The Law of Armed Conflict in 2040? A New Volume

Matthew Waxman
Wednesday, June 1, 2022, 9:42 AM

I am pleased to announce Oxford University Press’s publication of “The Future Law of Armed Conflict,” a volume I co-edited with my former student and member of West Point’s law department, Tom Oakley.

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I am pleased to announce Oxford University Press’s publication of “The Future Law of Armed Conflict,” a volume I co-edited with my former student and member of West Point’s law department, Tom Oakley. A version of my introduction is available here.

As I explain over at the Articles of War blog, this volume grew out of a 2020 workshop I helped convene with West Point’s Lieber Institute. Titled “LOAC 2040,” we assembled a group of leading academic experts and practitioners to consider future warfare and how changes in military technology, geopolitics and other factors might affect the international legal regulation of armed conflict. 

Many of the chapter authors write for this site; others I hope will become known to Lawfare readers. The table of contents can be found here.

I’m grateful to Lawfare’s John Bellinger for writing the foreword, in which he explains, “Rather than discuss present-day questions of coverage and interpretation of existing treaties or potential development of new agreements to address current problems, the authors of these essays attempt to look decades ahead to see how armed conflict may evolve and whether international law can keep up.” 

Feedback is most welcome.

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Matthew Waxman

Matthew Waxman

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Matthew Waxman is a law professor at Columbia Law School, where he chairs the National Security Law Program. He also previously co-chaired the Cybersecurity Center at Columbia University's Data Science Institute, and he is Adjunct Senior Fellow for Law and Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He previously served in senior policy positions at the State Department, Defense Department, and National Security Council. After graduating from Yale Law School, he clerked for Judge Joel M. Flaum of the U.S. Court of Appeals and Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter.

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