T.D. Gill

The Security Council

Recalling the commitments made by the Government of Sudan and the Government of South Sudan in the 20 June Agreement between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement on Temporary Arrangements for the Administration and Security of the Abyei Area, the 29 June Agreement Between the Government of the Sudan and the Government of Southern Sudan on Border Security and the Joint Political and Security Mechanism, and the 30 July Agreement on the Border Monitoring Support Mission Between the Government of Sudan and the Government of South Sudan,

Some Thoughts on the Relationship Between International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law: A Plea for Mutual Respect and a Common-Sense Approach

This essay provides a commentary on the ongoing discussion of the relationship between the two legal regimes and attendant paradigms of hostilities and law enforcement in armed conflict. The discussion has, to an extent, taken the form of a disconnect between the IHL and IHRL communities. In order to get past this, a plea is made here to apply basic well established tools of legal methodology, to apply both regimes within their respective scope of application and to utilise common sense in determining which regime is the most relevant to a particular situation. This is in the interest of legal coherence and maintaining respect for the law, as well as in the interest of the persons the law is meant to protect.

Legal aspects of the transfer of authority in UN Peace Operations

United Nations Peace Operations and UN mandated Peace Enforcement Operations, which are usually conducted by regional organizations or ad hoc coalitions of States, are wholly dependent upon the voluntary contribution of troops by Member States. This involves transferring parts of command authority to the United Nations or to the regional organization which has undertaken the mission under UN mandate, while other aspects of authority over the troops remain under the control of the State which is contributing its troops. This partial transfer of authority results in complex multilayered command structures which has given rise to certain legal and practical questions relating to the attribution of conduct in relation to allegations of possible violations of international law and the most appropriate remedies in such cases. This article provides an overview of the types of command structures most often used in both UN and UN mandated operations and explores the questions resulting from these in relation to attribution of conduct. It also discusses possible shortcomings in the provision of remedies and offers some suggestions as to how these might be addressed.

Chivalry: A Principle of the Law of Armed Conflict?

This contribution explores the role and relevance of chivalry in relation to warfare past and present and its relationship to the law of armed conflict and poses the question whether it still is a principle of that body of the law. It also briefly addresses the question of what its potential relevance is as a guiding principle in the interpretation of legal and extra legal obligations alongside rules contained in conventional and customary law.

Some Considerations Concerning the Role of the Ius ad Bellum in Targeting

This contribution examines the influence of the ius ad bellum upon the targeting process. Specifically, it will examine how the rules of international law relating to the permissibility of the use of force can and do influence the targeting of both objects and persons which constitute military objectives under international humanitarian law and can, alongside other relevant rules and principles of international law and policy considerations, additionally influence the geographical and temporal scope of the targeting process.

Some Legal and Operational Considerations regarding Remote Warfare: Drones and Cyber Warfare Revisited

Remote warfare has evolved from the use of strategic airpower to attack an enemy’s economic infrastructure in World War II and the role of intercontinental ballistic missile systems in promoting strategic deterrence during the Cold War to the use of contemporary weapons systems and techniques, such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ( a.k.a. UAVs or ‘drones’) and cyber warfare which are designed to carry out strikes against targets far removed from a traditional battlefield, disrupt an adversary’s command, control and communications functions and maintaining initiative and information superiority in a non-geographically defined battle-space. While there is general agreement that international law, including international humanitarian law ( IHL/LOAC applies to these new weapons and techniques, it is not always clear how it must be interpreted and applied. Each of these new forms of remote warfare present specific challenges and raise particular questions. This contribution is aimed at identifying a number of the most important of these and providing initial indications on how these should be addressed.

Leuven Manual on the International Law Applicable to Peace Operations : prepared by an international Group of Experts at the invitation of the International Society for Military Law and the Law of War

The Leuven Manual is the authoritative overview of the international law applicable to peace operations conducted by the United Nations, African Union, European Union , NATO and other international organizations with detailed commentary on the interpretation of the rules and of best practice in their application. The Manual is the product of an independent Group of Experts and represents the members of that group in their personal capacity. It benefited from the unofficial input of the United Nations, African Union, NATO and the International Committee of the Red Cross/Crescent as observers to the project. The Leuven Manual is intended to be of assistance to policy officials, commanders and their legal advisors in planning and conducting consensual peace operations and is additionally aimed at practitioners and the academic community.

International humanitarian law applied to cyber-warfare: Precautions, proportionality and the notion of ‘attack’ under the humanitarian law of armed conflict

This chapter examines the application of international humanitarian law to cyber warfare in the sense of rising to the level of an armed conflict. Building upon the work of the Tallinn Manual on the Application of International Law to Cyber Warfare, it places particular emphasis on the application of the principle of proportionality and the duty to take precautions in conducting an attack in relation to attacks carried out in the cyber domain. In doing so, a preliminary examination is made of the likelihood of cyber warfare actually taking place and the scenarios which seem most likely for this to occur. It then goes on to examine how the aforementioned principle of proportionality would apply in relation to attacks whereby physical effects resulted and to attacks which simply had the effect of destroying or degrading digital data. It concludes by finding that while many cyber-attacks would not qualify as attacks under IHL, some would and that the law is applicable by analogy in much the same way it applies to conventional attacks by kinetic weapons.

Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law, 2013

The Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law is an authoritative peer reviewed annual publication with articles specially focused on current developments in the law of armed conflict, current armed conflicts and the interrelationship of IHL with other bodies of law and other disciplines.