Under international law:► Could the United States have killed alleged dirty bomber José Padilla at O'Hare Airport?
► Could Uganda enter, say, Mozambique in pursuit of Joseph Kony?
► Are cross-border drone strikes legal?
These were the kind of provocative questions bruited about at Geography of War in Armed Conflict, a fascinating workshop in which yours truly took part last week at the the U.S. Naval War College International Law Department, Newport, Rhode Island.
Kudos for assembling a fiery, multinational group of participants with an array of perspectives – think dinner party in a Woody Allen film – are due to organizers, particularly Professor Michael N. Schmitt, a retired Air Force officer, and Instructor Matt Hover, an Army major. Schmitt, formerly Chair of the Public International Law Department at Durham University in England and Dean of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany, has chaired the College's International Law Department since October.
Noteworthy given the subject matter were the many women among the 20 or so participants. As detailed in the program, 4 women were among those enlisted to set the stage for discussion:
► Jelena Pejic (right), Geneva-based Legal Adviser at the International Committee of the Red Cross, the century-and-a-half-year-old nongovernmental organization that promotes and monitors compliance with international humanitarian law. (photo credit)► Gabriella Blum, Rita E. Hauser Professor of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Harvard. Gabby's depicted at foreground in the top photo; behind her is Sasha E. Radin, a Visiting Research Scholar at the War College (photo credit)
► Jennifer Daskal (left), Fellow at the Center on National Security and the Law, Georgetown University Law Center. (photo credit) Jen, whom I'd met back in 2008, when the 2 of us observed GTMO military commissions for different NGOs, is the author of an article right on point with this workshop: "The Geography of the Battlefield: A Framework for Detention and Targeting Outside the 'Hot' Conflict Zone," forthcoming in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. In it, Jen accepts arguendo current U.S. practice with regard to targeting (which IntLawGrrls have discussed in posts available here, here, and here), and proceeds to propose guidelines for regulating that practice.►
Ashley Deeks (right), who is completing a stint as an
Academic Fellow at Columbia Law School and soon will take up an
appointment as Associate Professor at the University of Virgina School
of Law. (photo credit) Ashley's article
"'Unwilling or Unable': Toward an Normative Framework for Extra-Territorial Self-Defense," just published in the Virginia Journal of International Law, discusses a theory by which some countries, like the United States, have endeavored to justify entering the territory of a state – a state with which the country is not at war – in pursuit of a person or group with which the country is at war.
In an armed conflict "between two or more of the High Contracting Parties," to quote Article 2 common to the Geneva Conventions, such pursuit is permitted. But what about, to quote Article 3 common, "an armed conflict not of an international character"? What if a country is warring against a nonstate actor, on the territory of a not-at-war state?Whether, and by what legal reasoning, that country can get across that nonconsenting state's border were the central questions of the workshop.
Possible answers implicate a host of legal subfields. For example:
