Law

Let's Make a Deal

The United States and the Taliban should be able to work out a compromise on Afghanistan. But will the Afghans be able to live with it?

BY JAMES TRAUB | JUNE 24, 2011

Legalizing Drugs Won't Stop Mexico's Brutal Cartels

Like all good multinational businesses, they've diversified.

BY ELIZABETH DICKINSON | JUNE 22, 2011

Road Rage in Russia

Moscow's elite has decided it doesn't need to follow the traffic laws. Will there be a pedestrian revolution?

BY JULIA IOFFE | JUNE 14, 2011

Don't Fear the Reaper

Four misconceptions about how we think about drones.

BY CHARLI CARPENTER, LINA SHAIKHOUNI | JUNE 7, 2011

Tolerating Dissent

Countries that fail to safeguard free speech and press freedom are likely to be visited first by dictatorship, and then by threats to the governing regime.

BY LEE C. BOLLINGER | JUNE 1, 2011

The Rise of the Red Market

How the best intentions of the medical community accidentally created an international organ-trafficking underground.

BY SCOTT CARNEY | MAY 30, 2011

Victor's Justice

As Egypt prepares to prosecute Hosni Mubarak, here's a look at five other countries that have -- with mixed success -- put former leaders on trial for their crimes.

BY JOSHUA E. KEATING | MAY 25, 2011

Tortured Logic

The United States didn't need to waterboard anyone to get Osama bin Laden.

BY MATTHEW ALEXANDER | MAY 4, 2011

Show Me Everything But the Money

Why we should spend less time worrying about what people in developing countries think about government corruption, and more time looking at everything else.

BY CHARLES KENNY | MAY 2, 2011

The Prisoners' Dilemma

Does WikiLeaks' newest document dump tell us anything we don't know about Guantánamo, or is it just another reminder that the United States' least worst place is now its most intractable legal problem? FP asked four experts on military law and interrogation to weigh in on the Gitmo papers.

APRIL 25, 2011

Russia's Crime of the Century

How crooked officials pulled off a massive scam, spent millions on Dubai real estate, and killed my partner when he tried to expose them.

BY JAMISON FIRESTONE | APRIL 20, 2011

How Not to Declare a War

The Obama administration's legal rationale for bombing Libya suggests that while George W. Bush may be gone, the imperial presidency isn't.

BY SCOTT HORTON | APRIL 11, 2011

How Many Investigators Does It Take to Catch a Kleptocrat?

Since 2007, U.S. officials have been investigating the rampant corruption of Equatorial Guinea's dangerously debauched president-in-waiting. They haven't gotten far.

BY KEN SILVERSTEIN | APRIL 7, 2011

The Constitutional Clock Is Ticking on Obama's War

There's no question about it: The president must ask Congress to approve the Libya intervention. So why is Obama resisting?

BY BRUCE ACKERMAN, OONA HATHAWAY | APRIL 6, 2011

Think Again: The Afghan Drug Trade

Why cracking down on Afghanistan's opium business won't help stop the Taliban -- or the United States' own drug problems.

BY JONATHAN P. CAULKINS, JONATHAN D. KULICK, AND MARK A.R. KLEIMAN | APRIL 1, 2011

Democracy Inaction

Why representative government can't solve the world's other social problems.

BY CHARLES KENNY | MARCH 28, 2011

WikiLosers

Julian Assange said WikiLeaks would change the world. At the very least, it changed these people's lives forever.

BY CHARLES HOMANS | MARCH 25, 2011

The Drama in Delhi

India's government has been rocked by scandal after scandal. So why hasn't it fallen?

BY HENRY FOY | MARCH 18, 2011

Revolution's End

On the eve of a pivotal constitutional referendum, Egypt's young activists are struggling for direction.

BY ELLEN KNICKMEYER | MARCH 18, 2011

Making a Democracy

As they work to create a democratic constitution, Egypt's new leaders could learn from post-apartheid South Africa.

BY F.W. DE KLERK | MARCH 17, 2011

Caught in the Crossfire

Caught between prosecutors and the defense in the trial of famed anti-Castro militant, Luis Posada Carriles, a storied reporter -- now, the Justice Department's "star witness" -- feels the pinch.

BY ANN LOUISE BARDACH | MARCH 15, 2011

Spy Games

Why Pakistan let CIA contractor Raymond Davis go.

BY SCOTT HORTON | MARCH 11, 2011

Parliament to the Rescue

Egypt's constitutional reforms don't do enough to break from the presidential system that has enabled the country's authoritarian past.

BY BRUCE ACKERMAN | MARCH 1, 2011

The LWOT: FBI arrests Saudi in alleged terrorism plot; Chesser gets 25 years in prison

Foreign Policy and the New America Foundation bring you a twice weekly brief on the legal war on terror. You can read it on foreignpolicy.com or get it delivered directly to your inbox -- just sign up here.

BY ANDREW LEBOVICH | FEBRUARY 25, 2011

Islamists on Trial

On a monthlong trip through Russia's bloody southern republics, our correspondent visits a nearly deserted courtroom looking for hints as to why the violence here has taken on a new level of viciousness.

BY TOM PARFITT | FEBRUARY 24, 2011

Legal Limbo

How the International Criminal Court is freezing the conflict in Darfur.

BY JÉRÔME TUBIANA | FEBRUARY 23, 2011

Solitary Man

An FP slide show of Hamid Karzai's tumultuous nine years as president of Afghanistan.

FEBRUARY 22, 2011

A Warlord's Last Chance

Why Liberian ex-president Charles Taylor thinks there was an international conspiracy against him.

BY JOHNNY DWYER | FEBRUARY 21, 2011

Gimme Shelter

Why is Hosni Mubarak clinging to power? Maybe because the life of an exiled dictator isn't what it used to be.

BY SCOTT HORTON | FEBRUARY 2, 2011

The Least Worst Venue

The Obama administration's plan to resume military commission trials for Guantánamo detainees isn't as terrible as civil liberties advocates think.

BY ROBERT CHESNEY | JANUARY 21, 2011