Law and the Future of War

Send us Fan Mail  Today we continue our ‘BarbieHeimer’  (or Barbenheimer) series, and are talking today about the meme itself. Is it appropriate to mash these two films together? Is this frivolity making light of the serious impacts of nuclear weapons and the need for a refocus on non-proliferation and disarmament efforts? We speak with a scholar of Visual Politics and Visual Research Methods – Em...

Send us Fan Mail In this interview, we are continuing our series on legal review of AWS, and speaking with two of the Law and Future of war research team, about an issue that impacts the design approaches to AWS: the alignment problem. In May 2023, there were reports of an AWS being tested, that turned upon its operator, and eventually cut its communications links so it could go after its original...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, as part of our series on AWS, legal review & IHL, we speak with Netta Goussac & Laura Bruun about their recently released SIPRI report on IHL & AWS, asking questions about what IHL permits, prohibits & requires in the design, development & use of AWS. Netta Goussac is a Special Counsel with Lexbridge (a legal practice & consultancy speciali...

Send us Fan Mail As part of our new, limited series on the Legal Review of AWS, we speak with two researchers from the Asser Institute on what the legal review obligation means for decision support systems, and what technical challenges exist in approaching the review obligation during the design and development phases in the creation of AWS. Taylor Kate Woodcock is a PhD researcher in public inte...

Send us Fan Mail The discussion about AI regulation and law has been hampered by a lack of understanding about what AI actually is and what it can do. To date, there is no agreed definition of what constitutes AI; not any likely international consensus, with many states and NGOs adopting their own definitions.  This problem is then compounded when it comes to defining (and confining) what constitu...

Send us Fan Mail In this special episode,  members of the Law and Future of War research project discuss two significant events occurring in the week of 17 March 2023 relating to criminal justice for alleged war crimes: 1. The ICC arrest warrant  issued in respect of the situation in Ukraine, and President Vladimir Putin's role in the alleged deportation of children from Ukraine since Februar...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Lauren Sanders speaks to Dr Paul Scharre , Vice President and Director of Studies at CNAS (the Centre for a New American Security), is a leading author on autonomous weapons and the impact of AI in the military. He has an extensive background in the drafting and implementation of policy relating to the current and future use of autonomy and artificial intellige...

Send us Fan Mail In today’s episode we are continuing our holiday season special on entertainment and IHL. Dr Lauren Sanders is speaking again with Professor Shiri Krebs, but this time about targeting and the movies.  In particular they are talking about her paper, Drone-Cinema, Data Practices, and the Narrative of IHL, and how representations of the use of drones in movies (such as the 2015 movie...

Send us Fan Mail In this  episode of our IHL and entertainment series, Dr Lauren Sanders speaks with Dr Shannon Zimmerman about Dr Who and his crimes of genocide. Talking about the examples of genocide by Dr Who throughout the series, this interview discussed Dr Zimmerman's paper,  ' Doctor Who and the Responsibility to Protect: Public Perspectives of Atrocity Crimes ', which canvas...

Send us Fan Mail Dr Lauren Sanders speaks to one of our regular contributors to the podcast, Professor Dale Stephens and combines two of his specialised areas of expertise: space law and international humanitarian law.  How might this be possible you might ask? Well, as part of our special holiday series episodes, we are going to turn our minds to a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, and tal...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of our special entertainment and the law series, Law and Future of War Senior Research Fellow, Dr Eve Massingham discusses the obligation to ensure respect with IHL with her colleague Dr Lauren Sanders. Eve talks about her recent papers detailing how governments should wield their influence over the entertainment industry for good: and to enhance understanding and...

Send us Fan Mail This is the first episode in our special series on entertainment and the law of war. In this episode, Dr Sebastian Kaempf, a Senior Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies, joins Dr Lauren Sanders to discuss. his documentary: and the documents he's uncovered from the US CIA and military Entertainment Liaison Offices as part of this project.    Dr Sebastian Kaempf is a Senior L...

Send us Fan Mail In this final episode of our series on accountability in Ukraine, Dr Lauren Sanders speaks with Associate Professor Danielle Ireland-Piper and Dr Melinda Rankin about universal jurisdiction and how it may play a part in the prosecution of war crimes occurring in the Ukraine conflict. Danielle is an Associate Professor at the ANU National Security College and an Honorary Adjunct As...

Send us Fan Mail This is the fifth episode in our series on accountability in Ukraine. Following on from our initial exploration into the Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) world, we delve deeper into the technical details of OSINT and its strategic effects with Tom Bullock, a Technical Intelligence Analyst.  Tom is a Senior Technical Intelligence Analyst with Atreides, a software development compan...

Send us Fan Mail This is the fourth episode in our series about accountability in Ukraine. This episode focuses on the collection and collation of information (and potential evidence) using open-source intelligence.  As you will hear, OSINT has played a key role in the development of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and in the monitoring of conflict in Myanmar. Today we are speaking with a world ex...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is the third in a series of podcasts analysing accountability in the current Ukrainian conflict. In this third episode, we are speaking with Dr Carrie McDougall , from the University of Melbourne, who has been heavily involved in the proposal for the establishment of a Special International Tribunal to facilitate the investigation and prosecution of crimes of aggressi...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is the second instalment in a series of podcasts analysing accountability in the current Ukrainian conflict. In this episode we are talking to Rebecca Barber, an expert in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) powers and humanitarian action, to discuss the power of the UNGA and its role in providing accountability for actors in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. This e...

Send us Fan Mail This episode starts a series of podcasts analysing accountability in the current Ukrainian conflict.  In this first episode, we are joined by Ana Filipa Vrodljak, the UNESCO Chair on International Law and Cultural Heritage, and Professor of Law at UTS, and Mayee Warren – a senior practitioner in the management of international criminal trials - to talk about the challenges present...

Send us Fan Mail On 25 Aug 2022, the US Department of Defense released its Civilian Harm and Mitigation Response Plan , which has been created, in part as a result of the public scrutiny on civilian casualty incidents following the Iraq campaign.  In this episode, Dr Lauren Sanders speaks with Marc Garlasco, who has been intimately involved with this issue, having been engaged in stakeholder engag...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Lauren Sanders speaks with Professor Christiane Wilke about the problem with accountability following civilian casualty incidents, and the impact of cultural and racial frames in imagining what has occurred on the ground.  Professor Christiane Wilke is an Associate Professor in the Department of Law and Legal  Studies at Carleton University, Canada.  She resear...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Dr Lauren Sanders speaks with Associate Professor Shiri Krebs about cognitive biases inherent in targeting operations and what that means for compliance with the laws of armed conflict.  The increased reliance on intelligence feeds from various remote sensors, and the fusion of these sensor feeds to make targeting decisions provides opportunity to entrench cultural...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Dr Lauren Sanders will be speaking with Dr Marta Bo about her work analysing how individuals can be held to account for the potential misuse of LAWS; and how ICL can be used as a method to regulate the use of LAWS. Dr Marta Bo is a  researcher at the Asser Institute and the Graduate Institute for International and Development studies (Geneva).  She is currently res...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Eve Massingham talks to Fauve Kurnadi of the Australian Red Cross and Dr Jonathon Kolieb of RMIT about how businesses are affected by, and should consider the application of IHL in situations of armed conflict. Fauve is a Legal Adviser in the International Humanitarian Law Program of Australian Red Cross where she is responsible for the organisation’s engagemen...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Damian Copeland interviews Professor Simon Chestermann about his new book, We the Robots: Regulating Artificial Intelligence and the Limits of War. They discuss what challenges exist in regulating autonomous weapons systems, as well as how states are currently approaching this problem. Professor Simon Chesterman is Dean and Provost’s Chair Professor of the Nationa...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Lauren Sanders speaks with Dustin Lewis , of Harvard Law School's Project on International Law and Armed Conflict about war algorithms and his recent project on pathways for using AI, and how to ensure greater respect for international law when states use these algorithmic capabilities.  Dustin is the Research Director  at the Harvard Law School Program on...