International Humanitarian Law Commons^™

Correspondents' Reports United States Of America, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This correspondent report compiles examples of where and how in 2013 the United States demonstrated its compliance with international humanitarian law by prosecuting its service members in military courts-martial and captured enemy belligerents in military commissions and by US federal courts hearing detainee habeas challenges.

Belligerent Targeting And The Invalidity Of A Least Harmful Means Rule, Geoffrey S. Corn, Laurie R. Blank, Chris Jenks, Eric Talbot Jensen

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The law of armed conflict provides the authority to use lethal force as a first resort against identified enemy belligerent operatives. There is virtually no disagreement with the rule that once an enemy belligerent becomes hors de combat — what a soldier would recognizes as “combat ineffective” — this authority to employ deadly force terminates. Recently, however, some have forcefully asserted that the LOAC includes an obligation to capture in lieu of employing deadly force whenever doing so presents no meaningful risk to attacking forces, even when the enemy belligerent is neither physically disabled or manifesting surrender. Proponents of this …

Law And Ethics For Autonomous Weapon Systems: Why A Ban Won't Work And How The Laws Of War Can, Kenneth Anderson, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

Public debate is heating up over the future development of autonomous weapon systems. Some concerned critics portray that future, often invoking science-fiction imagery, as a plain choice between a world in which those systems are banned outright and a world of legal void and ethical collapse on the battlefield. Yet an outright ban on autonomous weapon systems, even if it could be made effective, trades whatever risks autonomous weapon systems might pose in war for the real, if less visible, risk of failing to develop forms of automation that might make the use of force more precise and less harmful …

Review Of The Verdict Of Battle: The Law Of Victory And The Making Of Modern War, Robert D. Sloane

Faculty Scholarship

This is a brief review of The Verdict of Battle: The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War (2012), by James Q. Whitman, a remarkably erudite and original contribution to scholarship on military history and the law of war. It sketches the work’s compelling historical arguments and then critiques its (comparatively modest) polemical dimensions and normative conclusions.

Beyond War: Bin Laden, Escobar, And The Justification Of Targeted Killing, Luis E. Chiesa, Alexander K.A. Greenawalt

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Using the May 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden as a case study, this Article contributes to the debate on targeted killing in two distinct ways, each of which has the result of downplaying the centrality of international humanitarian law (IHL) as the decisive source of justification for targeted killings.

First, we argue that the IHL rules governing the killing of combatants in wartime should be understood to apply more strictly in cases involving the targeting of single individuals, particularly when the targeting occurs against nonparadigmatic combatants outside the traditional battlefield. As applied to the bin Laden killing, we argue …

Omar Khadr: Domestic And International Litigation Strategies For A Child In Armed Conflict Held At Guantanamo, Richard J. Wilson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This essay explores the intersections and tensions between international human rights law and international humanitarian law as those two doctrinal areas played out in the concrete situation of Omar Khadr, a Canadian child detainee at Guantanamo Bay. Particular focus is given to how issues regarding his youth were addressed by the many tribunals involved: in the multiple venues of courts in the United States and Canada, and in international human rights bodies. The issues on Omar’s youth span many contexts, raising judicial questions regarding the legality of his detention, his treatment and separation from adults while detained, jurisdiction to prosecute …

Sovereignty And The Promotion Of Peace In Non-International Armed Conflict, Anna Spain

Publications

No abstract provided.

David P. Forsythe And Charles J. Mach On Empire Of Humanity: A History Of Humanitarianism. By Michael Barnett. Ithaca, Ny: Cornell University Press, 2011. 312pp., David P. Forsythe, Charles J. Mach

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism. By Michael Barnett. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011. 312pp.

Correspondents' Reports: A Guide To State Practice In The Field Of International Humanitarian Law, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This correspondent report compiles examples of where and how the United States demonstrated its compliance with international humanitarian law by prosecuting its service members in 2010.

The Gaza War Of 2009: Applying International Humanitarian Law To Israel And Hamas, Justus Reid Weiner, Avi Bell

San Diego International Law Journal

This Article explores the many international legal issues raised by the Palestinian-Israeli tension along Gaza's borders. It first examines legal issues raised by Palestinian conduct and then turns to legal issues raised by Israeli conduct. As will be demonstrated, criticisms of Israeli behavior ... lack any basis in international law. By contrast, Palestinian behaviors that are rarely criticized constitute severe violations of international law.

The Limits Of International Humanitarian Law, Melissa Eli

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The goal of international humanitarian law is to humanize war in an effort to minimize human suffering and the long-term negative consequences of war. However, despite the adoption by most countries of the Geneva Conventions and other relevant agreements, crimes of war occur in every conflict around the world on a regular basis. Additionally, as the form of warfare changes, so does the implementation and consequences of various war crimes. Genocide, systematic rape, and the use of child soldiers are three of the most significant war crimes facing sub-Saharan Africa today. Each has consequences so severe that specific international laws …

The Cost Of Conflation: Preserving The Dualism Of Jus Ad Bellum And Jus In Bello In The Contemporary Law Of War, Robert D. Sloane

Faculty Scholarship

Much post-9/11 scholarship asks whether modern transnational terrorist networks, the increasing availability of catastrophic weapons to nonstate actors, and other novel threats require changes to either or both of the two traditional branches of the law of war: (i) the jus ad bellum, which governs resort to war, and (ii) the jus in bello, which governs the conduct of hostilities. Scant recent work focuses on the equally vital question whether the relationship between those branches-and, in particular, the traditional axiom that insists on their analytic independence-can and should be preserved in contemporary international law. The issue has been largely neglected …

Christina M. Cerna On The Un International Criminal Tribunals, The Former Yugoslavia, Rwanda And Sierra Leone By William A. Schabas. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2006. 711 Pp., Christina M. Cerna

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The UN International Criminal Tribunals, The former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone by William A. Schabas. New York, Cambridge University Press, 2006. 711 pp.

Prologue To A Voluntarist War Convention, Robert D. Sloane

Faculty Scholarship

This Article attempts to identify and clarify what is genuinely new about the ¿new paradigm¿ of armed conflict after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Assuming that sound policy counsels treating certain aspects of the global struggle against modern transnational terrorist networks within the legal rubric of war, this Article stresses that the principal challenge such networks pose is that they require international humanitarian law, somewhat incongruously, to graft conventions - in both the formal and informal senses of that word - onto an unconventional form of organized violence. Furthermore, this process occurs in a context in which one diffuse …

Noble Human Rights Defender Or International Band-Aid? On Contemporary Humanitarianism, Kurt Mills

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Humanitarians: The International Committee of the Red Cross by David P. Forsythe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Richard Burchill On International Human Rights And Humanitarian Law: Treaties, Cases And Analysis By Francisco Forrest Martin, Stephen J. Schnably, Richard J. Wilson, Jonathan S. Simon, And Mark V. Tushnet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 1022 Pp., Richard Burchill

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law: Treaties, Cases and Analysis by Francisco Forrest Martin, Stephen J. Schnably, Richard J. Wilson, Jonathan S. Simon, and Mark V. Tushnet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. 1022 pp.

Transitional Justice: Postwar Legacies (Symposium: The Nuremberg Trials: A Reappraisal And Their Legacy), Ruti Teitel

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Agora: Icj Advisory Opinion On Construction Of A Wall In The Occupied Palestinian Territory: Editors' Introduction, Lori Fisler Damrosch, Bernard H. Oxman

Faculty Scholarship

Only rarely does an international judicial opinion attract attention on the front pages of newspapers around the world, and spur activism-or condemnation-from diverse segments of global civil society. The advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is such a case. As the Court recognized in addressing the question put to it by the United Nations General Assembly, the choice of the term "wall" to designate the subject matter of the proceeding already opens up an area of debate, since not all of the contested structure is …

Book Review, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.

What To Do With Bin Laden And Al Qaeda Terrorists?: A Qualified Defense Of Military Commissions And United States Policy On Detainees At Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Kenneth Anderson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article, published in a special post 9-11 issue of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, offers a defense of the view that terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden should be tried, if captured, outside of regular US civilian courts and in some form of military commission.

The article argues that terrorists should be seen as criminals as well as enemies of the United States. Criminals who are simply deviants from the domestic social order are properly dealt with within the constitutionally constituted civilian court structure. Enemies who are not also criminals - legal combatants - are properly …

A Qualified Defense Of Military Commissions And United States Policy On Detainees At Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Kenneth Anderson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article, published in a special post 9-11 issue of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, offers a defense of the view that terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden should be tried, if captured, outside of regular US civilian courts and in some form of military commission. The article argues that terrorists should be seen as criminals as well as enemies of the United States. Criminals who are simply deviants from the domestic social order are properly dealt with within the constitutionally constituted civilian court structure. Enemies who are not also criminals - legal combatants - are properly …

Conflict Prevention, Management, And Resolution: Africa--Regional Strategies For The Prevention Of Displacement And Protection Of Displaced Persons: The Cases Of The Oau, Ecowas, Sadc, And Igad, Jeremy Levitt

Journal Publications

This Article seeks to examine the preparedness of certain African regional actors to protect displaced persons in times of armed conflict, and to prescribe formulas to strengthen the capabilities of such actors. The objective is to assess the conflict maintenance capacities of African regional actors and their partners to provide physical and legal protection to displaced persons in times of armed conflict, and likewise to recommend strategies to increase protection.

Sovereignty, Judicial Assistance And Protection Of Human Rights In International Criminal Tribunals, Kenneth S. Gallant

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Killing Egyptian Prisoners Of War: Does The Phrase "Lest We Forget" Apply To Israeli War Criminals?, Scott R. Morris

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article offers an analysis of Israel's response, or lack thereof, to the 1995 admission by Israeli war hero General Ayre Biro that he participated in the slaughter of forty-nine unarmed Egyptian prisoners of war in 1956 during Israel's struggle for independence. While in the past Israel has actively pursued the prosecution of war criminals who committed atrocities against its own people under the battle cry "lest we forget," the country has recently shown a strong reluctance to take action against General Biro for his execution of Egyptian prisoners of war. Specifically, Israel reasons that its statute of limitations for …

U.S. Policy On Targeting Enemy Merchant Shipping: Bridging The Gap Between Conventional Law And State Practice, H. B. Robertson Jr.

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Comments On Sally V. And W. Thomas Mallison's Paper: The Naval Practices Of Belligerents In World War Ii: Legal Criteria And Developments, M. W. Janis

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

The Naval Practices Of Belligerents In World War Ii: Legal Criteria And Developments, Sally V. Mallison, Thomas W. Mallison

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Comments On Sally V. And W. Thomas Mallison's Paper: The Naval Practices Of Belligerents In World War Ii: Legal Criteria And Developments, W. J. Fenrick

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Comments On George K. Walker Paper State Practice Following World War Ii, 1945-1990, L. C. Green

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Noncombatant Persons A Comment To Chapter 11 Of The Commander's Handbook On The Law Of Naval Operations, Frits Kalshoven

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.