Monday, September 17, 3:30-5pm, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave., Rm. 120
Gabriella Blum is the Rita E. Hauser Professor of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Harvard Law School, specializing in public international law, the law of armed conflict, international negotiations, and counterterrorism. She is also the faculty director of the Program on International Law and Armed Conflict and a member of the Program on Negotiation Executive Board.
“Our present-day capacity for destruction is unparalleled in human history. Yet, contemporary wars fought by liberal democracies, destructive to life and things as they are, are overall much less devastating, especially in terms of their human toll, than wars of the past. The greater military power that we possess does not manifest itself in greater destruction, but, to the contrary, in greater restraint. We thus live in a paradox of power: our means and methods of war have become both harsher (in potential) and tamer (in practice).”
“I explore how the evolution of international law, technology, and social norms — and the dynamic between them — has contributed to the paradox of power, and I consider the implications of the paradox for conceptions of victory on the modern battlefield.”
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