Hostage Taking and International Law: New Thinking

Our second panel will examine the international law dimensions of hostage taking and discuss challenges to holding states legally accountable. The discussion will explore novel strategies to overcome the accountability gap, including through litigation in U.S. federal courts (and potentially the domestic courts of other states) and through international institutions. Both offer a unique set of advantages, drawbacks, and challenges, and each are rapidly changing as legal scholars and practitioners push the boundaries. Legal innovation may provide new opportunities to establish meaningful deterrence against Iran and other would-be state hostage takers, with substantial implications for foreign policy dynamics.

Moderator: Daniel Sharp, Stanford Law School; Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)