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.
3,737 Articles
Congress Steps Up Accountability for Drones Strikes and Other Military Operations
On the same day that The New York Times Magazine published a disturbing account of the monumental gap between the number of acknowledged civilian casualties and the number of casualties…
Episode 46 of the National Security Law Podcast: The $15 Million Dollar Man
In this week’s episode, your devoted hosts dig into a bonanza of national security law odds-and-ends. First up is an en banc decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance…
The Internationalists Mini-Forum: Wars of Self-Defense, An Exception that Swallows the Rule
(This piece is the latest of several on Just Security examining The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World, written by Just Security editorial board…
Yemen Strike Raises Questions About Whether the US Follows Its Own Drone Rules
While we were visiting Yemen this month, the United States conducted a drone strike against alleged al-Qaeda members in Mareb Governorate, reportedly killing two suspects while…
The Internationalists Mini-Forum: Why Has War Declined?
(This piece is the first of several on Just Security examining The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World, written by Just Security editorial…
How the Trump Administration Deals With Detainees Can Provide Insight Into its Counterterrorism Priorities
What is the US going to do with the “enemy combatants” it picks up during counterterrorism operations? How will we strike the difficult balance between protecting national…
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…