This book discusses the multilayered legal structures concerning the regulation of crimes under international law. It covers both core crimes and other types of crime under international law, and examines relevant substantive and procedural rules alike. Pursuing such a comprehensive approach is essential to understanding the basic frameworks of international criminal law, since the varied perspectives on international crimes are connected to different systems of enforcement. Being aware of this interrelatedness is conducive to an in-depth examination of individual topics in both substantive and procedural aspects. On the basis of such an inquiry, this book concisely provides a systematic overview of international criminal law.

Cultural objects have been on the move for a long time. Yet there has been no comprehensive survey to date of the current state of affairs with regard to immunity from seizure of foreign cultural objects belonging to foreign States that are on loan for temporary exhibition. This study fills that gap by examining whether there is any rule of (customary) international law stipulating that such cultural objects are immune from seizure, or whether such a rule is emerging. It also examines relevant State practice and the reasons behind it. This volume thus provides greater clarity and legal certainty in the field of lending cultural State property and should be of use both to States and to cultural institutions.

This book investigates the use of duress as a defence in international criminal law, specifically in cases of child soldiers. The prosecution of children for international crimes often only focuses on whether children can and should be prosecuted under international law. However, it is rarely considered what would happen to these children at the trial stage. This work offers a nuanced approach towards international prosecution and considers how children could be implicated and defended in international courts. This study will be of interest to academics and practitioners working in international criminal law, transitional justice and children's rights.

War demands that scholars and policy makers use victory in precise and coherent terms to communicate what the state seeks to achieve in war. The failure historically to define victory in consistent terms has contributed to confused debates when societies consider whether to wage war. This volume explores the development of a theoretical narrative or language of victory to help scholars and policy makers define carefully and precisely what they mean by victory in war in order to achieve a deeper understanding of victory as the foundation of strategy in the modern world.

This volume commemorates the centenary of the First World War (1914-2014) and aims to capture 100 years of warfare evolution. Among the main issues addressed are the changing nature of means and methods of warfare, the law of weaponry, and challenges to humanitarian assistance and protection of the civilian population affected by armed conflict. Specific topics include the legal regime governing nuclear weapons, the prohibition of chemical weapons and arms control, the evolution of naval warfare, asymmetric conflicts, the law of occupation and cultural property. A comprehensive Year in Review also describes the most important events and legal developments that took place in 2014. The Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law is the world's only annual publication devoted to the study of the laws governing armed conflict. It provides a truly international forum for high-quality, peer-reviewed academic articles focusing on this crucial branch of international law. Distinguished by contemporary relevance, the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law bridges the gap between theory and practice and serves as a useful reference tool for scholars, practitioners, military personnel, civil servants, diplomats, human rights workers and students.

This unique new work of reference traces the origins of the modern laws of warfare from the earliest times to the present day. Relying on written records from as far back as 2400 BCE, and using sources ranging from the Bible to Security Council Resolutions, the author pieces together the history of a subject which is almost as old as civilisation itself. The author shows that as long as humanity has been waging wars it has also been trying to find ways of legitimising different forms of combatants and regulating the treatment of captives. This first book on warfare deals with the broad question of whether the patterns of dealing with combatants and captives have changed over the last 5,000 years, and if so, how? In terms of context, the first part of the book is about combatants and those who can 'lawfully' take part in combat. In many regards, this part of the first volume is a series of 'less than ideal' pathways. This is because in an ideal world there would be no combatants because there would be no fighting. Yet as a species we do not live in such a place or even anywhere near it, either historically or in contemporary times. This being so, a second-best alternative has been to attempt to control the size of military forces and, therefore, the bloodshed. This is also not the case by which humanity has worked over the previous centuries. Rather, the clear assumption for thousands of years has been that authorities are allowed to build the size of their armed forces as large as they wish. The restraints that have been applied are in terms of the quality and methods by which combatants are taken. The considerations pertain to questions of biology such as age and sex, geographical considerations such as nationality, and the multiple nuances of informal or formal combatants. These questions have also overlapped with ones of compulsion and whether citizens within a country can be compelled to fight without their consent. Accordingly, for the previous 3,000 years, the question has not been whether there should be a limit on the number of soldiers, but rather who is or is not a lawful combatant. It has rarely been a question of numbers. It has been, and remains, one of type. The second part of this book is about people, typically combatants, captured in battle. It is about what happens to their status as prisoners, about the possibilities of torture, assistance if they are wounded and what happens to their remains should they be killed and their bodies fall into enemy hands. The theme that ties all of these considerations together is that all of the acts befall those who are, to one degree or another, captives of their enemies. As such, they are no longer masters of their own fate. As a work of reference this first volume, as part of a set of three, is unrivalled, and will be of immense benefit to scholars and practitioners researching and advising on the laws of warfare. It also tells a story which throws fascinating new light on the history of international law and on the history of warfare itself.

How, despite the enormous investment of blood and treasure, has the West's ten-year intervention left Afghanistan so lawless and insecure? The answer is more insidious than any conspiracy, for it begins with a profound lack of understanding of the rule of law, the very thing that most dramatically separates Western societies from the benighted ones in which they increasingly intervene. This volume of essays argues that the rule of law is not a set of institutions that can be exported lock, stock and barrel to lawless lands, but a state of affairs under which ordinary people and officials of the state itself feel it makes sense to act within the law. Where such a state of affairs is absent, as in Afghanistan today, brute force, not law, will continue to rule.

Why do international criminal tribunals write histories of the origins and causes of armed conflicts? Richard Ashby Wilson conducted empirical research with judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and expert witnesses in three international criminal tribunals to understand how law and history are combined in the courtroom. Historical testimony is now an integral part of international trials, with prosecutors and defense teams using background testimony to pursue decidedly legal objectives. Both use historical narratives to frame the alleged crimes and to articulate their side's theory of the case. In the Slobodan Milo evi trial, the prosecution sought to demonstrate special intent to commit genocide by reference to a long-standing animus, nurtured within a nationalist mind-set. For their part, the defense calls historical witnesses to undermine charges of superior responsibility, and to mitigate the sentence by representing crimes as reprisals. Although legal ways of knowing are distinctive from those of history, the two are effectively combined in international trials in a way that challenges us to rethink the relationship between law and history.

This book analyzes emergency legislations formed in response to terrorism. In recognition that different countries, with different legal traditions, have different solutions, it adopts a comparative point of view. The countries profiled include America, France, Israel, Poland, Germany and United Kingdom. The goal is not to offer judgment on one response or the other. Rather, the contributors offer a comprehensive and thoughtful examination of the entire concept. In the process, they draw attention to the inadaptability of traditional legal and philosophical categories in a new and changing political world. The contributors first criticize the idea of these legislations. They then go on to develop different models to respond to these crises. They build a general analytical framework by answering such questions as: What is an emergency legislation? What kinds of emergencies justify laws of this nature? Why is contemporary terrorism such a specific emergency justifying new laws? Using legal and philosophical reflections, this study looks at how we are changing society. Coverage also provides historical experiences of emergency legislations to further illustrate this point. In the end, readers will gain insight into the long-term consequences of these legislations and how they modify the very work of the rule of law.

Ideas of collective responsibility challenge the doctrine of individual responsibility that is the dominant paradigm in law and liberal political theory. But little attention is given to the consequences of holding groups accountable for wrongdoing. Groups are not amenable to punishment in the way that individuals are. Can they be punished - and if so, how - or are other remedies available? The topic crosses the borders of law, philosophy and political science, and in this volume specialists in all three areas contribute their perspectives. They examine the limits of individual criminal liability in addressing atrocity, the meanings of punishment and responsibility, the distribution of group punishment to a group's members, and the means by which collective accountability can be expressed. In doing so, they reflect on the legacy of the Nuremberg Trials, on the philosophical understanding of collective responsibility, and on the place of collective accountability in international political relations.

This book examines to what extent the right of self-defence, as laid down in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, permits States to launch military operations against other States. In particular, it focuses on the occurrence of an 'armed attack' - the crucial trigger for the activation of this right. In light of the developments since 9/11, the author analyses relevant physical and verbal customary practice, ranging from the 1974 Definition of Aggression to recent incidents such as the 2001 US intervention in Afghanistan and the 2006 Israeli intervention in Lebanon. The notion of 'armed attack' is examined from a threefold perspective. What acts can be regarded as an 'armed attack'? When can an 'armed attack' be considered to take place? And from whom must an 'armed attack' emanate? By way of conclusion, the different findings are brought together in a draft 'Definition of Armed Attack'.

The purpose of the jus ad bellum is to draw a line in the sand: thus far, but no further. In the light of modern warfare, a state should today have an explicitly recognised and undisputed right of delimited unilateral defence not only in response to an occurring armed attack, but also in interception of an inevitable or imminent armed attack. This book, however, makes it evident that unilateral interception is not incontestably compatible with the modern right of self-defence in Article 51 of the UN Charter. Then again, unilateral defence need not forever be confined to self-defence only, wherefore the book proposes that the concept of defence may best be modernised by a clear legal division into responsive and interceptive defence. Since both threat and use of force are explicitly prohibited in Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, this book further recommends that both responsive and interceptive defence should be explicitly excepted from this prohibition in Article 51 of the UN Charter. The modern jus ad bellum should thus legally recognise a dual face of defence: responsive self-defence if an armed attack occurs, and interceptive necessity-defence if a grave and urgent threat of an armed attack occurs. For without a clarifying and modernising revision, the concept of defence will become irreparably blurred until it is completely dissolved into the ever-shifting sands of war.

The main theme of this volume of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Lawis the development and interpretation of international humanitarian law (IHL). It iselaborated upon in several chapters that examine the role of non-state armed groupsin the development and interpretation of IHL, the impact of international criminal lawon the development of IHL, the notion of external non-international armed conflicts,and the regulation of prolonged occupation under international law. The second theme of this volume is dedicated to targeting in armed conflicts. Specifictopics include precautions in attack in urban and siege warfare, the targeting of theIslamic State's religious personnel in Iraq and Syria, and the targeting of illicit cropsthrough aerial spraying in Colombia. Besides the chapters that address both themes,this volume also contains a Year in Review describing the most important events andlegal developments that took place in 2017. The Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law is the world's only annual publicationdevoted to the study of the laws governing armed conflict. It provides a truly internationalforum for high-quality, peer-reviewed academic articles focusing on this crucialbranch of international law. Distinguished by contemporary relevance, the Yearbookof International Humanitarian Law bridges the gap between theory and practice andserves as a useful reference tool for scholars, practitioners, military personnel, civilservants, diplomats, human rights workers and students.

This book discusses the moral and legal issues relating to military drones, focusing on how these machines should be judged according to the principles of just war theory. The author analyses existing drones, like the Predator and Reaper, but also evaluates the many types of drones in development. The book presents drones as not only morally justifiable but having the potential to improve compliance with the principles of just war and international law. Realizing this potential would depend on developing a sound regulatory framework, which the book helps to develop by considering what steps governments and military forces should take to promote ethical drone use. It also critically evaluates the arguments against drones to show which should be abandoned and which raise valid concerns that can inform regulations.

This book addresses an important but little-noticed phenomenon in the revolutionary world of military technology. Across a wide range of otherwise-unrelated weapons programs, the Pentagon is now pursuing arms that are deliberately crafted to be less powerful, less deadly, and less destructive than the systems they are designed to supplement or replace. This direction is historically anomalous; military forces generally pursue ever-bigger bangs, but the modern conditions of counter-insurgency warfare and military operations 'other than war' (such as peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance) demand a military capable of modulated force. By providing a capacity to intervene deftly yet effectively, the new generations of 'useable' weaponry should enable the U.S. military to accomplish its demanding missions in a manner consistent with legal obligations, public relations realities, and political constraints. Five case studies are provided, regarding precision-guided 'smart bombs', low-yield nuclear weapons, self-neutralizing anti-personnel land mines, directed-energy anti-satellite weapons, and non-lethal weapons.

As the Oslo Peace Process has given way to the violence of the second intifada, this book explores the continuing legacy of Oslo in the everyday life of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Taking a perspective that sees the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a conflict over the distribution of legal rights, it focuses on the daily concerns of West Bank Palestinians, and explores the meanings, limitations and potential of legal claims in the context of the region's structures of governance. Kelly argues that fundamental contradictions in the process through which the West Bank has been ruled and misruled have resulted in an unstable mixture of legality, fear and uncertainty. Based on long term ethnographic fieldwork, this book provides an insight into how the wider Middle East conflict manifests itself through the daily encounters of ordinary Israelis and Palestinians, offering an evocative and theoretically informed account of the relationship between law, peace-building and violence.

African regional organizations have played leading roles in constructing collective conflict management rules for the continent, but these rules or norms have not been static. Currently, the African Union (AU) deploys monitors, authorizes peace support operations, and actively engages to resolve internal conflicts. Just a few decades ago, these actions would have been deeply controversial under the Organization of African Unity (OAU). What changed to allow for this transformation in the way the African regional organization approaches peace and security? African peace examines why the OAU chose norms in 1963 that prioritized state security and led to a policy of strict non-interference - even in the face of destabilizing violence - and why the AU chose very different norms leading to a disparate conflict management policy in the early 2000s. Even if the AU's capacity to respond to conflict is still developing, this new policy has made the region more willing and capable of responding to violence. Nash argues that norm creation largely happened within the African context, and international pressure was not a determinant factor in their evolution. The role of regions in the international order, particularly the African region, has been under-theorized and under-acknowledged, and this book adds to an emerging literature that explores the role of regional organizations in the Global South in creating and promoting norms based on their own experiences and for their own purposes. -- .

This book reviews the nature of the alleged abuse committed by the UK military forces, exploring the legal paradigm in which the abuse allegedly occurred; the morality of those accused; and the robustness of the accusation of a 'policy of abuse'.

This book assesses President Barack Obama's counterterrorism policy as it evolved throughout his presidency, from the expanded use of drones to the controversial decisions regarding the Syrian conflict. President Obama has achieved the dubious distinction of having been the longest continuous war president in American history, and this title explores how Obama pursued and expanded executive war power in key areas, simultaneously committing to a light footprint approach for U.S. military forces and emphasizing the use of drones, targeted killing of terrorists, and training, advising, and assisting local forces to defend themselves from militant groups such as ISIL. It also provides an in-depth analysis of the defining issue of the Obama counterterrorism strategy: Syria, and his refusal to militarily commit to defeat Bashar al-Assad and support Syria's insurgency. The work concludes with a consideration of counterterrorism policy post-Obama.

This book addresses the technological evolution of modern warfare due to unmanned systems and the growing capacity for cyberwarfare. The increasing involvement of unmanned means and methods of warfare can lead to a total removal of humans from the navigation, command and decision-making processes in the control of unmanned systems, and as such away from participation in hostilities - the "dehumanization of warfare." This raises the question of whether and how today's law is suitable for governing the dehumanization of warfare effectively. Which rules are relevant? Do interpretations of relevant rules need to be reviewed or is further and adapted regulation necessary? Moreover, ethical reasoning and computer science developments also have to be taken into account in identifying problems. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach the book focuses primarily on international humanitarian law, with related ethics and computer science aspects included in the discussion and the analysis.

Necessity is a notoriously dangerous and slippery concept-dangerous because it contemplates virtually unrestrained killing in warfare and slippery when used in conflicting ways in different areas of international law. Jens David Ohlin and Larry May untangle these confusing strands and perform a descriptive mapping of the ways that necessity operates in legal and philosophical arguments in jus ad bellum, jus in bello, human rights, and criminal law. Although the term "necessity" is ever-present in discussions regarding the law and ethics of killing, its meaning changes subtly depending on the context. It is sometimes an exception, at other times a constraint on government action, and most frequently a broad license in war that countenances the wholesale killing of enemy soldiers in battle. Is this legal status quo in war morally acceptable? Ohlin and May offer a normative and philosophical critique of international law's prevailing notion of jus in bello necessity and suggest ways that killing in warfare could be made more humane-not just against civilians but soldiers as well. Along the way, the authors apply their analysis to modern asymmetric conflicts with non-state actors and the military techniques most likely to be used against them. Presenting a rich tapestry of arguments from both contemporary and historical Just War theory, Necessity in International Law is the first full-length study of necessity as a legal and philosophical concept in international affairs.

Contracts with private military and security companies are a reality of modern conflicts. This discerning book provides nuanced insights into the international legal implications of these contracts, and establishes an in-depth understanding of the impacts for contracting states, home states and territorial states under the current state responsibility regime. Focussing on the Articles on State Responsibility (ASR) the author considers under which conditions states are, or should be, responsible for the acts of private contractors given new trends towards remote warfare involving drones and increasingly autonomous weapon systems. Rigorous academic research and case studies, combined with insights from numerous interviews with practitioners, serve to highlight the challenges to applying the ASR. These challenges range from the relativity of key concepts of attribution to the issue of when reliance on private contractors becomes a violation of the principle of distinction under International Humanitarian Law and also illustrate where the current state responsibility regime needs to be modified to adequately address evolutions in warfare. This astute and incisive book will prove a key resource for legal scholars and theorists with an interest in public international law, IHL and IHRL. Government officials, practitioners and think tanks engaged in compliance matters and new trends in warfare will also benefit from this work's pragmatic approach.

This book analyzes a new phenomenon in international law: international organizations assuming the powers of a national government in order to reform political institutions. After reviewing the history of internationalized territories, this book asks two questions about these 'humanitarian occupations'. First, why did they occur? The book argues that the missions were part of a larger trend in international law to maintain existing states and their populations. The only way this could occur in these territories, which had all seen violent internal conflict, was for international administrators to take charge. Second, what is the legal justification for the missions? The book examines each of the existing justifications and finds them wanting. A new foundation is needed, one that takes account of the missions' authorisation by the UN Security Council and their pursuit of goals widely supported in the international community.

The International Committee of the Red Cross's Customary International Humanitarian Law by Jean-Marie Henckaerts and Louise Doswald-Beck (Cambridge University Press, 2005) contains a unique collection of evidence of the practice of States and non-State actors in the field of international humanitarian law, together with the authors' assessment of that practice and their compilation of rules of customary law based on that assessment. The Study invites comment on its compilation of rules. Perspectives on the ICRC Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law results from a year-long examination of the Study by a group of military lawyers, academics and practitioners, all with experience in international humanitarian law. The book discusses the Study, its methodology and its rules and provides a critical analysis of them. It adds its own contribution to scholarship on the interpretation and application of international humanitarian law.