Targeting
LOAC and Legitimacy: When Combat Becomes a Supporting Effort to Information
Over the past two decades information was mostly conceptualized as a supporting effort to combat: information contributed to tactical and operational success. Given today’s immediately interconnected world, the character of war is changing with the blurring of the...
Russian Cyber Operations and Ukraine: The Legal Framework
Last week, hostile cyber operations targeted approximately 70 Ukrainian government websites, including that of the Cabinet. Affected sites included Diia, the most widely used site for handling online government services. The operations included posting the message,...
Private Companies in Cyber Operations During Armed Conflict
The legal implications surrounding military offensive cyber operations in armed conflict have received considerable attention from scholars and practitioners. In contrast, this piece assesses the implications for how the rules of international humanitarian law (IHL)...
Over-the-Horizon Operations – Part I: When May Force Be Used?
Responding in early July to concerns about the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan after two decades of war, President Biden announced, “We are developing a counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to keep our eyes firmly fixed on any direct...
Legal Advice in Modern Aerial Warfare
Military lawyers play an increasingly vital role in lethal (and non-lethal) targeting operations. Although their involvement is operationally and geographically provisional, legal advice is transforming the way that contemporary war is fought and understood. I spent...
Military Partners and the Obligation to “Ensure Respect” for IHL
The Common Article 1 obligation to “ensure respect” for international humanitarian law (IHL) has become a topic of considerable reflection and debate. The extent to which States must influence others to respect the Conventions is a thorny and unresolved issue. Yet,...
Cognitive Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (CLAWS)
With the debut of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) in combat, opponents of LAWS have called on States to fast-track the creation of international law that either bans the use of these weapons or mandates meaningful human control over them. If LAWS are used...
Biometrics and International Humanitarian Law
In August 2021, reporting emerged that biometric devices used by United States armed forces in Afghanistan had fallen into the hands of the Taliban. This raised immediate concerns that the devices and the data they give access to might be used by the Taliban for...
Hays Parks and U.S. Views on Targeting Law
Three decades after its publication, Colonel W. Hays Parks’s article Air War and the Law of War remains a key resource for attorneys who advise on targeting operations. The article is noteworthy for its deep exploration of the history of the law of war as well as its...
Hays Parks and Direct Participation in Hostilities
As he did with so many subjects of the law of war, W. Hays Parks left an indelible imprint on the long fraught question of direct participation in hostilities by civilians. From early legal advice to expert consultations and seminal academic contributions, his work...
“Over-the-Horizon Operations” in Afghanistan
The United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan has rightly dominated the world’s attention. The suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 26th, resulting in the loss of 10 Marines, 2 Army Soldiers, 1 Navy Corpsman, and 170 Afghan civilians, will...
Terrain Denial Fires on the Modern Battlefield
Stability and counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria have provided the primary source of operational experience for currently serving American military leaders and legal advisors. Regardless of whether U.S. forces will (or logistically can)...