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Artificial intelligence (AI) decision-support systems significantly impact how States make warfare decisions, conduct hostilities, and whether they comply with international humanitarian law. Decision-support systems, even if they do not autonomously execute targets, can play a critical role in the long chain of human-machine and machine-machine decision-making infrastructure, thus contributing to the co-production of hostilities.Due to a lack of a definition of the treaty terms weapons, means or methods of warfare, it is unclear whether non-weaponized AI decision-support systems should be subjected to a legal review prescribed by Article 36 of the Additional Protocol I. It remains a challenge to determine exactly what should be subjected to review beyond weapons.This chapter suggests that based on the following four criteria it can be determined whether an item should be subjected to a legal review: (i) it poses a challenge to the application of international humanitarian law; (ii) it is integral to military decision-making; (iii) it has a significant impact on military operations; (iv) and it contributes to critical offensive capabilities. These four criteria are derived from a detailed analysis of the conceptualization of the terms weapons, means or methods of warfare by states. If an item meets all four criteria, it should not be deployed without the issue of legality being explored with care.By applying the legal review to AI decision-support systems, States fulfil the duty to observe international humanitarian law in decision-making and mitigate risks to unlawful conduct in warfare. The author further promotes the conceptualization of Article 36 as a review of technologies of warfare.

The purpose of the Year in Review is to provide readers with an overview of events that took place in 2020 with significant relevance to international humanitarian law (IHL) and international criminal law (ICL). These events include: (i) an outlook on ongoing hostilities and related developments, including the analysis of their classification as international (IAC) and/or non-international armed conflicts (NIAC); (ii) a summary of relevant proceedings and decisions by international courts and tribunals as well as those of national courts under the principle of universal jurisdiction, and (iii) an overview of developments, including the status of relevant treaties, regarding conventional and non-conventional arms control and disarmament, and weaponization of the outer space.

This chapter describes the relationship between climate change and security. Successive reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have provided growing evidence of the impacts of climate change. Climate change can affect human well-being in terms of access to water, food, energy, and land, as well as in terms of risks to human health. Thus, climate change is seen as a driver of other socio-ecological problems worldwide. Climate change is also seen as a risk and threat multiplier, as it can exacerbate existing challenges faced by States, including poor governance institutions and poverty. However, climate change policy could potentially be a ‘threat minimizer’ if mitigation and adaptation measures are integrated into the development paradigm. Against this background, the chapter addresses the following issue: What is the nature of the security debate raised by the climate change issue and how is this being addressed within scholarly, policy, and legal fora? It looks at the different ways in which security has been defined in the literature and its diverse implications for law and policy.

Advances in quantum technologies have made canonical experiments, such as the Hanbury-Brown-Twiss interferometer, common in state-of-the-art optics labs. Here we demonstrate a path towards an open-source low-cost single-photon HBT-interferometer, targeted at the photonic maker-community.

Lithium niobate is an excellent and widely used material for nonlinear frequency conversion due to its strong optical nonlinearity and broad transparency region. Here, we report the fabrication and experimental investigation of resonant nonlinear metasurfaces for second-harmonic generation based on thin-film lithium niobate. In the fabricated metasurfaces, we observe pronounced Mie-type resonances leading to enhanced second-harmonic generation in the direction normal to the metasurface. We find the largest second-harmonic generation efficiency for the resonance dominated by the electric contributions because its specific field distribution enables the most efficient usage of the largest element of the lithium niobate nonlinear susceptibility tensor. This is confirmed by polarization-resolved second-harmonic measurements, where we study contributions from different elements of the nonlinear susceptibility tensor to the total second-harmonic signal. Our work facilitates establishing lithium niobate as a material for resonant nanophotonics.

The main theme of this volume of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law is the development and interpretation of international humanitarian law (IHL). It is elaborated upon in several chapters that examine the role of non-state armed groups in the development and interpretation of IHL, the impact of international criminal law on the development of IHL, the notion of external non-international armed conflicts, and the regulation of prolonged occupation under international law. The second theme of this volume is dedicated to targeting in armed conflicts. Specific topics include precautions in attack in urban and siege warfare, the targeting of the Islamic State’s religious personnel in Iraq and Syria, and the targeting of illicit crops through aerial spraying in Colombia. Besides the chapters that address both themes, this volume also contains a Year in Review describing the most important events and legal developments that took place in 2017. The Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law is the world’s only annual publication devoted to the study of the laws governing armed conflict. It provides a truly international forum for high-quality, peer-reviewed academic articles focusing on this crucial branch of international law. Distinguished by contemporary relevance, the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law bridges the gap between theory and practice and serves as a useful reference tool for scholars, practitioners, military personnel, civil servants, diplomats, human rights workers and students.

The Study Group on the Conduct of Hostilities in the 21st Century (hereinafter the SG) was established in 2011 and conducted its first meeting in Sofia in 2012. It conducted a workshop in Leiden in November 2013. During this workshop, three general topics were explored. These were the relationship of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and International Human Rights Law in the conduct of military operations, technological challenges posed by new weapons systems and the function of the basic principles of IHL in the conduct of hostilities. An interim report on these topics was published and presented at the April 2014 Washington D.C. joint meeting of the ILA and the American Society of International Law. These topics were discussed further at a subsequent workshop held in Berlin at the Freie Universität in November of the same year. Attention was also devoted to the relationship of IHL with general international law and the place of IHL within the legal ‘pluriverse’ surrounding modern multinational military operations. The SG was unable to arrive at a consensus on a number of issues which arose, but the discussions were nevertheless extremely useful in highlighting some of the central questions related to the conduct of hostilities and focusing attention on the core area of the mandate; the legal challenges within IHL relating to the conduct of hostilities. It was decided in Berlin to refocus the work of the SG and the final report on those challenges and leave the broader questions of how IHL relates to other bodies of international law to further exploration in other forums.

The Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law is an authoritative peer reviewed annual publication with articles specially focused on current developments in the law of armed conflict, current armed conflicts and the interrelationship of IHL with other bodies of law and other disciplines.

The Study Group on the Conduct of Hostilities in the 21st Century (hereinafter the SG) was established in 2011 and conducted its first meeting in Sofia in 2012. It conducted a workshop in Leiden in November 2013. During this workshop, three general topics were explored. These were the relationship of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and International Human Rights Law in the conduct of military operations, technological challenges posed by new weapons systems and the function of the basic principles of IHL in the conduct of hostilities. An interim report on these topics was published and presented at the April 2014 Washington D.C. joint meeting of the ILA and the American Society of International Law. These topics were discussed further at a subsequent workshop held in Berlin at the Freie Universität in November of the same year. Attention was also devoted to the relationship of IHL with general international law and the place of IHL within the legal ‘pluriverse’ surrounding modern multinational military operations. The SG was unable to arrive at a consensus on a number of issues which arose, but the discussions were nevertheless extremely useful in highlighting some of the central questions related to the conduct of hostilities and focusing attention on the core area of the mandate; the legal challenges within IHL relating to the conduct of hostilities. It was decided in Berlin to refocus the work of the SG and the final report on those challenges and leave the broader questions of how IHL relates to other bodies of international law to further exploration in other forums.

Graph transformation provides an intuitive mechanism for capturing model transformations. In the current paper, we investigate and compare various graph transformation tools using a compact practical model transformation case study carried out as part of the AGTIVE 2007 Tool Contest [22]. The aim of this case study is to generate formal CSP processes from high-level UML activity diagrams, which enables to carry out mathematical analysis of the system under design.

Nonlinear optical nanoscale waveguides are a compact and powerful platform for efficient wavelength conversion. The free-standing waveguide geometry opens a range of applications in microscopy for local delivery of light, where in situ wavelength conversion helps to overcome various wavelength-dependent issues, such as biological tissue damage. In this paper, we present an original patterning method for high-precision fabrication of free-standing nanoscale waveguides based on lithium niobate, a material with a strong second-order nonlinearity and a broad transparency window covering the visible and mid-infrared wavelength ranges. The fabrication process combines electron-beam lithography with ion-beam enhanced etching and produces nanowaveguides with lengths from 5 to 50 mu m, widths from 50 to 1000 nm and heights from 50 to 500 nm, each with a precision of few nanometers. The fabricated nanowaveguides are tested in an optical characterization experiment showing efficient second-harmonic generation.

A 44-year-old farmer had respiratory symptoms and bibasilar pulmonary infiltrates after three exposures to a new biologic forage inoculant. Open lung biopsy revealed chronic interstitial pneumonitis and bronchiolitis obliterans with organizing pneumonia. The patient responded to oral corticosteroids but acutely worsened after an inadvertent reexposure to the forage inoculant. He later recovered, with return of lung function and chest radiograph toward normal. This case suggests that biologic forage inoculants may be associated with hypersensitivity pneumonitis.

While the rules of the jus in bello are generally operative in cyberspace, it appears to be problematic to apply the fundamental principle of distinction because of the systemic interconnection of military and civilian infrastructure in the cyber realm. In this regard, the application of the accepted legal definition of military objectives will make various components of the civilian cyber infrastructure a legitimate military objective. In order to avoid serious repercussions for the civilian population that might follow from this inherent interconnectedness, different concepts are analysed that could provide potential solutions for a clearer separation of legitimate military targets and protected civilian installations and networks. The approaches discussed range from the exemption of central cyber infrastructure components that serve important civilian functions, to the creation of ‘digital safe havens’ and possible precautionary obligations regarding the segregation of military and civilian networks. As a solution, the authors propose a dynamic interpretation of the wording ‘damage to civilian objects’ within the principle of proportionality of Article 51(5)(b) of Additional Protocol I, an interpretation that would comprise the degradation of the functionality of systems that serve important civilian functions.

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The Max Planck School of Photonics is an interdisciplinary graduate school in Germany providing an integrated MSc and PhD program for international students. Aspects of curriculum development and outreach measures will be presented and discussed.

New technologies rapidly lead to many new possibilities for digital teaching concepts of labwork training programs, which might be on-site or remotely. Mixed Reality is a promising candidate to meet the learning goals.

We present an approach of developing XR teaching applications by implementing open spaces as a hub for the photonics community and developers interested in XR technologies and give a first evaluation of technologies and platforms.