"It Takes Two to Tango"

Who knew?

But that's in the title of a recent University of Amsterdam doctoral dissertation by Bas van Hoek. The full title is It Takes Two to Tango: A Legal Analysis of the Dual Oversight Regime Governing the Use of Force by the Netherlands Armed Forces. You can find it online here. The author offers five recommendations:

The assessment of the legal oversight system against the international legal framework shows that parts of the system are inadequately designed, meaning the system’s effectiveness cannot be sufficiently guaranteed. To improve the effectiveness of the legal oversight system with respect to the use of force by the Netherlands armed forces so that it conforms more adequately to the rule of law, considering the obligations and standards set by international law, the following recommendations can be put forth.

• Develop a vision about accountability, in the meaning of legal oversight, in military operations and link it to the concept of command and control. Communicate this vision in education and training, particularly to officers and non-commissioned officers, and set it down in writing. The notion of accountability deserves at least a reintroduction in military doctrine with an explanation what is meant by this.
• Consider revising the policy within the MOD and the PPS of investigating every incident involving civilian casualties. Develop a policy that clarifies the interplay between LOAC and HRL as regards the substantive norms on the use of force and its impact on the obligation to investigate the use of force. This policy should also address how this affects the use of both the military accountability mechanism and the law enforcement mechanism.
• Consider developing a basis in law for the fact-finding investigation conducted by the RMC under the authority of the PPS. Doing so involves establishing rules on the purpose Chapter 7: General conclusions 171 of the investigation, the use of coercive powers, the position of military personnel under investigation, the position of victims or next-of-kin, and the relationship with disciplinary and criminal investigations.
• Examine whether the concept of ‘just culture’ can be applied to the military accountability regime.
• Develop a protocol between the MOD and the PPS on coordination and cooperation in investigations into the use of force.

Divergent data in India

What gives withv the caseload data for India's Armed Forces Tribunal. Is the backlog the nearly 38,000 cases reported by the court or the 6904 cases reported by the government in Parliament? The Wire has the story here. Excerpt:

Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative’s  (CHRI) director and RTI activist Venkatesh Nayak found in responses to his queries to the AFT that if total pending cases across all benches and over two decades were added up, the number reaches 37,864. This figure is not just substantially higher than what the Union government declared but also higher than the AFT’s own declaration just a few months earlier, in another set of RTI responses to Nayak.

The mismatch between the figures of the Union government and the AFT came to light in December 2025, when the tribunal’s Central Public Information Officer, in RTI responses to Nayak, said the pendency was 27,962 cases as of September, 2025. The Wire had first reported the inconsistencies in AFT’s pendency figures, including the mismatch with the figures provided in the government’s reply in parliament. In fact, the report showed that parliament had recorded 18,826 pending cases in February 2021 and that this figure steadily rose after this date.

End of a 13-year ordeal

María Serrano, a member of Spain's Civil Guard has been acquitted in what is now the final phase of a 13-year legal whistleblowing ordeal. The decision comes when a senior officer pursued charges against her as a private party after the prosecution decided not to press the case. Details in this report  Excerpt:

The final ruling thus brings to a close a long process that has affected both her professional career and her personal life. During these years, Serrano reported suffering reprisals, including disciplinary proceedings, transfers, and loss of her specialization within the Seprona (Nature Protection Service). She even lost the housing assigned to her at the Montequinto barracks and endured extended periods of medical leave.

Not military justice, but . . . (another in the series)

The UK's Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan has a user-friendly website here. Hats off to the Inquiry for going the extra mile on transparency, including translation into Dari and Pashto. "On 15 December 2022, the Government established an independent statutory inquiry to investigate matters arising from the deployment of British Special Forces to Afghanistan between mid-2010 and mid-2013. Lord Justice Sir Charles Haddon-Cave chairs the Inquiry."

Decaying legal culture in DoD

Prof. Jack Goldsmith writes here about the "decaying legal culture" in the Defense Department. Excerpt:

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth came to office openly hostile to his department’s legal culture and determined to change it. He is succeeding. One result is persistent lawbreaking by the Department of Defense in derogation of the rule-of-law culture that the department has fostered since Vietnam. The courts, which have done an admirable job of checking the administration’s legal violations, cannot help here, since these matters are beyond judicial review. That leaves Congress, which, largely due to Republican control, has been sadly passive in Trump 2.0. When the reckoning comes, the Armed Services Committees in Congress will have a lot of explaining to do.