About HLS PILAC
The Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (HLS PILAC) provides a space for research on critical challenges facing the various fields of public international law related to armed conflict, including the jus ad bellum, the jus in bello (international humanitarian law/the law of armed conflict), international human rights law, international criminal law, and the law of state responsibility. Its mode is critical, independent, and rigorous. HLS PILAC’s methodology fuses traditional public international law research with targeted analysis of changing security environments. The Program does not engage in advocacy. While its contributors may express a range of views on contentious legal and policy debates, HLS PILAC does not take institutional positions on these matters.
About the Authors
Dustin A. Lewis is a Senior Researcher at HLS PILAC. Gabriella Blum, the Faculty Director of HLS PILAC, is the Rita E. Hauser Professor of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Harvard Law School. And Naz K. Modirzadeh, the Founding Director of HLS PILAC, is a Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School.
Acknowledgements
The authors extend their thanks to: Sasha Pippenger for extensive early conceptual analysis and research assistance; to Abhishek Banerjee-Shukla, Philip Caruso, Elizabeth Daniels, Thomas Ewing, Sarah Mishkin, Francesco Romani, Jonathan Rosenbluth, Leah Saris, Svitlana Starosvit, and Anton Vallélian for research assistance; to Thomas Ewing, Francesco Romani, Leah Saris, Svitlana Starosvit, and Anton Vallélian for translation assistance; to Ramzi Kassem for feedback on an early draft of Section 7; to Jennifer Allison, HLS PILAC Liaison to the Harvard Law School Library (HLSL), and the staff of the HLSL for extensive research support; to participants at the Fall 2015 I.H.L.athons hosted by HLS PILAC at Harvard Law School; and to participants at the February 23, 2016 online Expert IHL Briefing on International Law at the Vanishing Point of War, which was hosted by the International Association of Professionals in Humanitarian Assistance and Protection (PHAP) and which featured early HLS PILAC research.
Cover Image
The U.S. Army, “Razor wire perimeter,” March 19, 2010, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) License, https://www.flickr.com/photos/soldiersmediacenter/4460092134/ <https://perma.cc/NN39-C649> (caption provided by the U.S. Army: “U.S. Soldiers fortify an Afghan police checkpoint by placing razor wire around the perimeter in Robat, Afghanistan, March 19, 2010. The soldiers are assigned to Bear Troop, 8th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment”).
Disclaimers
HLS PILAC receives generous support from the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). The views expressed in this Legal Briefing should not be taken, in any way, to reflect the official opinion of the Swiss FDFA. HLS PILAC is grateful for the support the Swiss FDFA provides for independent research and analysis. The research undertaken by the authors of this Legal Briefing was completely independent; the views and opinions reflected in this Legal Briefing are those solely of the authors; and the authors alone are responsible for any errors in this Legal Briefing.
License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
Web
This Legal Briefing is available free of charge at https://pilac.law.harvard.edu.
