Armed Conflict • International Law
Law of Armed Conflict/IHL
1,649 Articles
When Do Countries Have to Investigate War Crimes?
In late August, the New York Times and others reported that the US Army had reopened a criminal investigation into the murders of at least 17 civilians in Afghanistan in 2012 and…
A Weapon That Keeps on Killing
When the cluster bombs fell on the town of Kaunda in Sudan’s Nuba Mountains in late May, local authorities collected the bomblets that were scattered about and placed them in…
European Countries Are Edging Toward Their Own War on Terror
A version of this article first appeared on the European Council on Foreign Relations website. The United States looks less lonely in its use of drone strikes against terrorist…
The UK’s Letter to the UN Security Council Leaves Plenty of Unanswered Questions About Last Month’s RAF Drone Strike
Yesterday, I wrote a post helping to untangle some of the international law questions involved in last month’s UK drone strike in Syria that killed three individuals, two of…
The Legal Questions About the UK’s Drone Strike in Syria
The recent revelations of a UK drone strike in Syria targeting British individuals alleged to be linked to the Islamic State has generated much discussion, and the British government…
Amb. Stephen Rapp on Sri Lanka’s War Crimes Investigation
At the end of August, the United States announced that it would support Sri Lanka’s plan for investigating alleged war crimes that occurred during the final years of the country’s…
Two More British Citizens are Dead From a Targeted Killing in Syria
UK Prime Minister David Cameron speaking before Parliament on Sept. 7 revealed that in addition to alleged ISIL hacker, recruiter, and propagandist Junaid Hussain, two other Britons…
Armed Opposition Groups’ Courts: Challenging the Lawfulness of Detentions in Light of the Serdar Mohammed Appeals Judgment
Much has already been written on the authority to detain in non-international armed conflicts (NIACs) (see here, here, and here for recent posts). So much so, in fact, that it…
Questions the Media Should Be Asking About DOD’s Latest Targeted Killing
Last week, the Pentagon confirmed that an American drone strike in Raqqa, Syria, killed a hacker named Junaid Hussain, a British man also believed to be a recruiter for ISIL.…
The DOD Law of War Manual and Command Responsibility: Is it Time for a “Necessary and Reasonable” Change to the UCMJ?
Editor’s Note: This post is the latest in Just Security’s “mini forum” on the new Defense Department Law of War Manual. This series includes posts from Sean Watts, Eric…
A Readers’ Guide to our Mini-Forum on DOD’s new Law of War Manual
As you’ve probably noticed this summer, we’ve been hosting a mini-forum on the Defense Department’s Law of War Manual that was published earlier this summer. As Marty Lederman pointed…
Regulating Autonomous Weapons Might be Smarter Than Banning Them
This post is the latest installment of our “Monday Reflections” feature, in which a different Just Security editor examines the big stories from the previous week or looks…