Tanisha Fazal, Ph.D.
fazal007@umn.edu
Full Professor
University of Minnesota
Year of PhD: 2001
Country: United States (Minnesota)
About Me:
Tanisha Fazal is the Arleen C. Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. Her scholarship focuses on sovereignty, international law, armed conflict, medical care in conflict zones and, currently, on global politics and climate change. She is the author of three books: State Death: The Politics and Geography of Conquest, Occupation, and Annexation (Princeton University Press, 2007), which won the Best Book Award of the American Political Science Association’s Conflict Processes Section; Wars of Law: Unintended Consequences in the Regulation of Armed Conflict (Cornell University Press, 2018), which won the Best Book Award of the International Studies Association's International Law Section and the American Political Science Association's International Collaboration Section; and, Military Medicine and the Hidden Costs of War (Oxford University Press, 2024). Her work has appeared in journals such as the British Journal of Political Science, Daedalus, International Organization, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, The Lancet, and Security Studies. She has been a fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. From 2021-2023, she was an Andrew Carnegie Fellow.
Research Interests
Conflict Processes & War
International Law & Organization
Foreign Policy
Military Medicine
COVID19
Climate Change
Publications:
Journal Articles:
Why do some armed groups commit to abide by the laws of war governing belligerent conduct during armed conflict, while others do not? We examine why only half the armed groups approached by the nongovernmental organization Geneva Call have signed a public Deed of Commitment banning the use of antipersonnel land mines. In contrast to recent studies that have tended to focus on the legitimacy concerns of armed groups, we argue that political objectives combine with military utility calculations to shape the behavior of armed groups in the realm of international humanitarian law. Utilizing original data on the ninety armed groups engaged by Geneva Call since 2000, we find that strong secessionist groups are most likely to sign the Deed of Commitment. Our findings have important implications for theories of international law, the study of civil wars, and on the ground efforts to mitigate the human costs of war.
Most wars today are civil wars, but we have little understanding of the conditions under which rebel groups might comply with the laws of war. i ask three questions in this essay: What do the laws of war require of rebels, or armed nonstate actors (ansas)? To what extent are rebels aware of the laws of war? Under what conditions do rebel groups comply with international humanitarian law? i argue that the war aims of rebel groups are key to understanding their relationship with the laws of war. In particular, secessionist rebel groups – those that seek a new, independent state – are especially likely to comply with the laws of war as a means to signal their capacity and willingness to be good citizens of the international community to which they seek admission.
We argue that system-level international changes have made secessionism more attractive since 1945, and that this is one of the reasons for the recent proliferation of aspiring states. Using original data on secessionist movements between 1816 and 2011, we document that secessionism became significantly more common after 1945. Whereas much of the existing literature explains secessionism by pointing to local or unit-level factors, we contend that security, economic, and normative changes at the international level have effectively increased the benefits of independence, without a commensurate increase in the costs. We use interviews with representatives of new states, secessionist groups, and international organizations to provide empirical support for these claims. We conclude by considering three extensions of our argument: (i) Does the nature of the changing international environment affect the way in which secessionists attempt to achieve their goals? (ii) What future changes might amplify or depress this trend? (iii) Who are the specific people benefiting from statehood, and can their position within a would-be state help us understand the nature of secessionism today?
Is war in decline? Recent scholarship suggests that it is. The empirical basis for this argument is a decline in battle deaths over the past several centuries, a standard metric for counting wars and armed conflicts. Dramatic improvements in medical care in conflict zones—in preventive medicine, battlefield medicine, evacuation, and protective equipment—have raised the likelihood of surviving battle wounds today compared with past eras. Thus the fact that war has become less fatal does not necessarily mean that it has become less frequent. Original data on wounded-to-killed ratios, supplemented by medical research and interviews with physicians from the military and nongovernmental communities, is used to advance this claim. The results show that the decline in war is likely not as dramatic as some scholars have argued. These findings question the foundation of existing datasets on war and armed conflict. They also highlight the growing need for policy focused on the battle wounded.
Books Written:
Wars of Law assesses the unintended consequences of the proliferation of the laws of war. In the mid-19th century there was one codified law of war. In 2018, there are over 70 such laws, and they place increasing constraints on belligerents. I argue that this increase has generated significant consequences for the commencement, conduct, and conclusion of both interstate and civil wars. States fighting interstate wars today prefer not to step over any bright lines where the laws of war would apply unequivocally. Thus, these states have stopped declaring war and concluding peace treaties. Rebel groups – particularly, secessionists that seek their own independent state – by contrast, have increasingly engaged with the laws of war. Secessionists are relatively unlikely to target civilians, and there is an increasing rate of peace treaty usage in civil wars that contrasts with the decline in interstate war. This research is based on two major original datasets as well as a series of case studies, and is particularly unusual in combining analysis of interstate and civil wars.
Media Appearances:
Blog Posts:
How Long Can the U.S. Military's Golden Hour Last? The US has achieved historically low fatality rates in Iraq and Afghanistan in part due to the ability to evacuate the wounded, via air transport, to a higher level facility within the first "golden" hour of injury. But air evacuation is likely to be compromised if the US is in a conflict with a peer/near-peer adversary that will challenge the US in the air. We consider both challenges to air evacuation that could limit the ability to deliver care within the golden hour, and new medical technologies that may prolong the golden hour.
Can International Humanitarian Law Restrain Armed Groups? Lessons from NGO Work on Anti-Personnel Landmines We examine the work of the NGO Geneva Call, which has developed an innovative platform through which rebel groups in civil war can commit to abide by the laws of war. We focus specifically on Geneva Call's Deed of Commitment to ban anti-personnel landmines, asking why some rebel groups have signed, while others have not. We propose that militarily strong secessionist groups are especially likely to sign the Deed of Commitment, both because they find landmines less militarily useful than weaker groups and because secessionist groups must gain support from the international community in ways that non-secessionist groups do not have to.
The United States' Perpetual War in Afghanistan One reason the war in Afghanistan has lasted so long is because the US public has not turned out in numbers to oppose it. Three factors lie behind this ambivalence. First, the international legal implications of the war are murky at best, with the US operating under a prolonged authorization of military force, rather than a formal declaration of war. Second, the historical shift in financing wars via taxes to debt means that the general public does not see the direct financial costs of war. And third, dramatic improvements in military medicine have meant a higher ratio of nonfatal to fatal casualties.