The War on Terror and the Laws of War: A Military Perspective
Geoffrey S. Corn, James A. Schoettler, Jr., Dru Brenner-Beck, Victor M. Hansen, Dick Jackson, Eric Talbot Jensen, and Michael W. Lewis
Abstract
Thirteen years after the United States initiated a military response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the nation continues to prosecute what it considers an armed conflict against transnational terrorist groups. Understanding how the law of armed conflict applies to and regulates military operations executed within the scope of this armed conflict against transnational nonstate terrorist groups is as important today as it was in September 2001. This is because the core purpose of this branch of international law (what was historically known as the law of war) is to strike an eff ... More
Thirteen years after the United States initiated a military response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the nation continues to prosecute what it considers an armed conflict against transnational terrorist groups. Understanding how the law of armed conflict applies to and regulates military operations executed within the scope of this armed conflict against transnational nonstate terrorist groups is as important today as it was in September 2001. This is because the core purpose of this branch of international law (what was historically known as the law of war) is to strike an effective balance between the necessity of using armed violence to subdue a threat to the nation with the humanitarian interest of mitigating the suffering inevitably associated with that use. How this core purpose of the law of armed conflict has influenced operational decisions related to all aspects of the military response to al-Qaeda and associated forces is the focus of this book. Each chapter will address a specific operational issue, including the national right of self-defense, military targeting and the use of drones, detention, interrogation, and trial by military commission of captured terrorist operatives, and the impact of battlefield perspectives on counter-terror military operations and illustrate how the law of armed conflict influences resolution of that issue. Some chapters will go further. All will reinforce the essential link between respect for the law and strategic legitimacy, perhaps the most enduring lesson from this on-going national challenge.
Keywords:
terrorism,
military operations,
armed conflict,
use of force,
detention,
interrogation,
military commission,
drones,
targeting,
self-defense
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780199941452 |
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: December 2014 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199941452.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Geoffrey S. Corn, author
South Texas College of Law
James A. Schoettler, Jr., author
Georgetown University Law Center
Dru Brenner-Beck, author
Private Practice, Littleton, Colorado
Victor M. Hansen, author
New England Law School Boston
Dick Jackson, author
U.S. Army Judge Advocate General for Law of War Matters
Eric Talbot Jensen, author
Brigham Young Law School in Provo, Utah
Michael W. Lewis, author
Ohio Northern University School of Law
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