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.
2,864 Articles
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…
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…
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…
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.
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.
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.
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)…
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.
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…
Public Officials Can’t Block Critics from Official Social Media Accounts
Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied the Trump administration’s request for full court review of last year’s decision holding that the president…
Supreme Court of Canada Recognizes Corporate Liability for Human Rights Violations
While it seems clear that international human rights norms apply to corporations just as they apply to natural persons. But it is up to each nation to decide whether and how to…