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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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.

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.

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.

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.

This memorandum from the Congressional Research Service attempts to clarify the debate over lethal targeting of U.S. citizens with suspected ties to terrorist activites by providing legal background, setting forth what is known about the Administration's positionz and identifying possible points of contention among legal experts and other observers.

News of planned military trials for five 9/11 suspects underscores the Obama administration's need to more forcefully defend the necessity of military tribunals if they are to have legitimacy at home and abroad, says CFR's Matthew Waxman.

Obama's targeted drone strikes--even on Americans--aren't illegal, writes Jack Goldsmith for Foreign Policy. In fact, he writes, there's a solid legal foundation and a number of checks and balances upholding his right to take out terrorists.

Targeted killings have become a central component of U.S. counterterrorism operations around the globe. Despite pointed criticism over transparency and accountability issues, analysts say the controversial practice seems likely to expand in the future.

Ambassador David Scheffer and former State Department legal adviser John Bellinger discuss how international justice over the last two decades has affected international politics, including the U.S. role in assisting local war crimes prosecutions in Libya and elsewhere.

The Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry presented this report in November 23, 2011, with final revisions made by December 10, 2011. The report investigates potential human rights abuses in Bahrain during the protests that took place in February 2011, part of the Arab Uprisings across the Middle East. In Bahrain, the report is known as the Bassiouni Commission, as it was led by Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni, who investigated war crimes in Bosnia and Libya for the United Nations.

John B. Bellinger III argues that Libyans should be allowed to choose whether they want to try members of the Qaddafi regime in their own courts.