International Humanitarian Law

[Mariana Gkliati is an Assistant Professor at Tilburg University. Danai Angeli is an Assistant Professor at Biklent University. Elizabeth Mavropoulou is a Lecturer at the University of Westminster. Niovi Vavoula is an Associate Professor at the Queen Mary University of London.] This blogpost was released on 11 July as an open letter to Greek and EU authorities, undersigned by 350 academics...

Few emotions rival the existential horror a PhD candidate experiences when asked to justify their topic’s relevance to the discipline. Having adopted “Mass Media and International Law” as my banner, I’ve received a fair share of queries about “where’s the law”. Though the frequency of these challenges has decreased with our discipline’s recent gestures towards multi-disciplinarity, their persistence reflects the...

[Melanie O’Brien is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Western Australia and President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.] This post is about one of the most talked about trials in Australian legal history: a former soldier suing the media for defamation, for publishing allegations that he committed war crimes. During the trial a plethora of evidence against...

[Andrew Clapham is Professor of International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute and the author of "Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction and War".] The arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova have generated a lot of talk about the absence of any obligation on Russia to comply due to Russia...

[Dr. Elisabeth Hoffberger-Pippanis associate at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) with a research focus on biological and chemical weapons within the CBWNet Project as well as AI-enabled technology in the military domain. Prior to joining PRIF, she was researcher and head of project of “iPRAW”, the International Panel on the Regulation of Autonomous Weapons, a project funded by the...

Jennifer Trahan is back with another post at Just Security that tries to argue a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression (STCoA) is superior to the internationalized (hybrid) tribunal favoured by (at least) the the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and most recently the US. It will take a couple of responses to cover all of the ways in which...

This post is based on the regulation subpanel of the Realities of Algorithmic Warfare breakout session, held at the REAIM Summit 2023. Watch the full breakout session here. This contribution also appears on the AutoNorms website. The global debate on military applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy is gradually expanding beyond autonomous weapon systems (AWS) towards the concept of ‘Responsible AI’. Proponents...

[Christian De Vos, JD, PhD, is the Director of Research and Investigations at Physicians for Human Rights; Anna Gallina, LL.M, Advanced LL.M, and Julianne Romy,  LL.M, LL.M, LL.M, are respectively the Associate Legal Advisor and the Legal Advisor at eyeWitness to Atrocities, initiated by the International Bar Association.] Introduction It has been a busy period for justice and accountability in Ukraine. Last...

[Maria Elena Vignoli is a senior international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch.] The events of 2022 brought renewed attention and support for accountability for serious international crimes. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine brought images of mass burial sites and bombed-out cities back on the front pages, and the far-reaching impact of the conflict triggered a strong response from the international...

[Kudakwashe Mapako holds an LLB Degree in International Law (Cum Laude) from Zhejiang Gongshang University and Prospective Masters Candidate at University of Cape town specializing in international law. He is a Research Officer at African Center for Science and International Security (AFRICSIS) in the Arms Control and Nonproliferation program.] Introduction Humanity's wars have seen a slew of instances in which installations containing dangerous...