International Law
531 Articles
A Primer on the “Cessation of Hostilities” in Syria and International Law
In case you missed it, the US and Russia brokered a “cessation of hostilities” arrangement for the war-torn county of Syria that went into effect last Saturday, February…
Was the Cyber Attack on a Dam in New York an Armed Attack?
Concerns about the vulnerability of infrastructure to cyber attacks were highlighted in two recent news articles. Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that in 2013, Iranian…
Military Commissions and Fairness
My friend Marty Lederman provides a lot of fascinating commentary about the en banc rehearing in the Al-Bahlul case (here and here). I’d like to focus on just part of Marty’s…
International Law and the UN GGE Report on Information Security
The international community recently took an important step toward establishing global norms of behavior in cyberspace with the publication of the UN’s outcome report from its…
Clarifying what’s at stake in al Bahlul (short answer: judge and jury) . . . and what’s not
Editor’s Note: This is the most recent post in a mini-symposium leading up to tomorrow’s en banc oral argument in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit…
No War Crime? No War Crimes Trial!
Editor’s Note: This is the most recent post in a mini-symposium leading up to next week’s en banc oral argument in the DC Circuit in Al Bahlul v. United States. You can check…
The UN’s New “Code of Conduct” for Acting in the Face of Mass Atrocities
On October 23, the UN celebrated its 70th anniversary by launching an important new initiative that will support timely and decisive action by the UN Security Council to respond…
The Supreme Court’s Foreign “Friends”
In his new book The Court and the World, Justice Stephen Breyer acknowledges that the Supreme Court increasingly hears cases that require it to take account of law and circumstances…
The Investigation Into the Islamic State and Chemical Weapons
Reports of the presumed use of chemical weapons — chlorine and more recently mustard gas — by Daesh (also know as the Islamic State) in Northern Iraq and Syria have appeared…
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 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…
Will Filartiga Survive?
On September 16, the Fourth Circuit will hear oral argument in Warfaa v. Ali, a case brought by the Center for Justice and Accountability under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) and…