The Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research at Harvard University hosted a Live Seminar on the topic of "Extending the Front Line?: The Use of Force and International Law," on Thursday, October 21, 2010. A recording is available here. 

This Live Seminar examined legal and policy challenges pertaining to the use of force outside traditional zones of military operations, including allegations of "targeted killing" and "extrajudicial killing." By reviewing recent counterterrorism operations and litigation concerning whether those operations are lawful, this Live Seminar looked into the following questions: 

• How do the jus ad bellum (the law governing the resort to force) and the jus in bello (the law governing conduct of hostilities) interact, if at all, in counterterrorism operations? 
• How, if at all, do contemporary counterterrorism operations affect legal standards pertaining to targeting, detention, interrogation, and fair trials?
• What characteristics -- such as temporal and geographic factors, as well as the intensity of hostilities -- determine whether a specific use of force triggers a law enforcement paradigm or a military action paradigm?

These questions were reviewed by reference to recent counterterrorism operations involving the use of force outside traditional notions of the “battlefield."

Naz Modirzadeh (Associate Director of the Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research) and Claude Bruderlein (Director of the Program) hosted the discussion. 

Panelists

Laurie Blank, International Humanitarian Law Clinic, Emory University School of Law

Jonathan Hafetz, Seton Hall Law School

Kevin Jon Heller, Melbourne Law School

Andrew March, Yale University

Background Materials

Al-Aulaqi v. Obama et al. Case filings

Complaint, August 30, 2010.

Plaintiff's Memorandum in Support of Motion for a Preliminary Injunction, August 30, 2010.

Government's Opposition to Plaintiff's Motion for Preliminary Injunction and Memorandum in Support of Defendant's Motion to Dismiss, September 25, 2010.

Additional Resources

Philip Alston, Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Addendum, Study on targeted killings, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/14/25/Add.6, May 28, 2010.

Laurie Blank, Defining the Battlefield in Contemporary Conflict and Counterterrorism: Understanding the Parameters of the Zone of Combat, Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, Vol. 39, No. 1, 2010-2011. 

Gabriella Blum and Philip Heymann, Law and Policy of Targeted Killing, Harvard National Security Journal, Vol. 1, June 2010.

Geoffrey Corn and Eric Talbot Jensen, Transnational Armed Conflict: A 'Principled' Approach to the Regulation of Counter-Terror Operations, Israel Law Review, Vol. 42, 2009.

Eminent Jurists Panel (International Commission of Jurists), Assessing Damage, Urging Action, 2009.

Hans-Peter Gasser, Acts of Terror, 'Terrorism' and International Humanitarian Law, International Review of the Red Cross, No. 847, pp. 547-570, 2002.

Jonathan Hafetz, The (Still) Unadressed Threshold Question: What is the "War on Terror" Anyway?, Balkinization Blog, September 30, 2010.

Kevin Jon Heller, The ACLU/CCR Reply Brief in Al-Aulaqi (and My Reply to Wittes), Opinio Juris Blog, October 9, 2010.

Marko Milanovic, Lessons for human rights and humanitarian law in the war on terror: comparing Hamdan and the Israeli Targeted Killings case, International Review of the Red Cross, No. 866, pp. 373-393, 2007.

Gerald L. Neuman, Counterterrorist Operations and the Rule of Law, European Journal of International Law, Vol. 15, No. 5, 2004.

Mary Ellen O'Connell, When is a War Not a War? The Myth of the Global War on Terror, ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2005.

Afsheen John Radsan and Richard W. Murphy, Due Process and Targeted Killing of Terrorists, Cardozo Law Review, Vol. 31 (2009).

Nico Schrijver and Larissa van den Herik, Leiden Policy Recommendations on Counter-terrorism and International Law, April 2010.