War and the Vanishing Battlefield

Abstract

This article examines the role of the battlefield as a regulatory concept in the laws of war. It argues that the idea of the battlefield continues to haunt our concept of what war entails, and that the deconstruction of the battlefield thus heralds a decay of the laws of war as a normative system designed to regulate armed conflict. That development predates spectacular post 9/11 redefinitions of the battlefield, although the latter are threatening to engulf the last remains of what made war a social activity distinct from the reign of arbitrary violence.

Keywords: War, laws of war, battlefield