Craig Martin

Autonomous Weapons Systems and Proportionality – New Article

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Published a new law review article, “Autonomous Weapons Systems and Proportionality: The Need for Regulation,” in the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, Vol. 57:1 (2025). The full text is available for download at SSRN here, and the abstract is below:

This article examines the question of whether International Humanitarian Law (IHL) requires modification to effectively govern autonomous weapons systems (AWS). While extensive scholarly discourse has focused on whether AWS can comply with existing IHL principles, and whether the development and deployment of AWS should be constrained through weapons treaties, insufficient attention has been paid to why and how IHL itself might need adaptation to regulate AWS as a method of warfare. Given that the imminent development and deployment is unlikely to be prohibited, and that AWS may not comply with IHL in certain circumstances, the question of why and how IHL needs to be adjusted is important. The analysis focuses on the principle of proportionality as a means of exploring and illustrating the issue.

The article first traces the evolution of AWS governance debates, highlighting the impasse at the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) regarding constraints on AWS development. It then conducts a detailed examination of the distinct elements and operation of the principle of proportionality, a principle whose implementation demands complex, contextual, and sophisticated judgment.

The article examines the evidence of certain weaknesses of AI-operated AWS, explains why the operationalization of the principle of proportionality would present challenges for such systems, and argues that AWS would likely struggle to implement the principle reliably and predictably in certain operational contexts. The final section supports and defends proposals for the certain adjustments or modifications of IHL to better regulate AWS, thereby ensuring AWS operations remain constrained by the core principles of IHL. It ends by briefly exploring the mechanisms that might be available for developing such constraints.

Geoengineering Wars and Atmospheric Governance

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Published my latest article, written with Scott Moore of UPenn, “Geoengineering Wars and Atmospheric Governance,” in the The Harvard International Law Journal. A copy can be downloaded from SSRN here. Here is the abstract:

The increasingly harsh and unevenly distributed heat-related harms caused by climate change, together with frustration over the collective inability to respond to the crisis, are likely to make unilateral geoengineering efforts increasingly attractive. Stratospheric aerosol injection (“SAI”) is a form of solar radiation modification that is effective, technically feasible, and within the financial means of many states and even non-state actors. Yet, there are virtually no global governance structures in place to specifically regulate such activity, and existing international law would provide only weak constraints on unilateral SAI efforts. These features create incentives for unilateral action in what is known as a “free driver” problem: few constraints on a unilateral action that has low direct cost combined with immediate direct individual benefit despite widely distributed risks and indirect costs.

There would be significant collateral environmental and climatic harms associated with SAI. That, coupled with the high risk of unilateral action, is reason enough for both caution and stronger governance. But another risk posed by any unilateral SAI effort—one that is underappreciated and under-theorized—is that of armed conflict. We explore how and why states would likely perceive the potential risks associated with unilateral SAI effort as constituting a threat to national security, and in the absence of adequate legal and institutional mechanisms to constrain such unilateral action, might well contemplate the use of force to defend against the perceived threat. The Article explores and explains how and why the jus ad bellum regime is unlikely to prevent states from engaging in unauthorized use of force against unilateral SAI actors. (click “read more” below for full abstract).

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Harold Koh on the National Security Constitution, Trump, and Int’l Law

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Episode 40 of JIB/JAB-The Laws of War Podcast featured a discussion with Harold Koh on his new book, The National Security Constitution in the 21st Century, as well as the Trump Administration and its implications for international law. It was not only fascinating and insightful, but actually uplifting and inspiring too. The podcast ended the year with close to 55,000 plays since it began in the summer of 2020, and has been listened to in over 120 countries.

Trump’s Endgame for the War in Ukraine

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Published: Trump’s Endgame for the War in Ukraine, Just Security, Dec. 17, 2024 (with Michael Kelly) – In this short essay Mike Kelly and I explore how incoming President Trump might deal with the war in Ukraine, and in particular what the implications of his transactional and self-interested approach might have for Ukrainian interests, America’s alliances, and the international rule of law itself. Here is just the first two paragraphs:

Donald Trump’s election as 47th president of the United States brings the endgame for the war in Ukraine into sharper focus. Based on comments since his first term, Trump’s mindset remains highly transactional on foreign policy in general and on the Russia-Ukraine conflict in particular. This is a war he pledged to end quickly, prompting Ukraine’s president Volodymir Zelenskyy to acknowledge that it will conclude in 2025. Trump’s modus operandi has been to deal with the other “strongest” person in the room and often ignore other stakeholders. This means any peace negotiation is likely to jump the tracks and occur bilaterally between Trump and Vladimir Putin, a dynamic Putin has endorsed. While his recent meetings with Zelenskyy in New York and Paris might suggest the possibility of daylight between himself and Putin on Ukraine, Trump may simply be pre-negotiation positioning. Nevertheless, this bit of the shifting landscape bears watching.

Taking these bargaining dynamics into account, broad outlines emerge of what Trump needs in order to declare victory?always of paramount importance to him. In this article we plot how such bargains might play out, how they could provide Trump and Putin with significant political gains, but also how they could leave very much impoverished the vital interests of Ukraine, the strength of America’s alliances, and the international rule of law itself. While not an exhaustive list, key leverage points in the negotiations can be delineated as follows:

(link above for the full essay!)