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Ukraine Symposium – Landmines and the War in Ukraine
Human Rights Watch has documented the use of both anti-vehicle and anti-personnel landmines in Ukraine. Following reports that Ukraine is using anti-personnel landmines (APLs) in violation of the Ottawa Convention, the Ukrainian authorities acknowledged this...
Responsible AI Symposium – Prioritizing Humanitarian AI as part of “Responsible AI”
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a subject addressed at an expert workshop conducted by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy focusing on Responsible AI. For a general introduction to this symposium, see Tobias Vestner’s and Professor Sean...
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 – “Damn the Torpedoes!”: Naval Mines in the Black Sea
For over a century the immortal battle cry of Rear Admiral Farragut has sounded throughout naval lore – “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead.” As it turns out, what Admiral Farragut was damning are what we would today refer to as naval contact mines. Since that era,...
Ukraine Symposium – The Law of Crowdsourced War: Democratized Supply Chains – Part II
In the first of this two-part post addressing the legal and practical implications of democratized supply chains, I focused on the individual risks that those who engage in these activities incur. I explored whether their actions can amount to direct participation in...
Laws of Yesterday’s Wars Symposium – Dharma and Ancient Indian Military Laws in the Mahābhārata
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...
Laws of Yesterday’s Wars Symposium – Introduction
There is a mythology, easily rebuffed, that the laws of war started with the Lieber Code. While General Orders No. 100 guided and shaped the modern law of armed conflict (LOAC) or international humanitarian law (IHL), the regulation and legal mitigation of the horrors...
Balloons are Not Always Joyful: The Legality of Downing the Chinese Spy Balloon
On January 28, 2023, a Chinese high-altitude balloon (HAB) entered U.S. airspace near Alaska and, after transiting Canadian airspace, continued its voyage from the west to the east coast. On February 4, 2023, the United States shot down the HAB over the territorial...
Lieber Studies POW Volume Symposium – Protecting POWs in Contemporary Conflicts
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a chapter of the Lieber Studies volume Prisoners of War in Contemporary Conflict, which was published 3 March 2023. For a general introduction to this volume, see Professor Mike Schmitt and Major Christopher J....
U.S. Evidence Sharing with the ICC
The U.S. Supreme Court often reminds our government that it must speak with one voice in the world. This is no less true within an administration than it is across the federal branches or with respect to the community of States. From 1793 when George Washington...
Ukraine Symposium – Seizure of Russian State Assets: State Immunity and Countermeasures
On 24 February 2023, the United Kingdom (UK) government objected to the Seizure of Russian State Assets and Support for Ukraine Bill in the House of Commons, proposed legislation that would require the government to put measures in place to seize frozen Russian State...
Ukraine Symposium – The Law of Belligerent Occupation
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has raised important and timely issues regarding the application, implementation, and enforcement of the law of armed conflict. Particularly relevant, is the law of occupation. Unfortunately, this discrete subset of the law of armed...
Ukraine Symposium – Reprisals in International Humanitarian Law
The scale and scope of international humanitarian law (IHL) violations by Russian and associated forces during the conflict in Ukraine are staggering. Yet, Russia has justified some of its operations as retaliatory responses to alleged Ukrainian misdeeds. For...
Contextualization of the Principle of Proportionality in IHL: Criteria and Examples
A previous post explored the normative nature of proportionality in international humanitarian law (IHL), both as a principle and a rule. Proportionality is a rule relating to the protection of civilians in the conduct of hostilities (art. 51(5)(b), 57(2)(a)(iii) and...
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]...
Lieber Studies POW Volume Symposium – Application of the Third Geneva Convention in Proxy Warfare
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a chapter of the Lieber Studies volume Prisoners of War in Contemporary Conflict, which will be published 3 March 2023. For a general introduction to this volume, see Professor Mike Schmitt and Major Christopher J....
The IDF Introduces Artificial Intelligence to the Battlefield – A New Frontier?
New and emerging technologies impact significantly the ways in which military operations are conducted. Advancements have been achieved in the development and deployment of autonomous weapon systems, military use of cyberspace, and more. One emerging field in which...
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...
Lieber Studies POW Volume Symposium – “Accompanying the Force” in Modern Armed Conflict
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a chapter of the Lieber Studies volume Prisoners of War in Contemporary Conflict, which will be published 3 March 2023. For a general introduction to this volume, see Professor Mike Schmitt and Major Christopher J....
Lieber Studies POW Volume Symposium – Parole: The Past, Present, and Future
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a chapter of the Lieber Studies volume Prisoners of War in Contemporary Conflict, which will be published 3 March 2023. For a general introduction to this volume, see Professor Mike Schmitt and Major Christopher J....
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...
Dimensions of Russian Aggression and the International Legal Order
Russia’s war against Ukraine has many dimensions: conventional, economic, cyber, informational, and cultural. Recent research, prepared by the Economic Security Council of Ukraine in cooperation with the State Service of Special Communication and Information...
Ukraine Symposium – The Wagner Group: Status and Accountability
Since Russia commenced its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Wagner Group has come out of the shadows. Used by the Kremlin as an alternative fighting force since 2014, the private military company (PMC) now operates with a much greater degree of...
Lieber Studies POW Volume Symposium – Military Assimilation and the Third Geneva Convention
Editor's note: The following post highlights a chapter of the Lieber Studies volume Prisoners of War in Contemporary Conflict, which will be published 3 March 2023. For a general introduction to this volume, see Professor Mike Schmitt and Major Christopher J....
Lieber Studies POW Volume Symposium – Prisoners of War in Contemporary Conflict
Following the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) launch of its updated Commentary on the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, West Point’s Lieber Institute on Law and Warfare intended to convene an expert-driven workshop...
Humanitarian Assistance: Between the Law and Reality
The catastrophic earthquakes that razed parts of Türkiye and Syria earlier this month have caused deaths, injuries, and damage of almost incomprehensible proportions. International aid requested by the Turkish government has been forthcoming, although the scale of...
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...
The Forthcoming ICJ Advisory Opinion on Israel/Palestine and the Doctrine of Illegal Occupation
On January 9th, 2023, the UN General Assembly requested the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to provide an advisory opinion on two questions. The first concerns the legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian...
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...
Use of Force and UN Mandates to Protect Civilians
The UN’s protection of civilians (PoC) concept remains contested twenty-three years after the first PoC mandate given to the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) in 1999. The PoC component of a UN peacekeeping mandate can consist of all sorts of measures...
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Prosecuting War Crimes Symposium – Justice for Victims of [Some] War Crimes Act?
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a subject addressed at a Lieber Institute expert workshop focusing on Prosecuting War Crimes. For a general introduction to this symposium, see Professor Sean Watts and Jennifer Maddocks’s introductory post. Recent years...
Ukraine Symposium – Field-Modified Weapons under the Law of War
Combatants in armed conflict may choose to modify weapons in the field for a variety of reasons. They may modify them to improve their reliability. They may alter them to increase their range or accuracy. Or they may adapt them to novel purposes. During the...
Prosecuting War Crimes Symposium – German Domestic Prosecutorial Experience
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a subject addressed at a Lieber Institute expert workshop focusing on Prosecuting War Crimes. For a general introduction to this symposium, see Professor Sean Watts and Jennifer Maddocks’s introductory post. The...
Ukraine Symposium – The Legal and Practical Challenges of Surrendering to Drones
As part of the Articles of War “Year Ahead” series published earlier this year, Board of Advisor member Professor Gary Solis predicted that several legal issues pertaining to the law of armed conflict (LOAC) will likely see significant development soon, including...
Prosecuting War Crimes Symposium – Evidentiary Challenges
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a subject addressed at a Lieber Institute expert workshop focusing on Prosecuting War Crimes. For a general introduction to this symposium, see Professor Sean Watts and Jennifer Maddocks’s introductory post. The Commission...
Prosecuting War Crimes Symposium – Introduction
Last fall, with the generous support of the 15th Dean of the Academic Board, Brigadier General Shane Reeves, the Lieber Institute for Law and Warfare at West Point partnered with the U.S. State Department Office of Global Criminal Justice and the United States...
A Digital Red Cross: What Would It Defend Against?
On November 18, 1991, after enduring a three-month artillery assault, the city of Vukovar in Croatia fell to what was then known as the federal Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) and Serb paramilitary forces. After JNA units took control of a hospital where hundreds of sick...
Ukraine Symposium – A Wagner Group Fighter in Norway
In the early hours of Friday, January 13th, the alarm went off in a military border guard base in northern Norway. Someone had illegally crossed the border with Russia, and Norwegian conscripts were tasked to find the person. The intruder turned out to be a former...
Afterwar: Veterans’ Care as a Law of War Imperative – Part II
In a famous poster from 1917, a woman with a Red Cross armband stands behind a seated man with a bandaged head and closing eyes. She holds him in her arms. “In the Name of Mercy,” the text reads, “Give!” Yet the American Red Cross was more than just a charity seeking...
The Law of Armed Conflict, the Law of Naval Warfare, and a PRC blockade of Taiwan
In discussions of possible Peoples Republic of China (PRC) military courses of action against Taiwan that rise to the level of an armed conflict, the likelihood of a PRC naval and air “blockade” is often considered. The Republic of China (ROC) Foreign Ministry noted...
BUL Event on the Use of Force, Legitimacy, Non-state Actors, and Bilateral Security Agreements
On January 18, at the Brunel University London (BUL) School of Law, the BUL International Law Group, held an event exploring the use of force and international law (the video can be found here). The discussants addressed questions that are sure to be on the minds of...
Ukraine Symposium – The Impact of Sanctions on Humanitarian Aid
The war in Ukraine highlights how humanitarian need and restrictive trade measures typically emerge simultaneously in times of conflict—and how the latter can interfere with the ability of humanitarian organizations to provide principled humanitarian assistance. This...
Afterwar: Veterans’ Care as a Law of War Imperative – Part I
Editors’ Note: This post on veterans’ care as a law of war imperative is published on the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the military draft in the United States. On January 27, 1973, the U.S. Department of Defense announced that it would no longer issue draft...
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...
Ukraine Symposium – What’s in a Name? Getting it Right for the Naval “Drone” Attack on Sevastopol
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...
Ukraine Symposium – UN Peacekeepers and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant
Europe’s largest nuclear power plant has been under Russian control since March 2022. The international community has repeatedly called for a resolution to a situation that could result in a nuclear disaster because the plant is regularly damaged by shelling. In...
Year Ahead – U.S. Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response
In August 2022, the U.S. Secretary of Defense released the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP) which lays out a series of measures the Department of Defense will implement over the coming years to enhance the services’ efforts to mitigate...
Year Ahead – Compliance Continues to be the Most Under-Addressed Challenge
As 2022 has ended, it is appropriate and necessary to take stock of the law of armed conflict (LOAC) and speculate on its efficacy in 2023 and beyond. 2022 saw many armed conflicts of both international and non-international natures. Conservatively, there were at...
Ukraine Symposium – The “I Want to Live” Project and Technologically-Enabled Surrender
In their ongoing armed conflict, the Russian Federation and Ukraine have engaged in sustained information campaigns using leaflets, social media posts, radio appeals, text messages, and television spots to provoke surrenders. Further leveraging modern communications...
Year Ahead – Emerging Technologies and the Collection of Battlefield Evidence
In a recent series of posts on responsible artificial intelligence (AI), various authors (including Chris Jenks) have discussed the role of “responsibility” in the context of using of AI enabled systems, including weapon systems, on the battlefield. In each of these...
Year Ahead – When You Least Expect It…
Those of us long enough in the tooth to remember Candid Camera will remember this opening to that classic television show. So, what exactly does that have to do with an Articles of War post on the year ahead? In my view, everything, because it reminds us that in the...
Year Ahead – Thinking Back to Think Ahead
Last year, the Lieber Institute and I published a volume on the future law of armed conflict (LOAC) (the volume’s introduction is available here, and a detailed review, thanks to our friends over at Lawfire, is available here). It grew out of our effort to think about...
Year Ahead – The Coming Year’s Law of Armed Conflict Evolution
Predicting near-term Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC)-related changes is a fraught venture. Some events, however, appear sufficiently clear to predict with relative safety. 1. The United Nations General Assembly (not the Security Council) will establish an international...
Year Ahead – The Hurdles to International Regulation of AI Tools
In 2023, non-governmental organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Stop Killer Robots will continue their calls for a new international legal framework to regulate autonomous weapons systems. Some States and scholars are optimistic about the possibility. These...
Year Ahead – The Legal Status of Unmanned Maritime (Naval) Systems: A Never-Ending Story?
An international workshop held at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I., from 20 to 21 March 2012, was to discuss the legal status of unmanned maritime systems (UMS) operated by the regular armed forces.[i] The result was not necessarily conclusive. Since then,...
Year Ahead – Does International Law Still Matter in Ukraine?
Considering Russia’s naked aggression against Ukraine and the contemptible torrent of international humanitarian law (IHL) violations by Russian and proxy forces, one could be excused for concluding that the law governing the use of force (jus ad bellum) and IHL don’t...
Year in Review – 2022
2022 has been an unprecedented year for the law of armed conflict (LOAC) and for Articles of War. The full-scale international armed conflict that Russia has been waging against Ukraine since 24 February has spawned multiple LOAC issues. Meanwhile, Russia’s flagrant...
Responsible AI Symposium – Responsible AI and Legal Review of Weapons
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a subject addressed at an expert workshop conducted by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy focusing on Responsible AI. For a general introduction to this symposium, see Tobias Vestner’s and Professor Sean...
The US Space Force at 3: Growing Dangers for a Growing Branch
On 20 December 2022, the US Space Force (USSF) will celebrate the third anniversary of its creation—an anniversary that comes at the end of a year rife with space-related challenges. The after-effects of Russia’s November 2021 kinetic anti-satellite (ASAT) missile...
Responsible AI Symposium – The AI Ethics Principle of Responsibility and LOAC
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a subject addressed at an expert workshop conducted by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy focusing on Responsible AI. For a general introduction to this symposium, see Tobias Vestner’s and Professor Sean...
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 – The THeMIS Bounty Part II: Stealing Enemy Technology
In Part I of this post, we considered whether the seizure of the Tracked Hybrid Modular Infantry System (THeMIS) by Russian troops on the battlefield of Ukraine, acting on a bounty issued by Russia’s Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST), could be...
Ukraine Symposium – Classification of the Conflict(s)
The threshold questions in any international humanitarian law (IHL) analysis are whether an armed conflict is underway as a matter of law and, if so, what type. They are determinative questions because the existence of an armed conflict is a condition precedent to...
Ukraine Symposium – The THeMIS Bounty Part I: Seizure of Enemy Property
Modern technological advances play a critical role on the battlefield. They increase the efficiency and lethality of attacks, enhance situational awareness, protect friendly forces, and increase the chance of survival for victims of war. Recently, Azerbaijan received...
Ukraine Symposium – Russia’s Allegations of U.S. Biological Warfare in Ukraine – Part II
Part 1 of this post presented the factual dispute regarding Russian allegations of U.S. and Ukrainian collaboration on the development of biological weapons. It also reviewed the rules, obligations, and rights under the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and indicated...
Responsible AI Symposium – Legal Implications of Bias Mitigation
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a subject addressed at an expert workshop conducted by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy focusing on Responsible AI. For a general introduction to this symposium, see Tobias Vestner’s and Professor Sean...
The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict: 4th Edition
The fourth edition of The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict is a thoroughly revised and updated version of a book originally published in 2004 and revised twice before: in 2010 and in 2016. It examines in detail the jus in bello,...
Ukraine Symposium – Russia’s Allegations of U.S. Biological Warfare in Ukraine – Part I
During its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has accused the United States and Ukraine of collaborating to develop biological weapons in violation of international law. Russia’s claims led to a “formal consultative meeting” in Geneva pursuant to Article V of the Biological...
Responsible AI Symposium – Implications of Emergent Behavior for Ethical AI Principles for Defense
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a subject addressed at an expert workshop conducted by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy focusing on Responsible AI. For a general introduction to this symposium, see Tobias Vestner’s and Professor Sean...
Advisory Opinion 2.0: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Returns to The Hague
The United Nations General Assembly Fourth Committee, also known as the Special Political and Decolonization Committee, addresses a range of issues, including matters relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The committee’s latest resolution, which the UN General...
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....
Responsible AI Symposium – Translating AI Ethical Principles into Practice: The U.S. DoD Approach to Responsible AI
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a subject addressed at an expert workshop conducted by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy focusing on Responsible AI. For a general introduction to this symposium, see Tobias Vestner’s and Professor Sean...
Responsible AI Symposium – The Nexus between Responsible Military AI and International Law
Editor’s note: The following post highlights a subject addressed at an expert workshop conducted by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy focusing on Responsible AI. For a general introduction to this symposium, see Tobias Vestner’s and Professor Sean...
Responsible AI Symposium – Introduction
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly developed, deployed, and used for defense and military purposes. This offers opportunities yet also poses challenges regarding its governance and regulation. While diplomatic efforts have focused on regulating lethal...
Ukraine Symposium – Reparations for War: What Options for Ukraine?
On 14 November, the UN General Assembly received a resolution calling for international support and cooperation on reparations for Ukraine. For thousands of years, reparations have attempted to settle grievances and secure peace between warring nations. However, the...
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 – State Responsibility for Non-State Actors’ Conduct
The conflict in Ukraine is international in character, but it nevertheless involves numerous private individuals and groups. These include Ukrainian civilians acting to protect their homeland, foreign fighters, military contractors, and private hackers conducting...
Ukraine Symposium – Using Cellphones to Gather and Transmit Military Information, A Postscript
In a previous post, Major Casey Biggerstaff and I analyzed the legal consequences of Ukrainian civilians using the “ePPO” application (app) to report incoming Russian air strikes. Under Article 51(3) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which...
As Warfare Digitalizes, So Should Protection: Towards a “Digital Emblem”
As societies digitalize, cyber operations have become a reality of armed conflict. In the United Nations, States have identified the increasing likelihood of the use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) in future conflicts between States as a threat...
Ukraine Symposium – Are Civilians Reporting With Cell Phones Directly Participating in Hostilities?
As Russia continues to pummel electric grids and other critical infrastructure from the air, Ukraine is creatively developing methods to defend its skies. One new tool is “ePPO,” a new mobile application (“app”) that Ukrainian civilians can download on their cell...
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...
The Syrian Democratic Forces, Detained Foreign Fighters, and International Security Vulnerabilities
Three-and-a-half years since the United States, its coalition partners, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) overpowered the last redoubt of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), nearly 10,000 fighters remain in SDF custody in northeast Syria. These include...
Proportionality in International Humanitarian Law: A Principle and a Rule
This post is based on research supporting a doctoral dissertation in progress at the University of Geneva. Proportionality plays a key role in international humanitarian law (IHL). It is essential to regulating the conduct of hostilities, requiring that the expected...
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 Complicity of Iran in Russia’s Aggression and War Crimes in Ukraine
In recent days Russia has attacked Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities using Iranian-made “kamikaze drones” or loitering munitions. While the EU is looking for “concrete evidence” that Iran has sold these weapons to Russia, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry has...
The Legality of Intermingling Military and Civilian Capabilities in Space
The United States’ practice of intermingling national security space functions with commercial space capabilities and services has come under fire. Professor David Koplow, in an article entitled “Reverse Distinction: A U.S. Violation of the Law of Armed Conflict in...
Ukraine Symposium – Russian Preliminary Objections at the ICJ: The Case Must Go On?
As readers of Articles of War may recall, Ukraine instituted proceedings against Russia before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on February 26, 2022, on the basis of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide...
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...
A Plea for “Animalizing” the International Law of Armed Conflict
Domestic, wild, or liminal, all animals are particularly vulnerable in wartime. They are often slaughtered, bombed, starved, or looted on a massive scale. When exercising war-related activities, animals such as dogs, horses, mules, donkeys, or camels are regularly...
Ukraine Symposium – Russia’s Forcible Transfer of Children
Earlier last month, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia. The resolution follows months of reporting that Russian authorities have been separating children from their parents, conducting abductions...
Ukraine Symposium – Illegality of Russia’s Annexations in Ukraine
On 30 September 2022, a ceremony took place in Moscow’s Kremlin in which Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, signed “treaties” with representatives of four entities formed in the territory of Ukraine: the so-called People’s Republics of Donetsk and...
Deficiencies and Ambiguities of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
Touted as an effort to “reframe the debate on nuclear weapons,” the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) has currently accumulated 66 ratifications, a little over a year after having reached the threshold of 50 ratifications when Honduras deposited its...
Civilian Risk Mitigation: Why Context Matters
The proverbial dust is now settling on the blast that was the publication of the new Civilian Mitigation Response and Action Plan (CHMR-AP). The reaction to this “response” plan has been mixed to say the least, with some commentators raising concerns that the Plan...
Türkiye’s Threats against Greece: A Violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter?
On September 5-6, 2022, the Greek Foreign Minister Mr. Nikos Dendias sent letters to the EU, NATO, and the UN to bring to their attention public statements made by Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan whose “openly threatening nature and tone are more than...
The U.S. DoD Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan on Future Battlefields
On August 25, 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) released the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP). In a previous post, Dan E. Stigall and Anna Williams provided a useful snapshot of the report, with the rationale underscoring the...
The “General Close of Military Operations” and the End of Armed Conflicts
The temporal scope of applicability of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) or Law of Armed Conflict (LoAC) – terms I use interchangeably in this post – has long been of personal scholarly interest. My academic work on the subject includes a book on the temporal scope...
The Israeli Unlawful Combatants Law Turns Twenty
Twenty years ago, in 2002, Israel enacted the Law on Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants (UCL or “the Law”). The UCL aimed to provide a basis in domestic legislation, in conformity with international law, for preventively detaining unlawful combatants, namely, those...
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 – Russian Crimes Against Children
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, there has been evidence that indicates Russian political and military leaders, as well as ordinary members of the military, have committed numerous international crimes, including...