At the crossroads of scholarship and practice
The Lieber Institute at West Point facilitates and contributes to the global dialogue on today’s most pressing and complex law of war issues. Through its research, publications, events and education, it strives to advance the understanding and maintain the primacy of law in today’s armed conflicts.
The Lieber Institute seeks to bridge the divide between legal scholarship and battlefield experience in the study of the law. It engages in innovative research and collaboration on multiple topics of legal study including targeting, detention, artificial intelligence, emerging technologies and war crimes accountability.
Researching Cutting-edge Issues.
Promoting Understanding.
Empowering Combat Leaders.
Military Microreactors and the Law of Targeting
A future military base may not only rely on diesel generators, vulnerable grids, and exposed fuel convoys for energy. It may instead be powered by a small nuclear reactor integrated into AI-enabled command nodes, electronic warfare systems, air-defense radars,...
GC IV Commentary Series – Navigating the Complexities of Common Article 3
Editors’ note: The following series considers ICRC’s 2025 updated Commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention. Rosa-Lena Lauterbach, Liisi Adamson, and Sean Watts’s introduction to the series is available here. The delegates who drafted the 1949 Geneva Conventions...
Hollow Control: Cyber Compromise and Human Judgment in Lethal Autonomous Weapons – Part I
Observing that modern warfare is ever more reliant on networks, data, sensors, and software, all of which are vulnerable to attack, has the novelty factor of a field manual explaining that the enemy gets a vote. The more interesting and indeed pressing discussion...
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Volume 13
Volume 12
Volume 11
