“International law is a system …. not a random collection of [] norms.” So concluded the International Law Commission’s Study Group on the Fragmentation of International Law in 2006. Legal philosophers immediately recognized the target. In a footnote to their full report, the Study Group named him: The view that holds international law…

Turkey’s latest invasion of Syria violates the prohibition of interstate armed force. It cannot be justified by Turkey’s right of self-defense (see here and here). What follows? Among other things, each and every person killed by Turkish forces and agents is killed in violation of her human right to life.

The United States is currently engaged in an armed conflict with an organized armed group operating from the territory of two foreign states. Is this armed conflict an international armed conflict (IAC), a non-international armed conflict (NIAC), both, or neither? The question matters because the answer determines which international legal rules apply to the conflict and regulate its…