Chapter 6 relates the individual status of the “players” on an armed conflict battlefield. It is the second question students should answer (after the conflict’s status) because the players’ status determines their rights and legal duties in the conflict. Civilians and combatants predominate, of course, but there are numerous subcategories for both: prisoners of war, retainees, militia, persons accompanying the armed forces, levée en masse fighters, spies, and mercenaries. Each category is explained and placed in relation to the other players. What if a civilian captured with weapons claims noncombatant status? LOAC provides for an informal tribunal. How is the familiar “farmer-by-day-fighter-by-night” dealt with? Who is an “unprivileged belligerent” and are they the same as an “unlawful combatant”? What status for a civilian who directly participates in hostilities and what are their battlefield rights, if any? Who is a “protected person” and what makes them such? These statuses and more are considered, along with their positions vis-à-vis the combatants who engage in combat with them.

Maritime delimitation excludes relevance of geomorphology or geology from the delimitation process in the continental shelf and the EEZ delimitation within 200 nautical miles. Whether geomorphological or geological factors will re-emerge in the delimitation of the continental shelf beyond 200 nm is thus a topic of continuing interest and perplexity. This chapter examines this issue from three perspectives: first, the relationship between the basis of entitlement and the delimitation method; second, "the most natural prolongation" argument in the delimitation of the continental shelf beyond 200 nm; and third, geomorphological and geological factors as a relevant circumstance. After reviewing the relevant hypotheses, jurisprudence, and State practice, it concludes that geomorphological and geological factors are unlikely to be taken into account by the judiciary to in the drawing of the maritime boundary in the delimitation of the continental shelf beyond 200 nm.

Chapter 8 puts previous chapters to work by defining war crimes – their required precursors and circumstances – asking the reader whether real-life scenarios are, or are not, war crimes. The import of grave breaches is illustrated, including the factual World War II murder of fifty prisoners of war by Nazis, the subject of the motion picture, The Great Escape. When can a mosque be fired on, if ever? Are suicide attacks violations of LOAC? Is hostage-taking ever lawful? What is pillage? And “double-tapping”? On the battlefield, may one feign death? What if an individual volunteers to be a human shield? Are human shields ever lawful? Real-world war crime cases and their outcomes are related. “Disciplinary” war crimes, seldom noted, are, here, as well. Continuing, universal jurisdiction for war crimes turns out to be less than universal, and civilians can commit war crimes just as combatants can. Rape and other gender crimes are covered, here, as well. Four war crime trial records are included in the chapter’s Cases and Materials.

This chapter introduces the conceptual framework of delimitation methodology. It reviews the sources of the law of maritime delimitation applicable to the delimitation of the continental shelf beyond 200 nm. More specifically, it examines the elements of delimitation methodology and the formulations of delimitation methodology that evolve over time. On that basis, this chapter raises the methodological questions to be addressed in the delimitation of the continental shelf beyond 200 nm and develops the approach for their analysis, which goes beyond the prevailing three-stage approach established in the jurisprudence since the 2009 Black Sea case.

Chapter 1 relates a brief history of the law of war and the emergence of rules in conflicts. Those rules turned to royal mandates which, in turn, became laws that are today’s law of armed conflict, or LOAC. The chapter relates why modern states should obey the law of armed conflict – often referred to as “international humanitarian law.” The chapter details the five bases of LOAC: domestic laws, customary laws, treaties, judicial decisions, and publicists (i.e., academics). Common LOAC terms are explained to the student new to the subject. Finally, human rights, often seen as contrary or antagonistic to LOAC, particularly by the United States, is shown to now be complementary to LOAC, rather than contrary to it. This is essentially due to a still-evolving US position on the subject that is more willing to accept human rights objectives on the battlefield.

Maritime delimitation presupposes an area of overlapping entitlements. Instead of focusing solely on the geomorphological and geological elements of the entitlement, this chapter surveys the State practice in order to contextualize the determination of overlapping entitlements to the continental shelf beyond 200 nm. Factors including the outer limits of the continental shelf, maritime delimitation within 200 nm, and the existence of multiple claims to the same continental shelf beyond 200 nm may play out in the determination of the overlapping entitlements to the continental shelf beyond 200 nm. Moreover, two scenarios wherein the existence of overlapping entitlements is doubtful are also examined. The first concerns the situation where two different parties invoke the two continental shelf criteria under Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in a confined maritime area, which underlies the disputes of the Nicaragua v. Colombia cases. The other concerns the "zone-locked" scenario, in which a State’s access to the continental shelf beyond 200 nm is closed off by a maritime boundary within 200 nm.

Chapter 11 is a brief chapter on seldom encountered legal issues: ruses and perfidy. Acts that invite an enemy’s confidence that he is entitled to protection under the rules of LOAC, with an intent to betray that confidence, is the crime of perfidy. It has been a codified war crime since 1907, though seldom prosecuted. False flags of truce, informing an opponent that the war is over so you can come on out, are perfidy, as is fighting in the enemy’s uniform. Feigning being wounded, however, is not perfidy, because it does not invite an enemy’s confidence. Examples in recent years are related: in Columbia against the FARC, in the Falklands against the British. Ruses, on the other hand, are lawful: deceit employed in the interest of military operations for the purpose of misleading the enemy. They do not invite the confidence of the enemy with respect to the protection of LOAC. Dummy artillery pieces, inflatable “tanks,” mock operations by nonexistent troops, all lawful.

Chapter 15 involves much of what has gone before; targeting both objects and human beings, core principles, individual status, and more. Artificial intelligence is described as applied to autonomous weapons, then as applied to LOAC’s core principles – difficult values for autonomous weapons to meet. To whom does criminal liability attach, should such weapons go awry? Designers? Builders? Users? These remain difficult LOAC issues that this chapter examines. Drones and their military use are discussed, including the American CIA’s use. Since CIA personnel are civilians, their involvement in targeting in armed conflict is unlawful, an issue discussed in this chapter. Targeted killing and its lawfulness are examined at length, as well as their relationship to assassination, an illegal act in US law. Targeted killing’s weak link, who decides which individuals should be killed, is also discussed. In the Cases and Materials section, the wrongful shooting down of an Iranian civilian airliner in 1988, that killed 290, is examined – a case study of autonomous weapons gone bad.

Chapter 12 explores rules of engagement. ROE are neither LOAC nor mentioned in the Geneva Conventions, but they are the important means by which commanders control use of deadly force by their subordinates. First appearing in the 1950’s US-North Korean conflict, they initially made little sense to warfighters. Their formulation is explained step-by-step in this chapter. ROE never limit the exercise of self-defense and they are not tactical in nature – never instructing combatants in how a mission should be executed. Instead, they restrict the use of force in certain circumstances, putting some targets off-limits, restricting the use of force in some locations. Junior officers seldom see the full ROE and troops never do; instead they are given greatly distilled versions, often on pocket-size cards. Before a US infantryman may fire in Afghanistan, for example, his ROE require that he observe “hostile intent,” or actually be the target of a “hostile act,” terms explained in this chapter. Other targets must be positively identified. It is understandable that infantrymen dislike ROE, but they are essential to the commander’s operational plans and helpful in the observance of LOAC.

This chapter examines the interaction between delineation and delimitation by exploring the following three issues. First, the approaches that coastal States take to coordinate their delineation and delimitation in order to smoothen the procedure of establishing the outer limits of the continental shelf through the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf; second, the competence of international courts and tribunals to delimit the continental shelf beyond 200 nm in the absence of the recommendations of the CLCS, and third, the key to resolve the deadlock in the delineation procedure due to the objection raised by interested parties under the Rules of Procedure of the CLCS.

Chapter 20 studies gas, biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons, looking at each of those prohibited weapons in turn. Poisonous gases were first banned in 1925 – but only their use, not their production or sale. There have been numerous uses of poisonous gases, including today in Syria. Biological and toxin weapons were banned in 1972, although their use is unmentioned in the 1972 Convention. A 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention, with a strict verification process, has been more effective. Russia’s continued poisoning of state critics is detailed as an example of state-avoidance of the 1993 Convention. CS (“tear gas”) use is limited by the 1993 convention but still employed as a riot control measure. There is no international law that makes nuclear weapons unlawful. Of the several multinational treaties that bear on nuclear weapons, the most significant is the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which, so far, has but forty-four State Parties. None of the nine nuclear powers have joined, of course. In short, gas, biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons are abhorred and condemned until they are used; then the international community looks the other way.

This chapter discusses in detail the establishment of the entitlement to the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The meaning of natural prolongation, which is historically significant yet nebulous, has been transformed by Article 76, and its interpretation has to be examined in the context of application of Article 76 by coastal States and the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. The Bangladesh/Myanmar case clarified the meaning of natural prolongation, but its reasoning fell short of giving the notion any effect as a treaty term. In addition, other elements constitutive of the entitlement to the continental shelf beyond 200 nm, including the foot of the continental slope, the outer limits of the continental shelf, and the coasts are analyzed and their role in the process clarified.

Chapter 3 orients the student to the basics of LOAC as it exists on today’s battlefields. It moves from long-past history to modern, even contemporary, history by relating today’s LOAC, along with its more recent historical foundations and modern law of war incidents. For example, World War I and the ineffective trials of German war criminals by German courts – the Leipzig trials – are shown to be the impetus for World War II’s Nuremberg and Tokyo international military tribunals. The LOAC import of the League of Nations and the Spanish Civil War are detailed, along with the 1929 Geneva Conventions’ (two Conventions) contributions. The bulk of the chapter is an examination of today’s four 1949 Geneva Conventions, including their “common articles,” the varied routes to the charging of war crimes alleged against both combatants and civilians, along with the significance of “grave breach” war crimes. Indicators of war crimes is detailed, as well.