Summary

• Military operations are taking place with increasing frequency in densely populated areas. Such operations result in loss of life and harm to civilians, as well as damage to civilian objects, (including infrastructure providing essential services). In order to protect civilians, it is imperative that armed forces and groups comply with the rules of international humanitarian law on the conduct of hostilities, including the rule of proportionality.
• The rule of proportionality prohibits attacks which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. This research paper analyses the key steps that belligerents must take to give effect to the rule, with a particular focus on one side of proportionality assessments – the expected incidental harm.
• Those undertaking proportionality assessments before or during an attack must consider whether the expected harm will be caused by the attack, and whether that harm could be expected (that is, was it reasonably foreseeable).
• For the purpose of proportionality assessments, injury to civilians includes disease, and there is no reason in principle to exclude mental harm, even though it is currently challenging to identify and quantify it. Damage to civilian objects includes damage to elements of the natural environment.
• Once the incidental harm to be considered has been identified, a value or weight must be assigned to it. This is then balanced against the value or weight of the military advantage anticipated from the attack to determine whether the harm would be excessive.
• In the determination of whether the expected incidental harm would be excessive compared to the anticipated military advantage, ‘excessive’ is a wide but not indeterminate standard.
• Belligerents should develop methodologies so that those planning and deciding attacks are provided with all necessary information on expected incidental harm, and to assist them in assigning weight to the incidental harm to be considered.
• If it becomes apparent that the rule of proportionality will be contravened, the attack in question must be cancelled or suspended.
• Clarification of the law is important in ensuring compliance with the rule of proportionality, but a culture of compliance within armed forces and groups, inculcated by their leaders, is also crucial.

There is growing attention to human rights in debates on economic inequality. In the UK, concerns about the disproportionate impact of economic policy on vulnerable groups have been raised recently by the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights – who issued a statement criticizing the Conservative government’s austerity policies – as well as in a report from the UK government’s independent Equality and Human Rights Commission. These reports echo global concerns about fiscal policies, poverty and extreme economic inequality.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights – which celebrates its 70th anniversary today – and the human rights treaties it inspired do not expressly address income and wealth gaps. But international human rights law is playing an increasing role in addressing economic polarization. Those concerned about inequality should consider how, especially over the past 25 years, the principles of socioeconomic rights have been clarified by courts and other human rights mechanisms. 

While the focus in the Global North has historically been on civil and political rights, such as the prohibition on torture or the right to fair trial, international human rights law does set out economic and social rights. For example, Article 23(4) of the Declaration – which is replicated in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and other treaties – calls for the right to collective bargaining in employment. Weakening protection in this area has been raised as a partial cause of the current escalation in income inequality. 

Human rights law also guarantees rights, including to education, healthcare and social security, that have redistributive potential and so have the potential to mitigate inequality.

Human rights law recognizes that fulfilment of economic and social rights, unlike civil and political rights, can be limited by the resources available to different states, and this conditionality – along with a lack of guidelines to assist with implementation and monitoring – has historically shielded fiscal policies from human rights scrutiny. However, attitudes have shifted.

For example, international human rights law has come to embody a commitment to tackling substantive inequalities which impair human dignity.  This requires the state regulate markets, and redistribute resources, in order to prevent discrimination against disadvantaged groups such as the poor. 

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and other human rights bodies assert that states have an immediate obligation, even during times of resource constraint, to ensure the fulfilment, without discrimination, of the minimum essential levels of socioeconomic rights, for example essential subsistence and basic shelter. Thus, austerity measures that scale back the enjoyment of rights may breach human rights standards. In order to justify such measures, governments need to first demonstrate they have considered ‘less restrictive’ avenues, including taxation options.

Although the application of human rights standards to economic policy is an emerging area, human rights campaigners have been successfully leveraging these protections to address the causes and consequences of the inequality crisis. 

For example, in case No. 66/2011 the European Committee of Social Rights overturned austerity measures that would have brought wages under the poverty level, citing breaches of labour rights and protections against discrimination. In Brazil, a coalition of civil society actors successfully used human rights standards to legitimize their critiques of a 2008 tax reform bill that would have given additional tax breaks to the wealthy while withdrawing resources for social services.

Beyond legal enforcement, framing concerns within the architecture of human rights can shift power to rights-bearers and move debates on tackling extreme inequality from the policy sphere into one where the state has a duty for which it is accountable. While the state bears primary responsibility for realizing human rights, non-state actors such as businesses have responsibilities to respect human rights. Thus, human rights can also help communities to recast the scope of the crisis to one of shared responsibility.

While human rights have seen many normative developments and advocacy successes since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the last 70 years also offer several lessons and strategies to adopt going forward. 

As highlighted at a recent Chatham House event, the continued emphasis on civil and political rights in the discussion about human rights is at odds with the lived experience of individuals and communities worldwide, who may not feel their economic and material concerns are reflected in campaigns for human rights.

There will need to be a greater emphasis on adapting messaging to be more inclusive and to build alliances between disparate groups. Human rights analysis will also need to move beyond documenting the impact of systemic issues towards tackling root causes and creating a positive vision for economic inclusion and governance.

China’s involvement in UN peacekeeping contributions has been on the rise for some time. China is also stepping up its own military and security operations abroad to protect its commercial and strategic interests, particularly in Africa. In doing so, China is exposing itself to a more complex set of issues – including international legal issues – with which it is only just starting to grapple.

China’s contribution to UN peacekeeping over the last 10 years has expanded dramatically. In September 2016, it pledged $1 billion to help fund UN peace, security and development activities, while in 2018 it supplied 10.3 per cent of the UN peacekeeping budget, up from 3.93 per cent in 2012. China is also the largest contributor of peacekeeping forces among the five permanent members of the Security Council. As well as its regular troop contributions, it has also established a stand-by rapid deployment force of 8,000 peacekeeping troops.

For China, increased involvement in UN peacekeeping offers what it likes to refer to as a ‘win-win’ situation. China’s contribution is very valuable at a time when peacekeeping is in need of resources, given the cutbacks from the other four permanent members of the Security Council in both financial and personnel contributions, waning US support for the UN and pressures on the UN budget.

At the same time, the increased role in UN peacekeeping helps to cement China’s image as a ‘responsible stakeholder’ in the international order. China’s contributions to peacekeeping missions also help to promote stability in countries in which China has significant strategic and commercial interests, such as Senegal, South Sudan and Mali. 

China’s increased involvement in UN peacekeeping has coincided with the adoption of a more pragmatic position in relation to its traditionally staunch adherence to the principles of state sovereignty and non-intervention.

China was initially sceptical of the UN’s Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, endorsed by member states in 2005, which seeks to protect populations from gross human rights violations, and which can include recourse to use of force by the international community, if authorized by the Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Over time, though, Beijing has softened its stance to intervention and has gradually acknowledged the ability to respond to humanitarian catastrophes in certain circumstances, for example voting in favour of the Intervention Brigade in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2013. 

The softening of China’s stance on non-intervention is also evident in the significant rise not only in the involvement of Chinese troops in UN peacekeeping, but also in the deployment of Chinese military and security forces in a number of African states in order to protect China’s investment and infrastructure projects located there.

In 2017, China established its first foreign naval base in Djibouti, and in 2018 it held military drills in several African countries. The significant increase in China’s military presence in Africa since 2015 gives rise to a number of more complex issues for both China and the local communities involved. According to a recent report, China’s growing military and security presence in Africa is leading to concern in some local constituencies. The fact that China’s state-centric perception of security and development downplays the importance of human rights is likely to compound these tensions on the ground.

New international law implications

The growing presence of Chinese peacekeeping, police and security forces abroad also carries implications for China in a number of different areas of international law with which it has only recently started to grapple. These include the law on the use of force and, given that many Chinese infrastructure projects are situated in fragile states, the law of armed conflict.

The mushrooming presence of Chinese companies and investments abroad also carries implications for the Chinese state, and for the companies concerned, under international human rights law (particularly the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights). The international law on state responsibility could also be relevant if security companies owned or employed by the Chinese government, where their actions are attributable to China, become complicit in breaches of international law by other governments (such as human rights abuses).

Compared to other areas of international law, such as international economic law and the law of the sea, China has not invested much to date in education in these areas, which may leave it exposed as it increases its global footprint. It was clear from a recent Chatham House roundtable at Columbia Law School in New York that China is now seeking to rapidly upskill in these areas.

China’s global economic and security ambitions appear to be tilting China towards a more interventionist approach, which is extending beyond UN peacekeeping contributions towards security and military missions of its own. Time will tell how China will respond to the challenge of burnishing its image as a good global citizen while maintaining an approach to peacekeeping, security and development which is closely informed by its own economic and security interests.

Following just over one year in office, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, outlines her ongoing priorities at a tumultuous time for fundamental rights protections worldwide.

She discusses the rights implications of climate change, gender inequality including the advancement of sexual and reproductive rights, the protection of vulnerable groups and the need to work closely with states, civil society and business to protect and advance human rights.

Summary

• Online political campaigning techniques are distorting our democratic political processes. These techniques include the creation of disinformation and divisive content; exploiting digital platforms’ algorithms, and using bots, cyborgs and fake accounts to distribute this content; maximizing influence through harnessing emotional responses such as anger and disgust; and micro-targeting on the basis of collated personal data and sophisticated psychological profiling techniques. Some state authorities distort political debate by restricting, filtering, shutting down or censoring online networks.
• Such techniques have outpaced regulatory initiatives and, save in egregious cases such as shutdown of networks, there is no international consensus on how they should be tackled. Digital platforms, driven by their commercial impetus to encourage users to spend as long as possible on them and to attract advertisers, may provide an environment conducive to manipulative techniques.
• International human rights law, with its careful calibrations designed to protect individuals from abuse of power by authority, provides a normative framework that should underpin responses to online disinformation and distortion of political debate. Contrary to popular view, it does not entail that there should be no control of the online environment; rather, controls should balance the interests at stake appropriately.
• The rights to freedom of thought and opinion are critical to delimiting the appropriate boundary between legitimate influence and illegitimate manipulation. When digital platforms exploit decision-making biases in prioritizing bad news and divisive, emotion-arousing information, they may be breaching these rights. States and digital platforms should consider structural changes to digital platforms to ensure that methods of online political discourse respect personal agency and prevent the use of sophisticated manipulative techniques.
• The right to privacy includes a right to choose not to divulge your personal information, and a right to opt out of trading in and profiling on the basis of your personal data. Current practices in collecting, trading and using extensive personal data to ‘micro-target’ voters without their knowledge are not consistent with this right. Significant changes are needed.
• Data protection laws should be implemented robustly, and should not legitimate extensive harvesting of personal data on the basis of either notional ‘consent’ or the data handler’s commercial interests. The right to privacy should be embedded in technological design (such as by allowing the user to access all information held on them at the click of a button); and political parties should be transparent in their collection and use of personal data, and in their targeting of messages. Arguably, the value of personal data should be shared with the individuals from whom it derives.
• The rules on the boundaries of permissible content online should be set by states, and should be consistent with the right to freedom of expression. Digital platforms have had to rapidly develop policies on retention or removal of content, but those policies do not necessarily reflect the right to freedom of expression, and platforms are currently not well placed to take account of the public interest. Platforms should be far more transparent in their content regulation policies and decision-making, and should develop frameworks enabling efficient, fair, consistent internal complaints and content monitoring processes. Expertise on international human rights law should be integral to their systems.
• The right to participate in public affairs and to vote includes the right to engage in public debate. States and digital platforms should ensure an environment in which all can participate in debate online and are not discouraged from standing for election, from participating or from voting by online threats or abuse.

In discussions to date about how international law applies in cyberspace, commentators have tended to focus their attention on how the rules on the use of force, or the law of armed conflict, apply to cyber activities conducted by states that give rise to physical damage, injury or death.

But in practice, the vast majority of state cyberattacks fall below this threshold. Far more common are persistent, low-level attacks that may leave no physical trace but that are capable of doing significant damage to a state’s ability to control its systems, often at serious economic cost.

Such cyber incursions might include network disruptions in the operation of another government’s websites; tampering with electoral infrastructure to change or undermine the result; or using cyber means to destabilize another state’s financial sector.

For these kinds of cyber operation, the principle of sovereignty, and the principle of non-intervention in another state’s internal affairs, are the starting point.

A UN Group of Government Experts (GGE) agreed in 2013 and 2015 that the principles in the UN Charter, including sovereignty and the prohibition on intervention in another state’s affairs, apply to states’ activities in cyberspace. The 2015 GGE also recommended eleven (non-binding) norms of responsible state behaviour in cyberspace.

However, states have not yet reached agreement on how to apply these principles. Until recently, there has also been very little knowledge of what states actually do in cyberspace, as they usually conduct cyber operations covertly and have been reluctant to put their views on record.

A new Chatham House research paper analyses the application of the principles of sovereignty and non-intervention to state cyberattacks that fall below the principle of use of force. As well as analysing the application of the law in this area, the paper also makes recommendations to governments on how they might best make progress in reaching agreement in this area.

Existing rules or new rules?

As the research paper makes clear, there is currently some debate, principally between countries in the West, about the extent to which sovereignty is a legally binding rule in the context of cyberspace and, if so, how it and the principle of non-intervention might apply in practice.

In the last few years, certain states have put on record how they consider international law to apply to states’ activities in cyberspace, namely the UK, Australia, France and the Netherlands. While there may be some differences in their approaches, which are discussed in the paper, there also remains important common ground: namely, that existing international law already provides a solid framework for regulating states’ cyber activities, as it regulates every other domain of state-to-state activity.

There is also an emerging trend for states to work together when attributing cyberattacks to hostile states, enabling them to call out malign cyber activity when it violates international law. (See, for example, the joint statements made in relation to the NotPetya cyber attack and malicious cyber activity attributed to the Russian government).

However, other countries have questioned whether existing international law as it stands is capable of regulating states’ cyber interactions and have called for ‘new legal instruments’ in this area.

This includes a proposal by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (led by Russia and China) for an International Code of Conduct on Information Security, a draft of which was submitted to the UN in 2011 and 2015, without success. The UN has also formed a new Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) under a resolution proposed by Russia to consider how international law applies to states’ activities in cyberspace.

The resolution establishing the OEWG, which began work earlier this year, includes the possibility of the group ‘introducing changes to the rules, norms and principles of responsible behaviour of States’ agreed in the 2013 and 2015 GGE reports. In the OEWG discussions at the UN in September, several countries claimed that a new legal instrument was needed to fill the ‘legal vacuum’ (Cuba) or ‘the gap of ungoverned areas’ (Indonesia).

It would be concerning if the hard-won consensus on the application of international law to cyberspace that has been reached at past GGEs started to unravel. In contrast to 2013 and 2015, the 2017 meeting failed to reach an agreement.

On 9 December, a renewed GGE will meet in New York, but the existence of the OEWG exploring the same issues in a separate process reflects the fact that cyber norms have become an area of geopolitical rivalry.

Aside from the application of international law, states are also adopting divergent approaches to the domestic regulation of cyberspace within their own territory. The emerging trend towards a ‘splinternet’ – i.e. between states that believe the internet should be global and open on the hand, and those that favour a ‘sovereignty and control’ model on the other  – is also likely to make discussions at the GGE more challenging.

Distinct from the international law concept of sovereignty is the notion of ‘cybersovereignty’, a term coined by China to describe the wide-ranging powers it assumes under domestic law to regulate its citizens’ access to the internet and personal data within its territory. This approach is catching on (as reflected in Russia’s recently enacted ‘Sovereign Internet Law’), with other authoritarian states likely to follow suit.

The importance of non-state actors

In parallel with regional and UN discussions on how international law applies, a number of initiatives by non-state actors have also sought to establish voluntary principles about responsible state behaviour in cyberspace.

The Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace, a multi-stakeholder body that has proposed principles, norms and recommendations to guide responsible behaviour by all parties in cyberspace, recently published its final report. The Cybersecurity Tech Accord  aims to promote collaboration between tech companies on stability and resilience in cyberspace. President Macron’s ‘Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace’ has to date received the backing of 67 states, 139 international and civil society organizations, and 358 private-sector organizations.

It remains to be seen in the long term whether the parallel processes at the UN will work constructively together or be competitive. But notwithstanding the challenging geopolitical backdrop, the UN GGE meeting next week at the least offers states the opportunity to consolidate and build on the results of past meetings; to increase knowledge and discussion about how international law might apply; and to encourage more states to put their own views of these issues on the record.

With increased use of military drones in recent years there have also been many calls for greater transparency and accountability with regards to drone operations.

This would allow for greater public understanding, particularly as the complex nature of military operations today intensifies difficulties in sustaining perceptions of the legitimate use of force.

For example, in Europe, leading states rely on the US for drone platforms and for the infrastructure - such as military communication networks - that enable those operations, while the US also relies on airbases in European states to operate its drone programme.

In addition, with reports that the US is loosening the rules on the use of drones, it is important to understand how European approaches to transparency and accountability may be affected by these developments.

This workshop focuses on how European states can facilitate transparency to ensure accountability for drone use, as well as what the limits might be, considering both the complexity of military operations today and the need for achieving operational goals.

With the US easing restrictions on export controls, the discussion also considers the role of regulation in ensuring accountability and prospects for developing common standards.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only.

• Civil nuclear facilities and organizations hold sensitive information on security clearances, national security, health and safety, nuclear regulatory issues and international inspection obligations. The sensitivity and variety of such data mean that products tailored for insuring the civil nuclear industry have evolved independently and are likely to continue to do so.
• ‘Air-gaps’ – measures designed to isolate computer systems from the internet – need to be continually maintained for industrial systems. Yet years of evidence indicate that proper maintenance of such protections is often lacking (mainly because very real economic drivers exist that push users towards keeping infrastructure connected). Indeed, even when air-gaps are maintained, security breaches can still occur.
• Even if a particular organization has staff that are highly trained, ready and capable of handling a technological accident, hacking attack or incidence of insider sabotage, it still has to do business and/or communicate with other organizations that may not have the essentials of cybersecurity in place.
• Regardless of whether the choice is made to buy external insurance or put aside revenues in preparation for costly incidents, the approach to cyber risk calculation should be the same. Prevention is one part of the equation, but an organization will also need to consider the resources and contingency measures available to it should prevention strategies fail. Can it balance the likelihood of a hacker’s success against the maximum cost to the organization, and put aside enough capital and manpower to get it through a crisis?
• All civil nuclear facilities should consider the establishment of computer security incident response (CSIR) teams as a relevant concern, if such arrangements are not already in place. The existence of a CSIR team will be a prerequisite for any facility seeking to obtain civil nuclear cyber insurance.
• Preventing attacks such as those involving phishing and ransomware requires good cyber hygiene practices throughout the workforce. Reducing an organization’s ‘time to recovery’ takes training and dedication. Practising the necessary tasks in crisis simulations greatly reduces the likelihood of friction and the potential for error in a crisis.

This roundtable is part of a series under the project, 'Implementing the Commonwealth Cybersecurity Agenda', funded by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). The roundtable aims to provide a multi-stakeholder, pan-Commonwealth platform to discuss how to implement the Commonwealth Cyber Declaration with a focus on its third pillar 'To promote stability in cyberspace through international cooperation'.

In particular, the roundtable focuses on points 3 and 4 of the third pillar which revolve around the commitment to promote frameworks for stability in cyberspace including the applicability of international law, agreed voluntary norms of responsible state behaviour and the development and implementation of confidence-building measures consistent with the 2015 report of the UNGGE. 

The workshop also focuses on the commitment to advance discussions on how existing international law, including the Charter of the United Nations and applicable international humanitarian law, applies in cyberspace.

The roundtable addresses the issue of global cyber governance from a Commonwealth perspective and will also include a discussion around the way forward, the needed capacity of the different Commonwealth countries and the cooperation between its members for better cyber governance.

Participants include UNGGE members from Commonwealth countries in addition to representatives to the UN Open-Ended Working Group from African countries as well as members from academia, civil society and industry.

Technological progress in neurotechnology and its military use is proceeding apace. As early as the 1970s, brain-machine interfaces have been the subject of study. By 2014, the UK’s Ministry of Defence was arguing that the development of artificial devices, such as artificial limbs, is ‘likely to see refinement of control to provide… new ways to connect the able-bodied to machines and computers.’ Today, brain-machine interface technology is being investigated around the world, including in Russia, China and South Korea.

Recent developments in the private sector are producing exciting new capabilities for people with disabilities and medical conditions. In early July, Elon Musk and Neuralink presented their ‘high-bandwidth’ brain-machine interface system, with small and flexible electrode threads packaged into a small device containing custom chips and to be inserted and implanted into the user’s brain for medical purposes.

In the military realm, in 2018, the United States’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) put out a call for proposals to investigate the potential of nonsurgical brain-machine interfaces to allow soldiers to ‘interact regularly and intuitively with artificially intelligent, semi-autonomous and autonomous systems in a manner currently not possible with conventional interfaces’. DARPA further highlighted the need for these interfaces to be bidirectional – where information is sent both from brain to machine (neural recording) and from machine to brain (neural stimulation) – which will eventually allow machines and humans to learn from each other.

This technology may provide soldiers and commanders with a superior level of sensory sensitivity and the ability to process a greater amount of data related to their environment at a faster pace, thus enhancing situational awareness. These capabilities will support military decision-making as well as targeting processes.

Neural recording will also enable the obtention of a tremendous amount of data from operations, including visuals, real-time thought processes and emotions. These sets of data may be used for feedback and training (including for virtual wargaming and for machine learning training), as well as for investigatory purposes. Collected data will also feed into research that may help researchers understand and predict human intent from brain signals – a tremendous advantage from a military standpoint.

Legal and ethical considerations

The flip side of these advancements is the responsibilities they will impose and the risks and vulnerabilities of the technology as well as legal and ethical considerations.

The primary risk would be for users to lose control over the technology, especially in a military context; hence a fail-safe feature is critical for humans to maintain ultimate control over decision-making. Despite the potential benefits of symbiosis between humans and AI, users must have the unconditional possibility to override these technologies should they believe it is appropriate and necessary for them to do so.

This is important given the significance of human control over targeting, as well as strategic and operational decision-making. An integrated fail-safe in brain-machine interfaces may in fact allow for a greater degree of human control over critical, time-sensitive decision-making. In other words, in the event of incoming missiles alert, while the AI may suggest a specific course of action, users must be able to decide in a timely manner whether to execute it or not.

Machines can learn from coded past experiences and decisions, but humans also use gut feelings to make life and death decisions. A gut feeling is a human characteristic that is not completely transferable, as it relies on both rational and emotional traits – and is part of the ‘second-brain’ and the gut-brain axis which is currently poorly understood. It is however risky to take decisions solely on gut feelings or solely on primary brain analysis—therefore, receiving a comprehensive set of data via an AI-connected brain-machine interface may help to verify and evaluate the information in a timely manner, and complement decision-making processes. However, these connections and interactions would have to be much better understood than the current state of knowledge. 

Fail-safe features are necessary to ensure compliance with the law, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law. As a baseline, human control must be used to 1) define areas where technology may or may not be trusted and to what extent, and 2) ensure legal, political and ethical accountability, responsibility and explainability at all times. Legal and ethical considerations must be taken into account from as early as the design and conceptualizing stage of these technologies, and oversight must be ensured across the entirety of the manufacturing supply chain.  

The second point raises the need to further explore and clarify whether existing national, regional and international legal, political and ethical frameworks are sufficient to cover the development and use of these technologies. For instance, there is value in assessing to what extent AI-connected brain-machine interfaces will affect the assessment of the mental element in war crimes and their human rights implications.

In addition, these technologies need to be highly secure and invulnerable to cyber hacks. Neural recording and neural stimulation will be directly affecting brain processes in humans and if an adversary has the ability to connect to a human brain, steps need to be taken to ensure that memory and personality could not be damaged.

Future questions

Military applications of technological progress in neurotechnology is inevitable, and their implications cannot be ignored. There is an urgent need for policymakers to understand the fast-developing neurotechnical capabilities, develop international standards and best practices – and, if necessary, new and dedicated legal instruments – to frame the use of these technologies.

Considering the opportunities that brain-machine interfaces may present in the realms of security and defence, inclusive, multi-stakeholder discussions and negotiations leading to the development of standards must include the following considerations:

• What degree of human control would be desirable, at what stage and by whom? To what extent could human users be trusted with their own judgment in decision-making processes?
• How could algorithmic and human biases, the cyber security and vulnerabilities of these technologies and the quality of data be factored into these discussions?
• How can ethical and legal considerations be incorporated into the design stage of these technologies?
• How can it be ensured that humans cannot be harmed in the process, either inadvertently or deliberately?
• Is there a need for a dedicated international forum to discuss the military applications of neurotechnology? How could these discussions be integrated to existing international processes related to emerging military applications of technological progress, such as the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems?

Strategic systems that depend on space-based assets, such as command, control and communication, early warning systems, weapons systems and weapons platforms, are essential for conducting successful NATO operations and missions. Given the increasing dependency on such systems, the alliance and key member states would therefore benefit from an in-depth analysis of possible mitigation and resilience measures.

This workshop is part of the International Security Department’s (ISD) project on space security and the vulnerability of strategic assets to cyberattacks, which includes a recently published report. This project aims to create resilience in NATO and key NATO member states, building the capacity of key policymakers and stakeholders to respond with effective policies and procedures. This workshop will focus on measures to mitigate the cyber vulnerabilities of NATO’s space-dependent strategic assets. Moreover, participants will discuss the type of resilience measures and mechanisms required.

Attendance at this event is by invitation only. 

New technology such as 5G, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and robotics have become, now more than ever, intertwined with geopolitical, economic and trade interests. Leading powers are using new technology to exert power and influence and to shape geopolitics more generally.

The ongoing race between the US and China around 5G technology is a case in point. Amid these tensions, the impact on developing countries is not sufficiently addressed.

Arguably, the existing digital divide will increase leading developing countries to the early, if not hasty, adoption of new technology for fear of lagging behind. This could create opportunities but will also pose risks.

This panel discusses how new technology is changing the geopolitical landscape. It also discusses the role that stakeholders, including governments, play in the creation of standards for new technologies and what that means for its deployment in key markets technically and financially.

Finally, the panel looks at the issue from the perspective of developing countries, addressing the choices that have to be made in terms of affordability, development priorities and security concerns.

This event was organized with the kind support of DXC Technology.

Summary

• Machine learning (ML)-driven personalization is fast expanding from social media to the wider information space, encompassing legacy media, multinational conglomerates and digital-native publishers: however, this is happening within a regulatory and oversight vacuum that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
• Mass-scale adoption of personalization in communication has serious implications for human rights, societal resilience and political security. Data protection, privacy and wrongful discrimination, as well as freedom of opinion and of expression, are some of the areas impacted by this technological transformation.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) and its ML subset are novel technologies that demand novel ways of approaching oversight, monitoring and analysis. Policymakers, regulators, media professionals and engineers need to be able to conceptualize issues in an interdisciplinary way that is appropriate for sociotechnical systems.
• Funding needs to be allocated to research into human–computer interaction in information environments, data infrastructure, technology market trends, and the broader impact of ML systems within the communication sector.
• Although global, high-level ethical frameworks for AI are welcome, they are no substitute for domain- and context-specific codes of ethics. Legacy media and digital-native publishers need to overhaul their editorial codes to make them fit for purpose in a digital ecosystem transformed by ML. Journalistic principles need to be reformulated and refined in the current informational context in order to efficiently inform the ML models built for personalized communication.
• Codes of ethics will not by themselves be enough, so current regulatory and legislative frameworks as they relate to media need to be reassessed. Media regulators need to develop their in-house capacity for thorough research and monitoring into ML systems, and – when appropriate –proportionate sanctions for actors found to be employing such systems towards malign ends. Collaboration with data protection authorities, competition authorities and national electoral commissions is paramount for preserving the integrity of elections and of a political discourse grounded on democratic principles.
• Upskilling senior managers and editorial teams is fundamental if media professionals are to be able to engage meaningfully and effectively with data scientists and AI engineers.

To understand Lebanon’s financial collapse, look to its politics.

The country has been deeply damaged by an increasingly dysfunctional political system. A series of compromises have alienated it from its main markets in the Gulf and strangled its economy; anyone that has glanced at fluctuations in Lebanese bank deposits over the last 10 years can see the correlation.

Imagine if Boris Johnson or Donald Trump were obliged to form joint governments with Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders. The result would be paralysis and lack of accountability as each party pulls the country in opposite directions and blames the other for the state of limbo. This has been the state of affairs in Lebanon since the Doha agreement of 2008. 

That agreement followed an 18-month siege that paralyzed Beirut and an attack on the city by Hezbollah’s ‘black shirts’. The Doha formula imposed governments of national unity between Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s pro-Saudi camp and Hezbollah’s pro-Iran camp and their respective internal allies.

The pattern was set: each period of subsequent paralysis was followed by further compromise as the tug of war pulled the country away from its principal economic partners, the Arab Gulf states, with the regional balance of power tilting towards Hezbollah. 

It was not supposed to be like this. The Baabda Declaration in June 2012, reached after a process of national dialogue, was meant to secure Lebanon’s neutrality in regional conflicts, with both sides promising to hold back on external alliances and coexist despite difference over major regional issues like the war in Syria, the standoff between the US and Iran or relations with Israel or the Gulf states.

This has worn away. The Baabda declaration itself became a sham when Hezbollah inserted itself into the war in Syria in support of the Assad regime and overtly got involved in Iraq and Yemen as an Iranian proxy. This was followed by Saudi opposition to concessions by Hariri that led to the election of General Michel Aoun, an ally of Hezbollah, as president in October 2016; again, after a political paralysis that lasted 29 months with no active government and no head of state.  

The Saudis were also furious when President Aoun’s son-in-law, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, abstained from condemning the burning of the Saudi embassy in Tehran at an Arab League meeting in Cairo in January 2016, citing the need to preserve national unity.

Fearing that he was simply providing Hezbollah with protection in the guise of compromise, the Saudis pressured Hariri to resign in November 2017 during a trip to Riyadh, but he later challenged that by retracting on his resignation when back in Beirut. Lebanon was caught between two sides, and as the regional conflict intensified from tension to open confrontation, neutrality was no longer an option.

Gulf connections

An estimated 350,000 Lebanese expats live and work in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait. These countries are also the main clients for Lebanese contractors, consultants and advertising companies, some of which have offices there. The domestic tourism industry relies heavily on Arab Gulf visitors and they are a principal source of foreign investments especially in the real estate sector.

Lebanon also enjoyed a certain degree of political and economic protection from the US and the Gulf, and Hezbollah benefited indirectly from that protection, as it also shielded it to a certain degree from sanctions.

The deterioration of relations meant that the country was cut off by its Gulf partners. This was manifested in travel bans for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nationals to Lebanon and a decrease in investments and bank deposits, as well as a decrease in remittances from Lebanese expats, partly because of economic crisis in the Gulf countries themselves.

Saudi Arabia withdrew $4 billion of aid to the Lebanese army and internal security forces, and no aid or deposits were forthcoming as the economic and financial situation deteriorated. 

The costs to the Lebanese economy include the opportunity cost created by the annual threat of war with Israel, after which trips are cancelled and projects postponed. Hezbollah also controls a section of Beirut port where it pays no duty or taxes. Add to that the economic fallout from the war in Syria, such as the impact on exports, the inflow of refugees and the cost of Hezbollah’s involvement.

The burden of these political factors is difficult to estimate but it constitutes the ransom that the Lebanese economy bears as a cost of the compromise. This is not to absolve Lebanese politicians from corruption or bankers of mismanagement but to add that political factors cannot be ignored.

The cumulative cost and economic impact of being cut off from its main economic partner eventually bankrupted the country. The fiscal and financial aspects, with Lebanon’s inability to service its debt, are but a reflection of these political factors. In the long run, the key to avoiding complete collapse is to restore relations with the GCC and free Lebanon from that very costly grip.

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT IS POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

 

Libya's third bout of civil war in a decade began when Khalifa Haftar's Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) launched an offensive on Tripoli in April 2019. Since then, a growing number of foreign states have intervened ever more deeply in the conflict. Warring Libyan armed factions, broadly aligned with either the internationally recognized Government of National Accord or the LAAF, have become increasingly reliant on foreign support to prosecute their war effort.  

Against this backdrop, the panellists will reflect on the forces that have shaped Libya’s trajectory since 2011. As the prospects for international mediation remain bleak, what motivations and grievances are driving the country’s warring parties? How can this war be explained beyond a scramble for the control of Libya’s oil wealth? And are Libyans at risk of being mere pawns in a proxy war?

 

This article explores the role of religion in political transnationalism using the case of the Shi'a Iraqi diaspora since 2003. The article focuses on three areas that capture important trends in Shi'a transnationalism and their implications for transnational Shi'a identity politics. These include Shi'a diasporic politics, transnational Shi'a civic activism, and the cultural production of Iraqi Shi'a identity through pilgrimages, rituals and new practices. It is argued that understanding Shi'a Islam and identity formation requires adopting a transnational lens. The evolution of Shi'a Islam is not only a result of the dictates of the Shi'a clerical centres, and how they influence Shi'a populations abroad, but also the transnational interrelationships and links to holy shrine cities, Shi'i national and international politics, humanitarianism and commemorations and rituals. The article demonstrates that Shi'a political transnationalism is unexceptional in that it echoes much of the literature on diasporic politics and development where diaspora involve themselves from afar in the politics and societies of their countries of origin. At the same time, it shows the exceptionalism of Shi'a diasporic movements, in that their motivations and mobilizations are contributing to the reification of sectarian geographical and social borders, creating a transnationalism that is defined by largely Shi'a networks, spaces, actors and causes. The case of Shi'a political transnationalism towards Iraq shows that this is increasing the distance between Shi'is and Iraq's other communities, simultaneously fragmenting Iraq's national unity while deepening Shi'a identity and politics both nationally and supra-nationally.

As Lebanon strains to contain COVID-19, it is not clear which governmental public health policies apply to refugees. The government announced free testing for coronavirus in the public Rafiq Hariri University Hospital in Beirut but has not mentioned if refugees are eligible.

Lebanon’s coronavirus containment strategy is based on self-reporting and, given incidents of forced deportation and harassment of Syrian refugees from both the authorities and local communities, it is certainly less likely refugees would present themselves to the health authorities for fear of deportation.

Despite agreeing a Lebanon Crisis Response Plan with the UN for refugees, different ministries were left to implement it without coordination, just as Lebanese politicians from all sides started trying to rally popular support for ridding Lebanon from refugees - in particular from Syria, who Lebanese leaders say are causing a strain on the country’s already weak infrastructure.

This finger pointing is coupled with the leaders’ own complete disregard for the rampant corruption and lack of accountability within Lebanon’s political class, which contribute to the weakening of the country’s infrastructure.

For refugees who do find themselves back in Syria, there are different challenges according to which area they are in. In the north-east, the WHO and international NGOs (INGOs) negotiate with both Kurdish authorities as well as the government - each presenting its own hurdles.

Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria have closed the Semalka border with Iraqi Kurdistan, posing a serious dilemma for INGOs offering services in north-east Syria but concerned about their staff safety whose movement is now curtailed.

The government of Syria has stipulated all emergency response must go through its ministries. But this limits what the WHO can do in the country and gives Syrian authorities the ability to block ‘cross-line aid’ which goes from government-controlled to non-government areas.

Despite reports that doctors raised the alarm about suspected cases well before patient zero was confirmed, the government appears to be either covering up the actual extent of the spread of COVID-19 or failing to respond. Some limited testing kits have arrived but testing has barely started.

The WHO’s Syria plan is divided into three regions (north-west, north-east, and areas under government control). But concerns remain as to how workable such a decentralized plan is because of the government’s practices. In January, the UN Security Council did not renew the cross-border response resolution for the Yaroubiye border crossing between Syria and Iraq that the WHO was using to send medical supplies into north-east Syria.

Syrian authorities do not permit recently authorized ‘cross-line’ responders to engage with non-government authorities in areas outside regime control. This essentially voids the authorization to work cross-line as it is practically impossible to implement programs. The WHO has sought approval from the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to move medical supplies by land to north-east Syria.

While promising facilitation, the Ministry’s reply comes with conditions of seeking detailed approval for every shipment. When Eastern Ghouta was under siege, similar conditions led to certain supplies being removed from UN/ICRC convoys to Eastern Ghouta, and there is no guarantee this will not happen again.

Due to lack of capacity in north-east Syria, coronavirus tests conducted by the WHO there must be processed through the Central Public Health Laboratory in Damascus. Samples are transported twice a week from Qamishli to Damascus but no results were ever received from Damascus for those tests.

While the WHO is able to coordinate access to north-west Syria with the Turkish authorities, the prospective coronavirus testing capacity in the Idlib region is low – despite claims that thousands of kits are arriving, a lack of resource on the ground means potentially only 20 tests per day could be done in an area inhabited by an estimated three million people.

Following the recently announced ceasefire in the area, many internally displaced people are returning from the Turkish border to their homes in the north-west, but such mass movement increases the risk of coronavirus spreading. People also continue to move between Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Lebanon, posing a challenge to the WHO’s COVID-19 response in the Levant, as the WHO has distinct response plans for each country in the region and it is difficult to coordinate across these plans.

Challenges face refugees even if they head towards Europe due to the potential for conflation between migration control and coronavirus outbreak control. Aurelie Ponthieu, Coordinator for Forced Migration at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) says there is a risk some countries could use COVID-19 to impose draconian measures towards asylum seekers.

The crisis has also put a halt to search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean because European countries are not allowing boats carrying migrants to disembark under the pretext of limiting the spread of coronavirus. And for migrants who already made it - such as in Greece - they are now being put in collective quarantines in asylum centers, often with poor medical facilities.

Ponthieu also reports that migrants being quarantined on overcrowded navy ships docked in Greek ports, making social distancing impossible. And she is concerned the Greek authorities are imposing a curfew on asylum seekers but not on the local population.

UNHCR is stressing that people’s right of asylum must not be overruled by concerns about the spread of coronavirus, while local and international NGOs across the Levant are trying to coordinate their advocacy on lifting restrictions on freedom of movement for humanitarian workers and on other policies and practices by authorities in the region which are adversely affecting refugee and other vulnerable communities.

The international community must not lose sight of the impact of the crisis on refugees and migrants. It is not enough simply to supply humanitarian and medical assistance without paying attention to the policies and practices of the different authorities who have direct control over the fate of vulnerable communities.

The author would like to thank Aurelie Ponthieu and the two INGO field workers who all agreed to be interviewed to inform this analysis piece.

Iraq is a country already in turmoil, suffering fallout from the major military escalation between the US and Iran, mass protests calling for an end to the post-2003 political system, and a violent government crackdown killing more than 600 and wounding almost 30,000 - all presided over by a fragmented political elite unable to agree upon a new prime minister following Adil abd al-Mehdi’s resignation back in November.

COVID-19 introduces yet another threat to the fragile political order, as the virus exposes Iraq’s ineffective public health system dismantled through decades of conflict, corruption and poor governance.

Iraqi doctors are making every effort to prepare for the worst-case scenario, but they do so with huge structural challenges. The Ministry of Health lacks enough ICU beds, human resources, ventilators, and personal protective equipment (PPE). Bogged down in bureaucracy, the ministry is struggling to process procurements of equipment and medications, and some doctors have made purchases themselves.

But individual efforts can only go so far as many Iraqi doctors are concerned the official numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases do not reflect the complexity of the situation on the ground.

The ministry relies predominately upon patients self-presenting at designated public hospitals and has only just begun community-based testing in areas of suspected clusters. Reliance on self-presentation requires a level of trust between citizens and state institutions, which is at a historic low. This gap in trust – 17 years in the making – puts Iraq’s COVID-19 response particularly at risk.

Iraq’s myriad vulnerabilities

Certain social and political factors leave Iraq uniquely exposed to the coronavirus. The country’s vulnerability is tied directly to its social, religious and economic interconnections with Iran, an epicenter of the pandemic.

Exchanges between Iran and Iraq are concentrated in two regions, with strong cross-border links between Iraqi and Iranian Kurds in the north-east, and Iraqi and Iranian Shia pilgrims in the south. Cross-border circulation of religious pilgrims is particularly concerning, as they can result in mass ritual gatherings.

The high number of confirmed cases in the southern and northern peripheries of the country puts a spotlight on Iraq's failure in managing healthcare. The post-2003 government has failed to either rebuild a robust centralized healthcare system, or to pave the way for a federalized model.

Caught in an ambiguous middle between a centralized and federalized model, coordination across provinces and hospitals during the coronavirus crisis has neither reflected strong management from Baghdad nor robust ownership at the governorate level.

This problem is part of a wider challenge of managing centre-periphery relations and federalism, which since 2003 has not worked effectively. Baghdad has provided all 18 provinces with instructions on testing and treatment, but only a handful have enough resources to put them into practice. Advanced testing capacity is limited to the five provinces with WHO-approved centers, with the remaining 13 sending swabs to Baghdad.

But the greatest challenge to Iraq’s COVID-19 response is the dramatic deterioration of state-society relations. Studies reveal a profound societal distrust of Iraq’s public healthcare institutions, due to corruption and militarization of medical institutions. Numerous videos have recently circulated of families refusing to turn over sick members - particularly women - to medical teams visiting households with confirmed or suspected cases.

As medical anthropologist Omar Dewachi notes, the ‘moral economy of quarantine’ in Iraq is heavily shaped by a history of war and its impact on the relationship between people and the state. Although local and international media often interpret this reluctance to undergo quarantine as a matter of social or tribal norms, distrusting the state leads many families to refuse quarantine because they believe it resembles a form of arrest.

The management of coronavirus relies upon an overt convergence between medical institutions and security forces as the federal police collaborate with the Ministry of Health to impose curfews and enforce quarantine. This means that, troublingly, the same security establishment which violently cracked down on protesters and civil society activists is now the teeth behind Iraq’s COVID-19 response.

Without trust between society and the political class, civil society organizations and protest movements have directed their organizational structure towards awareness-raising across Iraq. Key religious authorities such as Grand Ayatollah Sistani have called for compliance to the curfew and mobilized charitable institutions.

However, such efforts will not be enough to make up for the lack of governance at the level of the state. In the short-term, Iraq’s medical professionals and institutions are in dire need of technical and financial support. In the long-term, COVID-19 is a lesson that Iraq’s once robust public healthcare system needs serious investment and reform.

COVID-19 may prove to be another catalyst challenging the ‘muddle through’ logic of the Iraqi political elite. International actors have largely been complicit in this logic, directing aid and technical support towards security forces and political allies in the interest of short-term stability, and neglecting institutions which Iraqis rely on for health, education, and well-being.

The response to the crisis requires cooperation and buy-in of a population neglected by 17 years of failed governance. This is a seminal event that may push the country to the brink, exposing and stirring underlying tensions in state-society relations.

This analysis was produced as part of the Iraq Initiative.

Historically, Iraq lay claim to one of the most abundant water supplies in the Middle East. But the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers has reduced by up to 40% since the 1970s, due in part to the actions of neighbouring countries, in particular Turkey, upstream.

Rising temperatures and reduced rainfall due to climate change are also negatively impacting Iraq’s water reserves. Evaporation from dams and reservoirs is estimated to lose the country up to 8 billion cubic metres of water every year.

A threat to peace and stability

Shortages have dried up previously fertile land, increasing poverty in agricultural areas. Shortages have also served to fuel conflict: communities faced with successive droughts and government inertia proved to be easy targets for ISIS recruiters, who lured farmers into joining them by offering money and food to feed their families. Economic hardship for those whose livelihoods relied upon river water has also driven rural to urban migration, putting significant strain on already over-populated towns and cities, exacerbating housing, job and electricity shortages, and widening the gap between haves and have-nots.

But scarcity isn’t the most crucial element of Iraq’s water crisis – contamination is. Decades of local government mismanagement, corrupt practices and a lack of regulation of dumping (it is estimated up to 70% of Iraq’s industrial waste is dumped directly into water) has left approximately three in every five citizens without a reliable source of potable water.

In 2018, 118,000 residents of Basra province were hospitalised with symptoms brought on by drinking contaminated water, which not only put a spotlight on the inadequacies of a crumbling healthcare system but sparked mass protests and a subsequent violent crackdown.

The water crisis is also undermining the stability of the country’s federal governance model, by occasionally sparking disputes between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government, as well as between governorates in the south.

The crisis is both a symptom and a cause of poor governance. Iraq is stuck in a cycle whereby government inaction causes shortages and contamination, which result in economic losses, reduced food supply, increased prices and widespread poor health. This in turn leads to increasing levels of poverty, higher demand on services and civil unrest, increasing the pressure on a weak, dysfunctional system of government.

What can be done?

The first priority should be modernising existing water-management infrastructure - a relic of a time when the problem was an excess rather than a shortage of water (the last time Iraq’s flood defences were required was 1968). Bureaucratic hurdles, widespread corruption and an endless cycle of other crises taking precedent prevent good initiatives from being implemented or scaled up.

Diversifying energy sources to improve provision is crucial. Baghdad has a sewage treatment plant that originally ran on its own electricity source, but this capacity was destroyed in 1991 and was never replaced. The city continues to suffer from dangerous levels of water pollution because the electricity supply from the grid is insufficient to power the plant. Solar energy has great potential in sun-drenched Iraq to bridge the gaping hole in energy provision, but successive governments have chosen to focus on fossil fuels rather than promoting investment to grow the renewables sector.

Heightened tension with upstream Turkey could turn water into another cause of regional conflict. But, if approached differently, collaboration between Iraq and its neighbour could foster regional harmony.

Turkey’s elevated geography and cooler climate mean its water reserves suffer 75% less evaporation than Iraq’s. Given that Turkey’s top energy priority is the diversification of its supply of imported hydrocarbons, a win-win deal could see Turkey exchange access to its water-management infrastructure for delivery of reduced cost energy supplies from Iraq.

German-French cooperation on coal and steel in the 1950s and the evolution of economic integration that followed might provide a model for how bilateral cooperation over one issue could result in cooperation with other regional players (in this case Iran and Syria) on a range of other issues. This kind of model would need to consider the future of energy, whereby oil and gas would be replaced by solar-power exports.

These solutions have been open to policymakers for years and yet they have taken little tangible action. While there are leaders and bureaucrats with the will to act, effective action is invariably blocked by a complex and opaque political system replete with vested interests in maintaining power and wealth via a weak state and limited services from central government.

Breaking the cycle

To break this cycle, Iraq needs a group of professional and able actors outside of government to work with willing elements of the state bureaucracy as a taskforce to pressure for action and accountability. Publishing the recommendations from a hitherto withheld report produced in the aftermath of Basra’s 2018 heath crisis would be a great start.

In time, this taskforce could champion the prioritisation of water on the national agenda, the implementation of infrastructure upgrades, and hold more productive conversations with neighbour states.

With such a high degree of state fragmentation and dysfunction in Iraq, looking to the central government to provide leadership will not yield results. Engagement with a coalition of non-state actors can begin to address the water crisis and also open a dialogue around new models of governance for other critical issues. This might even be a starting point for rewriting the tattered social contract in Iraq.

This piece is based on insights and discussion at a roundtable event, Conflict and the Water Crisis in Iraq, held at Chatham House on March 9 as part of the Iraq Initiative.

In 2017 Trump expressed pity for the ‘beautiful babies’ killed in a gas attack on Khan Shaykhun in Syria before launching airstrikes against President Assad's regime. Images of suffering children in world politics are often used as a synecdoche for a broader conflict or disaster. Injured, suffering, or dead; the ways in which images of children circulate in global public discourse must be critically examined to uncover the assumptions that operate in these environments. This article explores reactions to images of children by representatives and leaders of states to trace the interconnected affective and political dimensions of these images. In contrast to attending to the expected empathetic responses prompted by images of children, this article particularly focuses on when such images prompt bellicose foreign policy decision-making. In doing this, the article forwards a way of thinking about images as contentious affective objects in international relations. The ways in which images of children's bodies and suffering are strategically deployed by politicians deserves closer scrutiny to uncover the visual politics of childhood inherent in these moments of international politics and policy-making.

This article sets out to bring sound and music to the field of visual studies in International Relations. It argues that IR largely has approached the visual field as if it was without sound; neglecting how audial landscapes frame and direct our interpretation of moving imagery. Sound and music contribute to making imagery intelligible to us, we ‘hear the pictures’ often without noticing. The audial can for instance articulate a visual absence, or blast visual signs, bring out certain emotional stages or subjects’ inner life. Audial frames steer us in distinct directions, they can mute the cries of the wounded in war, or amplify the sounds of joy of soldiers shooting in the air. To bring the audial and the visual analytically and empirically together, the article therefore proposes four key analytical themes: 1) the audial–visual frame, 2) point of view/point of audition, 3) modes of audio-visual synchronization and 4) aesthetics moods. These are applied to a study of ‘war music videos’ in Iraq and Syria made and circulated by Shi'a militias currently fighting there. Such war music videos, it is suggested, are not just artefacts of popular culture, but have become integral parts of how warfare is practiced today, and one that is shared by soldiers in the US and Europe. War music videos are performing war, just as they shape how war is known by spectators and participants alike.