Itonde Kakoma is the President and CEO of Interpeace. Prior to Interpeace, he served as the Permanent Representative of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to the African Union and International Organizations (2021–23). Previously, Mr Kakoma served in various leadership capacities on matters of international peace mediation, including as Director for Global Strategy and member of the leadership team at CMI – Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation. Additionally, Mr Kakoma was Assistant Director for the Conflict Resolution Programme at the Carter Center, managing a portfolio of the Center's peace initiatives and supporting former president Carter's back-channel diplomatic efforts. He is an experienced facilitator and moderator for high-level peace processes and dialogue fora and has expertise in mediation, negotiation, process design, humanitarian diplomacy and transitional justice.

Aerial visuals play a central – and increasing – role in military operations, informing military decision-makers in real time. While adding relevant and time-sensitive information, these visuals construct an imperfect representation of people and spaces, placing additional burdens on decision-makers and creating a persuasive – yet misleading – virtual representation of the actual conditions on the ground. Based on interdisciplinary analysis of critical security studies, behavioural economics and international law literature, as well as rich data from US and Israeli military investigations into four military operations spanning from 2009 to 2021, this article identifies three types of challenges stemming from the mounting reliance on aerial visuals to inform military operations: technical challenges, relating to the technical capabilities and features of aerial vision technologies; cognitive challenges, relating to decision-making biases affecting human decision-makers; and human-technological challenges, relating to the human–machine interaction itself. The article suggests ways to mitigate these challenges, improve the application of the law of armed conflict, and protect people, animals and the environment during armed conflicts.

Around 50 million people across the world are affected by urban warfare. When conflict occurs in cities, the natural environment has historically been relegated to an afterthought, but both the immediate and long-term environmental consequences of urban warfare are serious. This article looks at actions that can be taken to protect the natural environment – and through this, the population – against the effects of urban warfare when fighting in urban areas. It is intended to be a part of the conversation about what parties to armed conflict can and should do to give effect to their legal obligations under international humanitarian law and international law more broadly, with a specific focus on the natural environment when fighting in urban areas.

The idea that Rio de Janeiro has been plunged into an actual “war” against organized crime is widely discussed and is supported by an ever-increasing number of people in Brazil. Not surprisingly, such discourse has led to less protection for the civilian population, particularly in the so-called favelas, while allowing security forces to carry out operations with even greater relative impunity. This article argues that although urban violence in Rio de Janeiro is indeed a serious problem, it does not reach the threshold required to be considered a non-international armed conflict.

Fifty-two years ago, in 1971, President Nixon declared the “War on Drugs”, identifying drug abuse as a public enemy in the United States. Since then, US drug policy has been militarized and, more recently, privatized. Every year, the US government increasingly contracts private military and security companies to provide intelligence, logistical support and training to armed forces in drug-producing or drug-transit States. In Latin America, this militarization and privatization has increased the intensity of violence and has complexified domestic situations, to the extent that the existing international legal regimes now seem inappropriate to respond to the challenges posed by the War on Drugs. On the one hand, human rights law does not adequately address situations where the State faces organized crime groups that are able to control territory. On the other hand, international humanitarian law (IHL) was not created to address law enforcement situations, which the War on Drugs and the fight against organized crime ostensibly are.

This article examines the situation in Latin America, looking at examples of different types of situations through the lens of intensity and organization of the group involved and, in some cases, the group's control over territory. It discusses the application of IHL and human rights law (focusing on the inter-American system of human rights) in these situations and their complementarity, and debates how these bodies of law are adapting or may need to be adapted.

This article examines international humanitarian law (IHL) and human rights guarantees of equality and non-discrimination applicable to cases of belligerent occupation. Capitalizing on the responsibilities of the Occupying Power with respect to different categories of persons living in the occupied territory distinguished by their nationality, it looks at the contents of obligations stemming from relevant norms of the two regimes and their interplay. It also addresses questions of the adequacy, utility and limits of IHL and human rights in according protection from discrimination and inequality to the inhabitants of the occupied territory.

While persons with disabilities are protected under existing international humanitarian law (IHL), the specific risks and barriers to which these persons are exposed during armed conflict must be better factored into the interpretation and implementation of these rules. The complementarity between IHL and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) may make an important contribution towards a more disability-inclusive implementation of IHL. This article focuses on two major areas addressed by IHL – namely, the conduct of hostilities and detention – against the backdrop of the concept of and agency associated with disability enshrined in the CRPD. This analysis is based on the lived experiences shared by persons with disabilities in consultations co-organized in 2022 by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Disability Forum, the European Disability Forum and the Diakonia IHL Centre.

Article 11 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires that the rights and protections of the Convention not be derogated or suspended during “situations of risk, including situations of armed conflict”. Even so, persons with disabilities are still often the group most disproportionately impacted by armed conflict. This reality is not due to a failing of international humanitarian law to protect and consider persons with disabilities; rather, it is due to a failure to mainstream disability into the application of and approach to existing protection frameworks. Impactful mainstreaming of disability necessitates the inclusion of all relevant mutually reinforcing legal frameworks and traditions. By examining four main areas – military operations, evacuation, humanitarian assistance, and long-term assistance and services – this paper argues that the protection of persons with disabilities in armed conflict, and specifically within Muslim contexts, will be enhanced through the inclusion and consideration of Islamic law.

Military technology has developed rapidly in recent years, and this development challenges existing norms. It has produced countless debates about the application of international humanitarian law (IHL) to areas of war and technology including cyber military operations, military artificial intelligence (including autonomous weapons), the use of drones, and military human enhancement. Despite these rapid progressions, the prospect of creating new treaties to specifically regulate their use by militaries and in armed conflicts is very low. This is largely due to the unequal allocation of military technology among States and the differing interests that result from this inequality. The absence of formal regulation means that State and non-State actors are increasingly embracing informal means of law-making. This is similar to other areas of IHL, such as the regulation of asymmetric conflicts, where norms are contested. In such cases, State and non-State actors employ various informal law-making techniques to advance their normative positions through treaty interpretation and the identification of customary international law.

However, the discussion on military technology differs from other contemporary IHL debates. First, due to the rapid development of such technology and uncertainty about how it will be employed in practice, the interests of the various actors are less clear. Second, there are significant challenges in obtaining accurate information about new military technologies. This makes even the informal law-making path in the context of new technologies more challenging.

This paper explores the dynamics of contemporary international law-making as it relates to the regulation of new military technologies. It identifies the main techniques that are used by the relevant actors and explores the common themes among the various debates over military technology, as well as the potential specific challenges in relation to certain technologies.

This article explores the interface between religion and international humanitarian law (IHL), and the degree to which they might complement and reinforce each other. It examines some of the challenges inherent in regulating armed conflict and the understandable limitations of IHL in this respect, and argues that re-engagement with IHL's religious roots can help to alleviate them. Engagement with religious circles mobilizes the vast resources of religions to increase knowledge of IHL and corresponding religious norms, thereby enhancing their legitimacy across religious and cultural divides. This is most effective when comparative study of IHL and religious teachings stimulates mutual learning and debate, in which both correspondences and differences are embraced. In the absence of a strong legal enforcement regime, religions can reinforce military ethics by tapping deeply into the identities, motivations and moral values of many belligerents, and possess powerful means to socialize the rules of war and improve voluntary compliance. Introspective religious practices encourage the moral self-reflection that is most effective at internalizing norms in this respect, as well as providing belligerents with the spiritual and psychological support needed to bolster their resilience and enable them to perform with precision and restraint.

During the final months of Sri Lanka's 2006–2009 civil war, Sri Lankan armed forces engaged in a disproportionate and indiscriminate shelling campaign against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which culminated in the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. Conventional wisdom suggests that Sri Lanka undermined international humanitarian law (IHL). Significantly, however, the Sri Lankan government did not directly challenge such law or attempt to justify its departure from it. Rather, it invented a new set of facts about its conduct to sidestep its legal obligations. Though indirect, this challenge was no less significant than had Sri Lanka explicitly rejected those obligations. Drawing on Clark et al.'s concept of denialism, this article details the nature of Sri Lanka's challenge to the standing of IHL. At the core of its denialist move, Sri Lanka maintained that while the LTTE was using civilians as human shields, government forces were adhering to a zero civilian casualty approach. With this claim, Sri Lanka absolved itself of any responsibility for the toll inflicted on civilians and sealed its conduct off from the ambit of IHL. This case illustrates how actors can considerably undermine the law using strategies of contestation far more subtle than direct confrontation.

Protracted conflicts are a major source of human suffering and can cause long-term displacement and development reversals. Although protracted conflicts can take many forms, they are generally characterized by their longevity, intractability and mutability. Authorities involved in situations of protracted conflict face complex challenges, particularly when it comes to ensuring that international humanitarian law (IHL) is respected by their armed forces.

The government of the Philippines has been involved in multiple non-international armed conflicts against insurgent groups for more than fifty years. In this interview, Lieutenant-Colonel Joven Capitulo, who works to implement the policies, activities and programmes of the Philippine Department of National Defense and Philippine Department of Defense initiatives on national legislation pertaining to compliance with IHL, shares the perspective of a State dealing with several protracted situations of non-international armed conflict. He tells the Review about some of the IHL considerations involved when a military is engaged in counter-insurgency on its own territory over a period of decades.

The interaction of international counter-terrorism laws with IHL is an area of renewed focus, amid widespread concern that the former are being (mis)applied to criminalise the provision of humanitarian assistance envisaged under the latter. The Security Council has begun to consider this issue in resolutions adopted in March and July 2019, but difficult questions of law and fact remain. These questions have significant practical consequences—for humanitarian agencies and those they seek to assist, as well as for States that must weigh different, and possibly conflicting, legal obligations. Much of the analysis to date and the solutions proposed, pay insufficient attention to the specifics of each legal regime.

The protection of children in war and other situations of violence is enshrined in various bodies of law, and these provide a framework for several International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) activities benefiting children, in particular in areas where the institution has a clear mandate and where vulnerabilities are exacerbated by international humanitarian law (IHL) violations. The activities of the ICRC benefiting children stem from its mandate provided by the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1977 Additional Protocols, the Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and the resolutions of the International Conferences of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. Although the ICRC is not a child protection agency per se and child protection is not a standalone activity for the organization, it makes up a significant part of ICRC's operations, in particular where children's vulnerabilities are exacerbated by the realities of armed conflict. In this conversation with the Review, Monique Nanchen, the ICRC's Global Adviser on Children, explores the multiple efforts being put in place to mainstream child protection into the ICRC's work, and reveals some of the various challenges that come with protection and assistance activities benefiting children affected by conflict and other situations of violence.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Library was first created at the initiative of the ICRC's co-founder and president, Gustave Moynier. By the end of the nineteenth century, it had become a specialized documentation centre with comprehensive collections on the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, international humanitarian law (IHL) and relief to war victims, keeping track of the latest legal debates and technological innovations in the fields related to the ICRC's activities. The publications collected by the Library until the end of the First World War form a rich collection of almost 4,000 documents now known as the ancien fonds, the Library's Heritage Collection.

Direct witness to the birth of an international humanitarian movement and of IHL, the Heritage Collection contains the era's most important publications related to the development of humanitarian action for war victims, from the first edition of Henry Dunant's groundbreaking Un souvenir de Solférino to the first mission reports of ICRC delegates and the handwritten minutes of the Diplomatic Conference that led to the adoption of the 1864 Geneva Convention. This article looks at the way this unique collection of documents retraces the history of the ICRC during its first decades of existence and documents its original preoccupations and operations, highlighting the most noteworthy items of the Collection along the way.