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Last Year's List |
Date | Title | Author | Reference |
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***New*** March |
Ukraine, Lawfare, and the ICC's Arrest Warrant for Vladimir Putin | Professor Sascha-Dominik (Dov) Bachmann | Australian Institute of International Affairs 23 March 2023 |
Russia is well known for employing hybrid warfare tactics, including the use of lawfare to achieve its aims. Those same tactics are now being used by Ukraine in its pursuit of global sanctions against Putin. This week the International Criminal Court at The Hague (ICC), the world's first permanent criminal court, issued an international arrest warrant for Russia's president Vladimir Putin and Ms Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belov, a Russian politician and the Russian Commissioner for Children. The arrest warrant alleges that both are responsible for war crimes, namely the “deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.” Such acts qualify as war crimes under articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the ICC's Statute, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. This development is significant in terms of its potential legal and diplomatic consequences, but also in terms of what motivated Ukraine, as a non-state party to the ICC, to accept the court's jurisdiction and allow for any investigation of crimes committed – even by the Ukrainian military.
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***New*** March |
"Strict" Versus "Qualified" Neutrality | Michael N. Schmitt | Articles of War, 22 March 2023 |
The support neutral States are providing Russia and Ukraine has ignited a debate over neutrality. It is one of existential magnitude for Ukraine. Indeed, the survival of Kyiv in early 2022 can be attributed in significant part to external support, particularly the delivery of Javelin anti-tank systems. Later, HIMARS rocket launchers helped Ukrainian forces retake territory occupied by Russia. Western intelligence also made possible the sinking of the Russian Black Sea flagship, Moskva, and strikes on command and control facilities. And the forthcoming transfer of tanks to Ukraine will enhance the effectiveness of the anticipated Ukrainian offensive eastward. But, at the same time, Iranian drones have enabled Russia’s continuing attacks, including against civilian infrastructure, throughout Ukraine, and Russia has been mounting operations from (neutral) Belarus.
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***New*** March |
Protecting PoWs In Contemporary Conflicts | Derek Jinks | [Articles of War] March 10, 2023 |
What protection must be accorded prisoners of war (POWs) in international humanitarian law (IHL)? How might this protection scheme shed light on the role of personal status categories in IHL? Many of the protections accorded POWs closely track the increasingly robust fundamental guarantees accorded all conflict-related detainees. Some POW protections, though, reflect a different protective logic. Indeed, POWs are overprotected with respect to the humanitarian baseline because of special considerations of fairness, honor, and respect tightly linked to the specific requirements for POW status. This line of analysis (1) makes clear the standard of treatment for POWs; and (2) helps clarify the role that status categories play in contemporary IHL.
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February | Decolonising Cyprus 60 Years after Independence: An Assessment of the Legality of the Sovereign Base Areas | Nasia Hadjigeorgiou | [European Journal of International Law] 12 November 2022 |
The Sovereign Base Areas (SBA) are two parts on the island of Cyprus, with a combined territory of 99 square miles, over which the UK exercises sovereignty. They were created by the Treaty of Establishment 1960, which is also the international agreement that granted the Republic of Cyprus its independence. The article maps out the implications of the Chagos Archipelago Advisory Opinion for the SBA. It argues that the process through which they were created disregarded the wishes of the Cypriot people and was, therefore, not in accordance with the right to self-determination.
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February | No, Russia Can (Still) Not be Removed From the UN Security Council: A Response to Thomas Grant and Others | Joris van de Riet | [Opinio Juris - Part 1] 11 February 2023 [Opinio Juris - Part 2] 11 February 2023 |
One argument occasionally made in favour of the possibility of Russia's expulsion from the UN in its entirety – and thus from the Security Council – is that the procedure for expulsion as set out in Article 6 of the UN Charter only requires a "recommendation" from the Security Council before the General Assembly can vote on it, and the General Assembly would therefore be free to disregard that recommendation in its entirety if it wants to.
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February | How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline | Seymour Hersh | Seymour Hersh Blog, 8 February 2023 |
Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning.
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February | Ukraine war: casualty counts from either side can be potent weapons and shouldn’t always be believed | Lily Hamourtziadou | The Conversation 1 February 2023 |
The war in Ukraine is shaping up to be one of the bloodiest of the 21st century, with both sides reported to be losing hundreds of soldiers each day as the conflict moves towards its first anniversary. But quite how many people are dying in this bitter struggle depends on who is doing the reporting.
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January | The Law of Immunity and the Prosecution of the Head of State of the Russian Federation for International Crimes in the War against Ukraine | Miguel Lemos | EIL Talk 16 January 2023 |
The debate on how to prosecute the international crimes linked to the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine is ongoing (for example, here, here and here). One of the most prominent aspects of the debate concerns the question of how to prosecute the persons who are allegedly most responsible for such crimes, particularly, the head of state of the Russian Federation and commander-in-chief of its armed forces, Vladimir Putin.
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January | Russia's Crime and Punishment - How to Prosecute the Illegal War in Ukraine | Oona Hathaway | Foreign Affairs 17 January 2023 |
As the conflict in Ukraine is about to enter its second year, Ukraine and the West are accelerating efforts to ensure that Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t get away with his illegal war. That has meant the West supplying weapons that were previously off the table, but it has also meant renewed attention to accountability. In November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made clear that justice is a key condition for peace. "This," he explained, "is what stokes the greatest emotions." But while there are courts where Russians can be prosecuted for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, a major piece is missing: there is nowhere to try Putin and other top Russian leaders for launching the war in the first place. For this, a special tribunal for the crime of aggression is needed.
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January | A Ukraine Special Tribunal with Legitimacy Problems? | Kai Ambos | Verfassuns Blog 6 January 2023 |
The call for a Special Tribunal for the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine is necessary since the jurisdiction of the ICC in the case of a crime of aggression is limited to State Parties, so both the attacking State and the victim State must be parties to the Statute. It was of course already known before the Russian invasion of Ukraine that this jurisdictional regime is much too narrow – why should the victim State, which is also a territorial State, not have jurisdiction over a crime of aggression committed on its territory?
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January | What killer robots mean for the future of war | Jonathan Erskine and Miranda Mowbray | The Conversation, 10 January 2023 |
You might have heard of killer robots, slaughterbots or terminators – officially called lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs) – from films and books. And the idea of super-intelligent weapons running rampant is still science fiction. But as AI weapons become increasingly sophisticated, public concern is growing over fears about lack of accountability and the risk of technical failure.
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January | Year Ahead – The Hurdles To International Regulation Of AI Tools | Ashley Deeks | Articles of War January 5, 2023 |
In 2023, non-governmental organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Stop Killer Robots will continue their calls for a new international legal framework to regulate autonomous weapons systems. Some States and scholars are optimistic about the possibility. These optimists often analogize to nuclear weapons regulation to illustrate that States sometimes have been willing to limit their own flexibility in strategic and sensitive areas – such as the one posed by the AI "arms race."
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