Chapter

Direct participation in hostilities : a concept broad enough for today's targeting decisions

Eric Talbot Jensen

New battlefields, old laws : critical debates on asymmetric warfare

New York : Columbia University Press, 2011

p. 85-105

English

The first section offers a brief history of the development of the applicable standards for combatants, lawful and unlawful, and civilians, those who take a direct part in hostilities and those who do not. The second section analyzes how these standards apply to targeting during military operations and the potential results for civilians. It further describes how these standards and their effect on targeting operations have come under severe criticism in the current war against transnational terrorist organizations, leading some call for a revision of the law. The third section explains why such a revision is unnecessary and proposes a contemporary understanding of the definition of direct participation in hostilities that reconciles necessity and humanity.

• New battlefields, old laws : critical debates on asymmetric warfare / edited by William C. Banks