Armed Conflict
Law of Armed Conflict/IHL
1,632 Articles
The UN’s New “Code of Conduct” for Acting in the Face of Mass Atrocities
On October 23, the UN celebrated its 70th anniversary by launching an important new initiative that will support timely and decisive action by the UN Security Council to respond…
The Start, End, and Territorial Scope of Armed Conflict
Editor’s Note: This is the first post in a miniseries about the International Committee of the Red Cross’s newly released Report on International Humanitarian Law and the Challenges…
The Assassination Ban and Targeted Killings
In public speeches, administration officials have criticized the use of the word “assassination” to characterize targeted killings carried out by the United States. The administration’s…
The International Criminal Court, the Islamic State, and Chemical Weapons
Ralf Trapp recently wrote here about an investigation by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) into the alleged use of chemical weapons in Northern Iraq…
Human Shields in the DOD Manual: A New Mistake or an Old One?
Since the Defense Department published its new Law of War Manual, major media outlets have scrutinized its treatment of journalists while ignoring its treatment of ordinary civilians.…
The Imperative of a “Drone Court”
With the recent release of The Intercept’s Drone Papers, it is an apt time to revisit the imperative of creating a check on an executive branch exercising lethal force without…
The Investigation Into the Islamic State and Chemical Weapons
Reports of the presumed use of chemical weapons — chlorine and more recently mustard gas — by Daesh (also know as the Islamic State) in Northern Iraq and Syria have appeared…
Honor, Morality, and the DOD Law of War Manual
As faithful readers of Just Security’s “mini forum” on the new DOD Law of War Manual may recall, Prof. Adil Haque and I sparred last summer over several of the manual’s…
Kunduz Update
The Afghan government is doubling down on its strong insinuations that a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital that US and Afghan forces bombed in Kunduz on October 3 was a legitimate…
Human Shields: The Weapon of the Strong
In a series of interventions, Adil Ahmad Haque and Charlie Dunlap have debated the Defense Department Law of War Manual’s position on human shields (here, here, and here). Claiming…
Drone Disclosures, Official and Not
As readers of this blog already know, last week The Intercept published a series of fascinating stories about the US drone campaign. The stories, and the official documents that…
The Significant Firsts of an ICC Investigation in Georgia
Yesterday the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court filed a request seeking authority from its Pre-Trial Chamber to begin an investigation into possible war crimes and/or…