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Search: battlefield robots

20 Jan

...Law of Naval Operations provides that incidental injury or collateral damage must not be “excessive in light of the military advantage anticipated by the attack.” The concept of proportionality appears in somewhat different terms in Articles 51(5)(b) and 57(2)(a)(iii) of Additional Protocol I. Proportionality is at issue not only in battlefield applications, but in the strategic context as well, as reflected in Daniel Webster’s letter to Mr. Fox concerning the Caroline incident (noting that Her Majesty’s Government would have to show that the Canadian authorities did nothing “unreasonable or excessive”?)...
20.01.07 | |

07 Aug

...it is an entirely legal one. Rather, it reflects the political tension inherent in achieving “just peace.” I agree, as a principle, that the international community cannot condone agression to aggrandize territory. Yet the allocation of geographic territory under permanent ceasefires or peace agreements has frequently “rewarded” — or recognized the reality of — gains on the battlefield. The international community should be concerned with the voluntariness of the agreement, the practicability of enforcement of ceasefires, and whether maintenance of the agreement conforms in all respects with principles of international...
07.08.06 | |

02 May

...detention of combatants seized on the battlefield, she warned that "if the practical circumstances of a given conflict are entirely unlike those of the conflicts that informed the development of the law of war, that understanding may unravel." The threat posed to states by international terrorism is of a nature entirely unlike the traditional state-on-state war (or even intra-state wars like civil wars and rebellions) that the laws of war developed to regulate, and thus the laws of war need to adapt to adequately account for the new type of...
02.05.08 | |

28 Feb

...human rights and the law of war mutually exclusive. Considering the world as a comprehensive battlefield in which democracies are combating the war on terror is contrary to the rules of war. As in other different sectors of international law, the scope of a regulation is primarily territorial. Since we cannot consider the entire world as a battlefield, outside the zone of operations, there are no combatants, and thus no targets a priori. The reasoning of those who think that the term “war” to refer to international struggle against terrorism...
28.02.10 | |

21 Jul

...embassies, the Cole etc. are such overwhelming crimes that I think they negate the possibility of a truth and reconciliation type process. Feel free to make any normative argument you want, but I think my empirical point is accurate. Truch commissions investigate bad acts committed against good people, looking at bad acts againt bad people would be unprecedented. Kevin Jon Heller So all the detainees at Guantanamo who were picked up away from the battlefield by warlords looking for bounties, against whom the US government has no evidence of any...
21.07.08 | |

31 Jul

Howard Gilbert POWs are not limited to battlefield capture, and need not be people who have engaged in combat. With a conventional enemy army, anyone in uniform may be captured, including the cook who spent the war peeling potatoes or the file clerk who shuffles paper. Any member of the enemy armed services contributes to the war effort, and the purpose of detention in international law is to deny the enemy army their services for the duration of the hostilities. In the current conflict the enemy does not wear a...
31.07.08 | |

03 Jul

...circumstances; Israeli intelligence is good, but, for instance, it is unlikely to have access to contact information for someone in every home in Gaza in order to make a warning phone call that provides specific directions. More, the nature of the battle and battlefield in Gaza makes providing a clear "escape corridor" difficult; unlike a war between militaries, in which civilian areas are mostly free of targets and combatants (rendering relatively easy the identification of areas that will be free of combat), the battlefield in Gaza is mutable and determined...
03.07.15 | |

09 May

Michael Another pragmatic reason for rejecting our current standards of prisoner/detainee treatment is the negative impact it has on surrender rates in battlefield encounters. Anecdotal evidence both from WWII and the Gulf Wars indicates enemy combatants surrendered to our forces at higher rates because of our known moderation in prisoner treatment. I fear we have now lost that reputation and the next war we fight may be bloodier as a consequence. Michael Another pragmatic reason for rejecting our current standards of prisoner/detainee treatment is the negative impact it has on...
09.05.08 | |

05 May

...but retreating from the battlefield remains a lawful target, but that is because operationally it is apparent that such actions are inconsistent with clearly expressing an intention to surrender. No surprise to the operators there. Another issue which I think you alluded to, and one that Alan is better placed to comment on than I, is that there is a distinction between land forces and maritime (and, I add, air). At the simplest level, a lone sailor on deck with his or her hands in the air is unlikely to...
05.05.11 | |

19 Feb

...any system to investigate or punish war crimes, let alone desire. National investigations might be inherently biased in favor of their nationals. As for national tribunals, assuming you get that far, the problem is that an asymmetrical battlefield provides plenty of ambiguity. That ambiguity results in doubt of guilt at trial -- and a national tribunal will naturally resolve any doubt in favor of its national (if for no other reason than a lack of self-awareness and self-identification with the accused coupled with a lack thereof with the victim). Even...
19.02.09 | |

23 Apr

...his book, Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield. He reports that as legal adviser, “Harold Koh, wanted to lay out the case publicly before Aulaqi was killed,” in an effort to preempt critiques of the administration’s decision to target and kill a U.S. citizen in secret and without a trial.[15] According to Mr. Scahill: “In advance of his public speech, the CIA and military gave Koh access to their intel on Aulaqi. Koh settled in for a long day of reading in the Secured Classified Intelligence Facility. According to...
23.04.15 | |

07 Aug

...period of his liberty of an enemy combatant that would have been forfeit on the battlefield. From a utilitarian perspective, I would suggest that it is exceedingly unwise to treat an enemy combatant as a civilian criminal defendant. Under civilian criminal law, you are deciding whether to punish the perpetrator after the fact. Thus, one can afford to release ten guilty people so that one innocent person is not punished. However, the equation fundamentally changes when you are at war. Holding an enemy combatant as a prisoner of war is...
07.08.08 | |