New Hactivists and the Old Concept of Levee en Masse

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the continuing debate over the relevance of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) to cyberwar It does so by taking what is often said to be a particularly archaic aspect of IHL, the French Revolutionary notion of levee en masse, and asking whether the concept could have relevance in the cyber context. The article treats levee en masse as a litmus test for the law's relevance; if this IHL "relic" could have relevance in the cyber context, then the continued relevance of the larger body of rules should also be less doubtful.