Armed Conflict • International Law
Use of Force
837 Articles
How Obama’s Drones Rulebook Enabled Trump
In Trump’s New Drone Strike Policy: What’s Any Different? Why It Matters, Luke Hartig astutely flags some – but not all – of the key dangers in the Trump administration’s…
Three Half-Truths on U.S. Lethal Operations and Policy Constraints
Late last week, Charlie Savage and Eric Schmitt of the New York Times reported that President Donald Trump might soon adopt a new policy on U.S. lethal operations outside hot warzones.…
Trump’s New Drone Strike Policy: What’s Any Different? Why It Matters
[Editor’s note: this article was originally published on September 21, 2017 at 9:50 PM] After months of continued tough talk and recent assurances that the United States…
A Careless Attack on the UN’s Commission of Inquiry on Syria
Over on Lawfare, Lt. Col. Shane Reeves and Lt. Col. Ward Narramore have published a critique of the latest report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the…
Global Group of Civil Society Organizations Raise Concerns about U.S.-led Drone Export Initiative
On Tuesday, 19 civil society organizations from around the world issued a joint statement with their concerns about a U.S.-led initiative that seeks to set out international standards…
After 16 Years of War, Senate Finally Debates Need for War Debate
After 15 years of no debate on the floor of the Congress since the last war authorization and 16 years of war—the longest in the nation’s history—the U.S. Senate spent 45…
What Can Stop the Next Black Hawk Down: Risks to Special Operation Forces in the Trump Era
(Editors’ note: This article first appeared as a three-part series. We are reproducing it here in full.) Twenty-four years ago this month, President Bill Clinton, a first-term…
Aggression, Armed Conflict, and the Right to Life: Does UN Human Rights Committee Get it Right?
Is it possible to respect the human right to life in the context of war? Or does war, by its very nature, involve the arbitrary deprivation of life? Last month, the United Nations…
No, the U.S. Is Not Bombing ISIS Prisons on Some Theory Prison Labor Contributes to ISIS’s Economy
A recent post at Lawfare—titled “The Al-Mayadeen Prison Bombing and the Problem of War-Sustaining Targets”—suggests that the U.S. military may have struck a prison in Syria…
The Important Legal Questions Regarding the Now-Shuttered “Covert” Program to Arm Syrian Rebels
Mark Mazzetti, Adam Goldman and Michael Schmidt report: The end came quickly for one of the costliest covert action programs in the history of the C.I.A. During a White House briefing…
Takeaways from this Week’s House AUMF Hearing—on Authorizing War Against ISIS
Wednesday’s House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing entitled “Authorization for the Use of Force and Current Terrorist Threats” was the latest in a string of recent developments concerning…
Hidden from the Public: The United Kingdom’s Drone Warfare
The use of armed drones by the United States, both within the conflict zones of Iraq and Syria, and further afield in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, continues to be characterized…