THE LEGAL STUDY OF WAR CRIMES AND SELF-DEFENCE IN MODERN CONFLICTS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW
AUTHOR – KAMRAN ASHRAF* & ANUJ SETHI**
* LAW COLLEGE DEHRADUN, UTTARANCHAL UNIVERSITY, DEHRADUN, UTTARAKHAND, INDIA
** PROFESSOR, LAW COLLEGE DEHRADUN, UTTARANCHAL UNIVERSITY, DEHRADUN, UTTARAKHAND, INDIA
BEST CITATION – KAMRAN ASHRAF & ANUJ SETHI, THE LEGAL STUDY OF WAR CRIMES AND SELF-DEFENCE IN MODERN CONFLICTS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 6 (9) OF 2026, PG. 246-251, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344.
Abstract
The self-defence doctrine in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter was initially established when majority of conflicts were physical, state inspired and limited to definite territories. However, with hybrid war (cyber attacks, manipulation of information, proxy militias and coercion with the economy, etc.), the nature of hostilities has completely changed. This paper will claim that hybrid warfare is challenging the traditional means of self-defence in international law.
What passes as an armed attack, the study postulates, is very grey when states take part in non-kinetic or non-intensive operations that fail to apply conventional force but still cause strategic harm. The attribution is also a pain; when a nation is using a non-state actor or an unidentified group of hackers, it is hard to pin down who to attack and this simply makes legal self-defence more difficult. Hybrid tactics electrically blur the perspective of peacetime aggression and actual war and therefore the dilemmas of proportionality and necessity emerge when a state is contemplating defensive actions along the various platforms.
The article indicates that existing legal norms, such as the case law of the ICJ, and the UN Charter, are slowly losing touch with the present-day reality of conflicts. It recommends that in order close these gaps, there should be clear definition of cyber attacks under international norms, that attribution standards should be tightened as well as new mechanisms put in place to hold states accountable in relation to hybrid operations operated by proxies. Simply put, the paper emphasizes that flexible, logically interrelated, interpretation of self-defence is necessary that maintains international law as regulatory, balanced and is able to address the changing face of modern warfare.