1. Given Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is such a clear and egregious violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, legal scholars have explained since the outset of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 that states who support Russia’s actions in Ukraine could themselves face legal consequences. Nevertheless, in the months since then, a number of states have provided assistance to Russia. As a general matter, when is it unlawful under international law to support a party to an armed conflict? 

As your question implies, the UN Charter is of paramount importance when evaluating the lawfulness of supporting a party to an armed conflict. Article 2(4) of the Charter prohibits the “use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” There are very few exceptions to this rule: individual or collective self-defense under Article 51 of the Charter; authorization by the UN Security Council acting under Chapter VII; and potentially also state “consent” to the use of force on its territory.

Looking at Russia’s war in Ukraine, it is well-established that Ukraine may lawfully call on other states to aid in its collective self-defense against Russia under Article 51. Russia, on the other hand, is not entitled to invite other states to use force to assist it as it has no valid claim to self-defense against Ukraine. Accordingly, any state that uses force in support of Russia would violate Article 2(4) of the Charter, given that no other exception applies.

More debated is whether the supply of weapons to a party to an armed conflict itself amounts to a use of force under Article 2(4), where otherwise not justified under Article 51. While the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) has so far held only that the provision of weapons amounts to a violation of the customary international law prohibition on the use of force in the context of non-international armed conflicts, commentators have suggested that the same rule may apply to the supply of weapons in international conflicts, such as Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Liability for supporting a party to an armed conflict may be incurred in three main circumstances.

First, under the law of state responsibility, States may be responsible where they “aid or assist” another state that commits violations of international law, including violations of Article 2(4), as well as breaches of international humanitarian law (“IHL”) and human rights law. Article 16 of the International Law Commission’s (“ILC”) Articles on State Responsibility, which the ICJ recognized as customary international law, sets out a standard for what is effectively state “complicity” in international law. Under this rule, states are responsible where they “aid or assist” another state with “knowledge of the circumstances of” the other state’s violation of international law. Article 41(2) of the Articles reinforces this provision in the context of violations of peremptory norms of international law by providing that States shall neither “recognize as lawful a situation created by [such] a serious breach” nor “render aid or assistance in maintaining that situation.” The ICJ has previously applied these duties of non-recognition and non-assistance in relation to illegal occupations in both the Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia Advisory Opinion and in the Construction of a Wall Advisory Opinion. In the Namibia opinion, the ICJ held that states were under an obligation “to recognize the illegality and invalidity of South Africa’s continued presence in Namibia … [and] to refrain from lending any support or any form of assistance to South Africa with reference to its occupation of Namibia,” and in the Wall opinion, the ICJ found that states were under an obligation not to render aid and assistance in maintaining the illegal situation resulting from Israel’s construction of a wall in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Second, under IHL, Common Article 1 to the 1949 Geneva Conventions provides that parties have a “duty to ensure respect” for the Conventions. According to the 2020 Commentary to Geneva Convention III, this includes both a “negative” obligation—i.e., an obligation not to “aid or assist in violations of the Conventions by Parties to a conflict”—as well as a “positive” obligation—i.e., an obligation to “do everything reasonabl[e] … to prevent and bring such violations to an end.” The ICJ recognized the “negative” limb of Common Article 1 in its Nicaragua judgment, where it held that states are under an obligation “not to encourage” violations of the Geneva Conventions. In the context of lending assistance, Common Article 1 therefore means that states may not provide support to parties to an armed conflict engaged in known or foreseeable IHL violations. The Arms Trade Treaty effectively mirrors this obligation by prohibiting states from supplying weapons to other parties knowing that they will be used in the commission of serious IHL violations and other offenses.

Finally, states (and any involved individuals) may also incur international criminal liability for supporting another party to an armed conflict where they “aid or abet” certain crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, as detailed in the statutes of various international criminal tribunals.

2. Let’s take a closer look at the actions by a handful of states in Russia’s war in Ukraine. First, Belarus has reportedly provided support to Russia in the form of hosting Russian troops, weapons, and other equipment; providing tanks; mobilizing drivers and mechanics to repair Russian military equipment; permitting the use of its territory for Russian supply lines; providing medical care to Russian troops; and enabling Russia to use Belarusian territory as a launching ground for its missiles and armed forces. In January, the two countries engaged in joint military drills, although the Belarusian Defense Ministry claimed the “joint military grouping” and drills were “solely in the interests of strengthening the protection and defense” of Belarus. Does this support make Belarus a co-belligerent of Russia’s in the conflict and, in turn, an aggressor in the eyes of international law?

Before diving into this question, it is worth noting that Belarus may well be liable in relation to these actions under the various sources of international law I’ve just mentioned. “Co-belligerency,” by contrast, is a concept specific to IHL which is not directly connected to the issue of illegality, but which instead refers to joint participation in hostilities. Because co-belligerents are, factually speaking, “parties” to the conflict, IHL applies to them. This application of IHL in turn renders the co-belligerent’s military forces and objects susceptible to targeting.

The issue of when exactly a state providing support to a party to an armed conflict becomes a co-belligerent remains heavily contested. On the one hand, active participation in hostilities clearly amounts to co-belligerency, as might be involved in enforcing a no-fly zone. More complicated is determining whether less direct forms of support also result in co-belligerency. Reasoning from the “overall control” standard for determining when an indirect intervention results in an international armed conflict, as well as the IHL standard for direct participation in hostilities by civilians, commentators have attempted to draw some lines. While participating in decision-making about attacks, supplying information sufficient to enable attacks, and allowing the use of military or air bases to enable attacks may all potentially amount to co-belligerency, financing, equipping, or training parties to an armed conflict are alone generally considered insufficient.

To the extent that in addition to hosting thousands of Russian troops, Belarus takes steps to execute a joint attack across Ukraine’s northern border, as certain sources have warned, or to make good on its threat to send forces to fight alongside Russia, Belarus would be hard-pressed in those circumstances to argue that it was not a co-belligerent of Russia.

The question of aggression is considerably more straightforward. The Definition of Aggression, adopted by the UN General Assembly, includes “the action of a State in allowing its territory … to be used by … [an]other State for perpetrating an act of aggression against a third State.” Accordingly, if Belarus’s conduct can be characterized as enabling Russian attacks on Ukraine via its territory, such conduct likely would fall within the definition of aggression.

3. Next, let’s look at another example farther from Ukraine’s borders: Iran has had an increasing role in supplying Russia with drones and reportedly providing personnel to assist in their operation on the ground. Iran is also reported to be entering into a new agreement to manufacture additional drones in Russia. Does Iran’s assistance to Russia violate international law? What are the potential repercussions if so? We assume the answers to this question can also elucidate the general legal framework that would apply to other state’s conduct, including China’s.

First, as noted at the outset, Iran’s supply of weapons to Russia may constitute a violation of Article 2(4), given Russia’s lack of a justification for the use of force.

Second, Iran’s transfer of drones likely also runs afoul of Common Article 1, which prohibits states from transferring weapons with “recklessness” to parties likely to commit violations of IHL. That is so particularly given the well-documented and frequent pattern of Russia’s indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.

Third, Iran’s actions may also render it liable under Article 16 of the ILC’s Articles especially as they amount to a significant or material contribution to Russia in its commission of internationally wrongful acts. While commentators have debated whether the required mental element under Article 16 is “knowledge” or “intent,” in these circumstances, it would be difficult to  claim unawareness of Russia’s illegal war and related violations, meaning that Iran can be presumed to intend the foreseeable consequences of its assistance—namely, assisting Russia’s commission of these acts. The commentary to the ILC’s Article 41(2) further supports this view as it notes in the context of peremptory breaches of international law, it is “hardly conceivable” that a state lending support would not have notice of those breaches.

As for potential consequences, Iran and other states that have rendered illegal support to Russia may face countermeasures, which could be taken by Ukraine, the injured state, or potentially by third states. Such third-party countermeasures could be justified under a theory of enforcing erga omnes obligations, or the notion of collective self-defense of Ukraine. In addition, ILC Article 41(1) potentially imposes a positive duty on third states to “cooperate to bring an end to” serious breaches of international law, though the relevant Commentary recognizes that such a duty may still be developing under customary international law.

Individuals engaging in illegal assistance may also risk international criminal liability for “aiding and abetting” various crimes, as noted previously. Such individuals may also face sanctions, and in fact the United States has already applied sanctions to dozens of Belarussian individuals and entities believed to have facilitated Russia’s invasion, as well as several firms and individuals involved in the production and transfer of Iranian drones to Russia.

4. What does international law have to say about providing assistance to a victim of aggression? Is there any legal reason why assistance to Ukraine has been circumscribed? For example, there are reports that the United States has limited the range on Himars rocket launchers it has provided to Ukraine, presumably to ensure Ukraine can’t use U.S. weaponry to strike Russian territory. Do you think this move is primarily about policy concerns over escalation risks in the war? Or are there legal risks that need to be weighed as well? And is the distinction between “offensive” and “defensive” weapons meaningful as a legal matter when a country is engaging in military operations to regain its own occupied territory?

These decisions are likely informed by both policy and legal concerns, given Russia’s dangerous threats concerning nuclear weapons, as well as Russia’s rhetoric appealing to legal concepts, and the desire to give wide berth in the event of any disagreement.

In relation to the supply of weapons to Ukraine, one key legal issue which I haven’t yet mentioned is neutrality. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, commentators have disagreed about whether the law of neutrality is at all relevant to the provision of support to Ukraine. Briefly stated, while some have maintained that the law of neutrality does not apply following the outlawing of war and the adoption of the UN Charter, others have suggested that the provision of support to Ukraine does breach neutrality, but that Russia would at most only be permitted to take countermeasures in response, not resort to the use of force. For its part, the U.S. government has adhered to a “qualified neutrality” position, which allows for assistance to states that are victims of aggression.

As a practical matter, it is difficult to discern the difference in the context of active hostilities between “defensive” and “offensive” weapons.  Nevertheless, one potential reason for limiting the provision of weapons to those which might be considered “defensive” may be to make abundantly clear that U.S. provision of weapons to Ukraine is solely for purposes of defending Ukraine from Russia’s aggression, thus squarely falling within the confines of “qualified neutrality” and the previously mentioned justification of Ukraine’s right of collective self-defense under Article 51. As one commentary has pointed out, ILC Article 21 furthermore precludes certain acts from being considered violations of international law if performed in the exercise of self-defense under the UN Charter.  

The author wishes to thank Beatrice Walton for her assistance and comments on this article.

The post Expert Q&A on What International Law Has to Say About Assistance to Russia’s War Against Ukraine appeared first on Just Security.

Today, a new missile strike targeted a U.S. base in the same region, just hours after Secretary Austin’s announcement. 

Hundreds of U.S. troops remain stationed in Syria to ensure the continued defeat of ISIS. (A U.S. base in Al-Tanf, southeast Syria, has less clear objectives.) These troops have repeatedly clashed with Iranian-backed groups since 2017. In the past two years alone, Iranian-backed groups have conducted drone or rocket attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria at least 78 times – a sustained increase since the Trump administration killed IRGC Qods Force Commander Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in January 2020. 

The Biden administration has not yet publicly articulated the legal basis for the latest strike. Based on past precedent, the administration is likely to claim these strikes were carried out under the President’s unilateral Article II authority, rather than the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). Under the War Powers Resolution, the administration should submit a report to Congress within 48 hours of the strike outlining the basis for the use of force. Previously, the United States has claimed similar strikes were necessary to “deter” future attacks – a justification that has begun to ring hollow after repeated cycles of hostilities and one which has a controversial claim to legality under international law (see competing views at Just Security put forward by Adil Haque and by Ryan Goodman). 

Notably, Congress has not expressly authorized military operations against Iranian-backed militia groups in Syria (though some might claim the 2001 AUMF applies). Coincidentally, on Wednesday, lawmakers resoundingly voted against Sen. Lindsay Graham’s proposal to amend the 2002 AUMF by repurposing it to authorize military force against “Iranian-backed militias operating in Iraq” (Yea-Nay Votes: 36-60), suggesting there may be little support for broadening authorities to Syria. 

For further analysis on this topic, see: “Tit-for-Tat Hostilities in Syria: War Powers and International Law Applications” by Tess Bridgeman and Brian Finucane, and “Still at War: the United States in Syria” by Tess Bridgeman and Brianna Rosen.

Image: A simulation of a drone strike (via GettyImages). 

The post Policy Alert: Iran-U.S. Hostilities Ratcheting Up in Syria appeared first on Just Security.

According to U.S. European Command (EUCOM), the Flankers dumped fuel on the Reaper and repeatedly flew in front of it. The dumping of fuel was likely meant to interfere with its sensors, while “zooming” in front of an aircraft can create dangerous “jet wash.” Eventually, one of the Flankers hit a propeller on the Reaper (denied by Russia), which led to the decision by U.S. forces to ditch it in international waters. The Russian aircraft may have been damaged but landed safely.

EUCOM labeled the Russian intercept “reckless and unprofessional,” demonstrating a lack of competence on the part of the pilots. Department of Defense spokesperson, Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, echoed that characterization, adding that the intercept was “unsafe.” Ned Price of the State Department went furthest, calling the Russian actions a “brazen violation of international law” and noting that the United States was “conveying in strong terms our objections.” He stopped short, however, of stating what law had been violated by Russia’s actions, which I will turn to below. As will be explained, I see two possibilities, failure to exercise due regard and the unlawful use of force.

There have been prior incidents resembling the Reaper downing, most recently the 2019 Iranian shoot-down of a US Navy RQ 4A Triton in the Persian Gulf. And during the Cold War era, the “Black Sea Bumping Incident” involving a U.S. Navy cruiser and destroyer on the one hand and two Soviet Navy frigates on the other drew global attention; it continues to be studied by students at the U.S. Naval War College.

But the Reaper downing is different, for it took place during an international armed conflict and involved neutral and belligerent platforms. In light of that context, the U.S. contention that the intercept was unlawful merits examination. I first explain why, despite Russian contentions to the contrary, the U.S. operations should themselves be understood as lawful. I then examine Russia’s actions, asking whether they violated any rule of international law and, if so, whether any legal justification exists. Finally, based on these assessments, I conclude with a brief assessment of international law response options available to the United States.

The US ISR Mission

According to EUCOM, “U.S. Air Forces in Europe – Air Forces Africa routinely fly aircraft throughout Europe over sovereign territory and throughout international airspace in coordination with applicable host nation and international laws. In order to bolster collective European defense and security, these missions support Allied, partner, and U.S. national objectives.”

To assess this particular operation, it is necessary to consider the Reaper’s location and mission. At the time of the intercept, it was flying approximately 75 miles southwest of the Crimean Peninsula, Ukrainian territory that Russian unlawfully claims to have annexed in 2014. In this regard, the Russian Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, declared, “American aircraft have no business being near the Russian border.” But even if Crimea was Russian territory (which it is not), the incident occurred over the “high seas” and, therefore, international airspace.

It is universally accepted that aircraft, including military platforms, enjoy the right of high seas overflight. This right is codified in Article 2 of the 1958 Convention on the High Seas, to which the United States is Party, and Article 87(1)(b) of the 1982 Law of Sea Convention (UNCLOS), to which it is not. Russia is Party to both. Despite UNCLOS non-Party status, the United States recognizes its navigational provisions as reflecting customary international law. Indeed, the DoD Law of War Manual and the U.S. Navy/Coast Guard/Marine Corps Commander’s Handbook on the Law of Naval Operations both emphasize the right of military aircraft to conduct operations over the high seas (§ 13.2.3.1 and § 2.6.3, respectively).

As to the mission, Ambassador Antonov correctly noted that the Reaper is “a multipurpose [drone], with strike capabilities of up to a 1,700 kilograms explosive payload.” Yet as he acknowledged, the platforms are also used for reconnaissance. Indeed, this was a routine ISR mission, which Russia surely understood, and by which it could not have been surprised.. Espionage, as such, violates no rule of international law. And with respect to espionage, it must be pointed out that the United States has been engaging in ISR operations in the Black sea for decades. Thus, it is not necessarily the case that this mission was to gather information harmful to Russia in its conflict with Ukraine.

But there is some question as to whether the law of neutrality is a fly in the ointment. If the intelligence gathered by the drone was meant to be shared with Ukraine for use in military operations, some may understand the mission to have been an “internationally wrongful act” (Articles on State Responsibility, art. 2) in the form of a neutrality law violation. For example, the DoD Law of War Manual states that, during an international armed conflict, “[t]he principal duties of a neutral State are to abstain from any participation in the conflict and to be impartial in conduct towards contending parties” (§15.3.2). Intelligence sharing with one of the belligerents can certainly run afoul of this principle.

Yet, there is an ongoing debate over whether this principle applies fully in the Ukraine conflict (see here, here, here, and here). Some observers, including me, support the notion of “qualified neutrality,” by which the rules requiring impartiality are relaxed when one State is the clear aggressor. This is most apparent in cases of UN Security Council authorization of enforcement action against a State (as in the 1990-91 Gulf War, UNSC Res.678 (1990)). But it can extend to situations in which the aggressor is obvious.

The United States supports the qualified neutrality approach, which is sometimes labeled non-belligerency (DoD Law of War Manual, § 15.2.2). By it, assistance to Ukraine in the form of intelligence sharing is lawful, just as collective-self defense of Ukraine would be lawful, although it raises the separate question of the point at which assistance could constitute an indirect use of force or render the United States a Party to the conflict (see my thoughts here).

Both views are reasonable and enjoy ample support in State practice and doctrine. Yet, it is only if the intelligence the Reaper was gathering was intended to be shared with Ukraine for military use in the armed conflict, and only with the strict application of neutrality law, that the U.S. operation could have been unlawful. The better position is that the operation complied with international law.

The Russian Intercept

 As Brigadier General Ryder noted in his press briefing, aircraft intercepts are common but typically conducted safely. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby also pointed out that there had been Russian intercepts in recent weeks, albeit not as unsafely. That the Flankers intercepted the Reaper does not alone violate international law. Indeed, they enjoyed the same right of overflight of international waters as the Reaper. But this is not the end of the analysis.

International law prohibits one State’s threat or use of force against another (UN Charter, art. 2(4) and customary law). However, while there is no question that the Russian actions endangered the Reaper, it seems that the intent was to discourage its flight, not to down it. Along these lines, State Department spokesperson Price declined to speculate on the Russian motivations for the intercept. Without knowing more about Russian intentions, can the action nevertheless qualify as a use of force?

There is an ongoing discussion among international law experts as to whether “intent” is required for a breach of the prohibition. Marko Milanovic dealt with the subject of whether a mistake of fact can preclude wrongfulness in his three-part EJIL:Talk! series. He noted that only the United States had invoked the doctrine in the jus ad bellum context, and, even then, “it did not attract widespread acceptance” (the shootdown of Iran Air 655 1988 by USS Vincennes). Milanovic concluded that while “one cannot categorically exclude that such a rule could exist…it seems unlikely that it does.” But in his comprehensive study of armed attacks in the law of self-defense, Tom Ruys finds significant support for the requirement of “animus aggressionis” (§ 3.2.2). Although the issue of intent remains unsettled in international law, it is easier to make the use of force case in situations of recklessness, as seems to be the case in the Russian intercept, than those involving a mistake of fact, even a reasonable one. Assuming that the acts were indeed reckless but unintentional, an assertion that the Russian action amounted to a use of force is colorable but not unassailable.

The more straightforward characterization of the Russian actions is as a violation of the international law obligation of “due regard.” The requirement, which was presaged in Article 2 of the High Seas Convention, is codified in UNCLOS, Article 87(2): high seas “freedoms shall be exercised by all States with due regard for the interests of other States in their exercise of the freedom of the high seas.” The customary character of the provision is reflected in the Commander’s Handbook acknowledgment that “the aircraft of all States are free to operate in international airspace with due regard for the safety of other aircraft and without interference by other States” (§ 1.9; see also DoD Law of War Manual § 13.2.3.1). As an aside, it merits mention that the Chicago Convention‘s due regard obligation does not apply in this situation because the instrument does not govern “State aircraft” (art. 3(d)).

Note that mere interference with lawful flight operations suffices to breach the obligation. But even where a State’s aircraft is responding to a breach of international law (as in refusal to depart national airspace following unconsented-to entry), there are common techniques for conducting an interception to dissuade the offending aircraft from persisting. These include “zooming” past the offending aircraft and hitting afterburners while doing so; flying close enough to it to cause the pilot concern either by dashing at or slowly turning into it; and creating jet wash across which the offending aircraft would have to fly, thereby making it difficult to control (as in this case). The point is that an aerial intercept must be one of very controlled and cautious escalation. The fact that one of the Flankers hit the Reaper demonstrates that it was flying without due regard. It is, therefore, difficult to avoid the conclusion that the interception, or at least the method used to conduct it, was an internationally wrongful act.

Possible justifications for the Russian actions

There are three possible justifications for the Russian action, none of which hold up under examination. The first is self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter and customary law. Clearly, the U.S. operation does not qualify, standing alone, as an “armed attack,” the threshold at which the right to engage in a defensive use of force (and any lesser action) is triggered. This being so, the only possible way self-defense could apply would be to treat the Reaper mission as an integral component of Ukrainian attacks on Russian forces. Under the law of State responsibility, “where several States are responsible for the same internationally wrongful act, the responsibility of each State may be invoked in relation to that act (Articles on State Responsibility (ASR), art. 47(1)). The glaring problem with this argument is that the operation in question must be unlawful. But Ukrainian operations are lawful exercises of the right of self-defense. It is well established that under the law of State responsibility, there is no self-defense against a lawful exercise of self-defense.

Even if that were not the case, it is doubtful that the Russians knew what the Reaper was collecting and how it would be used by Ukrainian forces, if at all. Moreover, any assistance must be integral to the operation in question for an operation to be considered joint as a matter of law; more than mere aid and assistance (see ASR, art. 16) is required. Again, there is no indication that was the case here.

The second possible justification is self-help in the face of a neutrality law violation. As noted above, I believe there has been no such violation. But assuming for the sake of analysis that the Reaper flight violated the United States’ obligations of abstention and impartiality, was Russia entitled to take measures to end the violation?

Neutrality law does include a right of self-help for aggrieved belligerents, including the right to engage in forcible actions. But that right applies only to situations where the opposing belligerent is violating its neutrality law obligations.  The DoD Law of War Manual explains, “[s]hould the neutral State be unable, or fail for any reason, to prevent violations of its neutrality by the forces of one belligerent entering or passing through its territory (including its lands, waters, and airspace), the other belligerent State may be justified in attacking the enemy forces on the neutral State’s territory” (§ 15.4.2). Here, it is the neutral State that is alleged to have engaged in an internationally wrongful act.

Nevertheless, if, and only if, the Reaper operation violated neutrality law (which it did not), Russia would be entitled to take countermeasures – acts or omissions that would be unlawful but for the fact that they are designed to put an end to another State’s unlawful action or secure any reparations due for harm suffered (ASR, art. 49). This would preclude the wrongfulness of Russia’s breach of its due regard obligation. Yet, because countermeasures may not be forcible (ASR, art. 50(1)(a)), the Russian response was unlawful if, as discussed above, it amounted to a use of force. To qualify as a lawful countermeasure, then, the U.S. operation must have violated international law (it did not), and Russia’s interception and downing must not have constituted a use of force (it might have).

The third justification is the trickiest. During an armed conflict, belligerents may create “operational zones” to prevent interference with their operations. In fact, this is the claimed justification for the Russian intercept. According to Ambassador Antonov, the Reaper “was moving deliberately and provocatively towards the Russian territory with its transponders turned off [and] violated the boundaries of the temporary airspace regime established for the special military operation, which was communicated to all the concerned users of international airspace in accordance with international norms.” Because the United States is the “victim” State in the incident, it is appropriate to apply its own interpretation of the law governing operational zones to any characterization it might offer of the incident.

United States legal doctrine recognizes operational zones for both aerial and naval operations. For instance, the DoD Law of War Manual (§ 14.7) provides,

During armed conflict, States may establish airspace zones and associated procedures intended to prohibit aircraft from entering or flying in designated areas, including areas in international airspace. Such zones may be established for a variety of purposes, including to decrease the risk of inadvertent attack of civil or neutral aircraft, to control the scope of the conflict, or to enhance the predictability and effectiveness of ongoing operations.

The United States is of the view that a belligerent may establish such a zone in the “immediate area or vicinity” of naval operations “to ensure the security of its forces and its right to conduct hostilities without interference from neutrals” (id.). Some other States active in maritime operations expressly agree (see, e.g., U.K. Law of Armed Conflict Manual, §13.8; Australia, Law of Armed Conflict, ¶ 6.16; Germany, Commander’s Handbook, ¶ 303). The “immediate” area or vicinity “is that area within which hostilities are taking place, or belligerent State forces are actually operating” (§ 13.8.1). As to the consequence of violation, the DoD Manual cautions that “[a]ny transmission to an opposing belligerent State of information concerning military operations or military forces is inconsistent with the neutral State’s duties of abstention and impartiality and renders the neutral State’s vessel or aircraft making such a communication liable to capture or destruction (§ 13.8.2; see also Commander’s Handbook, § 7.8). This would apply if the Reaper was transmitting intelligence to Ukrainian forces.

In the Reaper downing incident, therefore, the key questions are whether there were ongoing Russian naval operations in the area and whether the Reaper was engaged in operations placing them at risk. If so, by the U.S. approach, the intercept arguably would be lawful. But, beyond that area, as explained by Professor Pete Pedrozo in his comprehensive survey of the Ukraine conflict at sea, “Russia may only establish temporary warning areas to advise ships and aircraft that it is conducting activities at sea that may pose a hazard to navigation and overflight.” Given what we know, the latter scenario is the more likely one.

One red herring merits discussion. If the Reaper was supporting Ukrainian operations, it would seem to qualify as a “military objective” (see Additional Protocol I, art. 52(2), which reflects customary law). But the United States and Russia are (probably, see here) not involved in an international armed conflict to which IHL applies. And even if the Russian action triggered one due to the occurrence of hostilities between the U.S. and Russian armed forces, as explained above, there is no self-defense basis under the jus ad bellum for Russia taking the action.

Possible U.S. Responses

U.S. responses to the incident under international law are relatively limited. To begin with, even if the Russian intercept rose to the level of a use of force, it was not at the armed attack level, which, according to the International Court of Justice and the majority view among States, is the “most grave form” of the use of force (Paramilitary Activities, ¶ 191). Admittedly, the United States is of the view that there is no “gap” between the use of force and armed attack thresholds (DoD Law of War Manual, § 1.11.5.2). However, even if the incident is characterized as an armed attack, it is over. As a result, justifying a forcible (or any other) response on the basis of self-defense would not satisfy the temporal aspect of self-defense’s “necessity” criterion (Paramilitary Activities, ¶ 194), at least not unless the downing was but the first in an ongoing campaign at that level. Responsive uses of force that are not necessary at the time are mere retaliation, not self-defense.

The more viable option is the taking of countermeasures. While countermeasures are not permissible once an incident is over, they are to secure any reparations that might be due (ASR, arts. 31, 34). If the Russian action qualifies as an internationally wrongful act, which, as explained above, it likely does, the United States may engage in proportionate, non-forcible countermeasures until Russia provides reparations for the downed Reaper.

In this regard, it is important to note that countermeasures need not be in-kind. For instance, the United States could mount cyber operations that violate Russian sovereignty until Russia makes good the loss it has suffered, at least so long as those operations have a reasonable chance of succeeding at inducing Russia to pay. Another possibility would be to close U.S. territorial waters to the transit of certain Russian-flagged vessels, such as warships.

Finally, the United States may engage in acts of “retorsion,” a term that denotes unfriendly but lawful actions. The paradigmatic example in the context of the Ukraine conflict is economic sanctions.

Concluding Thoughts

Legal conclusions are fact-dependent, and many facts needed to assess the Reaper downing are unavailable. They are likely to remain so due to their classified nature. Nevertheless, based on those appearing in open sources, the Russian operation almost certainly violated the international law obligation of due regard and, perhaps, the prohibition on using force. And there would appear to be no definitive legal justification for its action. It would follow that the United States is entitled to reparations for the loss of the Reaper and enjoys the right to take countermeasures to secure them. For practical reasons, however, this is an unlikely scenario. Instead, any responses are likely to lie in the realm of retorsion – as has been the case throughout the latest phase of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, during which the Biden administration has made great efforts to avoid escalation even while offering steadfast support to Ukraine. The same is likely to be its approach here.

IMAGE: An MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) is prepared for training mission. A Russian fighter jet had collided with an MQ-9 Reaper drone, causing the unmanned aircraft to crash into the Black Sea, on March 14, 2023. (Photo by Isaac Brekken/Getty Images)

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Yet, as one of us has previously discussed, recent editions of this transparency report are more notable for what they conceal and omit than what they reveal. The 2022 report illustrates the limits of congressionally mandated reporting requirements on matters of war and peace and the need for Congress to be more proactive in informing itself and the U.S. public on how the executive branch uses force and conceives of its own authority.

Named after the section of the Fiscal Year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act in which it was originally codified, the 1264 report on “the legal and policy frameworks for the United States’ use of military force and related national security operations” must describe “the legal, factual, and policy justifications” for any changes to the frameworks during the prior year. Specifically, the report is to include, inter alia, a list of groups covered by the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001 AUMF) and the criteria for designating foreign forces and individuals as lawfully targetable or as belonging to a group covered by the 2001 AUMF. In addition to the annual report, Congress has also required that changes to these legal and policy frameworks must be notified to relevant congressional committees within 30 days.

A few aspects of the brief 2022 report are noteworthy.

Classified transparency

First, and foremost, like previous reports beginning in the Trump administration, the report contains a classified annex. Thus, this latest report does not by itself strive to provide a comprehensive update on use of force frameworks. Instead, much of the relevant “transparency” is classified.

Such secrecy is particularly significant with respect to the list of groups the executive branch deems covered by the 2001 AUMF. As one of us has previously written, the executive branch has a mixed record at best over the last two decades of publicly disclosing who it thinks the United States is at war with under the AUMF. After prodding from the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Obama administration eventually released an unclassified list of the entities it considered covered by the 2001 AUMF. In the Trump administration, the executive branch reverted to classifying the complete catalog of groups. The new 1264 report states there has been “no change” to this still classified list.

One question raised by this “no change” claim is how the executive branch slices and dices various jihadi groups for the purposes of the 2001 war authorization. For example, since 2014, the executive branch has deemed the Islamic State covered by the 2001 AUMF. But it is unclear whether the Biden administration currently conceives of ISIS in Iraq and Syria and all of its affiliates (e.g., ISIS-Khorasan Province, ISIS-West Africa, ISIS-Sahel, ISIS-Libya, ISIS-Somalia, ISIS-Yemen, ISIS-DRC, ISIS-East Asia Province, ISIS-Mozambique etc.) as a single undifferentiated entity or many separate groups for AUMF purposes. Do some of all of them qualify as “part of” ISIS? Does each have to meet the test of a so-called “associated force” used by the Obama and Trump administrations, including having “entered the fight” alongside ISIS and “against” the “United States or its coalition partners”? (More than twenty years into the war on terror, it is unclear who these “coalition partners” currently are.) Given the number and geographic distribution of these ISIS affiliates, how the executive branch understands ISIS for purposes of AUMF coverage could have significant implications for which of the myriad regional conflicts involving ISIS the United States could also become a party to.

Geographic scope and a new legal basis for using force in Afghanistan

The report states that the “calendar-year report for 2021 reflected that the United States used military force in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Somalia. As previously recognized, the United States used force in each of those countries in 2022 as well.” This framing suggests that the list of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Somalia may not be exhaustive. Whether additional states are listed in the classified annex is, of course, a secret.

With respect to Afghanistan, the report indicates a potentially nuanced change to the international legal basis for using force against al-Qa’ida, ISIS, and other (unspecified) terrorist threats. Prior to the August 2021 withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, the consent of the government of Afghanistan had been a basis under international law for the use of force in that country. Discretely alluding to the collapse of the Ashraf Ghani government and the Taliban’s ascent to power accompanying the removal of U.S. forces from the country (“In light of changed circumstances associated with [the US] withdrawal…”), the report states the “United States does not intend to rely on that previously provided consent.” (emphasis added).

This wording makes clear that the United States will not rely on the consent of the now deposed government of Ashraf Ghani for operations within Afghanistan. But it does not preclude the possibility that the United States might seek, or already have, the consent of the Taliban for counterterrorism operations against targets of mutual interest, specifically ISIS.

In addition, the United States reserves, “absent reliance on consent to use force in Afghanistan” the “inherent right to use necessary and proportionate force in self-defense to the extent Afghanistan is unwilling or unable to confront effectively the threat to the United States emanating from the territory of Afghanistan.” (The report does not specify who for these purposes represents Afghanistan, though the United States has not formally recognized the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan.) Self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter and in particular, incorporating the controversial “unwilling or unable test” into its self-defense rationale, would thus seem the likely purported international legal basis for potential strikes on targets where U.S. and Taliban interests do not align, namely those taken against al-Qa’ida. For example, the administration was dismissive of the suggestion that it had coordinated with the Taliban on the July 2022 strike on al-Qa’ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. (“No, of course, we did not alert the Taliban to the fact that we were going to take this strike.”) As with the “unable or unwilling” test itself, the notion that a state using force in self-defense against a non-state actor on another state’s territory can skip seeking the consent of the territorial states is controversial, though the Biden administration may well argue that requesting Taliban consent for such strikes would be so clearly self-defeating that it is not required under international law.

What else is missing?

A notable absence in this latest report is any mention of the legal basis for reoccurring hostilities between U.S. forces and “Iran-backed militia groups” in Syria. Such hostilities in both the Trump and Biden administrations have repeatedly sparked bipartisan inquiries from members of Congress (see here and here). The low-level conflict with these groups raises a number of legal issues under both domestic and international law, as discussed here and here.  The Biden administration’s silence on the matter in this report seemingly implies that the relevant legal and policy frameworks, whatever they may be, are unchanged since these hostilities began during the Trump administration. Like the underlying conflict with these groups, the executive branch’s legal thinking on these hostilities may also be on autopilot or at least classified.

The Biden administration also missed an opportunity to publicly reject the Trump administration’s fraught claim that the 2002 Iraq AUMF and the president’s inherent Article II war powers provided legal justification for the January 2020 strike that killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. While the Biden administration has not invoked the Trump administration’s flawed justifications for the Soleimani strike, failing to officially disavow them leaves in place an avenue for a future administration to take advantage of these legal interpretations in order to vastly expand U.S. military operations without prior congressional authorization, should they so choose.

What’s new?

The 2022 report is approximately one page longer than the Biden administration’s past two section 1264 reports (see here and here). This additional page is largely due to the reiteration of two previously announced new policies – the Presidential Policy Memorandum (PPM) concerning “direct action against terrorist targets outside areas of active hostilities” and a Defense Department action plan to improve civilian harm mitigation and response.

The PPM, which is understood to provide rules governing lethal strikes and raids outside of Iraq and Syria, is discussed minimally. While the report notes the PPM’s existence, it says nothing of is contours, which are reserved for the classified annex. News of the PPM first came via an October 2022 Charlie Savage New York Times article, which cited an anonymous “senior administration official” who conveyed “key aspects” of the policy for inclusion in the piece. According this article, the Biden administration envisioned developing “country plans” to provide further guidance on the PPM’s implementation. The anonymous official also discussed with Savage a new memo setting out the administration’s counterterrorism strategy, which was developed alongside the PPM and has also been kept secret.

The Biden administration’s refusal to release the actual PPM is baffling, given both the Obama and Trump administrations were court ordered to release their lethal force policies (here and here) and did so, with appropriate redactions. Both members of Congress and civil society organizations have called on the administration to make its new lethal force policy and counterterrorism strategy memo public. The Biden administration should heed these calls and rather than waiting for the inevitable outcome of litigation on the matter, release the full PPM along with any country plans as well as the counterterrorism strategy memo, with minimal redactions to protect classified information.

Finally, the report includes a summary of the recently released Defense Department Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP), which was signed by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and released in full in August 2022. The CHMR-AP was designed to improve protections for civilians in armed conflict and ensure appropriate responses when civilians are killed or injured in U.S. operations. It is the culmination of mounting pressure on the Defense Department to improve its civilian harm policies and procedures following a high-profile August 2021 drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan that killed 10 civilians, including 7 children, and a series of New York Times investigations that uncovered systemic failures in department policy and practice concerning civilian harm.

The CHMR-AP was welcomed by civil society organizations (see, for example, here and here), who praised its comprehensive nature and potential to address longstanding structural flaws within the Defense Department that have led to preventable civilian harm, inadequate investigations, and a lack of proper redress. Commentators have also noted the need for effective implementation to ensure the action plan’s success, while also criticizing its failure to re-open past cases of credible allegations of U.S. harm that the Defense Department has not acknowledged.

Time for Congress to Step Up Again

Overall, the brevity of the Biden administration’s 2022 report is consistent with its general attitude to the war on terror: deemphasize it, discuss it as little as possible, and sometimes even pretend as though it were over. As one of us has written with Luke Hartig, this approach, while understandable, is misguided.

Permanently winding down the war on terror requires greater transparency from the executive branch, including regarding its own legal theories on the use of force. Congressional reporting requirements, such as that mandating the 1264 report, are helpful when the executive branch takes them seriously. Sadly, in this case, its added value appears to be shining a spotlight on just how much the executive branch treats transparency as a box-checking exercise. In the end, reporting requirements by themselves are insufficient in achieving the disclosure needed to enable a full and frank discussion concerning when and where the United States is using military force and conducting related operations in the name of national security. If Congress wants to better inform itself and the U.S. public—as it should—about these matters of war and peace, it will need to be more assertive in extracting relevant information from the executive branch through sustained and disciplined oversight (as discussed here) of how and on what basis the United States is using force.

IMAGE: A U.S. Army helicopter flies outside of Camp Shorab on a flight to Camp Post on September 11, 2017 in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. (Photo by Andrew Renneisen/Getty Images)

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Q:  Are States providing Ukraine with aid and assistance engaging in the “use of force” against Russia, as that term is understood in international law?

Major W. Casey Biggerstaff:  Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter, which is reflective of customary international law, provides that “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” The provision has been widely interpreted to mean that a State’s use of force is a breach of international law in the absence of one of two exceptions:  authorization from the Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter or self-defense (individual or collective) under Article 51 and customary international law. Unless one applies, the use of force is an “internationally wrongful act” that opens the door to “countermeasures,” reparations, or if it rises to the level of an “armed attack,” the proportionate and necessary use of force by the injured State in response (see Draft Articles of State Responsibility, arts. 2, 21, 22, and 31). Thus, assessing whether States supporting Ukraine are using force against Russia is a crucial preliminary step in this inquiry.

There is no authoritative definition, however, of what constitutes a “use of force.” There used to be little question that the rule only encompassed the direct application of armed force, such as that being used by Russian soldiers invading Ukraine and by the Ukrainian forces repelling them in self-defense. By this standard, the United States and others supporting Ukraine would not be using force, as their armed forces are not engaging Russian soldiers directly.

But subsequent State interpretations of the Charter indicate that the term also includes so-called indirect force, whereby a State engages in coercive force by aiding or assisting another. For instance, in 1970, the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Friendly Relations Declaration, which stated that States have a duty to refrain from the use of force by, inter alia, “organizing, instigating, assisting, or participating in acts of civil strife or terrorist acts in another State… when [such acts] involve a threat or use of force.” The International Court of Justice (ICJ) subsequently looked to this resolution as evidence in finding that the United States violated the customary prohibition on the use of force by arming and training the contras in support of their insurgency against the Nicaraguan government (Paramilitary Activities, para. 228). The Court affirmed this reasoning when it similarly found that Uganda violated the prohibition by providing military support to a non-State armed group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Armed Activities, paras. 161-63). The notion that States can engage in the use of force by aiding or assisting others (assuming the supported conduct would qualify as a use of force if engaged in by a State) should be, therefore, relatively uncontroversial.

What is less clear are the precise conditions in which such support crosses the use of force threshold. Russia has implicitly alleged that supporting States are using force by providing Ukraine with, for example, long-range rocket systems, training, intelligence, and tanks (see, e.g., here, here, and here). Given that the United States and others have provided over $40 billion in military aid to Ukraine, which has notably enabled its forces to effectively counter Russia’s evolving strategies, this is not an irrational conclusion. Nevertheless, States continue to seemingly deny Russian accusations without elaborating on their basis for doing so (see, e.g., here). These competing positions, and the lack of meaningful State dialogue on the use of indirect force in light of the ICJ’s precedents, make it is difficult to say that there is any international consensus as to whether States supporting Ukraine are using force or not.

Professor Michael Schmitt and I are currently working on a forthcoming article for International Law Studies that proposes a framework for the factors States are likely to consider when assessing whether a State is using indirect force. We believe the best approach is a holistic examination of relevant factors, much as States are beginning to approach the use of force in the cyber context. The factors we identify, which are not exclusive, are assessed in terms of degree and predominantly pertain to the relationship between the aid or assistance in question and the supported State’s application of force. They include, for example, the intent underlying the support, its directness, and the impact the aid or assistance has on the supported State’s forceful operations.

After reflecting on these factors in the Ukraine aid and assistance case, and even though I consider the applicable threshold for the use of indirect force to be quite high, my view is that some States are likely engaging in force by virtue of the quantity and quality of the support they are providing. It will be interesting to see how States and others respond. My thoughts aside, what is abundantly clear is that even if some supporting States are engaging in the use of force, their activities are lawful as actions taken in the collective self-defense of Ukraine under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter.

Note: W. Casey Biggerstaff is a judge advocate in the U.S. Army currently assigned as a military professor at the U.S. Naval War College’s Stockton Center for International Law. His views, and those of Professor Schmitt referenced in the article, are their own and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Government or any of its components.

IMAGE: Ukrainian recruits and their British Armed Forces trainers pose for a photograph on Driver Tank Trainer (DTT) armoured vehicles at a military facility, on February 23, 2023 in Southern England. The UK will send 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine, marking the first time a Western country has sent its most powerful heavy armour to Kyiv to aid Ukrainians in the fight against the Russian Invasion. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

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How can states pursue more ethical, value-based approaches to foreign policy amidst competing priorities and strategic realities? This is the question that Amb. Peter Mulrean and Dr. William Hawk grapple with in their proposed “ethical checklist” for U.S. foreign policy.

“Checklists,” write the authors, “are invaluable in ensuring the quality and integrity of processes, even among the most accomplished professionals, such as surgeons, architects, and pilots.” While the authors recognize that the checklist, composed of eight questions, does not necessarily yield easy answers, they conclude that what “makes a decision ethical, however, is that it takes into account the identified areas of inquiry.”

This is a laudable course correction following years of fluctuating foreign policy moral standards. But while the proposed framework starts by asking some of the right questions, following it will not necessarily lead to more ethical outcomes. Instead, policymakers must grapple with difficult moral choices, as well as the assumptions underlying the values they profess to uphold.

Making Moral Choices in an Unequal World

Charting an ethical foreign policy is not simply about asking the right questions; it requires acting in accordance with a set of moral assumptions that undergird the decision-making process. For example, take respecting the sovereignty of other states, as defined by the United Nations (UN) Charter. Following the tenants of international law, including the jus ad bellum and jus in bello rules that structure decisions to going to war and waging war. Respecting human rights and the right for individuals to lead a flourishing life free from oppression.

The checklist questions presuppose these values, which not coincidentally also form the heart of the liberal world order. Yet, holding to these laudable values implies a hierarchy within the international system that can sometimes make acting ethically difficult.

Consider a key passage from the Biden Administration’s 2022 National Defense Strategy :

Now, and over the next two decades, we face strategic challenges stemming from complex interactions between a rapidly changing global balance of military capabilities; emerging technologies; competitor doctrines that pose new threats to the U.S. homeland and to strategic stability; and escalation of competitors’ coercive and malign activities in the “grey zone”; and transboundary challenges that impose new demands on the Joint Force and the defense enterprise.

The United States is endowed with remarkable qualities that confer great advantages, including in the realm of national security. We are a free people devoted to democracy and the rule of law. Our combination of diversity, free minds, and free enterprise drives extraordinary innovation and adaptability. We are a member of an unparalleled and unprecedented network of alliances and partnerships. Together, we share many common values and a common interest in defending the stable and open international system, the basis for the most peaceful and prosperous epoch in modern history.

The implicit hierarchies are understandable but glaring: Privileging U.S. interests, citizens, and personnel across the globe. Protecting democracy. Foiling “competitor doctrines that pose new threats to the U.S. homeland and to strategic stability” and responding to “an escalation of competitors’ coercive and malign activities in the ‘gray zone.'” While the rhetoric is a far cry from the Bush administration’s axis of evil, there is a clear line of demarcation between pro-democracy and “competitor” forces.

Essentially, the hierarchy looks like this: liberal democracies on one side, with authoritarian regimes and nefarious non-states actors on the other. And the hierarchy will only grow starker if, as some scholars argue, the world is entering the post-liberal era. Concerns that the United States does not always toe the human rights line when it comes to foreign policy are no doubt valid, and the checklist is aimed to correct past legacies of colonialism and imperialism, which have given rise to various forms of domination and oppression in international affairs.

The proposed ethical checklist obviates these hierarchies, which are essential to making moral choices. The checklist directs policymakers to follow an equitable approach, achieving the best short and long-term outcomes for everyone, while respecting the autonomy, integrity, dignity, and choice of all involved, and reflecting empathy and care for all parties. But foreign policy does not work that way, especially when “competitors” reject the basic ethical assumptions of the liberal world order.

Equity in foreign affairs is hard to come by when the starting point is a legacy of stark inequality.

Ethical standards aim toward the good outweighing the bad. In just war parlance, this is the notion of proportionality which, as the most seasoned military ethicists attest, is very difficult to calculate. Empirical evidence suggests that those on the receiving end of the use of force, at least when it comes to the use of U.S. force in the twenty-first century, may bear the brunt of the bad. Especially civilians. When making proportionality calculations about whether to authorize a drone strike, for example, U.S. officials seem to weigh the expected value of saving American lives more than the anticipated civilian harm to foreigners. This is morally problematic, especially considering the legacy of U.S. imperialism in countries where these strikes are occurring, namely in the Middle East and North Africa.

To begin to address these shortcomings, the Fairness, Empathy, and Outcomes questions in the proposed ethical framework should be further refined, to include:

• What are legitimate and illegitimate interests?
• To whom do we show empathy?
• And given decision X, which parties are predicted to gain, and which will suffer?

At the end of the day, someone usually dies when the decision to use military force is made. Hopefully the intended target, assuming they are a legitimate target, but too often also innocent civilians. The deliberation to resort to force therefore should not be easy, like running through a checklist arguably is.

Consider the U.S. drone strike that killed 10 civilians as the United States was withdrawing from Afghanistan in August 2022. A stark reading of the situation suggests that the moral logic was geared toward force protection. A more generous reading depicts the moral logic as being aimed at protecting U.S. forces and Afghan civilians at the airport, even though at the risk of harming civilians caught in the crossfire. Scholars who study the ethics of war have long debated these issues, exploring issues such as risk transfer, risk avoidance, and due care. Which choice is ethical ultimately depends on the assumptions−inseparable from some sort of hierarchy−that structures the ethical framework employed.

Asking the right question is only the first step. Some frameworks might privilege our soldiers, other times their civilians.

Rather than a procedure that equates to ethics-by-asking-the-right-questions, debates among ethicists point to tensions inherent to the most salient foreign policy quandaries of the day: the over-the-horizon policy, the preventive war option to stop acquisition of game-changing weapons, arming rebels, upholding chemical weapons prohibitions, humanitarian intervention, and more.

The point is that the hierarchical assumptions one brings to the discussion impact how one understands the duties and obligations owed to all parties involved. These may not be evenly distributed, which can have life and death consequences.

Thus, in addition to the Responsibility, Character, and Liberty questions, asking the following questions teases out the assumptions that structure the ethical deliberations:

• To whom does one have a duty?
• What risks are morally palatable to take to fulfill that duty?
• What are the moral costs of inaction?
• Whose autonomy, integrity, dignity, and choice, are best respected by the foreign policy decision, and whose are not?

Even Justified Killings Likely Fail to Meet Empathy Standard

Having written on military ethics for nearly two decades, I have learned that every new conflict brings moral quandaries. Iraq. Drones. Libya. Syria. Ukraine. And the list will no doubt expand in the years to come. Perhaps the one constant across these debates is that ethicists disagree. Does this mean that there is no objective ethical framework?

The jury is still out, but the competing frameworks offer a range of ethical views, some quasi pacifist, others privileging restraint with various caveats, and a few tapping into the threads of the just war tradition that eschew restraint. The scholarship is vast – the cosmopolitan outlook, the reductive individualist view, the legalist paradigm, the just war tradition and its various interpretations, with scholars challenging the view that the ethical tenets of just war should be seen as a checklist because it can make the use of force too easy.

The takeaway is this: no matter the framework of predilection, there is, more than an ethicist like myself would like, a messy remainder. The ethical use of force is not a clean mathematical equation. Rather than a mathematical formula with round numbers, something is left after the computation is completed. When the use of force is concerned, this remainder is usually measured in death and destruction. Recognizing this is where empathy comes into the picture.

Empathy is a powerful emotion that can lead humans to counter other more destructive emotions, such as fury, anger, vengefulness, and hate, because it allows us to share the feelings and emotions of others. Focusing on empathy can thus restrain impulses to resort to lethal force. To include empathy as a core feature in deliberations about the use of force is a stark turn away from ethicists who, at the beginning of the so-called global “war on terror,” argued that just war should be animated by the ambition of “stopping an unmitigated evil.” And, even in an era of so-called humane warfare when the fight against terrorist threats is waged by drones, incorporating empathy runs counter to justifications based on a more punitive logic to targeted killing. However, support for using force taps into different emotions. Research shows that support for drone strikes as a response to terrorist threats is mediated by these negative emotions. Moreover, empathy is not always reciprocal. Unless foreign policy becomes pacifist, there will be situations when even empathy-driven decision making acquiesces to accepting civilian casualties for a perceived “greater cause.” Most versions of just war theory accept some form of this. But families of such collateral damage would clearly disagree.

Consider the U.S. drone program again. The Biden administration is returning to the near certainty standard concerning the risk that civilians will be harmed. While this shift should be lauded, civilians will still be at risk of being misidentified, or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. I fail to see how such a policy could be construed as acting with empathy and care because it suggests that the right to life of those living under drones is less than that of the average American citizen drones are presumably meant to protect. By using drones over-the-horizon, the United States imposes war-time standards−the jus in bello rules−on the spaces where foreign civilians live. Such rules diminish the right to life compared to the rules governing peacetime spaces. Even when there ostensibly are no civilian casualties, such as in the August 2022 drone strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, such “clean” strikes may still terrorize bystanders and fuel terrorist recruitment.

The proposed checklist even allows a procedural way to dismiss moral concerns. Consider the question: “What rights, if any, apply?” Answering this question in the negative−no rights apply to foreign civilians in situations of force protection or supreme emergency−flirts dangerously with the “dirty hands” approach to ethics, that is, whether political leaders accept violating the deepest constraints of morality in order to achieve important goods or avoid disasters for their communities or their allies. Ticking this ethical box, and then acting in ways that flaunt the moral rules restraining the use of force and calling it ethical, seems instead to be an abrogation of moral responsibility.

Thus, while empathy is important in developing an ethic of accountability because, as a lens through which to view decision making, it provides a foundation for addressing moral injury and a common language for discussing the costs of war, policymakers should be attuned to a darker reality where ethical decisions are never clean. Despite good intentions, it is not always possible for actions to reflect empathy and care for all parties. Hence variations on the Empathy question to consider asking:

• For which parties do the actions reflect empathy and care?
• For whom do they not?
• And what are the short- and long-term costs on the least well off in society?

***

Making ethical foreign policy decisions means taking responsibility for the decision to resort to force, especially when such decisions result in civilian harm. While the proposed checklist asks important questions, it inevitably oversimplifies complex moral quandaries. The risk is being able say, “Well, we ticked all the boxes, therefore we acted ethically.”

But ethics should not be as easy as ticking boxes; this mental process, if it becomes procedural, takes away from the moral grappling that should be part of the decision to use of force. Rephrasing the checklist as I have proposed puts the focus on the intrinsic difficulty of grappling with ethical dilemmas, something a checklist can never fully address.

IMAGE: Military aerial vehicle at sunset. (Getty)

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The administration’s instinct toward silence on terrorism is understandable. Successive administrations since 9/11 have found themselves stuck in a constant political-media firestorm around terrorism. President Barack Obama pledged to take the United States off of a perpetual war footing and publicly introduced exacting standards for the use of force outside “areas of active hostilities,” yet his foreign policy legacy is inextricably tied to controversies around drone warfare and failure to close the detention facility at Guantanamo. President Trump’s erratic policies on Afghanistan and ISIS were widely reported, dissected, and used to argue against his foreign policy competence. His Secretary of Defense resigned over Trump’s announcement of a precipitous withdrawal from Syria. As a presidential candidate, Biden pledged to end the Forever Wars and his administration heralded the withdrawal from Afghanistan as a major step in that direction. But a disastrously fumbled withdrawal created the most devastating media and political fallout of his presidency. The political lesson seems to be: whatever you do on terrorism, do it quietly and hope nobody notices. 

Indeed, this seems to be the Biden team’s approach – and not many have noticed. The Biden administration has deprioritized counterterrorism in both word and deed. The United States is conducting fewer airstrikes in fewer countries than during the height of the war on terror, due to both affirmative decisions by the administration, including withdrawing from Afghanistan, and pre-existing trends, such as the destruction of ISIS’s territorial “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria. With the exception of Somalia – where hundreds of U.S. forces were deployed to advise, assist, and conduct regular “collective self-defense” strikes against al-Shabaab – U.S. counterterrorism forces appear to be operating in fewer numbers and at a lower tempo than during previous administrations. And Russia’s war on Ukraine and competition with China consume the national security policy bandwidth that might previously have been dedicated to counterterrorism. 

This pivot from the counterterrorism wars has in many respects been conducted with little fanfare from the White House. Although President Biden has publicly touted major wins, such as the killing of al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri in Kabul, the president has not delivered a major policy speech on international terrorism – and aside from a speech from the president’s counterterrorism advisor in 2021, his top officials have done minimal significant public engagement. Two years into the administration, there is still no public national strategy for international counterterrorism.  

Although quietly winding down the war on terror has its merits—including in minimizing partisan backlash—the Biden administration has not struck the right balance on public disclosure if the goal is to have an enduring impact. Greater transparency is needed to permanently rein in this more than two-decade conflict. The policy-based restrictions and restraint exercised by the administration are mutable and can be waived away by a new president. Durable restraint requires legislative reform, particularly overhauling the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (2001 AUMF) and the 1973 War Powers Resolution. But any new legislation should be informed by the United States’ past and present conduct of the war on terror and the executive branch’s own legal theories on the president’s authority to use force. That requires an appropriate public dialogue to inform legislation, which is possible only if we have greater transparency. 

On a more fundamental level, it is simply poor governance for the United States to continue waging a war in the name of the American people without telling either the American people or the citizens of the nations where it conducts operations what it is doing. This is not how democracies are supposed to operate, and we should expect more.

To this end, the Biden administration should improve transparency, especially along two key parameters: (1) over classification and (2) failing to adequately explain its legal theories for using force or in proposals for reform.

Over Classification

The U.S. public doesn’t know the full extent of the war on terror, because Americans do not even know precisely who the United States is still fighting. As one of us has previously written, the full list of groups and individuals covered by the 2001 AUMF remains classified. Following a brief period at the end of the Obama administration when the executive branch publicly disclosed this list, the Trump administration reverted to secrecy. In an April 2018 report provided to Congress consistent with Section 1264 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2018, the Trump administration explained that the report’s classified annex contained information about the application of the 2001 AUMF to particular groups and individuals. This secrecy persists in the Biden administration.

Nor does the public know the policies, principles, and procedures which govern direct action. Like both the Obama and Trump administrations, the Biden administration has recently issued its policy framework for direct action, in the form of a Presidential Policy Memorandum (PPM). Although an administration official speaking on background provided a description of the PPM to the New York Times’ Charlie Savage, the PPM itself remains classified. Not only has the administration failed to release a redacted version of this policy framework, it has not even released a fact-sheet summarizing its drone-strike playbook, as the Obama administration did from the outset. 

Charlie Savage and The New York Times have since sued the Pentagon under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) seeking the release of the PPM. Twice before, FOIA lawsuits have successfully compelled the release of the same policy framework issued by Obama and by Trump. It is unsettling that the Biden administration is compelling another FOIA lawsuit rather than release the information proactively. Among other things, it is a missed opportunity to release a properly redacted version and to demonstrate a commitment to increased transparency.

Failures to Explain

Yale Law Professor and former Legal Adviser to the Department of State Harold Hongju Koh has argued that government legal advisers have a “duty to explain” their government’s actions, including to the public. Thus far, the Biden administration has not fulfilled this duty regarding the use of force by the United States, including with respect to reoccurring hostilities with what it terms “Iran-back militia groups.”

One reason for the administration’s failure to more proactively explain its legal theories for using force may be the absence of an official who has often played the role of “explainer-in-chief”: a Senate confirmed State Department Legal Adviser. Koh and his Senate-confirmed successors as State Legal Advisers, such as Brian Egan, articulated the executive branch’s theories for using force, often in public speeches. Although the administration nominated Columbia law professor Sarah Cleveland for this position, her nomination to the State Department was quietly dropped and she was instead named to a seat on the International Court of Justice. Without a political appointee filling this role, the administration is left with a void, with no high-ranking official acting as a U.S. spokesperson on legal issues relating to the use of force. The DOD General Counsel, Caroline Krass, (also a former CIA General Counsel and long-time DOJ Office of Legal Counsel official before that) has also been publicly silent on counterterrorism, in contrast to some of her predecessors (see here, here, and here).

The administration also lacks initiative in reforming the 2001 AUMF, the principal statutory basis for the U.S. war on terror. Although the administration has expressed a vague willingness “to explore with Congress the contours of a new or updated AUMF,” the executive branch has not put forward any concrete proposal for revising this outdated and capaciously interpreted war authorization, or any specific parameters within which it would be willing to negotiate with the foreign relations committees. Without leadership from the administration, Congress has neither prioritized reforming the 2001 AUMF nor coalesced around any particular parameters, much less a specific legislative proposal.   

In addition to failing to proactively and publicly share its legal reasoning or offer proposals for reform, the Biden administration has also declined to respond to inquiries from Congress regarding its theories for using force. For example, in Syria and Iraq, U.S. armed forces remained deployed ostensibly to ensure the “enduring defeat” of ISIS. Yet during the Biden administration, the United States has also repeatedly used force against unspecified “Iran-backed militia groups.” Most recently, on January 20, 2023, U.S. forces and their Syrian partners at Tanf garrison again came under attack from drones launched by unidentified (though likely non-ISIS) attackers. U.S. hostilities with these groups, at Tanf and elsewhere, raise a number of legal questions. Indeed, in a November 2021 letter to President Biden, a bipartisan group of members of the House of Representatives posed questions about the legal basis for hostilities in Syria, particularly those involving non-ISIS forces. To date, the White House has not responded. Similarly, the White House did not reply to a July 2021 letter from Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) raising questions about U.S. airstrikes in Somalia, including regarding the legal basis for the strikes. The administration’s May 2022 decision to deploy hundreds of troops to Somalia was done with virtually no public explanation of the threat or the broader strategy. 

When it comes to accounting for civilian casualties, the Biden administration is complying with pre-existing legal and policy requirements to disclose the total number of strikes it conducts, but it continues to avoid or minimize discussing the most controversial strikes. These are the operations where official U.S. reports and accounts by non-governmental organizations diverge. U.S. officials met a string of damning New York Times reports over the past 18 months, particularly around civilian casualties from U.S. operations in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, with solemn appreciation for the role of the free press but little in the way of disclosures that would help us understand what went wrong or why the U.S. government reached a different conclusion.

A Way Forward

The Biden administration should be commended for curtailing elements of the U.S. war on terror. Yet permanently reining in this conflict requires public deliberation that the administration’s lack of transparency inhibits. The current approach also runs the risk of masking the true costs of the counterterrorism fight. More than 20 years into this set of conflicts, the administration should be engaging in a dialogue with Congress and the American people about the nature of the threats to the United States, the range of ways to mitigate those threats, the pitfalls and risks of U.S. responses, and the appropriate legal authorities needed to keep us safe while avoiding endless war.

To promote lasting reform, the Biden administration should take a number of steps both to pull back the curtain on the counterterrorism wars  and to enable appropriate legislative reform. At a minimum, this would include:

• Releasing a public National Strategy for Countering International Terrorism, accompanied by speeches and public dialogue from top administration officials to explain it.
• Releasing more information about who the United States is at war with and how it intends to fight them, including by declassifying the list of groups the executive believes to be covered by the 2001 AUMF.
• Disclosing the text of the PPM, with minimal redactions, to better explain the standards under which the United States uses force. 
• Nominating a legal adviser to the State Department and empowering this official to negotiate reforms to the legal frameworks for counterterrorism and serve as “explainer-in-chief” on legal issues relating to the use of force.
• Thoroughly answering congressional questions about ongoing campaigns in countries such as Syria and Somalia. 
• Disclosing more details about some of the most controversial strikes and developing a process for greater dialogue with civil society about assessments of civilian casualties and resolving analytic differences.
• Putting forward a proposal for reforming the 2001 AUMF that explicitly specifies against whom force may be used, specifies where force may be used, and contains a sunset provision. (For example, see this framework from Tess Bridgeman, Ryan Goodman, Stephen Pomper, and Steve Vladeck.)

The process of increasing transparency won’t be easy. There will be institutional resistance from elements within the government that default to secrecy, as well as from those who are simply risk averse. The administration also risks political blowback and the return of the hyper-politicized terrorism discussions that have defined the debate for more than two decades. But a democracy should not indefinitely wage war in the shadows, and the administration needs to be ready to work through tricky politics in favor of a better and sustainable future. By being more transparent, the Biden administration could put in place the legislative boundaries and policies necessary to ensure that America makes a definitive turn away from endless war.

IMAGE: In this photograph taken on July 31, 2022, smoke rises from a house following a US drone strike in the Sherpur area of Kabul. US President Joe Biden announced on August 1 that Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri had been killed by a drone strike in the Afghan capital. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

The post Permanently Winding Down the War on Terror Requires Greater Transparency appeared first on Just Security.

[Editor’s Note: This article is part of a Just Security series, Prosecuting the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine. All articles in the series can be found here.]

“The ultimate step in avoiding periodic wars, which are inevitable in a system of international lawlessness, is to make statesmen responsible to law. And let me make clear that while this is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn, aggression by other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment.”

This is a quote from Robert Jackson’s opening speech of 21 November 1945 before the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, a much celebrated and memorable speech delivered in the aftermath of the horrors of German wars of aggression. In view of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, Jackson’s promise, made with direct reference to what was at the time – and following the coining of the term by Soviet Union law professor Aron Trainin – called “crimes against peace,” resonates louder than ever. It is certainly true that the prohibition of the use of force, by which the drafters of the UN Charter confirmed and developed the Briand-Kellogg Pact’s 1928 prohibition of war, had already before suffered from violations, including by States from the West. But taking together the clarity of the illegality, the intensity of the destructive violence and the overall goal to annex foreign territory, the seriousness of Russia’s violation of the prohibition of the use of force appears to be without precedent. It is therefore of central importance that international accountability efforts for Russia’s negation of this fundamental conduct rule of the international legal order include an international criminal justice response to the suspicion that “crimes against peace” have been and are being committed.

Precisely such a response, however, currently meets with an obstacle: There can be no doubt that President Putin and those, who together with him, allegedly are in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the Russian Federation’s political or military action, and planned, prepared, initiated or executed (and execute) this State’s war of aggression against Ukraine are under suspicion of having committed (and committing) the crime of aggression, as Nuremberg’s “crime against peace” is called today. Yet, by virtue of Article 15 bis (4) and (5) of the ICC Statute, the hands of Karim A. Khan, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), are currently tied: In case of an act of aggression committed by a State, which, as the Russian Federation, has not acceded to the ICC Statute, the initiation of an investigation by the Prosecutor of the ICC depends on the UN Security Council referring the relevant situation to the Court pursuant to Article 15 ter in conjunction with Article 13 (b) of the ICC Statute. As long as President Putin will remain in office and hence in control of the exercise of Russia’s veto power in the UN Security Council, such a referral will not be forthcoming.

Things are different with respect to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, as a result of Article 12 (2) and (3) of the ICC Statute. Here, the Prosecutor can exercise the Court’s jurisdiction also over nationals of a non-State Party if the relevant crimes were allegedly committed on the territory of a State Party or of a non-State Party that, as is the case with Ukraine, has accepted the Court’s exercise of jurisdiction. Prosecutor Khan is therefore currently left with no choice but to abstain from looking into the allegations that crimes of aggression have been committed. This means that he is compelled to conduct his investigations in a constricted fashion.

The crime of aggression’s special treatment in the situation of Ukraine reflects the frequently articulated sentiment of the distinct political sensitivity attached to this offense. In that connection, it constitutes a historical irony that France, Great Britain, and the United States, those three western powers who decisively contributed to the international criminalization of aggression, have grown skeptical concerning the international prosecution of this very crime. One reason for this reluctance likely is the awareness within the leadership of those states that some instances of their own use of force in the past fell within the grey area surrounding the prohibition of the use of force. This is one important reason why, at the 1998 Rome Conference on the establishment of the ICC, the crime of aggression came under the Court’s jurisdiction only at the very last moment and in the form of a mere placeholder, coupled with a mandate for further negotiations. Only at the first Review Conference on the ICC Statute, held in Kampala in the summer of 2010, those negotiations resulted in an agreement on the crime’s definition and, with one exception, on the conditions for the Court’s exercise of jurisdiction over the crime. It should take a couple of more years until, after a final round of difficult negotiations, the ICC’s Assembly of State Parties activated the Court’s jurisdiction over the crime of aggression as from 17 July 2018.

Although, taking existing customary international law into account, the elements of the crime were narrowly defined, excluding, most importantly, the existing grey area of the prohibition of the use of force, France and Great Britain did not show any breath of enthusiasm when they joined the consensus literally at the last moment. At least in part, this was likely due to the fact that those two States did not prevail with their demand, put forward together with the other three permanent members of the UN Security Council, to subject any proceedings before the ICC for the crime of aggression to an authorization by the Security Council and hence to the non-use of their veto powers. How to proceed in the absence of a green light by the Security Council, became the object of fierce negotiations. The majority of States Parties, among them most of the African and South American States, preferred the applicability of the same conditions for the Court’s exercise of jurisdiction as in the case of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. This would have allowed the Prosecutor to initiate an investigation into an alleged crime of aggression in case of an alleged act of aggression against a State Party that had accepted the Kampala amendments. Also, a non-State Party having become the target of an act of aggression could have allowed the Court to exercise its jurisdiction over the crime of aggression through a declaration of acceptance of the ICC’s jurisdiction. But a group of predominantly western States, led by France and Great Britain, successfully insisted on a requirement of double consent to the Court’s exercise of jurisdiction in case of an alleged act of aggression of one State Party against another one. In order to avoid an asymmetrical treatment of State Parties, on the one hand, and non-State Parties, on the other hand, the Court’s power to exercise jurisdiction in case of alleged acts of aggression committed by non-State Parties was excluded altogether. It is this latter restriction of the Court’s scope of action, a restriction demanded not least by the United States, that presently benefits the Russian suspects in the Situation of Ukraine.

For a number of reasons, this situation is most unfortunate: In the Ukraine War, the initiation of the aggression constitutes the ‘original sin’ which opened the floodgate for thousands of atrocities that have given rise to allegations that war crimes may have been committed on a systematic scale as well as crimes against humanity and that, in certain cases, have even provoked a discussion about the commission of genocide. What is more, in many cases the crime of aggression is the only basis for attributing individual criminal responsibility for the targeting of Ukrainian soldiers and certain harms to Ukrainian civilians. Targeting Ukrainian combatants in the course of the hostilities does not amount to a war crime, a crime against humanity or genocide, and the same is true for causing incidental damage to Ukrainian civilians in the context of a military attack directed against a military object, unless the threshold of ius in bello disproportionality is passed. And then, there are Jackson’s words from Nuremberg: Russia’s war of aggression has subjected the prohibition of the use of force, a cornerstone of the UN Charter in the words of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), to a heightened risk of erosion. To avert such a risk constitutes a central purpose of the international criminalization of aggression.

In view of all that, there have lately been signs of an emerging change of mindset in international politics. Initially, the remaining weak spot in the international criminal justice architecture for the crime of aggression had not really become a matter of serious consideration. As if to avoid such consideration, the crime of aggression, despite the activation of the Court’s jurisdiction, was rather completely sidelined. In that vein, the European Union, in a number of official statements concerning the ICC even after 17 July 2018, simply avoided mentioning the crime of aggression, and the United States did not show any interest, either. As a result, the crime of aggression did not become an issue at the international stage even after Russia’s unlawful use of force against Ukraine in Crimea in spring 2014. Nothing changed in the course of the entire lead-up to the initiation of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine on 24 February 2022 and most governments did also not change direction even during several months to follow.

There is a wider background to this prevailing indifference: In the 1990s, when the idea of international justice experienced its revival, the crime of aggression had lost the sinister place at the apex of international criminality, which the Nuremberg Judgment had accorded to it by calling the waging of a war of aggression “the supreme international crime.” At the time, it had become widespread to consider the crime of aggression as conduct directed exclusively against foreign State sovereignty, and this international legal value had somewhat lost its appeal for quite a few observers at a moment in time where the protection of human rights had come into bloom in the international legal order. As a corollary, the struggle against impunity focused on “atrocity crimes” and, according to the predominant use of that term, only genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes counted as such.

But soon after 24 February 2022, Ukraine’s legal diplomacy moved the crime of aggression into the center of the debate. More or less in parallel, interest in the crime of aggression has grown in international legal scholarship, too. In that context, more attention has also been given to the persuasive statement adopted by the UN Human Rights Committee in 2018 that State parties engaged in acts of aggression as defined in international law, resulting in deprivation of life, violate ipso facto the right to life under the Covenant for Political and Civil Rights.

Through the course of last year, governments eventually began recognizing that silence with respect to the crime of aggression is seriously problematic. On 2 March, the UN General Assembly adopted the historic resolution on “Aggression against Ukraine.” On 2 November, the UN General Assembly adopted, by consensus, a resolution in which the activation of the ICC’s jurisdiction over the crime of aggression is mentioned for the first time in a General Assembly resolution and in which the power of the Security Council to trigger proceedings before the ICC for all four crimes under the Court’s jurisdiction is noted. Thereafter, at last year’s Assembly of States Parties to the ICC Statute (ICC-ASP), Prosecutor Khan noted a renewed focus on the crime of aggression, and on 15 December 2022, the Council of the European Union directed its attention specifically to the Ukraine war and welcomed and encouraged further efforts to ensure accountability for the crime of aggression. The Council went on to stress that the prosecution of the crime of aggression is of concern to the international community as a whole.

The right conclusion to be drawn from this correct assessment would be to remedy the flaw at its roots and to improve the Statute of the ICC. For, this already existing, permanent international criminal court with a credible universal orientation constitutes the most appropriate institution for proceedings with respect to alleged crimes of aggression. In that vein, Prosecutor Khan, in his address to the last ICC-ASP, stated that “[w]hen we recognize that there is a gap in this architecture, in my view, we should try to address it through the Rome Statute.”

Three options for a reform are currently under consideration. Two of them consist of an amendment of the Kampala amendments: One could now take up the proposal, that had been supported by the majority of African and South American States, to align the conditions governing the Court’s exercise of jurisdiction over the crime of aggression with those applicable to the other three international crimes under the ICC’s jurisdiction. In their Buenos Aires Plan of Action of November last year, Parliamentarians for Global Action, have called upon governments to move in that direction and, already before, members of the Global Institute for the Prevention of Aggression, with Benjamin B. Ferencz as its President Emeritus, had made a similar appeal. A more modest alternative, also worthy of consideration, consists of allowing the Court to proceed with an investigation in case of an alleged act of aggression by a State Party not bound by the Kampala amendments or by a non-State Party against a State Party bound by the Kampala amendments or against a non-State Party that has accepted the Court’s jurisdiction if the UN General Assembly so recommends. The third option for reform consists of giving the General Assembly a more comprehensive role within the ICC system. Under this proposal, the Court would get the power to exercise universal jurisdiction not only in case of a referral of the relevant situation by the UN Security Council, but also if the UN General Assembly made such a referral in cases where the UN Security Council is prevented from taking action by a permanent member’s veto.

In all cases, it is legally conceivable to provide the revision of the ICC Statute with retroactive effect at least to 17 July 2018, the date of the activation of the Court’s jurisdiction over the crime of aggression. The amendment would only concern the conditions for the exercise of the ICC’s jurisdiction, while the crime of aggression as such formed part of customary international law already long before 2018. It is therefore not beyond imagination to improve the ICC Statute so as to overcome the legal obstacle that currently ties Prosecutor Khan’s hands with respect to the alleged crimes of aggression in the Situation of Ukraine. It is readily acknowledged that all the just-mentioned options for a reform of the ICC Statute involve complex legal issues, ranging from the powers of the UN General Assembly to the question of the entry into force of an amendment of a (Kampala) amendment. What is more, reform of the ICC Statute with a view to strengthening the jurisdictional regime governing the crime of aggression would require a number of States predominantly from the West to change their position taken thus far. Yet, the seriousness of the situation to which the Ukraine War has given rise warrants the effort of a demanding diplomatic initiative, and it should give every State sufficient reason to reconsider prior preferences.

The one important and complex political question that remains, however, is whether Russia’s war of aggression requires the decisive legal message implied in the initiation of criminal investigations to be sent out earlier than at that moment in time when a revision of the ICC Statute could realistically be put in place. This is where Ukraine’s demand, inspired by an early suggestion by Philippe Sands, for a Special Tribunal for the crime of aggression in the Situation of Ukraine, sets in. It is the idea to remedy the existing gap in the architecture of international criminal justice through the establishment of a transitional building block. The initiative to set up a Special Tribunal soon met with the approval of the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe, the OSCE and NATO. In the meantime, the debate has reached the inter-governmental level as well, especially, once Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the Commission of the European Union had embraced the initiative in principle in November last year. It cannot be doubted that a Special Tribunal falls behind the most stringent rule of law standards and that many national constitutions rule out the establishment of a tribunal ex post facto. Yet, in view of its far more decentralized structure, the situation has been and continues to be different at the international level and, accordingly, special tribunals have repeatedly played a significant role in the history of international criminal justice. Apart from the foundational role played by the International Military Tribunals of Nuremberg and Tokyo, it bears recalling that the Security Council based International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR) played a ground-breaking role when international criminal justice was reborn in the first half of the 1990s. One should also not forget the important contribution made by the Special Court for Sierra Leone early in the new millennium. While it is true that the establishment of the ICC implies the determination to move beyond the era of special international criminal tribunals, Russia’s war of aggression has laid bare that the jurisdictional regime for the crime of aggression under the ICC Statute remains insufficiently robust to render the call for a special tribunal superfluous. To the contrary, in this situation such a tribunal could, through the timely initiation of investigations, complement the ongoing work of the ICC in the common pursuit of the overarching goal to come up with a convincing response in terms of international criminal justice to the allegations that crimes under international law, including crimes of aggression have been and are being committed. A suitably worded agreement between the ICC and the special tribunal could ensure the adoption of a coordinated approach.

Over the past months, a number of models for the establishment of a special tribunal have been under consideration. On Monday of last week, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, in a speech delivered at the Hague Academy (German version; English version), expressed support for a hybrid tribunal, anchored in Ukrainian criminal law, but vested with an international component that could take different forms. A few days later, the United Kingdom went public with a statement pointing in the same direction. Yet, such an approach would have serious downsides: It would not address the crime of aggression as a crime under international law and hereby miss the point of why the prosecution of the crime of aggression is of concern to the international community as whole. Furthermore, as Minister Baerbock herself seems to recognize, it is likely that personal immunities under customary international law would shield President Putin in proceedings before such a tribunal. One should therefore look for a genuinely international solution, just as the European Parliament has now suggested in a Resolution, adopted by large majority last week.

This leads one to the clearly preferable model that envisages the conclusion of an international agreement between the UN and Ukraine, with the UN Secretary-General acting on behalf of the UN at the request of the UN General Assembly. This model is sketched out in clear terms in a non-paper whose current co-sponsors are Albania, Belgium, Estonia, Guatemala, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Marshall Islands, North Macedonia, Poland and Ukraine. Admittedly, there is no international precedent neatly on point in all essential respects for such a course of action. The ICTY and ICTR were established by the UN Security Council; the international agreement between the UN and Sierra Leone pursuant to which the Special Court for Sierra Leone was set up, followed a recommendation to that effect by the UN Security Council (acting absent Chapter VII authorities); and the Extraordinary Chambers for Cambodia, while having been established pursuant to an international agreement between the UN and Cambodia, as recommended by the UN General Assembly, are incorporated in Cambodia’s judicial system in such a way that the character of these Chambers is not genuinely international. But the absence of a precedent which is directly on point in all essential respects does not make for a compelling argument against the model in question. To the contrary, this model rests on the solid legal assumption that the UN General Assembly would not hereby create jurisdiction over the crime of aggression, something that could be seen as a coercive measure and thus beyond the Assembly’s competences, in light of the ICJ’s advisory opinion in Certain Expenses. Instead, Ukraine as one of the territorial States of the crime and as the victim of Russia’s aggression, is vested with a jurisdiction title that it can entrust to an international tribunal for the purpose of adjudication. Beyond that, the crime of aggression, being anchored in customary international law, falls within an international criminal jurisdiction that is ultimately rooted in the international community as a whole. For those two reasons, the UN General Assembly would not vest the special tribunal with jurisdiction, it would only help activating the proper international exercise of an already existing jurisdiction. The General Assembly would, however, vest the special tribunal with a genuinely universal character. This would be relevant in one important legal respect: It would mean that the determination reached by the ICC Appeals Chamber in the case against al-Bashir that customary international law personal immunities enjoyed by acting heads of State, heads of government and foreign ministers are inapplicable before international criminal courts would apply also in the vertical relationship between relevant Russian suspects and the special tribunal. This would be much in the same way as the Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone had found inapplicable Liberia’s customary right to personal immunity with respect to its then acting President Taylor. The endorsement by the UN General Assembly would also vest the special tribunal with precisely that degree of legitimacy that is highly desirable for the persuasiveness of the messages the tribunal’s work would be meant to send out. For, a positive vote by the General Assembly would constitute the most powerful confirmation possible that the investigation into allegations that crimes of aggression have been committed is indeed of concern to the international community as a whole.

Still, there is the valid and weighty critique of a selective activation of jurisdiction over the crime of aggression in the situation of Ukraine as long as other States, especially from the West, remain unprepared to treat the ICC’s jurisdiction over the crime of aggression with the same earnest as they do with the jurisdiction over genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The convincing response to this critique would be for State Parties to the ICC Statute to mobilize the necessary political will to remedy the existing statutory gap for the future through a revision of the Court’s founding treaty. Within such a two track approach, the special tribunal would be clearly marked as a transitional building block within the architecture of international criminal justice: Quite similar to the ICTY and ICTR, this special tribunal would not only adjudicate crimes under international law in the given situation, it would also help prepare the ground for moving international criminal justice forward – by paving the ground for the ICC to assume, in the future, its proper role in adjudicating, but preferably in preventing, the crime of aggression. In her speech of last Monday, Minister Baerbock has embraced such a two-track approach and she deserves much to be commended for her search of a principled course of action.

Whatever the political response to the question whether a timely message in terms of international criminal justice in the face of Russia’s ongoing war of aggression requires the establishment of a special tribunal, a diplomatic initiative in the spirit of Jackson’s Nuremberg promise to revise the ICC Statute is needed in any event. Or, in the words of Prosecutor Khan at the ICC-ASP of December last year, directed to the States Parties to the ICC Statute, it is imperative ”to explore how to strengthen this institution that you are collectively part of and that has been collectively built so that we can meet the needs of today, but also the requirements of tomorrow.”

IMAGE: Rescuers use special equipment in searching people trapped under the rubble of a high-rise residential building hit by a missile on January 15, 2023 in Dnipro, Ukraine. On January 14, Russia launched a new massive attack on Ukrainian cities. (Photo by Yurii Stefanyak/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)

The post The Ukraine War and the Crime of Aggression: How to Fill the Gaps in the International Legal System appeared first on Just Security.

[Примітка редактора: ця стаття є частиною серії від Just Security, “Переслідування злочину агресії, вчиненого щодо України”. Усі статті серії можна знайти тут.]

“Вирішальним кроком для уникнення періодичних воєн, які неминучі в системі міжнародного беззаконня, є притягнення державних діячів до правової відповідальності. І дозвольте мені пояснити, що, хоч це було вперше застосовано проти німецьких агресорів, право розповсюджується і на агресію з боку інших націй, в тому числі й тих, хто зараз знаходиться тут на судовому засіданні.”

Це цитата зі вступної промови Роберта Джексона 21 листопада 1945 року перед Нюрнберзьким міжнародним військовим трибуналом – знаменитої й пам’ятної промови, проголошеної після жахів німецьких агресивних війн. З огляду на агресивну війну Росії проти України, обіцянка Джексона, зроблена з прямим посиланням на те, що в той час – і після впровадження терміну професором права Радянського Союзу Ароном Трайніним – називалося “злочинами проти миру”, резонує гучніше, ніж будь-коли. Безумовно, є правдою те, що заборона застосування сили, якою розробники Статуту ООН підтвердили та розвинули заборону війни Пакту Бріана-Келлога 1928 року, вже раніше зазнавала порушень, у тому числі з боку держав Заходу. Але, беручи до уваги очевидність незаконності, інтенсивність руйнівного насильства та загальну мету анексії чужої території, серйозність порушення Росією заборони на застосування сили видається безпрецедентною. Тому надзвичайно важливо, щоб міжнародні зусилля з притягнення Росії до відповідальності за заперечення цього фундаментального правила поведінки міжнародного правопорядку включали реакцію міжнародної кримінальної юстиції у відповідь на підозру, що “злочини проти миру” були скоєні та продовжують вчинятися.

Однак саме така відповідь наразі зазнає перешкод: Не може бути жодних сумнівів, що президент Путін і ті, хто спільно з ним нібито мають можливість ефективно контролювати або керувати політичними або військовими діями Російської Федерації, а також планували, готували, ініціювали або втілювали в життя (і втілюють в життя) агресивну війну цієї держави проти України, перебувають під підозрою у вчиненні (і вчиняють) злочин агресії, як сьогодні називають Нюрнберзький “злочин проти миру”. Однак, відповідно до статті 15 bis (4) і (5) Статуту МКС, руки Каріма А. Хана, Прокурора Міжнародного кримінального суду (МКС), наразі зв’язані: У випадку вчинення акта агресії державою, яка, як Російська Федерація, не приєдналася до Статуту МКС, початок розслідування Прокурором МКС залежить від того, чи передасть Рада Безпеки ООН відповідну ситуацію на розгляд Суду згідно зі статтею 15 ter у сукупності зі статтею 13 (b) Статуту МКС. Допоки президент Путін залишатиметься на посаді, а отже, контролюватиме використання права вето Росії в Раді Безпеки ООН, така передача не відбудеться.

Справи стоять інакше щодо геноциду, злочинів проти людяності та воєнних злочинів, відповідно до статті 12 (2) і (3) Статуту МКС. Тут Прокурор може реалізовувати юрисдикцію Суду також щодо громадян держави-неучасниці, якщо відповідні злочини були скоєні на території держави-учасниці або держави-неучасниці, яка, як у випадку з Україною, прийняла здійснення юрисдикції Суду. Таким чином, прокурору Хану наразі не залишилося іншого вибору, окрім як утриматися від розслідування обвинувачень у скоєнні злочинів агресії. Це означає, що він змушений проводити свої розслідування в обмеженому обсязі.

Особливе трактування злочину агресії в ситуації України відображає часто артикульовану думку про виразну політичну чутливість, притаманну цьому злочину. У зв’язку з цим, історична іронія полягає в тому, що Франція, Великобританія і США – три західні держави, які зробили вирішальний внесок у міжнародну криміналізацію агресії, – почали скептично ставитися до міжнародного переслідування за цей самий злочин. Однією з причин такого небажання, ймовірно, є обізнаність керівництва цих держав про те, що деякі випадкиїхнього власного застосування сили в минулому підпадають під “сіру зону”, що охоплює заборону на застосування сили. Це одна з важливих причин, чому на Римській конференції 1998 року, присвяченій заснуванню МКС, злочин агресії був включений до юрисдикції Суду лише в останній момент і у вигляді простої згадки, поєднаної з мандатом на проведення подальших переговорів. Лише на першій Конференції перегляду Статуту МКС, що відбулася в Кампалі влітку 2010 року, ці переговори завершилися досягненням згоди щодо визначення цього злочину і, з одним винятком, щодо умов здійснення Судом юрисдикції над цим злочином. Має пройти ще кілька років перш ніж, після завершального раунду складних переговорів, Асамблея держав-учасниць МКС активує юрисдикцію Суду щодо злочину агресії з 17 липня 2018 року.

Хоча, беручи до уваги чинне міжнародне звичаєве право, елементи злочину були вузько визначені, виключаючи, найголовніше, наявну сіру зону заборони застосування сили, Франція і Великобританія не виявили жодного найменшого ентузіазму, коли приєдналися до консенсусу буквально в останній момент. Принаймні частково це, ймовірно, було пов’язано з тим, що ці дві держави не одержали переваги зі своєю вимогою, висунутою разом з іншими трьома постійними членами Ради Безпеки ООН, щоб будь-яке провадження в МКС щодо злочину агресії вимагало дозволу Ради Безпеки, а отже, і незастосування їхнього права вето. Питання про те, як діяти за відсутності “зеленого світла” від Ради Безпеки, стало предметом бурхливих переговорів. Переважна більшість держав-учасниць, серед яких значна частина африканських та південноамериканських держав, віддавали перевагу застосуванню тих самих умов для здійснення юрисдикції Суду, що й у випадку з геноцидом, злочинами проти людяності та воєнними злочинами. Це дозволило б Прокурору розпочати розслідування ймовірного злочину агресії у випадку можливого акту агресії проти держави-учасниці, яка прийняла Кампальські поправки. Крім того, держава-неучасниця, яка стала об’єктом акту агресії, могла б дозволити Суду здійснити свою юрисдикцію щодо злочину агресії шляхом оголошення заяви про визнання юрисдикції МКС. Але група переважно західних держав на чолі з Францією та Великобританією успішно наполягли на вимозі подвійної згоди на здійснення Судом юрисдикції у випадку можливого акту агресії однієї держави-учасниці проти іншої. З метою уникнення асиметричного ставлення до держав-учасниць, з одного боку, та держав-неучасниць, з іншого боку, повноваження Суду здійснювати юрисдикцію у випадку можливих актів агресії, вчинених державами-неучасницями, було повністю виключено. Саме це останнє обмеження сфери дії Суду, на якому не останніми наполягали Сполучені Штати Америки, сьогодні грає на руку російським підозрюваним у ситуації України.

З низки причин ця ситуація виглядає вкрай невтішною: В українській війні початок агресії є ‘первородним гріхом’, який відкрив двері для тисяч звірств, що дали підстави стверджувати про систематичні воєнні злочини, злочини проти людяності, а в деяких випадках навіть спровокували дискусію про вчинення геноциду. Щобільше, у багатьох випадках злочин агресії є єдиною підставою для притягнення до індивідуальної кримінальної відповідальності за обстріли українських військовослужбовців та заподіяння певної шкоди українським цивільним особам. Напад на українських комбатантів під час бойових дій не є воєнним злочином, злочином проти людяності або геноцидом, так само як і випадкове заподіяння шкоди українським цивільним особам у контексті збройного нападу, спрямованого на військовий об’єкт, якщо не перевищено поріг непропорційності ius in bello. І тоді, є слова Джексона з Нюрнберга: Агресивна війна Росії піддала підвищеному ризику підриву заборону застосування сили, яка, за словами Міжнародного суду справедливості ООН (ICJ), є наріжним каменем Статуту ООН. Запобігання такому ризику є головною метою міжнародної криміналізації агресії.

З огляду на все це, останнім часом з’явилися ознаки зміни мислення в міжнародній політиці. Спершу залишалося слабке місце в архітектурі міжнародного кримінального правосуддя щодо злочину агресії, яке насправді не стало предметом серйозного розгляду. Немовби для того, щоб уникнути подібного розгляду, злочин агресії, незважаючи на активізацію юрисдикції Суду, був повністю відкинутий на другий план. У контексті цього Європейський Союз у низці офіційних заяв щодо МКС навіть після 17 липня 2018 року просто уникав згадки про злочин агресії, а Сполучені Штати Америки також не виявляли жодного інтересу. Як наслідок, злочин агресії не постав в якості питання на міжнародній арені навіть після незаконного застосування Росією сили проти України в Криму навесні 2014 року. Нічого не змінилося протягом усього часу, що передував початку агресивної війни Росії проти України 24 лютого 2022 року, і більшість урядів також не змінили свої погляди навіть протягом кількох наступних місяців.

Існує ширше підґрунтя для цієї переважаючої індиферентності: У 1990-х роках, коли ідея міжнародного правосуддя переживала своє відродження, злочин агресії втратив лиховісне місце на вершині міжнародної злочинності, яке йому надало Нюрнберзьке рішення, назвавши ведення агресивної війни “найвищим міжнародним злочином”. На той час стало поширеним розглядати злочин агресії як поведінку, спрямовану виключно проти суверенітету іноземної держави, і ця міжнародно-правова цінність дещо втратила свою привабливість для багатьох дослідників тоді, коли захист прав людини набув розквіту в міжнародному правопорядку. Як наслідок, боротьба з безкарністю зосередилася на “злочинах жорстокості”, і, згідно з переважним вживанням цього терміну, такими вважалися лише геноцид, злочини проти людяності та воєнні злочини.

Але невдовзі після 24 лютого 2022 року українська правова дипломатія поставила злочин агресії в центр дискусії. Приблизно паралельно з цим інтерес до злочину агресії зріс і в міжнародно-правовій науці також. У цьому контексті більше уваги також приділяється переконливій заяві, прийнятій Комітетом ООН з прав людини у 2018 році, про те, що держави-учасниці, які здійснюють визначені міжнародним правом акти агресії, призводячи до позбавлення життя, порушують ipso facto право на життя, передбачене Пактом про політичні та громадянські права.

Протягом минулого року уряди врешті-решт почали визнавати, що мовчання про злочин агресії є серйозною проблемою. 2 березня Генеральна Асамблея ООН ухвалила історичну резолюцію “Агресія проти України”. 2 листопада Генеральна Асамблея ООН за результатами консенсусу ухвалила резолюцію, в якій вперше згадується активація юрисдикції МКС щодо злочину агресії в резолюції Генеральної Асамблеї і відзначається право Ради Безпеки ініціювати провадження в МКС за всіма чотирма злочинами, що підпадають під юрисдикцію Суду. Згодом, на минулорічній Асамблеї держав-учасниць Статуту МКС (ICC-ASP), Прокурор Хан відзначив поновлення фокусу на злочині агресії, а 15 грудня 2022 року Рада Європейського Союзу звернула свою увагу саме на війну в Україні, а також схвалила і заохотила подальші зусилля щодо забезпечення відповідальності за вчинення злочину агресії. Рада також підкреслила, що переслідування злочину агресії є важливим всієї міжнародної спільноти.

Правильний висновок, який можна зробити з цієї коректної оцінки, полягав би в тому, щоб виправити цей недолік в його корені і вдосконалити Статут МКС. Адже цей вже існуючий, постійний міжнародний кримінальний суд з авторитетною універсальною спрямованістю є найбільш прийнятною інституцією для розгляду справ, пов’язаних з можливими злочинами агресії. У такому контексті Прокурор Хан у своєму виступі на останній Асамблеї держав-учасниць Статуту МКС (ICC-ASP) заявив, що “коли ми визнаємо, що в цій архітектурі є прогалина, то, на мою думку, ми повинні спробувати вирішити її за допомогою Римського статуту”.

Наразі розглядаються три варіанти реформи. Два з них передбачають внесення змін до Кампальських поправок: Відтепер можна було б розглянути пропозицію, підтриману більшістю африканських і південноамериканських держав, про приведення у відповідність умов здійснення Судом юрисдикції щодо злочину агресії до умов, які застосовуються до трьох інших міжнародних злочинів, що підпадають під юрисдикцію МКС. У своєму Буенос-Айреському Плані дій, прийнятому в листопаді минулого року, Парламентарі за глобальні дії закликали уряди рухатися в цьому напрямку, а ще раніше члени Глобального інституту запобігання агресії, почесним президентом якого є Бенджамін Б. Ференц, звернулися з аналогічним закликом. Більш скромна альтернатива, яка також заслуговує на увагу, полягає в тому, щоб дозволити Суду розпочати розслідування у випадку можливого акту агресії з боку держави-учасниці, не зобов’язаної Кампальськими поправками, або держави-неучасниці проти держави-учасниці, зобов’язаної Кампальськими поправками, або проти держави-неучасниці, яка визнала юрисдикцію Суду, якщо Генеральна Асамблея ООН рекомендуватиме таке рішення. Третій варіант реформи полягає у наданні Генеральній Асамблеї більш комплексної ролі в системі МКС. Згідно з цією пропозицією, Суд отримає повноваження здійснювати універсальну юрисдикцію не лише у випадку передачі відповідної ситуації Радою Безпеки ООН, але й у випадку, якщо Генеральна Асамблея ООН зробить таку передачу тоді, коли Рада Безпеки ООН не зможе вжити заходів через вето одного з її постійних членів.

У будь-якому випадку, надання перегляду Статуту МКС зворотної сили принаймні до 17 липня 2018 року, дати активації юрисдикції Суду щодо злочину агресії, є юридично можливим. Зміни стосуватимуться лише умов здійснення юрисдикції МКС, тоді як злочин агресії як такий був частиною звичаєвого міжнародного права ще задовго до 2018 року. Тому не важко уявити, як можна вдосконалити Статут МКС таким чином, щоб подолати юридичну перешкоду, яка наразі зв’язує руки Прокурору Хану відносно можливих злочинів агресії в ситуації України. Слід визнати, що всі вищезазначені варіанти реформування Статуту МКС пов’язані зі складними юридичними питаннями, починаючи від повноважень Генеральної Асамблеї ООН і закінчуючи питанням набуття чинності тієї чи іншої поправки до (Кампальської) поправки. Щобільше, реформа Статуту МКС з метою посилення юрисдикційного режиму, який регулює злочин агресії, вимагатиме від низки держав, переважно західних, зміни позиції, яку вони займали до цього часу. Проте серйозність ситуації, до якої призвела війна в Україні, вимагає зусиль, спрямованих на реалізацію вимогливої дипломатичної ініціативи, яка повинна дати кожній державі достатньо підстав переглянути свої попередні вподобання.

Однак залишається одне важливе і складне політичне питання: чи вимагає агресивна війна Росії, щоб вирішальне правове послання, яке міститься в ініціації кримінальних розслідувань, було надіслане раніше, ніж у той момент, коли реалістично можна було б розпочати перегляд Статуту МКС. Саме тут з’являється вимога України, натхненна попередньою пропозицією Філіпа Сендса, про створення Спеціального трибуналу щодо злочину агресії проти України. Ідея полягає в тому, щоб виправити наявну прогалину в архітектурі міжнародного кримінального правосуддя шляхом створення перехідного будівельного блоку. Ініціатива створення Спеціального трибуналу незабаром отримала схвалення Європейського парламенту та Парламентських асамблей Ради Європи, ОБСЄ і НАТО. Тим часом дебати вийшли і на міжурядовий рівень, особливо після того, як Урсула фон дер Ляєн, президент Комісії Європейського Союзу, загалом підтримала цю ініціативу в листопаді минулого року. Не викликає сумнівів, що спеціальний трибунал не відповідає найсуворішим стандартам верховенства права, і що багато національних конституцій виключають можливість створення трибуналу постфактум. Проте, з огляду на значно більшу децентралізовану структуру, ситуація на міжнародному рівні була і залишається іншою, і, відповідно, спеціальні трибунали неодноразово відігравали важливу роль в історії міжнародного кримінального правосуддя. Окрім фундаментальної ролі, яку виконали Міжнародні воєнні трибунали в Нюрнберзі і Токіо, варто нагадати, що засновані Радою Безпеки Міжнародні кримінальні трибунали для колишньої Югославії (ICTY) і Руанди (ICTR) відіграли революційну роль у відродженні міжнародного кримінального правосуддя в першій половині 1990-х років. Не треба також забувати про важливий внесок, зроблений Спеціальним судом у справах Сьєрра-Леоне на початку нового тисячоліття. Хоч створення МКС і означає рішучість у прагненні вийти за межі епохи спеціальних міжнародних кримінальних трибуналів, агресивна війна Росії продемонструвала, що юрисдикційний режим злочину агресії, передбачений Статутом МКС, залишається недостатньо міцним, щоб робити заклик до створення спеціального трибуналу зайвим. Навпаки, в цій ситуації такий трибунал міг би, завдяки своєчасному початку розслідувань, доповнити поточну роботу МКС у спільному прагненні до всеосяжної мети ­­– дати переконливу з точки зору міжнародного кримінального правосуддя відповідь на звинувачення у скоєнні злочинів за міжнародним правом, у тому числі злочинів агресії, що відбувалися і відбуваються. Належним чином сформульована угода між МКС та спеціальним трибуналом могла б забезпечити прийняття скоординованого підходу.

Протягом останніх місяців розглядається низка моделей щодо створення спеціального трибуналу. У минулий понеділок міністр закордонних справ Німеччини Анналена Бербок у своїй промові в Гаазькій академії (німецька версія; англійська версія) висловила підтримку гібридному трибуналу, який би ґрунтувався на українському кримінальному праві, але був наділений міжнародним компонентом, який міг би набувати різних форм. Через кілька днів Велика Британія виступила із заявою, яка вказувала той самий напрямок. Проте такий підхід мав би серйозні недоліки: Він не розглядатиме злочин агресії як злочин згідно з міжнародним правом і, таким чином, не пояснить, чому переслідування злочину агресії стосується всієї міжнародної спільноти. Крім того, як визнає сама міністр Бербок, цілком ймовірно, що особистий імунітет, передбачений міжнародним звичаєвим правом, міг би захистити президента Путіна під час розгляду справи в такому трибуналі. Тому слід шукати істинно міжнародне рішення, як це запропонував Європейський парламент у Резолюції, прийнятій переважною більшістю минулого тижня.

Це веде до явно кращої моделі, яка передбачає укладення міжнародної угоди між ООН та Україною, в якій Генеральний секретар ООН діятиме від імені ООН на підставі запиту Генеральної Асамблеї ООН. Ця модель чітко викладена в неофіційному документі, співавторами якого наразі є Албанія, Бельгія, Естонія, Гватемала, Латвія, Ліхтенштейн, Литва, Люксембург, Маршаллові острови, Північна Македонія, Польща та Україна. Слід визнати, що не існує жодного міжнародного прецеденту, який би чітко відповідав усім основним аспектам такого способу дій. ICTY та ICTR були створені Радою Безпеки ООН; міжнародна угода між ООН та Сьєрра-Леоне, відповідно до якої був створений Спеціальний суд у cправах Сьєрра-Леоне, слідувала відповідній рекомендації Ради Безпеки ООН (діючи за відсутності повноважень, передбачених Главою VII); а Надзвичайні палати в судах Камбоджі, хоч і були створені відповідно до міжнародної угоди між ООН та Камбоджею, як це було рекомендовано Генеральною Асамблеєю ООН, інтегровані в судову систему Камбоджі таким чином, що їхній характер не є істинно міжнародним. Але відсутність прецеденту, який би прямо відповідав усім істотним вимогам, не є переконливим аргументом проти моделі, про яку йдеться. Навпаки, ця модель ґрунтується на чіткому юридичному припущенні про те, що Генеральна Асамблея ООН не створює юрисдикцію щодо злочину агресії, що могло б розглядатися як примусовий захід, а отже, виходить за межі компетенції Асамблеї, у світлі консультативного висновку Міжнародного суду справедливості ООН у справі “Деякі витрати”. Натомість Україна як одна з територіальних держав злочину і як жертва російської агресії наділена юрисдикційними повноваженнями, які вона може передати міжнародному трибуналу з метою розгляду і вирішення. Крім того, злочин агресії, грунтуючись у звичаєвому міжнародному праві, підпадає під міжнародну кримінальну юрисдикцію, яка, зрештою, укорінена в міжнародному співтоваристві загалом. Через ці дві причини Генеральна Асамблея ООН не наділить спеціальний трибунал юрисдикцією, вона лише допоможе активізувати належне міжнародне здійснення вже наявної юрисдикції. Генеральна Асамблея, однак, наділила б спеціальний трибунал істинно універсальним характером. Це мало б значення в одному важливому правовому аспекті: адже означало б, що рішення Апеляційної палати МКС у справі проти Аль-Башира про те, що передбачені міжнародним звичаєвим правом особисті імунітети, якими користуються чинні глави держав, глави урядів і міністри закордонних справ, незастосовні в міжнародних кримінальних судах, застосовувалися б також у вертикальних відносинах між відповідними російськими підозрюваними і спеціальним трибуналом. Це було б те саме, як Апеляційна палата Спеціального суду по Сьєрра-Леоне визнала незастосовним звичаєве право Ліберії на особистий імунітет щодо її тодішнього виконувача обов’язків президента Тейлора. Схвалення Генеральною Асамблеєю ООН також наділило б спеціальний трибунал саме тим ступенем легітимності, який є вкрай необхідним для забезпечення переконливості повідомлень, які має надсилати трибунал у своїй роботі. Адже позитивне голосування Генеральної Асамблеї стане найбільш вагомим з можливих підтверджень того, що розслідування обвинувачень у скоєнні злочинів агресії справді є важливим для міжнародної спільноти загалом.

Тим не менш, існує обґрунтована і вагома критика вибіркового застосування юрисдикції щодо злочину агресії в ситуації України, доки інші держави, особливо західні, залишаються не готовими ставитися до юрисдикції МКС щодо злочину агресії так само серйозно, як вони ставляться до юрисдикції щодо геноциду, злочинів проти людяності та воєнних злочинів. Вичерпною відповіддю на цю критику була б мобілізація державами-учасницями Статуту МКС необхідної політичної волі для усунення існуючих прогалин у законодавстві шляхом перегляду в майбутньому договору про заснування Суду. В рамках такого двостороннього підходу спеціальний трибунал був би чітко позначений як перехідний будівельний блок в архітектурі міжнародного кримінального правосуддя: Подібно до ICTY та ICTR, цей спеціальний трибунал не лише розглядатиме злочини за міжнародним правом у конкретній ситуації, але й допоможе підготувати підґрунтя для подальшого розвитку міжнародного кримінального правосуддя – прокладаючи шлях для МКС, який у майбутньому візьме на себе належну роль у судовому розгляді, але, бажано, і в запобіганні злочину агресії. У своїй промові минулого понеділка міністр Бербок прийняла такий двосторонній підхід, і вона заслуговує на похвалу за пошук принципового курсу дій.

Якою б не була політична відповідь на питання, чи вимагає своєчасне повідомлення з точки зору міжнародного кримінального правосуддя в умовах триваючої агресивної війни Росії створення спеціального трибуналу, дипломатична ініціатива в дусі Нюрнберзької обіцянки Джексона переглянути Статут МКС необхідна в будь-якому випадку. Або, за словами Прокурора Хана на засіданні ICC-ASP у грудні минулого року, адресованими державам-учасницям Статуту МКС, необхідно “дослідити, як зміцнити цю інституцію, частиною якої ви колективно є і яка була колективно побудована, щоб ми могли задовольнити потреби сьогоднішнього дня, а також вимоги завтрашнього дня”.

ФОТО: Рятувальники використовують спеціальне обладнання для пошуку людей, які опинилися під завалами багатоповерхівки, зруйнованої ракетою 15 січня 2023 року в Дніпрі, Україна. 14 січня Росія розпочала нову масовану атаку на українські міста. (Фото Юрія Стефаняка/Global Images Ukraine через Getty Images)

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Про авторів:

Клаус Кресс є професором кримінального та міжнародного публічного права, завідувач кафедри німецького та міжнародного кримінального права, директор Інституту міжнародного права миру та безпеки Кельнського університету. Раніше він працював у Федеральному Міністерстві юстиції Німеччини.

Штефан Хобе є завідувачем кафедри міжнародного публічного, європейського та міжнародного економічного права, директор Інституту авіаційного, космічного та кібер-права Кельнського університету та спів-директор Кельнського центру міжнародного інвестиційного права.  Викладає міжнародне право, авіаційне та космічне право в університетах Гуджарат (Індія), Софії (Болгарія), Києва (Україна), Варшави (Польща), Преторії (Південна Африка) та Парижа (Франція). Має почесні докторські ступені Софійського та Київського університетів.

Анжеліка Нуссбергер (@ahnussberger) є професором міжнародного, публічного та порівняльного права Кельнського університету, директором-засновником Академії європейського захисту прав людини, міжнародною суддею Конституційного суду Боснії і Герцеговини, віце-президенткою Венеціанської комісії Ради Європи та президенткою Асоціації німецьких юристів-конституціоналістів (Vereinigung der deutschen Staatsrechtslehrer). Вона була суддею Європейського суду з прав людини, обраною від Німеччини з січня 2011 року по грудень 2019 року, та його віце-президенткою з лютого 2017 року.

The post Війна в Україні та злочин агресії: Як заповнити прогалини в міжнародній правовій системі appeared first on Just Security.

“American values,” claimed former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, “are not luxuries but necessities, not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself.” If values in foreign policy are the bread – something essential – then ambition is the salt. Small portions enhance, excessive portions spoil, and large enough portions kill. This lesson applies to a range of foreign policy issues, including U.S. remote warfare. Going forward, the Biden administration should be more circumspect in its reliance on lethal force as a foreign policy tool and more ambitious in expanding protections for civilians in and outside of traditional war zones.

A Morally-Directed Approach to Targeted Killing?

The Biden administration has made its commitment to a values-based foreign policy explicit, most recently in its October 2022 National Security Strategy. The document contains familiar references to democracy, freedom, human rights, and the need to counter autocracy, all framed around an assumption of the indispensability of American global leadership. The section on the Middle East, in contrast, contains a franker admission of limits: 

We have too often defaulted to military-centric policies underpinned by an unrealistic faith in force and regime change to deliver sustainable outcomes, while failing to adequately account for opportunity costs to competing global priorities or unintended consequences.

These types of statements, coupled with Biden’s decision to fully withdraw U.S. ground forces from Afghanistan, reveal the administration’s reluctance to rely on force alone, and willingness to curb its military ambition accordingly. 

Yet while Biden has dramatically decreased the tempo of drone strikes, his drone playbook remains largely the same as that of his predecessors. In the wake of the Afghanistan withdrawal, Biden pledged to continue to eliminate terrorist threats through “over-the-horizon” operations, avoiding the political, financial, and human costs of large-scale troop deployments.

This “lighter footprint” approach is favored not only for its lower political cost, but also as a way for the United States to better align its values with its interests. The U.S. occupation of Afghanistan did improve the lives of many Afghans, particularly girls and women in cities. These benefits, however, generated at a cost of over $2 trillion, were only ever partial and never truly durable. The United States lost its war against the Taliban; failing to recognize this and risking more lives in service of an unachievable goal would have been not only imprudent but immoral. “Over-the-horizon” operations, it is hoped, will eliminate terrorist threats to the United States and innocent civilians abroad, while shielding American forces from unnecessary combat risks. 

This targeted killing approach to conflict management assumes an efficacy not borne out by the evidence. As we have seen in Libya, Syria, and elsewhere, remote warfare does not necessarily make the United States – nor the civilians who occupy affected areas – safer. These legally contested strikes also do little to address the political and economic conditions on the ground that create and sustain terrorism and militancy in the long term. In the absence of a coherent strategy and clearly delineated benchmarks for success, it is difficult to see how, from a moral perspective, the administration can justify the civilian harm resulting from such strikes. 

Remote warfare is no panacea, and the belief that it is or will eventually be has led to harms and injustices at odds with the “values-based” foreign policy the Biden administration espouses. U.S. policy toward the Middle East going forward should be rooted in humility – a stronger presumption against violence; a rejection of ambition unmoored from prudence; a greater willingness to uphold domestic and international law; and an understanding that not all risks warrant a response and not all responses should be kinetic. 

Moral Ambition and Civilian Harm

Not every airstrike, of course, is immoral and not every target is a victim. There will be times when it is both strategically wise and moral for the United States to strike those who represent a significant and temporally imminent threat. In cases where the use of force is justified, however, the United States should take seriously its moral (as well as legal) responsibilities to develop more ambitious policies to prevent and make amends for civilian harm. 

Civilian harm is a tragic and unavoidable feature of war, an important reason to uphold the prohibition on the use of force that forms the bedrock of international law. But not all civilian harm is equally unavoidable. Far too many deaths result from recklessness and gross negligence – harms that while not intended were foreseen, or harms that were not foreseen but entirely foreseeable. Counterterrorism strategies that rely heavily on remoteness are not a form of “riskless” war—these strikes all too often increase risks to civilians on the ground, particularly when the available intelligence on which targeting decisions are based is outdated, incorrect, or misinterpreted. 

The civilian consequences of remote warfare, and the longstanding moral inadequacy of U.S. responses to this harm, were underscored by the August 2021 drone strike in Kabul which killed ten civilians, including seven children. After initially prevaricating about the outcome of the strike, the Pentagon promised to reduce the risks of collateral civilian harm via broad changes to military planning, doctrine, and training. The Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP) released a year later is an important, but insufficiently ambitious, first step.  

Arguably the biggest failure of the CHMR-AP is the refusal to review credible past cases of civilian harm, a morally indefensible stance given that civilian deaths from U.S. actions over the past twenty years may be as high as 50,000. A values-based foreign policy that takes military violence—and its too often ruinous consequences—seriously must look back as well as forward. Without this, commitments to improve ring hollow, particularly when reports show that the U.S. military has systematically and repeatedly failed to learn past lessons on civilian harm. 

Virtually all the problems associated with U.S. remote warfare were known, or at least knowable, far earlier than they were addressed. What was absent was not available facts but the ambition to reconceptualize civilian protection as a positive duty – as something more than the intention not to kill. Going forward, civilian harm issues should be prioritized at every level of government, and the organization, structure, and application of the use of force modified accordingly. In some cases, this will necessitate a relaxation of force protection or a ruling out of strikes altogether. Future reforms should also be implemented proactively to forestall civilian harm, not resisted until a particularly well publicized case of misconduct forces change. 

Civilians will never be entirely safe in war and no change in policy, no matter how ambitious, should delude us into thinking otherwise. But measures can be taken to further reduce civilian harm and more closely align U.S. strategic interests with its values. The Biden administration must have the ambition to make these policy changes and reshape the future of remote warfare.

IMAGE: A U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter takes off at sunset while transporting American troops out of a remote combat outpost known as RLZ on May 25, 2021 near the Turkish border in northeastern Syria. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

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