Happy Sunday − and welcome to the best of The Conversation U.S. Here are a few of our recently published stories:

• Tensions over Kashmir and a warming planet have placed the Indus Waters Treaty on life support
• In talking with Tehran, Trump is reversing course on Iran

Most of us have heard the phrase “habeas corpus” thrown around, perhaps by a lawyer giving an impassioned speech before a judge on a crime drama or by the teachers who tried to instill in us an appreciation of core American legal concepts. Translated as “you shall have the body,” habeas corpus protects people in the U.S. from being “secreted away or imprisoned by the government without any advanced notification of wrongdoing or chance to make a defense,” explains Andrea Seielstad, a professor of law at the University of Dayton.

And it applies to you whether you’re a citizen or not, she notes, which is why it’s in the news right now as lawyers challenge the Trump administration’s efforts to deport students, scholars, humanitarian refugees and others who aren’t U.S. citizens.

Seielstad traces the long history of habeas corpus, from its 13th-century origins, through how it was expanded − and suspended − in the U.S. over the years, and to recent Supreme Court rulings affirming the principle even applies to “aliens” designated as enemy combatants and detained at Guantanamo Bay.

“Habeas corpus is a critical safeguard of liberty,” Seielstad writes. “In the words of Chief Justice John Marshall … the ‘very essence’ of civil liberty is ‘the right to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury.’”