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,...

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, as the US drifted away from international institutions and conventions.

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

A theoretical examination of the tense and uncertain relationship between the laws of war and human rights law.