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
Legal Questions About the Airstrike Against the ISIS “Happy Journeys” Convoy
This week American-led airstrikes deterred the advance of a convoy carrying a group of ISIS fighters and civilians as it traveled from Lebanon to an ISIS safe-haven in Syria. The…
What Can Stop the Next Black Hawk Down: Risks to Special Operation Forces in the Trump Era
(Editors’ note: This article first appeared as a three-part series. We are reproducing it here in full.) Twenty-four years ago this month, President Bill Clinton, a first-term…
Key U.S. Foreign Policy Positions—including Ambassador for War Crimes—Saved from Getting Axed
Just Security recently broke the story that the State Department was considering shuttering or downgrading certain functional offices and Senate-confirmed ambassadorships within…
Proposed 2019 Start Date for 9/11 Trial Faces Skepticism from Gitmo Judge
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — The military commission proceeding against five detainees allegedly responsible for the September 11th terrorist attacks is slowly inching…
An Update of the Israel-Palestine-International Criminal Court Timeline
A lot has happened before the International Criminal Court since we last reported on the Palestine and related situations. The timeline below picks up where my last timeline of…
New ICC Arrest Warrant Indirectly Implicates Libyan Warlord, a U.S. Citizen
As I wrote yesterday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced last week that it had issued a new arrest warrant for Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf Al-Werfalli, a militia leader…
Federal Court: US Can Extradite Ex-El Salvador Official to Spain for Jesuits Massacre
On Monday, U.S. federal judge Terrence Boyle ruled that Inocente Orlando Montano Morales (Montano)—who headed El Salvador’s National Police as Vice Minister for Public Security…
The ICC’s New Libya Case: Extraterritorial Evidence for an Extraterritorial Court
The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced last week that it had issued a new arrest warrant for Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf Al-Werfalli, a militia leader in Libya. Al-Werfalli…
Aggression, Armed Conflict, and the Right to Life: Does UN Human Rights Committee Get it Right?
Is it possible to respect the human right to life in the context of war? Or does war, by its very nature, involve the arbitrary deprivation of life? Last month, the United Nations…
In the U.S.-U.K. Deal, Both Sides Deserve Scrutiny
We recently published an analysis in Lawfare of the United Kingdom’s surveillance framework as it relates to the proposed U.S.-U.K. agreement for cross-border law enforcement…
No, the U.S. Is Not Bombing ISIS Prisons on Some Theory Prison Labor Contributes to ISIS’s Economy
A recent post at Lawfare—titled “The Al-Mayadeen Prison Bombing and the Problem of War-Sustaining Targets”—suggests that the U.S. military may have struck a prison in Syria…
The Important Legal Questions Regarding the Now-Shuttered “Covert” Program to Arm Syrian Rebels
Mark Mazzetti, Adam Goldman and Michael Schmidt report: The end came quickly for one of the costliest covert action programs in the history of the C.I.A. During a White House briefing…