Thammasat University students interested in history, political science, peace studies, and related subjects may find it useful to participate in a free 3 May Zoom webinar on “Mistakes” in War.
The event, on Friday, 3 May 2024 at 7pm Bangkok time, is presented by the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge, the United Kingdom.
The TU Library collection includes research about different aspects of mistakes in war.
As explained on the event website,
In this lecture, based on a forthcoming co-authored article, Professor Oona Hathaway will examine the law on “mistakes” in war. She will consider whether and when the law holds individuals and states responsible for “mistakes.” To see how the law works, or fails to work, in practice, she will examine the US military’s own assessments of civilian casualties. She will show that “mistakes” are far more common than generally acknowledged. Some errors are, moreover, the predictable – and avoidable – result of a system that does too little to learn from its mistakes. She will focus her remarks on the United States, both because of its global military operations and because of the power of its example to shape global practices. The United States is far from alone, however. Thus, lessons learned from its failures can be instructive for other states as well.
About the Speaker
Professor Oona A. Hathaway teaches international law at the Yale Law School, New Haven, Connecticut, the United States of America.
Students are invited to register at this link:
https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_H_n1m-hyQWaYuawg9vi1zg#/registration
TU students may access books by Professor Hathaway by the TU Library International Library Loan (ILL) service.
During a recent podcast posted on the website of Northwestern University’s Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Professor Hathaway stated about the Russian invasion of Ukraine:
I think that what is interesting here is that we have this clear violation of international law, right? So the war itself is just an outright violation of the United Nations. The charter and the central prohibition on the use of force by states. And so the initial reaction that many people had is like, that’s it. That’s the end of the world order. You know, all bets are off. And I think what we’ve seen is that was too quick. And that what really has been interesting and what you often have to look to with law to understand whether the law works is what’s the response? What is the response to lawbreaking? And here what the response has been has been extraordinarily broad and significant large numbers of states putting in place economic sanctions against Russia. Russia being condemned by the United Nations General Assembly by votes of over 140 states condemning its invasion and then its annexation or purported annexation of parts of Eastern Ukraine being kicked out of the Human Rights Council, being kicked out of the Council of Europe. All these things are responses to the illegal action, and I think each one of these responses helps reinforce the underlying principle that was initially broken. And I think that what you actually might see over time is that the response has this power of reinforcing the very norm that was broken and strengthening potentially the norm that was broken, so that this act that began as this kind of fundamental breakage, a real challenge to the international legal order, could, if this response is sustained, actually end up strengthening and reinforcing it. […]
So international law is actually not what’s constraining most states in terms of the response that they’re providing. International law basically says you can’t use force against another state unless it’s authorized by the Security Council, which in this case it’s the United Nations Security Council won’t authorize any kind of action because Russia is one of the permanent five members and can veto any action. Or if you’re acting in self-defense or collective self-defense of a state that has been attacked here, Ukraine obviously has been attacked. States that are assisting it in theory, could use military force to respond, but they’re not doing so now. Why are they not doing so? They’re not doing so not because of anything having to do with international law. They’re not doing so because they’re afraid of nuclear Armageddon. And so the reason that states are drawing the line at providing military support, economic support, other kinds of support, and then on the other hand, sanctioning Russia is a sense that that’s where the red line is in terms of Russia. But there’s no legal limits, really, in terms of the kind of support that could be provided to Ukraine, because Ukraine is in the right here. Ukraine has been attacked. Ukraine has the right under Article 51 to defend itself and states have the right to assist it in its defense because it’s acting lawfully in using military force to defend its territory. […]
So the crime of aggression is, in short, the idea of waging an illegal war. And so when a state engages in the crime of aggression or a person assists in the crime of aggression, they’re assisting in waging a war that violates international law today, that means a war that violates Article two four of the United Nations Charter, which is the provision of the charter that prohibits resort to force. Now, there are different ways in which is defined and different context. The Rome Statute, which is the statute that creates the International Criminal Court, defines it more narrowly than that. So the crime of aggression in the Rome Statute is defined as what’s called a leadership crime, meaning that you could only prosecute the kind of aggression against people who are responsible, really for for leading the illegal war, for causing the award happens. You wouldn’t be able to, for instance, prosecute an ordinary soldier who participated in the crime of aggression. […]
Well, what’s challenging here is actually it’s probably worthwhile to kind of back up and explain the fact that the International Criminal Court, which I mentioned before, does have jurisdiction over three crimes that are being committed right now in Ukraine, or at least potentially being committed. One is war crimes. Second is a crime against humanity, and third is potentially genocide, if that’s being committed. So those three crimes right now, the International Criminal Court is investigating, is busy building cases. And the reason it can do that is because Ukraine agreed to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court back in 2014. So back when Russia initially annexed Crimea, Ukraine, though, was not a party to the Rome Statute, not a party to the International Criminal Court said we agree to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court for anything that happens in Ukraine going forward. And so that gives the International Criminal Court jurisdiction. […]
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)