[4] In June 2013, Ratner and numerous other celebrities appeared in a video supporting Chelsea Manning, who was facing court-martial for disclosing files to WikiLeaks that included evidence of war crimes in Iraq.

Ratner declared his support for Al Quds' President, Dr Nusseibeh, and his promotion of "mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and the exchange of ideas" with Israelis.

[7] Shortly after the US government began to detain prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba in 2002 during the so-called War on Terror, claiming they were beyond the reach of United States law as being "offshore" and military prisoners, Ratner was co-counsel with other attorneys and the CCR in a landmark case challenging the Bush position in court.

[8][better source needed] This meant the detainees could be represented by counsel, and the CCR was among the groups that worked to obtain legal representation for each of the men.

[10] Ratner served as a special counsel to Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, assisting in the prosecution of human rights crimes.

Ratner and his office have also sued two private military companies working as part of the occupation of Iraq, alleging their employees were involved in the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse.

[14] Tragically, writes Moyn, Ratner's career is a case history of how U.S. humanitarians ended up sanitizing the war on terror instead of opposing it.

"[13] One week later, The New York Review of Books published a rebuttal by Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, who objected that "Reducing Ratner's lifework to an effort to sanitize war and therefore unwittingly enable its continuation is not only a betrayal of his memory; it is also a misplaced attack on the decades of efforts of the human rights movement to curb the barbarity of war and protect civilians caught in its midst.".

His service on the boards of non-profits included The Culture Project, The Brandeis Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life, and The Real News (TRNN).