The Geneva Academy contributes, through research, expertise, and policy engagement, to the promotion and effective implementation of international humanitarian law, international human rights law, and international law applicable in armed conflicts and transitional situations, including issues related to international responsibility for serious violations.
Through evidence-based and policy-oriented research, the Academy addresses contemporary legal and policy challenges arising in situations of armed conflict, crisis, transition, and accountability processes. Its activities combine academic excellence with practical relevance and aim to support informed legal and policy responses at the international, regional, and domestic levels.
As a centre of reference jointly established by the University of Geneva and the Geneva Graduate Institute, the Academy serves as a bridge between academia, policy, and practice. It convenes scholars, practitioners, policymakers, international organizations, civil society actors, and other partners through research collaborations, expert consultations, workshops, conferences, seminars, and public events.
The Academy’s research and policy engagement activities are closely connected to its educational mission and reflect the core areas of expertise that also underpin its Master of Advanced Studies (MAS), executive education programmes, short courses, and professional trainings.
The Geneva Academy develops and hosts research and policy engagement projects that combine academic excellence, evidence-based analysis, and practical relevance. Supported through institutional funding, grants, and partnerships, these projects contribute to advancing legal knowledge, informing policy debates, strengthening implementation, and supporting accountability processes in practice.
The Academy’s projects are structured research initiatives developed within or across its thematic platforms. They address contemporary legal and policy challenges through rigorous analysis, expert engagement, and collaboration with international organisations, states, academic institutions, research centres, and civil society partners.
Projects generate a range of research and policy-oriented outputs, including publications, legal analysis, databases, digital tools, and monitoring initiatives aimed at making knowledge and expertise more accessible to policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and broader audiences.
The Academy’s projects also contribute to and inform the broader activities carried out across its platforms, including expert dialogue, public engagement, and knowledge dissemination initiatives.
The Academy’s research and policy engagement activities are organised around three core thematic platforms:
• the Geneva Human Rights Platform
• the Geneva International Humanitarian Law Platform
• the International Crimes and Justice Platform
These platforms provide the thematic and institutional framework for the Academy’s research, expertise, and policy engagement activities. Reflecting the Academy’s principal fields of expertise, they create spaces for long-term collaboration, visibility, knowledge dissemination, and engagement with States, international organizations, academia, and civil society.
The distinction between the three platforms is primarily organizational and thematic. The issues they address are deeply interconnected and reflect a shared commitment to the protection of human dignity, the protection of individuals and communities affected by conflict and crisis, and the prevention of serious violations of international law. Across the three platforms, the Academy promotes research, expertise, and policy engagement aimed at prevention, protection, accountability, and non-recurrence.
The platforms also foster coherence and synergies across the Academy’s activities, including its research projects; the LLM-MAS programmes in International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, and in International Crimes, Justice and Human Rights; executive education through the Executive Master in International Law in Armed Conflict; training and short-course initiatives; and advocacy and public engagement activities.
In addition, the platforms serve as spaces for academic exchange and public discussion through conferences, expert meetings, lectures, workshops, and other events, including initiatives organised in cooperation with the Academy’s founding institutions — the Faculty of Law of the University of Geneva and the Geneva Graduate Institute. They also encourage interaction between research, policy engagement, and education by creating opportunities for participants in the Academy’s educational programmes to contribute to discussions and develop initiatives connected to the platforms’ thematic areas.