Law of Armed Conflict

In this volume, internationally renowned researchers attempt to address the fundamental and applied ethical and legal problems posed by emerging military technologies and present their insights.

New technologies, new geopolitical alignments, new interests and vulnerabilities, and other developments are changing how, why, and by whom conflict will be waged. Just as militaries must plan ahead for an environment in which threats, alliances, capabilities, and even the domains in which they fight will differ from today, they must plan for international legal constraints that may differ, too. This volume considers how law and institutions for creating, interpreting, and enforcing it might look two decades ahead.

This book evaluates the application of IHL, the way in which hostilities should be conducted against an adversary, and the pertinence of traditional distinctions, such as that between international and non-international armed conflicts or civilians and combatants. It discusses the rules protecting certain categories of persons, including prisoners of war, as well as governing different types of conduct of hostilities and the difficulties in determining whether a destruction was unlawful.

This monograph examines and analyses the phenomenon of non-binding instruments (also known as 'soft law') in the law of armed conflict, or international humanitarian law.

The War Lawyers examines the laws of war as applied by military lawyers to aerial targeting operations carried out by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Israel military in Gaza. Drawing on interviews with military lawyers and others, this book explains why some lawyers became integrated in the chain of command whereby military targets are identified and attacked, whether by manned aircraft, drones, and/or ground forces, and with what results. This book shows just how important law and military lawyers have become in the conduct of contemporary warfare, and how it is understood.