The Principle of Discrimination in 21st Century Warfare

In this article, Professor Schmitt addresses changes in military technology and the implications of these changes for the humanitarian law of war, with particular focus on the principle of discrimination. Evolution in the machinery of warfare can be expected to improve the precision with which objects may be targeted. At the same time, this evolution may complicate considerations of what constitutes a legally permissible target. As technologically advanced militaries become increasingly interdependent with the infrastructure of civilian life, the line between legal military objectives and protected civilian objects may become blurred.

The international legal questions posed by this change will be particularly thorny in the case of warfare between technologically advanced military powers and less developed nations. In the short term, technologically disadvantaged States might have incentives to support a broad definition of legally permissible targets. Alternately, they might support a subjective standard, in which the technological capacity of a belligerent State partially determines its legal obligations. Professor Schmitt argues, however, that such an expansion of permissible military objectives would not only disserve the goals of humanitarian law, but ultimately prove disadvantageous to all States.