The Discourse of Proportionality and the Use of Force: International Law and the Power of Definition

McKenna, Miriam Bak

doi:10.1163/15718107-89030006

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…236 The ability of IHL and the jus ad bellum in their current forms to regulate these issues is uncertain: from a jus ad bellum perspective, the self-defence arguments used to justify the Soleimani strike are the latest example of "the legal elasticity and ambiguity afforded by proportionality and necessity" being put under ever-greater strain to justify extraterritorial force. 237 More generally, the lack of expert consensus on the legality of the Soleimani killingor consensus even on the appropriate framework…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Qassem Soleimani, Targeted Killing of State Actors, and Executive Order 12,333

Molloy¹

2021

VUWLR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The targeted killing of the Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani in an American drone strike in January 2020 marked a novel development in the operation of the United States' drone programme; targeting a member of a state's armed forces as opposed to a member of a non-state armed group. Soleimani's killing offers an opportunity to re-examine the scope of Executive Order 12,333, which prohibits employees of the United States Government from committing assassinations. This article applies Executive Order 12,333's "assassination ban" to the Soleimani strike. The assassination ban's scope varies depending on whether it is applied in a wartime or peacetime context. This article concludes from the surrounding factual and legal context that the strike should be analysed according to the peacetime definition of assassination, which necessitates an analysis of the strike's compliance with the jus ad bellum, the legal framework applicable to uses of interstate force. It finds that the strike's non-compliance with the jus ad bellum, in addition to its likely political motive create a strong argument that the strike would constitute a prohibited assassination under the terms of the Executive Order, but the legal framework surrounding the Executive Order limits its direct enforceability with respect to presidentially authorised uses of force. It ultimately concludes that, despite the assassination ban's lack of direct enforceability, it nevertheless creates a strong normative counterbalance against an increasing tendency toward expansive uses of extraterritorial force.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Qassem Soleimani, Targeted Killing of State Actors, and Executive Order 12,333

Molloy¹

2021

VUWLR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Herein, military targets are selected, and further the anticipated military advantage and the expected collateral damage are established to decide if the attack is proportional or not, i.e., can be approved or not for execution (Henderson & Reece, 2018;Ali, 2020). This process is based on the principle of proportionality, is referred in the literature with terms such as assessment or test and has a subjective nature as it is based on human reasoning and responsibility of the military Commander in place (McKenna, 2020). Specifically, the principle of proportionality forbids the expected total incidental civilian loss (i.e., collateral damage) to be excessive in relation to the direct anticipated military advantage (AP I Art.…”

Section: Research Background and Related Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…No matter if conventional or unconventional instruments of war are being used and no matter in which operational domain (e.g., land, air, cyber), at the core of this phenomenon is the targeting process where the indispensable element in the military decision-making process when deciding if it is proper to engage a military target or not is the proportionality assessment. This assessment brings together two cardinally opposed components, i.e., military advantage and collateral damage (Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict, 2009;Dinstein, 2016;McKenna, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling the Influential Factors Embedded in the Proportionality Assessment in Military Operations

Maathuis

Chockalingam

2023

iccws

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The ongoing decade was believed to be a peaceful one. However, contemporary conflicts, and in particular, ongoing wars prove the opposite as they show the increase in context complexity when defining their goals as well as execution strategies for building means and methods for achieving them by gaining advantage against their adversaries through the engagement of well-established targets. At the core of the engagement decision relies the principle of proportionality which brings in a direct relation the expected unintended effects on civilian side with the anticipated intended effects on military side. While the clusters of effects involved in the proportionality assessment are clear, the process itself is subjective, governed by different dimensions of uncertainty, and represents the responsibility of military Commanders. Thus, a complex socio-technical process where different clusters of influential factors (e.g., military, technical, socio-ethical) play a role in the decisions made. Having said that, the objective of this research is to capture and cluster these factors, and further to model their influence in the proportionality decision-making process. This decision support system produces military targeting awareness to the agents involved in the processes of building, executing, and assessing military operations. To accomplish the aim of this research, a Design Science Research methodological approach is taken for capturing and modelling the influential factors as a socio-technical artefact in the form of a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) model. The model proposed is further evaluated through demonstration on three different cases in respect to real military operations incidents and scenarios existing in the scientific literature in this research field. Hence, through this demonstration, it is illustrated and interpreted how the factors identified influence proportionality decisions when assessing target engagement as being proportional or disproportional. In these cases, corresponding measures for strengthening proportionality and reducing disproportionality in military operations are considered.

show abstract

In the Context of War Theories in International Relations, the Causes of Societies' Defeat and Victory in Ibn Khaldûn's Philosophy

Yaşar Ümütlü

2024

Fiscaoeconomia

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this article, the causes that lead states to war, defeat and triumph in Ibn Khaldun's thought will be discussed. Ibn Khaldun adopted an approach to explain wars with social, historical, political and economic factors. Frankly, it is a prerequisite for understanding factual facts that Ibn Khaldun draws attention to the historical context of the issues he wants to explain and predicts future events by analyzing past events and wars. Analyzing historical facts based on this assumption is an important part of his methodology. In his approach, wars are analyzed not only through military strategy but also through their social, historical, geographical, political and economic contexts. Therefore, in this article, his thoughts are presented not only from a state-centered and single-actor approach, but also from a civilization-oriented perspective, in order to help us understand the complexity of wars from the perspective of international relations. The article primarily focuses on the war experience in Ibn Khaldun's life. Then, according to his theory of war, the reasons why societies fight, and then the reasons for victory and defeat, are determined. Finally, Ibn Khaldun's theory is compared in the context of classical war theories in the history of thought and modern war theories.

show abstract

The Discourse of Proportionality and the Use of Force: International Law and the Power of Definition

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Qassem Soleimani, Targeted Killing of State Actors, and Executive Order 12,333

Qassem Soleimani, Targeted Killing of State Actors, and Executive Order 12,333

Modelling the Influential Factors Embedded in the Proportionality Assessment in Military Operations

In the Context of War Theories in International Relations, the Causes of Societies' Defeat and Victory in Ibn Khaldûn's Philosophy

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About