Science and Technology Law Commons^™

21st Century Arms Control Challenges: Drones, Cyber Weapons, Killer Robots, And Wmds, Mary Ellen O'Connell

Mary Ellen O'Connell

The world faces tough arms control challenges from preventing the development and use of weapons of mass destruction to regulating the new weapons of the computer revolution. This article considers what works in arms control. Using military force in violation of international law to destroy nuclear facilities, to stop weapons shipments, or to punish the use of prohibited weapons typically fails. Diplomacy paired with lawful counter-measures has the superior track record. Reviving the art of diplomacy and re-committing to authentic international law will pay dividends in peace and security.

Anonymous Armies: Modern “Cyber-Combatants” And Their Prospective Rights Under International Humanitarian Law, Jake B. Sher

Pace International Law Review

Cyber-attacks take many forms, only some of which are applicable to the law of war. This Comment discusses only those attacks sponsored by a government or non-state entity that have the goal of affecting morale or gaining political advantage, or those attacks amounting to tactical strikes on state or civilian infrastructure. In that vein, this Comment proposes the adoption of a new legal framework for determining the threshold that marks a participant in such a cyber-attack as a “cyber-combatant” by adapting the framework set by the Geneva Conventions and existing custom. This definition should encompass cyber-attacks perpetrated by states, unrecognized …

Decrypting Our Security: A Bipartisan Argument For A Rational Solution To The Encryption Challenge, Jamil N. Jaffer, Daniel J. Rosenthal

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

The Intersection Of "Internet Terrorism" And "Individual Privacy" In The Context Of The First Amendment, Amanda Leonard

American University National Security Law Brief

No abstract provided.

The Law Of Armed Conflict, Unconventional Warfare, And Cyber Attacks, Thomas P. Jordan

American University National Security Law Brief

No abstract provided.

Why The Hurry To Regulate Autonomous Weapon Systems-But Not Cyber-Weapons?, Kenneth Anderson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Virtual Violence - Disruptive Cyberspace Operations As "Attacks" Under International Humanitarian Law, Ido Kilovaty

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Power outages, manipulations of data, and interruptions of Internet access are all possible effects of cyber operations. Unfortunately, recent efforts to address and regulate cyberspace operations under international law often emphasize the uncommon, though severe, cyber-attacks that cause deaths, injuries, or physical destruction. This paper deals with cyber operations during armed conflicts that cause major disruption or interruption effects – as opposed to deaths, injuries, or physical destruction. The purpose of this paper is to explore the consequences of these cyber operations that cause major disruption or interruption effects, and to argue that they might still constitute “acts of violence,” …

The Destruction Of Cultural Heritage: A Crime Against Property Or A Crime Against People?, 15 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 336 (2016), Patty Gerstenblith

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

The destruction of cultural heritage has played a prominent role in the ongoing conflicts in Syria and Iraq and in the recent conflict in Mali. This destruction has displayed the failure of international law to effectively deter these actions. This article reviews existing international law in light of this destruction and the challenges posed by the issues of non-international armed conflict, non-state actors and the military necessity exception. By examining recent developments in applicable international law, the article proposes that customary international law has evolved to interpret existing legal instruments and doctrines concerning cultural heritage in light of the principles …

Autonomy Of Military Robots: Assessing The Technical And Legal (“Jus In Bello”) Thresholds, 32 J. Marshall J. Info. Tech. & Privacy L. 57 (2016), Remus Titiriga

UIC John Marshall Journal of Information Technology & Privacy Law

While robots are still absent from our homes, they have started to spread over battlefields. However, the military robots of today are mostly remotely controlled platforms, with no real autonomy. This paper will disclose the obstacles in implementing autonomy for such systems by answering a technical question: What level of autonomy is needed in military robots and how and when might it be achieved, followed by a techno-legal one: How to implement the rules of humanitarian law within autonomous fighting robots, in order to allow their legal deployment? The first chapter scrutinizes the significance of autonomy in robots and the …

Space Traffic Management: A Challenge Of Cosmic Proportions, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Space traffic management has often, for example in the IAA Cosmic Study of 2006, been rather broadly defined as “the set of technical and regulatory provisions for promoting safe access into outer space, operations in outer space and return from space to Earth free of physical or radio-frequency interference.” Oftentimes, especially in space law literature, references or even comparisons have been made to traffic management as it has developed in aviation and (to a lesser extent) in maritime transport.

However, it should be realized that space traffic management, especially under the definition quoted, comprises a considerably larger range of activities …

Liability For Damage Caused By Small Satellites—A Non-Issue?, Frans Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Small satellites have become a welcome addition to the existing tools to benefit from space applications—they are relatively simple and cheap to construct, and being small, relatively cheap to launch as well, as secondary payloads on launch vehicles where the primary payload may not take up all of the (often standardized) payload bay capacity. As they, moreover, usually orbit for relatively short times in low trajectories before burning up in the atmosphere, they might not seem to pose major or even merely realistic liability risks.

As a consequence, sometimes the issue of liability for damage caused by small satellites has …

From Tragedy To Triumph In The Pursuit Of Looted Art: Altmann, Benningson, Portrait Of Wally, Von Saher And Their Progeny, 15 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 394 (2016), Donald Burris

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

This article is a broad and approachable overview of American law regarding the potential repatriation of Nazi-looted art—an area which the author and his now-retired partner, Randy Schoenberg, helped develop from the ground up starting with the development of the Altmann case, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2004, and continuing on through a number of fascinating looted-art cases of a more recent vintage. Parts of the article read as much like a detective story as a summary of cases and Mr. Burris has been kind enough to share both his approach to these cases and his prognosis for …

Cultural Plunder And Restitution And Human Identity, 15 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 460 (2016), Ori Soltes

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

Where Are We And Where Are We Going: Legal Developments In Cultural Property And Nazi Art Looting, 15 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 435 (2016), Thomas Kline

UIC Review of Intellectual Property Law

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 …