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.
3,520 Articles

Unhappy 16th Anniversary, Guantanamo Bay
It’s hard to believe, but here we are marking yet another anniversary of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center. It’s not a happy one. Hidden and inaccessible as they are on…

Today’s Mass Guantanamo Habeas Petition and the Ongoing Human Cost of America’s “Battle Lab”
Today, the Guantanamo prison enters its 17th year. 41 Muslim men still languish there, trapped in an ever-present reminder of their captors’ official experiment with torture.…

ICC Jurisdiction and the Rohingya Crisis in Myanmar
Over the past four months, Myanmar’s armed forces, officially known as the Tatmadaw, have driven over 600,000 Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh, killing thousands of civilians…

Parsing Howard Nielson’s Sources: A Thesis Without Support
Image: Committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) speaks with ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) before the start of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol…

Counter-Terrorism and Crackdowns on Civil Society
As countries around the globe contend with the threat of terrorism, the challenges to civil liberties and civil society have never been greater. Acknowledging the threat posed…

International Criminal Court Indictments of U.S. Officials Are not Impossible
The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor’s long-expected request to open an investigation of U.S. armed forces and the CIA for crimes allegedly committed in Afghanistan…

Alseran v MOD and the Legal Risks in Treating All Captives as Prisoners of War
British and American troops with Iraqi captives in March 2003. (UK MOD) Last month, the English High Court delivered its judgment in favour of the claimants in Alseran and Others…

Episode 52 of the National Security Law Podcast: Trump Derangement Syndrome or a Distraction from the Forever War?
Merry New Year! 2018 is underway, but in today’s episode we are looking back at 2017. More specifically, we are looking back to predictions made in early 2017 regarding the…

Justice for Atrocities is Hard (So Get It Right in Darfur)
Faced with grisly accounts of burned villages and mass killings, a number of governments and other observers are calling for those responsible for atrocity crimes in Burma to be…

Judicial Nominee Howard C. Nielson’s Own Torture Memo
Image: Committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) talk with each other during a Senate Judiciary…

Episode 51 of the National Security Podcast: Temporary, Immediate, and Unmonitored Access to this Podcast
Well, 2017 is almost done. No doubt there are a few more kicks-in-the-pants on the way before it’s all said and done, but hey, we can at least offer you one final episode of…

Judge Chutkan’s Ruling on the Unidentified U.S. Citizen Detainee
Late Saturday night, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan ruled that the Department of Defense must allow the ACLU Foundation “immediate and unmonitored access” to the U.S. citizen…