The practice of armed conflict has changed radically in the last decade. With eminent contributors from legal, government and military backgrounds, this Research Handbook addresses the legal implications of remote warfare and its significance for combatants, civilians, policymakers and international lawyers. Primarily focused on the legality of all forms of remote warfare, including targeted killings by drone, cyber-attacks, and autonomous weapons, each chapter gives a compelling insight beyond the standard and reactionary criticisms of these technologies. Current assumptions of remote warfare are challenged and discussed from a variety of international perspectives. These include governing the use of force, humanitarian law, criminal law, and human rights law. Contributors consider the essential features of current warfare regulations, and test their strength for controlling these new technologies. Suggestions are made for the future development of law to control the limits of modern remote warfare, with a particular focus on the possibility of autonomous weapons. This is an essential read for academics and students of jus ad bellum, international humanitarian law, criminal law and human rights. Students of political science, governance and military studies will also find this a thought-provoking insight into modern warfare techniques and the complex legal issues they create. Contributors include: W. Banks, G. Corn, E. Crawford, A. Cullen, L. Davies-Bright, G. Gaggioli, R. Geiss, T.D. Gill, R. Heinsch, I.S. Henderson, P. Keane, M. Klamberg, H. Lahmann, J. Liddy, P. Margulies, M.W. Meier, J.D. Ohlin, M. Roorda, J. van Haaster, N. White

The practice of armed conflict has changed radically in the last decade. With eminent contributors from legal, government and military backgrounds, this Research Handbook addresses the legal implications of remote warfare and its significance for combatants, civilians, policymakers and international lawyers. Primarily focused on the legality of all forms of remote warfare, including targeted killings by drone, cyber-attacks, and autonomous weapons, each chapter gives a compelling insight beyond the standard and reactionary criticisms of these technologies. Current assumptions of remote warfare are challenged and discussed from a variety of international perspectives. These include governing the use of force, humanitarian law, criminal law, and human rights law. Contributors consider the essential features of current warfare regulations, and test their strength for controlling these new technologies. Suggestions are made for the future development of law to control the limits of modern remote warfare, with a particular focus on the possibility of autonomous weapons. This is an essential read for academics and students of jus ad bellum, international humanitarian law, criminal law and human rights. Students of political science, governance and military studies will also find this a thought-provoking insight into modern warfare techniques and the complex legal issues they create. Contributors include: W. Banks, G. Corn, E. Crawford, A. Cullen, L. Davies-Bright, G. Gaggioli, R. Geiss, T.D. Gill, R. Heinsch, I.S. Henderson, P. Keane, M. Klamberg, H. Lahmann, J. Liddy, P. Margulies, M.W. Meier, J.D. Ohlin, M. Roorda, J. van Haaster, N. White

In the last two decades, human rights law has played an expanding role in the legal regulation of wartime conduct. In the process, human rights law and international humanitarian law have developed a complicated sibling relationship. For some, this relationship is viewed as a mutually reinforcing effort between like-minded regimes designed to civilize human behavior. For others, the relationship is a more complicated sibling rivalry. In this book, an unparalleled collection of legal theorists examine the relationship between these two bodies of law. Each chapter skilfully maps the possibilities of harmonization while, at the same time, raising cautionary flags about the limits of that project. The authors not only chart the existing state of the law, but also debate the normative implications of the continuing influence of human rights norms on current practices including torture, targeted killings, the conduct of non-international armed conflicts, and post-war state building.

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.

This volume addresses interrogation and torture at a unique moment. Emerging scientific research reveals non-coercive methods to be the most effective interrogation techniques. And efforts are now being made to integrate this science and practice into international law and global policing initiatives. Contributors present cutting-edge research on non-coercive interrogation techniques and show how this knowledge is brought to bear on the realm of international law. Such advancements have the potential to transform the conversation on interrogation and torture in many disciplines, and the contributions in this edited volume are meant to spark those discussions. Moreover, this book can serve as a guide for policymakers who seek lawful, ethical, human-rights compliant-and the most effective-methods to obtain reliable information from those perceived to pose a threat to public safety. To achieve these aims the editors have brought together highly experienced practitioners and leading scholars in law, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, social science, national security, and government.

The war on terror is remaking conventional warfare. The protracted battle against a non-state organization, the demise of the confinement of hostilities to an identifiable battlefield, the extensive involvement of civilian combatants, and the development of new and more precise military technologies have all conspired to require a rethinking of the law and morality of war. Just war theory, as traditionally articulated, seems ill-suited to justify many of the practices of the war on terror. The raid against Osama Bin Laden's Pakistani compound was the highest profile example of this strategy, but the issues raised by this technique cast a far broader net: every week the U.S. military and CIA launch remotely piloted drones to track suspected terrorists in hopes of launching a missile strike against them. In addition to the public condemnation that these attacks have generated in some countries, the legal and moral basis for the use of this technique is problematic. Is the U.S. government correct that nations attacked by terrorists have the right to respond in self-defense by targeting specific terrorists for summary killing? Is there a limit to who can legitimately be placed on the list? There is also widespread disagreement about whether suspected terrorists should be considered combatants subject to the risk of lawful killing under the laws of war or civilians protected by international humanitarian law. Complicating the moral and legal calculus is the fact that innocent bystanders are often killed or injured in these attacks. This book addresses these issues. Featuring chapters by an unrivalled set of experts, it discusses all aspects of targeted killing, making it unmissable reading for anyone interested in the implications of this practice.

The threat posed by the recent rise of transnational non-state armed groups does not fit easily within either of the two basic paradigms for state responses to violence. The civilian paradigm focuses on the interception of demonstrable immediate threats to the safety of others. The military paradigm focuses on threats posed by collective actors who pose a danger to the state's ability to maintain basic social order and, at times, the very existence of the state. While the United States has responded to the threat posed by non-state armed groups by using tools from both paradigms, it has placed substantially more emphasis on the military paradigm than have other states. While several reasons may contribute to this approach, one may be the assumption that a state must use each set of tools strictly according in accordance with the principles that underlie each paradigm. Implicit in this assumption may be the sense that the only alternative to the civilian paradigm is the unqualified military one. The chapters in this book suggest, however that we need not see the options as confined to this binary choice. It may be profitable to consider borrowing elements from each paradigm on some occasions to act more expansively than the conventional civilian paradigm allows, but less expansively than the conventional military paradigm would permit. At the same time, the mixing of the categories comes with its own ethical and legal risks that should be scrutinized.

Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election produced the biggest political scandal in a generation, marking the beginning of an ongoing attack on democracy. In the run-up to the 2020 election, Russia was found to have engaged in more "information operations," a practice that has been increasingly adopted by other countries. In Election Interference, Jens David Ohlin makes the case that these operations violate international law, not as a cyberwar or a violation of sovereignty, but as a profound assault on democratic values protected by the international legal order under the rubric of self-determination. He argues that, in order to confront this new threat to democracy, countries must prohibit outsiders from participating in elections, enhance transparency on social media platforms, and punish domestic actors who solicit foreign interference. This important book should be read by anyone interested in protecting election integrity in our age of social media disinformation.

In the last two decades, human rights law has played an expanding role in the legal regulation of wartime conduct. In the process, human rights law and international humanitarian law have developed a complicated sibling relationship. For some, this relationship is viewed as a mutually reinforcing effort between like-minded regimes designed to civilize human behavior. For others, the relationship is a more complicated sibling rivalry. In this book, an unparalleled collection of legal theorists examine the relationship between these two bodies of law. Each chapter skilfully maps the possibilities of harmonization while, at the same time, raising cautionary flags about the limits of that project. The authors not only chart the existing state of the law, but also debate the normative implications of the continuing influence of human rights norms on current practices including torture, targeted killings, the conduct of non-international armed conflicts, and post-war state building.

The chief means to limit and calculate the costs of war are the philosophical and legal concepts of proportionality and necessity. Both categories are meant to restrain the most horrific potential of war. The volume explores the moral and legal issues in the modern law of war in three major categories. In so doing, the contributions will look for new and innovative approaches to understanding the process of weighing lives implicit in all theories of jus in bello: who counts in war, understanding proportionality, and weighing lives in asymmetric conflicts. These questions arise on multiple levels and require interdisciplinary consideration of both philosophical and legal themes.

Cyber weapons and cyber warfare have become one of the most dangerous innovations of recent years, and a significant threat to national security. Cyber weapons can imperil economic, political, and military systems by a single act, or by multifaceted orders of effect, with wide-ranging potential consequences. Unlike past forms of warfare circumscribed by centuries of just war tradition and Law of Armed Conflict prohibitions, cyber warfare occupies a particularly ambiguous status in the conventions of the laws of war. Furthermore, cyber attacks put immense pressure on conventional notions of sovereignty, and the moral and legal doctrines that were developed to regulate them. This book, written by an unrivalled set of experts, assists in proactively addressing the ethical and legal issues that surround cyber warfare by considering, first, whether the Laws of Armed Conflict apply to cyberspace just as they do to traditional warfare, and second, the ethical position of cyber warfare against the background of our generally recognized moral traditions in armed conflict. The book explores these moral and legal issues in three categories. First, it addresses foundational questions regarding cyber attacks. What are they and what does it mean to talk about a cyber war? The book presents alternative views concerning whether the laws of war should apply, or whether transnational criminal law or some other peacetime framework is more appropriate, or if there is a tipping point that enables the laws of war to be used. Secondly, it examines the key principles of jus in bello to determine how they might be applied to cyber-conflicts, in particular those of proportionality and necessity. It also investigates the distinction between civilian and combatant in this context, and studies the level of causation necessary to elicit a response, looking at the notion of a 'proximate cause'. Finally, it analyses the specific operational realities implicated by particular regulatory regimes. This book is unmissable reading for anyone interested in the impact of cyber warfare on international law and the laws of war.

Cyber weapons and cyber warfare have become one of the most dangerous innovations of recent years, and a significant threat to national security. Cyber weapons can imperil economic, political, and military systems by a single act, or by multifaceted orders of effect, with wide-ranging potential consequences. Unlike past forms of warfare circumscribed by centuries of just war tradition and Law of Armed Conflict prohibitions, cyber warfare occupies a particularly ambiguous status in the conventions of the laws of war. Furthermore, cyber attacks put immense pressure on conventional notions of sovereignty, and the moral and legal doctrines that were developed to regulate them. This book, written by an unrivalled set of experts, assists in proactively addressing the ethical and legal issues that surround cyber warfare by considering, first, whether the Laws of Armed Conflict apply to cyberspace just as they do to traditional warfare, and second, the ethical position of cyber warfare against the background of our generally recognized moral traditions in armed conflict. The book explores these moral and legal issues in three categories. First, it addresses foundational questions regarding cyber attacks. What are they and what does it mean to talk about a cyber war? The book presents alternative views concerning whether the laws of war should apply, or whether transnational criminal law or some other peacetime framework is more appropriate, or if there is a tipping point that enables the laws of war to be used. Secondly, it examines the key principles of jus in bello to determine how they might be applied to cyber-conflicts, in particular those of proportionality and necessity. It also investigates the distinction between civilian and combatant in this context, and studies the level of causation necessary to elicit a response, looking at the notion of a 'proximate cause'. Finally, it analyses the specific operational realities implicated by particular regulatory regimes. This book is unmissable reading for anyone interested in the impact of cyber warfare on international law and the laws of war.

The war on terror is remaking conventional warfare. The protracted battle against a non-state organization, the demise of the confinement of hostilities to an identifiable battlefield, the extensive involvement of civilian combatants, and the development of new and more precise military technologies have all conspired to require a rethinking of the law and morality of war. Just war theory, as traditionally articulated, seems ill-suited to justify many of the practices of the war on terror. The raid against Osama Bin Laden's Pakistani compound was the highest profile example of this strategy, but the issues raised by this technique cast a far broader net: every week the U.S. military and CIA launch remotely piloted drones to track suspected terrorists in hopes of launching a missile strike against them. In addition to the public condemnation that these attacks have generated in some countries, the legal and moral basis for the use of this technique is problematic. Is the U.S. government correct that nations attacked by terrorists have the right to respond in self-defense by targeting specific terrorists for summary killing? Is there a limit to who can legitimately be placed on the list? There is also widespread disagreement about whether suspected terrorists should be considered combatants subject to the risk of lawful killing under the laws of war or civilians protected by international humanitarian law. Complicating the moral and legal calculus is the fact that innocent bystanders are often killed or injured in these attacks. This book addresses these issues. Featuring chapters by an unrivalled set of experts, it discusses all aspects of targeted killing, making it unmissable reading for anyone interested in the implications of this practice.

International law presents a conceptual riddle. Why comply with it when there is no world government to enforce it? The United States has a long history of skepticism towards international law, but 9/11 ushered in a particularly virulent phase of American exceptionalism. Torture became official government policy, President Bush denied that the Geneva Conventions applied to the war against al-Qaeda, and the US drifted away from international institutions like the International Criminal Court and the United Nations.
Although American politicians and their legal advisors are often the public face of this attack, the root of this movement is a coordinated and deliberate attack by law professors hostile to its philosophical foundations, including Eric Posner, Jack Goldsmith, Adrian Vermeule, and John Yoo. In a series of influential writings they have claimed that since states are motivated primarily by self-interest, compliance with international law is nothing more than high-minded talk. Theses abstract arguments then provide a foundation for dangerous legal conclusions: that international law is largely irrelevant to determining how and when terrorists can be captured or killed; that the US President alone should be directing the War on Terror without significant input from Congress or the judiciary; that US courts should not hear lawsuits alleging violations of international law; and that the US should block any international criminal court with jurisdiction over Americans. Put together, these polemical accounts had an enormous impact on how politicians conduct foreign policy and how judges decide cases - ultimately triggering America's pernicious withdrawal from international cooperation.
In The Assault on International Law, Jens Ohlin exposes the mistaken assumptions of these 'New Realists, ' in particular their impoverished utilization of rational choice theory. In contrast, he provides an alternate vision of international law based on a truly innovative theory of human rationality. According to Ohlin, rationality requires that agents follow through on their plans even when faced with opportunities for defection. Seen in this light, international law is the product of nation-states cooperating to escape a brutish State of Nature--a result that is not only legally binding but also in each state's self-interest.

The question of whether new rules or regulations are required to govern, restrict, or even prohibit the use of autonomous weapon systems has been the subject of debate for the better part of a decade. Despite the claims of advocacy groups, the way ahead remains unclear since the international community has yet to agree on a specific definition of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems and the great powers have largely refused to support an effective ban. In this vacuum, the public has been presented with a heavily one-sided view of Killer Robots. This volume presents a more nuanced approach to autonomous weapon systems that recognizes the need to progress beyond a discourse framed by the Terminator and HAL 9000. Re-shaping the discussion around this emerging military innovation requires a new line of thought and a willingness to challenge the orthodoxy. Lethal Autonomous Weapons focuses on exploring the moral and legal issues associated with the design, development and deployment of lethal autonomous weapons. In this volume, we bring together some of the most prominent academics and academic-practitioners in the lethal autonomous weapons space and seek to return some balance to the debate. As part of this effort, we recognize that society needs to invest in hard conversations that tackle the ethics, morality, and law of these new digital technologies and understand the human role in their creation and operation.

The chief means to limit and calculate the costs of war are the philosophical and legal concepts of proportionality and necessity. Both categories are meant to restrain the most horrific potential of war. The volume explores the moral and legal issues in the modern law of war in three major categories. In so doing, the contributions will look for new and innovative approaches to understanding the process of weighing lives implicit in all theories of jus in bello: who counts in war, understanding proportionality, and weighing lives in asymmetric conflicts. These questions arise on multiple levels and require interdisciplinary consideration of both philosophical and legal themes.

Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election produced the biggest political scandal in a generation, marking the beginning of an ongoing attack on democracy. In the run-up to the 2020 election, Russia was found to have engaged in more "information operations," a practice that has been increasingly adopted by other countries. In Election Interference, Jens David Ohlin makes the case that these operations violate international law, not as a cyberwar or a violation of sovereignty, but as a profound assault on democratic values protected by the international legal order under the rubric of self-determination. He argues that, in order to confront this new threat to democracy, countries must prohibit outsiders from participating in elections, enhance transparency on social media platforms, and punish domestic actors who solicit foreign interference. This important book should be read by anyone interested in protecting election integrity in our age of social media disinformation.

Election interference is one of the most widely discussed international phenomena of the last five years. Russian covert interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election elevated the topic into a national priority, but that experience was far from an isolated one. Evidence of election interference by foreign states or their proxies has become a regular feature of national elections and is likely to get worse in the near future. Information and communication technologies afford those who would interfere with new tools that can operate in ways previously unimaginable: Twitter bots, Facebook advertisements, closed social media platforms, algorithms that prioritize extreme views, disinformation, misinformation, and malware that steals secret campaign communications. Defending Democracies examines the problem through an interdisciplinary lens and focuses on: (i) defining the problem of foreign election interference, (ii) exploring the solutions that international law might bring to bear, and (iii) considering alternative regulatory frameworks for understanding and addressing the problem. The result is a deeply urgent examination of an old problem on social media steroids, one that implicates the most central institution of liberal democracy: elections. The volume seeks to bring domestic and international perspectives on elections and election law into conversation with other disciplinary frameworks, escaping the typical biases of lawyers who prefer international legal solutions for issues of international relations. Taken together, the chapters in this volume represent a more faithful representation of the broad array of solutions that might be deployed, including international and domestic, legal and extra-legal, ambitious and cautious.