International Humanitarian Law (IHL)
648 Articles
Ending the Forever War: One Year After President Obama’s NDU Speech
Today, May 23, 2014, marks the one-year anniversary of President’s important speech at the National Defense University (NDU) setting forth his proposed framework for post-9/11…
United States War Crimes Statute & Sri Lanka
Ryan Goodman’s post on Sri Lanka calls for the prosecution under U.S. law of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. In prior posts, we’ve discussed the way in which international crimes (including…
Sri Lanka’s Greatest War Criminal (Gotabaya) is a US Citizen: It’s Time to Hold Him Accountable
Monday, May 19th marks the five-year anniversary of the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, which claimed the lives of 40,000 to 70,000 civilians in its “catastrophic”…
Letter to the Editor from former U.S. Army JAG replying to Ryan Goodman on recent amends legislation
As a former judge advocate of the U.S. Army who served as a claims officer in Iraq for 14 months, I strongly support the new statute that allows for payments to be offered to civilian…
New study may explode some myths about drones (and may create new ones)
The CNA Corporation, a non-profit research and analysis organization which runs the Center for Naval Analyses, recently published an important report by Larry Lewis, entitled Drone…
New Statute Provides Amends to Foreign Civilians Killed by the United States – but only if they’re “friendly”
Earlier this month, Just Security published a guest post by Sahr Muhammedally outlining a new congressional statute whereby the Defense Department can now move ahead in establishing…
UK Defence Select Committee: Extensive legal scrutiny undermining willingness of commanders to take necessary risks
The UK’s House of Commons Defence Select Committee published a report on Wednesday [full text] concerning the legal framework for future operations of the armed forces. The…
Civilian War Victims Receive Recognition in US Law
When the US military was deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, it had no plan for addressing civilian casualties despite following rules prohibiting disproportionate or deliberate…
The Human Rights Committee’s Draft Comment 35 on Detention and Security of Persons: A long, long time coming yet still falls short
On June 30, 1982 the Human Rights Committee adopted General Comment No. 8 on Article 9 (the right to liberty and security of the person). It has taken a mere 32 years – a significant…
Breaking News: The High Commissioner for Human Rights to Investigate the Situation in Sri Lanka
The Human Rights Council on Thursday issued a resolution (with a vote of 23 for, 12 against, and 12 abstentions) asking the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to “investigate,…
Nils Melzer on Whether U.S. Citizen Abdullah al-Shami is a Lawful Military Target
The Obama Administration is reportedly evaluating whether a lethal operation against a US citizen in Pakistan is legally permissible. Last Friday an important story by Mark Mazzetti…
Missing Transparency: Is the US Response to Reported Drone Attack on Wedding Party Self-Defeating?
On Thursday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a fact-intensive report based on the group’s investigations into a US drone strike that allegedly hit a wedding party in Yemen…