Laws of War and 21st Century Conflict

Explores how international law considers and confronts the so-called new warfare. Despite how different modern warfare appears on its face, is it so fundamentally different from wars of the past? Many of the most prevalent forms of conflict, including terrorism and guerilla warfare, have long existed. Even if modern warfare does not present such unique or unparalleled challenges as we might at first conclude, can the same international rules that have been developed and used since the mid-nineteenth century still apply to twenty-first-century warfare? This anthology explores some of the critiques of the framework of the laws of war, presents suggestions for reform, and explores persistent gray areas in the regulation of armed conflict.

E. L. Gaston is a human rights lawyer working as a program officer for the Afghanistan-Pakistan Regional Policy Initiative of the Open Society Foundations. Her past publications considered civilian casualties, compensation and victim assistance to conflict-affected civilians, the international legal implications of private security outsourcing, and the improvement of emergency preparedness for homeland security and counterterrorism purposes.