Dr Aurel Sari
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Aurel Sari

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So far Aurel Sari has created 97 blog entries.
2015 April

The Fable of the Law of the Flag

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For a couple of years, I have contributed to the NATO Legal Advisors Course at NATO School Oberammergau. In the past, I spoke about the European Union's practice in the field of status of forces agreements and the application of the rules of international responsibility to NATO. This year, my brief was to place the NATO Status of Forces Agreement of 1951 into its broader context by providing an overview of the legal framework governing the status of foreign armed forces in international law. In doing so, my aim was to dispell two persisent myths: first, that the so-called 'law of the flag' principle represents the traditional position of international law in this area and, second, that in the absence of status of forces agreements, soldiers enjoy the same legal position as tourists. In this post, I briefly explain why both of these assumptions are wrong.

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2014 November

Jaloud v Netherlands: New Directions in Extra-Territorial Military Operations

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Jaloud v Netherlands is the latest in a growing line of Strasbourg cases addressing the application of the Convention to extra-territorial military operations. In this post, I discuss the jurisdictional aspects of the case. Two points merit attention: the Court’s reasons for finding that the jurisdiction of the Netherlands was not excluded and the new category of extra-territorial jurisdiction over ‘persons passing through a checkpoint’.

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2014 November

The Crisis in Ukraine: Legal and Strategic Aspects

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On 17 November 2014, we hosted a seminar on the crisis in the Ukraine. Adopting a familiar format, we discussed the legal and strategic aspects of recent developments with the help of two speakers. Dr Tamás Hoffmann of Corvinus University Budapest gave as an insight into the questions of international law raised by the internal turmoil in the country, the subsequent events in the Crimea and the current conflict raging in the Donbass region. We then turned to Dr Daniel Steed from our Strategy and Security Institute, who offered an overview of the bigger strategic picture and gave us a detailed local and regional forecast of the likely strategic developments.

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2014 November

ARRCADE FUSION 2014

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I have spent three days with HQ Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) on its annual training exercise, ARRCADE FUSION 14, in November 2014. The exercise took place at RAF St Mawgan near Newquay in Cornwall. One of its aims was to test the air and sea command capability of the ARRC, following its 'upgrade' to a combined joint task force headquarter.

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2014 September

UK Military Action against ISIS: Legal and Strategic Aspects

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On 26 September 2014, Parliament approved British military intervention in Iraq against Islamic State by 524 to 43 votes. The previous day, the Government published a summary of its legal position for military action, suggesting that the consent of Iraq ‘provides a clear and unequivocal legal basis for the deployment of UK forces and military assets to take military action to strike [Islamic State] sites and military strongholds in Iraq.’ On 6 October 2014, we convened a 'rapid reaction seminar' to offer some initial thoughts on the legal and strategic aspects of this development.

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2014 September

Clearing the Fog of Law

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Led by Professor Noëlle Quénivet (UWE Bristol) and Dr Aurel Sari (University of Exeter), the purpose of the present project aims to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the challenges posed by international human rights law and its real and perceived impact on military operations. The work is funded by the British Academy and will involve a series of workshops and other activities over two years.

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2014 May

Sorry Sir, We’re All Non-State Actors Now

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The recent High Court judgment in the case of Serdar Mohammed v. Ministry of Defence [2014] EWHC 1369 (QB) has sparked a lively debate about the authority to detain individuals in the context of a non-international armed conflict (NIAC). In response to a post by Kubo Mačák offering a critical perspective on Mohammed, Lawrence Hill-Cawthorne and Dapo Akande have lent their support to the judgment in arguing that no legal basis for lethal targeting and detention exists in IHL.Essentially, Lawrence and Dapo advocate an understanding of IHL which conceives it as a purely regulatory framework in the sense that its sole purpose is to impose constraints on how States and non-State actors conduct hostilities, without recognising or conferring any rights on them to engage in such hostilities in the first place. On this view, killing and detention is permissible in armed conflict not because it is authorized by the rules of IHL, but because, and only in so far as, it is not prohibited by other rules of international law. In this post, I intend to demonstrate why this ‘Lotus approach’ to IHL is not compelling.

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2014 April

Future War and the Evolution of IHL

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On 1 May 2014, Professor Michael N Schmitt delivered a seminar on 'Future War and the Evolution of IHL' at Exeter Law School. In his talk, Professor Schmitt offered his thoughts on the relationship between changes in the nature of warfare and the evolution of international humanitarian law. In particular, he asked how future warfare is likely to shape the interpretation and application of international humanitarian law, focusing on the effect of cyber operations, the fielding of autonomous weapon systems, and increased visibility of the battlespace. I had the pleasure of acting as a respondent.

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2014 April

Exeter day conference on Targeted Killing

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On 29 April 2014, we hosted a day conference on Targeted Killing: Clearing the 'Fog of Law' at the University of Exeter. The event started with a presentation by Professor Michael Schmitt, with Professor Charles Garraway and Dr Anicée Van Engeland acting as respondents. In the afternoon, Major General (ret) Jerry Thomas CB DSO offered his personal view on drone warfare. The event was hosted jointly by the and the Exeter Research Programme in International Law and Military Operations convened under the auspices of Strategy and Security Institute.

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