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.
3,498 Articles

The Obama Administration’s Misguided Opposition to Tariq Ba Odah’s Request for Judicial Relief
On October 15, a federal district court in Washington, DC, will hear argument in Ba Odah v. Obama, a habeas challenge by a Guantánamo detainee whose prolonged hunger strike has…

The False Choice of Opposing Torture or Endless War: A Response to Samuel Moyn
In a thoughtful guest post Samuel Moyn has continued and deepened a debate we began in the pages of the current issue of Dissent on the relative merits of opposing war itself and…

Toward a History of Clean and Endless War
It is idle — but interesting — to speculate on what future historians will say about our own time. True: We can never know, and would probably find ourselves shocked by what…

The Special Rapporteur on Torture’s Report on Extraterritoriality Speaks to Migrant Crisis
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan E. Méndez, has issued a new expert’s report (his 17th)—this one on extraterritoriality. (JustSecurity’s extensive…

Amid Calls for UN Investigation Into Kunduz Strike, US Senator Suggests that the UN Does Not Investigate Taliban Abuses. He’s Wrong.
Today, following calls for an independent inquiry into the US airstrike on the MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) – during a Senate Armed Services…

New California Human Rights Legislation
Amidst all the coverage of California’s new assisted suicide law, it may have been missed that Governor of California Jerry Brown signed important human rights legislation into…

Precision Weapons, Mistakes, and the Need for Transparency
This post is the latest installment of our “Monday Reflections” feature, in which a different Just Security editor examines the big stories from the previous week or looks…

Was the Kunduz Strike a War Crime?
As reports poured in over the weekend that the United States bombed a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing at least 12 MSF staff members and…

Rest Easy Professeurs de Trahison, You Are Not Targetable Under LOAC
William C. Bradford’s article Trahison des Professeurs: The Critical Law of Armed Conflict Academy as an Islamic Fifth Column, published last summer in George Mason Law School’s…

The Bass-Ackwards Detainee Transfer Provision in the FY2016 NDAA
There’s a lot to say about the 1,915-page National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2016 that was unveiled yesterday by the House and Senate Armed Services…

The First Case for the ICC Prosecutor: Attacks on Cultural Heritage
Over the weekend, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, announced an arrest in the Mali situation, charging Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi with the…

The US-China Cyber Agreement: What’s In and What’s Out
This post is the latest installment of our “Monday Reflections” feature, in which a different Just Security editor examines the big stories from the previous week or looks…