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Using suggestive portraits and unpublished excerpts of the relevant literature, this trend report summarizes some of the important debates currently taking place within US law schools around military and juridical interventions aiming at managing violence in the South. These academic debates are located at the intersection of the fields of activism, media, and, especially, politics. They are driven by positions taken for or against the policy of the Bush administration in Irak and its “global war on terror.” The trajectory of Samantha Power is exemplary in that it mobilizes a portfolio of resources – legal, political and media – that partially explains what is at stake in the current debate over the qualification of the Darfur situation as a “genocide”, thus making a case for a “just war.” The opinions of liberal jurists turn out to be relatively close to those of the legal establishment, who criticize the Bush administration for practicing torture and denying justice by holding onto the principles of the “rule of law.” Finally, the portraits of Chérif Bassiouni and Juan Méndez illustrate a combination of academic and activist resources that helps us understand the powerful process of “juridicization” of conflicts.