ICRC
11 December 2019
The majority of today’s armed conflicts are non-international, opposing states to armed non-state actors (ANSAs) or between ANSAs themselves. In this context, ANSAs’ compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) is a major challenge in today's armed conflicts.
‘While many violations of IHL and IHRL are committed by ANSAs, how they understand, interpret or can implement their international obligations has not yet been scientifically explored. This is precisely the objective of our research project with Geneva Call that aims at collecting ANSAS’ practice and interpretation of IHL and IHRL norms’ explains Dr Annyssa Bellal, Senior Research Fellow and Strategic Adviser on IHL at the Geneva Academy.
Our new Research Brief From Words to Deeds: A Study of Armed Non-State Actors’ Practice and Interpretations of International Humanitarian and Human Rights Norms summarizes the focus, objectives, methodology and research questions of this project.
‘How and why do ANSAs view, interpret and act upon IHL and IHRL norms, and what can the humanitarian community learn from these practices to enhance the effectiveness of its protection interventions and thus increase ANSAs’ level of compliance with international law are the overarching research questions of our study’ underlines Annyssa Bellal.
This research brief, along with the research project, its rationale and some of its preliminary findings will be discussed at a side event at the 33rd International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, co-organized by the Geneva Academy and Geneva Call.
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Applications for the upcoming academic year of our Executive Master in International Law in Armed Conflict are now open. They will remain open until 31 May 2024, with courses starting at the end of September 2024.
Articles of War
Our LLM alumnus Ioannis Bamnios – who graduated in October – published the main and very innovative argument of his LLM paper on the ‘conduct of hostilities in occupied territories’ in the leading blog Articles of War of the US Military Academy at West Point.
ICRC / AI Generated
Co-hosted by the ICRC and the Geneva Academy, at the ICRC headquarters in Geneva, this event aims to disseminate key findings on the use of artificial intelligence in military decision making.
UN Photo / Jean-Marc Ferré
This training course will explore the origin and evolution of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and its functioning in Geneva and will focus on the nature of implementation of the UPR recommendations at the national level.
Adobe
This training course will examine how the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights have been utilized to advance the concept of business respect for human rights throughout the UN system, the impact of the Guiding Principles on other international organizations, as well as the impact of standards and guidance developed by these different bodies.
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This project addresses the human rights implications stemming from the development of neurotechnology for commercial, non-therapeutic ends, and is based on a partnership between the Geneva Academy, the Geneva University Neurocentre and the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee.
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Geneva Academy
Geneva Academy