Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC)
609 Articles

Words Matter in War
Command Sergeant Major John Wayne Troxell, the senior enlisted adviser to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, shared this attention-grabbing message with his more than…

Unhappy 16th Anniversary, Guantanamo Bay
It’s hard to believe, but here we are marking yet another anniversary of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center. It’s not a happy one. Hidden and inaccessible as they are on…

Parsing Howard Nielson’s Sources: A Thesis Without Support
Image: Committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) speaks with ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) before the start of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol…

International Criminal Court Indictments of U.S. Officials Are not Impossible
The International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor’s long-expected request to open an investigation of U.S. armed forces and the CIA for crimes allegedly committed in Afghanistan…

Alseran v MOD and the Legal Risks in Treating All Captives as Prisoners of War
British and American troops with Iraqi captives in March 2003. (UK MOD) Last month, the English High Court delivered its judgment in favour of the claimants in Alseran and Others…

Judicial Nominee Howard C. Nielson’s Own Torture Memo
Image: Committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) talk with each other during a Senate Judiciary…

U.S. “Confronting” Iran inside Syria: Spoiling for an Unlawful Fight?
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani meet during the BRICS/SCO Summits – Russia 2015 on July 09, 2015 in Ufa, Russia. (Photo by Alexey Filippov/Host…

The Problem With Western Suggestions of a “Shoot-to-Kill” Policy Against Foreign Fighters
An Iraqi policeman fires a machine gun at ISIS fighters in Mosul, Iraq. Image: Carl Court/Getty As ISIS’ self-proclaimed caliphate disintegrates in Iraq and Syria, Western governments…

How to Fix the US Military’s Broken Targeting System
The recent groundbreaking investigation by the New York Times into civilian casualties in Iraq uncovered a shocking truth for the many Americans who believe the United States is…

International Law is Meant to Prevent What’s Happening in Yemen–On Humanitarian Relief Operations and Starvation
Every day brings worse news from Yemen. This morning, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced that water and sewage systems in three cities in Yemen – Hodeidah,…

Episode 46 of the National Security Law Podcast: The $15 Million Dollar Man
In this week’s episode, your devoted hosts dig into a bonanza of national security law odds-and-ends. First up is an en banc decision by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance…

The Internationalists Mini-Forum: Wars of Self-Defense, An Exception that Swallows the Rule
(This piece is the latest of several on Just Security examining The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World, written by Just Security editorial board…