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.
3,030 Articles
Mini Forum on UK High Court Ruling British Forces Lack Detention Authority in Afghanistan
On May 2, the High Court of England and Wales handed down a judgment in Serdar Mohammed v. Ministry of Defense (full text). Mr. Justice Leggatt held that British forces lacked…
United Kingdom’s High Court: Long-term detentions in Afghanistan illegal
On Friday the United Kingdom’s High Court, in the case of Serdar Mohammed v. Ministry of Defense (full text), handed down a judgment holding that the 110-day detention of a…
Legal Action Taken to Expose Denmark’s Role in US Targeted Killing Program
As reported in today’s Just Security Roundup, news this morning out of Denmark is that the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) is pursuing a potential suite of legal actions…
Terrorist Watchlists and the Myth of Individual Suspicion
Jen Daskal commented last week on the revelation of a secret exception to the “reasonable suspicion” standard for adding people to the terrorist watchlist. I want to raise…
A more equivocal take on the constitutionality of the DNI’s Directive 119
In a post yesterday, Steve concluded that the DNI’s new Directive 119 — which, broadly speaking, prohibits employees of the Intelligence Community from unauthorized…
Intelligence Community Directive 119 and the First Amendment
As the inestimable Steve Aftergood noted last week over at Secrecy News, the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, has issued a new “Intelligence Community Directive”…
Petition denied in Hedges
The Supreme Court this morning unsurprisingly, and without comment, denied the petition for certiorari in Hedges v. Obama, No. 13-758. The plaintiffs in Hedges challenged the…
Let the Sun Shine In: WaPo Story on the Magistrates’ Revolt
Yesterday’s Washington Post has an interesting story about the increasingly aggressive role some federal magistrate judges are playing in policing criminal investigations involving…
Standing and Causes of Action in Zivotofsky
As a nerdy follow-on to Bob’s excellent guest post on the Zivotofsky case (which could prove to be the most significant foreign affairs case that the Supreme Court has…
Zivotofsky v. Kerry
The Jerusalem passport case involves an important question of the separation of powers in the conduct of foreign affairs: Is the President’s power to recognize foreign states…
Hussain and AUMF Repeal
In light of the ongoing discussion regarding Justice Breyer’s interesting statement regarding denial of certiorari in Hussain, I thought I’d flag a separate, but related,…
Justice Breyer’s intriguing suggestions in Hussain: A sign of habeas challenges to come?
Last month I predicted that one or more Justices would issue a separate opinion when the Court denied certiorari in Hussain, and that the likely topic of such an opinion would…