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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...09 Dec From False Dichotomies to a Real One: A Response to Shana Tabak by Vasuki Nesiah
...have taken on the “false dichotomies of transitional justice,” they have also highlighted that what is at stake is the extent to which extraordinary violence and violence on the body obscures and normalizes ordinary structural violence. Thus the response cannot be to once again foreground the battlefield in focusing on female combatants as combatants; rather (as Tabak understands) we need to also look at the structural issues that engendered the conflict. This may not be then merely about ameliorative measures for gender sensitive employment opportunities or inclusion of women’s clothing...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...