The Lawfare Podcast · The Lawfare Institute

Lawfare Daily: The State of IHL

February 26, 2026·21 min·1 clip

Stuart exposes how drones meant to protect civilians are being used by Russians in Kherson to deliberately target them.

Host Lauren Voss interviews Stuart Casey-Maslen, head of the IHL and Focus Project at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, about the academy's annual report on compliance with international humanitarian law across global armed conflicts. Casey-Maslen states there was never a golden age of IHL compliance but identifies a clear degeneration over the past 20 years, with serious violations increasingly treated as the new normal. He points to Gaza and Sudan as the two most alarming conflicts of the past 18 months in terms of civilian harm. The report found two major trends across conflicts. The first is the scale of sexual violence, particularly in Sudan, where gang rapes occurring openly in streets have shocked even longtime observers of Sudanese atrocities going back to the 2005 genocide. The second trend is the proliferation of armed drones by both states and non-state actors. Casey-Maslen explains that while drone technology allows for precise targeting and reduced civilian harm, Russian forces in Kherson province have used them to deliberately target civilians. Non-state actors including Islamic State in Somalia and drug cartels in Colombia now routinely deploy armed drones, attaching munitions to cheap quadcopters. Casey-Maslen warns that the next step is fully autonomous weapons, driven by the ability of both sides in Ukraine to jam drone control signals. He argues autonomous weapons are not inherently unlawful but raise serious concerns because algorithms cannot accept surrenders or determine whether a civilian is directly participating in hostilities. He notes these weapons could be programmed to be even more protective of civilian life than IHL requires, but the risk is that they are given free reign to attack anyone in populated areas. On Ukraine specifically, the report found a significant increase in civilian casualties driven by Russian missile attacks on energy infrastructure and deliberately targeted civilian areas. Casey-Maslen notes the Ukrainians have not responded in kind, demonstrating it is possible to fight a war while complying with IHL. He argues the Russian strategy of bombing civilians to force surrender has never worked historically, citing World War II as precedent. Regarding enforcement, Casey-Maslen expresses concern that funding for international criminal law mechanisms is under pressure and that U.S. sanctions against International Criminal Court judges undermine compliance at the worst possible time. He calls for new treaty rules to address weapons developed since 1977 when Additional Protocol One was adopted. Specifically, he argues IHL should require precision-guided munitions in populated areas, ban the use of multiple-barrel rocket launchers against populated areas, increase regulation of anti-vehicle mines to include deactivation mechanisms, and outlaw incendiary weapons like napalm and thermite. He addresses the political declaration on explosive weapons in populated areas as a helpful start but criticizes it for not naming specific weapon systems. Despite pessimism about the current environment, Casey-Maslen points to the Cuban Missile Crisis as precedent for new treaty rules emerging from the darkest moments. The Geneva Academy publishes ongoing updates through its Warwatch.ch platform and is expanding coverage to Venezuela, Haiti, and Mexico.

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