Search: battlefield robots
18 Jul Symposium on PMSCs: Playing Regulatory Catch-up – PM(S)Cs and the New Draft Instrument
...to ease the pressure on the monopoly on the use of force and, subsequently, sovereignty. This is, unfortunately, highly unlikely as previously discussed and stated by key host states of PMCs. Sisyphean Task All in all, PMSCs and their patrons have the distinct advantage of being already established. At present, PMSCs seem to be a permanent fixture, making regaining sole state authority on all outsourced services unrealistic. Regulators have to fight against the status quo of quasi-unlimited freedom in the use of PMCs in and around the battlefield, a steep...14 Jul Joining Opinio Juris
...robot soldiers and the ethical and legal questions posed by the (slowly) developing technology of battlefield robotics! It probably won’t take too long for people to notice that I am (roughly speaking) a conservative, in American terms and at least within academia, on many of these issues – a democratic sovereigntist is more accurate. My skepticism about significant chunks of the international law program of liberal international global governance is more than just realist skepticism about ideals outstripping real world possibilities; I am interesting in defending and articulating a normative...
27 Apr Symposium on Legal, Operational, and Ethical Questions on the Use of AI and Machine Learning in Armed Conflict
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning tools are already in use to help identify targets on the battlefield and they might soon power new types of cyber and autonomous weapons. These technologies could have profound implications for the role of humans in armed conflict and there will be important choices ahead. Among the most pressing – for compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL) and to retain a measure of humanity in warfare – will be to ensure human control and judgement in AI-enabled tasks and decisions that pose risks to...15 Nov The Framing of the Georgian Conflict
...time, the Georgians have inflicted a wound on their own credibility if they indiscriminately shelled. In particular, this can be used as evidence (rightly or wrongly) that South Ossetians are likely to suffer human rights abuses at Russian hands and that a peaceful reunification is not politically possible. The current phase of the conflict over South Ossetia is not on the battlefield but in the arena of public opinion, in trying to shape perceptions that will in turn frame what will be viewed as a reasonable or unreasonable final settlement....28 Apr PTC II to Defence Attorneys: You Are All Criminals
...demonisation of defence attorneys in the US who had the temerity to represent individuals accused of terrorism. Marc Thiessen, for example, (in)famously claimed that “[t]he habeas lawyers were not doing their constitutional duty to defend unpopular criminal defendants. They were using the federal courts as a tool to undermine our military’s ability to keep dangerous enemy combatants off the battlefield in a time of war.” Such despicable claims led to significant pushback from both progressives and (to their credit) many conservatives — and rightfully so. Yet now we witness the...23 Feb One more time all together: Obama wants to close Gitmo
...to a $1.7 billion savings. So domestic detention is not only safe, it’s cheaper too. Obama also announced that although military commissions would remain an option for detainees who are captured on the battlefield in active theaters, for all others, Article III courts are the preferred option for terrorism prosecutions. There was little discussion of how to clear the political log jam that remains over the fate of Guantanamo, though the President said that he was “clear-eyed” about the challenges of achieving the result he wanted: “The politics of this...30 Sep Anwar Al-Aulaqi Killed in Drone Strike in Yemen
...predicted by critics of the ICRC’s issuing of the “interpretive guidance”) of believing that if you repeat it often enough, you make it so, again that is not the US government’s view. State practice still matters.) Where? Does it matter that he was in Yemen, and not an “active battlefield” in a conventional hostilities sense?The US government does not accept the idea that the armed conflict with Al Qaeda — or armed conflict generally — is confined as a legal matter to some notion of “theatres of conflict” or “active...02 Jan Juan Cole on the Top 10 Ways the U.S. Supported Saddam
...infamous meetings with Saddam took place here.) During the Iran-Iraq war, the U.S. provided Iraq with billions of dollars of credit, helped it arrange to purchase the arms it needed for the war, and gave the Iraqi armed forces critical battlefield intelligence. The U.S. worked to prevent the U.N. from censoring Iraq for its use of chemical weapons against Iran. During the Iran-Iraq war, U.S. officials encouraged its allies — including Israel, which was willing — to provide Iraq with arms. After the Gulf War, the U.S. allowed Saddam to...