In this article, I argue that humanitarian actors are becoming increasingly professional when designing and implementing protection activities in situations of armed conflict and violence. According to my own personal experience, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has undergone drastic changes over the last two decades. The institution has diversified the type of protection activities it can implement; it now gives more attention to various population groups and their ability to develop resilience to different types of threat; and, finally, it is increasingly putting more emphasis on the training and career paths of its field delegates working on protection issues. Such changes are not the exclusive trademark of the ICRC. Many humanitarian and human rights actors working on protection issues have undertaken similar adjustments.

The article notes that much clarity on protection concepts, as well as considerable field experience, has been gained since the 1990s. The number of humanitarian and human rights organizations implementing protection activities in the field has steadily increased. Positive as well as negative lessons learned have been documented and have helped to shape institutional guidance and guidelines. Inter-institutional exchanges have strengthened, allowing the development of professional standards for protection work, to ensure that protection work is as safe and efficient as possible. In the end, this professionalization of the field of protection is in the best interests of both the communities affected by violence and disasters, and the humanitarian field workers confronted by complex challenges.

On signature, Portugal entered a reservation concerning this article and Article 13 of Convention I but did not maintain it on ratification. It reads as follows:

The Portuguese Government makes a reservation regarding the application of the above Articles in all cases in which the legitimate Government has already asked for and agreed to an armistice or the suspension of military operations of no matter what character, even if the armed forces in the field have not yet capitulated.

The debate about the legality of cross-border relief operations has been revived in the wake of the failures experienced by international humanitarian organizations in their response to humanitarian needs in Syria.

The aim of this article is to carry out a preliminary analysis of issues relating to the types of violence that are directed against humanitarian medical missions. Starting from the observation that violence can cause some degree of disruption for a medical organisation such as Médecins Sans Frontières, despite its wide experience which has brought it much wisdom and generated numerous and sporadic responses to such events, the article offers a more subtle analysis of terms and of situations of violence so as to contribute to the establishment of a research project and, in a second phase, to an awareness-raising campaign focusing on these complex phenomena.

The author analyzes the impact of religion in current conflicts throughout the world. The main focus lies on the monotheistic religions, i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all of which have recently been reproached for potentially fostering the temptation to resort to violence. The article focuses on this accusation and departs from an analysis of the concept of “holy war” in the three religions. The article concludes with setting out a pragmatism of peaceableness highlighting that wars in the twenty-first century can neither be regarded as just, nor holy, nor clean and that absolute pacifism will not only be politically impossible but might as a political principle even be irresponsible.

Daniel Munoz-Rojas and Jean-Jacques Fresard's study “The Roots of Behaviour in War” (RBW Study), which came out in 2004, provided very useful insight into how compliance with international humanitarian law may be better ensured. In essence, it emphasized the role of “the law” and associated enforcement mechanisms in achieving optimal results. Emphasis on “persuasion” regarding the values underpinning the law was identified as having a possibly corrosive effect and was to be de-emphasized, if not avoided. Such conclusions raise serious questions. The study's reliance on neutral normativity of “the law” can be overstated. The issue may be less one of checking aberrant behaviour under the law and more one of ensuring that unnecessary harm is curtailed within the law. The assumptions made by the RBW Study concerning the efficacy of the law are too narrow in their avoidance of the moral and ethical questioning that can accompany legal interpretative approaches. The role of identity and professional culture offers an effective means of ensuring restraint under the law. This article argues that the RBW Study has not stood the test of time and that operational developments have transcended the conclusions made in the study.

Since the number of women who actually participated in war was insignificant until the outbreak of World War I, the need for special protection for them was not felt prior to that time. This does not imply however that women had previously lacked any protection. From the birth of international humanitarian law, they had had the same general legal protection as men. If they were wounded, women were protected by the provisions of the 1864 Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field; if they became prisoners of war, they benefited from the Regulations annexed to the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 on the Laws and Customs of War on Land.

Armies have traditionally avoided cities and siege operations. Fighting for and in cities is costly, slow, and often inconclusive. But sometimes they are unavoidable, either because they are located on main road or rail junctions or because of their value as political and/or economic prizes. Urban expansion in both north and south has made cities today the main theatres of military and humanitarian operations.

Armies' structures, equipment, and doctrines are undergoing a process of adaptation. Manoeuvre has given way to fire power and protection for the troops as the decisive elements of military power. While heavy fire power does considerable damage and causes civilians to flee their homes, operations using protection techniques are only suitable for stabilization. Moreover, their success depends essentially on the willingness of troops to make sacrifices, and on support from the public.

Since ancient times, the use in war of poison and pathogenic agents has been considered a treacherous practice. It was condemned by international declarations and treaties, notably by the 1907 Hague Convention (IV) respecting the laws and customs of war on land. Efforts to strengthen this prohibition resulted in the conclusion, in 1925, of the Geneva Protocol which banned the use of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, usually referred to as chemical weapons, as well as the use of bacteriological methods of warfare. The latter are now understood to include not only bacteria, but also other biological agents, such as viruses or rickettsiae which were unknown at the time the Geneva Protocol was signed. (On 1 January 1997, 132 States were party to this Protocol.) However, the Geneva Protocol did not prohibit the development, production and stockpiling of chemical and biological weapons. Attempts to achieve a complete ban were made in the 1930s in the framework of the League of Nations, but with no success.

Après quelques années de travaux, l'Institut de droit international (IDI) a adopté une résolution intitulée «L'assistance humanitaire». Les travaux préparatories avaient été menés avec application et énergie par le rapporteur B. Vukas, de Croatie, après que M. Carrillo Salcedo eut renoncé à son mandat pour des raisons de santé. L'IDI est, de longue date, une institution scientifique du droit international de renom. Son objectif est de promouvoir le développement du droit international et d'agir pour qu'il soit appliqué. Il a été fondé en 1873, à l'Hôtel de Ville de Gand, en Belgique. L'Institut se réunit en principe tous les deux ans. Dans l'intervalle des sessions, des commissions scientifiques étudient des thèmes qui sont choisis par l'Assemblée plénière. Celle-ci reçoit les travaux des commissions et elle adopte des résolutions de caractère normatif sur la base de ces travaux préparatoires, quand cela lui paraît opportun. Ces résolutions sont portées à l'attention des autorités gouvernementales, des organisations internationales et de la communauté scientifique. Elles jouissent d'un poids certain au regard de la renommée et du sérieux de l'Institut.

The obligation to train troops in international humanitarian law (IHL) is simply stated and its implementation delegated to State discretion. This reflects a past assumption that mere dissemination of IHL would be an effective contribution to the prevention of violations. Academic literature has evolved so that dissemination alone is now known to be insufficient for compliance, while the ICRC's integration model emphasizes the relevance of IHL to all aspects of military decision-making. A separate process, the ICRC/Government of Switzerland Initiative on Strengthening Compliance with IHL, is still in its consultative stages at the time of writing, but may result in voluntary State reporting and/or thematic discussions at meetings of States. This article synthesizes academic and practitioner insights on effective IHL training, and suggests a collaborative rubric for informative, standardized reporting on IHL training. Such a rubric could enable States and researchers to share best practice and future innovations on IHL training, using a streamlined, cost-effective tool.

Suicide attacks are a recurrent feature of many conflicts. Whereas warfare heroism and martyrdom are allowed in certain circumstances in times of war, a suicide bomber might be committing at least five crimes according to Islamic law, namely killing civilians, mutilating their bodies, violating the trust of enemy soldiers and civilians, committing suicide and destroying civilian objects or properties. The author examines such attacks from an Islamic jus in bello perspective.

Data-driven artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are progressively transforming the humanitarian field, but these technologies bring about significant risks for the protection of vulnerable individuals and populations in situations of conflict and crisis. This article investigates the opportunities and risks of using AI in humanitarian action. It examines whether and under what circumstances AI can be safely deployed to support the work of humanitarian actors in the field. The article argues that AI has the potential to support humanitarian actors as they implement a paradigm shift from reactive to anticipatory approaches to humanitarian action. However, it recommends that the existing risks, including those relating to algorithmic bias and data privacy concerns, must be addressed as a priority if AI is to be put at the service of humanitarian action and not to be deployed at the expense of humanitarianism. In doing so, the article contributes to the current debates on whether it is possible to harness the potential of AI for responsible use in humanitarian action.

The purpose of this article is to give an overview of current understandings of the various roles of business actors in armed conflict. It traces the expanding discussion of business and conflict in today's civil wars, and the discussion's importance to humanitarian, human rights, corporate and peacebuilding policymakers. It shows how the humanitarian understanding of business roles in conflict has progressed beyond some simple and largely negative stereotypes about business in war to become more sophisticated. The article then looks at the significant diversity of business actors, which can determine their experience of armed conflict. It is suggested that there are six potential roles of business in armed conflict – that of victim, perpetrator, supplier, humanitarian actor, peacebuilder, and conflict preventer. Finally, the article recommends a range of ways to improve humanitarian policy so that humanitarian actors engage with business more actively and appropriately on law, business relief, and business continuity.

This article reviews the factors that determine the impact of explosive weapons on urban services in space and time, with a focus on drinking water services. The evidence comes from published and unpublished research and records, as well as experience restoring or maintaining such services. Urban services are seen as interconnected, and each composed of interdependent components of people, consumables and hardware. Elements that make up the components are labelled “upstream”, “midstream” and “downstream”, to reflect their location and hierarchy in the production and delivery of any urban service. The impact of explosive weapons is broken into the direct effects on any of the components of a service, and the reverberating effects on up- and or downstream components of the same service, or on other services. The effects are most commonly observed in service infrastructure, and determined chiefly by the extent of the damage to the functionality of any component. The spatial extent of the impact is found to be determined primarily by the hierarchy of the component suffering the direct impact, with attacks on upstream components being the furthest-reaching. The duration of the impact is determined primarily by the pre-explosion “baseline resilience” of the service, itself a function of system redundancies and emergency preparedness and response. The analysis suggests that the impact is more reasonably foreseeable than may commonly be thought, in the sense that the direct effects of explosives are well known and that the most important infrastructure is generally identifiable. It follows that proportionality assessments which involve urban services would benefit from (i) the direct and consistent engagement of specialized engineers within the targeting cell, and (ii) greater familiarity of the weapons controller with services, infrastructure and systems in urban areas.

The complexity of the ever-shifting humanitarian landscape in the Middle East region – where the effects of perennial conflict and instability have rarely been contained within one country – is a major preoccupation for humanitarian organisations like the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

In this article, the moral values underlying humanitarian principles are analysed. What were these original moral values? Have they changed? To what extent are they in danger today? Has humanity itself become an instrumental value? To answer these questions, the author examines the humanitarian discourse: firstly, how these values have been described by humanitarians themselves, and secondly, how they are used by humanitarians in specific contexts.

This article argues that, despite an ongoing global revolution in urban demography, most Western military research into urbanization is narrowly focused and remains disengaged from the interdisciplinary expertise of urban studies. Because so many cities are sui generis in terms of their governance, architectural design and demographic composition, the art of war must seek closer interaction with the science of cities. In the coming years, in order to control armed violence and reduce casualties across an urbanizing world, military analysts must seek greater cooperation with urban specialists. The common aim must be to develop an urban-oriented strand of strategic studies that is firmly based on a sophisticated understanding of the ecology of cities. Such a cooperative approach will assist in the development of military methods of operating in cities using appropriate rules of engagement that embrace international humanitarian law.

This article compares the concepts, scopes of application and procedural regimes of war crimes and grave breaches, while considering what role remains for the latter in international criminal law. In addition to their original conception as international obligations to enact and enforce domestic crimes, grave breaches have taken on a new meaning as international crimes, similar to war crimes. Only in few regards does the scope of application of these new grave breaches surpass that of war crimes. The procedural regime of grave breaches differs in theory significantly from that of war crimes, though less so in practice. Although it is too early to discount grave breaches, they are likely to become confined to history.