LIST OF PANELS

The changing international and regional security environment proves that many of the current policies regarding States' legitimate use of force are not enough to provide a service as securing life and no harm to citizens against different threats, both internal and external. Authors as David Weisburd in "Criminology of place" (2012) and "The future of evidence based policing" (2023), Hammes in "The Sling and the Stone: on war in 21st Century" (2006) or Luttwak and Shamir in "The art of military innovation" (2023) point out a general turnover in the security landscape, affecting citizens in diverse forms going from insecurity and crime to terrorism and asymmetric conflicts. However, current literature seems to segregate this kind of studies in different disciplines such as Criminology or International Relations, instead of providing a holistic approach.

The general objectives of the panel focus on the new challenges to the legitimate use of force, from an institutional and operational perspective. The panel goals can be divided as followed:

-          Analysis of the new challenges to law enforcement’s use of force in new criminal environments such as violent mass gatherings, organized crime, terrorism, hybrid threats and renewed forms of classical delinquency.

-          Assess new challenges in the military and law enforcement’s use of force after the development of international crisis as Ukraine war, October 7 Hamas attack and the subsequent Gaza War, or the “pagers explosion” in Lebanon.

-          Research on the new paradigms in the use of force in proxy wars and gray areas, where hybrid threats, proxy actor and non-technological weapons coexist with innovative weapons technology at local, regional or international level.

-          Analysis of the challenges that any of the aforementioned areas imply in terms of accountability, transparency, or respect for the rule of law, penal and International Humanitarian Law, and other related policies such as immigration control or customs policies.

-          Analyzing the relation between the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 16, “Peace, justice and strong institutions” and security and defense public policies.

Derived from these general research goals, research question is:

What are the main challenges that States, governments and institutions are facing regarding the legitimate use of force in the last decade?

The emerging global situation in terms of security threats implies a dual impact both in international relations and national security terms, affecting national defense policies -in its three levels of warfare, strategic, operational and tactical- as well as in law enforcement agencies and how they manage high, middle and low level security threats, from terrorism and organized crime to local or neighborhood crime policing. The rapid evolution of these emerging threats makes necessary a thorough revision of current policies and procedures and to what extent they represent an obsolete tool and, hence, an opportunity of improvement, identifying the main gaps in them, with a problem-solving approach. This line of research has the potential of providing a new light to recurrent problems as abusive use of force, how to guarantee a proportional use of the available means and training of the force, or violations and gaps in the International Humanitarian Law ruling war and other forms of international armed actors, including non-State ones.

This panel expects contributing researchs to knowledge about the effectiveness of the use of force from an international and national security perspective. The fast and numerous emerging threats taking place in the last decades and, especially, in the decade, have affected both defense policies and procedures and law enforcement tactics in terms of delinquency control and local security, showing the policy-making difficulties in readjusting the monopoly of legitimate use of force to a more violent scenario within and abroad. These fails have a direct impact on societies, due to the disadjustment between professional training, means and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and what societies demand in terms of security, accountability, and fundamental rights respect and even, internationally, the respect and adherence to International Humanitarian Law in war.

Papers covering some of the following aspects are welcomed:

-          Original researches about international conflicts and specific battles or regions where conclusions may be drawn about the use of force.

-          Analysis about national security including new patterns in the use of force, or shortcomings in the use of it, in environments such as -but not only- detentions, crowd control or counter-terrorist operations

-          The use of force in corporate security, as subsidiary of public security, and how it is structured from institutions

-          Literature and theoretical revisions about classical theories as CPTED, Evidence-based policing, Problem-Oriented Policing or Broken Windows theory, and how they can be adapted to current security scenarios.

-          Literature and theoretical revisions about defense and warfare theories in need of revision, as the evolution from evidence-based operations to precision targeted operations and targeted assassinations

-          Counterterrorism and fight against organized crime from a legal and operational perspective, from a law enforcement or military perspective.

-          International Humanitarian Law compliance evaluations in ongoing conflicts, with a focus on violations, gaps and shortcomings when dealing with new violence and armamentistic patterns.

Different methodologies, including quantitative, qualitative, or mixed approaches are welcome, being consistent with a problem-solving, holistic approach.