Articles of War

Intelligence Wars, Their Warriors, and Legal Ambiguity – Part II: Ambiguity
Editors' note: This post is the second in a two-part series that explores the role both military and civilian intelligence organizations perform in armed conflict. The first post in this series examined intelligence-based activities related to large scale combat...
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An Operational Perspective of Military Advantage and Proportionality
Scholars have described the law of targeting as lying at the heart of the law of armed conflict (LOAC). Within the law of targeting, the rule of proportionality requires military planners, commanders, and those executing attacks to assess whether the expected harm to...
Intelligence Wars, Their Warriors, and Legal Ambiguity – Part I: Wars and Warriors
Editors’ note: This post is part of a two-part series that explores the role military and civilian intelligence organizations perform in...
What Is Left After Leaving Ottawa?
With 165 member States (at the time of writing), the Ottawa Convention is arguably the most widely recognized international treaty on conventional...
Cross-Linkages between Non-Adverse Derogation and Non-Renunciation of Rights in Modern IHL
Articles 6/6/6/7 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 (GCs) allow belligerent States to conclude special agreements either to implement their...
An Operational Perspective of Military Advantage and Proportionality
Scholars have described the law of targeting as lying at the heart of the law of armed conflict (LOAC). Within the law of targeting, the rule of...
Comparative Law, the Law of War, and Usufruct
The nature of the legal pluriverse (“the plurality of existing normative orders”) remains a subject of debate. Monists view international law and...
Ukraine Symposium – Ukraine and the Future of the Ottawa Convention
In 1935, the International Labor Organization (ILO) adopted its 45th convention, generally prohibiting the employment of women in underground mining...
Operation Rising Lion and the Self-Defense Condition of Immediacy
On 13 June, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, striking Iranian military leadership and critical infrastructure as well as key personnel...
The Myth of Jus ad Bellum–Jus in Bello Purity
In modern international law, the separation of jus ad bellum (the law governing the right to go to war) and jus in bello (the law governing conduct...
Shadows in Orbit: Unpacking the Cosmos 2588 Amidst Legal Uncertainty in Space
On 23 May, 2025, Russia launched Cosmos 2588, the latest in its Cosmos series of military satellites, into low Earth orbit (LEO). As first reported...
Data Poisoning as a Covert Weapon: Securing U.S. Military Superiority in AI-Driven Warfare
Rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into military platforms has revolutionized modern warfare, providing unprecedented capabilities...
Interpreting the Law of Self-Defense
The 13 June 2025 Israeli attack (Operation Rising Lion) on Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure, as well as senior military leaders and...
On Robert Kolb’s Advanced Introduction to International Humanitarian Law, Second Edition
This post provides select reflections based upon the experience of writing the second edition of my book, Advanced Introduction to International...