to work, at the Country Club Plaza on April 20, 2020 in Kansas City, Missouri. They also wave American flags and stand very close together ignoring social distancing standards.

Missouri’s Lawsuit Doesn’t Abrogate China’s Sovereign Immunity

U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction over private class action lawsuits brought against Chinese government defendants for their alleged misconduct in allowing the coronavirus to…
Monroe County Sheriff deputy Jamie Miller wears gloves while flagging down a car at a checkpoint on U.S. 1 leading into the Florida Keys on March 27, 2020 in Florida City, Florida. Monroe County administrators made the decision to prohibit tourists and only allow property owners and people who show they legitimately work in the Keys to pass through the roadblocks in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Can Governors Close Their Borders to Pandemic Risks?

COVID-19 is not the first pandemic affecting America, and will not be the last. Under such circumstances, states have well-recognized authority to limit travel within and across…
Tech. Sgt. Jonisha Gibson, 82nd Medical Group clinical laboratory noncommissioned officer in charge, inspects a FilmArray pouch.

Is the Roberts Court Going to Let Coronavirus Kill Us?

It is looking increasingly as though a nationwide program of testing, and hopefully vaccination, may be the only way to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus and bring back…

WhatsApp v. NSO Group: State Immunity and Cyber Spying

WhatsApp claims NSO implanted spyware on phones of human rights activists, lawyers, and religious figures. NSO says it can't be sued if it did so on behalf of (undisclosed) foreign…
David Addington, Chief of Staff and former counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney, former Department of Justice official John Yoo and Chris Schroeder, former acting assistant Attorney General in charge of the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel testify before the House Judiciary committee during a hearing on the administration's interrogation policy on June 26, 2008 in Washington, DC.

ICC Afghanistan Torture Investigation Likely to Turn on Criminal Intent

Good-faith reliance on advice of counsel is a well-established defense in U.S. criminal law, but it has not yet been tested at the ICC.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo hosts a conference call and makes an announcement with Governor Phil Murphy, Governor Ned Lamont, Governor Tom Wolf, Governor John Carney and Governor Gina Raimondo.

Governors and Mayors, Beware: Lawsuits Opposing Coronavirus Mitigation Orders Are a Real Threat

Lessons from when Confederacy-sympathizing judges tried to prevent Lincoln from saving the republic. By leading legal historian David Golove.
Bilboard of Fox News Cast

Lawsuit Against Fox News Over Coronavirus Coverage: Can It Succeed? Should It?

There are reasons to be wary of lawsuits as a tactic for controlling the information that media outlets disseminate, even if it is to punish Fox News.
Gavel and stethoscope

Don’t Bother Suing China for Coronavirus

"Simply put, any scholar or practitioner with working knowledge of the law of foreign sovereign immunity would have taken one look at the headlines about these lawsuits (as I did)…
A Lego Rube Goldberg machine at the Maker Faire 2009 in San Mateo, California.

Rube Goldberg and Military Justice

The decisional layer cake that Congress has put in place over the years, including on sexual assault, is rife with potential for yet more command influence.
A sign reads, “Wanted by the FBI Chinese PLA Members, 54th Research Institute” and shows four members of China's military indicted on charges of hacking into Equifax Inc. and stealing data from Americans. The sign is seated next to a podium shortly after Attorney General William Barr held a press conference at the Department of Justice on February 10, 2020 in Washington, DC. The sign has additional text that is too small to read.

Disrupt, Don’t Indict: Why the United States Should Stop Indicting Foreign State Actor Hackers

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the indictment of Nicolás Maduro, who the United States ceased to recognize as Venezuela’s president in early 2019, for narco-terrorism…
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