Jerome A. Cohen says the Communist Party's sustained efforts since June 4 to influence China's courts for its own ends may be easing, but judicial independence is still a long way off.

Holly J. Burkhalter and E. Benjamin Skinner speak about the challenge of documenting modern slavery, designing effective interventions, and bringing those interventions to scale.

The political successor to the Dalai Lama discusses Tibet.

The political successor to the Dalai Lama discusses Tibet.

The UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) was passed on March 28, 2013, and seeks to regulate and limit trade in arms in circumstances of human rights violations. Unfortunately, it will have minimal effect on the Syrian conflict. Syria's own vote against the treaty, along with Iran's and North Korea's, sounded the death knell for a universally applicable treaty to limit small arms, ammunition, and conventional weapons technology.

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Foreign ministers from the G8 nations declared "rape and other forms of serious sexual violence in armed conflict are war crimes," violate the Geneva Conventions, and are a priority to address. Adopted on April 11, 2013, the declaration outlines how to investigate and prosecute rape and provide services for victims.

In 2009 the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Center of Excellence (NATO CCD COE) asked a panel of international law experts to "apply standards of international law to a virtual battlefield." The panel released this report on March 28, 2013, as "an expression of opinions of a group of independent experts acting solely in their personal capacity."

UN Special Rapporteur on Human rights and Counterterrorism Ben Emmerson released this statement on March 14, 2013, following his meetings in Pakistan with victims of drone strikes.

Thanks to a once-obscure law passed in 1789, foreign victims of foreign human rights abusers can use U.S. courts to sue their abusers. But the Supreme Court may soon ban such suits. That would be a shame, since they offer victims some measure of solace and give substance to underenforced human rights laws. The law should be upheld, and other countries should follow the U.S. lead.

With the passing of International Human Rights Day, Jerome A. Cohen says China still has no effective means of enforcing the rights enshrined in its constitution. Yet, once again, new Communist Party leaders reignite hopes for bringing government and the party under the rule of law.

Kenneth Anderson and Matthew C. Waxman say some view automated technology developments as a crisis for the laws of war. But provided we start now to incorporate ethical and legal norms into weapons design, the incremental movement from automation to genuine machine autonomy already underway might well be made to serve the ends of law on the battlefield.

Matthew C. Waxman argues that international law still plays a powerful role in justifying or delegitimizing the case for military action. Just like in the Cuban missile crisis, the United States needs to present a plausible case for self-defense in order to strike Iran.

Fatou Bensouda, the new prosecutor for the ICC, discusses her new role and the ICC as a body in general.

Jeffrey H. Smith and John B. Bellinger III say that because a nuclear-armed Iran is a real threat to the United States, the president does have reason to argue for his constitutional authority to use force against Iran, but legislative approval would give him stronger legal and political ground to do so.

Fatou Bensouda, prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC), discusses her vision for the ICC, her current caseload, and the court's role on the international stage.

This meeting is part of the David Rockefeller Lecture Series.

Fatou Bensouda, prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) discusses her vision for the ICC, her current caseload, and the court's role on the international stage.

This meeting is part of the David Rockefeller Lecture Series.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange gave these remarks at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London on August 19, 2012. This transcript was published in The Independent.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) issued this statement on ASEAN's Six-Point Principles on the South China Sea on July 20, 2012.

John B. Bellinger III argues that Congress should reconsider the International Criminal Court.

The link between crime and the state is neither as new nor as scary as Moisés Naím depicted it, argues Peter Andreas; after all, criminals have been corrupting governments for centuries.