Search: battlefield robots
02 Aug Reflecting on Genocidal Intent in the ICJ Case
...rule over Gaza.” As reflected in that statement, other statements made by the Israeli government, as well as Israel’s actions on the battlefield, the Israeli government’s desired destruction of Hamas includes the annihilation of its civilian political and administrative leadership. Expert legal commentary suggests that this goal—alongside the destruction of Hamas’s military personnel and law enforcement—can help demonstrate that Israel’s actions satisfy the intent requirement for genocide. While some have rightly argued that annihilating Hamas may be an impermissible defensive objective violating international law on the use of force, few...15 May Book Discussion “Outsourcing War and Peace”: The Rise of Private Military Contractors and the Importance of Public Values
...two decades, the United States has dramatically changed the way in which it projects its power overseas by outsourcing foreign affairs functions to an arguably unprecedented degree. At the high point of the combined conflicts Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Government had hired roughly 260,000 contractors—more contractors than troops—to do everything from support tasks, such as delivering meals to soldiers, cleaning their latrines, and maintaining battlefield weapons systems, to more combat-related functions, such as guarding bases, diplomats, and convoys. At times, contractors even conducted interrogations. And contractors continue to play...
02 May Soldier Self-Defense Symposium: The View from the Ground – Emerging State Practice on Individual and Unit Self-Defense
...to self-defense. Despite or perhaps because of the minimal jurisprudence or guidance on the scope of individual or unit self-defense (hereinafter generically referred to as ‘self-defense’), it expanded to become an almost default use of force paradigm in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and also spread to cover significant uses of force “far from a hot battlefield.” According to military scholar Geoffrey Corn self-defense now accounts for “much of the force applied in current military operations” (p. 193). This has already presented a number of consequences. It has created significant...
25 Nov ‘The Time has Come for International Regulation on Artificial Intelligence’ – An Interview with Andrew Murray
...laws, for example. Secondly, we need international cooperation on the standards of regulation. We need a UN body – an international telecommunications union for AI or a body similar to that. We need a global standard setting body. Otherwise, what will happen is that in the commercial battlefield, the US and China will get involved in a battle to become the world market leader in AI. If we don’t have international standards, governments will develop the standard that is most beneficial to their industry sector and not most beneficial to...16 Nov Why It’s Not Surprising Syria Is Destroying Its Chemical Weapons
...civil war in recent weeks, capturing one rebel stronghold after another and triumphantly planting the two-starred Syrian government flag amid shattered buildings and rubble-strewn streets. Despite global outrage over the use of chemical weapons, Assad’s government is successfully exploiting divisions among the opposition, dwindling foreign help for the rebel cause and significant local support, all linked to the same thing: discomfort with the Islamic extremists who have become a major part of the rebellion. The battlefield gains would strengthen the government’s hand in peace talks sought by the world community....08 Feb Lubell and Derejko on the Geography of NIAC
Noam Lubell and Nathan Derejko, both at the University of Essex, have posted “A Global Battlefield? Drones and the Geographical Scope of Armed Conflict” on SSRN. The essay will appear in the same Journal of International Criminal Justice symposium as my essay on signature strikes. Their abstract is all of one sentence, so here are the first couple of paragraphs: Defining the geographical scope of an armed conflict is a matter that carries weight in more ways than one. Outside the legal sphere the question might seem like one that...17 Mar Is the CIA in the Drone Kill Chain? (Answer: Likely.)
...The Agency has about 40 unmanned aerial vehicles in its worldwide arsenal, about 30 of which are deployed in the Middle East and Africa. Most of these thingies are equipped with sophisticated surveillance gear. A few of them are modified to launch missiles. The Air Force owns many more “lethal” RPVs, but it uses them in the contiguous battlefield of Afghanistan. Wells points out at Lawfare that “if Ambinder is correct, then it is military personnel who do the drone-flying and the button-pushing, and military personnel can invoke a public...09 Jun Should We Call it Filmfare?
...attention to the following paragraph from the Public Editor’s article, which is stunning example of why we need to take anything the Pentagon says about the danger of releasing Gitmo detainees cum grano salis: In 2007, three men were listed because they participated in an anti-Guantánamo film…. Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the reports represent the best information the government has at the time and that it changes. He said that just appearing in a film would no longer be considered a return to the battlefield. Good to know....04 May Gary Solis Discusses New Book at ASIL
...humanitarian law to an awareness of finer points of battlefield law. The U.S.-weighted text incorporates lessons from many nations and includes hundreds of cases from jurisdictions worldwide. Professor Solis will provide a short explanation of his book and the challenges of illuminating the law of armed conflict in these challenging times. ASIL members Jamie Williamson, Legal Advisor to the ICRC in Washington, and Dick Jackson, Special Assistant to the Army Judge Advocate General for Law of War Matters and Chair of the Lieber Society, will provide commentary. Professor Solis will...02 Dec A Response to Milanovic
...the same as it was then. The other obvious difference, encapsulated in these examples, is the nature of the contemporary asymmetric conflict and especially the highly contested contours of the contemporary battlefield. A conflict that seems to bleed over to many discrete locations that are neither subject to pervasive armed conflict nor are belligerently occupied makes the extraterritorial application questions far harder, but also far more pertinent. In short, I think Marko is right to argue that there has been a sea change in thinking about human rights, and that...