Armed Conflict • International Law
Law of Armed Conflict/IHL
1,649 Articles
United States War Crimes Statute & Sri Lanka
Ryan Goodman’s post on Sri Lanka calls for the prosecution under U.S. law of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. In prior posts, we’ve discussed the way in which international crimes (including…
Sri Lanka’s Greatest War Criminal (Gotabaya) is a US Citizen: It’s Time to Hold Him Accountable
Monday, May 19th marks the five-year anniversary of the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, which claimed the lives of 40,000 to 70,000 civilians in its “catastrophic”…
Governments Conclude First (Ever) Debate on Autonomous Weapons: What Happened and What’s Next
This week at the United Nations in Geneva, the 117 states parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) held the first inter-governmental debate on autonomous…
The Limits of the Logic that the Power to Kill includes the Power to Detain
I will soon have a longer post on the UK High Court judgment in Mohammed v. Ministry of Defense, but here I want to consider a specific argument that implicates the authority of…
Backgrounder: Preliminary Examination into Abuses by United Kingdom Personnel in Iraq
As we reported earlier, the ICC Office of the Prosecutor has reopened the preliminary examination into crimes committed by United Kingdom personnel in Iraq from 2003-2008 during…
Do women have anything to say about autonomous weapons? [Updated on October 25, 2016]
Update (October 25, 2016) — Mary Wareham of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots maintains a regularly updated “Binder of Women,” listing the names and bios of…
Start of first inter-governmental expert meeting on autonomous weapons
Today, the 117 states parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) held their first expert meeting on lethal autonomous weapons systems – weapons that can…
Why Civil Libertarians and Drone Critics Should Support David Barron
Sen. Rand Paul has an op-ed in the New York Times today opposing the nomination of David J. Barron to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit until the memos Barron wrote…
Draft UN Security Council Referral of Syria to the ICC—and US Exemptions
Colum Lynch reported yesterday at Foreign Policy that the Obama administration now supports France’s draft resolution to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal…
Developments on Autonomous Weapons Systems Governance
For Just Security readers following the emerging debate on the legal governance of autonomous weapons systems (AWS), this month is very eventful with two noteworthy developments…
Legal Action Taken to Expose Denmark’s Role in US Targeted Killing Program
As reported in today’s Just Security Roundup, news this morning out of Denmark is that the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) is pursuing a potential suite of legal actions…
How We Read a NYTimes Story on Drone Strikes in Yemen
In this post, we’re trying something new. Below, we present an almost line-by-line annotation of yesterday’s New York Times story on US and Yemeni military operations in…