23 March 2022, 18:15-19:45
Military Briefings
The National Guard
After having introduced and subdivided autonomous weapons into two categories: ‘High end’ and ‘Over the Counter’, this Military Briefing with Professor Chris Jenks will discuss how these categories may impact the following three different aspects of international governance:
Chris Jenks is a Professor of Law at the SMU Dedman School of Law, in Dallas, Texas, where he teaches international humanitarian law, criminal law and evidence. His research considers the impact of emerging technology on accountability norms across the armed conflict spectrum. He is currently on leave from SMU on a fellowship at the Center for Autonomy and Artificial Intelligence in Washington DC. Prior to joining academia, Chris Jenks served for more than 20 years in the US military, as an infantry officer and a judge advocate, serving in Kuwait, Bosnia, Korea, and Iraq. He later became the chief of the international law branch for the US Army in the Pentagon.
In 2015 he received a Fulbright Scholars grant and researched autonomous weapons as part of an interdisciplinary group at Melbourne Law School in Australia. He has presented at a United Nations (UN) Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons meeting on autonomous weapons and twice served as a member of the United States delegation to subsequent UN meetings. He has testified on autonomous weapons before the US Congres Helsinki Commission and worked with both the US Defense Innovation Board and the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. He has authored book chapters and articles on autonomous weapons, including a definition of ‘drones’ and ‘autonomous weapons’ for the Brill Companion to International Humanitarian Law.
Military Briefings are a unique series of events relating to military institutions and the law. They aim to improve our students’ knowledge of military actors and operations and build bridges between the military and civilian worlds.
akram.alrasny/Adobe
Applications for the upcoming academic year of our Executive Master in International Law in Armed Conflict are now open. They will remain open until 31 May 2024, with courses starting at the end of September 2024.
C64-92
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa started the new year by declaring that there is an ‘internal armed conflict’ against a series of criminal groups operating in the country. Our Research Fellow Dr Eugénie Duss, in charge of RULAC, answers our questions about whether the situation in Ecuador amounts to a non-international armed conflict.
UNAMID
This project will develop guidance to inform security, human rights and environmental debates on the linkages between environmental rights and conflict, and how their better management can serve as a tool in conflict prevention, resilience and early warning.
UN Photo/Violaine Martin
The IHL-EP works to strengthen the capacity of human rights mechanisms to incorporate IHL into their work in an efficacious and comprehensive manner. By so doing, it aims to address the normative and practical challenges that human rights bodies encounter when dealing with cases in which IHL applies.
Geneva Academy ICRC