Protection of civilians in the law of war: A case study of Myanmar

The paper is aimed to analyses the Law of War violation in Myanmar. Current communal conflicts in Myanmar among Buddhists and Muslims have cast a pall over the country's transition to democracy. The Rohingya, a Muslim minority group, has been disproportionately affected by the recent round of violence. The Rohingya have been subjected to many human rights violations, which has drawn international attention to the situation. Because the Myanmar government does not recognize Rohingya as a separate ethnic group, they are effectively stateless. Rohingya claim to be indigenous people of Myanmar, despite the government's statements that they came from Bangladesh. The research concludes that as positive as the recent political change has been, the Rohingya's future development does not appear bright. International human rights organizations are urging the global community to pressure Myanmar's administration to amend the Citizenship Law, which effectively makes the Rohingya homeless. The end of this article will give a solution for the Myanmar conflict and protect the Muslim minorities.

The Law of Armed Conflict

Newly revised and updated, The Law of Armed Conflict, introduces students to the law of war in an age of terrorism. What law of armed conflict (LOAC) or its civilian counterpart, international humanitarian law (IHL), applies in a particular armed conflict? Are terrorists bound by that law? What constitutes a war crime? What (or who) is a lawful target and how are targeting decisions made? What are 'rules of engagement' and who formulates them? How can an autonomous weapon system be bound by the law of armed conflict? Why were the Guantánamo military commissions a failure? Featuring new chapters, this book takes students through these topics and more, employing real-world examples and legal opinions from the US and abroad. From Nuremberg to 9/11, from courts-martial to the US Supreme Court, from the nineteenth century to the twenty-first, the law of war is explained, interpreted, and applied with clarity and depth.

A Semi-Kantian Just War Theory

The chapter explores the Kantian philosophy of the law of war and how it is based on two normative claims. First, states are independent of each other in virtue of their duty to provide a legal order in a territory that they rule. Second, any use of non-defensive force by a state in a territory that it does not actually rule is illegal. Benbaji shows that there is a deep tension between these claims, and he sets out to offer a contractarian theory of the crime of aggression, which he characterizes as semi-Kantian: states are fully legitimate only if their right to rule over their territory is recognized by all other states. Semi-Kantians argue that Ripstein’s Kant misconstrues the standing of states vis-à-vis the territories over which they rule.

Vulnerability, Space, Communication: Three Conditions of Adequacy for Cosmopolitan Right

The chapter argues that according to the Kantian completeness assumption, not only do we face a major unresolved systematic issue—all exercise of cosmopolitan right takes place in a state of nature between states and foreigners: a highly structured state of nature, to be sure, but a state of nature nonetheless—but we have too few options for fulfilling the conditions of explanatory adequacy. Niesen points out that in Kant and the Law of War no space is reserved for leaving normative issues undecided, to be resolved through politics and through additional, positive global institutions.

Reading Kant’s Rechtslehre: Some Observations on Ripstein’s Kant and the Law of War

The chapter puts forward a semantic observation which he claims reflects not only Ripstein’s Kant interpretation, but also his own perspective as a long-term reader of Kant. Mertens observes that Kantian scholarship has become to a large extent an Anglo-Saxon affair, and Kant is read and interpreted against the background of political and legal problems of that world. History has shown that several readings of Kant are possible, and Ripstein presents a new, powerful reading of Kant which is indebted to that Anglo-Saxon background. Mertens discusses several intriguing questions, inter alia, Ripstein’s interpretation of Kant’s view on the law of war is the distinction between the just war tradition and the regular war tradition and Kant’s departure from both traditions.

EU Solidarity as Collective Self-Defense?

The chapter sets out to explore the notion of self-defense and how it is manifested in contemporary law of war. In addition, the chapter discusses the notion of collective self-defense in the context of the European Union (EU). The chapter links this debate to Ripstein’s Kant and the Law of War by using the EU as a test case of Kantian war theory. The chapter focuses on the imminence criteria for deciding on self-defense, in the context of EU security law, and to the extent to which Kant completely ruled out any preventive use of force. The EU’s fight against terrorism and security regulation appears to have many parallels with the “war” model which will be discussed in this chapter.

Kant and the Criminal Law of War

The chapter focuses on Ripstein’s account of a doctrine that has caused a great deal of trouble to moral philosophers of law over the years: the equal criminal immunity of combatants. Thorburn sets out the contours of the Kantian approach to the morality of law, which begins with the relationship of public authority and only later proceeds to the evaluation of how that authority has been exercised. He then considers Ripstein’s application of that approach to the legal equality of combatants in war. Although Ripstein’s account suggests a comprehensive justification of the doctrine of equal criminal immunity, Thorburn shows that Ripstein’s chapter does not spell this out fully, though he outlines a way in which Ripstein can do so.