International Law
Just Security offers expert analysis of international law and its role in addressing global challenges. Our coverage includes litigation in international and regional tribunals, the process of international law-making, analysis of compliance and accountability for international law violations–including international criminal justice, and challenges to the international legal order.
3,769 Articles
Can a Pardon Be a War Crime?: When Pardons Themselves Violate the Laws of War
Editor’s note: Originally published on May 25, 2019; with an author’s note published on Dec. 24, 2020. Author’s note, Dec. 24, 2020: Not all corrupt pardons…
Military Families are Gunning for Peace this Holiday Season
I share my family’s story to underline the urgency behind avoiding war with Iran. We’ve become a nation that engages in wars of choice. We cannot continue down this current…
Pardongate 2.0: Prosecutors and Congress Investigated Clinton’s Pardons. The Same Should Happen to Trump.
There's ample precedent (the investigations of Bill Clinton's pardons) and ample reason for Congress and the Department of Justice to launch investigations into President Trump's…
Nestlé & Cargill v. Doe Series: Meet the “John Does” – the Children Enslaved in Nestlé & Cargill’s Supply Chain
[Editor’s Note: This article is part of a Just Security series on the consolidated cases of Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe I and Cargill Inc. v. Doe I, which was argued before…
Nestlé & Cargill v. Doe Series: Shielding American Corporations from Liability Undermines the United States’ Moral Authority
Corporate defendants argue that courts should let Congress decide if and when to impose liability for human rights abuses abroad. But Congress has already spoken: through the Trafficking…
Top Expert Backgrounder: Russia’s SolarWinds Operation and International Law
A legal analysis of whether the SolarWinds cyber hack violated international law, and the U.S. government's response options.
National Security This Week at the United Nations (Dec 11 – Dec 18)
Equitable Distribution of Vaccines an “Acid Test” On Dec. 16, the President of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Munir Akram said the equitable distribution…
“Strategic Silence” and State-Sponsored Hacking: The US Gov’t and SolarWinds
The absence to date of executive branch attribution and condemnation of the SolarWinds intrusions may be strategic silence—a tactic employed in the immediate aftermath of past…
Are Blanket Pardons Constitutional? A Reply to Bowman
If news reports are to be believed, President Trump is considering issuing blanket pardons (“for any and all offenses”) to many of his family-members and associates. In an…
A Roadmap for Reform: How the Biden Administration Can Revitalize the Office of Legal Counsel
As President-Elect Joe Biden announces his picks for cabinet positions, the Nation’s focus has increasingly turned to the challenges facing the incoming administration. One such…
Beyond the ICC: Repositioning the Core of International Accountability
For the survivors of atrocities, justice may mean something very different from the remote procedures of the ICC. How can international systems of accountability center local justice?
The Definition of Aggression and Self-Defense
Exactly forty-six years ago, on December 14, 1974, the United Nations General Assembly adopted, by consensus, the Definition of Aggression, “the most serious and dangerous form…