Neutrality, a foundational principle in humanitarian efforts and peace mediation, encounters significant practical challenges in the modern landscape of armed conflicts, particularly in the intermediary role of humanitarian organizations. This study examines the role of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as a neutral intermediary in Yemen, focusing on the release and repatriation of detainees during the 2016–20 peace efforts. Drawing on the ICRC's experience, the analysis highlights the evolving understanding of neutrality from a rigid concept to a more flexible, context-sensitive approach. The findings emphasize the importance of neutrality in fostering trust and facilitating dialogue while acknowledging the operational complexities and strategic considerations involved. This study provides insights into enhancing the contributions of neutral intermediaries to sustainable peace processes.

Newly emerging US cyberspace warfighting concepts highlight the need to update US legal doctrine. Concepts adapted to future high-intensity, high-paced armed conflict, including command post dispersal and integration of cyberspace into other targeting domains, present opportunities to refine US understandings of the law of war attack threshold and overlooked rules applicable to destruction and seizure. The advantages of staking out clear and current opinio juris on these and other matters extend beyond providing responsible and consistent operational law advice. Updated and authoritative military cyber legal doctrine will serve the strategic and diplomatic legal interests of the United States and the international legal system as a whole.

Are publics in great power democracies more likely to approve of foreign armed combatants that comply with international humanitarian law (IHL)? There is a wealth of evidence that armed combatants with an incentive to seek the support of outside compliance constituencies are more likely to adhere to IHL. Yet a key mechanism underlying these claims—that people in great power democracies are more likely to support armed combatants that comply with IHL—has not been directly tested. We address this question using a series of experiments embedded in nationally representative surveys conducted in three democracies that have frequently been involved in foreign interventions: France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We find that belligerents—both governments and rebels—that comply with the laws of war are significantly more likely to garner support from publics in likely intervening countries compared to those who do not comply. In all three countries, compliance with international law caused greater approval of armed combatants as well as greater support for economic or military intervention (although support for military intervention remained relatively low in the treatment groups). This lends support to arguments that, to the extent combatants seek support from outside audiences, this can serve as a mechanism by which international law constrains armed combat.

This article examines how European Union (EU) arms control measures are tailored to its constitutional foundations. EU Member States subject shipments of arms and components to controls so as to screen them for risks and potentially block them. In this context different Member States may make different geopolitical and humanitarian risk assessments. Existing EU measures have achieved only limited security screening harmonisation, and have left room for Member States to shirk their obligations under international humanitarian law. But in case of joint arms production, which the EU subsidises to become more autonomous, one Member State’s arms controls may block another State’s exports and thereby jeopardise cooperation. This article posits that any reform of EU arms controls should start by re-evaluating their present legal basis. A constitutional competence analysis shows that controls on arms shipments to non-EU states should be regulated in part through the Common Commercial Policy (CCP), and not just through the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). This would be consistent with other EU regulatory regimes for trade security. While a joint CFSP-CCP approach cannot fully prevent conflict, since this would require further foreign policy harmonisation, it could help foster security convergence and strengthen humanitarian due diligence mechanisms.

Ben & Jerry's – the famous ice cream brand known for its quirky flavours and social justice ethos – announced in 2021 that it would withdraw its products from Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). This announcement sparked controversy, with an impact on the company and its parent, Unilever. While the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (2011) (UNGP) have established themselves as the leading international governance framework for the social responsibilities of businesses, their application to conflict-affected areas lacks clarity. Questions remain, including when is a company legally complicit in violations of international humanitarian law (IHL), and when is a corporate exit from an area under military occupation the appropriate and responsible thing to do. This article uses Ben & Jerry's withdrawal from the OPT as the basis for investigating these questions. It finds that while it is unlikely that Ben & Jerry's would be exposed to any legal liability for violating IHL through its product sales in Israeli settlements in the OPT, its withdrawal aligns with its responsibilities under the UNGP as a reasonable and prudent corporate action in response to its activities being linked to enduring and severe IHL violations.

Bearing in mind that the peace process between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo, FARC-EP) has been an important milestone for transitional justice, this article aims to share some of the good practices and achievements of this process, as well as the setbacks and challenges that could be avoided in future peace processes. The article will highlight relevant contributions from the Chamber for Amnesty or Pardon (CAP) such as impacting the resocialization of former FARC-EP members and developing international humanitarian law discussions in relation to war crimes and less serious crimes. Additionally, it will describe some of the main challenges faced by the CAP, such as the high number of applications for transitional benefits that it receives, the high number of proceedings that it supervises, and the security concerns arising from implementing a peace agreement in a country still in conflict.

Franz Perrez is Director-General of the Directorate of International Law at the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), Switzerland. He is responsible for the development and interpretation of international law and ensuring that Switzerland's strategic rights are respected abroad. As a member of the FDFA senior management, Mr Perrez is also jointly responsible for the FDFA's strategic approach and advises the Federal Council, Switzerland's representatives abroad and other Federal Administration offices on international law issues.

Prior to his new role Mr Perrez was appointed Switzerland's Ambassador for the Environment and Head of the International Affairs Division at the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) in 2010. In this capacity, he headed the Swiss delegations to international environmental and climate negotiations for thirteen years.

After studying law in Bern and Paris, Mr Perrez worked at the FDFA's Directorate of International Law from 1993 to 1995. He went on to study at New York University, where he gained a master of laws focusing on international law and completed a PhD thesis on the topic of sovereignty as a principle of cooperation. On returning to Switzerland, he took up a position at the World Trade Organization (WTO) Division of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, before joining the FOEN in 2001.

Mr Perrez has proven expertise in international law. He has widely published in the area of international environmental law, international environmental governance, the relationship between trade and the environment, and public international law. Since 2008, Mr Perrez has also lectured on international environmental law at the University of Bern School of Law. He served as a panellist on the newest WTO tuna–dolphin dispute between Mexico and the United States, and as Switzerland's Ambassador for the Environment and Chief Negotiator for Environmental Issues, namely climate change, biodiversity, chemicals and waste, he led the Swiss delegation to the Rio+20 conference and to the Paris Climate Change Conference in 2015. He was President of the Basel Convention (COP 11 in 2013) and President of the Rotterdam Convention (COP 8 in 2017) and facilitated the negotiations on mitigation of the Paris Agreement. Through his work within and outside of Switzerland, he has built strong networks around the world and within the Federal Administration.

Many ancient African societies had advanced and sophisticated humanitarian protection mechanisms and war codes to regulate the conduct of armed hostilities. A careful examination of both historical and contemporary African customs and traditions provides unique avenues through which to interpret and apply international humanitarian protection in armed conflict. As a sub-branch of international law, international humanitarian law (IHL) seeks to limit the excesses of warfare and regulate the conduct of armed hostilities. However, international conventions such as those of IHL remain severely constrained if they are not framed and reconciled with indigenous understandings and meanings of humanitarian protection. In non-international armed conflicts specifically, this enduring challenge demands that IHL conventions and other international conventions be framed and understood within indigenous frameworks that support local ownership of this internationalized body of law. Encouraging dialogue between international norms and indigenous practices can enhance the relevance, authority and legitimacy of IHL in Africa.

This article examines the links between the concept of peace and international humanitarian law (IHL). It takes a closer look at how the originator of IHL, the International Committee of the Red Cross, justified the existence of this body of law, which was supposed to regulate war, in the face of those who wanted to see war abolished once and for all. The article also questions the attitude of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, which, while wanting a peaceful society, did not give itself the means to achieve one.

This article advocates a turn to the visual in legal scholarship. The phenomenon used to elucidate this methodological proposition is the figure of the ‘human shields’ under international humanitarian law, viewed from within the lived history of the peoples of the Global South. Today, the ‘human shields’ notion profoundly shapes how international law operates in scenes of intense organized violence. Once deployed, the human shields claim triggers a radical shift in the applicable international legal framework. After this point, harm to the civilian population and space can be legally authorized and justified. This article challenges the ways in which the ‘human shields’ notion continues to be debated in mainstream legal scholarship and discourse in terms of doctrinal interpretation, examination of evidence, or analyses of ‘asymmetricity’ and ‘urbanization’ as ‘challenges’ in ‘contemporary’ war. Before any such inquiries, I argue, it is crucial to pay attention to the visual and the lived history of the peoples of the Global South. Images that exist in the cultural realm – of and about war and crime, the human shielding spectacle and its actors, and Global South societies – structure and delimit the legal conversation and predetermine its possible outcomes. I propose, in sum, an attention to the visual as a site of the legal inquiry that can inform our understanding and critique of the law and politics of human shields. Images enable, rationalize and provoke the emotions necessary for an ‘exceptional’ operation of international law that authorizes massive violence against Global South spaces and peoples.

In this iteration of the Review's “Beyond the Literature” series, we have invited Joël Glasman to introduce his recent book Humanitarianism and the Quantification of Human Needs, before then posing a series of questions to Bertrand Taithe, Léa Macias, Dennis Dijkzeul, Andrea Behrends and William Anderson. Bertrand Taithe is Professor of Cultural History at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. Léa Macias is an anthropologist focusing on digital humanitarianism in the Middle East, currently working as an Evaluation Officer for the French Development Agency. Dennis Dijkzeul is Professor of Organization and Conflict Studies at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. Andrea Behrends is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Leipzig University, Germany. William Anderson is the Executive Director for Sphere based in Geneva.

The Review team is grateful to all five discussants, and to Joël, for taking part in this engaging conversation.

The principle of proportionality under international humanitarian law prohibits an attack if the expected harm to civilian persons and objects is excessive in relation to the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage. In this article we argue that, when applying the principle of proportionality, the incidental harm to a child must be given a higher value as compared to incidental harm to an adult. This reflects the broader framework of international humanitarian law, which creates stratifications amongst different groups of civilians and provides special protection for children in times of war. This aligns with the practice of many militaries, which tends to implicitly assign a heightened worth to the lives of children due to moral and political considerations. Such reasons stem from the perceived vulnerability of children as well as their moral innocence reflecting harmlessness and blamelessness. Indeed, harm to children’s lives tends to generate a greater backlash among the community to which they belong and, as a result, a military disadvantage. We argue that the greater weight assigned to the lives of children in proportionality assessments is not simply a matter of morality or strategic calculations, but in fact a requirement from a more wholistic interpretation of international humanitarian law.

International humanitarian law (IHL) provides the normative foundation for efforts to address the issue of missing persons during and after armed conflict. Whilst IHL does not engage with how parties to an armed conflict may go about restoring peace, there has been speculation that resolving the missing issue, by bringing answers to families about the fate and whereabouts of their missing relatives, can potentially play a role in building peace. This article represents an effort to compile existing evidence in academic and practice literature that supports an understanding of how addressing the missing issue relates to peacebuilding. In so doing, the article seeks to lay out a research agenda to understand how addressing the issue of the missing can serve to advance peacebuilding, and proposes avenues for further research.

This article proposes a hybrid legal framework combining jus ad bellum and jus in bello to govern the attribution of State responsibility for reparations at the end of a war of aggression. To this end, the article considers former international mass claims processes and proposes a complementary approach that, on the one hand, acknowledges the role of the aggressor State in waging the war, and on the other, takes a cautionary approach to prevent a disproportionate burden of compensation being imposed on the aggressor State as a form of collective punishment. The consequences of respective violations of the prohibition of the use of force and the law of war are blurred in a war of aggression, resulting in complexities around liability for aggressor States. In response, this article concludes with a nuanced proposal to calculate compensation based on (1) the aggressor party's capacity to comply with jus in bello; (2) the extent of damage caused by the war of aggression, factoring in jus ad bellum considerations if a party is found to be intentionally maximizing destruction; and (3) the incorporation of tort law principles for equitable attribution of responsibility.

The Russia-Ukraine war demonstrates the crucial role of technology in modern warfare. The use of digital networks, information infrastructure, space technology, and artificial intelligence has distinct military advantages, but raises challenges as well. This essay focuses on the way it exacerbates a rather familiar challenge: the “civilianization of warfare.” Today's high-technology warfare lowers the threshold for civilian participation in the war effort. A notable example is the widespread use of smartphone apps by Ukrainian civilians, who thereby help the armed forces defend against Russian aggression. Through the lenses of international humanitarian law, conventional just war theory, and revisionist just war theory, this essay evaluates the normative dimensions of such civilian participation. The analysis shows that civilians can lose their legal protections when they use these apps to directly participate in hostilities, and this loss of immunity can be justified by Michael Walzer's conventional just war theory. Revisionism, however, puts the justness of the war at the forefront, and so sheds doubt on the moral liability of Ukrainian civilians. Considering the broader implications, including the blurring combatant-civilian distinction, indicates that such civilianization of warfare should not be welcomed; the risks will often outweigh the benefits. At a minimum, states ought to exercise restraint in mobilizing civilians and inform them of the implications of their actions.

Since commencing its illegal invasion in 2022, the Russian military and authorities have committed numerous war crimes against the people of Ukraine. These include the mutilation and execution of combatants; the torture, kidnapping, forced expulsion, rape, and massacre of civilians; and indiscriminate attacks on densely populated areas. In this essay, I evaluate the strategic implications of this misconduct, focusing exclusively on Western responses. I argue that war crimes can and often do negatively impact the strategic goals of the perpetrator, but whether and how this occurs is rarely governed exclusively by the offending action. Western perceptions of battlefield atrocity, shaped as they are by identity, race, and politics, may radically shift from one context to another. In the case of the Russia-Ukraine war, the status of both the participants and the conflict itself has helped inculcate a particular sensitivity among Western actors to the battlefield criminality of Russia. Drawing on evidence from the 2022 Bucha massacre and the ongoing bombing of Ukrainian civilians, I argue that Russian misconduct has consolidated Western support for the Ukrainian military effort, politically, diplomatically, and materially.

This article outlines and evaluates several unique challenges associated with legal support to special operations. It describes the essential differences between special tactics, techniques and procedures and conventional military operations. It offers a US perspective on how treaty and customary international laws apply to various special operations, including precision attacks against “high-value targets”, hostage rescue missions, and support to partner and proxy forces. It examines the benefits and drawbacks of heavy reliance on special operations during armed conflict, including an assessment of the legal challenges that arise when special operations forces become a primary feature of a military campaign. Finally, it highlights how the assumption of substantial military and political risk impacts the application of international law to special operations at the tactical level.

The relationship between armed conflict, the environment and climate change is intricate and challenging to define. While international humanitarian law (IHL) includes some environmental protections, it did not anticipate the connection to climate change. Climate change can act as a risk multiplier, intensifying negative socio-economic impacts, and conflict-related environmental damage may contribute to climate change. Bridging these fields is crucial, and to this end, this article seeks to interpret IHL considering evolving understandings of armed conflict effects and progress under international environmental law (IEL). The article illustrates how existing norms can address climate change impacts in warfare, and explores how relevant IEL provisions, such as the Paris Agreement and the harm prevention principle, could be applied during armed conflicts to achieve similar goals.