In association with the International Commission of Jurists

Search: battlefield robots

21 Oct

...profoundly skeptical of HRW’s ability to effectively investigate them: In Gaza and elsewhere where there is no access to the battlefield or to the military and political leaders who make strategic decisions, it is extremely difficult to make definitive judgments about war crimes. Reporting often relies on witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage or because they fear retaliation from their own rulers. Bernstein is talking here about the problems HRW faces in investigating Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, not Hamas’s war crimes. But...
21.10.09 | |

13 Sep

...when speaking at the Pentagon, Vice President Pence backed the President’s view, asserting, “…our adversaries have transformed space into a warfighting domain already. And the US will not shrink from the challenge.” The pivot to use of force becomes clear when you compare the 2011 and 2018 DoD reports. The former report advocates for interagency cooperation while the latter calls for military leadership of a new military branch. Perhaps most striking is the 2018 DoD report’s repeated references (some two dozen) to the “battlefield” of space or “warfighting” in space....
13.09.18 | |

22 Jul

...world we live in, not the world we wish we lived in. Such rules should not provide greater protection than we would provide to American citizens held as enemy combatants in this conflict; and they must assure that court proceedings are not permitted to interfere with the mission of our armed forces. In other words, soldiers fighting the war on terror, for example, should not be required to leave the front lines to testify as witnesses in habeas hearings. Affidavits prepared after battlefield activities have ceased should be enough. And,...
22.07.08 | |

02 Apr

...decision-making power. (And, if that wasn’t challenging enough, ITM is evaluating this question in the context of battlefield triage: a complex, time-sensitive situation where even experts disagree about what should be prioritized.) DARPA’s structure foregrounds how much individual choice can impact technological research and development. Program managers wield enormous discretionary power over what technological breakthroughs are pursued and how new technologies take shape. They determine the problems that significant funds are dedicated to solving, set the metrics for success, select the performers (researchers and developers who endeavor to achieve the...
02.04.24 | |

04 Mar

...be satisfied (the “if you give a mouse a cookie” problem). The NGO advocates fundamentally (i) oppose the CIA ever using force, (ii) oppose targeted killing outside of some legally novel concept of a “hot battlefield” as a violation of human rights law, (iii) do not accept that a process is governed by the rule of law unless an Article III judge has ruled on it (and depending on the outcome, not necessarily even then), rather than any process of accountability among the political branches alone, and (iv) have grave...
04.03.12 | |

28 Apr

...social science faculty and graduate students interested in learning about empirical research. There is more information available about the workshop here. The New York City Bar is hosting an event entitled T argeted Killing Away from a “Hot Battlefield:” Exploring the Legal Issues on May 28, 2013. Click here to register. The University of Amsterdam’s Research Project on Shared Responsibility in International Law (SHARES) will organise a seminar on Distribution of Responsibilities in International Law in Amsterdam on 30 and 31 May 2013. This seminar will consider extra-legal perspectives on...
28.04.13 | |

11 Feb

...by this approach, omission liability ensures accountability at the level of operationalisation of LAWS in the battlefield. Thus, despite the silence of the ICCSt. in this regard, the ICC could fill this gap by drawing from the various sources of applicable law. On balance, it appears that reliance on customary international law might be misplaced as the elements of State practice and opinio juris cannot be strongly established. A more viable route to institute general omission liability is through general principles, with care being taken to avoid the sampling biases....
11.02.21 | |

08 Feb

...a non-uniformed soldier using tactics in violation of the customary laws of war against U.S. military personnel. At least in this context, this doesn’t seem like some crazy idea cooked up by the U.S government. One can imagine its practical usage – especially on the battlefield. The individual in question here is alleged to be a Al Qaeda operative in Iraq. But U.S. courts’ skepticism of the enemy combatant concept is probably why the U.S. is transferring him to Iraq. Leaving him in U.S. custody means that he could bring...
08.02.06 | |

26 Sep

...the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the evidence it gathered proved invaluable to the tribunal’s prosecutors as they commenced their investigations. One aspect of the commission’s work that has received relatively lesser attention was its role in shedding light on the use of rape as a weapon of war. The commission conducted interviews with hundreds of female and some male victims of rape, and documented patterns of sexual assault that were undertaken by belligerents to achieve tactical gains on the battlefield, to realize the...
26.09.17 | |

09 Feb

...of “lawfare”? The paper offers an analytical framework through which to examine these questions. It begins from the observation that the current system of international humanitarian law (IHL) builds on the principle of the equal application of the law—the uniform and generic treatment of all belligerents on the battlefield according to the same rules and principles, and regardless of any disparity in power.. Yet regulation has taken a different path in some other areas of international law—most notably, international environmental law (IEL) and international trade law (ITL)—by linking obligations with...
09.02.11 | |

01 Feb

...of the law in other areas. To his credit, Prof. Watts points out that it is the attenuation from the traditional battlefield that in large measure justifies deviation from the traditional combatant civilian dichotomy and that his proposal should not be viewed as a general condemnation of that tradition. Nonetheless, I believe his proposal will beg the question: if state association should be the singular focus for determining who can engage in CNA operations when the operative is unlikely to be observed by the enemy and therefore will not implicate...
01.02.10 | |

21 Oct

...place in the Newseum in Washington DC. On January 10-11, 2013, The T.M.C. Asser Instituut and the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague, in cooperation with the International Humanitarian and Criminal Law Platform, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the Municipality of The Hague, will host a symposium entitled “The Boundaries of the Battlefield: A Critical Look at the Legal Paradigms and Rules in Countering Terrorism” with the aim of discussing the contours of various approaches states take against non-state actors with the goal of countering terrorism. Specifically, the two-day...
21.10.12 | |