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.
2,859 Articles
A FOIA Circuit Split That the Supreme Court Needs To Resolve
On Friday, January 8, the Supreme Court will consider a petition for certiorari in EPIC v. DHS, a lawsuit by the Electronic Privacy and Information Center (EPIC) under the Freedom…
Serial Angst
I’m one of the many who loved the first season of Serial — the Peabody Award-winning podcast spun off from NPR’s This American Life. It wasn’t just that the case of Adnan…
Don’t Forget the Other Legal Issues in the 9/11 Trial
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…
Why should the Constitution require Article III courts for criminal trials of federal offenses?
[UPDATED for clarification.] Many thanks to Charlie Dunlap for his thoughtful response to my posts (here and here) about al-Bahlul and the Article III question in that case. Our…
Military Commissions and Fairness
My friend Marty Lederman provides a lot of fascinating commentary about the en banc rehearing in the Al-Bahlul case (here and here). I’d like to focus on just part of Marty’s…
Second Circuit Denies Rehearing En Banc in Turkmen; Is Supreme Court Next?
I’ve written before both here and at MSNBC about the Second Circuit’s immensely significant June 17 decision in Turkmen v. Hasty, which recognized a cause of action…
Why Aren’t Criminal Defendants Getting Notice of Section 702 Surveillance — Again?
Since the Snowden disclosures began, the government’s massive surveillance operations under Section 702 of FISA have increasingly drawn public scrutiny. Section 702 is the authority…
On Human Rights Day, One Year On: No Apology and No Accountability for US Torture
A year ago yesterday, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a redacted version of the executive summary of its exhaustive report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation…
What’s Missing from Constitutional Analyses of Donald Trump’s Muslim Immigration Ban
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on December 10, 2015 at 12:50am. On Tuesday, I wrote a short piece for CNN.com explaining why Donald Trump’s proposed ban…
European Human Rights Court Deals a Heavy Blow to the Lawfulness of Bulk Surveillance
In a seminal decision updating and consolidating its previous jurisprudence on surveillance, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights took a sideways swing at mass…
Cy Vance’s Proposal to Backdoor Encrypted Devices Is Riddled With Vulnerabilities
Less than a week after the attacks in Paris — while the public and policymakers were still reeling, and the investigation had barely gotten off the ground — Cy Vance, Manhattan’s…
The Government’s Surprising (and Flawed) New Attack on Habeas Corpus in Immigration Cases
These days, most discussions of the US Constitution’s Suspension Clause — and the entitlement to judicial review that it codifies — center upon non-citizen terrorism suspects…