Acting as a Sovereign versus Acting as a Belligerent
In many legal disputes, the selection of one body of law rather than another is outcome-determinative. The situation with targeted killings is no different. Although there are contrary impulses at the margins, in the main a human rights paradigm is more likely to restrict such operations while a law of war paradigm is more likely to sanction it. But the question is when each body of law applies, a question that is not explicitly addressed by either body. By looking at the underlying object and purpose of each body of law, however, an account of their respective spheres becomes apparent. This essay defends the claim that the dividing line is represented by a state acting as a sovereign as opposed to acting as a belligerent. In the former situation, the state acts as a ruler over its subjects and its activities are constrained by human rights law. In contrast, when the state acts as a belligerent during armed conflict, International Humanitarian Law regulates its actions. This essay provides a framework to determine when the state is acting in one mode rather than another: acting as a sovereign involves an unequal relationship (ruler-to-ruled), while belligerency is characterized by two, formally co-equal collectives facing each other in battle. At the closing stage of an armed conflict, the relationship of belligerency may give way to sovereignty, a transition point that is often characterized by the law of occupation. The argument is both normative and descriptive in the sense that the two bodies of law already embody these normative distinctions; therefore their respective application is currently delimited by these existing principles.
Towards a Moral Division of Labour between IHL and IHRL during the Conduct of Hostilities
When should International Humanitarian Law (IHL) prevail over, when give way to International Human Rights Law (IHRL)? IHL and IHRL give diverging answers to the crucial question of when it is permissible to kill during an armed confrontation. This paper contends that when two bodies of law make diverging substantive demands – as IHRL and IHL do – that which better discharges the law’s moral tasks should displace the other. The law’s two moral tasks, the paper argues, are to guide its subjects’ conduct, as often as possible, towards the course of action that conforms to their moral obligations (task one) and to secure the fullest feasible protection of rights in the outcome of conduct (task two). 
 
IHL permits conduct that further diverges from our fundamental moral obligations of non-interference with the individual right to life. Yet, the law that more faithfully reflects underlying moral principles is not always the law that better discharges its moral tasks. Epistemic barriers to identifying the morally right course of action account for why a law that further diverges from moral principles might better guide the individual towards what is typically the morally right course of action (task one). Volitional defects may mean that a law that asks for a course of action other than the morally right one, generates better aggregate moral consequences (task two). Whether IHRL or IHL should prevail, depends on the epistemic and volitional context of decision-making during the conduct of hostilities. 
 
The paper raises the question of whether IHL or IHRL should govern the conduct of hostilities for six types of non-international and international armed conflicts (NIACs and IACs). One of two characteristics distinguishes them from confrontations that do not count as armed conflicts: either the intensity of hostilities or a state’s (non-authorised) use of armed force outside its own territory. The paper analyses how the intensity and territorial scope of hostilities affect the epistemic and volitional context of decision-making on the battlefield and thereby IHRL’s and IHL’s respective ability to discharge the law’s two moral tasks. 
 
This analysis leads to the following proposal for a moral division of labour between IHRL and IHL: As the morally prima facie better law IHRL should govern the conduct of hostilities in law enforcement operations. In non-protracted IACs, ‘symmetrical IHRL’ – applied as if both parties had a lawful aim - should govern the permissibility of killing. Above the threshold of intensity at which hostilities count as protracted, hence during NIACs and protracted IACs, we face a choice between affording individuals a guide towards what is typically the course of action that conforms to their moral obligations (task one) and reducing individual rights violations in the outcome of warfare (task two). ‘Symmetrical IHRL’ better discharges task one; IHL better discharges task two. It depends on the relative moral costs of prioritizing one task over the other, which body of law should prevail. I argue that IHL currently offers a better, but far from morally ideal law for governing the permissibility of killing during the conduct of hostilities, once these hostilities reach the crucial threshold of being protracted. From a moral point of view, IHL should therefore displace IHRL and govern, on its own, the conduct of hostilities during NIACs and protracted IACs.
The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice ten years on: Successes and future challenges under the Stockholm Programme. CEPS Paperbacks. June 2010
This book celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) by bringing together the views of key practitioners and policy-makers who have played an outstanding role in thinking about and shaping EU policies on freedom, security and justice. 
 
Ten years ago, the member states transferred competences to the EU for law and policy-making in the fields of immigration, asylum and border controls, and began the transfer process for criminal justice and policing. This decade of European cooperation on AFSJ policies has experienced very dynamic convergence, the enactment of a large body of European law and the setting-up of numerous EU agencies working in these domains. Such dynamism in policy-making has not been without challenges and vulnerabilities, however. As this collective volume shows, the main dilemmas that lie ahead relate to an effective (while more plural) institutional framework under the Treaty of Lisbon, stronger judicial scrutiny through a greater role for national courts and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, better mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the implementation of EU AFSJ law and a more solid fundamental rights strategy. The contributions in this volume address the progress achieved so far in these policy areas, identify the challenges for future European cooperation in the AFSJ and put forward possible paths for making more progress in the next generation of the EU’s AFSJ.