On Wednesday October 7, I attended the Becker/Rose House Cafe Series with speaker Jens David Ohlins. Professor Ohlins spoke to us about international law. He weaved together current news with some history about the institutions who preside over international cases. It was a thought provoking discussion which helped me realize how important international agencies are to keeping peace between countries.

Normally, I would consider myself someone who knows just enough news to stay current. Unfortunately, I did not pay attention to the news the week that I had attended this Cafe Series. As it seems, I missed very important news that the United States had bombed a hospital in Afgahnistan by accident as they were targeting a terrorist. Prof. Ohlins made sure everyone understood the importance of this topic by explaining collateral damage in war time. It is a war crime to target civilians during a war. However, it is not a war crime if the civilians are killed in the process of attacking a strategic military position. That is to say, killing civilians during a war is considered collateral damage as long as the ration of killing civilians during war time is small. Like many things in law, the definition of small is subjective. Prof. Ohlins went on to describe some situations when the ration is particularly “small” so we could understand the situation. An important consideration to make about the ratio is that we cannot only consider the number of targets you were aiming at. More specifically it is essential to consider the importance of the target when we are trying to see if the collateral damage is justifiably small. There is a lot of complexity in trying to decide if the collateral damage is small enough to not be considered a war crime.

We covered a lot of topic in just the one hour and I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion. Although I try to stay current with the news around the world, I know I do not spend much time to understand it in depth. This Becker/Rose House Cafe Series helped me understand not just the current situation but also helped me understand some inner workings of international agencies.