Editors' picks from the week
3 articles to help inform the public and decision-makers
Hi all-
We’re excited to spotlight three articles published on Just Security this week. These pieces tackle pressing legal and policy developments on national and international stages. We hope you find them insightful and valuable.
1. “What Just Happened: The Tariff Litigation Advances”
Kathleen Claussen examines the latest developments in ongoing litigation over the Trump administration’s tariffs. “Litigation may distract more than it changes the course of the president’s trade policy,” she warns. Claussen lays out “four topline points of relevance,” and suggests how Congress could step-in by “crafting trade-related legislation that directs the executive to act consistently with the bi-partisan support for carefully tailored, consistent, and reliable trade policy.”
Her article is also a great way to catch up to speed on the litigation and which case to watch most closely.
2. “What are ‘Wartime Authorities’? An Expert Q&A”
Tess Bridgeman, Rebecca Ingber, and Scott Roehm answer the most important questions regarding the Trump administration’s attempted use of wartime and terrorism-related powers for domestic immigration and law enforcement purposes. The authors underscore the need to scrutinize when and how wartime powers are applied, and to maintain a clear distinction between war and peace.
Their analysis includes a handy guide with charts and more.
3. “How the Proposed State Department Reorganization Guts U.S. Human Rights Diplomacy”
Scott Busby and Charles Blaha discuss how Secretary Marco Rubio’s plan would shrink the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL), eliminating most of its offices and staff and shifting its work to regional bureaus and embassies. This move, they argue, could undermine bipartisan priorities, risk sidelining expertise, and threaten support for core freedoms worldwide. The proposal also risks unintended consequences for embassies and regional bureaus, they write.
These pieces are part of the Collection: Just Security’s Coverage of the Trump Administration’s Executive Actions.
For a digest of each article published this week, see here. For daily content from Just Security delivered straight to your inbox subscribe to Today on Just Security. (It’s free, and we don’t do anything with your email address except send you the content you signed up for.) Today on Just Security now includes updates of daily developments from our litigation tracker that monitors cases challenging the Trump administration’s executive actions.
As always, thank you for reading and engaging with Just Security. We’re grateful for your continued support and thoughtful feedback, which help us foster informed debate and pragmatic solutions for some of the most consequential issues of our time.
Best,
Tess Bridgeman & Ryan Goodman, Editors-in-Chief