I thank Rebecca Sanders for her generous and thoughtful review of Wars of Law. Because her review focuses primarily on the sections of the book dedicated to interstate war, my response also will focus on interstate war. I respond to questions she raises regarding policy implications, the role of international human rights law, and the complicated set of strategies—beyond war formalities—that states may adopt to navigate their legal obligations in wartime.

First, Sanders asks for elaboration regarding how future laws could be designed to close the distance between the legal professionals who craft the law and the military professionals meant to follow it. She does not appear to disagree that one consequence of this distance is that states are incentivized to try to sidestep the law by, for example, avoiding war formalities such as declarations of war and peace treaties. This problem is an extremely complicated one, and certainly cannot be solved in this brief response. My broader point is that only by having key players—including military personnel—in the room can lawmakers see what is possible, what is likely, and what might be problematic. Note that I am by no means suggesting that state military personnel ought to run this process. Indeed, given the prevalence of civil wars today, there is also a strong argument to invite greater participation from nonstate armed groups. Both sets of perspectives ought to be critical to the design of international humanitarian law, especially given that military personnel may consider elements like reciprocity as especially germane to IHL.

Second, the issue of reciprocity brings me to another question Sanders raises: What is the role of international human rights law (IHRL) in my analysis? Sanders is of course correct that “the space beyond IHL is not a lawless one.” While I do not focus on IHRL in Wars of Law, its development fits the arc of my argument, especially when we consider that codified IHRL is relatively new when compared to international humanitarian law. IHRL thus adds to the historical proliferation of laws meant to govern state conduct. And perhaps especially because it lacks a logic of reciprocity, states may be even more inclined to try to evade their obligations under IHRL in times of armed conflict.

Third, Sanders correctly points out that even if states are avoiding war formalities, they continue to engage IHL via strategies she outlines in her own book, Plausible Legality. While I agree with Sanders in principle, caution is warranted in generalizing her findings, which are based on the United States almost exclusively. Nonetheless, I view the basic contours of our arguments as being in harmony here. States—and their lawyers—find creative ways to evade and manipulate legal obligations in war. The task, then, is to try to reassess the law at as many levels as possible to mitigate the human costs of war.