The new challenges which are faced by the world communities to implement IHL are as follows:

1. Terrorism
2. Cyber warfare
3. Remote controlled weapons
4. Automated weapons
5. Autonomous weapons
Definition of terrorism: The League of Nations drafted a convention named the Convention for the Prevention
and Punishment of Terrorism (CPPT) 1937 which defined terrorism as criminal acts directed against a state
and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons, or a group of persons or
the general public. This courageous initiative to define terrorism by CPPT never came into force. . In 1994 the
General Assembly passed a resolution titled Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism
which states that terrorism includes criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the
general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes and that such acts are in any
circumstances unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic,
religious or other nature that may be invoked to justify them.
It appears, therefore, that a criminal act is to be considered as terrorism if five necessary conditions are
established which are: (i) Perpetrators: indicates that any person or group can be a perpetrator of terrorism, (ii)
means: violence or threats to use of violence, (iii) methods: using violence indiscriminately without maintaining
the principles of the international humanitarian law. It may be in various modes, i.e., widespread burning of
civilians` property,1 numerous physical violences against civilians (iv) Targets/victims: ordinary civilians or
individual civilians and their objects who are not taking part in the hostilities are the primary targets of terrorist
attacks (v) Purpose and ultimate purpose: by the terrorist attack primarily the group intends to create terror in
the mind of the general people. To create fear in the mind of the ordinary people is not the ultimate purpose but
by creating fear in the mind of the general people they prone to compel the government to do something or
refrain from doing something.
Cyber warfare:
The cyber warfare refers to those attacks which come within the definition of armed conflicts (Common article
2)2 or resort to armed forces (Prosecutor v Dusko Tadic). Richard and Robert (2010) who defines cyber war as
actions by nation-state to penetrate in another nations computer or networks for the purpose of causing
damage or disruption. Hyden says that we dont call an attack a cyber war. Cyber war involves a deliberate
attack to disable or destroy another countrys computer networks. But how much damage would be done before
a cyber operation could be considered as cyber war, yet to be settled.
Rose (2010) says that cyber warfare is an internet based conflicts where the state or individual groups being
politically motivated attacks on information or information system of the enemy state. Cyber operations are
operations against or via a computer or a computer system through a data stream. Such operations can aim to do
different things, for instance, to infiltrate a system and collect, export, destroy, change, or encrypt data or to
trigger, alter or otherwise manipulate processes controlled by the infiltrated computer system. By these means, a
variety of targets in the real world can be destroyed, altered or disrupted, such as industries, infrastructures,
telecommunications, or financial systems.
Remote Controlled weapons:
Kellenberger (2011) sates that the remote controlled weapon systems are a further step in a long-standing
strategic continuum to move soldiers farther away from their adversaries and actual combat zone. Drones or
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is the best example of such new technology. drone was probably invented
during or right after the Second World War and it was ready for use by the 1950s.
1 Judgment, Taylor (SCSL-03-01-T), Trial Chamber, 18 May 2012 (hereinafter Taylor Trial Judgment); Second Amended
Indictment, Taylor (SCSL-03-01-PT), 29 May 2007, $ 5-8.

2 Common article 2, Geneva Conventions 1949 states that armed conflict is a conflict which may arise between two or more High
Contracting parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.

Automated Weapons:
Automated weapons are one step advance than the remote controlled weapon system. They are not remotely
controlled but function in a self-contained and independent manner once deployed. Examples of such systems
include automated sentry guns, sensor-fused munitions and certain anti-vehicle landmines. Although deployed
by humans, such systems will independently verify or detect a particular type of target object and then fire or
detonate. An automated sentry gun, for instance, may fire, or not, following voice verification of a potential
intruder based on a password.
Autonomous Weapons:
The US Department of Defense Directive considers a weapon system to be autonomous if, once activated; it
can select and engage targets without further intervention by a human operator (Autonomy in Weapon System
2014: pp.13-24). According to the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions,
Lethal Autonomous Robotics (LARs) refers to robotic weapon systems that, once activated, can select and
engage targets without further intervention by a human operator. The important element is that the robot has an
autonomous choice regarding selection of a target and the use of lethal force.