Chapter

A defence technologist's view of international humanitarian law

Tony Gillespie

Routledge handbook of war, law and technology

New York : Routledge, 2019

p. 41-49

English

This chapter discusses Article 36 reviews from a technologist’s point of view, identifies important milestones, and proposes the types of technical evidence required at key points. It presents the view that the use of a weapon cannot be separated from the surrounding system. The chapter identifies several points in technology development programmes that are suitable for Article 36 reviews. An extra level of complexity comes when the system, with or without emergent behaviours, interacts with external systems with non-linear or random outputs. These can be other technical systems or human operators. Producing a complex human/machine system at an affordable cost which has completely predictable properties is beyond the capability of modern engineering.

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• Routledge handbook of war, law and technology / ed. by James Gow, Ernst Dijxhoorn, Rachel Kerr and Guglielmo Verdirame