International Humanitarian Law Commons^™

The Combatant's Stance: Autonomous Weapons On The Battlefield, Jens David Ohlin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Do Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS) qualify as moral or rational agents? This paper argues that combatants on the battlefield are required by the demands of behavior interpretation to approach a sophisticated AWS with the “Combatant’s Stance” — the ascription of mental states required to understand the system’s strategic behavior on the battlefield. However, the fact that an AWS must be engaged with the combatant’s stance does not entail that other persons are relieved of criminal or moral responsibility for war crimes committed by autonomous weapons. This article argues that military commanders can and should be held responsible for perpetrating war …

Proceedings Of The Ninth International Humanitarian Law Dialogs, International Criminal Law: Year In Review 2014–2015, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This publication is based on Professor Drumbl's remarks on September 1, 2015, at the Ninth International Humanitarian Law Dialogs held in Chautauqua, New York.

What I do not want to do is review and repeat what has already been said about the international arena. I thought what I would do is boil it down to a couple observations that I have about the activities at the international institutions over the past year, and discuss four elements that have emerged.

One is transition. What I mean by this is that the work of a number of the international institutions is winding …

Cyber War Crimes: Islamic State Atrocity Videos And The Laws Of War, David P. Fidler

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The Islamic State has combined its extreme violence with digital and cyber technologies to produce and distribute globally videos recording atrocities it commits. This article argues that those in the Islamic State who make and distribute these atrocity videos are committing war crimes under international law. After introducing the unprecedented phenomenon the atrocity videos represent (I.), the article first examines the relationship between international law and propaganda in war and peace (II.) The article then argues the atrocity videos violate prohibitions in international humanitarian law and constitute war crimes (III.). The article concludes by presenting criticisms of this argument and …

All Other Breaches: State Practice And The Geneva Conventions’ Nebulous Class Of Less Discussed Prohibitions, Jesse Medlong

Michigan Journal of International Law

With respect to the protections afforded by the Geneva Conventions, a great deal of ink has been spilled in recent years over the two-tiered system of tribunals employed by the United States in its prosecution of enemy combatants in the “war on terror.” Less discussed, though, is the wholly separate two-tiered system for sorting violators of the Geneva Conventions that emerges from the very text of those agreements. This stratification is a function of the Conventions’ distinction between those who commit “grave breaches” and those who merely commit “acts contrary to the provisions of the present convention” or “all other …

An Emerging Norm - Determining The Meaning And Legal Status Of The Responsibility To Protect, Jonah Eaton

Michigan Journal of International Law

The responsibility to protect, from its recent nativity in the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), is the latest round in an old debate pitting the principle of nonintervention in the internal affairs of states against allowing such intervention to prevent gross and systematic violations of human rights. Advocates for the concept see it as an important new commitment by the international community, injecting new meaning into the tragically threadbare promise to never again allow mass atrocities to occur unchallenged. ICISS offered the concept of responsibility to protect as a new way to confront …

Donald W. Jackson On Prisoners Of America’S Wars: From The Early Republic To Guantanamo. By Stephanie Carvin. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. 336pp., Donald W. Jackson

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Prisoners of America’s Wars: From the Early Republic to Guantanamo. By Stephanie Carvin. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. 336pp.

Can The Icc Ever Get It Right?, Richard Burchill

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Nesrine Malik makes clear with her title, “The ICC’s Blunder on Sudan,” that something has gone amiss with the efforts of Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to ensure the ICC statute is applied to those circumstances it was meant to address. But why is something amiss in this situation? The Prosecutor has a mandate and the legal regime for the ICC is relatively clear (at least procedurally); the crimes it covers can always be debated, but there is a degree of clarity present as to what acts are addressed; so what has gone wrong? The difficulty lies in expectations about justice and …

March Roundtable: Icc And Darfur Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“The ICC's Blunder on Sudan” by Nesrine Malik. The Guardian. February 4, 2010.

Confronting The Politics And Law Behind Battles Over The Icc’S Bashir Indictment, Anthony Chase

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Nesrine Malik points in the wrong direction in arguing that charges of genocide embarrass the ICC more than they do Omar al-Bashir. The embarrassment here should come from those, such as Malik, who snidely downplay the level of war crimes committed in Darfur, who discuss genocide as if it is a cultural rather than political matter (does Malik seriously think genocide ever has anything to do with a country’s cultural traditions, as she says in defending Sudan?), or who naively give credence to predictable political push-back from Sudan and its allies. The ICC faces serious legal and political obstacles, some …

Much Ado About Non-State Actors: The Vanishing Relevance Of State Affiliation In International Criminal Law, John Cerone

San Diego International Law Journal

Much has been made recently of the deficiencies of international law in grappling with violence perpetrated by non-state actors. From transnational terrorist networks to private security contractors (PSCs), organizations that are not officially part of the apparatus of any state are increasingly engaged in protracted episodes of intense violence, giving rise to questions of accountability under international law. Does international law provide rules applicable to such conduct? While the repression of crime, especially that perpetrated by non-state actors, has traditionally been left to the internal law of states, most international jurists will point to the ancient rules 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 …

International Justice And International Politics: Intertwined Paths, David Penna

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

International Justice in Rwanda and the Balkans: Virtual Trials and the Struggle for State Cooperation. By Victor Peskin. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 272 pp.

and

Building the International Criminal Court. By Benjamin N. Schiff. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 304 pp.

and

The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II. By Yuma Totani. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center / Harvard University Press, 2008. 335 pp.

War Tales And War Trials, Patricia M. Wald

Michigan Law Review

In this foreword, I will compare my experiences as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the work of war crimes tribunals generally, with a few of the recurrent themes in epic tales of war. Books and trials strive to educate and to persuade their audiences of the barbarity of war and its antipathy to the most fundamental norms of a humane society.3 War crimes tribunals began with Nuremberg and have proliferated in the past fifteen years. These tribunals were established to try and to punish individuals for violations of international humanitarian law ("IHL")-the so-called …

Karen E. Woody, Putting Pandora On Trial, 98 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 699 (2008) (Reviewing Mark A. Drumbl, Atrocity, Punishment, And International Law (2007)), Karen E. Woody

Scholarly Articles

In the wake of increasing globalization over the past fifty years, international criminal law has transformed from a toothless shadow into a concrete reality; the International Criminal Court is the most recent and impressive institutional accomplishment. Unfortunately, international criminal law has enjoyed this progress on the heels of increasingly horrific international crimes. International adjudicatory institutions have taken many forms and the sentences they deliver have varied widely. In Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law, Mark Drumbl reviews the strides made in international criminal law from the Nuremberg trials through present-day trials, particularly those related to the crimes committed in Rwanda and …

Debra L. Delaet On War Crimes And Genocide, Debra L. Delaet

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Why Not Kill Them All? The Logic and Prevention of Mass Political Murder by Daniel Chirot and Clark McCauley. Princeton University Press, 2006. 288 pp.

and

The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda by Scott Straus. Cornell University Press, 2006. 273 pp.

and

The Witnesses: War Crimes and the Promise of Justice in the Hague by Eric Stover. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. 252 pp.

Making Sense Of A Senseless War, J. Peter Pham

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone by Lansana Gberie. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005.

and

Young Soldiers: Why They Choose to Fight by Rachel Brett and Irma Specht. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005.

Advances And Missed Opportunities In The International Prosecution Of Gender-Based Crimes, Susana Sacouto

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

INTRODUCTION: In the past decade, and particularly since 1998, there has been an incredible transformation in the treatment of sex-based and gender- based violence' in the fields of international humanitarian law and international criminal law. Before this, crimes committed exclusively or disproportionately against women and girls, in times of conflict, were largely either ignored, or at most, treated as secondary to other crimes. Despite the fact that rape and other forms of sexual violence had been widely reported during World War HI, for instance, the crime of rape was not expressly included in either the London Charter, establishing the International …

The Prohibition Of Widespread Rape As A Jus Cogens, Dean Adams

San Diego International Law Journal

This Comment explains why the prohibition of widespread rape should be recognized as a jus cogens through analyses of the failure of existing international legal instruments, advances within international law towards the universal prohibition of widespread rape, and policy reasons for classifying widespread rape as a jus cogens. In doing so, this comment will demonstrate the particular timeliness of this topic by reviewing the use of widespread rape in several countries through the 1990s, the widespread rape presently occurring in Kenya, and the emerging reports from Iraq of rape committed at the hands of the Saddam Hussein regime. Finally, this …

Is Poetry A War Crime? Reckoning For Radovan Karadzic The Poet-Warrior, Jay Surdukowski

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note will suggest that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) can use Karadzic's texts and affectations to warrior poetry in the pretrial brief and in admitted evidence, if and when Karadzic ultimately appears for trial. The violent nationalism of radio broadcasts, political journals, speeches, interviews, and manifestos have been fair game for the Office of the Prosecutor to make their cases in the last decade in both the Yugoslavia and Rwanda Tribunals. Why should poetry, perhaps the most powerful maker of myth and in the Yugoslavia context, a great mover …

Politics And International Justice In A World Of States, J. Peter Pham

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

War Crimes and Realpolitik: International Justice from World War I to the 21st Century by Jackson Nyamuya Maogoto. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004. 267 pp.

The Normative Framework Of International Humanitarian Law: Overlaps, Gaps, And Ambiguities, Cherif M. Bassiouni

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

The International Criminal Court: A Skeptical Analysis, Alfred P. Rubin

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Full Volume 72: Law Of Military Operations Liber Amicorum

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

The International Criminal Tribunal And Subpoenas For State Documents, Ruth Wedgewood

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

The Development Of The Law Of Armed Conflict Through The Jurisprudence Of The International Criminal Tribunal For The Former Yugoslavia, William Fenrick

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

... And Justice For All: Normative Descriptive Frameworks For The Implementation Of Tribunals To Try Human Rights Violators, Gautam Rana

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

With the formation of the Bosnian and Rwandan War Crimes Tribunals, the international community has created a mechanism for the enforcement of human rights law for the first time since the Nuremburg and Tokyo War Trials. The efficacy of these tribunals, however, is in doubt. This Note proposes that only a few human rights are truly universal in nature and can be guaranteed by the international community. Furthermore, the political realities of the international system precludes the use of international tribunals against the more powerful nations of the international community. The Note concludes that by focusing on the human rights …

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 …

Naval Targeting: Lawful Objects Of Attack, Sally V. Mallison, W. Thomas Mallison

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

United States V. Henry Wirz (Washington, 24 October 1865), Howard S. Levie

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Chapter Vi Penal Sanctions For Maltreatment Of Prisoners Of War, Howard S. Levie

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.