Fighting at the Legal Boundaries: Controlling the Use of Force in Contemporary Conflict

The international law governing armed conflict is at a crossroads, as the formal framework of laws designed to control the exercise of self-defense and conduct of inter-state conflict finds itself confronted with violent 21st Century disputes of a very different character. Military practitioners who seek to stay within the bounds of international law often find themselves applying bodies of law-IHRL, IHL, ICL-in an exclusionary fashion, and adherence to those boundaries can lead to a formal...