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.
Mind the Gap: The Distance Between WHO Data and International Legal Standards
International lawyers, UN bodies, and human rights organizations increasingly cite one source when they discuss violence against health care in armed conflict: the World Health Organization's Surveillance System on Attacks on Health Care (SSA). Since its launch in...
How the UN Bought Time for the World to Understand Autonomous Weapons
As the UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) concludes its decade-long mandate on lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), its final report does little more than reiterate existing International Humanitarian Law (IHL). However, its value should not be judged as a...
GC IV Commentary Series – Article 47 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949: A Possible Blind Spot
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. Although the International Committee of the Red Cross...
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Volume 13
Volume 12
Volume 11
