This thesis is an analysis based on the problem of defining a humanitarian intervention and argues when or not, it is appropriate to operate it. The interest lies in finding out whether the argument itself is justifiable,not whether the act of interference was justifiable. My hypothesis is that both private and international operatios misuse the definition "humanitarian interventions" as an excuse to trespass the laws of war. Behind the idea of protecting human rights, freedom and democracy, is the liberalist idea of all individuals being equal. The respect for their freedom and rights drives outside actors to intervene when crimes are comitted against them. I wished to discuss Nato's argument for "the Right to Intervene" in order to avoid ahumanitarian crises in Kosovo 1999. I intended to try the intellectual validity and reasoning behind their argument but it was more difficult than I'd expected. Because the sources to their statements were inconclusive, the conclusion turned out to be difficult to assess, though there is a vague idea of Nato's point of view being unreasonable in comparison to their actions.

abstract: Since 9/11 a wide range of violent practices including indefinite detention, torture, and targeted killing have been employed by the United States and the "international community" against "international terrorism." Modern laws of war are portrayed as the bright line that distinguishes the "international community" from "unlawful combatants." The threat posed by unlawful combatants has been portrayed as so exceptionally grave that the international community is justified in the transgression of those very laws of war that constitute the distinction between "us" and "them." In consequence the efficacy of modern laws of war to provide humanitarian protections has been cast into doubt and many characterize humanitarian laws of war as obsolete. Existing work on the politics of exception and the exclusion of Guantánamo Bay detainees from US federal law does not frame the problem of the exception in terms of international law. Though many consider the prerequisites for politics of exception absent in the international system, I argue that a dispersed notion of sovereignty and constructivist approaches to law resolve obstacles to considering the exception at the level of the state system. I explore system level exceptional politics through a critical reading of modern laws of war. Rejecting essentialist historical narratives, I first conduct a genealogical study of laws of war from ancient Greece through the Middle Ages. I then conduct a critical reading of three texts from the War on Terrorism; Barack Obama's 2009 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, John Brennan's "The Ethics and Efficacy of the President's Counterterrorism Strategy," and Medea Benjamin's interruption of John Brennan. I argue that modern narratives of war law venerate codification and textually privilege a "mystical" figure of modern law. This figure empowers a universalized "international community" as law's privileged agent. Violence employed by this archetypal community, even when outside the law, is rendered ethically pure and historically necessary. In consequence modern humanitarian law as a bright line always permits excluded archetypal identities and vast powers of violence are mobilized by the "international community" against discrete individual human bodies who are identified with this excluded archetype, or who simply find themselves in the way. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Political Science 2014

Pourquoi certaines armes disparaissent des champs de bataille tandis que d’autres ne cessent d’y être déployées? Afin de répondre à cette question, notre travail entreprend d’analyser sous un angle inédit l’influence du droit de la guerre (jus in bello) dans le choix des acteurs (gouvernements et militaires) d’utiliser une arme plutôt qu’une autre. Plus précisément, il s’attache à démontrer que les perceptions collectives de ce que proscrit ou autorise le droit de la guerre concernant les conditions d’utilisation des armes (conceptualisées sous le nom de meta-norme du « combattre justement ») est décisif dans la manière qu’ont les acteurs d’appréhender, évaluer et utiliser leur armement. A travers l’analyse des trajectoires de trois armes différentes (armes chimiques, armes incendiaires et drones de combat) fondée sur des données objectives, archives et sources secondaires, nous démontrons que chacun des pics significatifs de l’utilisation de ces armes s’explique aussi par des changements importants dans les perceptions collectives du « combattre justement ». Ainsi, les acteurs cessent d’utiliser leurs armes, ou prétendent cesser, quand ils ne parviennent plus à justifier et démontrer que leur utilisation s’accorde avec leurs perceptions collectives du « combattre justement », et vice versa. In fine, notre travail démontre que la guerre demeure un processus de justification continu, et, parce que les perceptions du combattre justement forment le socle de ces justifications, elles sont décisives pour comprendre le choix des pratiques de guerre. En second lieu, parce que les perceptions collectives du combattre justement sont décisives pour comprendre les pratiques de guerre, notre travail s’intéresse à leur formation. Il démontre que les acteurs sont plus enclins à imposer leur propre perception comme étant la plus légitime lorsque leur argumentaire perpétue un ordre symbolique dominant et ne révèle pas les fondamentales contradictions inhérentes au droit de la guerre. Ainsi, notre travail propose d’analyser sous un nouvel angle l’impact du droit de la guerre, mais aussi celui des argumentaires et des symboles dans les pratiques de guerre. / The dissertation investigates why certain weapons continue, or cease to be employed on the battlefields. Employing an interpretivist perspective, it investigates an aspect largely overlooked by the extant literature: the impact of the meta-norm of 'fighting justly' on actors' weapons utilizations. The meta-norm of fighting justly is defined as the collective preconceptions shared by actors, on how and when the extant laws of war (jus in bello) either ban or allow weapons utilization. My work reveals that the significant shift in the utilization of three weapons (chemical weapons, incendiary weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles) can be explained by shifts in the dominant perceptions of the meta-norm of fighting justly. It is when actors believe that they cannot justify their weapons utilization with regards to their own meta-norm of fighting justly, that they decrease (or pretend to decrease by hiding) this utilization, or vice versa. In fine, when engaged in a war, militaries and states constantly seek to justify their actions, and the basis of these justifications is their understanding of the meta-norm of fighting justly. Because the meta-norm of fighting justly impacts on weapons variations, it is crucial to understand who shapes the norm, at the international level. My work reveals that states are engaged in a constant argument, where they defend, articulate and promote their own conception of fighting justly. In this 'battle for legitimacy', states are more likely to enshrine their own conception as the most legitimate one, under two conditions: namely, when their argument does not disrupt the extant symbolic order, and when it does not foster the inherent contradictions of the laws of war. Ultimately, this work aims to shed new light on how the laws of war influence practices of war. It also explores and provides new insights into the 'logic of arguing' and into the symbolic power in international relations.

Machine ethics is a field of applied ethics that has grown rapidly in the last decade. Increasingly advanced autonomous robots have expanded the focus of machine ethics from issues regarding the ethical development and use of technology by humans to a focus on ethical dimensions of the machines themselves. This thesis contains two essays, both about robots in some sense, representing these different perspectives of machine ethics. The first essay, “Is it Morally Right to use UAVs in War?” concerns an example of robots today, namely the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) used in war, and the ethics surrounding the use of such robots. In this essay it is argued that UAVs might affect how the laws of war (LOW) are interpreted, and that there might be need for additional rules surrounding the use of UAVs. This represents the more traditional approach of machine ethics, focusing on the decisions of humans regarding the use of such robots. The second essay, “The Functional Morality of Robots”, concerns the robots of the future – the potential moral agency of robots. The suggestion in this essay is that robots should be considered moral agents if they can pass a moral version of the Turing Test. This represents the new focus of machine ethics: machine morality, or more precisely, machine agency. / <p>QC 20110414</p>

Sverige har genom åren ratificierat en mängd internationella traktater inom folkrättens område som gäller vid krig och konflikt. Enligt Totalförsvarets folkrättsförordning ska de bevakningsansvariga myndigheterna ha kunskap om folkrättens regelverk i krig. Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap har till uppgift att erbjuda utbildning i det folkrättsliga regelverket i krig till dessa myndigheter. Denna uppsats ämnar därför undersöka hur denna folkrättsliga utbildning ser ut och hur väl den implementeras i enlighet med det som står i Totalförsvarets folkrättsförordning.

<p>Obemannade flygplan med attackförmåga (UCAV) används i allt större utsträckning i konflikter idag. En av de främsta fördelarna med dessa är att det inte finns någon risk att mista en pilot, då dessa är fjärstyrda. I attacker utförda av amerikanska UCAV:er i framför allt Afghanistan och Pakistan, har collateral damage inträffat vid ett flertal tillfällen. Det innebär att civila oavsiktligt fallit offer för attacker. Enligt krigets lagar kan sådana händelser rättfärdigas av att militär nödvändighet föreligger, men det är tveksamt om det går att hävda det när man inte riskerar egna förluster. Detta innebär i så fall att collateral damage alltid är krigsbrott när det orsakats av UCAV. Då är det viktigt att det går att utkräva ansvar ur obemannade system och det finns farhågor att ansvarsförhållandena blir otydligare när det inte sitter en pilot i flygplanet som ”trycker på knappen”. Men så länge den obemannade farkosten fjärrstyrs och besluten tas av en människa går det inte att se några skillnader i möjligheten till ansvarsutkrävande från bemannade system.</p> / <p>The use of Unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) has seen an increasing use in modern conflicts. One of the main advantages of these is the fact that there is no risk of losing a pilot, as the aircraft are remote-controlled. The attacks carried out by U.S. UCAVs in Afghanistan and Pakistan have resultet in a number of incients with collateral damage. According to the laws of war, only military necessity can justify such incidents and it is highly doubtful if you can claim such necessity when you do not risk any loss of life yourself. This would mean that collateral damage caused by UCAVs automatically becomes a war crime. This raises the issue of accountability and wether it is possible to extract such from unmanned systems. There are fears that this would be difficult when no pilot is present in the aircraft to ”pull the trigger”. However, as long as operators remotely control the unmanned aircraft and the decision to release weapons in anger are made by humans, there are no differences to be found in terms of accountability between manned and unmanned systems.</p>

Obemannade flygplan med attackförmåga (UCAV) används i allt större utsträckning i konflikter idag. En av de främsta fördelarna med dessa är att det inte finns någon risk att mista en pilot, då dessa är fjärstyrda. I attacker utförda av amerikanska UCAV:er i framför allt Afghanistan och Pakistan, har collateral damage inträffat vid ett flertal tillfällen. Det innebär att civila oavsiktligt fallit offer för attacker. Enligt krigets lagar kan sådana händelser rättfärdigas av att militär nödvändighet föreligger, men det är tveksamt om det går att hävda det när man inte riskerar egna förluster. Detta innebär i så fall att collateral damage alltid är krigsbrott när det orsakats av UCAV. Då är det viktigt att det går att utkräva ansvar ur obemannade system och det finns farhågor att ansvarsförhållandena blir otydligare när det inte sitter en pilot i flygplanet som ”trycker på knappen”. Men så länge den obemannade farkosten fjärrstyrs och besluten tas av en människa går det inte att se några skillnader i möjligheten till ansvarsutkrävande från bemannade system. / The use of Unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) has seen an increasing use in modern conflicts. One of the main advantages of these is the fact that there is no risk of losing a pilot, as the aircraft are remote-controlled. The attacks carried out by U.S. UCAVs in Afghanistan and Pakistan have resultet in a number of incients with collateral damage. According to the laws of war, only military necessity can justify such incidents and it is highly doubtful if you can claim such necessity when you do not risk any loss of life yourself. This would mean that collateral damage caused by UCAVs automatically becomes a war crime. This raises the issue of accountability and wether it is possible to extract such from unmanned systems. There are fears that this would be difficult when no pilot is present in the aircraft to ”pull the trigger”. However, as long as operators remotely control the unmanned aircraft and the decision to release weapons in anger are made by humans, there are no differences to be found in terms of accountability between manned and unmanned systems.

The overall aim of this thesis is to look at some philosophical issues surrounding autonomous systems in society and war. These issues can be divided into three main categories. The first, discussed in papers I and II, concerns ethical issues surrounding the use of autonomous systems – where the focus in this thesis is on military robots. The second issue, discussed in paper III, concerns how to make sure that advanced robots behave ethically adequate. The third issue, discussed in papers IV and V, has to do with agency and responsibility. Another issue, somewhat aside from the philosophical, has to do with coping with future technologies, and developing methods for dealing with potentially disruptive technologies. This is discussed in papers VI and VII. Paper I systemizes some ethical issues surrounding the use of UAVs in war, with the laws of war as a backdrop. It is suggested that the laws of war are too wide and might be interpreted differently depending on which normative moral theory is used. Paper II is about future, more advanced autonomous robots, and whether the use of such robots can undermine the justification for killing in war. The suggestion is that this justification is substantially undermined if robots are used to replace humans to a high extent. Papers I and II both suggest revisions or additions to the laws or war. Paper III provides a discussion on one normative moral theory – ethics of care – connected to care robots. The aim is twofold: first, to provide a plausible and ethically relevant interpretation of the key term care in ethics of care, and second, to discuss whether ethics of care may be a suitable theory to implement in care robots. Paper IV discusses robots connected to agency and responsibility, with a focus on consciousness. The paper has a functionalistic approach, and it is suggested that robots should be considered agents if they can behave as if they are, in a moral Turing test. Paper V is also about robots and agency, but with a focus on free will. The main question is whether robots can have free will in the same sense as we consider humans to have free will when holding them responsible for their actions in a court of law. It is argued that autonomy with respect to norms is crucial for the agency of robots. Paper VI investigates the assessment of socially disruptive technological change. The coevolution of society and potentially disruptive technolgies makes decision-guidance on such technologies difficult. Four basic principles are proposed for such decision guidance, involving interdisciplinary and participatory elements. Paper VII applies the results from paper VI – and a workshop – to autonomous systems, a potentially disruptive technology. A method for dealing with potentially disruptive technolgies is developed in the paper. / <p>QC 20130911</p>

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Zürich, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [507]-550) and index.

Le XVIe siècle est souvent perçu comme un temps de massacres motivés par les haines confessionnelles, une litanie de carnages et d’exactions à laquelle succéderait, à partir des années 1650 une culture de la reddition honorable, une guerre réglée et limitée caractérisée par une nette amélioration du sort des vaincus. Une humanisation de la guerre se donnerait à lire au travers d’une codification des procédures de capitulation et de reddition des places. Ce travail, suivant les pistes ouvertes par l’anthropologie historique, questionne cette vision caractéristique d’une déréalisation de la guerre pour montrer que la reddition honorable émerge précocement et ne constitue jamais qu’un idéal toujours soumis aux intérêts des belligérants. Mobile de la clémence, l’intérêt est également celui de la rigueur. Tout au long des XVIe et XVIIe siècles, la reddition reste un risque pour l’honneur et la vie des vaincus. Cette histoire de la reddition entend déconstruire le mythe déréalisant de la «guerre en dentelles» pour rappeler que les guerres du règne de Louis XIV ne sont pas le théâtre d’une limitation de la violence. / The XVIth century is often perceived as an era of religious driven massacres, a litany of carnage and exactions directly followed, from 1650 onward, by reversing habits of honourable capitulation, a closely regulated and restricted warfare characterized by a great improvement in the fate of the defeated. A humanization of the war would show through a codification of the surrending procedures and the transfer of forteresses. This essay investigates this derealizing vision of warfare, based on historical anthropology’s theoretical leads. It shows that honourable capitulation come about earlier on as an ideal led by the interest of belligerent parties. These interests appear as a major motive for both leniency and rigorousness. All along the XVIth and XVIIth cent., capitulation stands as a risk for the honor and life of the losers. This history of capitulation intends to deconstruct the derealizing myth of chivalrous and limited warfare, to recall the fact that wars under the reign of Louis XIV often led to repeated acts of unleashed violence.