Sexual violence in conflict and weapons: unpacking the links for better prevention

September 28, 2023 7 mins read Gender / Gender and conflict / Sexual Violence / Weapons Hana Salama

It’s often said that sexual violence is a weapon of war, but the actual weapons used to perpetrate these crimes are rarely discussed. ...

Loitering munitions: flagging an urgent need for legally binding rules for autonomy in weapon systems

June 29, 2023 10 mins read Analysis / Artificial Intelligence and Armed Conflict / Autonomous Weapons / New Technologies / Weapons Ingvild Bode & Tom F.A. Watts

Earlier this month, a viral story alleged that a US Air Force simulation took place ...

Climate and environment considerations for weapon bearers in armed conflict

September 22, 2022 14 mins read Climate change / Climate change, conflict and humanitarian action / Humanitarian Action / War, law and the environment Sarah Gale

Why should parties to a conflict care about climate change and the environment? This is ...

Shifting the narrative: not weapons, but technologies of warfare

January 20, 2022 12 mins read Analysis / Artificial Intelligence and Armed Conflict / Humanitarian Action / Law and Conflict / New Technologies / Technology in Humanitarian Action / Weapons Klaudia Klonowska

Debates concerning the regulation of choices made by States in conducting hostilities are often limited ...

IEDs and the Mine Ban Convention: a minefield of definitions?

September 17, 2019 12 mins read Conduct of Hostilities / Landmines and the Law / Law and Conflict / Weapons Wen Zhou & Andrea Raab

The year 2019 marks the 20th anniversary of the entry into force of the Anti-Personnel ...

Safety net or tangled web: Legal reviews of AI in weapons and war-fighting

April 18, 2019 11 mins read Artificial Intelligence and Armed Conflict / Law and Conflict / New Technologies / Weapons Netta Goussac

Editor’s note: For those interested in the topic of legal reviews of weapons, it is ...

Is arms control over emerging technologies just a peacetime luxury? Lessons learned from the First World War

January 18, 2019 14 mins read History / Humanitarian Action / Law and Conflict / Weapons Eric Germain

At the turn of the twentieth century, many engineers with fertile imaginations—from France’s Gustave Gabet to America’s Orville Wright—hoped that their inventions would ...

New types of weapons need new forms of governance

June 28, 2018 6 mins read Law and Conflict / New Technologies / Weapons Richard Lennane

The existing national and international tools used to control the emergence and use of weapons that may contravene international humanitarian law (IHL) have ...

A global ban on nuclear weapons: Are we there yet?

May 24, 2017 12 mins read Analysis / Law and Conflict / Weapons Melina Lito

In the heart of the Cold War, nuclear weapons were the central issue of international peace and security debates, with a devastating nuclear ...

Space law revisited (3/3): The regime of international liability in space

April 27, 2017 10 mins read Analysis / Law and Conflict / New Technologies Pavle Kilibarda

Outer space is becoming an arena for technological shows of force – whether by deployment of spy satellites or testing of weapons. What ...

Joint series: Restricting medical personnel, units, and transports to ‘light individual weapons’

February 21, 2017 2 mins read Analysis / Conduct of Hostilities / Counterterrorism / Humanitarian Action / Law and Conflict

In the first instalment of episode 2 in this multi-blog series on the updated Commentaries, ...

Space law revisited (2/3): Are weapons of mass destruction prohibited in space?

December 21, 2016 8 mins read Analysis / Law and Conflict / New Technologies / Weapons Pavle Kilibarda

Outer space is becoming an arena for technological shows of force – whether by deployment of spy satellites or testing of weapons. What ...