War and Law in a Digital World

Aurel Sari

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The Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program is a leading source of independent policy research, writing, and outreach on global democracy, conflict, and governance. It analyzes and seeks to improve international efforts to reduce democratic backsliding, mitigate conflict and violence, overcome political polarization, promote gender equality, and advance pro-democratic uses of new technologies.Learn More

This is part of a series on “The Digital in War: From Innovation to Participation,” co-produced by Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program and Swedish Defense University.

Technological advances over the past century have enabled modern armed forces to project power at a scale and speed never seen before. In parallel, the information revolution has dramatically expanded the capacity of ordinary citizens to actively participate in war by producing, relaying, and consuming information. Mediating war has thus become one aspect of fighting it.1

These developments call into question whether traditional theories of war are still adequate for understanding contemporary forms of warfare. Some commentators have argued that the information revolution has radically transformed the nature of war by erasing the distinctions between bystander, victim, and perpetrator to create a new hierarchy of war where everyone is now a participant.2 If so, the implications are profound, not least from a legal point of view.

The modern law of armed conflict is built on the principle of distinction—the idea that to avoid unconstrained warfare, lawful targets must be distinguished from civilian persons and objects.3 If the information revolution really has turned civilians into participants in warfare, this may render them lawful targets liable to attack. Should this affect a large number of civilians or even the civilian population as a whole, it could compromise the principle of distinction as the pillar on which much of the law of armed conflict rests. In turn, this could open the door to unlimited warfare.