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Search: battlefield robots

14 Jun

...questioning at intelligence hubs focused on conflict and battlefield developments – no doubt motivated by their intelligence value – but FSA commanders also said they were frequently questioned about allegations of misconduct or war crimes by their affiliates or other groups. Where FSA groups crossed a “redline” – to include allegations of war crimes or human rights abuses – they were not infrequently cut. The most infamous example was the blocking of the Al-Zenki group from both State Department and CIA support after repeated reports of rights abuses, including the...
14.06.21 | |

08 Jun

...beyond an active battlefield or theater of operations, there are obviously diplomatic considerations that require caution. Should not the “sole organ” of our nation in international affairs (to quote the dicta most often cited by proponents of exclusive executive power in foreign affairs) consider them? In Yoo’s own words: “Poring over the files of kill-list nominees recalls Lyndon Johnson’s role in tightly controlling bombing strikes during the Vietnam War. During Operation Rolling Thunder, Johnson held Tuesday lunches when he and his advisers picked targets to avoid attacks that might provoke...
08.06.12 | |

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 | |

19 Nov

...unpredictable. More data does not automatically lead to clearer perceptions of the battlefield or a better understanding of the adversary. For instance, Karp stated that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) integrate Palantir’s software capabilities into their targeting practices. Yet, the mass destruction and genocidal violence in Gaza show that AI technologies have provided the IDF not with tools of precision to execute limited military operations, but rather with more potent means of surveillance and lethal violence. Second, by supporting the narrative that data-driven military targeting is automatically more efficient, tech...
19.11.25 | and |

31 Mar

...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...
31.03.22 | |

15 Dec

...as it would have been too much for Iran to admit past violations when agreeing to the JCPOA. The main point of the peace agreement is not a comprehensive justice mechanism of the sort that would be viable if Russia had been utterly vanquished on the battlefield. We do not need another Treaty of Versailles. But taken in total, the proposed text undermines peremptory norms to an inexcusable extent. Providing the “Empire is Over” Clause would underline that we are not entering a new era where the logic of empire...
15.12.25 | |

24 Nov

...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...
24.11.08 | |

07 Aug

...charges brought against him demonstrates that the jury weighed the evidence carefully. Unlike Senator Obama who voted against the MCA and favors giving Al Qaeda terrorists direct access to U.S. civilian courts to contest their detention, I recognize that we cannot treat dangerous terrorists captured on the battlefield as we would common criminals. Of course, that’s not quite Obama’s position. That campaign issued this statement: I commend the military officers who presided over this trial and served on the hearing panel under difficult and unprecedented circumstances. They and all our...
07.08.08 | |

20 Sep

...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...
20.09.10 | |

01 Feb

...have, for so long, actually reflected both States’ will and accounted for battlefield realities. My sense is that, in CNA, the criteria cannot operate long without provoking harmful distrust of the law’s efficacy. The Article set out to highlight what I perceived to be a threatening dissonance between that law and the realities of a rapidly changing and increasingly relevant realm of combat. It seems our discussion reveals potential normative and theoretical points about the evolution of the law of war as well. Professor Corn and I are perhaps like-minded...
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 | |

12 Oct

...because there is zero chance that Bush will be detained anywhere (much less in Canada). In fact, the likely rejection of AI’s view on this by more and more states will undermine AI’s goals in the long run. In any event, I somehow doubt that in the spring of 2013, Amnesty will await (hopefully) then-former President Obama with a similar memorandum (following the legal opinions of folks like Mary Ellen O’Connell that Obama has committed violations of the laws of war) over his authorization of drone attacks outside the battlefield....
12.10.11 | |