International Humanitarian Law and Advocacy

International Humanitarian Law (IHL), also known as the Law of Armed Conflict, is a set of rules that seeks to balance military priorities when engaging in armed conflict with humanitarian concern for those who are impacted by such operations. This body of law comprises at its core the four 1949 Geneva Conventions and the three 1977 Additional Protocols, as well as a myriad of associated treaty and customary international law that dates back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After decades of promise, International Criminal Law has now found its place as a vibrant and entrenched part of the international legal panoply and does directly deal with war crimes. The liberal dream of harnessing law's power and authority to restrain and criminalize aberrant violence in armed conflict has been realized. There is now a cascade of International Courts and Tribunals dispensing justice routinely and assigning legal culpability to individuals who have breached the growing body of applicable law. This course will examine both substantive IHL and the emerging principles of international criminal law that seek to criminalise aberrant behaviour on the battlefield. Specific topics to be covered include:- dichotomy between the rules applicable to resort to force (jus ad bellum) and the rules applicable when engaging in armed conflict (jus in bello);- the rules of distinction, proportionality and precautions;- the intersection with international human rights law;- the domestic legal incorporation of IHL;- the normative interplay between law applicable to international and non-international armed conflict;- the law of naval and air warfare; - IHL and Space Operations ; - the role of ethical/moral values when advising military command on the application of the law in the battlefield and principles of international criminal law relating to individual and command responsibility.