The Law of Armed Conflict

Gary D. Solis is a retired professor of law of the United States Military Academy, where he taught the law of armed conflict and directed West Point's law of war program for six years. He was a 2007 Library of Congress scholar in residence. He is a retired US Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, having twice served in Vietnam, where he was a company commander. He holds law degrees from the University of California, Davis and George Washington University, Washington DC. He has a doctorate in the law of war from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is a member of the American Law Institute and teaches the law of war at Georgetown University Law Center. His books include Marines and Military Law in Vietnam (1989) and Son Thang: An American War Crime (1997).

Foreword; Preface and acknowledgments; Table of cases; Table of treaties; 1. Rules of war, laws of war; 2. Codes, conventions, declarations, and regulations; 3. Two world wars and their law of armed conflict results; 4. Protocols and politics; 5. Conflict status; 6. Individual battlefield status; 7. Law of armed conflict's core principles; 8. What is a 'war crime'? 9. Obedience to orders, the first defense; 10. Command responsibility; 11. Ruses and perfidy; 12. Rules of engagement; 13. Targeting objects; 14. Targeting combatants and others; 15. A.I., Autonomous weapons, drones, and targeted killing; 16. Torture; 17. Cyber in the law of armed conflict; 18. Attacks on cultural property; 19. The 1980 certain conventional weapons convention; 20. Gas, biological, chemical and nuclear weapons; 21. Military commissions; 22. Security detention and internment.