Tag: laws of war
The Law of Worst-Case Scenarios
The present Gaza war, initiated by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, poses important questions about both the morality and laws of war and the language of conflict. People everywhere are having heated conversations involving concepts such as targeting civilians, terrorism, proportionality, and genocide. They deploy these concepts when arguing about broad questions, like whether Hamas’s attacks on civilians are justified resistance, and about narrower ones, like whether a specific Israeli bombing of a refugee camp is justified to … Read more
What Biden Must Do to Right the Wrongs of Guantánamo
Many Americans like to tell themselves a story about the choices the country makes in times of national crisis. We see our country’s policies as a pendulum. We may overreact at first, temporarily sacrificing principles and rights to meet the emergency at hand. But eventually the crisis recedes, and in restoring our commitment to foundational principles and the rule of law, we push the pendulum back toward equilibrium.
This story is comforting; it makes sense of America’s reactions to crises