Law Commons^™

Chemical Weapons And Other Atrocities: Contrasting Responses To The Syrian Crisis, Tim Mccormack

International Law Studies

Why has the use of chemical weapons in Syria engendered such a substantive multilateral response in stark contrast to almost every other egregious international law violation perpetrated against the civilian population? Various theories have been offered but the explanation has little to do with humanitarian concerns for Syrian victims and is more readily explicable by unusual (in the Syrian context) alignment of U.S. and Russian national interests. Bashar al-Assad was convinced to accede to the Chemical Weapons Convention, to surrender his stockpiles of chemical weapons and to co-operate with international investigators deployed under UN Security Council auspices amid a cacophony …

Soldier 2.0: Military Human Enhancement And International Law, Heather A. Harrison Dinniss, Jann K. Kleffner

International Law Studies

Advances in technologies that could endow humans with physical or mental abilities that go beyond the statistically normal level of functioning are occurring at an incredible pace. The use of these human enhancement technologies by the military, for instance in the spheres of biotechnology, cybernetics and prosthetics, raise a number of questions under the international legal frameworks governing military technology, namely the law of armed conflict and human rights law. The article examines these frameworks with a focus on weapons law, the law pertaining to the detention of and by “enhanced individuals,” the human rights of those individuals and their …

Partners And Legal Pitfalls, Brian Finucane

International Law Studies

Partnered military operations are an increasingly prominent feature of armed conflict and one which presents a distinct set of legal challenges to States assisting partners. This is particularly true of the war in Syria which is characterized both by States working with and through other States and non-State actors and by the widespread violation of the law of armed conflict (LOAC) by many of the parties. This article considers the legal implications of LOAC violations by a party to the conflict for the State or States providing it assistance and identifies risk mitigation measures that assisting States can adopt.

Classifying The Conflict In Syria, Terry D. Gill

International Law Studies

This article examines the classification of the current armed conflict in Syria under international humanitarian law. The article first sets out the factual background identifying the principal parties and their alignments and motivations. It then proceeds to examine the question of classification of conflict under international humanitarian law and discusses the contentious issue of the effect of lack of consent by the government of a State in relation to foreign intervention in an ongoing non-international armed conflict when such intervention is directed against one or more armed groups operating from within that State’s territory. It then proceeds to apply these …

Syria: Can International Law Cope? Workshop Report, Christopher M. Ford

International Law Studies

The Stockton Center for the Study of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College and the Center for the Rule of Law at the U.S. Military Academy convened a three-day workshop in November 2015. The workshop sought to examine the question posed by its title: Can International Law Cope with the Situation in Syria? It is a question that has ramifications for the viability of international law well beyond the confines of events in Syria. This report surveys the key issues that were raised during the workshop and serves as an introduction to the articles that follow in this …

International Law, Legal Diplomacy, And The Counter-Isil Campaign: Some Observations, Brian Egan

International Law Studies

Speech as prepared for delivery by Brian Egan, Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State; 110th Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law Washington, DC, April 1, 2016

Foreign Terrorist Fighters In Syria: Challenges Of The “Sending” State, Marten Zwanenburg

International Law Studies

This article discusses domestic measures taken by the Netherlands to combat the phenomenon of foreign terrorist fighters, predominantly in the context of the Syrian conflict. It discusses criminal prosecution, asset freezes, deprivation of nationality and revocation of travel documents. The author concludes that in each of these fields, there is a close relationship between international law and national law.

Exclusion Zones In The Law Of Armed Conflict At Sea: Evolution In Law And Practice, Sandesh Sivakumaran

International Law Studies

This article analyses the changes in the law and practice of exclusion zones in the law of armed conflict at sea. It identifies three principal phases. First, it explores the exclusion zones of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, which were modest in size and defensive in character. Second, it turns to the exclusion zones of the First World War and several subsequent conflicts. The exclusion zones of this period were fundamentally different to those of the Russo-Japanese war: if a vessel was within an exclusion zone, it was deemed susceptible to attack. The article then turns to the third phase …

The Dod Law Of War Manual And Its Critics: Some Observations, Charles J. Dunlap Jr.

International Law Studies

The U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) new Law of War Manual has generated serious debate about its treatment of a variety of issues including human shields, the status of journalists, cyber operations, the precautions to be taken prior to attacks and even the role of honor in war. Although this article does not purport to be a comprehensive response to every critique of the Manual and, indeed, cites opportunities for its improvement, it nevertheless concludes that on balance the Manual provides an excellent, comprehensive and much-needed statement of DoD’s view of the lex lata of the law of war.

The Combatant’S Stance: Autonomous Weapons On The Battlefield, Jens David Ohlin

International Law Studies

Do Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS) qualify as moral or rational agents? This paper argues that combatants on the battlefield are required by the demands of behavior interpretation to approach a sophisticated AWS with the “Combatant’s Stance”—the ascription of mental states required to understand the system’s strategic behavior on the battlefield. However, the fact that an AWS must be engaged with the combatant’s stance does not entail that other persons are relieved of criminal or moral responsibility for war crimes committed by autonomous weapons. This article argues that military commanders can and should be held responsible for perpetrating war crimes through …

Detention Under The Law Of Armed Conflict, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Despite recent hard-earned experience during international and non-international armed conflicts in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, and in peacekeeping missions around the world, the international community continues to struggle practically and conceptually with detention of belligerents. The struggle includes questions ranging from when individuals may be detained and for how long, to determining the applicable legal regime. While this myriad of issues is vexing, they are neither as new, nor the applicable law as lacking, as has been argued.

This chapter takes a pragmatic approach to detention and suggests that the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1977 Additional Protocols, outmoded …