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.
3,057 Articles
Women We Want to See at This Year’s Aspen Security Forum
The Aspen Security Forum (ASF), the annual alpine conclave of the West’s national security elite, has become known as one of the foremost venues for shaping the dialogue on national…
Video: UN Expert Pablo de Greiff on Holding US Officials Responsible for Torture
Last week, I had the chance to ask Pablo de Greiff, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence, about accountability…
“New Torture Files”: Declassified Memos Detail Roles of Bush White House and DOJ Officials Who Conspired to Approve Torture
An alleged CIA prison near Kabul, Afghanistan. Image credit: Trevor Paglen via Wikimedia Commons. Last week, I wrote, both here and in the New York Times, that after reading all…
European Court: U.S. Troops Can Apply for Asylum to Avoid Participating in War Crimes, But …
A US Army soldier loads rockets onto an AH-64 Apache helicopter in Europe. Credit: US Army. On Thursday, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued a decision holding that American…
Sexual Torture, Rape, and Gender-Based Violence in the Senate Torture Report
The ramifications and significance of the Senate Torture Report continue to spin out in various fora. While I have noted that the use of certain torture methods used at Guantanamo…
Al-Nashiri can now speak about his treatment … plus news about full SSCI Report
[Editor’s note: This post was originally published at 9:00 PM E.S.T. on February 22, 2015] Two weeks ago, I reported here that the prosecution had submitted motions to the…
On Rereading the Torture Report – SSCI Focus Gave Too Many Perpetrators a Pass
I have an opinion piece in today’s New York Times Sunday Review provocatively titled (by the NYT editors), “Did the Torture Report Give the CIA a Bum Rap?” Why now, and why…
Torture and the CIA’s Unaccountability Boards
Last Saturday, January 31, CIA Inspector General David Buckley resigned after a little more than four years in office. His departure came at the end of the same month his office…
Global Magnitsky Act Re-Introduced
Senators Bill Cardin (D-Md) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) have re-introduced the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (S. 284) aimed at expanding the U.S.’s efforts…
Charlie Hebdo, The Interview, and Censoring Torture Photos
In France and the United States, there seems to be near-universal agreement that to self-censor because of threats of violence is unwise and cowardly. The slogan “Je Suis Charlie,”…
The Torture Report, the CIA’s “Work of Fiction,” and a Friday-afternoon Letter From DOJ
In an earlier post, I called attention to the revelation in the Senate torture report that the CIA contemplated disclosing information about the torture program under cover of…
Ongwen Onward to the Hague: Lord’s Resistance Army Commander to Face Justice
Media are reporting that Dominic Ongwen, the Joseph Kony deputy who defected last week from the Lord’s Resistance Army, will be transferred to the International Criminal Court…