In this update:

  • Conference: The strategic corporal re-visited–challenges for combatants in twenty-first century warfare
  • Seminar: North Korea, International Law and Political Reality

  • Speech: The Maritime Boundaries of East Timor–the Role of International Law

 

Conference: The strategic corporal re-visited–challenges for combatants in twenty-first century warfare

28 & 29 August, Canberra

This conference will  be hosted by the Centre for Military and Security Law, ANU College of Law, The Australian National University and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, UNSW, Canberra.

On the modern battlefield, troops depend as much on mobility as on firepower, battles are about ideas as well as territory, the principles of just war and the protection of non-combatants are widely discussed (if not always honoured), the loss of even a single soldier is mourned as a tragedy, and the circumstances in which soldiers must operate (as combatants, peacekeepers and even emergency first-responders) are varied and often unpredictable. The responsibilities of individual soldiers have expanded enormously. No longer unquestioning pawns in a larger geo-strategic game, they are expected—whatever their rank—to show initiative, leadership, technological mastery and restraint in present and future operations whether or not they resemble recent counter-insurgencies.

Leading experts in law, ethics, strategic studies, history and politics will explore these expectations and how they can be met. 

For more information and registration, see the conference page.

 

Seminar: North Korea, International Law and Political Reality

31 July 2013, Sydney

In January 2013, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, issued a strong call to the international community to put much more effort into tackling the “deplorable” human rights situation of people in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). A few months later, the UN Human Rights Council established a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the systematic and widespread human rights violations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The UN requested former Australian High Court Judge, Michael Kirby to chair the Commission of Inquiry. Earlier this year, the Commission released an unprecedented report documenting crimes against humanity committed in North Korea, the “gravity, scale and nature” of which revealed “a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.”

After speaking about the report around the world, Michael Kirby will examine the report and responses from the international community.

For more information, see the event page.

 

Speech: The Maritime Boundaries of East Timor–the Role of International Law

On 11 July 2014, Dr Christopher Ward (President of the Australian Branch of the International Law Association), spoke at the Northern Territory Bar Association Conference on the role of international law in determining the maritime boundaries of East Timor.

The text of Dr Ward’s speech can be found here.