In association with the International Commission of Jurists

International Humanitarian Law

31 Aug

[Mei Ching Liu is an Associate Research Fellow with the Military Transformations Programme (MTP) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Singapore.] All views expressed in this post are the author’s own and do not reflect the official position of RSIS. The UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) will meet later this month...

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28 Aug

[Yousuf Syed Khan is a Manager, Law and Policy at Legal Action Worldwide in Geneva. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council (Strategic Litigation Project), and an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism - The Hague. Jérôme de Hemptinne is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University.] In Part I of this post, we clarified which legal regimes...

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28 Aug

[Yousuf Syed Khan is a Manager, Law and Policy at Legal Action Worldwide in Geneva. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council (Strategic Litigation Project), and an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism - The Hague. Jérôme de Hemptinne is an Assistant Professor at Utrecht University.] We read with real interest Alexandria Virginski’s recent post, Behind Enemy...

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28 Aug

[Netta Goussac is Associate Senior Researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and Special Counsel at Lexbridge.] Editorial Note: This post forms the third of three posts of the Opinio Juris mini-symposium on the upcoming meeting of the Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems within the auspices of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. A version...

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27 Aug

[Ambassador Alexander Kmentt is an Austrian career diplomat, currently serving as Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations Office and to the Specialized Institutions in Geneva. He has worked extensively on disarmament and non-proliferation issues and is one of the architects of the initiative on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons...

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27 Aug

[Dorothea Anthony is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Wollongong, Australia.] When the United States and Israel initiated military action against Iran in June 2025 and February 2026, one response from Iran was to target US foreign military bases. It struck these bases situated in the neighbouring United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,...

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27 Aug

[Hassan Khoder, LL.M., is a PhD candidate in Law at the University of Cologne in Germany specialising in autonomous cyber weapons and international humanitarian law. His working papers are available on SSRN.] The Vote That Has Not Been Adequately Analysed On 1 December 2025, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 80/57 on lethal autonomous weapons systems by 164 votes in favour...

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27 Aug

[Rain Liivoja is a Professor at the University of Queensland Law School and a Director of the Asia-Pacific Institute for Law and Security.]Editorial Note: This post forms the first of three posts of the Opinio Juris mini-symposium on the upcoming meeting of the Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems within the auspices of the Convention on Certain...

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21 Aug

[Natia Navrouzov is a lawyer and the Executive Director of Yazda, a global Yazidi organisation that has documented ISIL’s crimes since 2014 and supports survivors of the Yazidi genocide through legal, psychosocial, and advocacy work] On 20 March 2026, the Paris Assize Court convicted Sabri Essid of genocide and crimes against humanity for atrocities committed against the Yazidi community in Iraq....

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21 Aug

[Fadel Abdulghany is executive director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights and author of The Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria and the Failure of the International Community and Undermining the Independence of the Judiciary in Syria and Pathways to Its Reform.] For six years, Al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria was the world's largest and most troubled detention site linked to the Islamic State and the...

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21 Aug

[Arez Rizgari is an Iranian scholar. The author is writing under a pseudonym because they are concerned that this post will subject them to political retaliation or restrictions on their academic freedom by Iranian authorities.] On the morning of 17 July 2026, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) struck the offices of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan in the Kurdistan...

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20 Aug

[Rafael Braga da Silva is an international criminal and human rights lawyer] The symbol of the red cross against a white field has become common in modern media. It has been used in books, movies, videogames, toys and costumes throughout. Its meaning usually deemed obvious: a red cross on a white field equals health, healing, recovery. It is ubiquitous visual slang:...

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