U.S.-Led Technological Warfare

As a Technology, Law & Society Graduate fellow, my research seeks to gain insight by looking to the natural law tradition, humanism, and contemporary practices of U.S.-led technological warfare, we can begin ask the right questions about how international law and ethics must evolve with technological innovation. From collateral damage estimation software as the exercise of ethical due care in war, to advanced algorithms determining which patterns of life constitute a “legitimate target” in drone strikes, how has technology come to replace difficult ethical decision-making in warfare? What answers might early international law thinkers and their humanist critics have to offer the complex legal and ethical dilemmas of contemporary techno-warfare? These guiding questions that build on my previous work, explore the underpinnings of international law to see how an increasingly computerized warfare is challenging some of these foundational assumptions, upon which we built our laws and ethics of war.