The July terrorist attacks on civilians in London. Armed conflicts in Iraq and other hot spots. The jailing of prisoners in Guantanamo without charges or counsel. Those explosive events and many others suggest that the Geneva Convention rules of war are long overdue for an update.

In the book "New Wars, New Laws? Applying the Laws of War in 21st Century Conflicts" (Transnational Publishers, 2005), Cornell University Professors David Wippman and Matthew Evangelista present perspectives from experts on changing wars, aging laws and the need for new legislation to govern contemporary forms of warfare. But the chances of new international rules being adopted anytime soon are slim, for a variety of reasons, they suggest.

"Most of the rules governing war were drafted at least 25 years ago, and many long before that," said Wippman. As a result they lag far behind developments in technology and politics, he said. The book provides a new look at how the changing face of armed conflict is pushing the limits of existing international and national laws about how wars are fought.

A director for multilateral and humanitarian affairs at the National Security Council in 1998-99, Wippman is vice provost for international relations at Cornell and a professor of law at Cornell Law School. Co-editor Matthew Evangelista is a Cornell professor of government and director of the university's Peace Studies Program.

"Although human rights advocates view with alarm U.S. tactics in the fight against terrorism, many are reluctant to seek formal changes to the law, for fear that doing so would suggest that the law as it is does not preclude what they see as excesses by the U.S.," said Wippman. Conversely, "although some government officials say that existing law does not adequately provide for the challenges posed to national security in an age of transnational terrorist groups committed to acquiring weapons of mass destruction, they, too, are reluctant to seek changes in international law for fear that a formal process of reform would spin out of control," he said.

Evangelista expressed a similar view: "Perhaps the most surprising conclusion that emerges from the book is that there is a substantial consensus between the military lawyers and the representatives of humanitarian groups on the risks of attempting to revise the laws of war to cope with the threat of terrorism and the nature of the U.S. response. Although each side has reasons to be dissatisfied with the status quo, almost everyone seemed to think that the alternatives could be worse," he said.

Contributors to the book discuss the unique complexities of war today. One chapter looks at whether the destruction of a country's infrastructure, as in the case of Iraq in the first Gulf War, should be acceptable as a military objective under international humanitarian law. Others look at such controversial subjects as targeted assassinations and extra-legal killings; the occupation of Iraq; and Israeli control of the occupied territories in the West Bank and Gaza.

Contributors include an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps; the editor of the Crimes of War Web site; a lieutenant colonel in the Judge Advocate General Corps; a colonel in Canada's Office of the Judge Advocate General; an expert on Middle East legal systems; and professors of international law in Switzerland, Israel and the United States.

The book grew out of a conference held at Cornell Law School and was supported by a Carnegie Corp. grant and a grant from the MacArthur Foundation to the Peace Studies Program. Wippman's comments on the book and its findings appear in "Do New Wars Call for New Laws," an article in the summer 2005 issue of Cornell Law Forum, accessible via the Cornell Law School Web site: http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu.