Symposia

[Alejandro Chehtman is a Professor of Law at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (Argentina) and Fellow at the Argentine National Research Council (CONICET).] In Lawmaking under pressure Giovanni Mantilla has written an indispensable book for anyone interested in, or working on the laws of armed conflict, international legal history, and the theory of international relations (IR). The book uncovers and critically examines the process through which...

Kathryn Greenman has published her piece here in our joint symposium with Armed Groups and International Law. Kathryn Greenman is a lecturer in law at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Prior to joining UTS, Kathryn was a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam Center for International Law at the University of Amsterdam and a Kathleen Fitzpatrick Visiting Doctoral Fellow with the Laureate Program in...

[Neta C. Crawford is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Boston University.] How does international law get made?  In particular, how was it that diplomats were able to craft international rules governing internal conflicts when sovereign states have little or no inherent interest in being constrained by those laws?  Or at least great powers don’t want to be told what to do. ...

[Giovanni Mantilla is University Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) and Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, and of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law and is the author of Lawmaking under Pressure: International Humanitarian law and Internal Armed Conflict.] Lawmaking under Pressure: International Humanitarian Law and Internal Armed Conflict is the culmination of several years of research and...

Over the coming week, along with Armed Groups and International Law, we are thrilled to co-host a symposium on Giovanni Mantilla's latest book, Lawmaking under Pressure: International Humanitarian Law and Internal Armed Conflict. Scholars and practitioners who will be weighing in in addition to Giovanni include: Alonso Gurmendi, Neta Crawford, Kathryn Greenman, Alejandro Chehtman, Verity Robson, Charli Carpenter, Boyd van Dijk, Iris Mueller and...

[Emanuela Chiara Gillard is a Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict and an Associate Fellow, International Law Programme, Chatham House.] Many of the contributions to this symposium have -rightly – focused on practices by belligerents that deliberately cause starvation of civilians. The debate must not overlook a different set of measures adopted by the international community and states unilaterally that also contribute to starvation or...

[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...

[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...

[Alex de Waal is the Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation. His expertise on famines, both scholarly and in practice, focuses on Sudan and the Horn of Africa.] Tigray, Ethiopia, is a test case for United Nations Security Council resolution 2417 (2417). The United Nations has failed that test. Today, between 4.5 million and 5.2 million people of Tigray’s total population of 5.7 million...