Search: battlefield robots
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 Feb Weekend Roundup: January 26 – February 1, 2013
This week on Opinio Juris, Julian kicked off on a lighter note with a Chinese cartoon on the maritime dispute between China and the Philippines. IHL and ICL lawyers were well catered for throughout the week, starting with a guest post by Michael W. Lewis, who discussed two more issues raised at the Boundaries of the Battlefield symposium: “elongated imminence” in response to an armed attack and the lack of operational experience of those writing on international humanitarian law. Kevin later took issue with the suggestion that Israel’s Six Day...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...
30 Apr Soldier Self-Defense Symposium: Individual Self-Defense in Armed Conflict – a US Perspective
...of self-defense would likely succeed in scenario two, but fail in scenario three. While this is a technical argument that would have little significance in an actual criminal case, it is important to note because it illustrates why individual self-defense on the battlefield is a limited authority. It will generally apply in only two situations – against someone trying to harm a person for motives not connected to the ongoing armed conflict or in non-international armed conflicts against members of organized armed groups or civilians taking a direct part in...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...