Search: battlefield robots
30 Sep Case of the Month: Padilla v. Hanft
...return of combatants to the battlefield during conflict.” International law, consistent with Charming Betsy, was imported into the statute in Hamdi, and now the plurality in Hamdi controls Padilla. The statute implicitly authorized detentions of enemy combatants consistent with the laws of war, and the Executive branch, the Fourth Circuit held, is acting consistent with those obligations. No meaningful distinction was made between an American and non-American enemy combatant. Nor was there any meaningful distinction made between the conventional war at issue in Hamdi (the ongoing war in Afghanistan) and...
10 Jan Moral or Legal Responsibilities? Protection in Afghanistan Once a Party Leaves
...the foreign forces were still present in Afghanistan and party to the ongoing armed conflict at the time. What might be made of the remedial obligation – that is, if IHL duties of protection are not met, what follows – that the applicants raised? In short, we typically think of the protection of civilians as actions taken on the battlefield, but in such special circumstances where there is an acknowledged special connection between the civilians in question and the state, could bureaucratic actions taken at home such as the proper...12 Jan Alito (Again) on NSA Wiretapping and Youngstown
...of guidance as to the interpretation of the authorization of the use of military force in the Hamdi case, where the court interpreted that enactment and determined that the detention of an individual who was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan fell within the scope of that. And they relied there, I think, on customary practices in the conduct of warfare in determining what fell within the scope of the authorization. FEINSTEIN: Let me stop you right here, because that’s right. Because detention is a necessary following of an authorization...05 Feb The DoJ White Paper’s Fatal International Law Flaw — Organization
...the Tadic test: the organization requirement. The White Paper simply assumes that “al-Qa’ida and its associated forces” constitute a single organized armed group for purposes of IHL — “a transnational, non-state actor” that is “one of the parties” involved in “the non-international armed conflict between the United States and al-Qa’ida that the Supreme Court recognized in Hamdan” (emphasis mine). Indeed, the White Paper must make that assumption because, by its own admission, what justifies targeting a “senior operational leader” away from an active battlefield is precisely that, as a member...02 Mar Prince Harry and Jimmy McCain
Last year the British media entered into a voluntary agreement with the British Ministry of Defence to have a news blackout of Prince Harry’s deployment in Afghanistan. Harry had been serving there about ten weeks when the news broke on the Drudge Report of his whereabouts. The BBC is now defending the news blackout. From the sounds of it, in exchange for extensive filming of Harry on the battlefield, the British press would keep mum about his deployment to Afghanistan. “So, for the past ten weeks, the BBC, ITV and...15 Dec Still a Bad Idea: Military Commissions Under the Obama Administration
...without formal precedential value, it is predictable that other federal judges would reach the same result. The idea that military commission rules offer any legitimate advantage over federal courts is simply wrong. While Ghailani’s judge did exclude one witness the government desired to use on the basis that he had been identified through coercive interrogation, military commission rules should have produced the same result. In general, military commission rules for handling classified information are now very closely based on those used in federal courts, while issues such as battlefield intelligence...
21 Jan GCIII Commentary: Prisoners of War Remittances–Financial Challenges of Sanctions and Conversion Rates
[Chanel Chauvet earned her Master of Laws in International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights from the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. She also holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Georgia School of Law. This is a post in our joint blog symposium with ICRC’s Humanitarian Law & Policy Blog exploring the new ICRC Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention ( GCIII Commentary ).] This post will explore the challenges of armed conflict that extend beyond the battlefield and into detention camps for many prisoners...18 May Counting the Dead in Darfur
The NY Times ran this piece this morning on the challenge of coming up with estimates of the total dead as a result of the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan. The problem is common in the face of mass humanitarian disasters: how to estimate death tolls in a place with no birth or death certificates or accurate census data, where complete villages have been destroyed, and where the size and conditions on the battlefield are such that actual counting of bodies is next to impossible. Moreover, survivors are...