International Law on the Use of Force Group

ILUF Group Editors

Rob Holman

Rob Holman is a Colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and the Deputy Judge Advocate General for Operational and International Law.  He joined the CAF in 1986. After initially serving as a pilot, he undertook legal training and joined the Office of the Judge Advocate General upon being called to the bar of Upper Canada (Ontario) in February, 2002. Rob’s practice as a legal officer has been split between military justice and operational law.  He served for five years as a trial and appellate military prosecutor and, more recently, as Deputy Judge Advocate General for Military Justice. His operational law experience includes advising on CAF domestic and international operations and within coalition and NATO military headquarters.

Rob is a graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada (B.Eng. (Engineering Physics)), Queen’s University (LL.B.) and McGill University (LL.M. in International Air and Space Law).  He has logged 2000 hours of flying time in gliders, small civilian aircraft and military jet aircraft.  He lives in Ottawa with his wife and their three children. 

 

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Heather Harrison Dinniss

Dr Heather A. Harrison Dinniss is a Senior Lecturer at the International Law Centre of the Swedish Defence University where she teaches both military and civilian students on the law of military operations, including international humanitarian law and human rights as well as issues of general public international law. She is the author of Cyber War and Laws of War (Cambridge University Press, 2012) which analyses the status and use of computer network attacks in international law and examines their treatment under the laws of armed conflict. Heather’s research focuses on the impact of modern warfare on international humanitarian law; in particular, on advanced and emerging military technologies such as cyber warfare, autonomous weapons systems and the legal aspects of enhancement techniques on members of the armed forces.

Prior to joining the Swedish Defence University in 2011, Heather previously taught at the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE), the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London, and Victoria University of Wellington (NZ). She was awarded her PhD from the LSE in 2009, and is also a graduate of Victoria University of Wellington (NZ), with a Masters of Law (first class honours), and undergraduate degrees in both Law and Psychology. Heather is also a barrister and solicitor of New Zealand and worked both in private practice and in-house, before returning to academia.

Heather has served as a member of an advisory group to the Swedish Government on autonomous weapons systems. She is also a member of the International Law Association’s Study Group on Cyber Terrorism and International Law (2014-2016).

Core Experts

Mickael Dupenloup

Mickael Dupenloup is the Legal Adviser to the French Joint Space Commander. He is responsible for all legal aspects of space operations and coordinates French Joint Space Command activities in the legal field. Since 2013, as an international legal expert, he has been participating in the negotiations of the international code of conduct for outer space activities and in the Working Group on the Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space Activities.

Mr. Dupenloup came to French Joint Space Command after serving as Counselor for Legal Affairs in the French Air Force. During 5 years, Mr. Dupenloup dealt with legal aspects associated with Air Defence and Air Operations. He was also responsible for negotiating a wide range of bilateral and multilateral instruments, in support of military training and real-life operations. In 2011 and 2012, he provided legal expertise on NATO interim ballistic missile defense capability negotiations as part of the 2012 NATO Chicago summit process.

Mr. Dupenloup was deployed successively in Afghanistan, in Germany, in Italy, in Chad and in Middle East where he advised on the law of armed conflict, human rights law and air and space targeting operations. Mr. Dupenloup also actively engages in teaching and research on international law, including as Visiting Professor of Law at the Institute of Space and Telecommunications Law in Paris during the 2015-2016 academic year and as a lecturer in NATO Centers of excellence and International Red Cross and Red Crescent related bodies.

Mr. Dupenloup is a graduate in international law in 2004 and in space and telecommunications law in 2013.

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Renn Gade

W. Renn Gade is a retired U.S. Army officer.  While in the military he served as the Staff Judge Advocate (senior legal advisor) to a number of joint, combined, and U.S. Army commands, including:  U.S. Special Operations Command, Multinational Force-Iraq, Multinational Corps-Iraq, XVIII Airborne Corps, and the 82d Airborne Division.  He also served as the Military Assistant to the Department of Defense General Counsel and Deputy Legal Counsel to the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.  He is currently the Senior Legal Counsel at the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center.  He is a graduate of Drake University and Drake University Law School.  He also holds a LL.M from the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School and a M.S. in National Security Strategy from the National War College.

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Nasu Hitoshi

Dr Hitoshi Nasu is an Associate Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Centre for Military and Security Law at the Australian National University, with expertise in public international law, particularly in the fields of international security law and the law of armed conflict. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Political Science from Aoyama Gakuin University and a Master’s degree and a PhD in Law from the University of Sydney. He is the author of International Law on Peacekeeping: A Study of Article 40 of the UN Charter (Martinus Nijhoff, 2009) and co-editor of Human Rights in the Asia-Pacific Region: Towards Institution Building (Routledge, 2011), Asia-Pacific Disaster Management: Comparative and Socio-legal Perspectives (Springer, 2013), New Technologies and the Law of Armed Conflict (TMC Asser, 2014), and Legal Perspectives on Security Institutions (Cambridge University Press, 2015). He led and completed an Australian Research Council (ARC) funded research project on Developing Australia’s Legal Response to Military and Security Applications of Nanotechnology (Project ID: DP110102637). He is currently leading another ARC-funded research project on A Legal Analysis of Australia’s Future Engagement with Asia-Pacific Security Institutions (Project ID: DP130103683). He is also a member of the International Law Association’s Study Group on Cyber Terrorism and International Law (2014-2016).

Bin Li

Dr. Bin Li is lecturer of international law at the University of Newcastle which he joined in 2016. Bin previously worked at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (BUAA) as associate professor of international law (2010-2015) and held the position as the Director of Institute of Space Law (2012-2015).

Bin’s doctoral thesis studied the legal issues regarding Responsibility to Protect focusing on the rules of use of force and human rights protection. Bin has developed a particular interest in international air and space law since he started his academic career at BUAA Law School in 2007. He has published a number of high quality journal articles in this regard in Chinese and English languages and chaired a number of research projects funded by Chinese government. His research topics have covered many aspects of space law, including the militarization and environmental protection in outer space. In view of his expertise in air and space law, Bin was invited by Chinese government to be an expert in drafting Chinese relevant legislation, including Interim Measures on Management of Space Debris Mitigation and Protection (2010).

Bin was the visiting scholar at the International Aviation Law Institute at DePaul University (U.S) in 2009 and at the University of Newcastle (Australia) in 2012. He was invited by Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to speak on space and national security issues in 2012 to legal officers from that Department, representatives from Royal Australian Air Force and the U.S Embassy.

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Ian Park

Commander Ian Park joined the Royal Navy in 1998 as a Logistics Officer. He was selected for legal training shortly thereafter and, after completing the Graduate Diploma in Law and the Bar Vocational Course in London, was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2003.  Ian then completed pupillage at 23 Essex Street, The Chambers of Michael Lawson QC. During his career he has served in seven ships and deployed worldwide in support of the Royal Navy's contribution to defence. 

Ian is a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford from which he has a doctorate in law. He is also, or has been, a Hudson Fellow at Oxford University, a First Sea Lord's Fellow, a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Law School, and a Freeman of the City of London. Ian's monograph The Right to Life in Armed Conflict will be published by Oxford University Press in 2018.

As a legal adviser, Ian has deployed on several occasions to the Middle East and, in 2011 and 2012, to Afghanistan, where he was a senior legal adviser at the ISAF Joint Command in Kabul. Additionally, he has advised the Royal Navy and the Ministry of Defence on matters of international law in respect of numerous other military operations. At present, he is the Royal Navy's senior international lawyer providing advice on, inter alia, international humanitarian law, the law of the sea, international human rights law, and military law.  In addition to his military duties, he lectures extensively on matters of international law both in the UK, and overseas, to academic, military and government audiences as well as teaching graduate students on Oxford University's BCL course. He has lectured at, amongst other institutions, Harvard Law School, Oxford University, Hanoi University, The University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi, Freiburg University, and the Academy of Military Science in Beijing, China.

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Matthew Stubbs

Dr Matthew Stubbs is an Associate Professor in the Law School at the University of Adelaide, where he serves as Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching) and Editor in Chief of the Adelaide Law Review. Associate Professor Stubbs is a widely-published author in the fields of international law, human rights and public law (a list may be accessed at his website http://www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/matthew.stubbs). Matthew’s teaching of international and public law has been recognized by a national teaching award and a major national teaching grant in Australia, in addition to numerous University-level honours. Matthew is admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of South Australia and High Court of Australia, and his service to the legal profession includes currently being Chair of the Human Rights Committee of the Law Society of South Australia and a member of the National Human Rights Committee of the Law Council of Australia. Matthew’s leadership in working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Australian Indigenous) law students has been recognised with a further national teaching award and two University-level prizes, and has led to a tripling of the number of students within this cohort and a six-fold increase in successful degree completions. Dr Stubbs holds undergraduate degrees in Economics and Finance, an Honours Bachelor of Laws (First Class), Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice and PhD in Law.

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Susan Trepczynski

Major Susan Trepczynski is the Chief, Air and Space Division at Headquarters, USAF (Operations and International Law Directorate).  She previously served as the space and cyber law instructor at the Advanced Space Operations School and National Security Space Institute, where she taught on various aspects of law and policy, including courses on law/policy as applied to highly specialized areas of space operations. Susan also served as the Chief, Space Law at Headquarters, Air Force Space Command, and held in various positions at the 45th Space Wing and Aeronautical Systems Center legal offices. Susan has operational space law experience, to include participation in multinational wargames and exercises. She has published several articles and has lectured on space law and policy in numerous military and other forums.

Susan received a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley, a J.D. with an intellectual property concentration from the University of the Pacific, and a LL.M. in Air and Space Law from McGill University.

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Beth Van Schaak

 

Beth Van Schaack is the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Stanford Law School—where she teaches in the areas of international human rights, international criminal law, and atrocities prevention—and a Faculty Fellow with the Handa Center for Human Rights & International Justice at Stanford University. Prior to returning to academia, she served as Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues in the Office of Global Criminal Justice of the U.S. Department of State.  In that capacity, she helped to advise the Secretary of State and the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights on the formulation of U.S. policy regarding the prevention of and accountability for mass atrocities, such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.  This involved extensive work within the interagency to help coordinate the deployment of a range of diplomatic, legal, economic, military, and intelligence tools to expose the truth, capture and judge those responsible, protect and assist victims, enable reconciliation, deter atrocities, and build the rule of law. She continues to serve as a Special Government Expert on the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law. At Stanford, she has also been a Visiting Scholar with the Center for International Security & Cooperation of the Freeman Spogli Institute.

Prior to her State Department appointment, Van Schaack was Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law, where she taught and wrote in the areas of human rights, transitional justice, international criminal law, public international law, international humanitarian law, and civil procedure.  In this capacity, she served as the Academic Adviser to the United States interagency delegation to the International Criminal Court Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda in 2010. 

Van Schaack joined the Santa Clara faculty from private practice at Morrison & Foerster LLP where she practiced the areas of commercial law, intellectual property, international law, and human rights. Prior to entering private practice, Van Schaack was Acting Executive Director and Staff Attorney with The Center for Justice & Accountability (CJA), a non-profit law firm in San Francisco dedicated to the representation of victims of torture and other grave human rights abuses in U.S., international, and foreign tribunals. She was also a law clerk with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. She continues to advise a number of human rights and international justice organizations, including: the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), the International Institute for Criminal Investigations (IICI), the National Institute of Military Justice (NIMJ), the International Justice Resource Center (IJRC), the Syrian Commission on International Justice & Accountability (CIJA), CJA, and Accountability Council.

Van Schaack is a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School. 

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Andru Wall

Commander Andru Wall serves as a reserve operational law attorney for US Central Command where he advises on current military operations, including targeting and special activities. He served on active duty for twelve years, culminating with service as the general counsel for US Special Operations Command Central where he advised commanders on special operations and intelligence actives conducted throughout Central and Southwest Asia. He previously served as the senior international law attorney for the Commander of US Naval Forces Europe & Africa and as a professor of international law at the US Naval War College. He speaks,
teaches and writes on the law of armed conflict and US national security law.

Andru earned his LL.M. from Harvard Law School, J.D. from North Carolina Central University, and B.A. from Liberty University. He is an elected Member of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law, and served on the Advisory Committee for a Council of Foreign Relations special report on US drone strikes. In his civilian capacity, Andru is a senior cybersecurity, privacy and data attorney for USAA.

 

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Associate Expert

Svenja Berrang

Svenja Berrang joined the legal branch of the German Armed Forces in 2014. She is currently a
lecturer in military law at the German Army Officers´ Academy where she teaches future German and
International Army Officers national and international military law, including IHL and international
law regarding the use of force. Between 2014 and 2016 Svenja was a Legal Advisor to the German Air
Operations Command. She was responsible for all legal aspects regarding air and space operations
affecting the Air Operations Command including the German Space Situational Awareness Center.
She prepared and participated in various exercises and wargames as the Legal Advisor Air and Space
Operations.

Svenja completed her legal education in Germany (First State Examination: Humboldt University
Berlin, Second State Examination: Berlin) and holds a LL.M. in International Human Rights Law and
Terrorism Law (Distinction) from the Lancaster University. She also participated in the Air and Space
Operations and the Law Course of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law, San Remo.

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Claus Kreß

Claus Kreß (Dr. jur. Cologne; LL.M. Cantab.) is Professor for Criminal Law and Public International Law. He holds the Chair for German and International Criminal Law and he is Director of the Institute of International Peace and Security Law at the University of Cologne. He declined a call to the Max-Planck-Institute for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law in Luxembourg. His prior practice was in the German Federal Ministry of Justice on matters of criminal law and international law. Since 1998 he has been a member of Germany’s delegations in the negotiations regarding the International Criminal Court. He served as a War Crimes Expert for the Prosecutor General for East Timor (2001), as Head of the ICC’s Drafting Committee for the Regulations of the Court (2004), as a sub-coordinator in the negotiations on the crime of aggression, and as a Special Advisor to the Independent Israeli Public Commission to Examine the Maritime Incident of 31 May 2010 (‘Turkel Commission’) - Second Report (2011-12). His more than 150 publications cover both Criminal and Public International Law with an emphasis on the International Law on the Use of Force, the Law of Armed Conflicts and International Criminal Law. Claus Kreß serves on the editorial board of several law journals, including the Journal of International Criminal Justice and the Journal of the Use of Force and International Law. He was a Visitor at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Criminal Law (2010) and at Columbia Law School (2015/2016). He is a Life Member of Clare Hall College at the University of Cambridge, a Member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Northrhine-Westfalia, and the recipient of the 2014 M.C. Bassiouni Justice Award.

ILUF Group Research Support Team

Stacey Henderson

Stacey Henderson is the Research Coordinator for the ILUF group and a current PhD Candidate at Adelaide Law School.  Her research focuses on the increasing use of measures less than force (which she terms intercession) in response to, or anticipation of, atrocity crimes; and whether the legal restraints on these measures (if any) have expanded or contracted following the adoption of the concept of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) at the 2005 UN World Summit.  Stacey holds a BA, LLB (Hons), GDLP and LLM.