PIL Discussion Group: War Unbound

International humanitarian law, also known as the law of armed conflict, is supposed to spare civilians from the worst calamities of conflict. The aim of this body of law has always been clear: Civilians not involved in the fighting deserve to be protected from harm and to enjoy unimpeded access to humanitarian aid. In many contemporary conflicts, including the Israel-Hamas war, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the civil war in Sudan, the law has failed. The growing number of wars within states and between states and non-state actors marks a new era in warfare that has pushed the law to the breaking point. In recent years, tens of thousands of civilians have been the victims of violence in war, leaving many observers wondering if the law makes any difference at all. In this lecture, Oona Hathaway examines these developments and considers what, if anything, can be done to restore some measure of protection to civilians in times of war.

Oona A. Hathaway is the Gerard C. and Bernice Latrobe Smith Professor of International Law at Yale Law School, Professor of Political Science at the Yale University Department of Political Science, Faculty at the Jackson School of Global Affairs, and Director of the Yale Law School Center for Global Legal Challenges. She is also president-elect of the American Society of International Law and a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She has been a member of the Advisory Committee on International Law for the Legal Adviser at the US Department of State since 2005, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 2011, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2025. In 2014-15, she took leave to serve as Special Counsel to the General Counsel at the US Department of Defense, where she was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence. She has published more than fifty law review articles, and The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World (with Scott Shapiro, 2017).  She is also Executive Editor of and regular author at Just Security, and she writes often for publications such as The Washington Post, New York Times, and Foreign Affairs. She is currently working on a book, War Unbound, with the support of the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin and the Guggenheim Fellowship.