International Humanitarian Law

[Kenaw Akililu is currently a MAS candidate in the Master of Advanced Studies in Transitional Justice, Human Rights and Rule of Law at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, and a former law lecturer at Bahir Dar University] Introduction  Cyber operations and targeting of cyber infrastructure, including data centres, are increasingly employed during armed conflict and can cause...

[Davit Khachatryan is a lecturer at American University of Armenia and Russian-Armenian University] There is something almost ritualistic about restating the law of self-defense. Article 51 has been parsed, contested, stretched, and invoked in nearly every major armed conflict since 1945. Few provisions of international law are at once so settled in principle and so contested in application. Yet the war between Iran...

[Sarah Shoker is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow in artificial intelligence at U.C. Berkeley Risk and Security Lab and former Geopolitics Team Lead at OpenAI. Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Utrecht University School of Law and Managing Editor of Opinio Juris.] What began as a quiet contract dispute between the U.S. Department of Defense and the AI...

[Gaia Zoboli is a PhD candidate and Lecturer in Public International Law at Maastricht University. Ruben Peetam is a PhD candidate in Dutch Constitutional and Administrative Law at Maastricht University and a member of the Maastricht Research Centre for Society and Law.] Introduction ‘How many military flights connected to the illegal war in Iran make use of the Dutch airspace?’. This question was...

[Yiokasti Mouratidi is a Doctoral Candidate at the Swedish Defence University, jointly with Utrecht University] IBM is widely recognised as bringing computers to the masses. But less known is its collaboration with the US military during the Vietnam War, providing computing power to advance data-driven military targeting. This collaboration reportedly included posting 250 IBM employees on overseas assignments to Southeast Asia, tasked with installing and maintaining data...

[Fahimeh Heydari Torkabad is a Ph.D. Candidate in International Law at Allameh Tabataba'i University and a Lecturer at Kharazmi University] On March 1, 2026, blast waves from a missile strike targeting the Arg Square judicial complex in Tehran reached the Golestan Palace, shattering nineteenth-century stained glass and fracturing its iconic Mirror Hall. UNESCO countered the geopolitical rhetoric by declaring that Golestan Palace represents the irreplaceable story of...

[Netta Goussac is Special Counsel at Lexbridge and Associate Senior Researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Rain Liivoja is Professor and Deputy Dean (Research) at the University of Queensland Law School, and a Director of the Asia-Pacific Institute for Law and Security.] Legal reviews of new weapons, means and methods of warfare feature prominently in the international discussion on the...

[Marco Roscini is Professor of International Law at the University of Westminster and a Senior Fellow at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence] Most discussions of military AI and international humanitarian law (IHL) focus on autonomous weapons, targeting decisions and accountability. AI does raise difficult questions concerning compliance with the rules on the conduct of hostilities and the allocation of responsibility when AI-enabled...

[Taylor Kate Woodcock is a researcher in public international law at the T.M.C. Asser Instituut and Jessica Dorsey is an Assistant Professor of International Law at Utrecht University School of Law and Managing Editor of Opinio Juris.]  Four and a half months have passed since the Minab school bombing by United States forces in Iran on 28 February 2026, killing at least 157 people – including 120...

[Luigi Daniele is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Molise, Italy, where he recently moved after working as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in IHL and ICL at Nottingham Law School (NTU)] The first part of this rejoinder has detailed why ‘incidental’, as qualifier of the foreseeable civilian harm object of proportionality assessments, cannot be understood as synonymous of ‘accidental’ or ‘fortuitous’...

[Luigi Daniele is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Molise, Italy, where he recently moved after working as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in IHL and ICL at Nottingham Law School (NTU)] Last year, the Journal of Conflict and Security Law hosted an interesting debate on a surprisingly neglected topic, that is how to understand the notion of incidental civilian harm under...