Aspals Reading List

Military Legal Publications

Please pass on information about sources and links which you consider of interest and relevance. Hot links are provided to web sources.
For additional published articles and research assistance, a list of some of the available research materials can be viewed here. This sheet can be accessed free of charge and, if you have a password, its contents linked to directly.
The cited references do not signify agreement by Aspals with their content (see the Disclaimer).
An item marked ***New*** means new to the list. Copyright © remains with the author.
While most links will provide a summary or a copy of the full article, owing to the dymanic nature of the Internet this cannot be guaranteed. Sometimes articles are removed or re-addressed, so an Internet search may be necessary to locate the one you are looking for. If that is the case, it would be appreciated if you would let us know, so that the site can be updated.
Use the adjacent search button to find materials from our library of references.

Date	Title	Author	Reference
***New*** 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. Norway's defence chief, General Eirik Kristoffersen, claimed recently that Russia has suffered 180,000 casualties to Ukraine's 100,000, not counting 30,000 Ukrainian civilian casualties. The chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, General Mark Milley, claimed that Russian casualties are "significantly well over 100,000 now". US intelligence has reportedly suggested this figure is around 188,000. But truth is said to be the first casualty of war and it is certainly possible that Kristoffersen and Milley are downplaying the number of Ukrainian casualties while overestimating Russia's. Summary extracted by Aspals
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. The prevalent view is that, apart from prosecution in their own country, heads of state may only be prosecuted in an international court. Underpinning such view is a decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Arrest Warrant case. In this case, the ICJ considered that – despite the fact that heads of state, heads of government and foreign ministers enjoy "full immunity" from foreign jurisdiction and inviolability – they can be prosecuted before "certain international criminal courts". Hence, the debate has so far focused on the possibility of his prosecution at an international criminal court or tribunal. The debate has been particularly alive in what concerns aggression, the "supreme international crime". Summary extracted by Aspals
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. Scholars and diplomats have pointed out the double standard they see in calls to create a special court to try the crime of aggression by Russia when no mention has been made of holding U.S. or British leaders to account for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which violated the UN Charter by launching a war without clear Security Council authorization. (The United States argued that the Security Council had authorized military intervention when it gave Iraq "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations," but few agreed. ) That war set off a cascade of cataclysmic events and contributed to the rise of the Islamic State (or ISIS) and the Syrian refugee crisis. Summary extracted by Aspals
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? When the crime of aggression was included in the ICC Statute in the course of the first review conference in Kampala in 2010, a broader jurisdictional regime was politically not feasible. In fact, the existing jurisdictional straightjacket was also promoted by France, the United Kingdom and the USA, i.e., the very Western States which now feel compelled to demand a UkrTrib, albeit being unclear whether they will join a respective treaty at all or whether they will refrain from doing so for fear of setting a precedent which could later turn against them. Summary extracted by Aspals
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. Already we have seen how so-called neutral AI have made sexist algorithms and inept content moderation systems, largely because their creators did not understand the technology. But in war, these kinds of misunderstandings could kill civilians or wreck negotiations. Summary extracted by Aspals
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." However, this analogy is flawed. There are good reasons to be skeptical about the prospects that States will achieve a new, robust multilateral agreement that implicates development of lethal autonomous systems or other "national security AI." Summary extracted by Aspals