Introduction
The prohibition of the use of force remains one of the organizing norms of the contemporary international legal order. Yet contemporary armed conflict increasingly resists analysis through a single doctrinal lens. The same campaign can simultaneously raise questions about the lawfulness of resort to force, the conduct of hostilities, and the criminal responsibility of identifiable individuals.1
Much writing still treats these issues separately: jus ad bellum for the opening move, international humanitarian law (IHL) for battlefield conduct, and international criminal law (ICL) for the gravest forms of accountability. That separation is doctrinally useful but analytically costly. It risks treating the same factual matrix as if it belonged to different universes, even when repeated civilian harm, operational regularity, and high-level decision-making connect the regimes in practice.2
