Although international law forbids states to use force against each other, every state has an obligation to stop the ongoing violation of international humanitarian law. Consequently, the relevance of the traditional law of neutrality is questionable and often considered obsolete in contemporary armed conflict. The United States of America introduced the doctrine of qualified neutrality. The doctrine allows other states to do something when there is a threat or ongoing violations of the peace and security of humankind. The United States has commonly justified its military assistance to one of the warring parties using the doctrine as in the current Russia-Ukraine War. The United States provides vast military assistance to Ukraine, consisting of weapons and specialized military training to stop Russian aggression. This study aims to assess the qualified neutrality doctrine from an international law perspective and whether the United States can still preserve its neutral status or become a co-belligerent of Ukraine. This study argues that qualified neutrality will not change the status of a neutral state into co-belligerent if it does not involve any use of force measures or, otherwise, these measures shall fall within the framework of the UN Charter and require authorization from the UN.

Article VI of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) requires all state parties to disarm nuclear weapon. Following its official withdrawal from NPT in 2003, North Korea maintains to develop its nuclear weapon and conducts several nuclear tests. Moreover, it even proudly declared as a nuclear state in its Constitution's preamble. It also argues that the nuclear weapon developments and tests were conducted within their territory and, currently, North Korea is not bound by any treaty prohibiting such developments and tests. The statement is strongly opposed by the international community, particularly their neighboring states: Japan and South Korea. This article argues that the obligation to disarm nuclear weapon deriving from the NPT still binds North Korea since such obligation has reached the status of customary international law and consequently binds every state unless such state persistently objects the rule from the beginning of its formation. In this case, North Korea has failed to prove itself as a persistent objector due to the fact it used to be a party to the NPT. This article also argues that, according to 2001 ILC Articles, Japan and South Korea still have a proper legal basis to claim for reparation against North Korea despite the fact that they are not specifically affected by North Korea’s conducts.

Since it had established a caliphate in 2014,  Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) continued to threaten the international peace and security by attacking and killing civilians.  ISIS foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs)  are ISIS members  who have combat functions. Altough it is a serious crime, terrorism has not yet been recognized as a stand-alone core international crimes  according to customary international law. The fact that ISIS is referred to as a terrorist groups, not a state-entity, has also raised a question of whether ISIS FTFs  can only be prosecuted for committing terrorism related offences. This paper argues that  terrorism acts by ISIS FTFs  can fit the element of the existing core international crimes such as crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide  To this end, this paper elaborates the most common offences committed by ISIS FTFs and  analyses  element of  each of  core international crimes.  This paper concludes that  ISIS FTFs should be held liable for those core international crimes and  prosecuted before national and international criminal court accordingly.

<em>This article aimed to analyze the classification of armed conflict in Estonia's cyber-attack and how the existing IHL are answering this problem, and whether those regulations are enough for future cases of cyber-attack. This article uses the normative method by comparing the Geneva Convention 1949 and Additional Protocol I 1977 with Rule 30 Tallinn Manual 1.0 and some relevant literary works, using a descriptive-analytic to explain the object comprehensively. The result shows that Estonia's cyber-attack could be classified as an International Armed Conflict, which first started as a Non-International Armed Conflict by proving attribution from Russia to Nashi Youth Group following the Overall Control in Tadic Case. The distinction between information warfare and cyber-attack is related to the physical impact, which a threshold of a cyber-attack under Tallinn Manual 1.0. It means Rule 30 of Tallinn Manual 1.0 also answered Jus ad Bellum's threshold and Jus in Bello in terms of cyber-attack. Although, this article needs some improvements regarding the limitation of this issue only focused on the Material Scope of IHL. In addition, Rule 30 of Tallinn Manual 1.0 is not legally binding because it is not one source of international law. However, it is possible for the Rule 30 Tallinn Manual 1.0 to be a new norm and becoming customary international law in the future.</em>

Technological development has given rise to new means and methods of warfare such as cyber-attack and can potentially have devastating humanitarian consequences. In times of armed conflict, International Humanitarian Law (IHL) limits certain use of weapons, however, it is questionable whether an armed conflict exists in the situation where cyber-attack is employed alone. In 2007, Estonia suffered severe damages due to cyber-attacks that were equal to the damages caused by kinetic weapons. Yet, there is a debate whether IHL applies in the Estonia case due to the shortage of a kinetic weapon. The Estonia case has generated NATO and other states to draft a cyber-warfare manual (Tallinn Manual 1.0) that, in its Rule 30, affirms the IHL applicability in the case of only cyber-attack. Due to the importance of this Rule, this article argues that Rule 30 shall be considered as a legally binding provision in the form of customary international law. This Rule has satisfied widely practiced and opinio juris elements although it is not as ideal as other customary norms. Taking into consideration the rapid development of technology, it is not necessary for Rule 30 to meet the ideal condition of customary law since, according to Grotian Moment Theory, the formation of a new customary international law can be accelerated in times of fundamental change as can be seen in the practice of customary air and space law. Keywords: Customary International Law, Cyber-Attack, Grotian Moment Theory, IHL, Tallinn Manual 1.0 ABSTRAKPerkembangan teknologi telah melahirkan cara dan metode berperang yang baru seperti serangan siber dan dapat berpotensi menimbulkan kehancuran umat manusia. Hukum Humaniter Internasional (HHI) membatasi penggunaan senjata tertentu saat perang, sayangnya penerapan hukum ini masih dipertanyakan dalam kasus yang hanya melibatkan serangan siber. Tahun 2007 Estonia menderita kerugian akibat dari serangan siber yang tingkat keparahannya dapat disamakan dengan serangan kinetis. Namun, fakta bahwa serangan tersebut tidak melibatkan senjata kinetis melahirkan perdebatan perihal penerapan HHI. Kasus Estonia telah mendorong NATO dan negara-negara lainya untuk merumuskan Manual tentang Perang Siber (Tallinn Manual 1.0) yang mengkonfirmasi penerapan HHI untuk kasus yang hanya melibatkan serangan siber. Pentingnya pengaturan dalam Pasal 30, artikel ini berpendapat bahwa pasal tersebut harus memiliki kekuatan hukum yang mengikat dalam bentuk aturan hukum kebiasaan internasional. Pasal 30 telah memenuhi unsur hukum kebiasaan internasional yakni praktek negara yang luas serta opinio juris. Sekalipun tidak dipenuhi secara sempurna seperti layaknya aturan hukum kebiasaan internasional yang lain. Dengan mempertimbangkan perkembangan teknologi yang pesat, Pasal 30 tidak perlu secara ideal memenuhi unsur norma hukum kebiasaan internasional, karena menurut Grotian Moment Theory pembentukan norma hukum kebiasaan internasional baru dapat dipercepat karena adanya perubahan yang fundamental. Hal ini dapat terlihat dari praktek hukum kebiasaan ruang angkasa. Kata Kunci: Hukum Kebiasaan Internasional, Hukum Humaniter Internasional, Serangan Siber, Tallinn Manual 1.0, Teori Grotian Moment