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

Lethal Autonomous Weapons and Policy-Making Amid Disruptive Technological Change
(In Part I of this post on UN talks on lethal autonomous weapons, I discussed how the underlying artificial intelligence that enables autonomous systems is improving rapidly. In…

Implications of Trump’s New Drone Policy for Countries Assisting the U.S.
At the end of October, the New York Times reported two government officials as saying that the Trump administration had adopted its anticipated new approach to the deployment of…

The Int’l Criminal Court’s Case against the United States in Afghanistan: How it happened and what the future holds
What happens when a global criminal court takes on the world’s dominant military power? That was the question earlier this month when the International Criminal Court’s Prosecutor…

The ICC’s New Burundi Investigation: Where Is the Court Headed?
The International Criminal Court announced Thursday that on Oct. 25 the Pre-Trial Chamber of the Court authorized the Prosecutor to commence an investigation in Burundi for alleged…

Congress is Facing Decisions on Torture, and Needs to Treat Them As Such
On October 17, the Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing on Christopher Sharpley’s nomination to become the next CIA inspector general. He has been the agency’s acting…

The Lethal Autonomous Weapons Governmental Meeting (Part I: Coping with Rapid Technological Change)
This week nations meet at the United Nations to discuss lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), including robotic weapons that might hunt for targets on their own. It has been…

Episode 45 of the National Security Law Podcast: An Inter-Jurisdictional Cluster-You-Know-What?
Has it only been a week? Yeesh. Well, we are back! In this episode, Bobby Chesney and I focus on three topics: The Mueller investigation and the prospect that Mike Flynn…

Mohammed Jabbateh Conviction: A Human Rights Trial Cloaked in Immigration Crimes
On Oct. 18, a U.S. federal jury issued the first criminal conviction involving mass atrocities committed during Liberia’s First Civil War in the 1990s by a ULIMO rebel commander.…

Guantanamo: Donald Trump’s Opportunity
The Trump Administration’s response to last week’s attacks in downtown Manhattan could go either of two directions: The United States could continue to flounder with indecision…
Recap of Recent Pieces on Just Security (Oct. 28-Nov. 3)
Cybersecurity and Cyber Conflict Robert S. Taylor, Cyber, Sovereignty, and North Korea–And the Risk of Inaction Michelle Richardson and Mike Godwin, What the White House Needs…

An ICC Investigation of the U.S. in Afghanistan: What does it Mean?
The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced today that she will file a request with the judges of the Court to open an investigation in Afghanistan, including…

A Better Solution in Jesner v. Arab Bank
Ed. note. This article is the latest in our series on the U.S. Supreme Court case Jesner. v. Arab Bank, a case that is slated to resolve the question of whether corporations can…