Targeting
Large-Scale Combat Operations Symposium – Counterterrorism Thinking and “Large-Scale Combat Operations”
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a subject addressed during an expert workshop that the Lieber Institute co-convened alongside Harvard Law School’s Program on International Law and Armed Conflict and the International Committee of the Red Cross, focusing...
Mitt Regan’s Drone Strike – Analyzing the Impacts of Targeted Killing and the CHMR-AP
Mitt Regan, a widely respected Georgetown University Professor of National Security Law, has written a very timely and thought provoking book, Drone Strike—Analyzing the Impacts of Targeted Killing. This book reviews the available empirical evidence on the impact and...
The Status of Ukraine’s “IT Army” Under the Law of Armed Conflict
Two days after Russia’s renewed invasion in February 2022, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation announced a call to digital arms on Twitter: We are creating an IT army. We need digital talents. All operational tasks will be given [on this Telegram channel]....
Large-Scale Combat Operations Symposium – Introduction
Editor’s note: The views expressed in this post are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the ICRC, HLS PILAC, or other workshop participants. Large-scale combat operations (LSCOs) involve widespread, devastating violence, usually on a vast scale. They...
The Wagner Group’s “No Quarter” Order and International Law
On April 23, 2023, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, instructed members of his paramilitary force to “kill everyone on the battlefield.” In a post to a Wagner-affiliated Telegram account, he warned, “We will no longer take any prisoners.” Ironically,...
Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan: Observations from a Combat Training Center
The August 25, 2022 publication of the Department of Defense Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP) generated debate about whether it is capable of being applied by the DoD across the full continuum of conflict. That continuum ranges from counter...
The Law in War: A Concise Overview
When we first plotted our plan to write the 1st edition of this book, our goal was to offer an accessible narrative overview of international humanitarian law for both lawyers and non-lawyers interested in the topic. To that end, the original 2018 edition addressed...
Unobserved Fires and the Law of Armed Conflict
The United States and Australia have both embraced the concept of “multi-domain strike,” which the United States describes, in a veritable missile salvo of buzzwords, as the “capability to strike in depth with lethal and non-lethal cross-domain effects … to creat[e]...
Ukraine Symposium – The Law of Crowdsourced War: Democratized Supply Chains – Part I
“Infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars.” General Pershing’s oft cited maxim of warfare is once again proving itself out in Ukraine. Thankfully, from the outset of Russia’s ill-conceived war of aggression, its progress has been hampered by poorly maintained...
Ukraine One Year On – Defying the Odds
On 24 February 2023, one year has passed since Russia commenced its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The past year has been filled with acts of aggression, war crimes, and continued atrocities. International humanitarian law (IHL) is one of the most profound and...
A State’s Legal Duty to Warn its own Civilians on Consequences of Direct Participation in Hostilities
Much has been written – both in the media and on this site – about the innovative and tactically-effective use of a new digital app, ePPO, by Ukrainian civilians in defense against Russia’s unlawful war of aggression. This app is accessible by personal cell phone and...
Debate on a Digital Emblem: The Specific Protection of Healthcare Facilities
Recently, debate ramped up around the idea of a digital emblem to signal the legal protection of medical facilities in the cyber domain. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) published an extensive study in which it proposes different solutions to...