Use of Force

[Dr Emma J Marchant is a lecturer in international criminal law at the University of Birmingham, UK having completed her doctorate on intelligence standards during targeting and the impact of technology. She researches international humanitarian law specifically surrounding intelligence and information during conflict.] Introduction In recent days there has been increasing focus on intelligence sharing arrangements with Ukraine. The legal question that...

[Oleksandr Vodiannikov, PhD, LLM, is a member of Ukraine’s Law Reform Commission and previously served as a member of Ukraine’s Judicial Reform Council and of the Constitutional Commission.] The cost of war for the Ukrainian economy, infrastructure, and the population is spiraling every day as the ensuing devastation grinds on. The bill to be paid for the reconstruction of Ukraine's shattered...

[Pia Hüsch is a Graduate Teaching Assistant and PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, focusing on the regulation of cyber operations in international law.] Temporary Rerouting of Internet Traffic in Kherson, Ukraine On the 2nd of May 2022, several news outlets reported that part of the Ukrainian internet connection in the occupied Ukrainian region of Kherson almost completely broke down, only...

[Grant Dawson served as the Principal Legal Officer of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons from 2014–2021. He has regularly published and lectured on the topic of disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The opinions expressed herein are the author’s alone.] The Russian Federation has alleged that Ukraine was developing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons before the...

[Florent Beurret is an LLM Student in Public International Law at the University of Amsterdam and currently an intern at the T.M.C. Asser Instituut.] No international lawyer was surprised when on 25 February 2022, the day after Russia started its invasion of Ukraine, Russia vetoed a UN Security Council (UNSC) draft resolution supported by 11 UNSC members, which would have ordered Russia to “immediately...

[Deepak Raju is a Senior Managing Associate at Sidley Austin LLP, Geneva, focusing on international disputes; he is also a visiting faculty at National University of Juridical Sciences (India), and a doctoral candidate at the University of Geneva.] In a recent post on EJIL: Talk, I discussed Ukraine’s new dispute before the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) against Russia, and compared...

[Karin Loevy is a fellow at NYU School of Law, where she serves as the manager JSD Program. She is also a researcher at the Institute for International Law and Justice (IILJ) where she leads the History & Theory of International Law workshop series. Her current work is in history of international law in the Middle East in the period leading to the mandate system.] One thing that...

[Katharine Fortin is an Associate Professor at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht University. She is the founder and co-editor of the Armed Groups and International Law blog.]  The author is grateful to comments from Brianne McGonigle Leyh and Vivek Bhatt on an earlier draft of this post. Reading Boyd van Dijk’s Preparing for War at a time when the prospect of...

[Andrew Clapham is a Professor of International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute. He has been a Commissioner with the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan since 2017. He is an Honorary Member of the International Commission of Jurists. In 2021 he published a book entitled War.] Preparing for War is a fascinating read. Dr Boyd van Dijk takes us to the heart...

[Doreen Lustig is a Senior Lecturer at Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law. She studies the history and theory of international law, global governance and constitutional law. She is the author of Veiled Power: International Law and the Private Corporation 1886-1980 (Oxford University Press, 2020).] Preparing for War is an insightful account of the history of the drafting of the four...

So far, the 2020s have been a great decade for books on the history of international humanitarian law. 2020 saw the publication of Giovani Mantilla’s exceptional Lawmaking Under Pressure, on the history of Common Article 3; 2021 gave us Samuel Moyn’s Humane, a powerful critique on the idea that war can be humanised; and now 2022 starts off with Boyd van Dijk’s Preparing for War. I...