Category Archives: Human Rights

Arynne Wexler: ‘Here’s What You Say to a Leftist Claiming Trump Broke International Law’

Arynne Wexler writes Jan. 5, 2026: Here’s what you can tell a leftist claiming that President Trump “broke international law” when he captured the narcoterrorist dictator Nicolás Maduro. International law is WORD MAGIC. It’s meaningless. It’s used by people with … Continue reading

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The Hero System of Human Rights Scholar Amanda Alexander

Ernest Becker (1924-1974), in The Denial of Death, holds that man is the animal who knows he will die and cannot live with the knowledge. Every culture hands him a hero system, a scheme that lets him earn the feeling … Continue reading

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Amanda Alexander: The Civilian, Total War, and the Making of Humanitarian Law

Amanda Alexander (b. 1976) is an Australian legal scholar whose work examines the historical construction of international humanitarian law, the shifting meaning of civilian status, and the cultural foundations of legal consciousness. She works across international humanitarian law, legal history, … Continue reading

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The Hague Kid

The Nostradamus Kid (1992) by Bob Ellis follows Ken, a boy raised in Seventh-day Adventist Australia who expects the world to end at any moment. The soon coming of Christ shapes every decision. Ken falls in love, loses his faith, … Continue reading

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The Architecture and Its Guild: How ASIL Reads Trump

On his show today, Mark Halperin wondered about Trump’s approval ratings at the American Society of International Law, which meets this week. The question has a structural answer before it has an empirical one. The field selects for men whose … Continue reading

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Buffered Guardians, Porous Fighters: The Self Assumed by the Laws of War

The history of international humanitarian law is usually told as a story about rules, institutions, and doctrines. It can also be told as a story about the kind of person those rules require. Not just the soldier or the lawyer … Continue reading

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The Jurisdictional Wars: Alliance Theory and the Battle for Power in the History and Practice of International Humanitarian Law

Nobody in international humanitarian law says they want power over the definition of legitimate violence. They say they protect the vulnerable, humanize war, or fill gaps in the law. That is the move. Interpretive authority is a status claim wrapped … Continue reading

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The Moral Jurisdictions: Alliance Theory and the Battle to Claim Authority in the Human Rights Industry During the Iran War

Actors who work in human rights during the Iran war do not present themselves as competing for power. They present themselves as defending the vulnerable, chronicling atrocities, and translating suffering for those who cannot see it directly. This is sincere. … Continue reading

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Decoding Human Rights

David Pinsof argues that human rights do not exist as objective moral truths. He views them as strategic tools used in a complex social symmetry. Humans form alliances to gain status and power. They do not fight for rights because … Continue reading

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Decoding The Just Security Institute

Written with AI: The role of Just Security within the national security ecosystem extends into the granular management of professional reputations and the long-term archiving of dissent. While it functions as a coordination hub, it also operates as a prestige … Continue reading

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