Browsing by Author "Turns, David"

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    Chapter 27: The law of armed conflict (international humanitarian law)
    (Oxford University Press, 2018-08-21) Turns, David
    This chapter contains an overview of the modern law of armed conflict (international humanitarian law) in all its main aspects, from the scope of application of the law through methods of warfare, weapons and targeting operations, to protection of victims and issues of enforcement and implementation.
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    Chapter 4: the legal framework for security
    (Routledge, 2021-11-29) Turns, David; Van Engeland, Anicée
    This chapter explores the regulatory framework for security, highlighting pertinent issues within constitutional, human rights and international humanitarian law. It is argued that the law serves to define security for the individual and state; compliance with the law serves to enhance the legitimacy of government, the quality of governance, and the experience of security. The chapter begins with an examination of constitutional law and the parameters that are set for the establishment and operations of defence and security forces. The chapter then reviews the implications of international human rights and international humanitarian law for the conduct of those forces in peace and war, suggesting that the two legal regimes must be studied together to understand how a government can best engage with the legal framework for security.
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    The first case of cyberwar in non-international armed conflict? The matrix in Iraq
    (American Society of International Law, 2015-07-31) Turns, David
    The multi-faction insurgency that has been tearing Iraq apart ever since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003 has often involved the use of such crude and indiscriminate methods and means of warfare as the suicide bomb and the improvised explosive device. But in mid-2014 there were reports that some aspects of the armed conflict had risen to unexpected heights of contemporary sophistication, with the apparent use of cyberspace as a domain for hostilities.
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    The HMS Defender incident: innocent passage versus belligerent rights in the Black Sea
    (American Society of International Law, 2021-09-07) Turns, David
    On June 23, 2021, the United Kingdom Royal Navy destroyer HMS Defender, detached to the Black Sea on "its own [unspecified] set of missions" from a Carrier Strike Group (CSG) in the Mediterranean, was en route from Odessa, Ukraine, to Batumi, Georgia, when she passed approximately nine kilometres off Cape Fiolent on the southwest coast of Crimea. What happened next depends on which account one chooses to believe. According to the Russian Ministry of Defence, a "[Black Sea Fleet] border guard patrol ship conducted warning fire . . . [and] a Su-24M plane carried out preventing [sic] bombing (four OFAB-250 bombs) along the route of . . . Defender."[1] In a written statement to the House of Commons the next day, the British Secretary of State for Defence specified that, a Russian coastguard vessel warned that Russian units would shortly commence a live fire gunnery exercise . . . HMS Defender noted gunnery astern and out of range of her position. This posed no danger to HMS Defender. During her transit, HMS Defender was overflown by Russian combat aircraft at varying heights, the lowest of which was approximately 500 feet. These aircraft posed no immediate threat to HMS Defender . . . .[2] These competing factual accounts have dominated most of the coverage of the incident, but there has been comparatively little reference to the territorial status of Crimea (which has been in dispute since 2014), and it is notable that the international law arguments used (explicitly or implicitly) differ markedly in doctrinal emphasis, even when one passes over the rhetorical grandstanding. This short article evaluates the June 23 incident at the intersection of the two bodies of international law that are principally relevant: the international law of the sea and the international law of armed conflict.
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    The international humanitarian law classification of armed conflicts in Iraq since 2003
    (Naval War College Newport, Rhode Island, 2010-07-28) Turns, David
    An armed conflict, within the meaning of international humanitarian law (IHL), began in Iraq when that country was invaded by military forces of the coalition composed primarily of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia in March 2003. It continues to this day, notwithstanding a certain decline in intensity since the British withdrawal in July 2009 and the reorganization of US forces under a new security agreement with the Iraqi government in December of the same year.
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    Jus ad pacem in bello? Afghanistan, stability operations and the international laws relating to armed conflict
    (Naval War College Newport, Rhode Island, 2009-10-05) Turns, David
    One of the more notorious quotations widely attributed to George W. Bush, when he was campaigning for the presidency of the United States in 2000, was something lathe effect that "[w]e don't do nation-building." As with many attributed quotations. the actual remark he made was less curt and slightly more nuanced.
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    The treatment of detainees and the "Global War on Terror": selected legal issues
    (Naval War College Newport, Rhode Island, 2008-01-01) Turns, David
    This article will address selected legal issues relating to the treatment of detainees in the context of the "Global War on Terror" as a "hook" on which to hang some ideas of more general application and significance about the international legal framework of the "war." Some general (i.e.,jus ad bellum) international law aspects of the parameters of that framework have already been debated in the literature/ but the perspective adopted herein is of more specialist focus inasmuch as it concentrates on the practical issue that should resonate in the mind of all coalition military and associated personnel since the disclosure of ill-treatment of detainees in the custody of US and British forces in Iraq at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere:3 namely, once suspects in the "War on Terror" are captured, in accordance with what rules and legal standards are they to be treated?
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    The United Kingdom, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, and Targeted Killings
    (American Society of International Law, 2017-02-24) Turns, David
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    Written evidence into the use of Improvised Explosive Devices and their impact on the Humanitarian Space. Report to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Explosive Weapons
    (2017-08-24) Cleary, Laura; Johnson, Steve; McAteer, Daniel; Turns, David; Wilkinson, Edith
    This report constitutes Cranfield’s School of Defence and Security response to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Explosive Weapons’ call for written evidence (dated 11 December 2015) into the use of Improvised Explosive Devices and their impact on the Humanitarian Space. The APPG expressed interest in three questions: - What are the main groups using IEDs that operate around the globe today and what types of IEDs do they employ? - What challenges do state governments and law enforcement agencies face in effectively monitoring and restricting the sale of dual use precursor materials used in making IEDs and the knowledge exchange between groups? - The level and extent of humanitarian harm caused by IEDs around the world?