Multi-Blog Series: Locating the Geneva Conventions Commentaries in the International Legal Landscape

For the first episode in the Multi-blog series on the Updated Geneva Conventions Commentaries, the Humanitarian Law & Policy Blog has published Locating the Geneva Conventions Commentaries in the International Legal Landscape, by Jean-Marie Henckaerts.

View of destruction in downtown Homs, Syria. © Jerome Sessini/Magnum Photos for ICRC

Jean-Marie is the head of the unit in charge of the update of the ICRC Commentaries on the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977.

To kick off the series, Jean-Marie addresses critical questions surrounding the commentaries such as: Where do the ICRC Commentaries fit into the legal landscape? What are the rules governing treaty interpretation and how do they operate in the area of IHL? Where does the ICRC’s legitimacy to interpret the Geneva Conventions stem from?

Read the full post on the ICRC’s Humanitarian Law & Policy Blog.

This series is brought to you by ICRC’s Humanitarian Law and Policy Blog, Intercross and Opinio Juris.