The cardinal principle of distinction in LOIAC (supra 40–1) is of fundamental importance: it affects the entire normative architecture relating to susceptibility to attack in the course of hostilities by dividing the population of Belligerent Parties into two disparate categories of combatants and non-combatants. The goal of the bifurcation is to ensure in every feasible manner that IACs are waged among combatants while sparing non-combatants (primarily, innocent civilians). Of course, this goal is easier to verbalize than to apply in the intense strain of hostilities. In consequence, there are occasional scholarly attempts to expose ‘the ambiguity, instability and indeterminacy of distinction’.247 But, whatever challenges are encountered in the implementation of the principle of distinction, it cannot be denied that it constitutes a recurrent leitmotif of both customary and treaty LOIAC. The Security Council, too, has stressed the importance of ‘distinguishing between, on the one hand, civilian populations, civilian objects and all other persons and objects afforded protection, and, on the other hand, combatants and military objectives’.248

The world is on the verge of undergoing a large-scale energy system transformation. Past and present climate policies have had sufficient impact on technology that energy systems will unavoidably be affected. Governments nevertheless face a choice between whether to support climate policy in their countries to accelerate the transition or attempt to slow down progress in the climate agenda. No government can fully control the world’s energy system, while innovation is global. An important political economy issue emerges with the ongoing peaking in fossil fuel use and the pending decline of the fossil fuel socio-technical regimes. Financial, economic and political instability lies in the balance. Different countries are affected very differently by this technological transition, where fossil fuel exporters stand to lose substantial economic activity while energy importers have no regrets and only see opportunities. In this chapter, an in-depth analysis is made of the economic and financial impacts of the end of the Age of Oil and other fossil fuels. Risks and opportunities are identified, revealing striking narratives of disruptive structural change and an evolution of economic and geopolitical power across the world. Reflections are given regarding policy to mitigate the socio-economic and financial impacts of the transformation.

Although judicial bureaucracies are the backbone of international courts and tribunals, their presence remains largely unacknowledged in official discourse and scholarly analysis. This chapter takes collective silence as an object of interest and explores its socio-political dimensions. The role of judicial bureaucrats is an open secret. Courts, government representatives, counsel, and academics are all aware of it, and yet conspire to keep it invisible to the public. The chapter reflects on the reasons behind the conspiracy of silence. Could it be due to the confidential nature of judicial proceedings? To the need to preserve the legitimacy of judicial institutions in the eyes of their audiences? Or, perhaps, to the instinctive desire of international lawyers to maintain an aura of mystery and sanctity around their profession?

The preface describes the research methodology and the writing process that led to this book. It begins by explaining how the author collected information from the relevant sources, verified its completeness and accuracy, and analysed it under a unified framework. It then turns to the issue of storytelling style and to the author’s decision to present his findings in the form of a fictionalized account. In so doing, the preface discusses the problem of verifiability of classified information, the issue of trust between the narrator and the audience, and the promises and pitfalls of literary writing when it comes to informing, reporting, or commenting on real life.

The low-carbon transition is capital-intensive and requires the creation of substantial amounts of finance, and a premature depreciation of existing capital. It remains unclear what the impact of the transition will be for the financial sector. Current models lack clear causal representations between systemic risk, financial network dynamics, credit creation and instability. At the heart of this issue is a century-old debate on the nature of money, finance and debt. Here, empirical foundations are developed for a complexity and complex networks theory of macroeconomics by bringing together evidence from both economic anthropology and econophysics. While evidence from economic anthropology helps the economist understand the origin, development and nature of money as liability-asset relationships between, and created by, economic agents, empirics from econophysics and complex networks analysis allow us to better understand the concept of systemic risk and financial dynamics during instabilities. These insights are brought together in a way that lays possible foundations for the development of a better understanding of the endogenous growth of financial networks, investment and economic growth.

The story moves into the inner quarters of international courts and tribunals, where judicial bureaucrats are studying the files and starting to prepare for the cases. This chapter tackles the seemingly innocuous, but in fact crucial task of summarizing the parties’ submissions. Far from purely mechanical, the drafting of summaries entails a series of fundamental choices about the nature and contours of the dispute. By distilling the irreducible complexity of life into a digestible set of claims and arguments, bureaucrats initiate a process of lyophilization that will eventually lead to a clean, apodictic, and self-contained ruling. At every step of the judicial process, certain lines of reasoning come to the fore while others are relegated to the margin of the analysis. Often, the final judgment bears only a faint resemblance to the setting in which the dispute initially arose.

This chapter takes the reader to the innermost chamber of the court: the deliberation room. There, the story untangles the maze of interactions that occur among the adjudicators as they finally decide the merits of the case. What commentators usually describe as the moment of truth is, in fact, a delicate dance of assertions and contestations, argument and counterargument, lunges and sidesteps. Amid the confrontation, judicial bureaucrats work staunchly and discreetly to guide the flow of the debate, broker compromises, and overcome stumbling blocks. The decisions and instructions that eventually emerge from deliberations may well be the truth – but a carefully constructed one. The deliberative practices of the various courts and tribunals, all described in this chapter, are more than simple logistical matters or mere conveyors of content. Rather, they have a crucial impact on the way adjudicators arrive at their decisions and, therefore, on the substantive outcomes of each dispute.

Cultural property and places of worship are paradigmatic civilian objects and, as such, must not be the targets of attack in warfare. Article 52(3) of AP/I (quoted supra 365) expressly refers to places of worship and schools as the prototypes of civilian objects. The clause creates a presumption that these objects serve their normal civilian purposes, but it takes into account the possibility that they will be subjected to military use. Should the normal-civilian presumption be rebutted, even schools and places of worship may become military objectives.

This chapter introduces the concepts and implications of uncertainty in complex economic models. Uncertainty is driven by different levels of analysis: from the concept of the agent and how he makes decisions (behavioural economics), from the aggregation of interacting agents that leads to emergent outcomes and heavy-tailed statistics (complexity science) and from the non-ergodicity and strong path-dependence of evolutionary models. These sources are analysed and explained, which generates a foundational definition for fundamental uncertainty and a narrative for how to use information generated by complex models attempting to mimic an infinitely more complex reality.

This chapter fast-forwards to the days of the hearing. It offers an overview of the oral pleadings, the exchanges between the parties, and the interactions between the litigants and the bench. The analysis seeks to dispel the common misunderstanding that a hearing entails a free-flowing and spontaneous discussion. In fact, it often looks like a tightly choreographed play where agents, counsel, adjudicators, and court officials each follow their script. All participants embrace their role as actors and gleefully contribute to this staged performance. The theatrics of the hearing serve a twofold purpose. On the one hand, they enable the professionals involved to come together, tacitly acknowledge one another, and enhance their relative prestige. On the other hand, they help convey the symbolic force of international adjudication as the center-stage of peaceful governance.

‘Weapons’ are means of warfare, including any arms (for instance, missile launchers, artillery, machine guns and rifles), munitions (for example, missiles, bombs, mines, shells and bullets) and other devices (including cyber malware) or mechanisms striving to (i) kill, disable or injure persons; or (ii) destroy or damage matériel or property.422 Weapons encompass also weapon systems (with diverse components or external delivery/guidance means) and platforms carrying weapons (such as tanks or warships). Military platforms not carrying weapons (e.g., troops-carrying trucks) do not qualify as weapons per se, even though they contribute to military operations.423 Generally speaking, weapons can be categorized in a binary fashion as (i) conventional weapons and (ii) weapons of mass destruction.

The history of LOIAC can be described as a sustained effort to ensure that innocent civilians are protected from the havocs of war. Notwithstanding LOIAC strictures, it is impossible to preclude altogether the possibility of civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects in wartime. Indeed, some civilian losses and damage are virtually postulated, as long as they constitute lawful collateral damage (see infra 505 et seq.). However, the obligation of Belligerent Parties to distinguish at all times between civilians and combatants – as well as between civilian objects and military objectives – is the mainspring of LOIAC as it currently stands and as reflected in the ‘[b]asic rule’ of Article 48 of AP/I (quoted supra 328). Allegations that ‘[t]he distinction between combatant and non-combatant has all but vanished’927 are utterly at odds with present-day LOIAC.

In this first chapter, the emergent complexity of problems in environmental and climate policy is raised and summarised. These issues are described as ‘wicked’: the process of solving them coincides with the scientific process of understanding their nature and the internal mechanisms driving them. While in many scientific areas of enquiry, statistics can be accumulated using repeated experiments, this is not possible here, and moreover, each time an attempt is made to solve an environmental problem with a chosen policy strategy, the problem typically transforms into something new. The case is made why optimisation approaches are fundamentally flawed in analysing environmental problems, as they assume the access and availability of knowledge and data by analysts that is not realistic. This introductory chapter motivates the various issues raised and discussed throughout this book.