*This is an HLS PILAC alum page; the information below may be out of date.*

Merel Ekelhof is a Ph.D. researcher at the VU University Amsterdam and a research fellow at the Centre for the Politics of Transnational Law. In early 2018, she was a visiting researcher at the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (HLS PILAC). Her research — commissioned by the Netherlands Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs — examines effects of increasingly autonomous technologies on military decision-making, with a specific focus on the application of the law of armed conflict and human control in the targeting process.

Ms. Ekelhof presents her work to and regularly engages with governments, humanitarian organizations, UN bodies, military services, international organizations, research institutes, the media, and NGOs on issues related to lethal autonomous weapons systems. Her research focuses on the intersection between targeting law, autonomous technologies, and military decision-making. She has specialized in military decision-making through her fieldwork and through the completion of military and civilian courses and exercises concerning advanced targeting, weapons law, and the future of targeting. Ms. Ekelhof holds an LL.B. in International and European Law from the University of Groningen and an LL.M. in Law and Politics of International Security from the VU University Amsterdam.

Contact

To contact Ms. Ekelhof, please send an e-mail to m.a.c.ekelhof@vu.nl.

Select Publications

“Lifting the Fog of Targeting: “Autonomous Weapons” and human control through the lens of military targeting,” forthcoming in Naval War College Review [academic]

“Autonome Wapensystemen: Wat we moeten weten over de toepassing van het Humanitair Oorlogsrecht en de menselijke rol in militaire besluitvorming,” Forthcoming in Ars Aequi, March 2018 [Dutch journal]

“Complications of a Common Language: Why it is so Hard to Talk about Autonomous Weapons,”  in Journal of Conflict and Security Law, April 2017 [academic]

“AI with AI: Lethal Autonomy and the Military Targeting Process,” CNA podcast, episodes 16a & 16b, 9 February 2018 [podcast]

“Staar niet blind op de ‘Terminator’: waarom een VN-verbod op autonome wapens onrealistisch is.” In Atlantisch Perspectief, (5), 11-16. [Dutch journal]

“Human Control in the Targeting Process,” in R. Geiss (Ed.), Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems: Technology, Definition, Ethics, Law & Security (pp. 66–75) Berlin: Federal Foreign Office, 2016 [chapter]

“Human Control in the Targeting Process,” Contribution to the ICRC expert meeting on Autonomous Weapons Systems, 15–16 March 2016 [conference paper]

“‘Are you smarter than Professor Hawking?’ Higher Forces and Gut-Feelings in the Debate on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems,” EJIL: Talk!, 27 April 2016  [blog] 

Biography last updated: April 2018.