Latest in International Law: LOAC
When does customary international law permit an adversary to attack the U.S. in a neutral defense partner's territory?
In the past decade, proxy warfare has become a major challenge to global stability. What are the gaps in the current toolkit to regulate proxy wars?
President Trump has doubled down on his threat to bomb Iranian cultural sites if Iran attacks the United States in response to the killing of Qassem Soleimani. Administration officials should affirm publicly that the United States will comply with its legal obligations during armed conflicts.
The president’s use of his Article II power to pardon war crimes raises fundamental issues of the rule of law.
Focusing on the weapon, and not how it is being used, muddies the law and facts surrounding the circumstances in which a war crime may have occurred.
The post below is the latest installment in Lawfare’s tradition of posting short pieces inspired by the annual Transatlantic Dialogues on International Law and Armed Conflict.
The post below is the latest installment in Lawfare’s tradition of posting short pieces inspired by the annual Transatlantic Dialogues on International Law and Armed Conflict.
The General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense, Hon. Paul C. Ney Jr., delivered the below keynote address at the Israel Defense Forces 3rd International Conference on the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) today.
Amid a massive exchange of rocket fire and airstrikes between Israel and both Hamas and Islamic Jihad this weekend, Hamas attempted a cyber operation against an unspecified civilian target in Israel. The operation failed, and in its aftermath the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out an airstrike that destroyed the building housing Hamas’s cyber capability. Some observers are citing the incident as an important—and perhaps dangerous—precedent. Others are questioning the legality of the strike itself. Both these views are misplaced.
Context
I think the question of whether the U.N. Charter is law is misleading or meaningless or both, for reasons that I hope this post will make apparent. But now that I have your attention, I want to sketch a few thoughts about the varied reactions to the airstrikes in Syria by the United States, Great Britain, and France.