Search: battlefield robots

...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...

...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...

...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...

...‘impurists’; and, finally, an emerging category that, I and Michael Ratner (if no one else) discern, of purists-turned impurists-but protesting their purity. I’m told by reputable sources that this last category doesn’t actually exist, but Ratner does not seem to agree (see below). For my own part, I don’t recall those formerly urging try or release following up with me to offer anything like the detailed legal analyses of battlefield detention and the like that I seem to be offered today. But, I’m expressing this as a blogger, and will...

...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...

...military operations abroad. In most cases, those rights have been developed and interpreted in peaceful democracies. Can they be applied to conflict zones abroad and if so, how? Will national courts have to develop exceptions to accommodate the law of armed conflict and the realities of the battlefield? The interaction of international human rights and the laws of war has caused much controversy and uncertainty, and national courts may be less than eager to subject their constitutions to the same stress test. Each court is also working within the constraints...

...by the alleged terrorist; such participation is the minimum necessary to connect an individual to a NIAC who is located away from the battlefield and is not a member of an “organized armed group” participating in that conflict, and there is no credible argument that “material support” qualifies as active participation. Wittes and Chesney, by contrast, simply ignore the issue entirely. But let’s assume that the rules of IHL in NIAC do apply to the detention of alleged terrorists apprehended in the U.S. and in other locations that are not...

...So that is part of the discussion necessarily, even if only to establish status. And this is a discussion driven by legal considerations – if one is engaged in targeting people who are not on the conventional or overt battlefield, or wearing uniforms, or in a camp, or what have you, then it is necessarily far more “intelligence” driven as a form of using force. The intelligence has a strategic use, of course, but it also has a legal function – necessity and, in the special sense I have used...

...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...

...escalation jumps up further, this calculation may change. Hence, it will be useful to continue thinking about the elements a settlement would need to address, and how it would address them. This would depend on the constellation on the battlefield, the maintenance of international resolve in this matter, and the level of further civilian casualties Ukraine is willing to accept. In short, a settlement will only come about if both sides find themselves in a situation where they have no other, or better, choice. Let us be ready for that...

...what a possible settlement for Ukraine might look like. The aim was to show that a relatively condensed settlement could be possible, despite the ever more complex nature of the situation in Ukraine. That contribution also attempted to demonstrate a few ideas on how one might address some of the more difficult issue areas in a potential settlement. Any specific settlement proposal will of necessity reflect the relative configuration of the sides on the battlefield and in the wider political arena. It is not possible to predict what this situation...

...advocates; full discovery versus secrecy provisions. While it is tempting to think of administrative detention as lying between the criminal and law-of-war models, depending on how these matters are resolved, an administrative system can be even less liberty-protective than traditional battlefield hearings or more liberty-protective than criminal prosecution (a point Monica makes on p. 409). And these are just variations of procedural or institutional design. I’d like to hear more discussion about substantive questions of administrative detention law. Monica is quite right when she says: The availability of meaningful legal...