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.
3,695 Articles
“We Could Hold Them for 100 Years If the Conflict Lasts for 100 Years”
Last week, Justice Department lawyer Ronald Wiltsie told a federal district court in Washington, D.C. that the Trump administration is entitled to imprison detainees for 100 years…
Continued Fight for Accountability in Liberia: Another Landmark U.S. Court Decision
For the second time in less than a year, evidence of war crimes in Liberia have been presented in a federal courtroom in Philadelphia. On July 3, Jucontee Thomas Woewiyu, former…
Unpacking DOJ’s New Claim that DHS Can Legally Detain Migrant Children with Their Parents for Longer than Twenty Days
The Trump administration recently claimed it could not reunite migrant children with parents who are being held in ICE detention due to a court order requiring the government to…
What Makes the Lawsuit against Trump’s Foundation Very Different
Last week, the New York Supreme Court set an October date to hear motions in state attorney general Barbara Underwood’s civil suit against Donald Trump, his eldest children,…
Time for a Reckoning in Yemen
Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, Stephen Rapp writes that "Americans are also at risk … of complicity in the crimes committed by coalition forces" in the…
Overdue US Admission that Civilians Were Killed in Syria Strike Is Still Insufficient
It finally admitted to it. After months of denying that any civilians died, the United States-led coalition in Syria has finally recognized that its strike on a boarding school…
Studies: Mass Detention of Migrant Families is Unnecessary, Inefficient
The administration’s turn toward mass detention of asylum seekers and migrants flies in the face of numerous empirical studies, including the government’s own statistics, that…
Protecting Civilians in Cyberspace: Ideas for the Road Ahead
Distinctions between offline and online conflicts are blurring as tools and tactics deployed in cyberspace trigger real world consequences. In Mexico, for example, commercial spyware…
Global Responses to President Trump’s Family Separation via “Zero-Tolerance” Detention Policy
Children in cages. Children under five crying alone. Anguished parents. As these images have assaulted Americans’ sensibilities in recent weeks, they have also brought international…
A Belief Shattered: The International Criminal Court’s Bemba Acquittal
BANGUI – On June 8, the appeals chamber at the International Criminal Court acquitted Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo of all charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity of murder,…
Saudi Arabia’s Misleading Email to Congress After Bombing of MSF Cholera Hospital
On a recent Wednesday night in June, Saudi Arabia’s embassy emailed members of the U.S. Congress providing them something between a false and misleading account of an air strike…
Detainees in Iraq Win Damages from Denmark in High Court Ruling
A Danish High Court (‘Østre Landsret’) decided this month that the Danish government should compensate a group of Iraqi nationals who sued the Ministry of Defense over ill…