Source: Hosny Salah

This piece is part of the American Branch’s third blogging symposium, examining the ILW 2025 theme of ‘Crisis as Catalyst in International Law’ from an International Humanitarian Law perspective. The International Humanitarian Law Committee sponsors this symposium; however, the views expressed in published works are solely those of the authors.

Recalibrating the Proportionality Calculus to Include Mental Collateral Damage

by Natasha Arnpriester*

In a Gaza shelter, a displaced child tells a mental health worker: “I think I am dead, but if you can hear me, maybe I am alive.” This is dissociation, an acute psychological response from a young mind overwhelmed by war.

This single moment distills a wider catastrophe. In Gaza, nearly 84% of civilians meet the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and almost 90% suffer significant psychological distress. The World Health Organization has called the mental toll “unspeakable,” as children endure nightmares, bedwetting, mutism, acute anxiety, and physical pain rooted not in physical injury, but mental trauma.

International Humanitarian Law (IHL) restrains harm in armed conflict by regulating how it is fought, balancing military necessity with the imperative to protect civilians from unnecessary suffering. At its core is the principle of proportionality, which prohibits attacks when the expected civilian harm, so-called “collateral damage,” would be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage.

IHL defines collateral damage as the “incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, and damage to civilian objects.” But “injury” here is understood only in physical terms. Injuries that are psychological in nature do not count.

Operationally, the principle of proportionality functions like a scale: if anticipated civilian harm outweighs the military gain, the attack is unlawful; if not, it may proceed. But by excluding mental harm from this calculation, the law blinds itself to one of war’s most devastating and enduring consequences.

Psychological injury in armed conflict is not anecdotal, but an epidemiological reality. PTSD, for instance, whether triggered by direct threats or by witnessing harm to others, can hollow out a life from within. It drives people into isolation, robs them of their livelihoods, traps them in a state of unrelenting fear, fuels addiction, and pushes some to the brink of suicide.

The data is stark. In Afghanistan, decades of conflict have produced some of the highest global rates of trauma, anxiety, and depression, even among those never physically injured. In Ukraine, the share of civilians with PTSD symptoms surged from 27% before the full-scale invasion to 74%. In Yemen, one in four people lives with war-inflicted psychological trauma. Among Syrian refugees in Germany, around half live with PTSD, and 40% have contemplated or attempted suicide. After the Gulf War, more than 70% of Kuwaiti children developed PTSD; among a sample of war-affected Kurdish children, the figure reached a staggering 87%.

And mental harm often becomes physical. It raises the risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and other serious illnesses. In Beirut, civilians exposed to war trauma were two to three times more likely to die prematurely than those spared such exposure. Neuroscientific studies show that psychological trauma can alter brain chemistry and even its physical structure in ways that degrade physical health over time.

Psychological injury in war is not new. Accounts stretch from ancient Mesopotamia to “shell shock” in World War I. But modern military technology has diversified, and, in some cases, intensified that trauma.

Take combat drones. Praised for their precision and supposed ability to spare civilians, they are often portrayed as a cleaner form of warfare. Yet this claim rests on an incomplete calculus. Judged only by immediate physical harm, drones may seem benign; measured by their psychological toll, they can be devastating.

Mental health experts have described the U.S. drone program as causing suffering on an “unprecedented scale,” with civilians exhibiting high rates of depression, anxiety, hallucinations, psychosis, and schizophrenia.  A joint report by Stanford and New York University law schools documented communities under constant drone surveillance and strikes enduring severe emotional breakdowns, exaggerated startle responses, withdrawal, hallucinations, and suicidal ideation. In Yemen, a psychologist found 92% of residents in drone-affected areas met the criteria for PTSD. In Ukraine, “droneophobia” has entered the popular lexicon, as psychiatrists report a surge in “mental health injuries” tied directly to drone exposure. Experts liken these psychological scars to those of torture victims—people subjected to “inescapable and uncontrollable stressor events.”

Drone warfare lays bare the glaring gap in the current IHL proportionality analysis. Under prevailing interpretation, a strike expected to kill only a combatant and cause no physical civilian injury is deemed entirely lawful. Yet if mental harm were counted as collateral damage, some such operations would fail a proportionality test.

When no physical injury is anticipated, proportionality almost always tips toward military necessity, even if the psychological toll is widespread and severe. In this blind spot, even a trivial military gain outweighs what the law records as “zero” civilian harm. That legal green light can be given again and again: a strike in the morning, another at noon, another at night, day after day, each one deemed lawful, while civilians live in constant terror.

On paper, the harm does not exist. In reality, it is measurable, profound, and often as devastating as any physical wound. And as weapons and targeting systems grow ever more precise, the risk of overuse only grows precisely because physical damage appears reduced.

Closing this gap matters. Incorporating mental harm into the collateral damage calculus would compel more discriminating operational choices, forcing decision-makers to weigh military necessity against the full spectrum of civilian suffering; sparing countless civilians from an injury that may be invisible, yet no less real.

Critics may argue that psychological harm is too diffuse or unpredictable to factor into proportionality. Yet proportionality assessments already operate under uncertainty. Military decision-makers routinely forecast civilian harm and anticipated military advantage with incomplete data. The same is true in psychology, where researchers regularly model mental harm using established diagnostic criteria, population surveys, and predictive epidemiology. Difficulty in measurement does not erase the fact that psychological harm is real, foreseeable, and, like physical harm, susceptible to reasonable estimation.

There are workable ways to estimate, or at least meaningfully consider, potential psychological harm. One practical starting point could be to adapt the “zone of impact” approach long used in U.S. tort law and disaster compensation. Under the “zone of danger” rule, plaintiffs can recover damages for emotional distress without physical injury if they were in an area of immediate risk of physical harm. After the September 11 attacks, the federal Victim Compensation Fund operationalized this, recognizing PTSD, depression, and anxiety as compensable harms for those within a defined “exposure zone,” regardless of physical injury. Those who lost loved ones, witnessed the attacks, or endured the ongoing fear of another strike suffered in ways similar to civilians in war zones.

This framework could be adapted ex ante in armed conflict. First, define the anticipated exposure zone for an operation, whether the blast radius of a missile or the geographic reach of bombardment. Second, estimate the civilian population within that zone. Third, apply epidemiological data from comparable contexts to project the likely prevalence and severity of psychological harm. For example, if a planned drone surveillance operation is projected to cover a town of 5,000 people for several months, prior research from similar environments could indicate that up to 60%, or 3,000 civilians, might develop PTSD or related disorders, even absent physical injury. These projections could then be incorporated into the proportionality analysis alongside anticipated physical casualties and damage to civilian objects.

While the finer points of quantification require further scholarship, the imperative is clear: psychological injury is measurable enough to matter, predictable enough to plan for, and grave enough to demand inclusion in the law’s most consequential battlefield calculus. The growing body of international legal scholarship examining how and why mental harm should be incorporated into proportionality analysis (particularly here, here, and here) is adding important depth to what remains an underdeveloped but vital conversation.

The very purpose of IHL is to limit human suffering, whether inflicted on the body or inscribed on the mind. International law recognizes no distinction, enshrining in the jus cogens ban on torture the condemnation of the deliberate infliction of “severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental” at the highest level of legal authority. And as “mental torture” is expressly prohibited in Article 17 of the Third Geneva Convention and deemed a grave breach under Article 130 (see also Additional Protocol I, Art. 85(5)), the mental devastation of war must weigh as heavily as physical harm in assessing proportionality, in both moral and legal terms.

The laws of war are meant to preserve a thread of humanity even in humanity’s darkest hour. Yet by defining collateral damage only in physical terms, the proportionality test ignores some of the most devastating consequences of modern conflict. A scale that weighs only deaths and physical injuries tilts IHL’s balance towards military necessity, thus eroding its commitment to humanity.

Recalibrating proportionality to account for psychological injury would not weaken military effectiveness; it would strengthen the law’s legitimacy, ensuring that the shield it promises to civilians is not pierced by wounds it refuses to see. Wars will always exact a cost. If we insist that cost is justified, then we must count every harm, including the ones the law, as presently applied, leaves uncounted.

*Natasha Arnpriester is Senior Legal Counsel at the Open Society Justice Initiative in New York, where she leads transnational litigation on human rights accountability, with a particular focus on communities affected by armed conflict, authoritarian regimes, and structural exclusion. Her litigation strategies center on developing niche and innovative arguments to address complex problems in both domestic and international legal forums, with impacted communities at the core.

The post Recalibrating the Proportionality Calculus to Include Mental Collateral Damage (IHL Symposium) appeared first on ABILA.

A column of smoke after an Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip; Mohammed Ibrahim

This piece is part of the American Branch’s third blogging symposium, examining the ILW 2025 theme of ‘Crisis as Catalyst in International Law’ from an International Humanitarian Law perspective. The International Humanitarian Law Committee sponsors this symposium; however, the views expressed in published works are solely those of the authors.

A Binary in Crisis: Broadening the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation

by Oscar Pearce*

International Humanitarian Law (“IHL”) traditionally tells the following story of military occupation: one state successfully invades another, taking control of its territory. Legally, the invader is not the sovereign power in the territory. Factually, however, it has replaced the indigenous government’s authority with its own.

Occupations are thus states of exception, severing the bond between sovereignty and control of territory. In such abnormal circumstances, IHL applies constraints, duties, and authorizations to occupying forces, primarily sourced from the Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Convention (Part III, Sections I and III). Collectively, this is the law of occupation. For a critical analysis of regulating such states of exception, see Ben-Naftali and Diamond.

In this post, I discuss how a recent crisis served as a catalyst for expanding the temporal scope of the law of occupation, before proposing to extend this expansion further, aiming to give full effect to the law’s purpose.

The Temporal Boundaries of Occupation

When does the law of occupation begin to apply, and when does it stop? For over a century, the answer was simple. Article 42 of the Hague Regulations states:

Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.

The occupation applies only to the territory where such authority is established, and in a position to assert itself.

Under this test, an occupier was classified as such when it had secured effective control of a territory. Symmetrically, when an occupier no longer exercised effective control, it was no longer an occupier.

This effective control threshold is high. See, for example, the ICTY’s guidelines from Naletilić and Martinović:

– The occupying power must be in a position to substitute its own authority for that of the occupied authorities, which must have been rendered incapable of functioning publicly;
– The enemy’s forces have surrendered, been defeated, or withdrawn. In this respect, battle areas may not be considered as occupied territory. However, sporadic local resistance, even successful, does not affect the reality of occupation;
– The occupying power has a sufficient force present, or the capacity to send troops within a reasonable time to make the authority of the occupying power felt;
– A temporary administration has been established over the territory;
– The occupying power has issued and enforced directions to the civilian population.

A Troubling Gap

Despite Israel’s 2005 “disengagement” from Gaza, it retained significant authority over the territory. Israel controlled Gaza’s air and sea, a no-go zone along the border, the local monetary market, customs duties, veto rights over large-scale construction, the population registry, and border crossings (see the 2015 Human Rights Council inquiry).

Without the law of occupation, Israel could continue acting as a quasi-occupying force, unrestrained by occupier obligations (nor empowered by authorizations): an unacceptable vacuum.

Absent “boots on the ground” and outright Israeli administration of the territory, however, it was difficult to conclude that Israel retained effective control. Moreover, even if Gaza was classified as subject to a traditional occupation, that was also undesirable. That would imply, for example, that Israel was duty-bound to enforce law and order.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place, the IHL community converged on a delicate path between the two: the functional approach.

The Functional Approach

The ICJ settled on the following solution:

Where an occupying Power, having previously established its authority in the occupied territory, later withdraws its physical presence in part or in whole, it may still bear obligations under the law of occupation to the extent that it remains capable of exercising, and continues to exercise, elements of its authority in place of the local government.

Though Israel no longer satisfied the effective control threshold, it had retained key elements of authority. Thus, its obligations remained “commensurate” with that ongoing control.

After the ICJ’s opinion – which followed support from academics, NGOs, and the ICRC – leading proponent Aeyal Gross declared the functional approach lex lata.

The functional approach is challenging to apply. Which elements of authority should be used to identify an applicable post-withdrawal setting? How is a “commensurate” obligation calibrated? These questions have not yet been conclusively answered.

However, this post concerns a preliminary issue: why confine this approach to scenarios where an occupying power has “previously established its authority in the occupied territory”?

Testing the Lex Lata

Consider the following hypothetical scenario:

Gaza Interrupted. Let ‘Gaza at T₀’ refer to Gaza in 2019, under the state of partial occupation that prevailed at that time. Imagine that a party wins control of the Israeli Knesset in 2019 and ends all remaining Israeli influence over Gaza, such that the law of occupation clearly no longer applies. This is ‘Gaza at T₁’. Then, in a 2021 election, momentum reverts, and the features of post-2005 Israeli control are reinstated. This, finally, is ‘Gaza at T₂’. Since the occupation ended just 2 years earlier, Israel rapidly and remotely restores these levers of power.

Disregard the actual likelihood of these events, the relevant conclusion is conceptual. Gaza at T₀ and T₂ are substantively identical – Israel exercises significant authority over the territory but lacks effective control. The applicable legal regime differs entirely. The lex lata functional approach only covers partial occupations that arise after a full occupation is scaled back. Gaza at T₂ involves a partial occupation established as such at the outset, which is clearly outside this scope.

Should different legal regimes govern Gaza at T₀ and T₂? I contend that there is no solid basis for distinguishing the two.

Perhaps, however, the lex lata functional approach would cover Gaza at T₂ because it is not actually the start of a new occupation, but rather the messy end of an old one. Consider, though, the following:

The Selective Occupier. State B attacks State A. State A responds with a campaign of remote attacks against Region X, which was used as the base for State B’s attacks. Defeated, State B’s military withdraws from Region X. State A is reluctant to launch a full invasion of Region X. It wishes to assume the minimum level of control necessary to prevent attacks. In direct communications to civilians, State A assures Region X that it can continue to function largely as usual. However, State A imposes a curfew – which will be enforced by the drones that patrol Region X – and requisitions a hospital in Region X that sits on the border of State A for domestic purposes.

State A probably lacks effective control of Region X. Nevertheless, it has severed the bind between control and sovereignty, leaving a vacuum.

Those familiar with the law of occupation will note at least one possible violation above: Article 57 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits (with narrow exceptions) the requisitioning of hospitals in occupied territories. Why apply this prohibition to scenarios that cross the effective control threshold, but not to those that do not? Even worse, why apply this to post-withdrawal partial occupations (eg, Gaza) but not to all partial occupations (eg, Region X)?

Below, I propose a test to fill these gaps.

Sketching a Generalized Functional Approach

Consider the following (inspired by the ICJ’s language):

Territory is occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. A State therefore occupies territory that is not its own when, and to the geographic extent that, it exercises effective control over it. Where a State lacks effective control but is capable of exercising, and in fact exercises, key elements of its authority in place of the local government, it shall bear obligations under the law of occupation commensurate with the degree of its control over the territory.

This rule upholds the principle that effective control triggers the full law of occupation. Where that threshold is not met, a secondary test is run: does the purported occupier exercise key elements of authority over the territory? When answered in the affirmative, the law of occupation will be activated.

I acknowledge that I have retained imprecise ICJ/ICRC phraseology: “key elements of authority”, “commensurate”. Flexibility is inherent in any functional, fact-based approach to law, but some general observations can be made. The traditional indicia of effective control (e.g., the capacity to enforce a curfew) are likely candidates to be “key elements of authority”. Regarding the balancing exercise implicit in “commensurate”, I would note that such balancing is already built in to positive occupier obligations (see Siegrist).

To return to first principles, however, recall that the law of occupation’s purpose is to govern states of exception. This generalized functional approach should thus be interpreted as catching scenarios wherein a purported occupier lacks effective control but nevertheless exercises exceptional public power in a foreign territory.

Conclusion

It took a humanitarian crisis to catalyze the development of the functional approach. We should not wait for the next crisis to refine it. I hope this proposal can contribute to aligning the law of occupation with its animating purpose: regulating the exceptional exercise of extraterritorial public power, and protecting civilians in the process.

*Oscar Pearce is an incoming graduate lawyer at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, Sydney. Oscar studied at the Australian National University, where he specialized in public international law. This work is derived from an Honours thesis written under the supervision of Dr. Wanshu Cong.

The post A Binary in Crisis: Broadening the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation (IHL Symposium) appeared first on ABILA.

Signing of the Geneva Convention; International Committee of the Red Cross

This piece is part of the American Branch’s third blogging symposium, examining the ILW 2025 theme of ‘Crisis as Catalyst in International Law’ from an International Humanitarian Law perspective. The International Humanitarian Law Committee sponsors this symposium; however, the views expressed in published works are solely those of the authors.

The Trump Administration’s War on the Laws of War

by Gabor Rona*

The present-day Geneva Conventions were negotiated in the aftermath of WWII, a time of concentrated attention to the horrors of war. They are among the most widely ratified treaties in the world. The Geneva Conventions do not outlaw war. That was the job of the contemporaneous U.N. Charter. Rather, in recognition that wars happen, the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols seek to reduce suffering in war by limiting the means and methods of warfare – for example, by prohibiting the targeting of civilians – and by establishing rules for the treatment of prisoners of war and civilians falling into the power of the enemy.

The Trump administration has taken several bold and misguided, indeed irrational, steps that, when combined, will leave more holes than substance to U.S. application of International Humanitarian Law (IHL, or the law of armed conflict). I will briefly and superficially touch on three areas of grave concern. I do not address what many consider the Trump administration’s most notorious violations against the international legal order, namely, the threats to use force against Canada, Panama, and Greenland (Denmark), and the use of force against Iran and Yemen, as those are jus ad bellum/U.N. Charter issues, not jus in bello/IHL issues.

PENTAGON (AND STATE DEPARTMENT)

Secretary of Defense Hegseth’s book The War on Warriors has been likened by one reviewer to Mein Kampf in its sense of persecution and doom, promoting a “contrived nightmarish vision of society, where true ‘patriots’ are persecuted by a twisted and evil political establishment…”. Hegseth seeks to save the military from ‘wokeism,’ by which he means things like the Geneva Conventions and accountability for war crimes. He actively lobbied for pardons for soldiers convicted of murdering persons hors de combat in Afghanistan. As Secretary of Defense, he fired the Judge Advocates General, the top military lawyers in each of the armed services, a decision at odds with customary IHL obligations to ensure legal advisors are available, when necessary, to advise commanders on the application of IHL, and on the appropriate instruction to be given to the armed forces. The obligation is also supported by the Geneva Conventions’ more general requirement that States Party shall “respect and ensure respect” for the Conventions.

Consistent with the desire to free the armed services from the constraints of law, the Pentagon has announced that it will terminate the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response office, which deals with policy matters related to minimizing the risk to noncombatants, and the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, which handles training and procedures.

Another disturbing piece of evidence that the Trump administration has abandoned its support for long-standing principles, rules, and practices of IHL is its withdrawal from this year’s Aspen Security Forum, a firmly establishment-oriented event that has featured high-level international and U.S. military and national security apparatus participation for the past 15 years. The mission of the Aspen Strategy Group (ASG), which hosts the Forum, is “to address key national security challenges and promote peace by convening decision-makers in resolutely non-partisan public and private forums.” In an abrupt turn-around, the Pentagon claimed that the Forum “promotes the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country and hatred for the president of the United States,” and that “(t)he department will remain strong in its focus to increase the lethality of our war fighters, revitalize the warrior ethos and project peace through strength on the world stage. It is clear that the A.S.F. is not in alignment with these goals.” The disdain for international legal obligations of armed conflict is apparent in these hostile remarks that are entirely divorced from the reality of the Forum’s purpose and content.

At the State Department, meanwhile, recent mass firings include the closure of the Office of Global Criminal Justice, which “helps formulate U.S. policy on the prevention of, responses to, and accountability for mass atrocities,” including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

These IHL rules, the practices they mandate, and the mechanisms designed to implement them serve several functions. Obviously, they support the most important IHL principle: distinction between combatants and civilians. But rather than create a harmful constraint on armed forces, they are essential to the accomplishment of the military mission, the safety and psychological well-being of armed forces personnel, and indeed, the broader foreign policy interests of States. All these values are at risk when guardrails against the commission of war crimes are absent.

Responsible military leaders recognize the strategic value of IHL compliance, including the minimization of civilian harm. Hegseth, meanwhile, has it exactly backwards. What he considers to be woke constraints on the military are, in fact, essential components of protection for the military mission, the soldiers, and the political goals of the governments that put soldiers in harm’s way.

ISRAEL/PALESTINE

Whether or not one agrees with allegations that Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza, there is no room to doubt that Israeli armed forces, and government officials, are responsible for widespread and systematic violations of IHL in Gaza and the West Bank. Notwithstanding the horrendous violations committed by Hamas in the October 7 attacks, notwithstanding Hamas’ cynical and illegal use of the civilian population to cover its military activities, and regardless of belief in Israel’s right to use force in self-defense, the evidence of Israeli violations is so thorough, from the targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure, to the mistreatment of detainees, to the withholding of essential humanitarian aid, and to practices and policies that amount to de facto annexation of occupied territory, that I will not bother to recount the details here.

The point I want to make, once more, is about the obligation under the Geneva Conventions to “respect and ensure respect” for the Conventions. In this regard, the United States maintains several legal strictures concerning the prohibition of provision of military aid to foreign armed forces that violate IHL. The most well-known of these are the so-called Leahy Laws (named after my former Vermont Senator) – two statutory provisions prohibiting the U.S. Government from using funds for assistance to any unit of foreign security forces where there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of gross violations of human rights. One statutory provision applies to the State Department, and the other applies to the Department of Defense. The obligation to enforce the Leahy Laws lies primarily with the Secretaries of State and Defense. In addition, as these are statutory provisions, Congress has considerable leverage in oversight and funding.

Israeli officials (incredulously given the history of the Holocaust) speak of “concentrating” Gaza’s population into “camps.”  The Trump administration, meanwhile, supports the ethnic cleansing of Gazaand maintains its fictional belief that Israel “strictly adhere(s) to the laws of war.” It is thus essential to the sanctity of the Geneva Conventions’ “ensure respect” provisions, of IHL in general, and to the credibility of the United States in matters of foreign affairs, that Congress exercises its powers to compel enforcement of the Leahy Laws with respect to the provision of military support to Israel.

IMPUNITY

I  have already mentioned the decision of the Trump administration to pardon members of the U.S. armed forces convicted of murder and other offenses that are, in fact, war crimes. In addition to such ad hoc pardons, U.S. policy appears to promote impunity on an industrial scale by actively thwarting the efforts of the single, permanent, international institution designed to end impunity for international crimes: the International Criminal Court (ICC).

By way of full disclosure, I note that I am a plaintiff in litigation contesting the Trump administration’s imposition of sanctions against the ICC. My complaint is that by prohibiting support for the ICC prosecutor, these sanctions violate my constitutional rights, for example, to file amicus briefs in support of the prosecutor’s position on legal matters, or to otherwise contribute to the work of the Court. Recently, a federal court granted a permanent injunction against the government’s enforcement of these sanctions against me and my co-plaintiff. But more importantly, the sanctions have been imposed for political reasons, rather than due to any credible argument that the ICC violates international law by purporting to exercise jurisdiction against U.S. persons, or allies, namely, Israel. It is true that neither Israel nor the United States are party to the Rome Statute, the international treaty establishing the ICC. However, the Statute is fully consistent with international law by providing the ICC with jurisdiction over crimes, including IHL violations, committed on the territory of a State Party, regardless of whether the perpetrator is a national of a State Party. U.S. complaints that the ICC violates the sovereign rights of non-State Parties when it prosecutes their nationals carry no more weight than the false claim that a state cannot prosecute a foreigner for an offense committed on its territory.

As improper as the ICC sanctions are, the Trump administration has now taken things one step further by issuing sanctions against the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, whose task is not to prosecute or otherwise enforce any law, but merely to investigate and make recommendations. In clear violation of its obligations to respect freedom of expression under article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States is a party, U.S. sanctions do little to protect the legitimate interests of the United States or its nationals but visit great harm on the fight against impunity for IHL violations and the reputation of the United States as a promoter and protectors of human rights and IHL. Attempting to thwart the work of U.N. officials, and of the one permanent international institution designed to close the impunity gap that occurs when States are unwilling or unable to meet their Geneva Convention obligations, again, directly defies the obligation of all parties to the Geneva Conventions to “respect and ensure respect” for IHL.

The Geneva Conventions also obligate all States Party to search for and try or extradite for trial all persons suspected of having committed “grave breaches” of the Conventions in international armed conflict. To this end, U.S. war crimes law was recently amended to comply with the Conventions’ obligation to search for and try or extradite suspected war criminals, regardless of where they committed their crimes. This obligation is at the heart of recent prosecutions by Germany, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Finland for war crimes in Syria, Rwanda, Iraq, Iran, and Liberia. Most recently, Belgian federal police arrested and interrogated two Israeli soldiers accused of war crimes in Gaza. This should be a warning to war criminals that even if they enjoy impunity in their home countries, they remain in jeopardy should they travel elsewhere.

CONCLUSION

Viewed separately, these policies and practices of the Trump administration represent misguided decision-making, contrary to the interests of the United States. Taken together, they suggest a concerted effort to unravel some of the most significant and hard-won threads of the international legal order that are designed to minimize suffering in armed conflict and to promote international peace and security. Despite the many criticisms leveled at IHL, there can be no doubt that in the more than one and a half centuries since the promulgation of the First Geneva Convention, and despite the horrendous violations committed in all the wars since that time, international law, and in particular, IHL, has matured into a comprehensive framework designed to minimize human suffering and harm to the planet. The tools are in our hands, and it is our responsibility to respect and apply them.

*Gabor Rona is a Professor of Practice at Cardozo Law, Yeshiva University, and a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law, with expertise in international human rights and international humanitarian law. Before his time at Cardozo, he was the International Legal Director of Human Rights First and a Legal Advisor in the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva.

The post The Trump Administration’s War on the Laws of War (IHL Symposium) appeared first on ABILA.

For the American Branch’s third blogging symposium, various authors will address International Law Weekend’s 2025 theme of ‘Crisis as Catalyst in International Law’ from an International Humanitarian Law Perspective. Earlier this year, the American Branch put out a call for abstracts addressing this theme. The International Humanitarian Law Committee Chair Professor Gabor Rona, 2024 Student Ambassador Anne Harper, and ABILA COO Freya Doughty-Wagner selected the best abstracts and worked with the authors as editors. These complete pieces will be published daily, starting Tuesday, August 26th, and concluding on Friday, August 29th.

All published works are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the American Branch.

Symposium Overview:

TUESDAY: The Trump Administration’s War on the Laws of War by Gabor Rona

Gabor Rona is a Professor of Practice at Cardozo Law, Yeshiva University, and a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law, with expertise in international human rights and international humanitarian law. Before his time at Cardozo, he was the International Legal Director of Human Rights First and a Legal Advisor in the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva.

Read here.

WEDNESDAY: A Binary in Crisis: Broadening the Functional Approach to the Law of Occupation by Oscar Pearce

Oscar Pearce is an incoming graduate lawyer at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, Sydney. He studied at the Australian National University, where he specialized in Public International Law.

Read here.

THURSDAY: Accountability without Access: How Non-Military Actors Can Assess Conduct of Hostilities Violations by Ilya Ivanov

Ilya Ivanov is a PhD Candidate at the University of Geneva, where he researches the legal value of non-binding norms in international humanitarian law and international human rights law. Recently, he served as a Legal Officer at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and has held positions with the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Food Programme, and the Human Rights House Foundation.

Read here.

FRIDAY: Recalibrating the Proportionality Calculus to Include Mental Collateral Damage by Natasha Arnpriester

Natasha Arnpriester is Senior Legal Counsel at the Open Society Justice Initiative in New York, where she leads transnational litigation on human rights accountability, with a particular focus on communities affected by armed conflict, authoritarian regimes, and structural exclusion. Her litigation strategies center on developing niche and innovative arguments to address complex problems in both domestic and international legal forums, with impacted communities at the core.

Read here.

The post Introducing: Crisis as Catalyst – An International Humanitarian Law Perspective appeared first on ABILA.

In honor of ILW 2025’s theme of ‘Crisis as Catalyst,’ ABILA is hosting its next blogging symposium with the International Humanitarian Law Committee. Previous symposia have been sponsored by the International Environmental and Energy Law Committee (see here) and the International Investment Law Committee (see here). Editors for this Symposium are Professor Gabor Rona, Anne Harper, and Freya Doughty-Wagner.

Crisis as Catalyst in International Law:

“ILW 2025 will explore how crises can serve as transformative moments that challenge and reshape the framework of international law.  Whether political, environmental, economic, or humanitarian, crises compel local, regional, and global actors to confront the limitations of extant legal systems. By serving as catalysts for innovation, crises also provide opportunities to reevaluate and reconstruct international legal norms. This process highlights the dynamic nature of international law, which must balance its foundational principles with the need for flexibility in response to unprecedented events. ILW 2025 encourages participants to reimagine international law.”

Crisis as Catalyst in International Humanitarian Law lends itself to many blog themes. These may include, but are not limited to:

– Regulation of private military companies;

– The obligation to apply legal advice to targeting decisions, in light of the firing of TJAGs;

– Secretary Hegseth’s “War on Warriors” effect on IHL compliance;

– A review of status of Additional Protocols;

– International Criminal Court sanctions;

– Enforcement of Leahy Laws and the “ensure respect” obligation of the Geneva Conventions;

– The effect of US sanctions on engagement with armed groups;

– Artificial intelligence and accountability;

– Humanitarian action/obligations and principles;

– Occupation vs Annexation;

– Challenges to the implementation of principles of distinction and proportionality in modern warfare;

– Detention and trial by non-state armed groups;

– Accountability challenges relating to drones and other forms of remote targeting;

– Obligations in the development of new weapons technology;

– Enhancing accountability through the new Ljubljana/The Hague Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance.

To participate, kindly submit a 200-word abstract and a brief biography to Freya Doughty-Wagner at media@ila-americanbranch.org by June 27, 2025. Abstracts and biographies may be in Word or PDF format. Please include the phrase ‘blog symposium’ in the email’s subject line. Abstracts must address the ILW 2025 theme from an international humanitarian law perspective.

Five abstracts will be selected. Submissions may come from law students, academics, or practitioners. Undergraduates are not able to apply at this time. Blogs may not be cross-posted to other blogging platforms.

Successful applicants will be notified by July 10, 2025, and requested to prepare a 1,500-word first draft with hyperlinks as references and an attached open-access image by July 31, 2025. All blogs may undergo editing, subject to author approval, before publication. We anticipate posting the edited, complete blogs to our website and across our social media the week of August 25, 2025. The best blog will also be included in our biannual print newsletter.

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