International Humanitarian Law

[Jared Miller is a Ph.D. Candidate at The Fletcher School at Tufts University focusing on governance, peacebuilding, and anti-corruption in Nigeria.] “By the time a famine is declared, it’s too late. . . it means people are already dying of hunger”World Food Programme, 4 May 2021 Introduction In 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari appeared on the BBC and declared a ‘technical victory’ over Boko Haram, yet six...

[Chris Newton previously worked in South Sudan with several humanitarian organizations, including most recently the United Nations World Food Programme, and is currently a master’s student at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University.] Humanitarian famine early warning and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2417 on armed conflict and hunger share a gap – famine caused by armed conflict in...

[Yousuf Syed Khan serves as the Legal/Reporting Officer with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, and previously served as the Reporting Officer/Analyst with the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic.] Introduction On 24 May 2018, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2417, recognising explicitly the link between conflict and hunger, and acknowledging and condemning – for...

The past few days have been dominated by the horrible images of destruction coming out of Palestine. As is painfully visible to anyone with an internet connection, Israel has been targeting residential and commercial buildings in Gaza under the argument that they are used by Hamas militants. As one tweet by the Israeli Defence Forces put it, according to Israel,...

[Brian Lander and Rebecca Vetharaniam Richards work for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), respectively as Deputy Director of the Emergency Division and Chief of Emergencies & Transitions Programme & Policy. The views stated in the article are those of the authors. (brian.lander@wfp.org; rebecca.richards@wfp.org)] When Security Council resolution 2417 was adopted in May 2018, WFP and other food security actors were taken...

[Global Rights Compliance (GRC) is a niche organisation that specialises in legal services associated with violations of international law. For more on GRC’s work on conflict and hunger, see here. For more on GRC’s accountability work, click here.] Three years ago, the UN Security Council Resolution 2417 (UNSC 2417) recognised for the first time the intrinsic link between hunger and conflict. This landmark resolution condemns the...

[Ali Jameel is an Accountability and Redress Officer at Mwatana for Human Rights and Niku Jafarnia is a Legal Fellow at Mwatana for Human Rights. Mwatana for Human Rights, established in 2007, is an independent Yemeni civil society organization that advocates for human rights through the documentation of civilian harm, the provision of legal support to victims and through advocacy...

[Junru Lyu is a J.D. Candidate at Georgetown University Law Center, with an LL.B. degree obtained from Shandong University.]Photo credit: Gallo Images—Getty Images On Apr. 17th, Dr. Trung Nguyen Quoc Tan published his post concerning the occupation status of the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands. He claims in his post that given China’s military and paramilitary activities in the South...

[John Quigley is Professor Emeritus at the Moritz College of Law of The Ohio State University.] Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons The recent violence in Israel/Palestine highlights the need to resolve the underlying issues that have kept generated turmoil for a century. The unresolved issue of Arabs displaced in 1948 is at the top of the list of such issues. The urgency of...

[Sean Bain has worked on justice and democracy issues in Myanmar since 2013, including as Yangon-based legal adviser for a human rights group and as an analyst for the United Nations.] Photo credit:  "SK/Kachinwaves"; "Anti-coup protest in Myanmar's northern Kachin State, 8 May 2021"   The unlawful military coup of 1 February is not a fait accompli, and States must refuse to recognise...

Summer School Al-Haq International Law Online Summer School Program: Al-Haq Center for Applied International Law is pleased to announce its Seventh International Law Summer School for professionals, legal researchers, post-graduates and academics in the fields of international law and human rights. The 2021 program will run entirely online through ten days from 31st May – 12th June 2021. The summer school aims to assist professionals...

Call for Papers Call for papers on “The Potential of Public Interest Litigation in International Law”: As there is growing interest in using international courts in the public interest, this project, funded by the University of Exeter and the University of Geneva, aims at analysing what challenges lie ahead and how to overcome them.  In order to tackle these questions, the organisers...