Professor Ohlins gave a very informative, and interesting talk regarding international criminal law today. One thing from his talk really stood out to me:

Professor Ohlins talked about how killing an enemy combatant is lawful during times of war, but targeting civilians is not (unless they are part of collateral damage). I found it very shocking how thin and ambiguous the line between the lawful amount of collateral damage and the unlawful amount is. Whether the amount of civilians killed is lawful is subject to the rule of proportionality. E.g, is the amount of collateral damage proportional to the amount of war enemies killed? I find this very shocking because after we label the innocent civilians killed as “collateral damage”, I feel like we sort of lose touch with the tragic deaths of these innocent people. These people could have been loving mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters. Furthermore, the proportionality of collateral damage is up-to-interpretation.