Recent conflicts underscore the continuing shortcomings of international law and policy in responding to asymmetric warfare mounted by non-state terrorist groups in the 21st century. Neither The Hague Rules, the customary law of war, nor the post-1949 law of armed conflict and accompanying international humanitarian law, account for non-state groups waging prolonged campaigns of terrorism—and, in some cases, more conventional military attacks— that leave the defending state with little choice but to respond in ways that inflict heavy civilian casualties.

The result is that the defending state (and to a lesser extent the attackers) are criticized for violating norms that do not accommodate the nature of the conflict being waged. At the same time, the defending state lacks adequate guidance in shaping the parameters and details of its response. Apart from legal and normative understandings, the tendencies of terrorists or insurgent groups to operate from within civilian communities present significant and unanticipated strategic and tactical challenges for states and citizens that are the victims of such attacks.

New Battlefields/Old Laws Project was highlighted the in the Fall 2007 edition of Syracuse University Magazine and the Maxwell Perspective.