International Humanitarian Law (IHL)
656 Articles
The Gov’t of Sri Lanka Responds to my NYT Op-Ed on U.S. War Crimes Probe of ex-Defense Secretary
The government of Sri Lanka’s Justice Deputy Minister has responded to an Op-Ed that I published in the New York Times in which I described the reasons that the United States…
How the U.S. Can Help Sri Lanka Turn the Corner—with a targeted war crimes prosecution
The Obama administration helped catalyze the United Nations’ ongoing efforts to bring accountability in Sri Lanka for mass war crimes committed in that country’s civil…
Obama Administration Landmine Policy – Part II
Part one can be found here. On his way to the opening of the UN General Assembly in New York last month, President Barack Obama stopped at the Clinton Global Initiative, where…
More focus on jus ad bellum in Gaza
More than 1900 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, hundreds of thousands are displaced and the material destructions are formidable. There have been several claims that Israel…
Letter to the Editor: Human Shields in the DPH Guidance
[Editor’s Note: Ryan Goodman responds to Professor Haque’s letter to the editor in a subsequent post.] In his recent post, Ryan Goodman writes that the ICRC adopts the view…
Road Map II: Legal Avenues to Prosecute a US Citizen for War Crimes—The Case of Gotabaya Rajapaksa
This is the second post arising out of a presentation I made at a congressional briefing earlier this month on issues of accountability in Sri Lanka. The analysis below is also…
Road Map I: What More Congress (and the Administration) Can Do to Promote Accountability in Sri Lanka
The Obama administration has taken the lead internationally to promote accountability in Sri Lanka. The principal focus is on war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during…
Targeting Transparency: A Call for DoD to Automatically Release Investigations of Civilian Casualties in Armed Conflict
There has been much discussion on the lack of demonstrable government follow through after President Obama’s 2013 claims of increased transparency of US lethal targeting of suspected…
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…