When Cities Become War Zones

Guests: Rain Liivoja, Associate Professor, TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland, Australia; Dick Jackson, Adjunct professor of law, Georgetown University and Former US Department of the Army Law of War Expert; Darren Stewart, UK Brigadier and Head, Operational Law, Army Headquarters, Emiliano Buis, Professor of International Law, International Humanitarian Law and Weapons Control, University of Buenos Aires Law School; Eric Jensen, Professor of International Law, Law of Armed Conflict, BYU Law School Hue. Fallujah. Aleppo. All three are examples of the enormous cost of armed conflict when it happens in an urban area. The battle to retake Hue City after the Tet Offensive was a turning point in the Vietnam War and a sobering lesson for the American military trained to fight in fields and jungles. In 2004, military officials would hark back to those bloody weeks in Hue when assessing the deadly battle to wrest control of the city of Fallujah from Iraqi insurgents. But those conflicts pale in comparison to the four years of fighting that raged between government and opposition forces for control of Aleppo, which is Syria’s largest city. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed and millions were forced to flee as refugees.  This week, legal experts from around the world are gathered at the BYU Law School to consider whether international law is sufficient to deal with the consequences that arise when war happens in heavily populated areas.