Military, War, and Peace Commons^™

Autonomous Weapon System And Command Responsibility, Vivek Sehrawat

Florida Journal of International Law

Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS) are gradually becoming incorporated into warfare as technology advances and capabilities increase. The challenge of ensuring the responsibility for acts of an AWS poses some significant challenges. Under International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and international criminal law, individuals are criminally responsible for any war crimes they commit. It is unclear who can be held responsible for deaths and war crimes committed by AWS. This Article is focused on human-out-of-the loop weapons. This Article outlines the legal theory of command responsibility, which international criminal courts may apply to achieve responsibility. This Article examines the individual and state responsibility, …

Death Star Drones: How Missile Defense Drone Technology Marks The Advent Of Contingent Sovereignty, Ben Forsgren

BYU Law Review

Are advances in national security worth pursuing at the expense of sovereign equality? A new U.S. drone program may soon force the world to decide. Thanks to recent technological advances in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and directed energy weapons, the United States will soon have a fleet of missile defense UAVs outfitted with advanced laser weapons designed to destroy intercontinental ballistic missiles before the missiles complete their launch phase. While these drones would significantly decrease the threat of a nuclear attack against the United States, they can only function if they are preemptively stationed in the sovereign airspace of other …

Military Action To Recover Occupied Land: Lawful Self-Defense Or Prohibited Use Of Force? The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Revisited, Tom Ruys, Felipe Rodriguez Silvestre

International Law Studies

In September 2020, heavy fighting erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of Azerbaijan long controlled by Armenia. After two months of military confrontations, a tripartite ceasefire was concluded, drastically altering the pre-existing territorial status quo.

The "Second Nagorno-Karabakh War" brings to light a fundamental question for international law on the use of force—and one that has received limited attention in legal doctrine. The question is this: when part of a State’s territory is occupied by another State for an extended period of time, can the former still invoke the right of self-defense to justify …

An International Legal Consideration Of The Issues On Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems Including Nanomachine: A Perspective Of International Law Studies In Japan, Hiroshi Saito

Japanese Society and Culture

This paper aims to explore the legal issues on the use of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS). This study is based on the recent research trend in Japan regarding studying the relationships between the international humanitarian law and the international law of human rights. The paper seeks to apply the integration theory to the relationship of both laws. As a result, this idea can pave the way for suppressing the usage of LAWS in future armed conflicts. Since the use of LAWS may lead to immense injury to fundamental human rights, it is necessary to adopt the integration theory to …

War Crimes, Inc.: The Ats Case Against The U.S. Weapons Industry For Aiding And Abetting Atrocities In Yemen, Elizabeth Beavers

Florida Journal of International Law

The U.S. weapons industry provides much of the weaponry necessary to facilitate mass indiscriminate bombings by a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, many of which amount to war crimes. The stories referenced in this note represent just a few of the lives harmed in the course of the Yemen civil war. Yet despite consistent public reporting detailing the damage, and calls from the international community to halt sales, the flow of weapons from the United States remains seemingly endless yet accountability is in short supply. The Alien Tort Statute (ATS) provides an avenue for Yemeni survivors to seek redress in U.S. …

Legal Reviews Of War Algorithms, Tobias Vestner, Altea Rossi

International Law Studies

States and scholars recognize legal reviews of weapons, means or methods of warfare as an essential tool to ensure the legality of military applications of artificial intelligence (AI). Yet, are existing practices fit for this task? This article identifies necessary adaptations to current practices. For AI-enabled systems that are used in relation to targeting, legal reviews need to assess the systems’ compliance with additional rules of international law, in particular targeting law under international humanitarian law (IHL). This article discusses the procedural ramifications thereof. The article further finds that AI systems’ predictability problem needs to be addressed by the technical …

Ukraine V. The Russian Federation: Navigating Conflict Over Sovereignty Under Unclos, NilüFer Oral

International Law Studies

Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, or according to Russia, its accession following a referendum, Ukraine brought several international cases against the Russian Federation, including two cases under Annex VII of UNCLOS: The Dispute Concerning Coastal State Rights in the Black Sea, Sea of Azov, and Kerch Strait in 2016 and The Detention of Three Ukrainian Naval Vessels in 2019. At the center of these disputes is the conflict between Ukraine and Russia over sovereignty of Crimea. Russia contested jurisdiction in all cases invoking different exceptions under UNCLOS, including the argument that the dispute concerns sovereignty over Crimea and …

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 …

Israel’S Perspective On Key Legal And Practical Issues Concerning The Application Of International Law To Cyber Operations, Roy Schöndorf

International Law Studies

The speech given by the Israeli Deputy Attorney General (International Law) at the Naval War College’s event on “Disruptive Technologies and International Law” sets out, for the first time, Israel’s position on the application of international law to cyber operations. Consistent with the position taken by the vast majority of States thus far, Israel considers that international law applies to such operations. The speech stresses that questions pertaining to the identification and application of relevant legal rules remain, given the profound differences between the cyber domain and traditional domains of warfare—land, sea, and air. Therefore, in Israel’s view, a cautious …

Encirclement, Deprivation, And Humanity: Revising The San Remo Manual Provisions On Blockade, Tom Dannenbaum

International Law Studies

Among the most pernicious trends in contemporary armed conflict is the return of mass starvation in war, in some cases as its primary source of human suffering. This has prompted a renewed focus on the relevant rules of international humanitarian law (IHL). On some issues, there is relative consensus. On the issue of deprivation by encirclement, however, there is confusion.

Some have questioned whether the prohibition on the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare applies to encirclements at all, particularly in the naval context. Others have interpreted the prohibition vanishingly narrowly. In contrast to the more extreme of …

Armed Conflicts In Outer Space: Which Law Applies?, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

International Law Studies

So far, outer space has merely become involved in terrestrial armed conflicts as part of the supportive infrastructure for military activities. Unfortunately, the risk that this changes is considerably growing, and it can no longer be excluded that (armed) force will become used in outer space, either directed towards Earth or within outer space itself.

This raises serious issues in the legal context, where space law so far has been premised on the hope that armed conflicts in outer space could be avoided whereas the law of armed conflict was not required so far to deal with the use of …

Responding To Hostile Cyber Operations: The “In-Kind” Option, Michael N. Schmitt, Durward E. Johnson

International Law Studies

Facing hostile cyber operations, States are crafting responsive strategies, tactics and rules of engagement. One of the major challenges in doing so is that key aspects of the international law governing cyber responses are vague, unsettled or complex. Not surprisingly, therefore, international law is markedly absent from strategies and operational concepts. Rather, they tend to take on a practical “tit-for-tat” feel as policymakers logically view “in-kind” responses as “fair play.” For them, responding in-kind surely must be lawful notwithstanding any challenges in discerning the precise legal character of the initial hostile cyber operation.

Testing that sense, this article examines the …

‘A Hussy Who Rode On Horseback In Sexy Underwear In Front Of The Prisoners’: The Trials Of Buchenwald’S Ilse Koch, Mark A. Drumbl, Solange Mouthaan

Scholarly Articles

Ilse Koch’s trials for her role in atrocities at the Nazi Buchenwald concentration camp served as visual spectacles and primed her portrayal in media and public spaces. Koch’s conduct was credibly rumored to be one of frequent affairs, simultaneous lovers, and the sexual humiliation of prisoners. The gendered construction of her sexual identity played a distortive role in her intersections with law and with post-conflict Germany. Koch’s trials revealed two different dynamics. Koch’s actions were refracted through a patriarchal lens which spectacularized female violence and served as an optical space to (re)establish appropriate feminine mores. Feminist critiques of Koch’s trials …

Brain-Computer-Interfacing & Respondeat Superior: Algorithmic Decisions, Manipulation, And Accountability In Armed Conflict, Salahudin Ali

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

This article examines the impact that brain-computer-interfacing platforms will have on the international law of armed conflict’s respondeat superior legal regime. Major Ali argues that the connection between the human brain and this nascent technology’s underlying technology of artificial intelligence and machine learning will serve as a disruptor to the traditional mental prerequisites required to impart culpability and liability on commanders for actions of their troops. Anticipating that BCI will become increasingly ubiquitous, Major Ali’s article offers frameworks for solution to BCI’s disruptive potential to the internal law of armed conflict.

Innovative Thinking: Modernizing Outer Space Governance, Diane M. Janosek

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Space security is essential to global safety and prosperity. International treaties should modernize and reflect the world’s innovation in space and governance needs. One must look back to 1967 for the inaugural “Outer Space Treaty,” the first and only binding multilateral agreement for peaceful space use and exploration. In 50 years, technologies and space capabilities have evolved; an updated global treaty and agreement should be developed and evaluated. Both China and Russia have demonstrated their capability to degrade and/or destroy adversaries’ satellites in space. Space wars are no longer a hypothetical. The future once discussed and anxiously anticipated after Sputnik …

Grounding Suicide Terrorism In Death Anxiety And Consumer Capitalism, James M. Donovan

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article examines an influential theory on suicide attacker motivations, the Significance Quest Theory, and suggests that this death anxiety approach can be improved by shifting its focus toward the related, but more comprehensive, Terror Management Theory. The theoretical productivity of this realignment is tested by examining the relationship between suicide attacks and one of the variables thought to trigger the underlying anxieties: the local pressures from global consumer capitalism. After describing the relationship between death anxiety and suicide terrorism generally, this article concludes by applying these insights to the ethnographic context of Egypt.

Pandemics And International Law: The Need To Strengthen International Legal Frameworks After The Covid-19 Global Health Pandemic [Sierra Leone], Charles C. Jalloh

Articles

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Promotion And Protection Of Human Rights And Fundamental Freedoms While Countering Terrorism: Re-Education Camps, Sumaya S. Bamakhrama

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Armed Conflicts In Outer Space: Which Law Applies?, Frans G. Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

I. Introduction

II. Space Law versus the Law of Armed Conflict ... A. The Essentials of Space Law … B. Space Law and the Threat or Use of Force in Outer Space … C. The Essentials of the Law of Armed Conflict ... D. The Law of Armed Conflict and the Threat or Use of Force in Outer Space

III. Conflicts of Application: A Few Key Examples ... A. Unraveling the Prioritization Issue: The Lex Specialis and Lex Posterior Principles ... B. Unraveling the Prioritization Issue: The U.N. Charter and Treaty Interpretation ... C. Unraveling the Prioritization Issue: Pacta Sunt …

Self-Defense To Cyber Force: Combatting The Notion Of 'Scale And Effect', Thomas Eaton

Scholarly Works

The ability to reach out, with a few keystrokes or a couple lines of code, through the interconnected world of cyberspace and create militarily advantageous effects 10,000 miles away has changed warfare as previously conceived, perhaps more than any other advancement in any other domain of war. Cyber weapons are weapons, and whatever law applies to conventional weapons equally applies to cyber weapons. Long before cyber operations were even science fiction, there was much debate over what constituted a use of force that would justify force in response. In many ways, the debate over what constitutes cyber-attacks has been pasted …

Satellite Communications Law: The Nexus Of Space And Telecom Law, Frans Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

Given the complexity of satellite communications as a global business sector involving many private as well as public operators, many national and international regulators and a constantly evolving suite of services offered to an ever-increasing number of users and consumers, it should not come as a surprise that the legal environment—the sets of rules, rights, and obligations applicable to anyone operating in the field—is highly complex as well. This is already true even if merely focusing at the international level, where the myriad domestic regimes play varying roles—largely neglected in this particular article—in implementing, interpreting, refining, enforcing, or even changing …

Functional Statehood In Contemporary International Law, William Thomas Worster

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The international community lacks a form of territorial-based, international legal personality distinct from statehood, and yet, non-state, territorial entities of varying degrees of autonomy or independence need to function within the international community in some form. Some of these entities cannot be recognized as states because their creation violates jus cogens norms, though others are not recognized based on an assessment that they may not fully qualify as a state or that there are political reasons to refuse recognition. However, existing states still need to engage with these territorial quasi-states through the only paradigm the international community has—statehood. For example, …

Guns-For-Hire: Chinese Mercenaries On The 21st Century Silk Road, Carl H. Peterson Iv

Washington International Law Journal

There has been an increased global use of private military contractors (PMCs) since the large-scale American use of them in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This has included an increase in Russian and now Chinese PMCs. As China continues to develop its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), it is likely that the world will see an increase in the number of Chinese PMCs used to protect these projects. In this event it is important to bring Chinese PMCs into the PMC industry’s most effective private regulatory bodies, as these bodies are often more effective at ensuring ethical PMC conduct …

Autonomous Cyber Weapons And Command Responsibility, Russell Buchan, Nicholas Tsagourias

International Law Studies

Autonomous cyber weapons have made their way onto the battlefield, raising the question of whether commanders can be held criminally responsible under command responsibility when war crimes are committed. The doctrine of command responsibility has a long history in international criminal law and comprises three core elements: the existence of a superior-subordinate relationship, the commander’s knowledge of the crime, and the commander’s failure to prevent or repress the subordinate’s criminal actions. This article unpacks the content of these elements and applies them to autonomous cyber weapons by treating them as being analogous to soldiers since they operate within an organized …

The Human Dimension Of Peace And Aggression, Chiara Redaelli

International Law Studies

Since the adoption of the Charter of the United Nations, the current international legal framework has drastically changed. In its traditional understanding, aggression is “the supreme international crime” aimed at protecting sovereignty and the territorial integrity of states. On the other hand, the U.N. Charter endorses an understanding of peace in the negative sense, that is, as mere absence of war. As human rights have gained momentum, they have helped reshape the legal landscape, a phenomenon referred to as the humanization of international law. How do peace and aggression fit within the humanized legal framework? This article will investigate the …

U.S. War Crimes And Accountability With The International Criminal Court: A Critique, Johanna M. Leffler

Senior Honors Projects

JOHANNA LEFFLER (International Studies, French)

U.S. War Crimes and Accountability with the International Criminal Court: A Critique

Sponsor: Kristin Johnson (Political Science)

Throughout my undergraduate career I have studied a variety of subjects within international affairs. The fall of my 2019-2020 year while studying abroad at The Institute for Political Studies of Rennes, France, was where I studied a particularly thought-provoking subject, Mondialisation et Droit de l’Homme (Globalization and Human Rights). We studied the evolution of international law, the justice institutions which uphold it, and how modern globalization impacts human rights. The subject matter and discussion with my international classmates …

Autonomy And Precautions In The Law Of Armed Conflict, Eric Talbot Jensen

International Law Studies

Already a controversial topic, legal debate and broader discussions concerning the amount of human control required in the employment of autonomous weapons—including autonomous cyber capabilities—continues. These discussions, particularly those taking place among States that are Parties to the 1980 Certain Conventional Weapons Convention, reveal a complete lack of consensus on the requirement of human control and serve to distract from the more important question with respect to autonomy in armed conflict: under what conditions could autonomous weapons “select” and “attack” targets in a manner that complies with the law of armed conflict (LOAC).

This article analyzes the specific LOAC rules …

Autonomous Cyber Capabilities And The International Law Of Sovereignty And Intervention, Michael N. Schmitt

International Law Studies

This article explores the intersection of autonomous cyber capabilities and two primary rules of international law—the respect for the sovereignty of other States and the prohibition on coercive intervention into another State's internal or external affairs. Of all the rules of international law, these are the likeliest to be violated through employment of cyber capabilities, whether autonomous or not. This raises the question of whether a cyber operation that involves autonomous capabilities presents unique issues with respect to the application of the two rules. The article concludes that while there are numerous unsettled issues surrounding their application to cyber operations, …

The Interplay Of International Obligations Connected To The Conduct Of Others: Toward A Framework Of Mutual Compliance Among States Engaged In Partnered Warfare, Berenice Boutin

International Law Studies

This article examines international obligations that arise in relation to the conduct of other States, and analyzes how they apply and interact in the context of partnered warfare. It investigates rules of State responsibility relevant to the context of partnered warfare, as well as primary norms that impose obligations connected to the conduct of others. In essence, they consist of obligations not to actively help to or to blindly let others do what a State would not do itself. It is argued that, taken together, these rules form the contour of an overarching framework of mutual compliance among States cooperating …