Prof. Laurie R. Blank
Laurie R. Blank is a Clinical Professor of Law and the Director of the International Humanitarian Law Clinic at Emory University School of Law, where she teaches the law of armed conflict and works directly with students to provide assistance to international tribunals, non-governmental organisations and law firms around the world on cutting edge issues in humanitarian law and human rights. Professor Blank is the co-author of International Law and Armed Conflict: Fundamental Principles and Contemporary Challenges in the Law of War, a casebook on the law of war (with G. Noone, Aspen Publishing 2013). She is also the co-director of a multi-year project on military training programs in the law of war and the co-author of Law of War Training: Resources for Military and Civilian Leaders (USIP 2008, with G. Noone, second edition 2013). She is the author of numerous articles and opinion pieces on topics in the law of armed conflict, including targeted killing and drone strikes, the classification of armed conflict, implementation of the law of armed conflict during military operations, cyber war, and law and legitimacy in armed conflict.
Since President Trump attempted to ban Muslims from certain countries from entering the United States, the question which Muslims are ‘moderate Muslims’ and which are potential ‘radical Islamist terrorists’ has gained new relevance. While some Muslim leaders deny any connection between their religion and terrorism, it is undeniable that many terrorists claim to act in […]
This Report engages in a comparative analysis of ISIS’s Dabiq and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s Inspire magazines in order to ‘reverse engineer’ lessons for CT-CVE strategic communications. It examines how Dabiq and Inspire deploy messaging that is strategically designed to appeal to its audiences and drive their radicalisation. This study particularly focuses on how […]
This essay builds on Kyle Orton’s recent article for BICOM’s series on “The Day After ISIS,” which comprehensively lays out the political, social, and military conditions that will determine whether the Islamic State (IS) will survive the current efforts to defeat it in Syria and Iraq. I want to focus on some of the interesting aspects of […]