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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2,932 Articles
Side by side photographs of Declan Walsh, Iyad El-Baghdadi, Jamal Khashoggi, and Omar Abdulaziz.

Duty to Warn: Has the Trump Administration Learned from the Khashoggi Failure?

This attitude shift alone, if it has indeed taken place, is commendable, but should not reduce scrutiny of what happened in the Declan Walsh case.
Laura Cooper, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia arrives for a closed-door deposition at the US Capitol in Washington, DC on October 30, 2019.

Executive Privilege is No Bar to Testimony Before Impeachment Investigators

Impeachment is different from regular congressional oversight. Witnesses summoned to appear before the House Intelligence Committee should not view executive privilege as standing…
Side by side photographs of Pat Cipollone, Fiona Hill, and George Kent.

Why Officials Keep Testifying Despite White House Counsel’s Letter on Impeachment Inquiry

"These are presumably not the results White House Counsel Cipollone expected when he sent his letter, but in retrospect they seem fairly predictable."
Statue of George Washington

George Washington’s Advisors Agreed: Impeachment Did Away with Executive Privilege

George Washington clearly signaled that executive privilege would not be available if the House were pursuing an impeachment inquiry. His advisors agreed.
Rudy Giuliani

United States of America v. Rudolph W. Giuliani

Former U.S. Attorneys draft a "Model Indictment" based on publicly available evidence of Giuliani's misconduct.
Sri Lankan Defence Ministry Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa rides in a jeep during a Victory Day parade rehearsal in Colombo on May 17, 2013. Military personnel in uniform surround him.

Suit Against Sri Lankan Presidential Candidate Rajapaksa Dismissed on Common Law Immunity Grounds

Among other deficiencies, the ruling failed to acknowledge jurisprudence from other courts indicating that jus cogens violations can never constitute “official” acts entitling…

“With a Little Help from Our Friends”: Prosecuting the ISIL “Beatles” in U.S. Courts

Civilian prosecution in U.S. courts remains by far the best option for reliably bringing the two ISIL detainees in U.S. custody to justice. The DoJ should look closely at whether…
Blue sound wave

A Fourth Amendment Framework for Voiceprint Database Searches

Voice recognition technology should be subject to a new Fourth Amendment framework, drawing on the Supreme Court’s recent technology-related decisions, that treats each query…
A statute of Poland’s 17th-century monarch King Sigismund III Vasa covered with a chasuble reading the word "Constitution" on September 17, 2018.

Did the ECJ Just Give a Stamp of Approval to Poland’s Backsliding?

The European Court of Justice is set to rule this year or early next on Poland’s two-year-old revised disciplinary regime for judges, a central mechanism that the ruling Law…
Razor wire tops the fence of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay on October 23, 2016 at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

18 Years After 9/11, Why Is Guantánamo Still Open?

That a child born on that day the planes hit would by now have gained the right to vote, but there has yet to be a trial of the alleged attackers, serves to highlight how painfully…

51 Former Senior National Security Officials to Supreme Court: Rescinding DACA Was “Arbitrary and Capricious”

Fifty-one former senior U.S. national security officials—including former Cabinet members Madeleine Albright, Chuck Hagel, John Kerry, Leon Panetta, and Samantha Power, former…
George Washington statue

Getting the Jay Treaty Right on “Executive Privilege”

A central historical claim in ongoing debates about the president's ability to keep diplomatic correspondence from the House of Representatives is not just flawed, but gets the…
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