Law Commons^™

Introduction: The Islamic State And International Terrorism - The Architecture Of Response, Jonathan Michael Meyer

The International Lawyer

No abstract provided.

False Rubicons, Moral Panic & Conceptual Cul-De-Sacs: Critiquing & Reframing The Call To Ban Lethal Autonomous Weapons, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Casting into the indeterminate future and projecting visions of so-called killer robots, The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots (The Campaign) has incited moral panic in an attempt to stimulate a discussion and ultimately a ban on lethal autonomous weapons (LAWS). Their efforts have been superficially successful but come at a self-defeating substantive cost. In the hope of shifting the dialogue from the hyperbolic to a constructive dialogue on the interaction between human and machine abilities in both current and future weapon systems, this article explores the conceptual paradox implicit in The Campaign and proposes an alternative.

Having provoked the international …

A Rose By Any Other Name: How The United States Charges Its Service Members For Violating The Laws Of War, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This chapter examines the US practice of not charging its service members with war crimes. The chapter briefly explains how the United States asserts criminal jurisdiction over its service members before turning to how the US military reports violations of the laws of war. It then sets out the US methodology for charging such violations as applied to its service members, and compares this methodology to that applied to those tried by military commissions. The chapter then discusses the varied meanings of the term ‘war crimes’ and the way in which the 1949 Geneva Conventions can provide a benchmark against …

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 …

Reimagining The Wheel: Detention And Release Of Non-State Actors Under The Geneva Conventions, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

After more than a decade of sustained armed conflict, the international community continues to struggle with the issues posed by non-State actors participating in hostilities. Issues range from the micro, of if and when individuals may be targeted and detained, to the macro if not meta level of which legal regime to apply. This chapter considers detention from a pragmatic approach and proposes that the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols I and II, outmoded and seemingly inapplicable though they are in some respects, offer the most thorough, humane, realistic and readily available option for determining how to treat and …

Nato Approaches In Response To Isil And International Terrorism, Butch Bracknell

The International Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Sexual Assault As A Law Of War Violation & U.S. Service-Members’ Duty To Report, Chris Jenks, Jay Morse

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Essay considers when U.S. service members deployed to Afghanistan are obligated to report allegations of sexual assault by Afghan security forces against Afghan nationals to the U.S. military. The answer requires applying a longstanding Department of Defense policy for reporting law of war violations and hinges on whether there is a nexus between the sexual assault and the armed conflict in Afghanistan. Although recent attention on this topic has brought much-needed visibility to sexual assault in conflict zones, the overbroad assertions of the media and the military have unfortunately fostered more confusion than clarity. This Essay does not attempt …

'Protection And Empire': The Martens Clause, State Sovereignty, And Individual Rights, Jeffrey D. Kahn

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The Martens Clause was a last-minute compromise that saved the 1899 Hague Convention with Respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land. In its original formulation, the clause shielded individuals under “the protection and empire” of international law, principles of humanity, and the dictates of the public conscience. F. F. Martens, its author, was Russia’s greatest international law scholar and occasional diplomat. He saw no application for his work in the nineteenth-century internal affairs of his sovereign, notwithstanding the transnational terrorism that plagued (and ultimately destroyed) the Russian Empire. As the relationship between individual rights and state sovereignty …

The Distraction Of Full Autonomy & The Need To Refocus The Ccw Laws Discussion On Critical Functions, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The United Nations (UN) Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) discussions on lethal autonomous weapons (LAWS) have been confused, not constructive, and largely for the same definitional reasons identified two years ago. This paper attempts to address why the dialogue at the UN LAWS dialogue has proceeded as it has and proposes how it should proceed at the likely group of government expert meetings in 2017-2018. This paper focuses on the problems created by framing the LAWS discussion in terms of full autonomy and suggests that CCW States Parties refocus on the critical functions of selecting and engaging targets. The …