# International Conflict and War

64 Va. J. Int’l L. Online 1 (2023) ♦ Online

Frameworks for Accountability: How Domestic Tort Law Can Inform the Development of International Law of State Responsibility in Armed Conflicts

The development of international law of state responsibility in warfare thus far has either implicitly relied on tort law and theory as a means of comprehending elements of liability, or explicitly suggested that reparations in international…

HAIM ABRAHAM

64 Va. J. Int’l L. 69 (2023) ♦ Article

Regulating the Foreign-Fighter Phenomenon

The transnational mobilization of foreign fighters is a centuries-old phenomenon that threatens international security. The phenomenon challenges States’ sovereign monopoly on the use of force under international law. It augments the capabilities of parties…

BENJAMIN R. FARLEY

63 Va. J. Int’l L. 319 (2023) ♦ Article

Implementing War Torts

Under international law, no entity is accountable for lawful acts in war that cause harm, and accountability mechanisms for unlawful acts (like war crimes) rarely create a right to compensation for individual victims. Accordingly, states now regularly…

REBECCA CROOTOF

62 Va. J. Int’l L. 64 (2021) ♦ Article

Wars of Conquest in the Twenty-First Century and the Lessons of History ‒ Crimea, Panama, and John Bassett Moore

This Article uses history to explore how prominent international lawyers explain seemingly transgressive state behavior. It begins with the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. This seizure of another state’s territory by force of arms seems to violate everything that…

PAUL B. STEPHAN

61 Va. J. Int’l L. 272 (2021) ♦ Article

Are All Soldiers Created Equal? – On the Equal Application of the Law to Enhanced Soldiers

Enhanced soldiers (with biochemical, cybernetic or prosthetic enhancements) will soon become an integral part of armed conflicts. The deployment of soldiers with superior battlefield abilities raises important legal questions that are only now emerging as…

YAHLI SHERESHEVSKY

58 Va. J. Int’l L. 369 (2019) ♦ Essay

Armed Conflict at the Threshold?

Seventeen years into the United States’ engagement in what America has controversially understood as a global, non-international armed conflict against a shifting set of terrorist groups, a growing array of scholars has called for a reassessment of the significance of…

DEBORAH PEARLSTEIN

57 Va. J. Int’l L. 414 (2018) ♦ Note

Otherwise Occupied: The Legal Status of the Gaza Strip 50 Years after the Six-Day War

Fifty years after Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories began, and a dozen years after its disengagement from Gaza, the legal status of the Gaza Strip has been regarded as settled. Although no single conclusion has achieved consensus, two distinct camps have…

ROI BACHMUTSKY

63 Va. Int’l L. 251 (2023) ♦ Note

The Case for Reforming JASTA

As the Supreme Court all but closed the door on Alien Tort Statute litigants alleging injuries from terror attacks, Congress opened a window by passing the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) in 2016. A review of 300 complaints reveals that…

JACK V. HOOVER

62 Va. J. Int’l L. 204 (2021) ♦ Note

Disentangling Conflict and Minerals:  How NGOs and Lawmakers Ought to Rebrand Their Flawed Narrative of Eastern Congo

The “conflict minerals” provision of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 requires publicly traded companies in the United States to disclose whether certain minerals used in their products have been sourced from mines…

MAX CHAFFETZ

60 Va. J. Int’l L. 51 (2019) ♦ Article

Inventing the War Crime: An Internal Theory

This Article offers a novel account of how and why the war crime arose as a legal concept in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The reason was not new horrors and atrocities, though to be sure there were all too many of those. Nor was the war crime born of…

JESSICA LAIRD & JOHN FABIAN WITT

58 Va. J. Int’l L. 97 (2018) ♦ Article

Analogies in Detentions: Distorting the Balance Between Military Necessity and Humanity

Seventeen years after the 9/11 attacks, the United States’ detention authority in the conflict against Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces is at its zenith. Congress and the federal courts have endorsed the Executive’s position that the 2001 Authorization for Use of…

CHARLES PENDLETON TRUMBULL IV