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Full-Text Articles in Law
Targeted Killing In U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy And Law, Kenneth Anderson
Targeted Killing In U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy And Law, Kenneth Anderson
Working Papers
Targeted killing, particularly through the use of missiles fired from Predator drone aircraft, has become an important, and internationally controversial, part of the US war against al Qaeda in Pakistan and other places. The Obama administration, both during the campaign and in its first months in office, has publicly embraced the strategy as a form of counterterrorism. This paper argues, however, that unless the Obama administration takes careful and assertive legal steps to protect it, targeted killing using remote platforms such as drone aircraft will take on greater strategic salience precisely as the Obama administration allows the legal space for …
Counterinsurgency, The War On Terror, And The Laws Of War, Ganesh Sitaraman
Counterinsurgency, The War On Terror, And The Laws Of War, Ganesh Sitaraman
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, military strategists, historians, soldiers, and policymakers have made counterinsurgency's principles and paradoxes second nature, and they now expect that counterinsurgency operations will be the likely wars of the future. Yet despite counterinsurgency's ubiquity in military and policy circles, legal scholars have almost completely ignored it. This Article evaluates the laws of war in light of modern counterinsurgency strategy. It shows that the laws of war are premised on a kill-capture strategic foundation that does not apply in counterinsurgency, which follows a win-the-population strategy. The result is that the laws of war are disconnected …
Individual Accountability For Human Rights Abuses: Historical And Legal Underpinnings, Steven R. Ratner, Jason S. Abrams, James L. Bischoff
Individual Accountability For Human Rights Abuses: Historical And Legal Underpinnings, Steven R. Ratner, Jason S. Abrams, James L. Bischoff
Book Chapters
The international legal community is beset today with talk of accountability. Governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and scholars speak of the need to hold individuals responsible for official acts that violate the most cherished of international human rights. Some study the nature of various infractions with an eye toward codification; others seek to create or engage mechanisms for trying or otherwise punishing individuals. Their common mission is based on a shared understanding that international law has a role to play not only in setting standards for governments, non-state actors, and their agents, but in prescribing the consequences of a failure …