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 Syrian Arab Republic (COI) to the United Nations Human Rights Council.… continue »
This week American-led airstrikes deterred the advance of a convoy carrying a group of ISIS fighters and civilians as it traveled from Lebanon to an ISIS safe-haven in Syria. The convoy reportedly consisted of a mix of buses and ambulances carrying 26 wounded fighters, 308 armed fighters, and 331 civilians.… continue »
This week’s episode certainly has a military theme. Professors Chesney and Vladeck start off with a surprisingly (or is it disturbingly?) lengthy discussion of the writ of mandamus litigation currently pending in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in connection with military commission proceedings. … continue »
On June 23, after years of slow yet meaningful progress in developing State consensus regarding the application of international law norms to cyberspace, the UN Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security (otherwise known as the Group of Governmental Experts, or GGE) collapsed.… continue »
Officials with the Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve (the coalition task force organized to defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq) have now confirmed that U.S.-led forces hit a convoy carrying pro-Syrian government forces advancing inside a deconfliction zone inside Syria.… continue »
The Massive Ordnance Air Blast Weapon (MOAB, known informally as the “Mother of All Bombs” and formally as the Guided Bomb Unit, or GBU, 43/B) has attracted a great deal of attention since it was dropped on ISIS fighters in eastern Afghanistan on 13 April. … continue »
International Humanitarian Law (IHL, aka the Law of Armed Conflict) is not intended to outlaw conflict. It is meant to regulate conflict in order to reduce its impact on civilians and to return to a state of peace as rapidly as possible. … continue »
We have covered on these pages the legal and moral issues surrounding the use of human shields in contemporary armed conflict situations. The American Society of International Law, in a new partnership with Cambridge Press, released yesterday its first symposium edition of the American Journal of International Law Unbound, which provides stereoscopic perspectives on this phenomenon, which has become “endemic” in modern warfare.… continue »
In his final address on issues of war and peace, President Obama reminds us all that “[w]e are a nation that stands for the rule of law, and strengthen[s] the laws of war.” But what is the nature of the laws of war, and what moral function do they serve?… continue »
To assist our readers interested in the phenomenon of human shields, I’ve produced a compilation of the relevant legal framework (additions/suggestions welcome!)
These rules derive primarily from Additional Protocol I (API) of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which governs international armed conflicts (IACs). … continue »
