Berkowitz/Finley Lecture Hall

Lecture summary: In 2015, the United States military dropped a bomb on a hospital in Afghanistan run by Médecins Sans Frontières, killing forty-two staff and patients. Testifying afterwards before a Senate Committee, General John F. Campbell explained that “[t]he hospital was mistakenly struck.” In 2019, while providing air support to partner forces under attack by ISIS, the U.S. military killed dozens of women and children. Central Command concluded that any civilian deaths “were accidental.” In August 2021, during a rushed withdrawal from Afghanistan, the U.S. military executed a drone strike in Kabul that killed ten civilians, including an aid worker for a U.S. charity and seven children in his family. The Pentagon later admitted it was a “tragic mistake.” In these cases and others like them, no one set out to kill the civilians who died. Such events are usually chalked up as sad but inevitable consequences of war—as regrettable “mistakes.” In this lecture, based on a forthcoming coauthored article, Professor Oona Hathaway will examine the law on “mistakes” in war. She will consider whether and when the law holds individuals and states responsible for “mistakes.” To see how the law works, or fails to work, in practice, she will examine the U.S. military’s own assessments of civilian casualties. She will show that “mistakes” are far more common than generally acknowledged. Some errors are, moreover, the predictable–and avoidable–result of a system that does too little to learn from its mistakes. She will focus her remarks on the United States, both because of its global military operations and because of the power of its example to shape global practices. The United States is far from alone, however. Thus, lessons learned from its failures can be instructive for other states as well. Related paper: Mistakes in War

Time: 5.15 pm to 6.45 pm, followed by drinks and snacks, in the Finley/Berkovitz lecture room, Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, 5 Cranmer Road, Cambridge CB3 9BL. Available pre-reading material Please email Raja Dandamudi rvkd2@cam.ac.uk for further information. This event is the third lecture of the Histories of Law and Global Order Seminar series and has been organised by University of Cambridge PhD candidates Rishabh Bajoria and Raja Venkata Krishna Dandamudi.

Lecture summary: The world is facing profound geopolitical challenges. Across the globe wars rage, societies fracture and tensions rise. In our interconnected world few remain unaffected by the consequences of conflict. In this talk, Ian Park considers contemporary geopolitical challenges and areas of future tension and critically assesses the role of armed forces in upholding the rules-based international order. Ian Park is a Captain in the UK Royal Navy and a barrister. He has served in seven ships and deployed worldwide in support of the Royal Navy’s contribution to defence. He has also deployed as a legal adviser on operations to Afghanistan and, on many occasions, to the Middle East. Ian is, or has been, a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School, a Hudson Fellow at Oxford University, a Mountbatten Fellow at Cambridge University, a First Sea Lord’s Fellow, and a Freeman of the City of London. He is a graduate of St. John’s College, Cambridge, has a doctorate in international law from Balliol College, Oxford and has lectured at Harvard Law School, Cambridge University, Oxford University, The Academy of Military Sciences, Beijing, Hanoi University, USSH Hanoi, and Freiburg University amongst other institutions. Ian has written or contributed to five books including the monograph ‘The Right to Life in Armed Conflict’ (Oxford University Press, 2018) and presently teaches part-time at Yale Law School and Edinburgh University and serves as the Head of Navy Legal.

The Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture is an annual three-part lecture series given in Cambridge to commemorate the unique contribution to the development of international law of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht. These lectures are given annually by a person of eminence in the field of international law. This year's lecture will be given by Professor Beth Simmons, Professor of International Law, University of Pennsylvania. Summary: The Golden Age of globalization has reached an end in the popular and political imagination. In its place has arisen growing anxiety about state borders. What is the evidence of such a shift? What are the causes and consequences? What answers does international law have for how international borders should be governed, especially as human mobility intensifies? Traditional international law defining and settling borders will not suffice to answer these questions. Instead, the lectures explore a different approach that views international borders as institutions that obligate states to manage the tensions that territorial governance implies in an interdependent world. This is a hybrid event. Register on website.