Search: battlefield robots
20 May Guest Post: The Human Rights Impact of Drone Strikes
...on the notion that, “[t]here is nothing in international law that …prohibits us from using lethal force against our enemies outside of an active battlefield, at least when the country involved consents or is unable or unwilling to take action against the threat.” (i.e., an Al Qaeda commander who is fighting the United States in Afghanistan but has traveled to Yemen seeking recruits and cash for arms.) First, I should make clear that lethal targeting outside an active battlefield is, in certain circumstances, permissible under international law. For example, as...
19 Oct Moving from ‘Decision Support Systems’ to Architectural Oversight
...systems within the context of their operational functions and conceptual placement within a given battlefield architecture. It is this architectural conception of battlefield systems that offers a framework for grasping context, allows conversations to delve into architectural subcomponents, and provides an opportunity for influencing the responsible use of digitalised military systems. The Digital Architecture As described, a key limitation of DSS as a term is that it inhibited analytical and regulatory conversations from progressing naturally. At the ‘system’ level, one could begin to artificially typologise, but there is a dearth...
03 Nov Eroding Sovereignty in the Age of “War as a Service”
[Dr Rupert Barrett-Taylor is a Research Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute focused on the ethical, operational, and epistemological implications of Artificial Intelligence in military operations. Dr Matthew Ford is an academic in the Department of War Studies at the Swedish Defence University (FHS) focusing on war and the data-saturated battlefields of the 21st century] The state’s exclusive control over the legitimate use of force is quietly eroding—apparently with its own consent. Yet this development challenges one of the most enduring principles of political order. For Max Weber, the state...
06 May Deep Sensing, the New Military AI? Why Deep Sensing Should be on the Radar
...not only on sensors but also AI to produce the “picture of the battlefield”. Key Projects in Deep Sensing: HADES and TITAN The first operational imperative for the Army of 2030 is to see and sense farther, and more persistently at every level across the battlefield than our enemies. So how are we going to do that? We will need to collect and analyze unprecedented amounts of raw data from many different types of sources. These remarks, delivered by former U.S. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth at the Annual Defense Programs...24 Nov Monica Hakimi, “International Standards for Detaining Terrorism Suspects: Moving Beyond the Armed Conflict-Criminal Divide.”
Thanks to Opinio Juris for hosting this symposium. I read the blog regularly so know to expect a lively and interesting discussion. My article addresses the international legal rules for detaining “non-battlefield terrorism suspects”—i.e., suspected terrorists not captured on a conventional battlefield or in the theater of combat. Despite the extensive literature on the rules that govern the “war on terror,” and on the treatment of detainees in particular, there continues to be significant confusion about when, and under what conditions, a state may lawfully detain non-battlefield terrorism suspects. On...21 May Book Discussion “Outsourcing War and Peace”: Outsourcing and Organizational Culture
...have a similar role for accountability agents, (whether lawyers or some other type of accountability agent) in the field. As I note in the book: Contractors largely fall outside this organizational accountability framework. While they may receive some training in the rules regarding the use of force, that training does not typically include updated advice on the battlefield about how the rules apply in specific scenarios likely to arise on that battlefield. Contractors also do not receive ongoing situational advice from military lawyers .… Finally, the accountability system that has...31 Oct More Thoughts on Targeted Killing (A Friendly Reply to Wittes)
Human Rights Watch’s Tom Malinowski and Ben Wittes — whom, for the record, I consider a friend — have been having an interesting and useful dialogue about targeted killing. Here is how Malinowski lays out HRW’s position: Our position on targeted killing is that its use can be legally justified so long as it is limited to situations involving a combatant on a genuine battlefield or its equivalent beyond the reach of law enforcement, or in a law enforcement situation when the threat to life is imminent and there is...
08 Oct Training Armed Forces in IHL: Just a Matter of Law?
...“fully consistent with human nature”. Hence, most individuals under normal circumstances would perceive them as the right thing to do, even without previous knowledge of IHL. More pragmatically, they are intuitive also because they reflect basic military logic. According to the principle of military necessity, contradicting behaviours would bring no effective contribution to the party’s military endeavour. However, it is exactly these fundamental principles that are regularly violated on the battlefield. The relationship between knowledge and compliance is indeed not one of direct causation. Even when soldiers know exactly what...13 Mar No More “Enemy Combatants”?
...replied. Graham cited the example of someone who is not carrying a gun or fighting on a battlefield. “If our intelligence agencies should capture someone in the Philippines that is suspected of financing Al Qaeda worldwide, would you consider that person part of the battlefield?” he asked. He added that he had asked the same question of Holder, who replied that he agreed that person was on the battlefield. “Do you agree with that?” the senator said. “I do,” Kagan replied. That said, I should back up and note there...