Law and the Future of War

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Professor Warwick Bowen explains to us what quantum technology is, and why it will be such a significant step change in the way that technology will operate in the future.  Professor Bowen is a Professor of Physics at UQ’S faculty of Science. He is recognised both nationally and internationally for research at the interface of nanotechnology and quantum science; i...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Lauren Sanders speaks to Professor Hitoshi Nasu, from the Lieber Institute at West Point about artificial intelligence and its potential use in targeting operations. Although a well traversed topic, it is one that is not often viewed from the perspective of the benefits of how AI technology can aid in decision-making during military actions.  Professor Nasu als...

Send us Fan Mail Dr Craig Jones speaks to Dr Lauren Sanders about his book: War Lawyers, to discuss how some militaries provide legal advice during targeting operations. They talk about the history of operations law, & how this advice is dispensed as well as talking about some challenges & issues with this current model of lawyering. Dr Craig Jones is the author of The War Lawyers & a...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Simon McKenzie talks with Samuel White about how cyber operations and information warfare are changing national security and the role of the military.  They explore how the domestic legal architecture might prevent or enable tasking the military with responding to cyber threats, and what it might mean for the contemporary relevance of the prerogative powers. Sa...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Eve Massingham talks with Major Scott Roach of the Canadian Armed Forces about wargaming. They discuss the concept of wargaming and the Canadian Armed Forces’ mission for the Joint Wargaming Experimentation and Simulation section of their Warfare Centre.  Combat simulations have grown in complexity over the past twenty years and how software now allows dozens o...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Lauren Sanders speaks with Group Captain Jo Brick about the role of wargaming and technology in professional military education, and how computer games can be used to train military professionals in ethics and law.  Spoiler alert: they talk about Chidi from ‘The Good Place’ and the trolly problem, to highlight how the practical application of ethics is critical...

Send us Fan Mail This panel, hosted by the UQ School of Political Science and International  Studies addresses critical legal, political and international relations issues associated with the Ukraine war.   Russia’s declaration of war on Ukraine marks a watershed and raises significant questions. Recorded on Tuesday 8 March, this panel canvasses issues relating to the lawfulness of the invasion, I...

Send us Fan Mail In this special reproduction of a Macquarie University Centre for Environmental Law (CEL) webinar, Dr Eve Massingham discusses the protection of the natural environment in times of armed conflict in light of the recent Russian invasion into Ukraine. A video (including q\Q and A) of the session is available on the  Macquarie CEL YouTube channel. Additional resources: Guidelines on...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Lauren Sanders speaks to Paul Lushenko, to discuss the broader implications of drone strikes in terms of politics and strategy, moral legitimacy of states’ use of drone warfare, and his new book, Drones and the Global Order, published in December 2021.   Paul is a U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and General Andrew Jackson Goodpaster Scholar at Cornell University,...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Professor Ed Santow,  speaks to Dr Lauren Sanders about the regulation of facial recognition technology in Australian and the UTS Facial Recognition Model Law Project, that will propose a way to rectify the current gaps in regulation of this technology in Australia that makes it prone to misuse. Edward Santow is Industry Professor - Responsible Technology at the U...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Lauren Sanders interviews Professor John Blaxland – one of Australia’s most renowned military strategy writers and historians – to talk about the current geopolitical landscape as it applies to Australia, reflecting on the trends from our recent past; and talk briefly about how drones and associated technologies may impact the future global order.  They canvas...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Lauren Sanders talks with Damian Copeland about one of the most important legal issues raised by autonomous weapons: how states might carry out weapons reviews of these technologies. The application of this obligation to autonomous weapons will have several challenges. Where a device has the capacity for self-learning, will one single review suffice? Will State...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Simon McKenzie speaks with Rohan Talbot about the legal regulation of facial recognition technology during occupations. In 2019, it was revealed that Israel had added facial recognition technologies to the ways that it administers and controls the occupied Palestinian territories. They discuss the international legal implications of these technologies in occupi...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Simon McKenzie talks with Dr Tristan Moss about history of Australia in Space. They discuss the history of Australia in space, starting with its beginnings in a rocket range in Woomera in the 1960s to the recent founding of the Australian Space Agency. They discuss the patchy approach that Australia has taken to space exploitation, and put it into a broader per...

Send us Fan Mail In today’s episode, Dr Lauren Sanders talks with Abby Zeith and Michael Talhami of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) about urban warfare. Focussing on the impacts of conflict upon urban populations, they look at some of the issues that have arisen in terms of IHL compliance in and around urban centres as a result of technology. They also speak about the current i...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Simon McKenzie talks with Professor Samuel Moyn about his new book, Humane , which considers some of the consequences of focussing on the laws of fighting wars at the expense of considering when they should be fought. They discuss the 19th-century peace movement, and what some of the legal debates from this time reveal about contemporary conflict and the rise o...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Simon McKenzie talks with Anna Briers about what visual art can tell us about new digital technologies. The current show at UQ Art Museum – called ‘Don't Be Evil’ – seeks to show us some of the invisible power structures of networked technology, including the implications of machine learning, artificial intelligence, and data capitalism. Anna Briers is the...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Simon McKenzie chats with Cris van Eijk about space law – including some of its fundamental documents and places of political contestation - and what the structure and focus of space law tells us about international law more generally.  After a few decades on the outer, space law is back in vogue: the rise of commercial space ventures combined with an uptick in...

Send us Fan Mail In this live recording of an event,  Rain Liivoja talks with David Nicholls, Matt McDonald and Monique Cormier about the new AUKUS arrangement, under which Australia would acquire 8 nuclear-powered submarines with US and UK technology. They discuss the extent to which it represents a major shift in Australia's defence policy, and what we can make of some of the claims made ab...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Simon McKenzie talks with Dr Eve Massingham about the equirement to take precautions against the effects of attack. This obligation requires the defender to minimise the risk that civilians and civilian objects will be harmed by enemy military operations – such as by locating military bases away from civilian areas, or by clearly marking non-military objects. T...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Simon McKenzie talks with Dr Lauren Sanders about the practical application of one of the most interesting legal obligations of international humanitarian law: the obligation to take precautions in attack. This obligation requires attackers to take “all feasible precautions” to minimise incidental loss and harm to civilian life – but what it means in practice c...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Lauren Sanders talks with Dr Joshua Andresen about drones and aerial strikes, exploring whether they make armed conflict safer for civilians. Some claim that by allowing for the more precise use of force, drone strikes cause less harm to nearby civilian populations. Conversely, some point to the impact that making force more accessible in urban areas actually i...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Lauren Sanders talks with Professor Ryan Abbott about the legal standards and challenges of integrating artificial intelligence into current legal regimes.  They discuss his recent book, The Reasonable Robot, which traverses different areas of law and how they treat AI – whether incentivising or disincentivising technological development in AI – and what his th...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Eve Massingham talks with Captain Jessie Dumont about the role of automation in space operations and the prospects of autonomous devices in space. They also touch on wargaming in space and some of the legal issues associated with using space for military purposes.  Captain Dumont is a Lecturer in the Department of Physics & Space Science at the Royal Milita...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Dr Simon McKenzie talks with Dr Thibault Moulin about the international legal regulation of experiments on humans. These experiments test existing frameworks of international law, and they discuss the limits that international humanitarian law and international human rights law places on human enhancement and the experiments that bring them into being. Dr Thibault...