Military, War, and Peace Commons^™

Indefinite Detention Under The Laws Of War, Chris Jenks, Eric Talbot Jensen

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The recent acquittal of the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to stand trial in U.S. federal court on all but one of the 286 charges he faced stemming from the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa has reinvigorated the discussion on indefinite detention under the laws of war. While the issue has been raised in the past, the discussion hasn’t extended beyond stating that the law of war, or law of armed conflict (LOAC) as it is often called, provides a legal basis for detention, including detention for the duration of hostilities. In fact, the Obama Administration has made …

Two Sides Of The Combatant Coin: Untangling Direct Participation In Hostilities From Belligerent Status In Non-International Armed Conflicts, Geoffrey S. Corn, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Determining who qualifies as a lawful object of attack in contemporary military operations against non-state belligerents is an increasingly demanding challenge. While it is axiomatic that only persons who qualify as either belligerents or civilians taking a direct part in hostilities fall into this category, the nature, and indeed goal, of counter-insurgencies blurs the line between civilians protected from deliberate attack and belligerents subject to attack. The difficulty in distinguishing the protected (civilians) from the unprotected (belligerents and civilians taking a direct part in hostilities) does not, however, warrant a fundamentally different targeting paradigm in counterinsurgency operations (a non-international armed …

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.

All Human Rights Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others: The Extraordinary Rendition Of A Terror Suspect In Italy, The Nato Sofa, And Human Rights, Eric Talbot Jensen, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

On November 4, 2009, an Italian court found a group of Italian military intelligence agents, operatives from the Central Intelligence Agency and a U.S. Air Force (USAF) officer guilty of the 2003 kidnapping of terror suspect Abu Omar. Thrown in a van on the streets of Milan, the abduction took Abu Omar from Italy to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured and interrogated about his role in recruiting fighters for extremist Islamic causes, including the insurgency in Iraq.

This essay posits that lost amidst politically charged rhetoric about Bush administration impunity and the “war on terror” is that the Italian …

Not Child's Play: Revisiting The Law Of Child Soldiers, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This brief commentary discusses child soldiers in general and Omar Khadr, a 15 yr old whom the United States military captured during armed conflict in Afghanistan, in particular. I suggest the conversation should be broadened and to move past misperceptions of the applicable law and norms concerning detention and prosecution of child belligerents.

Ten Questions On National Security, Jeffrey D. Kahn

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This essay was written in response to an invitation by the editors of the William Mitchell Journal of the National Security Forum to answer one or more of ten questions concerning national security law and policy. This essay provides the author's answer to the question: "Would President Obama have the authority to hold a United States citizen without charge in a military brig for six months if that citizen - who lives in Minnesota - is suspected of links to al Qaeda following a one-month trip to Somalia?"

A Sense Of Duty: The Illusory Criminal Jurisdiction Of The U.S./Iraq Status Of Forces Agreement, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the U.S. and Iraq entered force on January 1, 2009 and established the legal framework by which U.S. personnel continue to operate in Iraq. The SOFA followed lengthy and contentious negotiations, which many commentators claim that Iraq “won,” extracting significant concessions from the U.S. in the process. While that may true in some areas, the opposite seems to be the case in one of the most contentious areas of this or any SOFA – criminal jurisdiction over service members. This article examines the criminal jurisdiction article of the Iraq SOFA and posits that …

The Law And Policy Implications Of 'Baited Ambushes' Utilizing Enemy Dead And Wounded, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

When a state's armed forces is engaged in hostilities, how long after an engagement or firefight before the international humanitarian law requirement to search for and care for the wounded and find and bury the dead is triggered? This military practitioner's note discusses the legal and policy implications of 'baited ambushes,' the practice of utilizing wounded and dead enemies as the bait for follow on forces, which are then engaged.

Double Jeopardy And Multiple Sovereigns: A Jurisdictional Theory, Anthony J. Colangelo

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Article offers a coherent way of thinking about double jeopardy rules among sovereigns. Its theory has strong explanatory power for current double jeopardy law and practice in both U.S. federal and international legal systems, recommends adjustments to double jeopardy doctrine in both systems, and sharpens normative assessment of that doctrine.

The Article develops a jurisdictional theory of double jeopardy under which sovereignty signifies independent jurisdiction to make and apply law. Using this theory, the Article recasts the history of the U.S. Supreme Court's dual sovereignty doctrine entirely in terms of jurisdiction, penetrating the opacity of the term sovereign as …

Law From Above: Unmanned Aerial Systems, Use Of Force, And The Law Of Armed Conflict, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The United States employing armed unmanned aerial systems (UAS) or “drones” against al qaeda and Taliban targets in northwest Pakistan continues to spur discussion and disagreement. Some label UAS “armed robotic killers,” while others describe them as providing a much greater degree of distinction between intended targets and the surrounding population and infrastructure, thus limiting civilian casualties and property damage. The overt disagreement as to whether the strikes are legal masks that the discussants are utilizing wholesale different methodologies, talking past each other in the process. The origin of this divergence is to what extent the law of armed conflict …

Human Rights And Military Decisions: Counterinsurgency And Trends In The Law Of International Armed Conflict, Dan E. Stigall, Christopher L. Blakesley, Chris Jenks

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The past several decades have seen a Copernican shift in the paradigm of armed conflict, which the traditional Law of International Armed Conflict (LOIAC) canon has not fully matched. Standing out in stark relief against the backdrop of relative inactivity in LOIAC, is the surfeit of activity in the field of international human rights law, which has become a dramatic new force in the ancient realm of international law. Human rights law, heretofore not formally part of the traditional juridico-military calculus, has gained ever increasing salience in that calculus. Indeed, human rights law has ramified in such a manner that …

Unanimously Wrong, Dale Carpenter

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The Supreme Court was unanimously wrong in Rumsfeld v. FAIR. Though rare, it's not the first time the Court has been unanimously wrong. Its most notorious such decisions have come, like FAIR, in cases where the Court conspicuously failed even to appreciate the importance of the constitutional freedoms under attack from legislative majorities. In these cases, the Court's very rhetoric exposed its myopic vision in ways that now seem embarrassing. Does FAIR, so obviously correct to so many people right now, await the same ignominy decades away? FAIR was wrong in tone, a dismissive vox populi, adopted by a Court …

Is The Solomon Amendment Unconstitutional, Dale Carpenter

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.