Military, War, and Peace Commons^™

The Kapo On Film: Tragic Perpetrators And Imperfect Victims, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

The Nazis coerced and enlisted detainees into the administration of the labour and death camps. These detainees were called Kapos. The Kapos constitute a particularly contested, and at times tabooified, element of Holocaust remembrance. Some Kapos deployed their situational authority to ease the conditions of other prisoners, while others acted cruelly and committed abuse. This project explores treatment of the Kapo on film. This paper considers two films: Kapò (1959, directed by Pontecorvo, Italy) and Kapo (2000, directed by Setton, Israel). These two films vary in genre: Kapò (1959) is a feature fiction movie, whereas Kapo (2000) is a documentary. …

Epilogue: Homecoming Kings, Queens, Jesters, And Nobodies, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This epilogue unpacks the return of convicted war criminals as homecomings, with all the attendant rites, rituals, and expectations. Knotting together the various papers in this edited collection, this paper examines how the international community constructs an ideal homecoming and, in turn, how such a construction may simply be fanciful.

Book Review, Anton Weiss-Wendt, The Soviet Union And The Gutting Of The Un Genocide Convention (2017), Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Weiss-Wendt’s book unpacks what happened to “genocide” as it journeyed along this path of codification. To be clear, codification was conditioned by compromise among states; and states were often motivated by Cold War selfishness, spite, manipulation, and machination. The Convention narrowed—and even mangled—the set of protected groups to national, ethnic, racial, and religious. The Convention, moreover, limited the recognized forms that genocide could take. The title of Weiss-Wendt’s book reflects its argument that the expansiveness of genocide as an idea was “gutted” in the process of codifying it in an international treaty.

Book Review, Jamie Rowen, Searching For Truth In The Transitional Justice Movement (2017) & Leonie Steinl, Child Soldiers As Agents Of War And Peace: A Restorative Transitional Justice Approach To Accountability For Crimes Under International Law (2017), Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Why do truth commissions emerge following some conflicts but not others? Jamie Rowen tackles this question in Searching for Truth in the Transitional Justice Movement. Rowen approaches this topic through a detailed study of three jurisdictions: the former Yugoslavia, Colombia, and the United States. Although truth commissions did progress in Colombia, they stalled in both the former Yugoslavia in the wake of the Balkan Wars as well as in the United States in regard to the conduct of US officials after the events on 11 September 2001. Rowen unpacks what happened and what failed to happen — and why …

The Contributions Of United Nations Security Council Resolutions To The Law Of Non-International Armed Conflict: New Evidence Of Customary International Law, Gregory H. Fox, Isaac Jenkins, Kristen E. Boon

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Community Dignity Takings: Dehumanization And Infantilization Of Communities Resulting From The War On Drugs, Jamila Jefferson-Jones

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Their Use Of Satellite Services And (Space) Law, Frans Von Der Dunk

Space, Cyber, and Telecommunications Law Program: Faculty Publications

This chapter represents an effort to identify the components of international space law that apply to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). It argues that, while other national and international regimes of law apply to UAV activities, international space law is implicated only to the extent that UAV technology relies on satellite services for control and guidance purposes.

Article 36 Weapons Review & Autonomous Weapons Systems: Supporting An International Review Standard, Ryan Poitras

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Targeted Capture, Alexander K.A. Greenawalt

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article confronts one of the most difficult and contested questions in the debate about targeted killing that has raged in academic and policy circles over the last decade. Suppose that, in wartime, the target of a military strike may readily be neutralized through nonlethal means such as capture. Do the attacking forces have an obligation to pursue that nonlethal alternative? The Article defends the duty to employ less restrictive means (“LRM”) in wartime, and it advances several novel arguments in defense of that obligation. In contrast to those who look to external restraints--such as those imposed by international human …

Targeting The Targeted Killings Case - International Lawmaking In Domestic Contexts, Yahli Shereshevsky

Michigan Journal of International Law

The targeting of non-state armed groups members is perhaps the most debated legal issue in the law of contemporary armed conflicts between states and non-state actors. The 2006 Targeted Killings case of the Israeli Supreme Court (ISC) is a key reference point in this debate. Recently, without much scholarly or public attention, the government of Israel, in its report on the summer 2014 conflict in Gaza (the 2014 Gaza Conflict Report), dramatically diverged from the Targeted Killings case’s definition of legitimate targets in asymmetric conflicts. The Targeted Killings case held a conduct or functional membership-based approach to targeting. This approach …

The Theory And Practice At The Intersection Between Human Rights And Humanitarian Law, Monica Hakimi

Faculty Scholarship

The United States is more than fifteen years into a fight against terrorism that shows no sign of abating and, with the change in administration, appears to be intensifying. Other Western democracies that have historically been uneasy about U.S. counterterrorism policies have, in recent years, shifted toward those policies. And armed nonstate groups continue to commit large-scale acts of violence in multiple distinct theaters. The legal issues that these situations present are not entirely new, but neither are they going away. Recent publications, like the three works under review, thus provide useful opportunities to reflect on and refine our thinking …

What's So Great About The Declare War Clause?, Matthew C. Waxman

Faculty Scholarship

I have long believed two things about constitutional war powers, which my reading of Noah Feldman’s “The Three Lives of James Madison” largely confirmed. First, James Madison was brilliant and prescient about many things, but the strategy and politics of war were not among them. Second, modern constitutional critics of an imperial presidency place too much weight on the declare war clause – and especially Madison’s statements about it. Madison, indeed, worried deeply about unchecked presidential war powers. But Feldman’s book shows that Madison did not emphasize the same risks and checks so often ascribed to him today, especially by …

The Aba Rule Of Law Initiative Celebrating 25 Years Of Global Initiatives, M. Margaret Mckeown

Michigan Journal of International Law

Relying on extensive reports, program documentation, and interviews with important actors in the rule of law movement, this article will explore how one key player in the international-development field—the ABA—has furthered rule of law values through its global programs. The first half of the article surveys the ABA’s involvement in rule of law initiatives. Part I explores the origins of the ABA’s work in this field, which date back to the organization’s founding and took shape after the demise of the former Soviet Union. Part II surveys the expansion of the ABA’s programs beyond Eastern Europe to other regions—a growth …

Packers, Beth Liechti

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

An army officer reminisces about her past love, her military career, and a great pair of cowboy boots.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may benefit.

The Things We Carry, Sheri Clark

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A soldier’s wife describes the burdens of silence and heartache.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may benefit.

If War Is Everywhere, Then Must The Law Be Nowhere?, Alexander K.A. Greenawalt

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This response focuses on one of the most difficult questions posed by Rosa Brooks's How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: How should the erosion of the war / peace dichotomy impact the justifications for the use of lethal force by the United States government and what, if any, role is there for law in this context? While Brooks is unambiguously critical of Bush administration legal policies that asserted expansive executive war powers, she is less certain about the Obama administration's own reliance on the war paradigm to justify its targeted killing policies. While describing these policies as …

Preliminary Examination In The United States Military: Quality Control And Reform, Frank Rosenblatt

Journal Articles

This chapter considers the process of preliminary examination used by the United States (‘US’) military during its extended missions in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001.

My Best Day At Sea, Rob Paylor

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

An Army chopper pilot off the coast of Beirut plays a trick on a Marine platoon on their carrier.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may benefit.

The Real Thing, Sheri Clark

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A veteran’s wife realizes she married a veteran of Vietnam not after their wedding vows but when he finally chooses to speak about the war.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience …

Dawn, Richard H. Geisel

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

In vivid poetic language, a foot soldier describes the terror and power of walking point in Vietnam.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may benefit.

Post Awesome, Chip Lauterbach

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A Marine in Afghanistan returns from a battle, eager to speak with his wife; he can't reach her, and his heart sinks in worry.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may …

Military Officers And The Civil Office Ban, Stephen Vladeck

Indiana Law Journal

In the symposium Essay that follows, I aim to push back against this impression by introducing readers to an important—but little-known—constraint on the militarization of civilian government: the ban on active-duty military officers holding “civil office” codified today at 10 U.S.C. § 973(b). Like its far-better-known contemporary, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the civil office ban was enacted after the Civil War as a means of limiting the ability of the military to exercise control over civilian matters. As the Ninth Circuit put it in 1975, its purpose was “to assure civilian preeminence in government, i.e., to prevent the …

Is It Just Dessert? Female Recruits Don't Get Their Fair Share Of The Pie: The Marine Corps Fights Gender Integration Of Basic Training, Violating Equal Protection Standards And Cultivating A Culture Where Female Recruits Are Left Out Of The "Brotherhood", Maria Brekke

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

No abstract provided.

Congressional Authorization Of The Campaign Against Isil, Tyler Salway

Indiana Law Journal

I. THE BIRTH OF ISIL

II. CONGRESSIONAL AUTHORIZATION

A. EXPRESS AUTHORIZATION

1. METHODS OF INCLUSION

2. ISIL’S INCLUSION UNDER THE 9/11 AUMF

B. IMPLICIT AUTHORIZATION

III. ISIL AND THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY

CONCLUSION

Autonomous Weapon Systems And The Limits Of Analogy, Rebecca Crootof

Law Faculty Publications

Autonomous weapon systems are often described either as more independent versions of weapons already in use or as humanoid robotic soldiers. In many ways, these analogies are useful. Analogies and allusions to popular culture make new technologies seem accessible, identify potential dangers, and buttress desired narratives. Most importantly from a legal perspective, analogical reasoning helps stretch existing law to cover developing technologies and minimize law-free zones.

But all potential analogies—weapon, combatant, child soldier, animal combatant—fail to address the legal issues raised by autonomous weapon systems, largely because they all misrepresent legally salient traits. Conceiving of autonomous weapon systems as weapons …

Reforming The Pentagon: Reflections On How Everything Became War And The Military Became Everything, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

In this Essay, I first describe and analyze the two core laws that provide for the military’s legal organizational framework: the National Security Act of 1947 and the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. Second, I highlight one example—the rise of special operations forces and covert action—where existing laws may be inadequate to restrain military action.

Victims And Press After War: Tensions Between Privacy, Historical Truth And Freedom Of Expression, Vivian Newman-Pont, Maria P. Angel, Maria Ximena Davila

Scholarly Works

The drive to conduct this research was born out of the tension that developed on May of 2017 in the context of the journalistic coverage of the exhumations of those who died in the Bojayá massacre.   Thus, this document has the purpose of asking and answering, from a socio-legal perspective, the following question: How can the events related to the armed conflict and to the transition to peace be narrated without violating the right to privacy of the victims? Or, how can a journalist record a dramatic event or recount an injuste that moves readers while respecting the limits of …

Why A President Cannot Authorize The Military To Violate (Most Of) The Law Of War, John C. Dehn

Faculty Publications & Other Works

Waterboarding and “much worse,” torture, and “tak[ing] out” the family members of terrorists: President Trump endorsed these measures while campaigning for office. After his inauguration, Trump confirmed his view of the effectiveness of torture and has not clearly rejected other measures forbidden by international law. This Article therefore examines whether a President has the power to order or authorize the military to violate international humanitarian law, known as the “law of war.” Rather than assess whether the law of war generally constrains a President as Commander-in-Chief, however, its focus is the extent to which Congress requires the U.S. military to …

Excavating The Forgotten Suspension Clause, Helen Norton

Publications

No abstract provided.

Humanitarian Regulation Of Hostiles: The Decisive Element Of Context, Geoffrey S. Corn

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Today, isolated force-on-force battles are considered a relic of the past. Instead, armed forces must expect to conduct combined arms maneuver operations in and around civilians and civilian population centers. And this expectation is only increased when anticipating operations against enemies who see embedding their vital assets in densely populated areas as a force multiplier. This perception is based on not only the inherent tactical advantages of embedding assets among civilian population centers (such as ready access to logistics and lines of communication), but also their recognition that the complexity of conducting operations against these assets in a legally compliant …