The ICC considered two central questions: First, whether South Africa failed to comply with its obligations under the statute by not arresting and surrendering Al-Bashir to the Court while he was in South African territory despite having received a request from the ICC under Articles 87 and 89 of the Statute for his arrest and surrender. Second, whether a formal finding of noncompliance by South Africa in this respect and referral of the matter to the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute or to the United Nations Security Council are warranted.

Does human rights law require countries to investigate serious crimes and bring those responsible to justice? And if so, how far must a country go to satisfy this requirement? This case concerns the murder of Norbert Zongo, an investigative journalist and director of the weekly Burkinabe magazine L'Indpéndenant, his younger brother Ernest Zongo, and two work companions. All four were killed in Burkina Faso on December 13, 1998, in suspicious circumstances. The case was brought by the families of Zongo and his colleagues (Individual Applicants) and the NGO Burkinabé Human and Peoples' Rights Movement (NGO Applicant, together the Applicants). The Applicants alleged that the murders of Zongo and his colleagues were not a random act of violence, but were instead related to their investigations into various political scandals, including those operating at the very highest levels of Burkinabe government. The Applicants claimed that Burkina Faso officials had not only failed to properly investigate the case, but also deliberately stymied the investigation, leading to a failure to bring those responsible for the deaths to justice. The judgment, rendered on March 28, 2014, is only the second judgment to be rendered on the merits by the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights (the Court). The Court ruled unanimously that Burkina Faso had violated Article 1 and Article 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. By a majority of 5 to 4, the Court also found that Burkina Faso had violated Article 9(2) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and Article 66(2)(c) of the Revised Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Treaty. Following the judgment on the merits, the Court rendered its reparations judgment, also included here. This is only the second reparations judgment rendered by the Court, and the first to award reparations to the victims.

In June 2014, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) emerged on the world stage when its fighters seized Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, after moving into Iraq from its original base in Syria. Led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-appointed caliph, ISIL's goal is to establish an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East. At its peak, ISIL was considered the wealthiest international terrorist organization in the world, estimated to have an annual budget of over $2 billion. ISIL controlled large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, seizing control of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's Anbar province, and the historic city of Palmyra in central Syria. In Iraq and Syria, ISIL also seized towns along important supply routes, and controlled critical infrastructure and border crossings. In 2015, the Central Intelligence Agency estimated that ISIL had between twenty thousand and thirty-one thousand fighters in Iraq and Syria, and approximately fifteen thousand of its members were foreign recruits. The acts of brutality committed by ISIL include beheading American journalists; the torture and ruthless slaughter of civilians; the persecution of ethnic minorities and Christians; and gross violations of international human rights that constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

As concerns grow that North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs are nearing the point of becoming an unacceptably dire threat to international peace and security, the United Nations, acting with unprecedented collective resolve, has imposed potentially suffocating international economic sanctions on North Korea. These sanctions are bolstered by even more stringent measures imposed unilaterally by the United States. The international community has not in recent memory come together in this way to seek to cut a country off from nearly all trade and investment. This will be a test of the effectiveness of economic sanctions in achieving a nonmilitary solution to what is arguably the most significant military threat impacting global interests since the end of the Cold War.

With the rise of terrorist threats emanating from outside the territory of the United States and simultaneous advancements in armed drone technology, the United States began a rapidly escalating lethal drone program in the years after 9/11. While the first U.S. drone strike occurred in Yemen in 2002 during the George W. Bush administration, President Barack Obama dramatically increased the number of drone strikes during his first term.