THE IMPACT OF EXPOSURE TO ARMED CONFLICT ON RISK AND AMBIGUITY ATTITUDES

Emerging technologies have always played an important role in armed conflict. From the crossbow to cyber capabilities, technology that could be weaponized to create an advantage over an adversary has inevitably found its way into military arsenals for use in armed conflict. The weaponization of emerging technologies, however, raises challenging legal issues with respect to the law of armed conflict. As States continue to develop and exploit new technologies, how will the law of armed conflict address the use of these technologies on the battlefield? Is existing law sufficient to regulate new technologies, such as cyber capabilities, autonomous weapons systems, and artificial intelligence? Have emerging technologies fundamentally altered the way we should understand concepts such as law-of-war precautions and the principle of distinction? How can we ensure compliance and accountability in light of technological advancement? This book explores these critical questions while highlighting the legal challenges—and opportunities—presented by the use of emerging technologies on the battlefield.

A Pandemic of Violence? The Impact of COVID-19 on Conflict

Peace Economics Peace Science and Public Policy ◽

10.1515/peps-2020-0050 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 26 (3) ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sara M.T. Polo

Keyword(s):

Spatial Distribution ◽

Real Time ◽

Case Studies ◽

Armed Conflict ◽

Event Data ◽

Social Unrest ◽

Johns Hopkins University ◽

The World ◽

Political Advantage ◽

The Impact

AbstractThis article examines the impact and repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on patterns of armed conflict around the world. It argues that there are two main ways in which the pandemic is likely to fuel, rather than mitigate, conflict and engender further violence in conflict-prone countries: (1) the exacerbating effect of COVID-19 on the underlying root causes of conflict and (2) the exploitation of the crisis by governments and non-state actors who have used the coronavirus to gain political advantage and territorial control. The article uses data collected in real-time by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) and the Johns Hopkins University to illustrate the unfolding and spatial distribution of conflict events before and during the pandemic and combine this with three brief case studies of Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Libya. Descriptive evidence shows how levels of violence have remained unabated or even escalated during the first five months of the pandemic and how COVID-19-related social unrest has spread beyond conflict-affected countries.

The Graça Machel/UN Study on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children.

Peace and Conflict Journal of Peace Psychology ◽

10.1207/s15327949pac0404_1 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 4 (4) ◽

pp. 319-320 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Jennifer Klot

Keyword(s):

Armed Conflict ◽

The Impact

The impact of the Gulf armed conflict on the health and behaviour of Kuwaiti children

Social Science & Medicine ◽

10.1016/0277-9536(94)00414-o ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 41 (7) ◽

pp. 1033-1037 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Youssef A. Al-Eissa

Keyword(s):

Armed Conflict ◽

Kuwaiti Children ◽

The Impact

The Impact of the Nicaragua Case on Matters of Evidence and Fact-Finding

Leiden Journal of International Law ◽

10.1017/s092215651100063x ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 25 (1) ◽

pp. 149-156

Author(s):

PAUL S. REICHLER

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Armed Conflict ◽

The United States ◽

Pulp Mills ◽

Government Officials ◽

The Government ◽

Fact Finding ◽

Day To Day Operations ◽

High Level ◽

The Impact

AbstractThe Nicaragua case demonstrates the Court's competence in receiving and interpreting evidence, and in making reasoned findings of fact, even in the most complicated evidentiary context, as is often presented in cases involving use of force and armed conflict. The Court applied well-established standards for evaluating the conflicting evidence presented to it. In particular, the Court determined that greater weight should be given to statements against interest made by high-level government officials than to a state's self-serving declarations. The Court also determined that statements by disinterested witnesses with first-hand knowledge should receive greater weight than mere statements of opinion or press reports. In applying these guidelines, the Court found, correctly, that (i) the United States had used military and paramilitary force against Nicaragua both directly and indirectly, by organizing, financing, arming, and training the Contra guerrillas to attack Nicaragua; (ii) the evidence did not support a finding that the United States exercised direct control over the Contras’ day-to-day operations; and (iii) there was no evidence that Nicaragua supplied arms to guerrillas fighting against the government of El Salvador during the relevant period, or carried out an armed attack against that state. While Judge Schwebel's dissent criticized the last of these findings, in fact, the evidence fully supported the Court's conclusion. In subsequent decisions during the past 25 years, the Court has continued to rely on the approach to evidence first elaborated in the Nicaragua case and has continued to demonstrate its competence as a finder of fact, including in cases involving armed conflict (Bosnia Genocide) and complex scientific and technical issues (Pulp Mills).

Health Care Providers in War and Armed Conflict: Operational and Educational Challenges in International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions, Part I. Historical Perspective

Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness ◽

10.1017/dmp.2018.41 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 13 (02) ◽

pp. 109-115 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Frederick M. Burkle ◽

Adam L. Kushner ◽

Christos Giannou ◽

Mary A. Paterson ◽

Sherry M. Wren ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Health Care ◽

Health Care Providers ◽

Armed Conflict ◽

Historical Perspective ◽

Geneva Convention ◽

World Health ◽

International Humanitarian Law ◽

Humanitarian Law ◽

Care Providers ◽

The Impact

AbstractSince 1945, the reason for humanitarian crises and the way in which the world responds to them has dramatically changed every 10 to 15 years or less. Planning, response, and recovery for these tragic events have often been ad hoc, inconsistent, and insufficient, largely because of the complexity of global humanitarian demands and their corresponding response system capabilities. This historical perspective chronicles the transformation of war and armed conflicts from the Cold War to today, emphasizing the impact these events have had on humanitarian professionals and their struggle to adapt to increasing humanitarian, operational, and political challenges. An unprecedented independent United Nations–World Health Organization decision in the Battle for Mosul in Iraq to deploy to combat zones emergency medical teams unprepared in the skills of decades-tested war and armed conflict preparation and response afforded to health care providers and dictated by International Humanitarian Law and Geneva Convention protections has abruptly challenged future decision-making and deployments. (Disaster Med Public Health Preparedness. 2019;13:109–115)

Armed conflicts as a source of new formations in the Russian language (on material of the armed conflict in Donbass)

The Journal of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Series "Philology" ◽

10.26565/2227-1864-2020-87-09 ◽

2020 ◽

Keyword(s):

Armed Conflict ◽

Hate Speech ◽

Word Formation ◽

Russian Language ◽

Armed Conflicts ◽

The South ◽

New Interpretation ◽

The Military ◽

The Impact ◽

The Russian Language

The vocabulary of a language is a variable quantity, it is constantly changing, responding to the needs of life and reflecting its new realities. The events taking place in the South-East of Ukraine since March 2014 have significantly changed the usual picture of the world of the parties involved in this conflict, led to a new interpretation of reality, the emergence of new mental constructs, objectified in the language using a number of lexical innovations, most of which fall under the definition of „hate speech”. The purpose of this article is to try to examine the impact of the armed conflict in the South-East of Ukraine on the emergence of lexical innovations in the Russian language, to identify ways of forming new units and their main thematic clusters. The material for the work was neoplasms recorded in electronic Russian and Russian-speaking Ukrainian mass media, as well as selected from social networks and videos. The analysis showed that in the context of the armed conflict in the South-East of Ukraine, the characteristic manifestations of „hate speech” are mainly numerous new categories-labels with a pronounced conflict potential. The priority in this regard is offensive and derogatory nominations of representatives of the opposite camp, taking into account their worldview / ideological, national / ethnic, territorial / regional characteristics. The military jargon has also undergone a significant update, incorporating not only the reactualized slangisms of the era of the Afghan campaign of 1979-89, but also lexical innovations caused by the military and political realities of the current armed conflict in the Donbas. Neologisms are formed in accordance with the existing methods in the Russian language (word formation, semantic derivation, borrowing). At the same time, non-standard word-forming techniques are also used (language play, homophony, etc.).

The Impact of Armed Conflict on the Epidemiological Situation of COVID-19 in Libya, Syria and Yemen

Frontiers in Public Health ◽

10.3389/fpubh.2021.667364 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

Author(s):

Mohamed A. Daw

Keyword(s):

Armed Conflict ◽

Early Stage ◽

Armed Conflicts ◽

Cumulative Number ◽

The Novel ◽

Global Pandemic ◽

Large Numbers ◽

Public Data ◽

Novel Coronavirus ◽

The Impact

Background: Since the Arab uprising in 2011, Libya, Syria and Yemen have gone through major internal armed conflicts. This resulted in large numbers of deaths, injuries, and population displacements, with collapse of the healthcare systems. Furthermore, the situation was complicated by the emergence of COVID-19 as a global pandemic, which made the populations of these countries struggle under unusual conditions to deal with both the pandemic and the ongoing wars. This study aimed to determine the impact of the armed conflicts on the epidemiology of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) within these war-torn countries and highlight the strategies needed to combat the spread of the pandemic and its consequences.Methods: Official and public data concerning the dynamics of the armed conflicts and the spread of SARS-COV-2 in Libya, Syria and Yemen were collected from all available sources, starting from the emergence of COVID-19 in each country until the end of December 2020. Datasets were analyzed by a set of statistical techniques and the weekly resolved data were used to probe the link between the intensity levels of the conflict and the prevalence of COVID-19.Results: The data indicated that there was an increase in the intensity of the violence at an early stage from March to August 2020, when it approximately doubled in the three countries, particularly in Libya. During that period, few cases of COVID-19 were reported, ranging from 5 to 53 cases/day. From September to December 2020, a significant decline in the intensity of the armed conflicts was accompanied by steep upsurges in the rate of COVID-19 cases, which reached up to 500 cases/day. The accumulative cases vary from one country to another during the armed conflict. The highest cumulative number of cases were reported in Libya, Syria and Yemen.Conclusions: Our analysis demonstrates that the armed conflict provided an opportunity for SARS-CoV-2 to spread. The early weeks of the pandemic coincided with the most intense period of the armed conflicts, and few cases were officially reported. This indicates undercounting and hidden spread during the early stage of the pandemic. The pandemic then spread dramatically as the armed conflict declined, reaching its greatest spread by December 2020. Full-blown transmission of the COVID-19 pandemic in these countries is expected. Therefore, urgent national and international strategies should be implemented to combat the pandemic and its consequences.

The Afghan marathon: why no one is in a rush at the Doha talks

Pathways to Peace and Security ◽

10.20542/2307-1494-2021-1-99-119 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 99-119

Author(s):

M. Nessar

Keyword(s):

Armed Conflict ◽

Political Process ◽

Peace Process ◽

National Program ◽

Political Situation ◽

The Military ◽

The Impact ◽

National Reconciliation ◽

The U.S

The article analyzes the Afghan peace process, including the roles of internal and external players. It examines the impact of the national reconciliation policy on the domestic political process in Afghanistan and on the military and political situation in the country. The national program aimed at settling the armed conflict is interpreted as a response to changes in the U.S. policy for Afghanistan, including preparations for the withdrawal of the U.S. troops. The author also pays attention to the geopolitical dimension of the problem and to possible scenarios for the evolution of the peace process.