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China’S Container Missile Deployments Could Violate The Law Of Naval Warfare, Raul (Pete) Pedrozo Aug 2021

China’S Container Missile Deployments Could Violate The Law Of Naval Warfare, Raul (Pete) Pedrozo

International Law Studies

China is reportedly developing long-range cruise missiles that can be fired from standard shipping containers loaded on merchant vessels. China is also converting heavy-lift civilian ships and roll-on roll-off (RORO) ferries to serve as de facto amphibious assault ships to support People’s Liberation Army (PLA) amphibious operations. While none of these activities are illegal per se, they do raise potential concerns under the law of naval warfare. Only warships can engage in offensive belligerent rights during an international armed conflict. Using merchant vessels to engage in belligerent rights would violate international law unless China first converts the vessels into warships …


Legal Advisers In The Field During Armed Conflict, Yoram Dinstein May 2021

Legal Advisers In The Field During Armed Conflict, Yoram Dinstein

International Law Studies

Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 requires that legal advisers be made available to military commanders, particularly during hostilities. This treaty stipulation was quite innovative in 1977, but it has achieved widespread implementation, even among non-Contracting Parties. It is noteworthy that the United States—which objects to numerous provisions of Additional Protocol I—does not dissent from the article requiring legal advisers. A study of the practice of States, made by the International Committee of the Red Cross, confirms that the norm requiring that legal advisers be made available to advise military commanders in time of armed conflict currently …


Developing International Guidelines For Protecting Schools And Universities From Military Use During Armed Conflict, Steven Haines Feb 2021

Developing International Guidelines For Protecting Schools And Universities From Military Use During Armed Conflict, Steven Haines

International Law Studies

One consequence of armed conflict, especially that of a non-international character, is serious damage done to vital societal infrastructure. Education–schools and universities–can be severely disrupted, even subject to attack. Targeting of schools may not invariably be unlawful if educational facilities are being put to military use. Such use may itself not be unlawful but it can result in schools being transformed from civilian objects into military objectives–and subject, therefore, to lawful targeting. This was a problem highlighted by humanitarian NGOs a decade ago and led to the formation, by both NGOs and United Nations agencies, of the Global Coalition to …


Protection Of Data In Armed Conflict, Robin Geiss, Henning Lahmann Feb 2021

Protection Of Data In Armed Conflict, Robin Geiss, Henning Lahmann

International Law Studies

This article presents a novel way to conceptualize the protection of data in situations of armed conflict. Although the question of the targeting of data through adversarial military cyber operations and its implications for the qualification of such conduct under International Humanitarian Law has been on scholars’ and states’ radar for the last few years, there remain a number of misunderstandings as to how to think about the notion of “data.” Based on a number of fictional scenarios, the article clarifies the pertinent terminology and makes some expedient distinctions between various types of data. It then analyzes how existing international …


Command Accountability For Ai Weapon Systems In The Law Of Armed Conflict, James Kraska Jan 2021

Command Accountability For Ai Weapon Systems In The Law Of Armed Conflict, James Kraska

International Law Studies

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in weapon systems enhances the ability of operational forces to fuse multispectral sensors to understand the warfighting environment, positively identify, track, and select targets, and engage them with the most appropriate effects. The potential for AI to help close the “kill chain” has raised concern that this creates a gap in accountability between the decisions of humans and the acts of machines, with humans no longer accountable for decisions made during armed conflict. This study suggests that there is no gap because the military commander is always directly and individually accountable for the employment …