Modern surveillance technology has transformed the epistemic conditions of armed conflict. Drones, satellites, and persistent ISR systems now enable military commanders to identify individual civilians and predict, with statistical precision, the casualties their strikes will cause. Yet international humanitarian law continues to operate on frameworks designed for an era when such knowledge was unavailable - permitting foreseeable civilian deaths as lawful "collateral damage" provided they are not "excessive" relative to military advantage gained.

The Principle of Foreseeable Harm to Innocents (FHI) addresses this gap through one core proposition: if you can see them, and you can spare them, you must spare them. FHI does not create new law but clarifies what existing obligations under Additional Protocol I already require when properly interpreted for contemporary capabilities. It introduces an "avoidability gate" into targeting analysis: before asking whether civilian deaths are proportionate, commanders must first ask whether they are avoidable through feasible alternatives—different timing, different weapons, different approaches.

This lecture presents FHI as a further-protective interpretation of existing international humanitarian law, particularly Articles 51 and 57 of Additional Protocol I. Drawing on cases including the 2016 drone strike that killed Mohammad Azam - a Pakistani taxi driver identifiable as a civilian, whose death was foreseeable with certainty, and avoidable through alternative means—it demonstrates how current law permits outcomes that contradict its own protective purposes. FHI reorders the legal analysis to match the moral intuition that knowledge of preventable harm generates obligation to prevent it.

Speaker

Neil Cameron read law with computing at Sussex University, where he studied international humanitarian law under Professor Colonel Gerald Draper. Called to the Bar in 1978, he practised briefly before moving into legal technology consultancy - a field in which he has worked for over thirty-five years, latterly as an adviser to major law firms on technology strategy. He conducted a review of IT systems for the European Court of Human Rights and currently serves as Lead Analyst at Legal IT Insider.

His interest in humanitarian law never waned. Reading Daniel Ellsberg's Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner during the COVID lockdown prompted him to write The Inherent Flexibility of the Human Moral Compass, a two-part analysis tracing the erosion of civilian protection norms from the League of Nations' 1938 resolution through to contemporary drone strikes. The Principle of Foreseeable Harm to Innocents grew from that work. He has since engaged with scholars at Cornell Law School and Oxford's Ethics and Laws of Armed Conflict research group, and has an academic article under preparation. Originally from the UK, Neil currently lives in Ithaca, New York.

Host

Hosted by the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, part of the Einaudi Center for International Studies

Achieve fluency in a language of South Asia with the help of a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) summer fellowship. You’ll gain valuable knowledge about cultures and countries in which your language is commonly used, while developing skills in a language critical to the needs of the United States. Graduate and undergraduate students are eligible.

Eligible South Asian languages available for in-person or virtual intensive language study include Bengali, Dari, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Nepali, Oriya, Pashto, Persian, Punjabi, Sinhala, Tamil, Telugu, Tibetan & Urdu.

The deadline to apply is February 18, 2026.

Can't attend? Contact sap@einaudi.cornell.edu for more information.

"Bukovina: The Life and Death of an East European Borderland" (Princeton University Press, December 2025)

The making and remaking of Bukovina, a disputed Eastern European borderland, from the eighteenth century to the present day

Bukovina, when it has existed on official maps, has always fit uneasily among its neighbors. The region is now divided between Romania and Ukraine but has long been a testing ground for successive regimes, including the Habsburg Empire, independent and later Nazi-allied Romania, and the Soviet Union, as each sought to reshape the region in its own image. In this beautifully written and wide-ranging book, Cristina Florea traces the history of Bukovina, showing how this borderland, the onetime buffer between Christendom and Islam, found itself at the forefront of modern state-building and governance projects that eventually extended throughout the rest of Europe. Encounters that play out in borderlands have proved crucial to the development of modern state ambitions and governance practices.

Drawing on a wide range of archives and published sources in Russian, Ukrainian, German, Romanian, French, and Yiddish, Florea integrates stories of ethnic and linguistic groups—rural Ukrainians, Romanians, and Germans, and urban German-speaking Jews and Poles—who lived side by side in Bukovina, all of them navigating constant reconfiguration and reinvention. Challenging traditional chronologies in European history, she shows that different transformations in the region occurred at different tempos, creating a historical palimpsest and a sense among locals that they had lived many lives.

A two-hundred-year history of a region shaped by the conflicting pulls of imperial legacies and national ambitions, Bukovina reveals the paradoxes of modern history found in a microcosm of Eastern Europe.

About the speaker

I am a historian of Central and Eastern Europe, interested in the interactions between German and Russian power (their competition for territory and influence) across this space, as well as the consequences these interactions have had for the people living in between. In my work, I explore questions such as the relationship between nationalism and empire, the importance of imperial legacies in modern European history, and the centrality of imperial competition to East European politics and societies. While I approach my field from a global and transnational perspective, I do not forsake the local but aim to show how small places can shed light on the relationship between great power politics and large global processes, and local politics and society.

Hosted by the Institute for European Studies, part of the Einaudi Center for International Studies

Join us to learn about opportunities for graduate students with the Einaudi Center for International Studies. This session will discuss how to discover or strengthen global interests, including research and travel grants, guest lectures, fellowships, and more!

Can't attend? Email programs@einaudi.cornell.edu for more information.

In light of the war with Iran, Arang Keshavarzian's book talk will now be a roundtable discussion on recent events. This conversation will examine the war with Iran beyond the headlines, situating this latest outbreak of violence within broader historical, social, and regional contexts and debates.

The event is hosted by the Southwest Asia and North Africa Program (SWANA), part of the Einaudi Center for International Studies, and cosponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Studies.

Panel

Arang Keshavarzian (Middle East Studies, New York University)Golnar Nikpour (History, Dartmouth College)Seema Golestaneh (SWANA director and Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University)Moderator: Mostafa Minawi (History, Cornell University).

***

About Arang Keshavarzian

Arang Keshavarzian is Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. His research and teaching centers on questions of political economy of Iran and the wider Middle East. He has had a particular interest in the relationship between spatialization, capitalism, and political power. He is the author of Bazaar and State in Iran: The Politics of the Tehran Marketplace (Cambridge UP, 2007) and co-editor, with Ali Mirsepassi, of Global 1979: Geographies and Histories of the Iranian Revolution (Cambridge UP, 2021). His most recent book is Making Space for the Gulf: Histories of Regionalism and the Middle East (Stanford UP, 2024). It is the recipient of the 2025 Roger Owen Prize from MESA for best book in economic history, economics, and political economy, as well as an honorary mention for the 2025 biannual book award from the Association for Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies. His articles on various topics have appeared in several edited volumes as well as Politics & Society; International Journal of Middle East Studies, Geopolitics; Economy & Society; International Journal of Urban and Region Research, and Middle East Report.