Dustin Lewis

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Dustin A. Lewis is the Research Director for Harvard Law School’s Program on International Law and Armed Conflict. He is also an Associate Senior Researcher in the Armament and Disarmament Cluster of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

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International Law

Counterterrorism and Humanitarian Action: Will 2020 Be a Turning Point for International Humanitarian Law at the United Nations?

Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict has released a new briefing on an emerging debate: Can and should a U.N. counterterrorism body authoritatively interpret and assess compliance with international humanitarian law?

International Law

Silence and the Use of Force in International Law

Editor's Note: This piece is crossposted on Lawfare and EJIL:Talk!

States frequently take actions and make statements that implicate international law. But because they do not—and, indeed, could not—express a view on each such act or statement by all other states at all times, silence seems to be the norm, rather than the exception, in international relations.

Artificial Intelligence

The Pentagon’s New Algorithmic-Warfare Team

In April 2017, the Pentagon created an “Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team,” pending a transfer of $70 million from Congress. The premise of this initiative is that maintaining a qualitative edge in war will increasingly require harnessing algorithmic systems that underpin artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

International Law

New Database of States’ Approaches to Use of Force Concerning Syria

Under what conditions may a state lawfully intervene—or otherwise act—in relation to armed conflict in Syria? In support of or against whom? In this context, how do states frame their approaches to acting (or not acting)? What legal arguments (if any) are embedded in those statements? Do those arguments comport with or contravene—or even seek to modify—existing international law? On which of the underlying legal issues do states agree or disagree? And what implications might those arguments entail for other conflicts?

International Law: LOAC

Indefinite War

We just entered the second year of a purported “era of persistent conflict” forecasted to extend to 2028. In that context, does it really matter if we can tell that a particular war has definitively concluded? Who gets to decide, and who should decide, how to calibrate a legal test to authoritatively determine the end of armed conflict?