Kunduz
19 Articles

Five Years On: Military Accountability and the Attack on the MSF Trauma Center in Kunduz
On the fifth anniversary of the tragic attack by the U.S. military on the Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF) trauma center in Kunduz, Afghanistan, a former U.S. military legal adviser…

A Tale of German Global Criminal Justice: A TWAIL Perspective on the Syrian Torture Trial
A trial against Anwar Raslan and Eyad Al Gharib, two suspected (former) members of President Bashar al-Assad’s security services, began before the Higher Courts in Koblenz, Germany,…

Condolence Payments for Civilian Casualties: Lessons for Applying the New NDAA
The new National Defense Authorization Act can help improve the way the U.S. responds to civilian casualties. FOIA requests and interviews with DoD officials, U.S. soldiers, judge…

A Test Case for Guantánamo’s New Convening Authority
The latest Guantánamo military commission case to make headlines—the new charges against Encep Nurjamen (a.k.a. Hambali)—is shrouded in an unusual amount of secrecy. But when…

U.S. Military Justice and “Operational Mishaps”: A Primer
As the tempo and intensity of United States military operations increases, the likelihood of operational mishaps increases as well. These mishaps – an anodyne term that cannot…

Letter to the Editor: Bombing Hospitals: Why Bad Actors—Not the Laws of War—Are to Blame
In “Military Attacks on ‘Hospital Shield: The Law Itself is Partly to Blame,” the authors address the dangers of analogizing between human shields and hospitals,…

Military Attacks on “Hospitals Shields”: The Law Itself is Partly to Blame
The MSF Trauma Center in Kunduz, Afghanistan, following the US airstrike on the facility in October 2015. Image by Andrew Quilty. From the war in Afghanistan and the US-backed…

Explainer: What Mental State is Required to Commit a War Crime?
What exactly is the definition of war crimes under international law or, more precisely, what mental state is required to commit such an offence? The synopsis below provides an…

The MSF Airstrike Report: Better on the Facts Than on the Law
The military’s investigation of the October 2015 airstrike on the Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan was back in the news last week thanks to highly…

Transparency, Review, and Relief: The Far-Reaching Implications of the Kunduz Report
Thus far, many discussions of the US military’s release of a 120-page detailed report of the lawfulness of its attack on the Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF) facility in Kunduz,…

What the Kunduz Report Gets Right (and Wrong)
Over the past week, many thoughtful posts have appeared, here and elsewhere, reacting to the US military’s report on the 2015 airstrike of a Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF)…

Recklessness, War Crimes, and the Kunduz Hospital Bombing
Last Friday, the US military announced that it was disciplining 16 service members involved in the bombing of the Médicins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan that…