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
Friday Evening Document Dump: DNI Declassifies Host of Additional FISC Orders
Late this afternoon, the DNI declassified two dozen FISC orders related to the collection and use of telephony metadata under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. In today’s…
Bulk Data Collection and the Mosaic Theory: A More Balanced Approach to Information
The pending challenges in ACLU v. Clapper and Klayman v. Obama (now on appeal before the Second Circuit and D.C. Circuit, respectively) raise the question of whether the mosaic…
Lebanon Tribunal Begins Work
As we’ve noted, in absentia proceedings have finally begun before the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), a joint creation of the United Nations and Lebanon in The Hague…
Osama bin Laden’s Son-in-Law to Face Trial in NY Within a Year of His Arrest
Judge Lewis Kaplan in the Southern District of New York has been keeping busy. In just the last week, Judge Kaplan issued three decisions in the case of Osama bin Laden’s…
Considering Jones v. UK Requires Reflection Not Knee-Jerk Reactions
Jones v. United Kingdom was handed down by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on Tuesday. It has already elicited a considerable amount of adverse commentary (here and…
Bob Gates, Disclosure & Executive Privilege
Former Secretary Bob Gates ignited a brushfire of criticism for the timing, disclosures, and motivations of his new book, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War. Much of the reporting…
European Court of Human Rights to Torture Victims: Get Lost
In a disappointing decision yesterday (Jones v. United Kingdom), the European Court of Human Rights upheld the immunity of states and state officials from civil suits for torture…
European Court of Human Rights: Foreign State Officials are Immune from Civil Suit for Torture (Jones v. United Kingdom)
The European Court of Human Rights has issued its long-awaited judgment in Jones v. United Kingdom. The case involves four British nationals who sued Saudi Arabia and Saudi officials…
10 Questions for the Review Group Members to Publicly Address at the Senate Hearings
The members of the President’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies will appear on Tuesday, January 14th for hearings before the Senate Judiciary…
Could the NSA’s Telephony Metadata Program Have Prevented 9/11? Judge William Pauley v. Lawrence Wright
In an earlier post, I proposed some analytic tools for evaluating the effectiveness of the NSA’s telephony metadata program – in light of recommendations by the President’s…
Responding to John Dehn’s Letter to the Editor on the 9/11 Military Commissions
I agree with John Dehn that the military justice system is far more fair, orderly and efficient than the military commission system. My argument for why civilian federal courts…
OLC Memos and FOIA: Why the (b)(5) Exemption Matters
The headline of yesterday’s D.C. Circuit decision in Electronic Frontier Foundation v. Department of Justice, in which the Court of Appeals rejected a FOIA request for a…