Human Rights

Just Security’s expert authors offer in-depth analysis on critical human rights challenges, including those related to armed conflict, emerging technologies, abuses by authoritarian governments, repression of human rights advocates and independent media, human rights litigation, racial justice, gender equality, and more.

× Clear Filters
3,055 Articles
Protesters demonstrate against the war in Yemen and the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi outside the Saudi Arabian embassy on October 25, 2018 in London, England. A sign reads, "Justice for Jamal."

The Verdict in the Khashoggi Murder Isn’t Final By Any Stretch

The world must show MBS, Putin, the IRGC, and other would-be princely assassins the heavy price they will pay for murdering their citizens abroad. 
Abortion rights activists rally in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on May 21, 2019. Signs read, "Safe abortion is a human right" and "Keep abortion legal."

UN Experts to Trump Administration: Reproductive Rights are Human Rights

It is crucial to call out US efforts to undermine the UN human rights system and erase the well-established framework of rights protections.
Volkan Bozkir, President of the seventy-fifth session of the United Nations General Assembly, does not wear a face mask while opening the seventy-fifth session of the General Assembly. To his right and somewhat socially distanced is Secretary-General António Guterres, who wears a face mask.

National Security at the United Nations This Week (Sept. 11-18)

The UN General Assembly opens its 75th session in NYC; the Security Council extends UN missions in Afghanistan, Libya; UN fact-finding missions in Venezuela and Syria issue reports;…
Members of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the British Zone of Germany walk past mass graves at Bergen-Belsen on the opening day of the Second Congress of Liberated Jews in the British zone, April 1947.

Asserting Their Jewish Identity: My Mother’s Testimony in the First Nazi War Crimes Trial, 75 Years Ago

A prosecutor in the Belsen Trial initially obscured the specific identity of the victims. That would change dramatically by the end.
A U.S. Air Force MQ-1B Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), awaits a mission at an air base in the Persian Gulf region on January 7, 2016.

What a Few Cakes Say About the US Drone Program

Fondant creations on cakes - yes cakes - provide a rare window into a largely closed culture of national security policymaking. Their creation in 2013, publication, and re-emergence…
Boys lay on top of one another at an overcrowded Juveniles’ cell at Tal Kayf prison in April 2019.

How to Answer Iraq’s Failure to Put a Stop to Torture

Parliament should ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture. Short of that, Prime Minister al-Kadhimi can take action.
Trump and Chad Wolf speak to members of border control on August 18, 2020. Neither wear face masks.

Whistleblower: DHS Suppressed Reports on Central America and Inflated Risk of Terrorist Border-Crossers

Brian Murphy’s Whistleblower complaint confirms: White House officials and political appointees in federal agencies hid carefully investigated and proven facts and substituted…
Soldiers from the United States Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard march in parade during the National POW/MIA Recognition observance ceremony September 16, 2005 on the River Parade Field at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.

Déjà Vu All Over Again: Racial Disparity in the Military Justice System

Fifty years ago, a task force seeking to determine the nature and extent of racial disparities in the U.S. military justice system, grappled with many of the same questions that…
Former Salvadoran colonel and Defense Deputy Minister Inocente Montano wears a face mask before the start of his trial related to the murder of six Spanish Jesuit priests and two collaborators in 1989, in Madrid on June 08, 2020.

Breaking: Colonel Montano, Extradited from the United States, Found Guilty of the Jesuits Massacre by Spanish Court

UPDATE: The judgment is available here (in Spanish). A Spanish court has convicted Colonel Inocente Orlando Montano for his role in the 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests, their…
A protester holds a sign reading, “End Torture” at a rally to "demand Congressional action to stop torture" on Capitol Hill March 10, 2008 in Washington, DC.

Toward a New Approach to National and Human Security: Uphold the Prohibition on Torture

A full reckoning for state-sanctioned American torture remains unfinished. The Obama administration took important steps towards fulfilling US obligations but fell short of what…

Toward a New Approach to National and Human Security: End Unlawful, Secret, and Unaccountable Use of Lethal Force

A core component of post-9/11 counterterrorism policy has been the use of secretive and unaccountable killings of terrorism suspects. The killings must stop. Here's how the president…
Razor wire tops the fence of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Toward a New Approach to National and Human Security: Introduction

One year from today marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11. A president addressing the nation on such a solemn occasion should be able to tell the American people not only that there…
1-12 of 3,055 items

DON'T MISS A THING. Stay up to date with Just Security curated newsletters: