4 155 Amidst all of the debate about controlling the proliferation and misuse of small arms, there is a glaring, fundamental omission—the human face. Research and policy tends to focus on supply-related issues such as production and the mismanagement of stockpiles, interstate transfers and the illicit trade, technical aspects of weapons tracing, marking, collection and destruction, and on legal...

This is the second report on ‘‘International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the Challenges of Contemporary Armed Conflicts’’ that has been prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) for an International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. In the years that have elapsed since the first report was presented to the 28th International Conference in Geneva, in December 200...

The severity of the (potential) consequences of the use of agents in the military domain imperatively necessitates research on the application of the law of armed conflict, which provides ‘constraints’ on ‘human’ warfare. In this paper, one of the main principles of that law, target discrimination, is used to highlight legal and ethical dilemmas involving the use of autonomous agents. The incid...