Targeting
Ukraine Symposium – Ukraine’s “Suicide Drone Boats” and International Law
Editors’ Note: As part of our 2023 Year Ahead series, our Board of Advisors member Prof. Dr. Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg presciently identified legal issues concerning maritime drones as a subject to watch this year. It did not take long for the field to respond. Our...
Dutch Judgment on IHL Compliance in Chora District, Afghanistan
On 23 November 2022, the district court of the Hague handed down its judgment in a case brought against the State of the Netherlands by relatives of persons killed during fighting in the Chora district, Afghanistan in 2007 (Dutch language only). The case is unusual...
Ukraine Symposium – Further Thoughts on Russia’s Campaign against Ukraine’s Power Infrastructure
On November 23, Russia mounted 70 missile and five drone attacks against Ukraine’s power infrastructure. Cities across the nation, including Kyiv, went dark. Without power, water supply and other systems providing for the population’s basic needs no longer functioned....
Programming Systems Like Soldiers: Using Military Control Mechanisms to Ensure AWS Are Operated Lawfully
Time is overdue for moving on from discussing whether autonomous weapons should be banned to looking at how to ensure autonomous weapon systems (AWS) are used in a manner that complies with the law of armed conflict (LOAC). This post illustrates that although...
Ukraine Symposium – Doxing Enemy Soldiers and the Law of War
This post was prepared in academic consultation with Major Inna Zavorotko, a lawyer with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense Legal Division. A fuller treatment of wartime doxing, including in the context of non-international armed conflict and human rights law...
Ukraine Symposium – Dirty Bombs and International Humanitarian Law
On October 23, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made separate calls to the Defense Ministers of France, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In them, Shoigu claimed that Ukraine intended to conduct a false-flag operation with a “dirty bomb” in...
Ukraine Symposium – Attacking Power Infrastructure under International Humanitarian Law
Over the past few weeks, the scale of Russian attacks against Ukraine’s power infrastructure has grown dramatically. The Washington Post, for instance, has reported, “[d]ozens of Russian missiles and Iranian-made kamikaze drones have been striking power plants and...
Ukraine Symposium – The Kerch Strait Bridge Attack, Retaliation, and International Law
For some time, Ukrainian forces have threatened to attack the 12-mile Kerch Strait Bridge that links Russia and the Crimean Peninsula. Russia built the bridge following its 2014 seizure and illegal annexation of Crimea. It is of symbolic value for both countries, a...
Ukraine Symposium – Targeting Leadership
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently spoke at length in Time magazine about assassination attempts against him. He indicated that Russian paratroopers had approached his location immediately after the invasion and that he heard nearby firefights from his...
Ukraine Symposium – Data-Rich Battlefields and the Future LOAC
Alongside the physical conflict in Ukraine, the parties are waging a ruthless data war. Russia continues to deploy its formidable "information war machine" to "confuse and disable" while Ukraine and non-State actors such as news organizations, think tanks, and NGOs...
Urban Siege Warfare: A Workshop Report
[Editor's note: The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the ICRC, PILAC, or other participants.] Siege is a well-established practice in warfare. It seeks to compel surrender, reduce adversary resistance, or lay the...
“Weaponizing” Sexual Violence In War – An IHL Problem
As the war in Ukraine approaches the six-month mark, reports of sexual violence against women and girls, and also men and boys, mount almost daily. In an extraordinary step, trials of Russian soldiers accused of rape have already begun in Ukraine, some of them in...