International Humanitarian Law

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...

[Alexander Wolffenbuttel is a Ph.D. student in International Law at the Graduate Institute Geneva. He is a former legal consultant at the International Criminal Court and a former apprentice at Sjöcrona van Stigt advocaten defending Oleg Pulatov. The opinions and comments expressed in this publication are those of the author.] Photo credit: BBC   MH-17 Trial: U.S. Satellite Imagery and Foreign Confidential Intelligence...

[Parisa Zangeneh is a PhD student at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland, Galway, where she  is a recipient of the Hardiman Scholarship.] Photo: Parisa Zangeneh Monique Cormier’s recent book focuses on a problem that has plagued the International Criminal Court (ICC, Court) since its inception: its potential (in)ability to exercise jurisdiction over nationals of non-States Parties (NSPs)...

[Ahmad Helmi is a survivor of torture and three years detention in the Syrian regime’s detention centers, and is the co-founder and manager of Ta’afi, a survivor-led and centered initiative supporting survivors of detention.] [Brigitte Herremans is a researcher at Justice Visions, an ERC project on Victim Participation in Transitional Justice, which is hosted at the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University.] [Veronica Bellintani...