LOAC History
Laws of Yesterday’s Wars Symposium – Rules and “Right” in Iban Laws of War
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a chapter that appears in Samuel White’s third edited volume of Laws of Yesterday’s Wars published with Brill. For a general introduction to the series, see Dr Samuel White and Professor Sean Watts’s introductory post....
The ICC’s Al Hassan Case: A Rejection of the Bilateral Approach to Conflict Classification?
On June 26, 2024, Trial Chamber X of the International Criminal Court (ICC) finally delivered its judgment in the Al Hassan case. The defendant, Mr. Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz—now convicted of eight counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity—was a member of the...
Conceptualizing Civilians: Beyond “Innocence”
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Hague Draft Rules of Aerial Warfare, a significant attempt to conceptualize the regulation of the then-novel technologies of aerial bombing. While technologies of aerial warfare have changed significantly over the past...
Honest Errors, the Rendulic Rule, and Modern Combat Decision-Making
In 1948, in a judgment commonly known as the Hostage case, a U.S. military tribunal at Nuremberg acquitted Lothar Rendulic, commander of the German 20th Mountain Army, of offences related to the devastation of the Norwegian counties of Finnmark and Troms between late...
2023 DoD Manual Revision – What’s Chivalry Got to Do with It?
Regrettably, the recent update of the U.S. Department of Defense Law of War Manual continues to associate chivalry with the law of armed conflict. No change has been made in Section 2.6 of the Manual or the related footnotes, where chivalry is still celebrated....
Treaties in Armed Conflict: The Sharp Split Between “General” and “Particular” Treaties
The recent completion and publication of the second edition of my text, The Law of Treaties, provides an opportunity to reflect on how treaty law applies to specific subject areas and aspects of international law. In this post, I identify a typology of law of armed...
Laws of Yesterday’s Wars Symposium – East African Laws of War
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a chapter that appears in Samuel White’s edited volumes Laws of Yesterday’s Wars published with Brill. For a general introduction to the series, see Samuel White and Professor Sean Watts’s introductory post. In our chapter...
Dead Bodies of War in Legal-Historical Context
“We have come for the bodies of the slain, wishing to bury them in observance of the universal law ….” Euripides, The Suppliants, ca. 423 BCE[i] Since the early days of the war between Ukraine and Russia, there have been various accounts of what is being done or not...
Laws of Yesterday’s Wars Symposium – Reading the Lieber Code as Strategic Lawfare
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a chapter that appears in Samuel White’s edited volumes Laws of Yesterday’s Wars published with Brill. For a general introduction to the series, see Samuel White and Professor Sean Watts’s introductory post. A book launch...
Ukraine Symposium – Negotiating an End to the Fighting
As the conflict in Ukraine grinds on with no end in sight, speculation over the possibility of negotiating an end to the fighting continues. Most discussion has centered on the terms of any such agreement. Issues on the table have included, inter alia, the withdrawal...
Reflections on the Law of Occupation: Afghanistan and Iraq
A recent New York Times article discussed, in part, the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, raising important, yet underexplored, questions about occupations under the law of armed conflict (LOAC). The article focuses primarily on the U.S. armed forces’ transition...
Attacking Dams – Part II: The 1977 Additional Protocols
A recent New York Times report of a 2017 attack by U.S. forces against the Tabqa Dam in Syria has sparked controversy and criticism. In Part I of this series, I described reports of that incident and examined the customary international humanitarian law governing dam...
