The Armed Forces Law Association of New Zealand (AFLANZ), in conjunction with the Asia Pacific Centre for Military Law (APCML) at the University of Melbourne, is organizing an international conference, Military Law in a New Dimension: Armed Forces Deployed Against Transnational Crime and Terrorism. The conference will be held at Melbourne Law School from Aug. 26-28, 2011. This will be the first time that the AFLANZ Conference has been held in Australia.
The conference will have two main focal areas: The legal basis for deployment of military forces to combat transnational crime and terrorism, and the regulation of forces involved in combating transnational crime and terrorism. The convenors are also interested in contributions from any of the disciplines within the humanities and social sciences.
Abstracts are due March 25, 2011.
As the number of state-on-state armed conflicts declines, militaries around the world are being drawn into combating a wide variety of transnational crime and terrorist activity. Law enforcement rather than war fighting deployments have become mainstream activities for many armed forces. For over a decade, coalition forces have been involved in the war in Afghanistan and continue to be involved in combating maritime terrorism in the Middle East area of operations. In mid-2008 naval forces deployed to the Horn of Africa to combat the upsurge in piracy. Instances abound of armed forces involved in apprehending irregular migrants, illegal fishers and drug smugglers.This conference will explore the complex and challenging legal issues for armed forces involved in combating transnational crime and terrorism. Themes addressed will include:
- Legal frameworks for military involvement – global, regional and national dimensions
- Legal interoperability – challenges in operating with coalition and other forces
- The civil-military interface
- Use of force and rules of engagement for new military environments
- Combating transnational crime and terrorism at sea
- Military justice procedures for forces engaged in combating transnational crime and terrorism
The conference will seek to approach these issues from a legal perspective and will have two main focal areas:
- The legal basis for deployment of military forces to combat transnational crime and terrorism
- The regulation of forces involved in combating transnational crime and terrorism
While the conference predominately focuses on the legal aspects of combating transnational crime and terrorism, the convenors are interested in contributions from any of the disciplines within the humanities and social sciences.
Papers will be selected on the basis of an abstract of no more than 250 words. Abstracts should be submitted by email to the Conference Convenors, Dr Robin Warner (Assoc. Prof., Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security, Univ. of Wollongong, Australia)at rwarner [at] uow.edu.au and Dr Chris Gallavin (Sr. Lecturer in Law, School of Law, Univ. of Canterbury, New Zealand) at chris.gallavin [at]canterbury.ac.nz by 25 March 2011. Enquiries should be directed to the Convenors.
Further information will be available at the conference website: http://www.aflanz.org.nz/ and http://www.laws.canterbury.ac.nz/
