Harold Hongju Koh of Yale Law School discusses his new book, The National Security Constitution for the 21st Century, which examines the structural and systemic reasons for the dangerously increased strength of the executive branch of government in the U.S., and its implications for American use of force, foreign relations, and international law. W…

Janina Dill of the University of Oxford and Adil Haque of Rutgers Law School return to the podcast to address the question of whether it is possible now, while hostilities are still ongoing, to assess whether some aspects of the IDF's conduct of hostilities may be in violation of IHL. The question is germane because many argue that one cannot asses…

A conversation with Professors Ingrid Brunk of Vanderbilt University Law School and Monica Hakimi of Columbia University Law School, about their forthcoming article on the prohibitions against annexations - a prohibition that is related to and often conflated with the prohibition agains the use of force, but which is distinct and important. We disc…

In a cross-posted episode I discuss with Jonathan Hafetz, host of the Law on Film podcast, and professor of law at Seton Hall Law School, the film "Eye in the Sky" - a 2015 film about a British and U.S. operated drone strike against al Shabaab terrorists in Kenya, which intelligently and engagingly explores the legal, ethical, philosophical, politi…

A round-table discussion with Professors Monika Hakimi of Columbia Law School, Adil Haque of Rutgers Law School, and Marko Milanovic of Reading Univ. School of Law, on the question of whether Israel has a right of self-defense under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter in response to the Hamas attacks on October 7. The incident raises, and we explore, im…

A discussion with Tom Dannenbaum, a professor of international law at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, on his work on the war crime of starvation. We delve into the proper interpretation of the IHL prohibition on starvation as a method of warfare, and the war crime of intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare in the…

A discussion with Chris O'Meara, Lecturer at Exeter University Law School, about his new book, "Necessity and Proportionality and the Right of Self-Defence In International Law." Chris explains his novel taxonomy for the principle of necessity, and how the relationship among necessity, proportionality, and imminence should be properly understood, a…

A conversation with René Provost, professor of law at McGill University, Faculty of Law, in Montreal, about his recent book "Rebel Courts: The Administration of Justice by Armed Insurgents." We discuss the methodology he employed in researching this deep and rich ethnography of rebel courts in conflicts ranging from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, to …

A conversation with Boyd van Dijk, currently a McKenzie Fellow at the University of Melbourne in Australia, about his new book, Preparing for War: The Making of the Geneva Conventions. We discuss some of the myths surrounding the history of the conventions, as well as the tensions and conflicts not just between parties to the negotiations, but also…

A conversation with Leila Sada, Professor of Law at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, United States, and special advisor on crimes against humanity to the Prosecutor of the ICC. We discuss the decade long effort to establish a new international convention to prohibit and punish crimes against humanity, the role and limitations of th…

A conversation with Dr. Chile Eboe-Osuji, former President of the ICC and Distinguished International Jurist at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law, Toronto Metropolitan University in Canada. We discuss why the ICC cannot prosecute the crime of aggression in Ukraine and what the better alternatives might be, the jurisdiction and immunity issues tha…

A conversation with David Sloss, Professor of Law at the University of Santa Clara, about his new book, "Tyrants on Twitter: Protecting Democracies from Information Warfare." We discuss the recent history Russian and Chinese exploitation of social media, and explore the strategic and geopolitical implications of allowing these countries engage in t…

A conversation about the Russian invasion of Ukraine with Professors Eliav Lieblich of Tel Aviv University, Marko Milanovic of the University of Nottingham, and Ingrid Wuerth of Vanderbilt Law School. We focus on how we should be thinking about the implications of this war for the jus ad bellum regime and the collective security system going forwar…

A conversation with Sam Moyn, Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School and Professor of History at Yale University. We discuss his recent and acclaimed book "Humane," which, drawing on an insight of Leo Tolstoy, argues that as the United States has come to focus on humanizing armed conflict in the last few decades, its interest in constraining…

A conversation with Olivier Corten, Professor of International Law at the Free University of Brussels in Belgium, about the recently published 2nd edition of his book "The Law Against War." Our discussion ranges from the differing methodological approaches to the international law on the use of force, the threshold for what constitutes a use of for…

A conversation with Aslı Bâli, Professor of Law at UCLA in the United States, on the lawfulness of comprehensive autonomous economic sanctions, and the relationship they may have with the laws of war. Economic sanctions can cause the kind of humanitarian harm and economic disruption that could be unlawful under IHL, or constitute a prohibited use o…

Discussion with Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, who's terms as Judge and President of the ICC ended recently, on his role in the development of the ICC, and on some of the criticisms of the Court. We examine the meaning of "attack" in the Rome Statute through the lens of the Ntaganda case, and the relationship between so-called Hague Law and Geneva Law, an…

A panel discussion ofthe legal issues raised in the Gaza conflict of May 2021, with Professors Janina Dill of the University of Oxford, Adil Haque of Rutgers University Law School, and Aurel Sari of Exeter University Law School. The conversation begins by placing the legal issues in context, and addressing the question of whether the narrow focus o…

A conversation with Srinivas Burra, professor of law at South Asian University, Faculty of Legal Studies, in New Delhi, India. Srinivas has written extensively on both jus ad bellum and international humanitarian law, often with a focus on India's practice and position in relation to these legal regimes. We discuss first how India's position regard…

A conversation with Yasuyuki Yoshida, Professor of International Law at Takaoka University in Toyama Japan, and former Capt.(N) in the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force, discusses Japan's posture on various aspects of the jus ad bellum regime, and whether or how its position may have changed as a result of the "reinterpretation" of Article 9 of …

A conversation with Rebecca Ingber, Professor of Law at Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law, and formerly a lawyer in the Office of Legal Advisor in the U.S. Department of State. We discuss a recent essay in which Rebecca examines how international and domestic law operate together to facilitate the incremental moves by which the U.S. initia…

A conversation with Sarah Holewinski, the Washington Director at Human Rights Watch, and formerly the Director of CIVIC (Civilians in Conflict). In between those two roles she served under then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, and as special advisor on human rights in the Chairman's Office of the Joint Staff in the Department …

A conversation with Mary Ellen O'Connell, of the University of Notre Dame Law School. We discuss her recent focus on that the concept of "imminence" and the doctrine of self-defense in international law, through the lens of the killing of Iranian General Qassim Soleimani. Starting with just war theory and the natural law foundations of internationa…

Guest host Jasmin Nessa of Liverpool University Law School interviews Craig Martin of Washburn University School of Law on how the climate change crisis is likely to implicate the laws of war. In particular, Martin argues that as the crisis deepens, and not only the consequences but the causes of climate change are viewed as threats to national sec…

A conversation with Prof. Terry Gill of the University of Amsterdam, Center for International Law, on the use of force in self-defense against non-state actors (NSAs), within the territory of states that exercise no control over the NSA but which do not consent to the use of force - a familiar but hot subject of debate. We discuss Terry's recent wo…

A conversation with Prof. Michael Schmitt, Professor of Law at the University of Reading, the United States Military Academy at West Point, and the U.S. Naval War College, on the development of international law relating to cyber operations, and the recent state declarations on how the jus ad bellum and international humanitarian law apply to cyber…

A conversation with Prof. Federica Paddeu of Cambridge University in England, on how best to understand the operation of consent as a justification for the use of force in international law - is it part of or intrinsic to the prohibition on the use of force itself? Or is it extrinsic, a separate and independent exception or justification for the us…

A conversation with Prof. Douglas Guilfoyle of the University of New South Wales, Canberra, on the Inquiry of the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force into alleged war crimes committed by Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan, delving into the nature of the offenses, issues of command responsibility, structural and cultural causes o…

A conversation with Prof. Tom Ruys of Ghent University, in which we re-examine the positions he took in his famous book on armed attack and self-defense, and then discuss the debate he has recently sparked around the question of whether states may use force in self-defense to recover occupied territory, looking specifically at whether Azerbaijan co…

A conversation with Dr. Catherine O'Rourke of Ulster University School of Law in Northern Ireland, on her new book, "The Rights of Women in Armed Conflict Under International Law." We discuss how four distinct regimes, IHL, international criminal law, human rights law, and the UN Security Council, interact, in both theory and practice, in the prote…

A conversation with Prof. Eliav Lieblich of Tel Aviv University, in which he takes a recent UN Human Rights Committee General Comment, as a point of departure for analyzing the relatively unexplored relationship between international human rights law and the legal regime that governs the state use of force. Does an act of aggression by a state infr…

A conversation with Prof. Oona Hathaway of Yale Law School on the theory and practice of the domestic law constraints on the use of force, including the different ways in which the War Powers Resolution in the U.S. could and should be amended, the relationship between war powers and international law, and how Congress could reassert its powers over…

A conversation with Prof. Craig Forcese of the University of Ottawa on his book "Destroying the Caroline," in which we discuss the history of the Caroline Incident, how and why it influenced the development of the doctrine of self-defense, what that says about international law itself, and how the Caroline Incident is used and abused in current deb…

A conversation with Prof. Alonso Gurmendi Dunkelberg of Universidad del Pacifico, on Latin American approaches to jus ad bellum and non-intervention - ranging from the origins and development of Latin American thinking in the 19th Century, through the under-appreciated importance of the Montevideo Convention, to how one should interpret Latin Ameri…

A conversation with Prof. Monica Hakimi of the University of Michigan Law School, on how the U.N. Security Council's tacit support for state use of force that would otherwise be unlawful, should be understood as being an "informal regulation" that modifies the standard rules of the jus ad bellum regime. The conversation explores case studies, norma…

A conversation with Prof. Eric Talbot Jensen of Brigham Young University Law School - Jensen argues that the law of armed conflict does not require human judgment in making targeting decisions, and thus fully autonomous weapons are not per se unlawful, and that research and development of such weapons should not be prohibited. We explore whether et…

A conversation with Prof. Ashley Deeks of the University of Virginia School of Law - Deeks explains how AI and machine learning may implicate the laws of war, from assisting states in decisions on the use of force and self-defense, to increasing compliance with the law of armed conflict on the battlefield, and even the coding of the IHL rules and p…

A conversation with Prof. Adil Haque of Rutgers Law School - Haque explains how a review of the negotiating history for the UN Charter suggests a relationship among the prohibition on the use of force, self-defense, and acts of aggression, that is quite different from current views, with important implications for a number of aspects of the doctrin…

Craig Martin, the host of the podcast, explains the objectives, scope, and format of this podcast series, and then goes on to provide a brief overview of the main legal regimes that comprise the "laws of war," principally the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello regimes, and how they relate to one another. For more info on the episode and for links t…

A conversation with Prof. Kevin Heller of the University of Copenhagen about unilateral humanitarian intervention - Heller argues that it is not only unlawful, and should remain so, but that it may actually constitute an act of aggression as defined under the Rome Statute, and that its perpetrators could, theoretically, be charged for the crime of …