Academics rarely raise the need to consider persons with disabilities when preventing, investigating and prosecuting international humanitarian law (IHL) violations. Worse still, no actual attempts have been made to include a disability perspective into practical guidance and monitoring mechanisms. This article addresses that void by laying out how existing yet unutilized IHL obligations can be leveraged to repress and suppress disability-based IHL violations. In doing so, the article will detail how fact-finding approaches, criminal investigative processes and reporting methods for IHL violations can be inclusive of persons with disabilities and thus more appropriately address the endemic under-representation of a disability perspective in the planning and execution of military operations during armed conflict and the specific crimes they thereby suffer. Additionally, this article will articulate concrete changes that should be made to international criminal law procedures for prosecuting war crimes to provide recognition and accountability for disability-based IHL violations, as has been done for violations against women and children. Finally, this article will diagnose the state of the law to address any legal challenges or hurdles that may hamper the inclusion of a disability perspective in fulfilling the IHL obligation to reduce and address violations of humanitarian law.

This paper presents an inexhaustive but thorough review of the evidence of violence against persons with disabilities that came before, or ought to have been known to, the prosecutors of the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone. This research demonstrates that despite significant and compelling evidence from investigators, journalists and witnesses, gross violations against persons with disabilities were largely ignored by the prosecution or treated merely as aggravating factors at sentencing. These crimes could instead have been characterized as an “other inhumane act” prosecutable as a crime against humanity, which would have emphasized the gravity of the crimes, provided recognition of the victims’ suffering, imposed criminal sanctions on those responsible, and unequivocally condemned violence against persons with disabilities during armed conflict.

For international lawyers seeking to promote compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL), some level of affective awareness is essential – but just where one might cultivate an understanding of emotions, and at which juncture of one's career, remains a mystery. This article proposes that what the IHL lawyers and advocates of the future need is an affect-based education. More than a simple mastery of a technical set of emotional intelligence skills, what we are interested in here is the refinement of a disposition or sensibility – a way of engaging with the world, with IHL, and with humanitarianism. In this article, we consider the potential for the Jean-Pictet Competition to provide this education. Drawing on our observations of the competition and a survey with 231 former participants, the discussion examines the legal and affective dimensions of the competition, identifies the precise moments of the competition in which emotional processes take place, and probes the role of emotions in role-plays and simulations. Presenting the Jean-Pictet Competition as a form of interaction ritual, we propose that high “emotional energy” promotes a humanitarian sensibility; indeed, participant interactions have the potential to re-constitute the very concept of humanitarianism. We ultimately argue that a more conscious engagement with emotions at competitions like Pictet has the potential to strengthen IHL training, to further IHL compliance and the development of IHL rules, and to enhance legal education more generally.

Despite the fact that persons with disabilities comprise, according to current statistics, a significant portion of conflict-affected communities and are disproportionately affected by armed conflict, the lack of inclusion in accountability mechanisms for acts amounting to crimes under international law is notable. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) provides a framework for mainstreaming inclusive investigation practices and promoting greater accountability, through application of the principles of autonomy, non-discrimination and accessibility. This article makes suggestions for the operationalization of this CRPD framework through specific recommendations for accountability mechanisms, alongside legal opportunities for recognition of crimes affecting persons with disabilities and crimes resulting in disability. A case study of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and persons with disabilities in Iraq is used to illustrate the application of recommendations to ensure that persons with disabilities are no longer the “forgotten victims of armed conflict”.

Thermobaric weapons cause damage and harm through overpressure and thermal effects, but secondary harm may also occur due to fragmentation, the consumption and depletion of ambient oxygen, and the release of toxic gases and smoke. Several international instruments prohibit or regulate weapons that generate asphyxiating or toxic gases, poison or poisoned weapons, chemical weapons, and weapons primarily designed to be incendiary. Thermobaric weapons are, however, primarily designed for blast and are not specifically covered by, or excluded from, the application of these instruments. The general customary law principles of international humanitarian law that determine the legality of the use of all weapons, including thermobaric weapons, prohibit causing superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering, and the use of indiscriminate weapons. Thermobaric weapons cause severe suffering but will not be rendered unlawful merely because of this effect. These weapons are also not automatically and inherently indiscriminate when used in their normal or designed circumstances. The use of thermobaric weapons, when directed at a military objective, while considering all feasible precautions to protect civilians and civilian objects and the principle of proportionality, will, as a result, be lawful in most circumstances. However, the use of thermobaric weapons should, in a similar manner to heavy explosive weapons, be avoided in urban or populated areas.

This article examines how women and girls with disabilities who are survivors of sexual and gender-based violence crimes have a right to access justice under Article 13 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It explains how the right to access justice requires States to actively address gender and disability stigmas and discriminations that create barriers within justice systems, and how the failure to do so violates the CRPD. Further, the author argues that when a State fails to eliminate such barriers post-armed conflict, the International Criminal Court may then exercise jurisdiction over these crimes in order to raise awareness of crimes against women and girls with disabilities, strengthen domestic justice systems by pressuring States to investigate and prosecute these crimes, and act as a court of last resort for crimes against women and girls with disabilities.

The purpose of this section is to share, in a consolidated format, relevant and public documentation pertaining to the theme of armed violence and the ICRC's operational response to the phenomenon.

• • International Committee of the Red Cross, “How Law Protects Persons with Disabilities in Armed Conflict”, 13 December 2017, available at: www.icrc.org/en/document/how-law-protects-persons-disabilities-armed-conflict (all internet references were accessed in November 2022).

• • International Committee of the Red Cross, “Chapter 3: Needs of the Civilian Population in Increasingly Long Conflicts: Selected Issues”, in International Humanitarian Law and the Challenges of Contemporary Armed Conflicts: Recommitting to Protection in Armed Conflict on the 70th Anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, 2019, available at: www.icrc.org/sites/default/files/document/file_list/challenges-report_the-needs-of-civilians-in-increasingly-long-conflicts.pdf.

• • 33rd International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, “Addressing Mental and Psychosocial Needs of People Affected by Armed Conflicts, Natural Disasters and Other Emergencies”, Resolution 33IC/19/R2, Geneva, Switzerland, 9–12 December 2019, available at: https://pscentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/solution.pdf.

• • Council of Delegates of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, “International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement Policy on Addressing Mental Health and Psychosocial Needs”, Resolution CD/19/R5, Geneva, Switzerland, 8 December 2019, available at: https://pscentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/CD19-R5-Adopted-MHPSS-need-policy-draft-resolution-FINAL-EN_clean.pdf.

• • 33rd International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, “Bringing IHL Home: A Road Map for Better National Implementation of International Humanitarian Law”, Resolution 33IC/19/R1, Geneva, Switzerland, 9–12 December 2019, available at: https://rcrcconference.org/app/uploads/2019/12/33IC-R1-Bringing-IHL-home_CLEAN_ADOPTED_FINAL-171219.pdf.

Detention – by States and non-State armed groups (NSAGs) – is a reality in armed conflict. In 2021, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimated that around 100 armed groups were holding detainees. Detention puts people in a vulnerable situation: their lives and dignity depend on the detaining authority. Experience shows that detention by NSAGs often presents legal and practical challenges, ranging from a lack of knowledge of international rules and standards on detainee protection, in particular those found in international humanitarian law (IHL), to practical challenges such as how to ensure humane conditions of detention in the dire realities of armed conflict, or how to provide essential judicial guarantees for persons facing criminal charges.