- Symposium
- Revisiting Customary IHL: The ICRC Study at 20
A Question of Authority and Risk
24.09.2025
Editor’s Note: This post is part of a symposium relating to the ICRC's customary international humanitarian law study, featured across Articles of War and Völkerrechtsblog. The introductory post is available...
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- Symposium
- Revisiting Customary IHL: The ICRC Study at 20
Promise and Peril of Relying on Human Rights in the Customary International Humanitarian Law Study
23.09.2025
Editor’s Note: This post is part of a symposium relating to the ICRC's customary international humanitarian law study, featured across Articles of War and Völkerrechtsblog. The introductory post is available...
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- Symposium
- Revisiting Customary IHL: The ICRC Study at 20
The Encyclopaedic Value of the ICRC’s Customary IHL Study
22.09.2025
Editor’s Note: This post is part of a symposium relating to the ICRC's customary international humanitarian law study, featured across Articles of War and Völkerrechtsblog. The introductory post is available...
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- Symposium
- Bofaxe
- Revisiting Customary IHL: The ICRC Study at 20
Beyond Headcounts
19.09.2025
Editor’s Note: This post is part of a symposium relating to the ICRC's customary international humanitarian law study, featured across Articles of War and Völkerrechtsblog. The introductory post is available...
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- Symposium
- Revisiting Customary IHL: The ICRC Study at 20
Revisiting Customary IHL
19.09.2025
Rouven Diekjobst
Rosa-Lena Lauterbach
Paulina Rob
Editors’ note: This post introduces a symposium relating to the ICRC's Customary International Humanitarian Law Study, featured across Articles of War and Völkerrechtsblog. The symposium highlights presentations delivered at the young...
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Cut the Carve-Out
29.07.2025
In the hallowed halls of British justice, a familiar narrative recently played out: a clash between the government's sovereign power in foreign affairs and its obligations under international law. The...
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Beyond the Reactor
25.07.2025
Aaron Dumont
Kai Budelmann
With Israel’s strikes against Iranian territory on June 13, 2025, the long-simmering confrontation between Israel and Iran has escalated into open hostilities, marking a dangerous new phase in their conflict....
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The Siege Within
20.06.2025
Israel has blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza since the end of a ceasefire in March, throwing the territory into what is believed to be the worst humanitarian crisis in...
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Dracarys and Law
11.06.2025
Fiction constructs speculative worlds where the meaning of restraint, responsibility, and legitimacy can be tested and revealed. Focusing on the destruction of King’s Landing in Season 8, Episode 5 of...
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Sacred Days, Silent Guns?
19.05.2025
The relationship between religion and international humanitarian law (IHL) has been the subject of academic study for decades: Rules of IHL are reflected in the teachings of most if not...
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Reproductive Violence in Occupied Gaza
08.05.2025
Israel’s commission of reproductive violence on the Gaza Strip exemplifies the impunity surrounding violations of Palestinians’ right to reproductive health. Since Israel’s breach of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire on 18 March...
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Lawfare: The Mortal Kombat of Jurisprudence
17.03.2025
Carl von Clausewitz, a prominent Prussian military theorist at the beginning of the 19th century, in his major work “Vom Kriege” (On War), described war as nothing more than the continuation...
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- Symposium
- Women in International Law Vol. 4
Filling the Gap
03.03.2025
Wars are never gender-neutral. Gaza serves as a stark reminder of this reality, with nearly one million women and girls bearing "the worst brunt" of nine months of conflict, according...
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- Interview
- Symposium
- International Law and the Political
Global Histories of International Law’s Practice in Wartime
04.06.2024
Boyd van Dijk
Hendrik Simon
While we talked about the making of the 1949 Geneva Conventions in Part I of our interview with Boyd van Dijk, the second part is about more global histories of...
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- Interview
- Symposium
- International Law and the Political
Ordering the Power to Protect and Destroy Civilian Lives
03.06.2024
Boyd van Dijk
Hendrik Simon
The four 1949 Geneva Conventions – the most important rules ever formulated for regulating warfare – were shaped by liberal humanitarianism and the idea of progress through international law. In...
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Settler Violence Through the Lens of State Responsibility
24.04.2024
Since 7 October 2023, public attention partially shifted away from the situation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. However, UNRWA has released alarming numbers: 444 civilians have been killed...
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Is the Harmonisation of IHL and IHRL Eroding?
18.03.2024
Editor's note: a two-part rebuttal to this piece by Mischa Gureghian Hall has been published on Völkerrechtsblog (see Part I and Part II). On 19 December 2023, the European...
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- Bofaxe
- Symposium
- Women in International Law Vol. 3
A Much-Needed Queer Look at International Humanitarian Law
04.03.2024
People with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities (SOGI) are particularly vulnerable in times of conflict. However, due to the gender binary it is based on, international humanitarian law (IHL)...
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- Symposium
- Interview
- International Law and the Political
Fetishizing the State: Gentili and the Myth of the Modern Laws of War
21.11.2023
Claire Vergerio
Hendrik Simon
According to international humanitarian law, the answer to the question of who is considered a legitimate actor of force is primarily the following: sovereign states. This state-centred answer is often...
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Trojan Horses with Emergency Lights
16.05.2023
Medical impartiality, the principle that during armed conflicts or civil unrest, no one should interfere with the access to or delivery of medical services, is of utmost importance for effective...
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Prisoner of War Videos on Facebook
14.04.2023
Pierre Thielbörger
Jan-Phillip Graf
When violent clashes between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces reignited the international armed conflict (IAC) in Nagorno-Karabakh last year, social media was flooded with videos allegedly portraying the mistreatment of prisoners...
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Does International Law Close Open Borders for Humanitarian Aid?
28.02.2023
The humanitarian catastrophe in north-west Syria, caused by the protracted war and exacerbated by the recent earthquakes, is once again drawing international attention to Turkish-Syrian border crossings. The dichotomy between...
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Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by Peacekeepers in the Central African Republic
06.09.2022
On the difficult path from conflict to peace, peacekeepers can unfortunately become perpetrators of violence against the populations they seek to secure. Peacekeeping has been accused of occasionally creating a...
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Imploding Protection Through Exploding Norms?
12.08.2022
On August 4th 2022, Amnesty International published a report criticising the tactics of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) for endangering civilians by launching attacks and placing military targets in populated...
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No Purchase, No Requisition, No Seizure
27.07.2022
Grain plays a crucial role in the war in Ukraine. Not only is Russia blocking Ukrainian grain exports and thereby causing a risk of a world-wide food crisis. In addition,...
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(Don’t) Call ‘Em Mercenaries
20.07.2022
Lorenz Rubner
Lisa M. Cohen
Much like the invasion of Iraq did two decades ago, the attack on Ukraine has yanked legal terminology and arguments from international law to the public forum, prompting legal academics...
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Not Making the Cut
08.04.2021
On 21 January 2021, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court or ECtHR) adopted its judgement on the inter-state case Georgia v Russia (II). The judgement concerns...
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