Reply #4: There's a flip side to it, though

[eyl]

Ultimately, a law must be shown to function in the real world, or else change. In a way, this process is refining international law into something that can be used practically, rather than often vague guidelines written by people who aren't going to face the consequences of actually trying to implement them. AFAIK, Israel's is the only legal system in which tactics are evaluated in essentially real-time (as opposed to after the fighting ends) by the Supreme Court in light of international law.

To give an example, one of the big problems with the laws of war is that they pretty much assume that both sides are states. The situation here of a state vs a quasi-state with guerilla fighters is not well addressed. Some time back, I proposed some changes to the LoW which I felt would deal with the situation mor appropriately. Interestingly, my proposals were pretty similiar to the guidelines the Supreme Court issued a bit later in their verdict on targeted assassinations.