The impact of the US-led War on Terror has received a great deal of attention in the field of international law governing warfare. The emergence of a global battlefield suggests the declining relevance of the concept of the localized battlefield and the regulatory function of the laws of war, as the use of unmanned drones in conducting trans-border targeted killings exemplifies.

The dominant narrative of international legal studies is that the laws of war―whose contemporary expression is international humanitarian law―date back to the 19th century, when a classic battlefield was normatively constructed in Europe. The Battle of Solferino is remembered as among the most typical battles wherein two opposed organized armies clashed in the field. The battlefield was the geographical and normative foundation of the laws of war.

Though technological and intellectual developments in the 20th century posed multifaceted challenges to the concept of the battlefield, it is the post-9/11 security narrative that has prompted a fundamental transformation of the practice and regulation of warfare. War is not only conducted by the opposing parties, but it is also constructed by a legal and political discourse.

The contemporary reality is such that the battlefield unfolds everywhere in the globe, a phenomenon legitimized by the concomitant normative development on the use of force against non-state entities. The traditional boundaries between international and internal armed conflicts are now effectively redrawn to expand the space for the use of force beyond national borders. The threshold of selfdefense, a jus ad bellum doctrine for armed conflicts of inter-state character, is being so lowered that even the mere inability to prevent a terrorist attack is considered enough to legitimize a resort to force by the victim state.

The normative transformation of warfare is clearly and technically driven by legal experts. Under the prevailing circumstances, international lawyers who are committed to Peace Studies are urged to revisit their intellectual environment in an attempt to reformulate the roles properly played by socially responsible academics.