The goal of detecting future events has several implications and two of them are explored in this chapter. First, the objective of detecting future events means that whoever poses a threat has to be targeted and if the threat is posed by a number of individuals that increases over time, enmity is extended to those individuals. This is true even if they act in the name of a terrorist group that did not exist when the conflict started. From a legal perspective, this practice is facilitated by the uncertainties related to the temporal delineation of conflicts. Second, the objective of addressing future threats entails to act against individuals who are not presently perpetrating hostile acts. This practice requires that the traditional interpretation of direct participation in hostilities be subjected to a temporal change. Instead of suspending the protection of civilians solely when ‒ and only for such time as ‒ they engage in acts that reach a certain threshold of harm, targeting enemies because of the threat they pose for the future means extending direct participation in hostilities not only to preparatory acts, but also to signs revealing membership to an enemy group. This shift is facilitated by the insufficiently defined notion of “continuous combat function.”

Chapter 15 involves much of what has gone before; targeting both objects and human beings, core principles, individual status, and more. Artificial intelligence is described as applied to autonomous weapons, then as applied to LOAC’s core principles – difficult values for autonomous weapons to meet. To whom does criminal liability attach, should such weapons go awry? Designers? Builders? Users? These remain difficult LOAC issues that this chapter examines. Drones and their military use are discussed, including the American CIA’s use. Since CIA personnel are civilians, their involvement in targeting in armed conflict is unlawful, an issue discussed in this chapter. Targeted killing and its lawfulness are examined at length, as well as their relationship to assassination, an illegal act in US law. Targeted killing’s weak link, who decides which individuals should be killed, is also discussed. In the Cases and Materials section, the wrongful shooting down of an Iranian civilian airliner in 1988, that killed 290, is examined – a case study of autonomous weapons gone bad.