Note: More information about this PILAC Project as well as the full version of the Briefing Report are available here [link].
Credits
About PILAC
The Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (PILAC) is a platform at Harvard Law School that 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. 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, PILAC does not take institutional positions on these matters.
About the Authors
Dustin A. Lewis is a Senior Researcher at the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict (PILAC). Gabriella Blum, the Faculty Director of PILAC, is the Rita E. Hauser Professor of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Harvard Law School. And Naz K. Modirzadeh, the Director of PILAC, is a Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School.
Acknowledgments and Disclaimers
The authors extend their thanks to: Adam Broza, Jessica Burniske, Molly Doggett, Joshua Kestin, and Katie King for research assistance; Jessica Burniske and Katie King for editorial assistance; Adam Broza, Jiawei He, Katie King, Francesco Romani, Svitlana Starosvit, and Anton Vallélian for translation assistance; Jiawei He and the Chinese Initiative on International Law for logistical and translation support; Jennifer Allison, PILAC Liaison to the Harvard Law School Library (HLSL), and the staff of the HLSL for research support; participants at events featuring early PILAC research at Fudan University, Shanghai (May 2016), at China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing (May 2016), and at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society of Harvard University, Cambridge (July 2016) for critical feedback and comments; and Peter Krafft, Claudia Pérez D’Arpino, and Merel A. C. Ekelhof for technical assistance and critical feedback.
Adam Broza and Molly Doggett produced the Bibliography. Jessica Burniske and Joshua Kestin drafted the sub-section of Section 2 on examples of purported autonomous weapon systems. Katie King and Joshua Kestin produced Appendices I and II and provided extensive research assistance concerning the sub-section in section 3 regarding customary international law and autonomous weapon systems.
This Briefing Report has been produced, in part, with financial assistance from the Pierre and Pamela Omidyar Fund, which is an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF). PILAC also receives generous support from the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). The views expressed in this Briefing Report should not be taken, in any way, to reflect the official opinion of the SVCF or of the Swiss FDFA. PILAC is grateful for the support the SVCF and Swiss FDFA provide for independent research and analysis. The research undertaken by the authors of this Briefing Report was completely independent; the views and opinions reflected in this Briefing Report are those solely of the authors; and the authors alone are responsible for any errors in this Briefing Report.
License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
Web
This Briefing Report is available free of charge at http://pilac.law.harvard.edu.