Breakfast briefing with Lena Trabucco

In modern conflicts, partnered military operations have been the norm rather than the exception. But functioning within a coalition, whether standing or ad hoc, poses challenges that coalition partners continue to face today. The success of a coalition depends on its ability to address challenges of interoperability; broadly, interoperability is the ability of contributing partners to integrate to effectively work together. One facet of coalition interoperability that has received little scholarly attention is legal interoperability. Legal interoperability is the coordination of military operations around contributing states’ legal obligations and national restrictions. Current discussions regarding legal interoperability are within the NATO context; but in this paper, I explore legal interoperability in the ‘coalitions of the willing’ in the post-9/11 conflicts. Specifically, the paper examines the challenges contributing partners faced in establishing coalition policies for detention.

About the speaker:

Lena Trabucco is a research assistant at the Centre for Military Studies at the University of Copenhagen. In Fall 2020, she is expected to receive a PhD in law from iCourts at the University of Copenhagen and in international relations from Northwestern University.

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