Geoffrey S. Corn

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Geoffrey S. Corn is the George R. Killam Jr. Chair of Criminal Law at the Texas Tech University School of Law and Director at the Center for Military Law & Policy. Prior to that, he served as Professor of Law at South Texas College of Law Houston and Distinguished Fellow of the Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy. Professor Corn served in the U.S. Army for 21 years as an officer, and a final year as s civilian legal advisor, retiring in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Professor Corn’s teaching and scholarship focuses on the law of armed conflict, national security law, criminal law and procedure, and prosecutorial ethics. He has appeared an expert witness at the Military Commission in Guantanamo, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and in federal court. He is the lead author of The Law of Armed Conflict: An Operational Perspective, and The Laws of War and the War on Terror, and National Security Law and Policy: a Student Treatise.

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Israel-Palestine

The Flawed Human Rights Watch Report on Gaza

Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently released a report accusing both Hamas and the Israeli government of committing war crimes regarding an incident in May 2019. During these hostilities, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) struck 350 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza after those groups launched roughly 690 rocket attacks into Israel. HRW’s report claims that both sides unlawfully attacked civilians during the hostilities.

International Law: Self-Defense

The Aborted Iran Strike: The Fine Line Between Necessity and Revenge

The president announced on June 21 that he had called off a potential U.S. military strike on Iran in response to Iran’s shootdown of a U.S. Navy remotely piloted vehicle (RPV). The strike, according to the president, could have incurred casualties of as high as 150 people—information that has sparked discussion over the proportionality of such a response under international law. Before jumping to this debate, however, there is another issue that needs to be considered first: the question of necessity.