Executive Branch
Just Security’s expert authors provide analysis of the U.S. executive branch related to national security, rights, and the rule of law. Analysis and informational resources focus on the executive branch’s powers and their limits, and the actions of the president, administrative agencies, and federal officials.
4,604 Articles
The CMCR’s Latest (Non-)Decision in al-Nashiri [UPDATED with links to supplemental briefs]
After a very long delay, and a couple of new presidential appointments of military judges to the court (resolving one of the two serious structural problems Steve has described…
Whose World Is This?: US and UK Government Hacking
On both sides of the Atlantic, we are witnessing the dramatic expansion of government hacking powers. In the United States, a proposed amendment to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules…
The Encryption Debate: All Quiet on the Western Front?
The US war on encryption has quieted down recently. The San Bernardino and Brooklyn court cases concerning encrypted iPhones both ended this spring not with a bang, but with a…
Highlights From the Chilcot Report
Earlier today, the UK’s Iraq Inquiry Committee released the report of its seven year investigation into the country’s role in the Iraq War. Started in 2009 at the…
The Updated First Geneva Convention Commentary, DOD’s Law of War Manual, and a More Perfect Law of War, Part I
It is difficult to overstate the importance of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Nearly synonymous with the law of war itself, the universally ratified 1949 Conventions are not merely…
The Good and Bad in the US Government’s Civilian Casualties Announcement
The US government on Friday, July 1 released long-sought information on its views as to how many people it has killed in drone and other strikes “outside areas of active hostilities,”…
The government’s treatment of civilian casualties in counterterrorism operations [updated]
The government has just released two important documents. One is an assessment by the Director of National Intelligence of the cumulative civilian casualties from U.S. counterterrorism…
Medical Complicity in CIA Torture, Then and Now
The US government released a series of documents about the CIA torture program on June 14 and 15, in response to Freedom of Information Act lawsuits by the ACLU and Vice News.…
Looking Back on the Pentagon Papers Decision
In a hallway of The New York Times offices, there is a framed copy of the Telex traffic between the Justice Department and The Times from June 1971 when the government demanded…
US Policy on Transitional Justice
The US State Department and the Agency for International Development recently published a series of policy papers on the US approach to transitional justice. The United States…
Troubling proportionality and rule-of-distinction provisions in the Law of War Manual
Oona Hathaway is absolutely right to be alarmed, and deeply concerned, about the “civilians’ assumption of risk” provisions in the new DoD Law of War Manual. If you haven’t…
A Less-Secret Drone Campaign
Stephen Whisler, Predators and Reapers 2012, pastel on paper This post is the latest installment of our “Monday Reflections” feature, in which a different Just Security editor…