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This article explores the influence of international humanitarian law (IHL) on the development of the law of international responsibility and, in particular, the contribution of IHL to the adoption of rules related to breaches of obligations erga omnes and obligations erga omnes partes. Indeed, IHL conventions embody some obligations erga omnes and erga omnes partes, as demonstrated, for instance, by Common Article 1 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, by some provisions relating to the suspension, termination and modification of IHL treaty provisions, and by some monitoring mechanisms. The study of the relevant provisions of the law of armed conflict, state practice and international case law demonstrates that IHL conventions had already envisaged some consequences of violations of obligations erga omnes and erga omnes partes, which were later codified by the International Law Commission. Accordingly, it is possible to argue that IHL contributed to the development of general international law in this field.

Prior to the progressive development of the law of armed conflict (LOAC) heralded by the 1949 Geneva conventions—most particularly in relation to the concepts of international and non-international armed conflict—the customary doctrine on recognition of belligerency functioned for almost 200 years as the definitive legal scheme for differentiating internal conflict from ‘civil wars’ in which the law of war as applicable between states applied de jure. Employing a legal historical approach, this book describes the thematic and schematic fundamentals of the doctrine, and analyses some of the more significant challenges to its application. In doing so, the book assesses whether, how, and why the doctrine on recognition of belligerency was considered ‘fit for purpose’, and seeks to inform debate as to its continuity and utility within the modern scheme of LOAC.

[Law and the Future of War Research Paper No 4] This paper considers one of most fundamental of rules of the law of armed conflict on the means and methods of warfare, which has been captured in Article 35(2) of Additional Protocol I in the following language: ‘It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.’ The exclusive focus of this unnecessary suffering rule on the wellbeing of combatants arguably makes it exceptional in the fabric of the law of armed conflict. And the fierce agreement about the foundational nature of this rule is only matched by the disagreement as to its precise meaning and efficacy. This paper considers the origins of the rule, and how key aspects of the rule are interpreted. It then deals with one of the more contentious issues – namely whether the rule is only concerned with the inherent properties of particular weapons or whether it also deals with the use of weapons. The paper suggest, with particular reference to human enhancement, that a better reading of the rule would indeed capture the uses of weapons. The use of a weapon with a knowledge that it would cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering in the circumstances ought to be regarded as prohibited by the rule.

Conflict classification — including identifying when conflict ends — is essential for determining the application of the law of armed conflict and the concomitant protections for persons and obligations of the parties to the conflict or potential conflict. What happens, however, when a conflict ends or appears to end but then violence and hostilities bubble up again? The complexity of conflict identification and classification and the challenges of understanding and analyzing the facts and actors in such new rounds of violence raise interesting and often difficult questions regarding the appropriate approach in assessing whether such new violence constitutes an armed conflict and when. This chapter analyzes the appropriate analytical tools and thresholds for identifying the existence of and characterizing conflict in the face of a resurgence of hostilities. For conflicts between two states, the threshold for such international armed conflict is quite low, such that it could be hard to envision a quicker identification of armed conflict when violence recurs in the aftermath of an inter-state conflict. However, such scenarios pose challenging questions of whether actions by a proxy group or other entity could constitute an international armed conflict and, if so, whether the threshold or standard for such determination might be easier to satisfy if a recent conflict between the two states forms the backdrop for that analysis. In the context of non-international armed conflicts, one overarching question is whether the now-classical Tadic test with the factors of intensity and organization is the right approach in such situations of violence recurring after conflict, or whether some lower threshold or “accelerated analysis” could be more appropriate in these situations. Similarly, the nature of the armed group engaged in the resurgence of hostilities may be consequential, such that the thresholds or framework for hostilities recurring with the same group may not be the same as that for new or reconstituted groups, as well as the location and nature of the conflict. After a brief discussion of the basis for this inquiry and an introduction to the basic legal framework for identification and classification of armed conflict in the first section, the second section explores how the specific problem of violence recurring after the end of armed conflict poses interesting and challenging questions for the conflict classification schematic.

The targeted killing of Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani, on 3 January 2020 by a drone strike by the United States, raises some international law issues. With regard to the law of armed conflict, it may be asked whether this action is part of an existing armed conflict; if there was no armed conflict between the United States and Iran prior to the assassination of Soleimani, the question then arises as to whether this same action, in itself, has led to the beginning of an armed conflict between the two countries. Established that the United States and Iran would not be acting within the framework of the jus in bello, the assassination of Soleimani can be assessed in the context of the right to use force, that is, the jus ad bellum. In this context, the interpretation and application of the right of self-defence invoked by the United States raises doubts. El asesinato del general iraní, Qasem Soleimani, el 3 de enero de 2020 por un ataque aéreo estadounidense con dron, plantea algunas cuestiones de derecho internacional. Por lo que respecta al derecho de los conflictos armados, cabe preguntarse si esta acción es parte de un conflicto armado ya existente; si no existía un conflicto armado entre Estados Unidos e Irán antes del asesinato de Soleimani, cabe entonces preguntarse si esta misma acción, de por sí, ha provocado el comienzo de un conflicto armado entre los dos países. Establecido que EE. UU. e Irán no habrían actuado en el marco del jus in bello, cabe evaluar el asesinato de Soleimani en el marco del derecho del uso de la fuerza, es a decir del jus ad bellum. En este ámbito, la interpretación y aplicación del derecho de legítima defensa, invocado por los Estados Unidos suscita dudas.

Autonomous weapon systems (AWS) can select and engage targets without human intervention. They, therefore, act as both weapons and fighters in combat. The current legal rules governing these areas are written for humans to apply and abide by, with a subsequent responsibility regime for violations. Thus, as machines, AWS pose a challenge to these legal rules. This thesis asks if international law as it currently stands is sufficient to regulate AWS, or if new law is required? This thesis presents a novel way of understanding the relationship between AWS and those who control them that is rooted in the lex lata. It demonstrates that AWS exist at the centre of ‘layers of control’ where the influence of political decision-makers, weapons reviewers, AWS developers, and AWS users can clearly be seen. Doing so views AWS as their legal agents, meaning that the legal regimes regulating weapons, targeting, and responsibility can be applied to the actions of AWS through these controlling entities. Ultimately, this thesis concludes that, in most cases, current international law rules are sufficient to regulate the development, use, and responsibility for AWS. In coming to this conclusion through the ‘layers of control’ approach, it is argued that: the weapons law regime needs to be interpreted flexibly in order that the autonomous nature of AWS can be sufficiently considered; human beings must, for the foreseeable future, play a significant rule in the use of AWS; the entities controlling AWS must be seen as acting through these systems in order for responsibility to be sufficiently attributed to them.

One of the most intriguing and important discussions in international law today is the potential impact of emerging technologies on the law of armed conflict (LOAC), including weapons that incorporate machine learning and/or artificial intelligence. Because one of the likely characteristics of these advanced weapons would be the ability to make decisions implicating life and death on the battlefield, these discussions have highlighted a fundamental question concerning the LOAC: does the law regulating armed conflict require human input in selecting and engaging targets or can that decision be made without human input? This article analyzes views expressed by scholars and NGOs, but focuses on views expressed by States, many of which have been publicized as part of the discussions of States Parties to the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention. As a result of this analysis, It is clear that States have not yet come to a consensus on the issue of the legal role of human decision making in LOAC compliance. Given that lack of consensus, one can only conclude that the law does not currently require a human decision for selecting and engaging targets to be lawful. Though the international community may come to such a decision, it has not yet done so. Therefore, States should continue to research and develop weapons that incorporate machine learning and artificial intelligence because such weapons offer the promise of not only greater compliance with existing norms and processes, but also increased opportunities to provide protections in new and creative ways in the future.

Lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) are platforms that can perform military tasks and take decisions relating thereto on their own—using artificial intelligence. While such technology has not yet been developed, research is headed this way. Are these systems capable of complying with current rules under international humanitarian law (IHL)? Which factors of substantive legal provisions pose particular challenges and what parameters would LAWS have to meet in order to act lawfully? Core principles of IHL under treaties and custom are identified, explained and applied. As regards distinction, it is argued that research here offers the most promising advancements. However, the rule rests upon subjective determinations and ever-present doubt. One may also differentiate when examining proportionality: expected collateral damage is relatively objective and can already be calculated by software. In contrast, military advantage anticipated proves too complex and subjective. Furthermore, the open wording of this rule and its dependence on moral standards leads makes adherence to IHL currently impossible. It is suggested that extralegal issues should also be given sufficient consideration; details are however beyond the scope here. It is finally concluded that for the time being as well as the foreseeable future, LAWS are incompatible with IHL. Thus, humans must stay in or on the loop and retain (meaningful human) control in order to ensure observance of the law of armed conflict. Any technological achievement may nevertheless enhance the human-machine interface in the sense that humans and systems are partnered; thereby allowing for utilizing progress while securing lawful conduct at the same time.

This chapter assesses the law of armed conflict. The right to resort to armed force, known as ‘jus ad bellum’, is a body of law that addresses the permissibility of entering into war in the first place. Despite the restrictions imposed by this body of law, it is clear that international law does not fully forbid the use of force, and instances of armed disputes between and within States continue to exist. Consequently, a second, older body of law exists called ‘jus in bello’, or the law of armed conflict, which has sought to restrain, or at least to regulate, the actual conduct of hostilities. The basic imperative of this body of law has been to restrict warfare in order to account for humanitarian principles by prohibiting certain types of weapons, or protecting certain categories of persons, such as wounded combatants, prisoners of war, or the civilian population.

When the instruments of international humanitarian law had to be modernized, the non-international armed conflict was an epiphenomenon and its advent has always been considered a disruptive element of a deeply internationalized international scene. Nevertheless, the growing importance of this type of conflict has highlighted the ever-increasing role of a new type of actors, namely non-State armed groups. From now on, they are the major actors of conflicts largely majority. For this reason, we believe that it is time to change the approach and review the solutions proposed in the applicable international instruments. For all these reasons and to adapt the law to the realities of current conflicts, an approach stripped of any ideological and pejorative burden must take precedence over the current one. Similarly, it is fundamentally necessary to make these groups bear the consequences of their actions by committing their international responsibility.; Lorsqu’il a fallu moderniser les instruments du droit international humanitaire le conflit armé non international n’était qu’un épiphénomène et son avènement a toujours été considéré comme un élément perturbateur d’une scène internationale profondément étatisé. Néanmoins l’importance croissante de ce type de conflit a permis de mettre en exergue le rôle sans cesse croissant d’un nouveau type d’acteurs à savoir les groupes armés non étatiques. Désormais, ils sont les acteurs majeurs de conflits largement majoritaires. Pour cette raison, nous pensons qu’il est temps de changer d’approche et de revoir les solutions proposées dans les instruments internationaux applicables. Pour toutes ces raisons et pour adapter le droit aux réalités des conflits actuels, une approche dépouillée de toute charge idéologique et péjorative doit primer par rapport à celle actuelle. De même, il est fondamentalement nécessaire de faire assumer à ces groupes les conséquences de leurs agissements en engageant leur responsabilité internationale.

When the instruments of international humanitarian law had to be modernized, the non-international armed conflict was an epiphenomenon and its advent has always been considered a disruptive element of a deeply internationalized international scene. Nevertheless, the growing importance of this type of conflict has highlighted the ever-increasing role of a new type of actors, namely non-State armed groups. From now on, they are the major actors of conflicts largely majority. For this reason, we believe that it is time to change the approach and review the solutions proposed in the applicable international instruments. For all these reasons and to adapt the law to the realities of current conflicts, an approach stripped of any ideological and pejorative burden must take precedence over the current one. Similarly, it is fundamentally necessary to make these groups bear the consequences of their actions by committing their international responsibility.; Lorsqu’il a fallu moderniser les instruments du droit international humanitaire le conflit armé non international n’était qu’un épiphénomène et son avènement a toujours été considéré comme un élément perturbateur d’une scène internationale profondément étatisé. Néanmoins l’importance croissante de ce type de conflit a permis de mettre en exergue le rôle sans cesse croissant d’un nouveau type d’acteurs à savoir les groupes armés non étatiques. Désormais, ils sont les acteurs majeurs de conflits largement majoritaires. Pour cette raison, nous pensons qu’il est temps de changer d’approche et de revoir les solutions proposées dans les instruments internationaux applicables. Pour toutes ces raisons et pour adapter le droit aux réalités des conflits actuels, une approche dépouillée de toute charge idéologique et péjorative doit primer par rapport à celle actuelle. De même, il est fondamentalement nécessaire de faire assumer à ces groupes les conséquences de leurs agissements en engageant leur responsabilité internationale.

Military commanders in wartime have moral obligations to abide by international norms and humanitarian laws governing their treatment of noncombatants. How much risk to their own forces they must take to limit harm to civilians in the course of military operations, however, is unclear. The principle of proportionality in the law of armed conflict all but necessitates that they make a utilitarian calculation: potential harm to civilians must always be balanced against military value when considering actions that could hurt innocents. In asymmetric conflicts, such as most counterinsurgencies, information flows, collaboration, and ultimately the support of the local population can be key to achieving strategic objectives. Thus, limiting casualties to noncombatants and other actions that alienate the population in these types of conflicts is a key part of a winning strategy. The concept of “courageous restraint” was created to express this principle to NATO and U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan.

Non-state armed groups are the main threats to states’ national security in the 21st century, to defend against which, states require useful methods. Recently, use of children by these groups, especially in the Middle East, has turned into one of the most important discussable issues that need to be evaluated in the context of the law of armed conflict. This study aims to discuss legal regime of the military use of children in armed conflict. The main purpose of the study is to analyze the use of child soldiers by the Syrian-Iraqi Salafi-Jihadist Group in its combat operations. In this respect, initially, the legal definition of child soldiers and the role of them in armed conflicts will be discussed. Based on this, different forms of the child soldiers’ involvement in armed conflicts and the international criminal responsibility for their war crimes will be examined as an applicable law in the context of international criminal law.

The accomplishment of so-called population-centric counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy, accepted by Western States, is significantly aided by International Humanitarian Law (IHL); one of the guarantees of successful populationcentric COIN operations is respecting and applying IHL, in order to win the trust and support of the civilian population, which allows to alienate insurgents and deny them shelter and other forms of support offered by the local population and eventually to subdue and defeat the insurgency. Therefore, in counterinsurgency doctrines adopted by such countries as Great Britain and the United States, also in COIN doctrine adopted by NATO, the obligation to respect and obey the humanitarian law is perceived as a factor necessary in every action in which this law is to be applied (e.g. during combat missions against insurgents or in case of their capture). Each such doctrine contains provisions relating to IHL principles and norms although doctrines tend to differ when compared with one another in terms of the degree of detail in IHL references; furthermore, not all issues covered and regulated by the said law have been adequately addressed in their content.

Danes v svetu med oboroženimi spopadi, prevladujejo nemednarodni, kjer veliko vlogo odigrajo nedržavni akterji. Ker pravila mednarodnega prava kreirajo države, vprašanje vezanosti nedržavnih oboroženih skupin s pravili mednarodnega prava oboroženih spopadov ostaja nedorečeno. Preko različnih teorij je odgovornost mogoče vzpostaviti, vendar so pravila, ki nedržavne akterje zavezujejo, skopa. To je še posebej razvidno pri varstvu okolja, saj skupni 3. člen ženevskih konvencij ter njihov Drugi dopolnilni protokol tega vprašanja neposredno ne urejata. Posredno zaščito lahko vzpostavimo preko zaščite civilnih objektov in civilnega prebivalstva ter prepovedi uporabe nekaterih vrst orožja, ki bi lahko imela škodljive učinke za okolje. Nedržavne akterje v nemednarodnih oboroženih spopadih zavezuje tudi mednarodno običajno pravo. Mnoga pravila, med njimi vsa splošna načela humanitarnega prava in splošna prepoved napadov na okolje, zavezujejo tudi oborožene skupine. Težje pa je zagovarjati obstoj človekove pravice do okolja, s katero bi bile zavezane tudi oborožene skupine. Pravila, ki torej zavezujejo nedržavne akterje k varstvu okolja v oboroženem spopadu, obstajajo, vendar niso dovolj jasna in neposredna. Koristna bi bila odprava razlikovanja med mednarodnimi in nemednarodnimi oboroženimi spopadi ter združitev pravil, vzpostavitev spodnjega praga škode, jasna opredelitev standardov ter uspešna implementacija omenjenih pravil preko že obstoječih in novih mehanizmov, ki bodo imeli večja pooblastila in možnosti za informiranje, opozarjanje in sankcioniranje. Nowadays, most of the armed conflicts fall into the category of non-international, in which non-state actors play a key role. International law is created by the states and therefore it is debatable whether non-state armed groups are in fact obliged to comply with the rules of the law of armed conflict. Different theories assume such responsibility, but the rules that need and should be implemented are limited. This is particularly evident in the protection of the environment, where the common Article 3 of Geneva Conventions and its Second additional protocol do not cover this topic directly. The indirect protection may be established through the protection of civilian objects and the civilian population and the prohibition of certain types of weapons that may have adverse effects on the environment. Non-state actors in non-international conflicts are also binded through international customary law. Many rules are binding for armed groups as well, including all the general principles of humanitarian law and general prohibition of attacks on the environment. It would be more difficult to establish such responsibility through formation of a human right to the environment. The rules that are binding for non-state actors to protect the environment in an armed conflict do exist. However, they are not direct and clear enough. It would be useful to eliminate the distinction between international and non-international conflicts and combine these two sets of rules, to establish a lower threshold for damage, clarify the standards and finally successfully implement these rules in practice, which should be done through already existing and new mechanisms with higher power to inform, alert and sanction infringements

The moral justification for targeted killing turns on it being justified as an act of self-defense. That justification can be assessed by addressing five questions: (1) Is the targeted person a threat who lacks the right to threaten? (2) Has the targeted person forfeited some of her claim not to be killed? (3) Even if the answer to the first two questions is positive, is targeted killing a necessary and proportionate response? (4) Is the evidence in favor of targeted killing high enough to meet the relevant standard of proof (SOP)? (5) And insofar as a person is selected for targeting from a larger group of possible targets, is the selection justifiable? The legal justifiability of targeted killing should aim to track, as much as problems of administrability and limiting unwanted effects allow, the answers to those moral questions.

Advances in ICT, robotics and sensors bring autonomous weapon systems (AWS) within reach. Shooting without control by a human operator has military advantages, but also disadvantages – human understanding of the situation and control of events would suffer. Beyond this, compliance with the law of armed conflict is in question. Would it be ethical to allow a machine to take a human life? The increased pace of battle may overburden human understanding and decision making and lead to uncontrolled escalation. An international campaign as well as IT, robotics and AI professionals and enterprises are calling for an international ban of AWS. States have discussed about limitations in the UN context, but no consensus has evolved so far. Germany has argued for a ban of fully autonomous weapons, but has not joined the countries proposing an AWS ban, and is using a problematic definition.

The upcoming research aspires to elucidate limits imposed by international public law on deployment of cyber weapons. The research will mainly focus on two significant legal frameworks, namely law of armed conflict and human rights law, and examine whether those frameworks are sufficient. In a greater detail, attention will be paid to the Article 36 of Additional Protocol I. Besides well-known notion of armed conflict (international or non-international one), so far new and not-so-new concepts of hybrid warfare, hybrid threats and grey zone conflicts come into consideration. Similarly to standard kinetic weapons, their cyber counterparts could be deployed in all these scenarios. Those relatively new areas are only partially covered by international law in the art. 36 and the research will consider if the weapon review requirement stemming from that article may be applicable to those new scenarios. This research does not solely aim at clarification of the art. 36 itself, but most importantly, it will try to transform the general weapon review requirement into specific guidelines that will be helpful in situations that do not reach the level of armed conflict.

The U.S. Army regularly uses after action reports (AAR) to record observations and capture lessons learned from military operations. While not strictly an AAR, the following list of five takeaways is intended to memorialize some of the legal trends that arose during the military campaigns in Syria and Iraq. Our hope is that this admittedly non-exhaustive list will stimulate a broader conversation about the legal consequences of the Syrian War.

French Abstract: L’action humanitaire est mise au defi de s’adapter et de trouver ses modalites de fonctionnement face a l’apparition ou a l’accroissement de la participation aux combats de certains acteurs sur le theâtre des hostilites. Definissant le concept d’acteurs comme comprenant aussi bien entites humaines et non-humaines, cette contribution explore les consequences de la presence croissante de societes militaires privees, d’une part, et des drones de combat, d’autre part, sur la delivrance de l’aide humanitaire sur le terrain. Elle montre comment et a quel point la presence de ces acteurs, la conduite de la guerre et les categories juridiques interagissent et se remodelent entre elles. Il est suggere que cette relation dialectique affecte la delivrance de l’aide humanitaire. De la confusion des fonctions et statuts juridiques creee par le recours accru aux SMP aux fonctions hybrides, jusqu’a l’utilisation des drones de telle maniere que les acteurs humanitaires hesitent a delivrer leur aide, mais aussi de telle maniere que des dommages aux civils de nouvelle nature emergent (appelant une aide humanitaire, elle aussi, de nature nouvelle) cette contribution scrute deux types de problemes contemporains auxquels l’aide humanitaire doit faire face. English Abstract: Humanitarian action is challenged by the emergence and increased presence of new actors on the battlefield. Considering actors as including both human and non-human entities, this contribution explores the different impacts that increased presence of private military companies (PMCs) on the one hand, and combat drones on the other hand, have on the delivery of humanitarian action. The contribution shows how and to what extent the presence of these actors, the conduct of warfare and legal categories reshape one another. I argue that this dialectical relationship and intertwined phenomena have implications for humanitarian action delivery. From the confusion of functions and legal status created by the increased recourse to hybrid PMCs, to the use of drones in such ways that humanitarian actors refrain from delivering their assistance, but also in such ways that new types of civilian harms emerge, calling for humanitarian aid of different nature, this contribution thus scrutinizes two sets of contemporary problems that humanitarian action has to face.

In recent decades, new technologies have so radically changed current warfare that, as a consequence, the very law of armed conflict had to be applied to new means and methods of warfare, such as unmanned aerial vehicles and cyber attacks, as well as autonomous weapon systems. This Chapter explores the impact of this high-tech trend on the education and training of the personnel of armed forces from two different perspectives. First, it explores what military training duties States have with respect to high-tech means and methods of warfare and, in particular, whether the law of armed conflict requires that States employing them provide specific military training to their armed forces. It is argued that States may be held responsible for the inadequate training of their soldiers in situations where this results in a violation of the principle of precaution. Second, the analysis aims at establishing whether a duty to provide international humanitarian law education and training exists with specific regard to high-tech means and methods of warfare, in light of State practice regarding the dissemination of international humanitarian law. Arguably, although a significant trend regarding the supply of specific instructions and education pertaining to high-tech means and methods of warfare does exist, the lack of a specific international humanitarian law education and training focusing on high-tech means and methods of warfare may not be considered a violation of international humanitarian law in every case.

In recent years there has been an increase in the number of investor-State arbitrations involving war-torn States. Among other issues, the investors in these claims seek redress for the State’s alleged failure to protect against the destruction of property by third parties as required under the “full protection and security” standard. Although this standard appears in most investment instruments, its content and scope is mostly controversial, while its operation against the particular backdrop of armed conflicts and international humanitarian law, is completely neglected. This chapter addresses both points of controversy. It is argued that, “full protection and security” imposes a relative due diligence obligation that accounts for the particular circumstances of the host State in the assessment of compliance with the obligation. The law of armed conflict, in turn, also imposes a relative due diligence obligation to take “feasible” precautions in favour of foreign investments against the effects of attacks. Assessment of compliance with this international humanitarian law obligation turns on an available means analysis. Both assessments of the applicable due diligence standards may however result in contradictory results. To ascertain whether a State failed to protect an investment against attacks, it is important to consider the relationship between investment law and the law of armed conflict, since in practical terms of State responsibility, only the rule that prevails in a norm conflict may be breached and engage the State’s international responsibility.

This Article examines the rise of autonomous weapons systems (AWS), their transformative effect on warfare, and the novel and difficult challenges that autonomy will pose to current interpretations and applications of international humanitarian law (IHL), the legal framework applicable in armed conflict. Autonomous weapons will profoundly affect humans’ role in warfare. AWS will be able to make certain decisions that have traditionally been made exclusively by humans. They will also affect how humans exercise judgment over uses of force as commanders are further removed (temporally and geographically) from the point of kinetic action. At the same time, human judgment cannot be excised from warfare and must remain the focus of IHL. This Article analyzes that tension and the critical need to reconcile IHL’s focus on human decision-making with autonomous technology. This Article provides the first comprehensive analysis of how fundamental principles of IHL can and should be applied in light of rapidly changing advances in warfare and their correlated humanitarian risks. In particular, it critically assesses how IHL rules regarding weapons development, targeting, and accountability can be applied (and the interpretive challenges we confront in doing so) with respect to the use of AWS in armed conflict.