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No description available.

The Nuremberg Judgment on the leaders of Nazi Germany proclaimed ‘crimes against peace’ – the planning and waging of aggressive wars – to be ‘the supreme international crime’.  This charge was premised on two innovative ideas: that aggressive war was a crime, and that individuals could be held responsible for it. Although heralded as an historic milestone at the time, it turned out to be a transient legal anomaly.  At the Nuremberg Tribunal, the number of acquittals, coupled with the relative leniency of the sentences, indicated the judges’ unease about convicting on the basis of ‘crimes against peace’.  At the Tokyo Tribunal, some judges questioned the validity of the charge and filed dissents.  Legal observers, meanwhile, were outspoken in their criticisms, and argued that it was an ex post facto enactment, selectively applied. Aside from retroactivity and selectivity, the main difficulty arose from the internal contradictions within the charge itself, which rendered it unsustainable as a component of international law.  On jurisdiction, it enhanced the sovereignty of nations by protecting them against aggression, while simultaneously undermining sovereignty by subjecting leaders to international law.  On enforcement, while judicialising punishment after the event, it simultaneously de-legitimised both aggression and attempts to prevent it.  These weaknesses were confirmed by the failure of ‘crimes against peace’ to become part of customary international law. If the Rome Statute is amended to include ‘crime of aggression’ within the International Criminal Court’s operative remit, these latter problems are likely to occur.

Journalists reporting from conflict zones are increasingly at risk of injury or death. Not only are they at risk of becoming a casualty in the crossfire, they are now often directly targeted and killed because of their profession. The legal framework protecting journalists in conflict zones consists predominantly of International Humanitarian Law, supplemented by International Human Rights Law and International Criminal Law. The main body of law providing protection to journalists consists of the Geneva Conventions and their additional Protocols, which are now several decades old. Since their drafting, there have been significant changes in the way we conduct wars, as well as in the way journalists operate and report from conflict zones. This raises the question whether this legal framework is still suitable for the protection of journalists in contemporary conflicts. This thesis confirms that the legal framework contains, at least in theory, a significant number of provisions that continue to provide protection for journalists in conflict zones. What is clear, however, is that there are significant differences in the protection awarded to journalists based on the type of journalist, for example whether they are embedded or function independently in conflict zones, the type of conflict they are covering and even their nationality. The result is a rather complicated legal framework that is not always easy to apply in practice. It has been argued by the International Committee of the Red Cross, a view also reflected in most of the academic literature, that the protection offered by the current legal framework is adequate, but that the enforcement of it is lacking. This is considered the predominant reason why journalists reporting on conflicts currently face such significant risks to their safety. While this is clearly part of the problem, this thesis challenges the notion that the legal framework provides all necessary protection and that only through stronger enforcement can protection be increased. In particular, it suggests that this ignores the effect that clarity and the comprehensiveness of the framework can have on enforcement. Having explored the gaps and limitations in the existing law, this thesis sets out the case for introducing a dedicated convention for the protection of journalists in conflict zones in order to clarify and streamline the current legal framework.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / In 1998, 120 members of the United Nations adopted a treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, designed to address issues such as war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. The United States, in cooperation with its European allies, was instrumental in bringing this treaty about. In the end, however, it felt compelled to withdraw its signature, an unusual step signifying a high level of dissatisfaction with the structure and competency of the Court. This thesis argues that, while the United States maintains good relations with Europe, its abandonment of the ICC has constituted a major setback to Euro-American relations, and entailed a loss of face among the international community as a whole. Even as the United States has stood aloof from the Court, fearing that its soldiers and officials could face politically motivated trials, Europeans have continued their vigorous efforts to make the ICC a success. The United States and Europe are now on opposing sides on a major issue of international criminal justice. This has already caused tensions over internationally sanctioned peacekeeping troops, and has the potential to further disrupt the Euro-American partnership, above all in the military sphere. / Lieutenant, United States Navy

This dissertation addresses the rarely examined issue of disqualification of weapons from the battlefields. Most literature in International Relations and War studies take for granted the fact that weapons disappear from the battlefield due to their lack of tactical/strategical utility or because of their relative cost/efficiency vis-à-vis available alternative. This study challenges the rational character of these answers, arguing that they do not fully capture what explains variations in states weapons utilization. It suggests that, contrary to what these common views assume, laws of war play a crucial role in states decisions to use or not a weapon. More specifically, the core principles of laws of war are deeply rooted in military culture and underpin common representations of war. Therefore, perceptions of what laws of war should ban or allow (conceptualized as the notion of “fighting justly”) constitute the normative framework which underpins tactical, strategic, cost effective decisions with regards to weapons utilization. As such, the laws of war range of effects are wider than what is suggested by the dichotomic notion of “compliance”. Moreover, because the key principles of laws of war are profoundly ambiguous, their effects have greatly varied depending on how they have been understood over time, actors and levels (national, international, transnational). Through a carefully crafted historical account combining tools borrowed to ethics, security studies, sociology, phenomenology and anthropology, this dissertation retraces the different conceptions of fighting justly that have prevailed over the twentieth century and demonstrates how they highlight the trajectory of three weapons: chemical weapons, incendiary weapons, unarmed aerial vehicles. It thus presents an innovative re-reading of the impact of laws of war in states weapons utilization, and a more nuanced understanding of why certain weapon disappear from the battlefield.

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No description available.

This thesis makes the case for eliminating the distinction between types of armed conflict under international humanitarian law (IHL). Currently, IHL makes the distinction between international and non-international armed conflicts. International armed conflicts are regulated by more treaties than their non-international counterparts. Furthermore, the regulation of international armed conflicts is also considerably more comprehensive than that offered for participants in and victims of non-international armed conflicts. This bifurcation of the law was logical at the time the Geneva Conventions of 1949 were drafted and adopted, as the majority of armed conflicts prior to that point had been international in character. However, in the years following the adoption of the Conventions, there has been a proliferation of non-international armed conflicts, which presents challenges to a body of law that has few tools to adequately address such occurrences. The adoption of the Additional Protocols in 1977 went some way to addressing the legal lacunae that existed, but significant gaps still remain. Mindful this history, this thesis tracks the growth and evolution of the laws of armed conflict in the modern era, since the first document of the laws of war produced for the American Civil War. In doing so, this thesis demonstrates how the law of armed conflict has become increasingly harmonised in its application, with more rules of IHL being generally applicable in all instances of armed conflict, regardless of characterisation. This thesis then makes the argument that the time has come for the final step to be taken, the elimination of the distinction between types of armed conflict, and the complete harmonisation of the laws of war. Focusing specifically on the issue of combatants and POWs in armed conflicts, this thesis draws on considerable legal precedent, legal theory, and policy arguments to make the case that it is time for the law relating to the regulation of armed conflicts to be more uniformly applied.

Thesis (L.L.M.)--Georgetown University, Law Center, 2001. / "30 April 2001." Includes bibliographical references. Also available via the Internet.