International Law Archive

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Shortly after Vietnamese tanks rumbled across Cambodia’s border in late 1978 the Khmer Rouge elite fled the capital and a new regime first attempted what the United Nations is poised to try again more than a quarter of a century later — account for the grisly deaths of up to two million people. Pol Pot and perhaps his closest friend from their university days in France, Ieng Sary, were long ago sentenced to death in absentia for genocide, in a trial widely regarded as a legal farce. It was so badly handled and wrapped-up in Cold […]

As the proverbial dust settles over the battlefields of southern Lebanon, a major change in the landscape of legal regulation of warfare is taking hold. This change, first exposed by the military operations launched by the United States against Al Qaeda, has led to the widespread expectation that conflicts between states and transnational non-state entities must be governed by the laws of war, a body of international law historically applied to conflicts between states. While the extent of combat and associated destruction witnessed by the world in the recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah may suggest that such a proposition […]