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APV Rogers, OBE Author, Law on the Battlefield, Fellow, Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge
Eyal Benvenisti
Professor of International Law, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Visiting Professor, Columbia Law School
Michael Matheson
Senior Fellow
U.S. Institute of Peace
H. Wayne Elliott, S.J.D.
Lt. Col. (Ret.) U.S. Army Former Chief, International Law Division; Judge Advocate’s General School, U.S. Army
Robert Kogod Goldman
Professor, Washington College of Law
American University
Steven R. Ratner
Albert Sidney Burleson Professor in Law University of Texas Law School
David Turns, LL.M (London), Barrister
Lecturer in Law
The Liverpool Law School
Marc Cogen
Professor of International Law, Ghent University
Surya Narayan Sinha, Former UN Legal Adviser in Kosovo, Zagreb, and for UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, International Lawyer based in Chennai, India.

September 21, 2001


International law no longer speaks in terms of “wars,” but of “armed conflicts.” These are usually understood to be between States, although internal conflicts of exceptional intensity may also be included. The present scenario is complicated because the attacks were not directly carried out by a State, giving rise to some provocative gray areas and points of disagreement. APV Rogers notes that “the law has been moving slowly towards recognizing dissident armed factions and authorities representing liberation movements as quasi-states.” According to David Turns, “There seems little doubt that [these events] will pose a challenge to the future development of the legal definition of ‘armed conflict’ and the specific rules applicable in such conflicts.” H. Wayne Elliott disagrees: “I’m not so sure. There is evidence that bin Laden, even if not a head of State, acted with the sanction of a State. If so, what we have here is a conflict between two States.”



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