Rules of war (in a nutshell) | The Laws Of War

2021-09-10
By Dr Will Higgs PhD, Barrister
Posted in featured, War and Weaponry

I’m now a Grad Certificate student in New Technologies Law at the Australian National University (ANU for locals). I have enrolled in a unit called The Law of Weaponry and Targeting. The unit is a fascinating unit convened by Dr William Boothby or rather, Air Commodore Bill Boothby (Retd). Take your pick.

‘Bill’, as we know him in class, served for 30 years in the Royal Air Force Legal Branch, retiring as Deputy Director of Legal Services in July 2011. In 2009 he took a Doctorate at the Europa Universität Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder) in Germany and published ‘Weapons and the Law of Armed Conflict’ through OUP (now in its 2nd Edition) in the same year. His second book, ‘The Law of Targeting’, appeared with the same publisher in 2012. He has been a member of Groups of Experts that addressed Direct Participation in Hostilities and that produced the HPCR Manual of the Law of Air and Missile Warfare, the 2013 Tallinn Manual on the Law of Cyber Warfare and the Leuven Manual on Peace Operations Law. His third book, addressing Conflict Law, was published in 2014. In March 2018, with Prof Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg, he published with CUP a Detailed Commentary on the US Department of Defense Law of War Manual and his edited volume on New Technologies and the Law in War and Peace was published by CUP in December 2018. He teaches at the Australian National University, at the University of Southern Denmark and at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.

It’s such a rich unit facilitated with plenty of discussion and hypotheticals. The class is a cross section of people like me, who are interested in autonomous weaponry from a technical perspective or other aspects of technology and war, including serving military personal (but note they don’t ask too many questions), ex-military (who ask way too many questions) and the curious (who offer a fresh perspective). Bill keeps us marching in an orderly fashion away from the fog.

The video above is not part of the unit but if you are interested in an introduction to the general themes, it is a good starting point. On the other hand, if you want to learn about military targeting; whether to toss loft a bomb or use a laser guided LGB; shoot down a civilian aircraft behaving in a hostile manner, booby-trap a water installation; then Bill is your man.

Back to the video (Source https://www.icrc.org/en/document/rules-war-nutshell ICRC). the video illustrates that people have always used violence to settle disputes. And all cultures have always had the idea that there have to be limits on that violence, if we are to prevent wars from descending into barbarity. For instance, there are rules protecting non-participants, prisoners and the wounded. These rules are set out in international humanitarian law. Yes, even wars have limits. And attacking civilians constitutes a war crime. The video explains these issues in a simple way.

Dr Will Higgs

Barrister

Rules of war (in a nutshell) | The Laws Of War

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