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Search: battlefield robots

18 May

...it should be subject to derogation during armed conflict. There is much Supreme Court precedent supporting the abridgment of private property rights during war. Milligan suggests that certain circumstances might permit abrogation of even more than property rights. Military necessity for intelligence does not stop with battlefield interrogation. Thus, I am not sure the extent to which we can draw clear lines for the temporal (to capture) or proximal (to the battlefield) applicability of the Fifth Amendment during an armed conflict, assuming it applies at all. What if a simple...
18.05.09 | |

22 Apr

...the population. There are two things working against this acceptance of drones as a positive addition to the battlefield. One is quite simply the Terminator-like creepiness of machines making war against men that many people have commented upon in discussing drones. The other is the perception that drones, because they are remotely controlled, are less accurate than manned aircraft. The opponents of drone use in Pakistan and Yemen, whose legal complaint was mainly about whether the legal threshold of armed conflict had been crossed or whether the boundaries of the...
22.04.11 | |

23 Oct

...reading rights might make sense is years and miles removed from any actual battlefield, or if the simple reading of rights is all that stands in the way of welcoming a detainee to a lifetime of lawful imprisonment (after successful conviction in federal criminal court) rather than sending him off to Saudi Arabia for “rehabilitation.” To be clear, I do not mean to suggest that I think soldiers, for example, are somehow required to read combatant detainees Miranda warnings. Just the opposite: current law on Miranda warnings recognizes an exigency...
23.10.09 | |

16 Jan

...on the battlefield, even where the detainees themselves were captured elsewhere. Our federal courts require a chain of custody to be presented for all evidence introduced at trial, and this could pose a great deal of difficulty for our forces. Ultimately, we think we are not legally obligated to try al Qaida combatants under the laws of war, but have set up military commissions to prosecute those who have committed the most serious violations of the laws of war. Eric Posner invites me to say what is as stake in...
16.01.07 | |

27 Oct

Charles Gittings I have no idea what recrystallized hexogene is, but it sure sounds nasty. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDX Kenneth Anderson This is so way cool! I'm thinking about putting on a very small conference - reallly a sort of experts discussion - on battlefield robots in the spring. Ill keep everyone posted. Chris Borgen Thanks, Charly! That link gave me memories of high school chemistry, albeit of a more explosive kind!...
27.10.08 | |

07 Sep

I have no desire to have the final word with Ken. But I would like answers to two questions. First, where does Melzer or the ICRC say that armed conflict is a geographically-bounded concept, such that a participant in an armed conflict ceases to be targetable as soon as he leaves the battlefield? I cited pages in Melzer’s book on targeted killing that indicate otherwise, but instead of addressing my counter-argument, Ken simply reiterated his initial claim. No cites, no quotes, no links, nothing. Second, if we assume — as...
07.09.10 | |

05 Mar

...are unlawful enemy combatants over whom it has jurisdiction. Note that this distinction has nothing to do with the charges, or the nature of the crime, or whether they are terrorists. It is simply a determination of their military status at the time they committed the crime. The previous commission cases have been individuals captured in Afghanistan. Hamdan, for example, was a civilian (unprivileged) who participated in combat by transporting anti-aircraft missile on the battlefield. KSM, however, commanded the 9/11 attack. He clearly is a criminal and engaged in air...
05.03.10 | |

06 May

...Syrian government'. I cannot think of one regime that has unleashed chemical weapons at their disposal when faced with impending overthrow. Csarist Russia was the first to face this dilemma, and it didn't. Germany gassed its Jews but never used chemical weapons on the battlefield during its death throes. Japan gassed the Chinese but never the invading American forces. Chemical weapons are generally used as a side arsenal when it can employ them with relative confidence, not last resort weapon. The same could be said regarding Saddam's gassing of the...
06.05.13 | |

09 Oct

...order. From the context of US history, some of the arguments raised here do not make sense. The US did not regard any of the Confederate states to be independent countries, so the Civil War was a non-international conflict. The Confederacy was a military alliance between non-national co-belligerents, but it has always been regarded as a single war and not 11 separate armed conflicts, one with each Confederate state. No concept of locality was applied, and the US targeted forces in states that had previously not had battlefields or large...
09.10.10 | |

21 Jul

...solely to circumstances tactically on a battlefield, rather than taken in conjunction with the whole strategic operation of which any particular battle is merely a part. Many individual uses of force will appear disproportionate - pointless, even - if examined solely on their own, in isolation, rather than as part of a larger strategic campaign. Seamus While Arbour's statement may have lacked legal precision, perhaps she was intending to remind us that for the IDF virtually anything might be (and has been) construed as possessing military significance.... The strategic campaign...
21.07.06 | |

07 Apr

...administration. Thank you. charlesloewe So all commenters above would have no objections to having Henry Kissinger teaching human rights? After all, he has written a large number of books, and is often invited to speak as a distinguished academic. I consider educated and wealthy individuals, living far from the battlefield, providing the legal underpinnings for crimes against civilian, to have a far greater degree of individual criminal responsibility for crimes committed than any 18 year old firing a gun at a civilian on the battlefield. el roam Charlesloewe , Thanks...
07.04.15 | |

07 Feb

...civilian death, injury, or suffering. As a legal expert with the ICRC avers, part of a nuanced contextual inquiry should involve consideration of "the actual level of control exercised over the situation by the operating State" and an appropriate consideration of "required intensity or urgency may" actually involve "a generous standard of ‘reasonableness’ in traditional battlefield confrontations." John C. Dehn I agree with unknown's comment and the gist of Bobby's argument (though I might quibble with particulars regarding the battlefield status of various rescuers/mourners). If the target or object of...
07.02.12 | |